Related: The competition squaring up to Donald Trump
Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inboxGet our free Inside Washington email
Two members of Donald Trump’s legal team were spotted by Politico entering the Washington DC headquarters of the Department of Justice late Monday morning as the agency continues to lead a pair of investigations into the former president.
The two attorneys spotted were Evan Corcoran and Lindsey Halligan, according to Politico, who primarily work on the ex-president’s legal defence against an investigation into his handling of presidential records, including classified materials.
Meanwhile, the ex-president is facing criticism from his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination after congratulating North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on his country being admitted to the World Health Organisation’s Executive Board. And his own vice president has just jumped into the race — now running against him.
Reacting at a campaign appearance in Iowa, Florida governor Ron DeSantis said: “I was surprised to see that. I mean, one, Kim Jong-un is a murderous dictator.”
Nikki Haley, Mr Trump’s former ambassador to the UN, responded equally strongly during a CNN town hall event, remarking: “Kim Jong-un is a thug. I don’t think we should congratulate dictators.”
Key PointsShow latest update
1686012894Trump investigators reportedly looking at swimming pool worker who flooded Mar-a-Lago records room
Federal investigators are probing an incident in which a an employee at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago flooded a room where computer servers containing surveillance logs were stored last year, CNN reported on Monday.
The maintenance worker was reportedly draining a swimming pool on the property when the server room was flooded.
Investigators have reportedly not yet determined whether the flooding of the room was accidental or intentional, but if they deem it was intentional, it could help the government build a conspiracy obstruction of justice case against Mr Trump and his possible collaborators.
Abe Asher6 June 2023 01:54
1686010554Marjorie Taylor Greene U-turns on release of Jan 6 tapes
Marjorie Taylor Greene has blamed liberal philanthropist George Soros and supposed concerns for Capitol security for abruptly reversing her position on releasing footage of the January 6 riot.
After previously calling for the tapes of the insurrection to be shared publicly, the Georgia congresswoman said on Friday that it could endanger the safety at the Capitol and of those who were present during the rioting but did not commit any crimes.
“If we released these tapes just widely for the public — number one, we put the security of the Capitol at risk, because there’s over 1,700 cameras,” she said in an interview with the right-wing Real America’s Voice channel.
Read more:
John Bowden6 June 2023 01:15
1686007014The case of the missing classified document
Donald Trump’s attorneys have been unable to find the classified document described in a recording of a 2021 conversation that is now in the possession of prosecutors, CNN reports.
Earlier this week, the network broke the news that a recording existed of the former president acknowledging that he had held onto a classified Pentagon document outlining a potential attack on Iran.
Citing two sources, CNN now reports that attorneys for Mr Trump could not find the document he referred to when they turned over material in mid-March in response to a federal subpoena relating to the investigation.
Read more:
John Bowden6 June 2023 00:16
1686006095Trump accuses Ron DeSantis of ‘blatantly’ plagiarising his speech
Neither of the 2024 presidential primary candidates originated the phrase in question.
Graeme Massie6 June 2023 00:01
1686005154Trump’s town halls expose media’s inability to fact-check a fountain of nonsense
Donald Trump finished his town hall on Fox News on Thursday evening after making another whirlwind of false claims about a wide range of to — the 2020 election, his trade policy, and his efforts to remain in the presidency to name a few.
The roughly hour-long performance was notable only for its rigid adherence to form: the ex-president spat out mistruths and conspiracies faster than any journalist could respond, not that Fox’s Sean Hannity ever meaningfully pushed back at all.
But the similarities between Mr Trump’s appearances on Fox News and its second-place rival, CNN, a few weeks earlier beg the question: why does cable news keep doing this?
John Bowden5 June 2023 23:45
1686003354Trump makes misleading claim that New York hush money case could be dropped
In a 12.24am all caps post on Truth Social on Sunday, Mr Trump wrote that “legal experts are saying” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg will have to drop his “weak and disparaged case against ‘Trump’”.
Mr Trump claimed that the DA’s financial crimes investigator Jeremy Rosenberg had “corruptly colluded with a disgraced, disbarred, and convicted felon & perjurer”, referring to his former attorney turned bitter enemy Michael Cohen.
The outburst came soon after the publication of a New York Post story claiming Mr Rosenberg had been suspended by the DA’s office over his contact with Mr Cohen.
Read more:
John Bowden5 June 2023 23:15
1686001554Showtime pulls Vice episode probing Ron Desantis’s Guantanamo record despite campaign trail questions
The premium cable network Showtime halted the planned airing of a Vice investigation into Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and his service as an attorney for the US military, just as the Republican candidate faces questions about the issue on the campaign trail.
The move was first reported by The Hollywood Reporter, explaining that the episode had originally been set to air on 28 May. The reason for the episode’s change was not given, and a rerun was played in place of a new episode during Vice’s 28 May timeslot on Showtime.
But a spokesperson for Vice told The Independent on Monday that the investigation itself may still make it to air.
Read more:
John Bowden5 June 2023 22:45
1685998515
CNN’s boss Chris Licht has apologised to the cable news network’s staff in a Monday morning call, according to reports.
The organization’s CEO has faced criticism from staff in the wake of the controversial Donald Trump town hall and a searing 15,000-word profile in The Atlantic.
Staff at the company have complained that the disastrous profile, released on Friday, showed poor judgement with CNN already suffering falling ratings.
Read more from Graeme Massie:
John Bowden5 June 2023 21:55
1685996169Wisconsin judge: Don’t delete records from probe into 2020 Trump loss
A Wisconsin judge on Monday declined to dismiss a lawsuit seeking to ensure that no records are deleted from a now-closed state office created to investigate former President Donald Trump‘s loss in 2020.
The lawsuit was one of several filed by liberal watchdog group American Oversight against former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman and the office of special counsel that he led. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos hired Gableman to lead that offie in 2021 under pressure from Mr Trump and conservative Republicans in Wisconsin who were pushing for the state to decertify Joe Biden’s win.
Read more in The Independent about the far-reaching fallout from that now-shuttered effort:
John Bowden5 June 2023 21:16
1685992294Chasten Buttigieg calls out Nikki Haley for linking teen suicidal thought to trans girls using locker rooms
Chasten Buttigieg, the husband of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, criticised Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley after Ms Haley claimed that the presence of trans girls in female locker rooms is connected to a rise in suicidal thought among teenage girls in the US.
Ms Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and US ambassador to the United Nations, has been making simliar claims in campaign trail appearances for weeks. But the assertion, offered without any eence, gained national attention when she made it during a CNN town hall in Iowa on Sunday night.
After moderator Jake Tapper asked Ms Haley how she would define the term “woke” partway through the event, the candidate launched an attack on trans children.
John Bowden5 June 2023 20:11
