Trump classified documents trial date set for May 2024; special counsel to hear from more witnesses in January 6 inquiry – live | US politics

Tim Burchett, the Republican congressman from Florida who is co-leading the UFO investigation, declared in early July that alien craft possess technology that could “turn us into a charcoal briquette”, while a Republican colleague suggested that extraterrestrial interlopers could actually be representatives of an ancient civilization.

In a briefing on Thursday, Burchett said he and his co-investigator Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican member from Tennessee, had been “stonewalled” by federal officials when asking about UFOs, and prevented from accessing some “information to prove that they do exist”. He said:

We’ve had a heck of a lot of pushback about this hearing. There are a lot of people who don’t want this to come to light.

Burchett said the US had evidence of technology that “defies all of our laws of physics”, and angrily railed against a “cover-up” by military officials.

He added:

We’re gonna get to the bottom of it, dadgummit. Whatever the truth may be. We’re done with the cover-up.

UFO claims to get their day in Congress

Adam Gabbatt

For decades, US politicians have been reluctant to get involved in the topic of UFOs and aliens.

After a series of disclosures in recent months, however, Republicans and Democrats now appear to be lining up to inquire into the question of extraterrestrial life, as the world seems closer than ever to finding out whether we are alone in the universe.

Next week, the House oversight committee will hold its first public hearing as part of its investigation into UFOs, weeks after a whistleblower former intelligence official went public with claims that the government has possession of “intact and partially intact” alien vehicles.

David Grusch’s allegations about the government harboring alien craft – he has since suggested that the US has also encountered “malevolent” alien pilots – sparked the 26 July hearing, and beyond that, appear to have lit a fire under the Washington establishment.

The Republican party has led the initial charge, with a series of claims about extraterrestrial life that, until recently, would have been seen as career-ending.

The federal judge overseeing former president Donald Trump’s trial on his mishandling of classified documents case has set a trial date for 20 May 2024.

The ruling from US district judge Aileen Cannon places Trump’s criminal trial less than six months ahead of the November 2024 presidential election.

The trial had initially been scheduled for 14 August – a date that both the defense and prosecution opposed because they said they needed more time to prepare.

The new trial date is a compromise between a request from prosecutors to set the trial for this coming December, and a request from Trump’s lawyers to schedule it after the election.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis threatened the parent company of Bud Light with legal action for sponsoring transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.

In a letter to Florida state’s pension fund manager, CNN reported, DeSantis alleged that AB InBev had decided to associate with “radical social ideologies” and “may have breached legal duties owed to its shareholders”.

Sales of Bud Light have dropped amid a conservative backlash over a social media promotion with Mulvaney. The company has also lost credibility among members of the LGBTQ+ community over its efforts to distance itself from controversy.

DeSantis, who is a trustee of the state board of administration, wrote:

We must prudently manage the funds of Florida’s hardworking law enforcement officers, teachers, firefighters and first responders in a manner that focuses on growing returns, not subsidizing an ideological agenda through woke virtue signaling.

DeSantis, speaking to Fox News on Thursday night about the letter, said the state may consider a “derivative lawsuit” against AB InBev. He said:

We believe that when you take your eye off the ball like that, you are not following your fiduciary duty to do the best you can for your shareholders.

Hugo Lowell

The district attorney’s office has spent more than two years investigating whether Trump and his allies interfered in the 2020 election in Georgia, while prosecutors at the federal level are scrutinizing Trump’s efforts to reverse his defeat that culminated in the January 6 Capitol attack.

A special grand jury in Atlanta that heard evidence for roughly seven months recommended charges for more than a dozen people, including the former president himself, its forewoman strongly suggested in interviews, though the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, will have to seek indictments from a regular grand jury.

The grand jury that could decide whether to return an indictment against Trump was seated on 11 July. The selection process was attended by Willis and two prosecutors known to be on the Trump investigation: her deputy district attorney, Will Wooten, and special prosecutor Nathan Wade.

Charges stemming from the Trump investigation are expected to come between the final week of July and the first two weeks of August, the Guardian has previously reported, after Willis told her team to shift to remote work during that period because of security concerns.

The district attorney originally suggested charging decisions were “imminent” in January, but the timetable has been repeatedly delayed after a number of Republicans who acted as fake electors accepted immunity deals as the investigation neared its end.

Hugo Lowell

The racketeering statute in Georgia is more expansive than its federal counterpart, notably because any attempts to solicit or coerce the qualifying crimes can be included as predicate acts of racketeering activity, even when those crimes cannot be indicted separately.

The specific evidence was not clear, though the charge regarding influencing witnesses could include Trump’s conversations with Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, in which he asked Raffensperger to “find” 11,780 votes, the people said – and thereby implicate Trump.

For the computer trespass charge, where prosecutors would have to show that defendants used a computer or network without authority to interfere with a program or data, that would include the breach of voting machines in Coffee county, the two people said.

The breach of voting machines involved a group of Trump operatives – paid by the then Trump lawyer Sidney Powell – accessing the voting machines at the county’s election office and copying sensitive voting system data.

The copied data from the Dominion Voting System machines, which is used statewide in Georgia, was then uploaded to a password-protected site from where election deniers could download the materials as part of a misguided effort to prove the 2020 election had been rigged.

Though Coffee county is outside the usual jurisdiction of the Fulton county district attorney’s office, the racketeering statute would allow prosecutors to also charge what the Trump operatives did there by showing it was all aimed towards the goal of corruptly keeping Trump in office.

Fulton county prosecutors prepare racketeering charges in Trump inquiry

Hugo Lowell

The Fulton county district attorney investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state of Georgia has developed evidence to charge a sprawling racketeering indictment next month, according to two people briefed on the matter.

The racketeering statute in Georgia requires prosecutors to show the existence of an “enterprise” – and a pattern of racketeering activity that is predicated on at least two “qualifying” crimes.

In the Trump investigation, the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, has evidence to pursue a racketeering indictment predicated on statutes related to influencing witnesses and computer trespass, the people said.

Willis had previously said she was weighing racketeering charges in her criminal investigation, but the new details about the direction and scope of the case come as prosecutors are expected to seek indictments starting in the first two weeks of August.

Good morning, US politics blog readers. Federal prosecutors investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results are expected to speak with additional witnesses in the coming weeks.

A Thursday midnight deadline passed for the former president to say if he would appear before a Washington grand jury to consider federal charges over his election subversion and incitement of the attack on Congress on 6 January 2021.

Prosecutors appear to have evidence to charge Trump with three crimes: obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and section 241 of the US legal code that makes it unlawful to conspire to violate civil rights.

At the same time, prosecutors are believed to be in talks with at least two witnesses to schedule interviews that won’t be completed for at least another month. Former New York City police commissioner Bernie Kerik, a Trump ally, is still in the process of scheduling his interview with investigators, and a former Trump lawyer plans to talk to investigators next month, sources familiar with the planned meetings told CNN.

On Thursday, a federal grand jury investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election heard testimony from William Russell, an aide who was with the former president for much of the day on 6 January 2021. A data expert who worked on the 2020 election was also scheduled to appear before the grand jury, according to the Washington Post.

Here’s what else we’re watching today:

• 10am EST: President Joe Biden will get his daily intelligence briefing.

• 1.30pm EST: Biden will speak about artificial intelligence in the Roosevelt Room.

• 6pm EST: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis will speak at the Utah state capitol as part of his presidential campaign.

• The Senate is in today. The House is out.