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Bannon trial Wednesday: Prosecution calls FBI agent, Hill staffer

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The government rested its contempt of Congress case Wednesday against former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon after calling just two witnesses — a congressional staffer and an FBI agent — to describe the tough-talking podcaster’s alleged refusal to provide documents or testimony to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack.

The fast pace of the prosecution, which began Tuesday afternoon and finished a day later, speaks to the relatively simple factual and legal issues at the heart of the high-profile, politically charged trial: whether Bannon spurned a congressional subpoena and, therefore, committed the rarely charged crime.

Prosecutors called as their first witness Kristin Amerling, the chief counsel for the Jan. 6 committee, who described in detail how Bannon did not engage with the committee until after he had missed the first response deadline. In the weeks and months that followed, Bannon still refused to provide the information sought by subpoena, Amerling said.

Bannon’s legal team countered Wednesday by asking about a series of letters, some as recent as a week ago, between Bannon’s lawyer and the committee in which the prospect of his testimony was still discussed. The defense is trying to show that he didn’t refuse to cooperate, he was just negotiating.

Prosecutor: Bannon thumbed his nose at Congress, the law

M. Evan Corcoran, one of Bannon’s lawyers, also suggested that Bannon had been told by Donald Trump that the former president had invoked executive privilege — a legal claim meant to shield some of the president’s conversations from congressional inquiries.

In rejecting the committee’s subpoenas in late 2021, lawyer Robert Costello — who represented Bannon in his dealings with the House select committee — claimed in a letter that Trump had invoked the privilege to cover Bannon. Earlier this month, however, as Bannon was seeking to delay his trial, Trump told Bannon he was no longer asserting such a privilege.

But Amerling said both of those claims were specious, based on a mischaracterization of what executive privilege is, and how it works. “The president had not formally or informally invoked the privilege, even if you accept the premise that the privilege applied,” she testified.

U.S. District Court Judge Carl J. Nichols has previously said that it’s unclear if Trump ever invoked executive privilege. Also uncertain is whether a former president can claim such a privilege, let alone whether it would cover conversations with a non-government employee like Bannon.

In any case, Nichols has ruled that the privilege is not a valid defense for Bannon, unless he can show it caused him to misunderstand the subpoena’s October 2021 compliance deadlines.

Bannon’s defense strategy became clearer Wednesday, as his lawyers repeatedly suggested he and the committee were negotiating in late 2021 about information he might provide and continued to do so as recently as a week ago. The defense team also tried to show that the committee’s Democratic chairman, Bennie G. Thompson (Miss.), played a key — and political — role in the pursuit of Bannon.

A day earlier, Bannon told reporters outside the courthouse that Thompson didn’t have the “guts” to come testify against him, sending Amerling instead.

Prosecutors repeatedly objected to the defense strategy, saying it was a legal fiction designed to fool the jury into thinking Bannon had acted appropriately. Nichols said he would not allow the high-profile trial to become “a political circus,” warning that he would allow Bannon’s team to raise some political questions but also would police the issue.

Former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon slammed the Jan. 6 committee hearing as a “show trial” after exiting jury selection on July 18. (Video: Reuters)

On at least 15 occasions, Trump’s choices escalated tensions that culminated in Capitol riot

While defense lawyers tried to make the case about political leanings and alliances, prosecutors sought to narrow the focus to a more straightforward set of letters between Bannon’s lawyer and the committee, including one from Thompson warning that Bannon’s “defiance” could result in a criminal referral for contempt of Congress. Bannon was indicted in November.

Corcoran grilled Amerling over the process by which the subpoenas were served and the letters created, asking specifically which parts of the letters were penned by Thompson. Amerling said she couldn’t remember that level of detail, and that such letters were generally drafted by staff before being reviewed and signed by lawmakers.

Corcoran then tried a very different line of attack, suggesting that Amerling’s past work history and book club membership with a prosecutor might have tainted the case.

Amerling acknowledged that about 15 years ago, she worked for then-congressman Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, alongside Molly Gaston, who is now an assistant U.S. attorney handling the Bannon prosecution and other Jan. 6 cases.

Amerling also said she is in a book club with Gaston, made up primarily of people who used to work for Waxman.

“So you’re in a book club with the prosecutor in this case?” asked Corcoran. “We are,” replied Amerling, though she said she hadn’t attended one of the gatherings in more than a year, and didn’t think she’d seen Gaston at a book club meeting in years.

Asked whether the book club talked about politics, Amerling replied, “The conversations cover a whole variety of topics. … It’s not unusual that we would talk about politics in some way or another.”

Amerling said under reexamination by prosecutors that she had never discussed Bannon’s case with Gaston and their acquaintance had no bearing on the committee’s action or the U.S. prosecution.

Prosecutors also called FBI special agent Stephen Hart to the stand to discuss his conversation in November 2021 with Costello, the lawyer who represented Bannon in his dealings with the committee, who may testify as a defense witness.

In that conversation, Hart testified, Costello said Bannon was “fully engaged” in the discussions about the subpoena. The lawyer at no point suggested there was any confusion about the committee’s subpoena deadlines, Hart said.

Bannon, a bombastic media figure, has been restrained in court this week, often sitting with his hands clasped in front of him. But once the FBI agent took the stand, Bannon became more animated, laughing at one answer, then shaking his head in apparent exasperation over testimony about Hart’s conversation with Costello.

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Here’s where all 50 GOP senators stand on the same-sex marriage bill

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It’s not yet clear how many Republicans will support the bill, but GOP and Democratic senators said Wednesday they expect it could eventually win the 60 votes needed.

Here’s what we found:

Four Republican senators, so far, have either said they will support or will likely support the House-passed same-sex marriage bill, and that includes: Rob Portman of Ohio, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska (likely) and Thom Tillis of North Carolina (likely).

Eight Republican senators, so far, have indicated they would vote “no,” and oppose the same-sex marriage bill.

Sixteen Republican senators, so far, are undecided or did not indicate support for the House-passed bill.

Twenty-two Republican senators have yet to respond to CNN’s inquiries.

YES

  1. Susan Collins of Maine is a yes on the bill. She’s one of the co-sponsors of the legislation.
  2. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska is likely a yes on the legislation. She said she is open to hearing more about it, and expressed her support for keeping same-sex marriage legal. “I have suggested to others that not only would I like to see Roe, Casey, and Griswold on contraception codified but I’ve also made clear my support for, for gay marriage years ago,” she said. “So I will look at what the House is doing and see what that might mean here on the Senate side.”
  3. Rob Portman of Ohio is a yes on the bill. He said holding a vote on this issue sends an “important message,” and that it’s “obvious” Republican views have changed over time. He noted that his “own personal views on this changed” over time. Portman publicly announced his support for same-sex marriage after his son came out a few years ago.
  4. Thom Tillis of North Carolina told CNN that he “probably will” support a bill codifying same sex marriage if it comes to the Senate floor.

NO

  1. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana suggested he’s a no on the bill. He argued it is a “silly messaging bill.” “It’s a pure messaging bill. I mean, it’s obviously settled law right now,” Cassidy said. “This is a pure messaging bill by a party which has failed on substantive issues, be it inflation, crime or the border, and now are looking for cultural issues in order to somehow do better in November.” Asked if he would vote for it, Cassidy wouldn’t answer. “It’s such a silly messaging bill, I’m just not going to address that.”
  2. John Cornyn of Texas told CNN he is a no on the legislation.
  3. Ted Cruz of Texas suggested he’s a no on the bill. Cruz, who has publicly disagreed with the Supreme Court’s ruling to legalize same-sex marriage, said Wednesday that he doesn’t believe there is enough Republican support to pass legislation codifying it. “I doubt it,” he said. “If there’s a vote, we’ll see where the votes are.” Asked how he would vote, Cruz dodged, saying: “I support the Constitution and letting the democratic process operate.”
  4. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told CNN he is a no on this bill. He said, “I’ll support the Defense of Marriage Act” — which is what the House-passed bill would repeal.
  5. Josh Hawley of Missouri is a no on the legislation, according to his office.
  6. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma said he’s a no on the bill. “Any attempt by Sen. Schumer to bring up legislation codifying same-sex marriage in the Senate would clearly be an attempt to distract from the Democrats’ failed agenda. That said, my views on marriage have not changed and I would not support codifying same-sex marriage into law,” Inhofe said in a statement to CNN.
  7. Marco Rubio of Florida told CNN he is a no on the legislation, saying it’s a “stupid waste of time.”
  8. Roger Wicker of Mississippi told CNN he’s likely a no on the bill. “I’d probably be a no,” he said, adding: “I do not believe the Supreme Court is going to touch this issue.”

UNDECIDED OR DID NOT INDICATE SUPPORT FOR

  1. Richard Burr of North Carolina is undecided. He told CNN on Wednesday that he has not seen the bill yet, when asked whether he’d vote for it.
  2. Roy Blunt of Missouri told CNN he isn’t sure and wants “look at it and see.” He also raised the question, “What do we feel obligated to do next?” if the Senate does codify same-sex marriage into federal law. He added: “I don’t have any problem with same-sex marriage, but I’m not sure — I want to look at the legislation.”
  3. Mike Braun of Indiana told CNN on Wednesday he’s going to wait until the bill is brought to the Senate floor, then he’ll look at it.
  4. Joni Ernst of Iowa is keeping an open mind about the same-sex marriage legislation, and she’ll review the bill should it come before the Senate, according to a spokesperson from her office.
  5. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin told CNN: “I have not fully reviewed it.”
  6. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming said she’s waiting to read the legislation.
  7. Rand Paul of Kentucky said he hasn’t had a chance to look at it yet.
  8. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was noncommittal on Tuesday when asked whether he’d vote to in support of the House bill that would enshrine protections for same-sex marriage into federal law, saying, “I’m gonna delay announcing anything on that issue until we see what the majority leader wants to put on the floor.”
  9. Mitt Romney of Utah was noncommittal on the bill, telling CNN that the same-sex marriage bill “is not something I’ve given consideration to at this stage” since “I don’t see the law changing.”
  10. Mike Rounds of South Dakota said he hasn’t looked at the bill. “I already think that the fact that we’ve got eight to one on the Supreme Court that indicated that it’s not coming up, probably makes it a moot question to begin with,” he said. Asked how he feels about same-sex marriage in general, he responded: “I think there’s a difference between matrimony as a sacrament and a legal marriage and so if someone wants to do that type of partnership, I’m not opposed to it.”
  11. Rick Scott of Florida told CNN he wants to wait and see, but believes the Supreme Court has already decided this, when asked if he’d support the bill.
  12. Dan Sullivan of Alaska told CNN he “has to review” it. He noted that he accepts the Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage.
  13. John Thune of South Dakota, the GOP whip, told CNN he will take a “hard look” at the bill, even though he has previously opposed same-sex marriage. Thune said he expects the legislation will have similarly strong GOP support in the Senate as it received in the House. “As you saw there was pretty good bipartisan support in the House yesterday and I expect there’d probably be the same thing you’d see in the Senate,” he said. Thune also contended the bill is an effort to distract from economic issues and high inflation ahead of the midterms. Asked if his own views have changed, Thune wouldn’t say explicitly. “I got a view on that, that goes back a long ways. But I also respect the decision that was made by the Court in 2015,” Thune said.
  14. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania said he hasn’t looked at the bill yet, when asked whether by CNN whether he’d vote for it.
  15. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama told CNN on Wednesday he’d like to wait and look at the entire bill. “But I think people ought to have freedom to do what they want. It’s free country,” he said.
  16. Todd Young of Indiana said he hasn’t read it. “The details are really important. Yeah, so feel more comfortable answering that after I’ve read the legislation,” he said, when asked how he’d vote on the measure.

WAITING ON RESPONSE

  1. John Barrasso of Wyoming – CNN has reached out to his office.
  2. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee – CNN has reached out to her office.
  3. John Boozman of Arkansas – CNN has reached out to his office.
  4. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia – CNN has reached out to her office.
  5. Tom Cotton of Arkansas – CNN has reached out to his office.
  6. Mike Crapo of Idaho – CNN has reached out to his office.
  7. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota – CNN has reached out to his office.
  8. Steve Daines of Montana – CNN has reached out to his office.
  9. Deb Fischer of Nebraska – CNN has reached out to her office.
  10. Chuck Grassley of Iowa- CNN has reached out to his office.
  11. Bill Hagerty of Tennessee – CNN has reached out to his office.
  12. John Hoeven of North Dakota – CNN has reached out to his office.
  13. Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi – CNN reached out to her office.
  14. John Kennedy of Louisiana – CNN has reached out to his office.
  15. James Lankford of Oklahoma – CNN has reached out to his office.
  16. Mike Lee of Utah – CNN has reached out to his office.
  17. Roger Marshall of Kansas – CNN has reached out to his office.
  18. Jerry Moran of Kansas – CNN reached out to his office.
  19. Jim Risch of Idaho – CNN reached out to his office.
  20. Ben Sasse of Nebraska – CNN reached out to his office.
  21. Tim Scott of South Carolina — CNN reached out to his office.
  22. Richard Shelby of Alabama – CNN reached out to his office.

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Federal appeals court allows Georgia’s six-week abortion ban to take effect immediately

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The 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday immediately stayed a federal district court’s order that had blocked the abortion law from going into effect.

“It is the constitutional duty of the Georgia Attorney General to defend the laws of our state. Today, our arguments have prevailed, meaning the Eleventh Circuit has allowed Georgia’s LIFE Act to take effect immediately,” Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, a Republican, said in a statement.

The federal district court in 2020 had blocked state officials from enforcing the law, which bans abortion when early cardiac activity is detected. The challenge to the law, which was signed in 2019 by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, was brought by Georgia abortion providers, abortion rights advocacy groups and practitioners.
The appeals court on Wednesday vacated the lower court’s order, saying in its opinion that the US Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson last month “makes clear that no right to abortion exists under the Constitution, so Georgia may prohibit them.”

HB 481 redefines “natural person” to mean “any human being including an unborn child.” It also defines “unborn child” as a “member of the species of Homo sapiens at any stage of development who is carried in the womb.”

The appeals court said that the law’s redefinition of a “natural person” is “not vague on its face.”

Plaintiff litigators called the court’s decision to issue an immediate stay of the injunction a “highly unorthodox move.”

“Across the state, providers are now being forced to turn away patients who thought they would be able to access abortion, immediately changing the course of their lives and futures. This is horrific,” said the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Georgia, Center for Reproductive Rights, Planned Parenthood Southeast and Planned Parenthood Federation of America in a joint statement.

A court’s decision typically takes effect after issuing its official mandate, which falls around 28 days following a decision, according to the plaintiffs’ litigators.

The law includes exceptions for medical emergencies to prevent the death of the pregnant person or physical impairment.

It also provides exceptions for abortions 20 weeks or less if the pregnancy was the result of rape or incest — and if an official police report was filed.

In a statement, Kemp said he was “overjoyed” by the court’s decision.

“Since taking office in 2019, our family has committed to serving Georgia in a way that cherishes and values each and every human being, and today’s decision by the 11th Circuit affirms our promise to protect life at all stages,” the governor said.

This headline and story have been updated with additional details.

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Electoral Count Act: Bipartisan group of senators cuts deal in response to January 6

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The proposal still needs to be approved by both chambers and will need 60 votes in the Senate to break any filibuster attempt, meaning at least 10 Republicans would be needed to support any legislation. Announcement of the plan kicks off what is expected to be a challenging, months-long process to get the deal passed into law before the end of the year.

The deal is the culmination of months of negotiation led by Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, along with an additional six Democrats and eight Republicans. The proposal unveiled Wednesday is split up into two bills.

One of the bills is focused on modernizing and overhauling the Electoral Count Act, an 1887 law that Trump had sought to exploit and create confusion over how Congress counts Electoral College votes from each state. As part of that proposal, senators are attempting to clarify that the vice president only has a ceremonial role in overseeing the certification of the electoral results.

The proposal also includes key provisions intended to promote an orderly transition of presidential power by outlining guidelines for when eligible candidates can receive federal resources for a transition into office.

If neither candidate concedes within five days of Election Day, both candidates would be able to receive access to federal transition resources until “it is substantially certain who will win the majority of electoral votes,” according to a fact sheet. Ultimately, only one candidate will be eligible when there is “a clear winner of the election.”

Amid revelations of an effort by Trump allies to put forward illegitimate electors in key states, the bill tries to prevent a similar situation from happening again in the future.

It would also make it harder for members of Congress to attempt to overturn an election by increasing the number of House and Senate members required to raise an objection to election results when a joint session of Congress meets to certify them. Under current law, just one senator can join one House member in forcing each side to vote on whether to throw out results subject to an objection.

The bill is co-sponsored by the nine Republicans and seven Democrats who announced the deal.

According to the fact sheet, the proposal dealing with the vice president’s role would make clear that the responsibility is “solely ministerial and that he or she does not have any power to solely determine, accept, reject, or otherwise adjudicate disputes over electors.”

The second bill is aimed at improving election security and would enhance federal penalties for anyone who threatens or intimidates election officials as well as increase penalties for the tampering with election records. The bill is co-sponsored by five Republicans and seven Democrats.

While constitutional experts say the vice president currently can’t disregard a state-certified electoral result, Trump pushed then-Vice President Mike Pence to obstruct the Electoral College certification in Congress as part of his pressure campaign. But Pence refused to do so and, as a result, became a target of the former President and his mob of supporters who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia said the bill would make it harder to overturn an election when a joint session of Congress convenes to certify a presidential election.

“Anything we can do and show to the American public that we realize how serious that day was, and that we’re going to do all we can to prevent a repeat of January 6th, is a step in the right direction,” he said.

“Any future vice president cannot, should not, will not be able to overturn legitimate votes of Americans and their electors that states vote,” Warner said.

Further details on what’s in the deal

The bill that seeks to overhaul the Electoral Count Act would include a number of changes aimed at making sure that Congress can clearly “identify a single, conclusive slate of electors from each state,” a fact sheet states.

This comes as revelations surface about an effort by Trump allies to subvert the Electoral College process and install fake GOP electors in seven swing states.

The newly unveiled deal creates a set of stipulations designed to make it harder for there to be any confusion over the accurate electors. For example, it states that each state’s governor would be responsible for submission of a certificate that identifies electors. Congress would not be able to accept a slate of electors submitted by any other official. “This reform would address the potential for multiple state officials to send Congress competing slates,” the fact sheet states.

The bill would also set a higher bar for members of Congress to be able to raise objections to the certification of electoral votes.

The fact sheet says that the proposal “raises the threshold to lodge an objection to electors to at least one-fifth of the duly chosen and sworn members of both the House of Representatives and the Senate.”

The bill dealing with election security also includes a number of other key provisions.

One such proposal would reauthorize an independent agency known as the Election Assistance Commission for a period of five years and require the commission to implement cyber security testing for voting systems.

The bill also includes measures aimed at helping states improve procedures for handling mail-in ballots.

What’s next for the proposal

The Senate Rules Committee announced on Wednesday following the release of the deal that the panel plans to hold a hearing on the Electoral Count Act and efforts to overhaul electoral laws in response to the January 6 attack.

Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar, the chairwoman of the committee, told CNN the hearing will take place on August 3.

The announcement is one sign that the newly released proposal is not on track to move immediately to the Senate floor for consideration and instead will take time to work its way through the legislative process as senators work to try to pass legislation before year’s end.

Some senators believe that the issue could slip into a lame-duck session of Congress between the November elections and January.

This story has been updated with additional developments Wednesday.

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New evidence disputes Trump’s citizenship question rationale for census

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Previously unreleased internal communications indicate the Trump administration tried to add a citizenship question to the census with the goal of affecting congressional apportionment, according to a report issued Wednesday by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.

The documents appear to contradict statements made under oath by then-Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, who told the committee that the push for a citizenship question was unrelated to apportionment and the reason for adding it was to help enforce the Voting Rights Act.

The nearly 500 documents include several drafts of an August 2017 memorandum prepared by a Commerce Department lawyer and political appointee, James Uthmeier, in which he initially warned that using a citizenship question for apportionment would probably be illegal and violate the constitution, the report said.

In later drafts, Uthmeier and another political appointee, Earl Comstock, revised the draft to say there was “nothing illegal or unconstitutional about adding a citizenship question” and claiming the Founding Fathers “intended the apportionment count to be based on legal inhabitants,” the report said. In December 2017, the Justice Department sent a formal request to the Commerce Department, which oversees the Census Bureau, asking it to add the question; in March 2018, Ross announced it would be added to the 2020 Census.

“Today’s Committee memo pulls back the curtain on this shameful conduct and shows clearly how the Trump Administration secretly tried to manipulate the census for political gain while lying to the public and Congress about their goals,” Oversight Committee Chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) said in a statement.

The administration’s effort to add the question lasted two years. It was challenged by civil rights groups who blasted it as an effort to undercount Latinos and scare immigrant communities from participating in a survey that determines congressional apportionment and redistricting, as well as the disbursement of $1.5 trillion in federal funds annually.

The new evidence echoes documents that surfaced during litigation over the question, including a study by a Republican operative that found adding a citizenship question would benefit Republicans in redistricting.

“It was obvious it was just a farce,” said former Census Bureau director John Thompson, who testified at the time, saying the bureau under Ross had not done proper testing of the citizenship question before adding it. “I’m glad the committee got the materials to reinforce that, but it was not surprising.”

Thomas Wolf, deputy director of the Democracy Program at NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice, said, “Lest anyone doubted that what the Trump administration was up to was wrong, these documents show that even the Trump administration itself knew that what it was doing was illegal.”

The Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that the administration’s stated rationale for adding the question was “contrived,” and the administration dropped the effort. It then said it would instead block undocumented immigrants from being counted for apportionment, setting off another volley of court battles that lasted until the waning days of Donald Trump’s presidency.

That attempt ultimately failed when, because of pandemic-related delays, the Census Bureau was unable to deliver state population totals to the president before he left office. The administration was also unable to explain how it planned to identify and count undocumented immigrants, for whom there is no official tally.

Census data show widening diversity; number of White people falls for first time

The documents obtained by the committee had been withheld by the Trump administration despite subpoenas, the report said, adding that the committee had faced “unprecedented obstruction” from administration officials. Ross and then-Attorney General William P. Barr were held in contempt of Congress after refusing to produce them, the report noted, adding that the previously withheld or redacted documents were finally released “after more than two years of litigation, and the arrival of a new administration.”

Maloney introduced a bill last week that she said is designed to protect the Census Bureau against future attempts to politicize it. H.R. 8326, the Ensuring a Fair and Accurate Census Act, would prevent the removal of a Census Bureau director without just cause, limit the number of political appointees at the bureau and prohibit the secretary of commerce from adding topics or questions to the survey “unless he or she followed the existing statutory requirements to notify Congress in advance.” It would also bar new questions from appearing on the decennial census form unless they have been “researched, tested, certified by the Secretary, and evaluated by the Government Accountability Office.”

Thompson praised the bill. “I think it would protect the independence of the Census Bureau,” he said. “I’m very enthusiastic about the bill. … I hope it gets enacted.”

But even if it is, it might not fully insulate the bureau from partisan interference, he said. Under a Republican House and Senate, “the Congress could direct the Census Bureau to collect citizenship [information] on the census, and then there could be a fight to get the citizenship question on the 2030 Census,” he said, adding, “Congress could try to pass a law saying you need to do apportionment by citizenship.”

The bar for passing a constitutional amendment would be high, Wolf said. However, the Trump administration’s effort to add the citizenship question and exclude undocumented people from apportionment “indicates that the 2020 Census was in grave peril and we escaped only through a combination of significant legal victories and a certain amount of luck,” he said. “The census is clearly too fragile to continue in its imperiled state.”

Along with limiting political appointees and giving additional powers to the Census Bureau director, as Maloney’s bill proposes, Wolf suggested curtailing the president’s ability to influence apportionment, as Trump proposed to do. By law, reapportionment of the 435 House seats is supposed to happen automatically based on state population totals.

“The president’s role in the apportionment process was supposed to be administerial,” Wolf said. “That’s why it’s called automatic apportionment.”

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Giuliani Ordered to Testify in Georgia Criminal Investigation

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A Georgia judge ordered Rudolph W. Giuliani to testify in Atlanta next month in an ongoing criminal investigation into election interference by former President Donald J. Trump and his advisers and allies, according to court filings released on Wednesday.

Some out-of-state witnesses in the case have gone to court to challenge subpoenas or other legal filings seeking to compel their testimony. But after Mr. Giuliani failed to show for a hearing last week in Manhattan, where the matter was to have been adjudicated, Judge Robert C. I. McBurney of the Superior Court of Fulton County ordered him to appear before a special grand jury in Atlanta on Aug. 9.

Mr. Giuliani, who spearheaded efforts to keep Mr. Trump in power as his personal lawyer, has emerged as a central figure in the Georgia criminal investigation into efforts to overturn Mr. Trump’s 2020 electoral loss in the state. Fani T. Willis, the prosecutor in Fulton County leading the investigation, has indicated that she is considering conspiracy or racketeering charges, which could take in a broad spectrum of people engaged in multiple efforts to sway the election results.

Her office worked with the office of Alvin Bragg, the district attorney in Manhattan, to secure Mr. Giuliani’s testimony, and she said in a statement that she was “grateful to the prosecutors and investigators” in Mr. Bragg’s office for their assistance.

Mr. Giuliani’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A special grand jury has been meeting regularly in Atlanta to hear testimony and review documents and videos that may shed light on the multipronged effort to put Georgia in Mr. Trump’s win column. Among the acts under consideration are an infamous postelection phone call that Mr. Trump made to Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, asking to “find” enough votes to secure his victory.

Mr. Giuliani appears to be of interest for a number of reasons, including his participation in a scheme to create slates of pro-Trump presidential electors in numerous states including Georgia. In court filings this week, it was revealed that all 16 pro-Trump electors in Georgia had been informed by the Fulton County District Attorney’s office that they could face charges.

Mr. Giuliani also appeared in person before two Georgia state legislative committees in December 2020, where he spent hours peddling false conspiracy theories about secret suitcases of Democratic ballots and corrupted voting machines. He told state legislators, “You cannot possibly certify Georgia in good faith.”

Legal experts have said that the Georgia investigation may prove to be particularly perilous for Mr. Trump and his allies. Though the grand jury proceedings are secret, a number of details have emerged in recent days that hint at the scope of the investigation. Among the pro-Trump electors who learned they could be indicted are David Shafer, the chair of the state Republican Party, and State Senator Burt Jones, the party’s nominee for lieutenant governor. Another Republican state senator, Brandon Beach, was also informed that he is a potential target.

Prosecutors are seeking testimony from Senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally who also called Mr. Raffensperger, and Representative Jody Hice, a hard-right Georgia Republican who has embraced false narratives about election fraud in Georgia and who helped lead efforts in Congress to help keep Mr. Trump in power.

William K. Rashbaum and Jonah E. Bromwich contributed reporting.

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U.S. heat wave: Over 100 million people under alerts in 28 states

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Records are crashing as temperatures spike amid a high-end heat wave baking the Great Plains. Temperatures have spiked to 115 degrees in Texas and Oklahoma, with more than 60 million Americans anticipated to see triple-digit heat over the next week.

Heat advisories and excessive heat warnings affect more than 105 million people in 28 states both across the central United States and the Northeast, where the combination of hot weather and high humidity will lead to conditions ripe for heat-related illness or heatstroke.

The Weather Channel tweeted that more than 200 million people will experience highs exceeding 90 degrees for the next three days.

Dallas, Oklahoma City and Tulsa could all approach 110 degrees in the days ahead, and some locations have blown past that. For the first time on record, every one of the Oklahoma’s network of 120 weather stations hit 103 degrees on Tuesday.

Why this European heat wave is so scary

Oklahoma City proper spiked to 110 degrees for the first time in a decade on Tuesday. That marks only the ninth time since just after World War II that the Sooner State’s capital has been so hot — a once-each-10-years event, on average. It also beats out a record that has stood since 1936.

The top reading came from Mangum in southwest Oklahoma, which hit 115 degrees at 5:55 p.m.

It was comparably hot in north Texas, where Fort Worth’s Meacham International Airport climbed to 110 degrees and Dallas got to 109. Wichita Falls hit 115, a July record.

“Another day of exceptional heat lies ahead with triple-digit highs forecast for all of North and Central Texas,” wrote the National Weather Service in Fort Worth in an online technical discussion.

Dallas is predicted to peak around 107 degrees Wednesday, and it should be in the lower 100s essentially until further notice. Austin and San Antonio also are expecting similar temperatures.

“We’re sort of in our third wave of well-above-average temperatures this summer for south Central Texas,” said Keith White, a meteorologist at the Weather Service in Austin, in an interview Wednesday. “Austin could be looking at 106 or 107 today. Just last week, there were three days in Austin at or above 106.”

Every day between July 9 and July 13 in Austin tied or broke a record high. The city made it to a whopping 110 degrees on July 10, and hit 109 on the 11th and 12th. That’s the hottest three-day stretch on record in the city; bookkeeping dates back to 1897.

“The 110 degrees on the 10th actually tied for our second warmest temperature recorded in history in Austin,” White said. So far, Austin has logged 39 hundred-degree days this season, and San Antonio’s up to 40.

“That’s the most we’ve ever seen at this point in the season, even surpassing 2011, the banner year for drought and fires,” White said.

Drought and fire have both been issues across much of Texas and Oklahoma, where red flag warnings are in effect. Along and especially west of Interstate 35, humidity levels below 25 percent, coupled with winds gusting up to 30 mph, are brewing conditions ripe for swift fire spread.

Several fires cropped up across north Central Texas on Monday, including in Somervell County, southwest of Dallas.

“We’ve had a large number of fires across our region, and even more and larger ones in other areas of Texas,” White said. He blamed both the recent spate of dry weather and an anomalously wet spring last year. That helped plants to grow and provided a greater availability of fuels that would later dry up.

“[The wet spring in 2021] allowed a lot of vegetation to grow more than normal, then we had a drier winter, spring and summer, making things susceptible to burning,” White said.

Closer to the Gulf Coast, a touch more humidity is present. While that will cap temperatures slightly lower — between 98 and 102 degrees — the juicy air mass in place will help heat indexes top 105 degrees.

“Today will be a scorcher no matter where you are in the [area],” wrote the Weather Service in Houston.

That humidity is wafting north toward the Ozarks and up the Mississippi Valley as well. In Little Rock, Wednesday’s high temperature was predicted to peak just a hair over 100 degrees, but heat indexes could flirt with 115 degrees.

The local Weather Service office described the setup as “Hot, muggy, and basically ‘swimming in the air’ conditions.”

What’s behind the heat? A stagnant ridge of high pressure colloquially known as a “heat dome.” High pressure results in sinking air, which clears skies and fosters copious sunshine. The high acts as a force field of sorts, diverting the jet stream northward and deflecting any inclement weather into Canada.

While the heat dome looks to shift east a touch in the coming days, it doesn’t look to break down any time soon, meaning there’s no immediate end in sight to the heat. In Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Dallas, Wichita Falls, Houston, Austin and Little Rock, highs should remain around or above 100 degrees for at least the next week.

The heat will also bleed toward the East Coast. Heat advisories span from Delaware through parts of interior New York into southern New Hampshire on Wednesday, where the combination of heat and humidity will make it feel like 95 to 100 degrees in the north and 100 to 105 degrees in the south.

Some of the hottest weather along the East Coast is forecast this weekend. On Sunday, highs could touch the century mark from Washington to New York for the first in time in at least several years.

The heat coincides with a historically extreme event in Europe, which so far has killed more than 1,000 people and fueled wildfires that have prompted 40,000 to evacuate. A staggering 34 weather stations broke the 101.7 degrees threshold in Britain, logging temperatures higher than anything Britain has observed before.

Brutal heat dome moves east, with Central Europe set to swelter

Human-induced climate change is irrefutably amplifying the duration and severity of heat waves.



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US

Jan. 6 ‘Starting to Take a Toll’ on Trump’s Popularity: Former Ambassador

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  • A former Trump ambassador said the hearings are having a “corrosive” effect on Trump’s popularity. 
  • The revelations are “all undoubtedly starting to take a toll,” Randy Evans told Politico. 
  • Trump is eyeing an early 2024 campaign announcement as soon as September. 

A former ambassador who served under President Donald Trump says the January 6 committee hearings are having a “corrosive effect” and are “undoubtedly starting to take a toll” on the former president’s support. 

“I think what everybody thought was that the first prime-time hearing was such a non-event that that would continue,” said attorney Randy Evans, who served as ambassador to Luxembourg under Trump, told Politico’s David Siders.

“But over the course of the hearings, the steadiness, the repetitiveness, has had a corrosive effect,” he said. “You’d have to be oblivious to the way media works, the way reputations work, the way politics works, to not understand that it’s never the one thing. It’s the accumulation.”

The committee’s seven hearings so far have featured scores of former Trump aides and others around him testifying about the intensity and brazenness of Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, his attempts to pressure and strong-arm officials, and his knowledge of the violence that could break out on January 6. 

Evans added that it’s “all undoubtedly starting to take a toll — how much, I don’t know. But the bigger question is whether it starts to eat through the Teflon. There are some signs that maybe it has. But it’s too early to say right now.” 

Whatever effect the January 6 hearings have on Trump’s standing is yet to be fully realized, given that the committee’s investigation and public hearings are still ongoing. But some recent polls point to potential trouble for Trump as he inches closer to announcing a 2024 presidential run, possibly before the 2022 midterms in November. 

A recent New York Times/Siena College poll found that half of Republican voters want a Republican other than Trump to be the Republican nominee in 2024. Nevertheless, Trump still led a hypothetical 2024 presidential field with 49% of the vote, followed by Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida at 25% and other Republicans in the single digits. 

Sarah Longwell, a Republican operative who frequently holds focus groups of GOP voters, told Politico that the January 6 hearings aren’t turning Republicans in her focus groups against Trump as much as they have “turned the volume up on the Trump baggage,” contributing to further voter fatigue and exhaustion. 

“I cannot tell you how much these Republican voters want to move on from the conversation of January 6th,” she said. 

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US

Biden to deliver ultimatum on climate; House panel to weigh assault weapons ban

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Four hours into the hearing, after asking a question about restrictions on the airspace over Disney amusement parks, Nehls switched gears, presenting a picture of Biden speaking, with a caption mocking the president for a speech last month in which he stuttered over a word.

“We now see the mainstream media questioning President Biden’s mental state, and for good reason,” Nehls said. “Sadly, he shakes hands with ghosts and imaginary people, and he falls off bicycles,” the congressman added, referring to the president’s fall during a morning bike ride last month near his vacation home in Delaware.

“Have you spoken to Cabinet members about implementing the 25th Amendment on President Biden?” Nehls then asked.

“First of all, I’m glad to have a president who can ride a bicycle,” Buttigieg replied.

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Ivana Trump’s funeral to be held in NYC today

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Ivana Trump, the ex-wife of former President Donald Trump and a first lady of New York City society, is set to be memorialized at her funeral Wednesday in a historic church in her Upper East Side neighborhood.

Family and famous mourners are expected to flock to St. Vincent Ferrer Catholic Church to pay their final respects to the 73-year-old Czech-born “power blonde,’’ who died last week after a fall down the staircase at her Manhattan home.

The scheduled afternoon service was billed as a “Celebration of Life’’ on invitations sent to friends, some of whom were said to have flown in from Europe to attend. The invite featured a photo of a glamourous-looking Ivana, a onetime competitive skier, on the slopes.

Ivana Trump’s funeral will take place at St. Vincent Ferrer Catholic Church.
Getty Images/Noam Galai

The beloved famous New Yorker had been unsteady walking in recent weeks thanks to an ailing hip, pals had told The Post.

Ivana grabbed headlines as Donald’s wife, particularly in the 1980s as she and the real-estate tycoon became the Big Apple’s ultimate power couple.

Donald Trump and ex-wife, Ivana Trump at their Greenwich, Ct. mansion in 1987.
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Ivana Trump with Donald Trump Jr., and Ivanka Trump on Oct. 15, 2007 in New York City.
WireImage/Duffy-Marie Arnoult

They were married for 15 years before divorcing in 1990 amid a sensational scandal involving Donald’s then-mistress, Marla Maples.

Ivana and Donald — who had three children, Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric — ended up reconciling as friends, and she said she became his sounding board, including involving his political aspirations. He won the presidency in 2016 and served four years.

She also was an accomplished businesswoman in her own right.

Ivana Trump’s “Celebration of Life” is scheduled to begin at 1:30 p.m.
YUKI IWAMURA/AFP via Getty Images
The NYPD installs barriers around the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel in preparation for Ivana Trump’s funeral today.
Matthew McDermott

While married to the man she famously dubbed “The Donald,’’ Ivana helped him develop the iconic Trump Tower in Manhattan and managed The Plaza hotel in the city after he bought it.

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When the pair split, she worked at everything from writing advice columns to peddling jewelry and beauty products on home-shopping networks.

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