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Trump’s taxes may be released to grand jury, supreme court rules – as it happened

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Bill Christeson protests outside the supreme court in Washington DC on Thursday.
Bill Christeson protests outside the supreme court in Washington DC on Thursday. Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA
Bill Christeson protests outside the supreme court in Washington DC on Thursday. Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

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Key events

Summary

Joan E Greve
Joan E Greve
  • The supreme court ruled a New York grand jury may receive the president’s financial records and tax returns. In a 7-2 decision, the court rejected Trump’s argument that he was categorically immune from tgrand jury subpoenas, delivering a victory for Manhattan district attorney Cy Vance. But Vance will still have to go back to court to have his subpoena enforced, which will delay the case.
  • The supreme court said House committees could not receive Trump’s financial records for now. In another 7-2 decision, the justices sent the case back to a lower court for a more thorough review of the separation of powers issues in the case.
  • Another 1.3 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week. The figure marks a slight decrease from a week before, but unemployment numbers remain alarmingly high as many states report increases in new cases of coronavirus.
  • Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, was taken back into federal custody. Cohen was expected to sign papers related to his home confinement today, several weeks after being released from prison, but federal authorities took him back into custody for unclear reasons.
  • Former US attorney Geoffrey Berman told the House judiciary committee that attorney general Wiliam Barr repeatedly urged him to resign. In a copy of his prepared opening statement obtained by several news outlets, Berman said Barr told him he would be fired if he did not resign and warned that a firing would “not be good for [his] resume or future job prospects.” Berman refused to resign and was ultimately fired after a public spat with Barr and the president.

The White House pressured the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to issue an unscientific statement in support of Trump’s false claims that Hurricane Dorian was likely to severely impact Alabama in September 2019, according to an internal watchdog report.

The White House also pushed for a “correction” to a National Weather Service tweet about the hurricane that contradicted Trump, according to a report from the commerce department inspector general released on Thursday.

On 1 September, Trump falsely stated that Alabama would be “hit (much) harder than anticipated” by Dorian. To reassure panicked residents, Noaa’s National Weather Service office in Birmingham tweeted, “Alabama will NOT see any impacts from #Dorian. We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane #Dorian will be felt across Alabama. The system will remain too far east.”

But Trump doubled down and displayed an altered Noaa forecast map that had been drawn on with a marker in support of his erroneous assertions (aka “Sharpiegate”).

According to the report, former White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney instructed the commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, to help push through a Noaa statement backing the president. The move “potentially undercut public trust in NOAA’s and the NWS’s science and the apolitical nature of that science”, according to the IG report.

The incident foreshadows the White House’s conduct during the coronavirus pandemic – Trump has repeatedly contradicted public health officials. The US is bracing for a heavy hurricane season amid a surge of coronavirus cases in Florida, Louisiana, and other storm-prone states.

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Sam Levine reports:

The Wisconsin supreme court gave state Republicans a significant victory on Thursday, upholding a suite of laws passed during a lame-duck session in 2018 designed to curb the power of incoming Democratic officials.

In 2018 Wisconsin voters elected Tony Evers and Josh Kaul, both Democrats, to be the state’s governor and attorney general, respectively. In turn, Republicans passed a host of laws that blocked Evers and Kaul from withdrawing from lawsuits involving the state and forced the attorney general to seek approval from the legislature before withdrawing from lawsuits. The law also gave the legislature the ability to intervene in state lawsuits using their own attorneys.

The case underscores the brazen way Republicans in Wisconsin have been able to maintain power despite major Democratic victories. In 2011, Republicans passed a sweeping voter ID law and drew state legislative districts that made it virtually impossible for Democrats to take control of the state legislature. It worked tremendously well – in 2018, Republicans lost every statewide race, won less than half of the statewide vote, but won 63 of 99 seats in the state assembly and a majority in the state senate. Republicans used their majorities to pass the contested laws curbing Democratic power.

Martin Pengelly
Martin Pengelly

As the US set a world record for most Covid-19 cases in one day, with 60,000 reported on Wednesday, Dr Anthony Fauci, a senior member of the White House coronavirus taskforce, said states needed to pause reopening efforts.

“Rather than think in terms of reverting back down to a complete shutdown, I would think we need to get the states pausing in their opening process,” the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases told the Hill.

Fauci’s comment represented a retreat from a remark made on a Wall Street Journal podcast on Wednesday, when he said “any state that is having a serious problem, that state should seriously look at shutting down” again.

Fauci has been attacked by Donald Trump and reportedly barred from major media appearances but he has found other ways to reach the American public, speaking to webcasts and in testimony before a Senate committee.

In remarks published by the Journal on Thursday and likely to anger the president, Fauci said the government needed to do better in making the case for personal responsibility and added: “We need to get people like myself, like my colleagues, out there more.”

Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, said “most Americans don’t care about” Trump’s tax return.

It seems like the only people that really care about it are my Democratic colleagues, or my previous Democratic colleagues on Capitol Hill, because this is the number one issue for them,” Meadows told reporters at the White House.

Today’s Supreme Court rulings, despite making it increasingly likely that a grand jury will eventually access Trump’s financial documents, also stopped Democrats in Congress from obtaining tax returns before election day.

Abené Clayton reports:

California lawmakers and top criminal justice officials joined organizers and families to urged governor Gavin Newsom to release thousands of people from state prisons, as several of the state’s facilities battle dramatic surges in coronavirus cases.

“We are in the middle of a humanitarian crisis that was created and wholly avoidable,” said the California assembly member Rob Bonta at a press conference in front of San Quentin state prison on Thursday.

“We need act with urgency fueled by compassion,” he added. “We missed the opportunity to prevent, so now we have to make things right.”

The officials, including the San Francisco district attorney, Chesa Boudin, and the Alameda public defender, Brendon Woods, are asking for the release of prisoners over 60 and people with less than a year left to serve. They also asked Newsom to tour San Quentin, the historic state prison that has seen the most positive cases.

Almost 1,500 people at San Quentin tested positive for the virus, and seven people have succumbed to complications from Covid-19. The facility has seen an exponential rise in coronavirus cases – up until the end of May it had not recorded a single confirmed case.

David Smith
David Smith

On what he called a “sweltering day” in the White House rose garden – I can confirm my laptop briefly fainted in the heat – Donald Trump repurposed his culture war for a Hispanic audience.

The US president signed an executive order establishing the Hispanic Prosperity Initiative and returned to a recent theme that portrays a left wing mob intent on destroying history and defunding police. This, he warned, would make America resemble the strife-torn countries that many immigrants have fled.
“Now Hispanic Americans are watching as the cities they helped build, the communities they helped police, the businesses they created and the dreams they pursued are being threatened by an extreme movement that wants to tear everything down,” Trump said. “At the centre of this movement is an aggressive effort to defund the police, if you can even believe that. Defund the police: think about that. It’s a sad, sad thing. These people are crazy – they are crazy.”

Defunding police “would inflict great harm on our hard working Latino communities,” continued the president, who champions a border wall and has frequently demonised immigrants from Central America. “Many immigrants came to the United States in order to leave counties where the rule of law had been eroded and they don’t want those same conditions to be replicated here. They don’t want them back. They know what it is first hand.

“They know what happens when the police cannot protect the innocent, when the rule of law is destroyed, when justice becomes an instrument of vengeance. Hispanic Americans, they know. They’re hard working patriots who support our police, protect our communities and believe strongly in the rule of law. I will stand arm in arm with the Hispanic community to ensure that every child in America can grow up in safety, security, dignity and in peace.”

During his speech, Trump also reiterated his demand for schools to reopen, citing Germany, Norway, Denmark, Sweden as countries that have done so successfully. Sweden notoriously decided against a mass lockdown and suffered a higher death toll with little economic reward.

Julian Borger
Julian Borger

The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Mark Milley, had some forthright things to say about the naming of army bases after Confederate generals, whom he described as traitors. His remarks to the House armed services committee stand out in the context of Trump’s insistence he would not even consider renaming the 10 army bases named for Confederate military leaders.

Milley noted that the military is 43% minority, and 20% African American, rising to 30% in some bases. He recalled a staff sergeant at Fort Bragg who told him he had go to work every day at a base named after a man, Confederate general Braxton Bragg, who had enslaved his grandparents.

The Confederacy, Milley told the committee, “was an act of rebellion. It was an act of treason at the time, against the Union, against the Stars and Stripes, against the US Constitution, and those officers turned their back on their own.”

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The Republican national convention, which is scheduled to take place in Jacksonville, Florida, next month, could be moved to an outdoor venue, officials told the Washington Post.

As coronavirus cases in Florida soar, organizers are reportedly looking into hosting the event at an outdoor sports stadium.

The planning of the convention has been marked by uncertainty — it was moved from North Carolina to Florida after a disagreement between state leaders and convention organizers about safety measures. North Carolina governor Roy Cooper and Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles wouldn’t commit to allowing a full convention, even as Trump insisted he wanted a “packed” crowd.

Several Republican leaders have said they would not attend the convention, including senators Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Mitt Romney of Utah.

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Lauren Gambino
Lauren Gambino

Joe Biden on Thursday unveiled a $700bn proposal to grow American industry as the centerpiece of his presidential campaign pitch to lead the nation’s economic recovery in the wake of the devastating coronavirus pandemic.

The ambitious “buy American” campaign is one pillar of a broader economic platform, titled “Build Back Better”, which Biden is expected to outline at a speech near his hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, on Thursday afternoon.

Though Biden leads Donald Trump in national and battleground state polls, voters consistently say they trust the president’s stewardship of the economy.

The proposal calls for the federal government to purchase $400bn worth of US goods and services and invest $300bn in research and development of technologies such as electric vehicles, 5G cellular networks and artificial intelligence. According to an outline provided by the campaign, the plan would create “at least 5m new jobs in manufacturing and innovation”.

“This will be the largest mobilization of public investments in procurement, infrastructure and [research and development] since WWII,” the proposal states.

Other policies included in the plan are proposals to make it easier for workers to unionize and bargain collectively and to tighten enforcement of “buy American” laws that are designed to protect American industry but can be easily circumvented.

Today so far

That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for the next few hours.

Here’s where the day stands so far:

  • The supreme court ruled a New York grand jury may receive the president’s financial records and tax returns. In a 7-2 decision, the court rejected Trump’s argument that he was categorically immune from tgrand jury subpoenas, delivering a victory for Manhattan district attorney Cy Vance. But Vance will still have to go back to court to have his subpoena enforced, which will delay the case.
  • The supreme court said House committees could not receive Trump’s financial records for now. In another 7-2 decision, the justices sent the case back to a lower court for a more thorough review of the separation of powers issues in the case.
  • Another 1.3 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week. The figure marks a slight decrease from a week before, but unemployment numbers remain alarmingly high as many states report increases in new cases of coronavirus.
  • Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, was taken back into federal custody. Cohen was expected to sign papers related to his home confinement today, several weeks after being released from prison, but federal authorities took him back into custody for unclear reasons.
  • Former US attorney Geoffrey Berman told the House judiciary committee that attorney general Wiliam Barr repeatedly urged him to resign. In a copy of his prepared opening statement obtained by several news outlets, Berman said Barr told him he would be fired if he did not resign and warned that a firing would “not be good for [his] resume or future job prospects.” Berman refused to resign and was ultimately fired after a public spat with Barr and the president.

Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

More from the Guardian’s Mario Koran in California:

The silver lining about this wildfire season, said California governor Gavin Newsom, is that while the number of wildfires are on the rise — a fact he attributed to both climate change and man-made disasters brought on by state utility company PG&E — crews are handling fires more effectively, containing them to under 10 acres.

PG&E in June pleaded guilty to manslaughter charges stemming from a devastating 2018 wildfire that killed 84 people and wiped out the northern California town of Paradise. The utility company emerged from bankruptcy and will face new requirements earlier this month.

“None of us were shy about our condemnation of PG&E ”, said Newsom. “But they’re coming out (of bankruptcy) a new company, with new expectations and accountability. And new criteria, that if they don’t perform, California can intervene in ways we couldn’t in the past.”

The threat comes also from individual actors. Already this year, CalFire arrested 45 arsonists setting blazes, said the governor.

Another challenge presented by the pandemic: Inmate crews, long a mainstay in the state’s response to fires, have been depleted due to isolation and safety precautions.

This week, state prison officials said they had placed 12 of the state’s 43 inmate fire camps on lockdown due to a massive outbreak at a Northern California prison in Lassen County that serves as the training center for fire crews, SacBee reported. The state is looking to bring in hundreds of temporary responders to fill in the vacancies.

Inmates will be allowed to work alongside staff firefighters, risking their lives for several dollars a day, but will not mingle with them outside of work and meals, Newsom said.

The Guardian’s Mario Koran reports from California:

California is entering peak wildfire season just as coronavirus cases and fatalities reach record highs. The conditions create a two-sided battlefront that will tax resources, stretch the state’s capacity to provide medical care, and pose new challenges should residents need to seek shelter if wildfires lay waste to their communities.

#COVID19 has created unique challenges for CA to fight wildfires but that isn't slowing us down from preparing.

Since 2019, CA has:
🚒 Completed 35 fuel projects to protect high-risk locations
🚁 Invested in firefighting tech
💡 Worked to develop more responsive utilities
& more pic.twitter.com/jTi8ir5m2F

— Office of the Governor of California (@CAgovernor) July 9, 2020

Already this season, more than 4,000 wildfires have erupted, topping the average for this time of year by more than 1,500, said California governor Gavin Newsom.

“We are in peak fire season”, said CalFire Chief Thom Porter. “That means that fires aren’t just going to go out as the sun goes down”, he said.

Fire officials say the pandemic will add new challenges to the state’s response. Should wildfires rip through communities and destroy homes, officials plan to modify shelter conditions, creating additional space for Covid-positive patients, and switching from buffet-style dinners to Meals Ready to Eat, individually packaged meals that US soldiers eat.

Trump has just signed an exectuive order establishing the Hispanic Prosperity Initiative in the Rose Garden.

In his remarks before signing the order, the president reiterated his demand that US schools reopen next month, despite concerns about the spread of coronavirus once in-person instruction restarts.

“We have to open our schools,” Trump said. “Open our schools. Stop this nonsense.”

Earlier today, Trump’s press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, said the president supports reopening all US schools, even those located in coronavirus hot spots where hospitalizations are on the rise.

After signing the order, the president left the Rose Garden without taking any questions from reporters.

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