New York prosecutors request pause in hush-money case after Donald Trump’s re-election – live | Donald Trump

New York judge Juan Merchan has paused the proceedings in Donald Trump’s hush money case, Reuters reports.

Merchan was today expected to decide whether Trump’s conviction on 34 felony charges related to falsifying business documents would be thrown out under the supreme court’s ruling earlier this year granting presidents immunity for official acts.

The judge’s decision comes after Trump won the presidential election a week ago.

Samuel Alito intends to continue serving on the supreme court, the Wall Street Journal reports, despite fears from liberals that the 74-year-old conservative justice will soon step down and allow Donald Trump and the newly Republican-controlled Senate to confirm a younger replacement.

Such a decision by Alito could prolong the conservative dominance of the supreme court, where they have a six-justice supermajority and the liberals a three-justice minority. But the Journal says that Alito plans to stick around:

“Despite what some people may think, this is a man who has never thought about this job from a political perspective,” said one person close to Alito. “The idea that he’s going to retire for political considerations is not consistent with who he is.”

Trump’s election last week set off renewed discussions over the future of the Supreme Court, where the three eldest justices are in their 70s.

With Republicans set to take both the White House and Senate come January, there will be at least a two-year span when the GOP can fill vacancies without need of compromise with Democrats. Some Republicans have suggested that would be a good time for Alito, appointed in 2006 by President George W. Bush, and Justice Clarence Thomas, 76, a 1991 appointee of President George H.W. Bush, to step aside for younger nominees who could perpetuate the court’s conservative direction for decades to come.

A majority of Americans view the Supreme Court as politically motivated, public opinion surveys have shown. But across the ideological spectrum, the justices prefer to see themselves as standing apart from partisan politics, and Washington’s postelection chatter is proving irksome within the court, people familiar with the matter said.

The supreme court has turned down an effort by Donald Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows to move the Georgia election meddling case to federal court.

Meadows first made the petition earlier this year, after the supreme court ruled that presidents are immune from prosecution for official acts. The case brought by Atlanta-area district attorney Fani Willis against Meadows, Trump and more than a dozen others for allegedly plotting to overturn the results of the election in Georgia has since stalled, and it is unclear if it will continue now that Trump is headed back to the White House.

Here’s more about Meadows’s petition:

The GOP is on track to maintain its majority in the House of Representatives, even as Democrats managed to claim a hotly contested seat in the Los Angeles suburbs.

Yesterday, Republican congressman Mike Garcia conceded to his challenger George Whitesides in California’s 27th congressional district, flipping a district that Democrats have wanted to conquer for the past two elections. But it may not be enough to return the party to the majority in Congress’s lower chamber, and give them the ability to block Donald Trump’s legislative agenda.

The Associated Press reports that the GOP had won 214 seats in the House, four shy of the majority, while the Democrats have 205. Counting in 16 races is ongoing, many of which are swing seats where every vote will matter, but Republicans are generally seen as having the edge in several crucial races.

We’ll let you know if the AP calls any outstanding House races over the course of today.

Donald Trump is reportedly considering making North Dakota’s governor, Doug Burgum, his new “energy tsar”. The Financial Times were the first to report this on Friday. The outlet said that Burgum, who last year ran a short-lived campaign for the Republican nomination for president, is the president-elect’s preferred candidate for the role, though former energy secretary Dan Brouillette is also said to be a strong contender. The role and its powers have yet to be finalised but the FT reports that role would likely replace the “climate tsar” – or National Climate Advisor – established by the Biden administration. You can read more on Trump’s (potential) cabinet picks here.

As my colleagues Dharna Noor and Oliver Milman note in this story, Trump has pledged to deregulate the energy sector, allow the oil and gas industry to “drill, baby, drill”, and pull the US from the Paris climate agreement, which committed countries to taking steps to avoid the worst impacts of the crisis.

Steve Bannon is due in court today ahead of his trial on criminal fraud charges over a push to fund Trump’s border wall, weeks after he was released from prison on a separate conviction. Bannon, the 70-year-old former Trump adviser, is scheduled to stand trial starting on 9 December in New York state court in Manhattan.

Prosecutors allege that he deceived donors who contributed more than $15 million in 2019 to a private fundraising drive to build a barrier along the US-Mexico border. Bannon has pleaded not guilty. He is set to appear for a final pretrial conference before acting justice April Newbauer at 2:15 pm EST (1915 GMT).

Last month, Bannon was released from prison, following a four-month sentence for defying a congressional subpoena in an investigation of the 6 January 2021 US Capitol attack.

Robert Tait is a journalist based in Washington DC

Donald Trump has demanded that the three frontrunners to lead the Senate allow him to appoint officials to his new administration without confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill, as a future Republican government began to take shape the week after his election victory.

In a demonstration of his political muscle, the US president-elect urged support for “recess appointments”, which allow the president to make appointments while the Senate is temporarily paused, and can be used to circumvent the confirmation process, which can result in appointments being delayed or blocked.

The demand amounted to a full-frontal intervention in this week’s GOP’s election for a new Senate leader to replace Mitch McConnell, the party’s longtime leader who is retiring. The three men tipped to lead the Senate – Rick Scott, John Thune and John Cornyn – all quickly agreed to Trump’s request.

It also signalled Trump’s determination to press ahead with his agenda without being encumbered by congressional oversight, which is mandated by the US constitution.

You can read the full story here:

Good morning, and welcome to our US politics blog.

US President-elect Donald Trump announced several new members of his incoming administration on Monday, and is reportedly expected to name Marco Rubio – a one time challenger in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries – as secretary of state.

It comes as justice Juan Merchan, a New York judge, is set to decide later today whether Trump’s criminal conviction on charges involving hush money paid to a porn star should be overturned in light of the US Supreme Court’s July ruling on presidential immunity.

Meanwhile, officials at the US justice department are assessing how to wind down the two federal criminal cases brought against Trump by special counsel Jack Smith due to its longstanding policy against prosecuting a sitting president.

A separate case in Georgia involving state criminal charges concerning Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss remains in limbo.

We will give you more on the developments in the legal cases Trump faces when news breaks throughout the day.

Here are the main political appointments Trump has already made or is expected to announce shortly:

• The New York Times reports that Trump is expected to name Florida senator Marco Rubio his secretary of state. The paper cites three unnamed sources “familiar with [Trump’s] thinking”. Rubio has said that Ukraine needs to seek a negotiated settlement with Moscow rather than focus on regaining all territory that Russia has taken in the last decade. He was also one of 15 Republican senators to vote against a $95 billion military aid package for Ukraine, passed in April. Rubio serves as the vice-chairman of the Senate intelligence committee and sits on the foreign relations committee.

• The US president-elect has reportedly asked US Representative Michael Waltz, a retired Army National Guard officer and war veteran, to be his national security adviser. Waltz, regarded by many in Washington as hawkish on China and Iran, has also been a member of the intelligence and foreign affairs committees.

• Trump picked South Dakota governor Kristi Noem to serve as the next secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, CNN reported on Tuesday, citing two sources. The Department of Homeland Security is responsible for a range of issues, including border protection, immigration, disaster response and the US secret service. Noem, once seen as a possible running mate for Trump, made headlines after refusing to impose a statewide mask mandate during the pandemic.

• Trump announced that the former New York congressman Lee Zeldin will be selected to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. Trump, who oversaw the rollback of more than 100 environmental rules when he last was US president, said Zeldin was a “true fighter for America First policies” and that “he will ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions”.

• Stephen Miller, the author of Trump’s so-called “Muslim ban” immigration policy during his first term, is set to be his deputy chief of staff with a broad portfolio.

• Trump said on Sunday that Tom Homan, the former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), will be in charge of the country’s borders in his new administration. Homan told Fox News: “If sanctuary cities don’t want to help us, then get the hell out of the way, because we’re coming.”

• New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, 40, has been made ambassador to the United Nations. Stefanik, a Trump-skeptic turned Trump-ally, is the House Republican Conference chair, making her the fourth-ranking House Republican.

• On Thursday, Trump made his first appointment, naming Susie Wiles, who has worked on Republican campaigns since the days of Ronald Reagan, White House chief of staff. She was previously the campaign manager for his victorious bid for re-election.