Trump claims indictment is ‘great honor’ ahead of formal arraignment on Jan 6 charges – live

A handful of right-wing outlets have been rushing to Donald Trump’s defense after the former president got indicted for the third time.

The Guardian’s Adam Gabbatt reports on how conservative outlets have been attempting to undermine the investigation:

In the minutes after the Trump indictment was filed in federal district court in Washington, conservative commentators rapidly scrambled to his defense. Rightwing pundits lined up to compare the charges to “criminalizing thoughts” and the dropping of “fifteen dozen” atomic bombs – and that was just on Fox News.

Rightwing TV channel Newsmax, which has drained some of Fox News’s audience in recent months, brought on Rudy Giuliani, an unnamed co-conspirator in Tuesday’s indictment, who railed for seven minutes about Hillary Clinton’s emails and Biden being a “crooked president”.

In America’s rightwing media ecosystem it was a largely united front. News outlets repeatedly pressed the idea that Trump’s free speech was being criminalized: that the former president had done nothing more than talk about the election being stolen.

The effort, perhaps deliberately, ignored prosecutors’ allegations that Trump had convened false slates of electors and attempted to block the certification of the election on January 6.

For the full story, click here:

Donald Trump took to Truth Social ahead of this afternoon’s arraignment, writing in all caps:

“I AM NOW GOING TO WASHINGTON D.C, TO BE ARRESTED FOR HAVING CHALLENGED A CORRUPT, RIGGED, AND STOLEN ELECTION. IT IS A GREAT HONOR BECAUSE I AM BEING ARRESTED FOR YOU. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”

Trump then went on to write:

“I NEED ONE MORE INDICTMENT TO ENSURE MY ELECTION.”

Trump, who is scheduled to be arraigned for the third time this year, has been using the indictment to boost his presidential campaign.

He has called it the “final battle and urged his followers to join him, saying, “With you by my side we will demolish the deep state.”

At one point, his presidential campaign compared the indictment to Nazi Germany, writing on Truth Social:

“The lawlessness of these persecutions of President Trump and his supporters is reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, the former Soviet Union, and other authoritarian, dictatorial regimes.”

Meanwhile, a slew of Republicans and rightwing media networks have been flocking to Trump’s defense in an attempt to undermine the case.

Fox News’s Jesse Watters called the indictment “political germ warfare” and “political war crimes.” Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene condemned the indictment as a “political assassination.” An editor at Blaze, a far-right outlet went as far as urging the Republican-led House to force a government shutdown.

John Lauro, one of Donald Trump’s attorney, told NPR that his focus is to attain a “just trial” over a “speedy trial.”

In a new interview released on Wednesday with NPR, Lauro responded to a question on whether he’d have any objection to try and bring the case to trial before the November 2024 election.

Lauro said:

“Speedy trial rights belong to the defense, not the government. The government has an obligation to turn over a lot of material and a lot of information, which they’ve not done yet, but they will. You know, the special counsel has, or the Biden Justice Department, has been investigating this case for three and a half years.

And it just seems to me, in fairness, that we should have enough time to study the documents, be able to interview witnesses and look at the evidence in its totality, address a lot of legal issues with the judge as well.

So what we want is a just trial, not simply a speedy trial. There’s no need to railroad any defendant in the United States. And we’re hoping the justice department will recognize that justice is more important than speed.”

President Joe Biden will not follow the arraignment of Donald Trump this afternoon at federal court in Washington DC, CNN reports.

Biden, who was cycling in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware on Thursday told a CNN reporter “No” in response to whether he will follow the arraignment at 4pm ET today.

Biden has yet to comment on the indictment since it was unveiled earlier this week.

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has released a video of him outside the federal court where Donald Trump is set to be arraigned today, urging the Biden administration to “tell us the truth” behind the indictment.

“I’m here at the courthouse where Trump will be arraigned later today & I’m making a demand to our government: tell us the truth about what’s really driving this flurry of prosecutions, with trial dates set during the height of the upcoming election,” said the millionaire entrepreneur.

That’s why I sued the DOJ this week to tell us exactly what Biden told Garland & what Garland told Jack Smith about the Trump indictments.

He went on to say that he filed a FOIA request to the justice department to “understand what president Biden told Jack Smith, to understand what Merrick Garland told Jack Smith.”

Tulsi Gabbard, a former Congresswoman and 2020 presidential candidate, has also hit back against Donald Trump’s indictment and criticized Joe Biden’s presidency.

“Trump indictment is Biden Admin’s latest tyrannical tactic to distract and drain resources from his main political adversary. So now anyone who criticizes how govt runs an election is a criminal? Dem elite are destroying our democracy/country,” Gabbard tweeted.

She went on to say:

“This is yet another example of president Joe Biden’s politicized department of justice is willing to go to try to destroy is main political opponent as the presidential election is going on.

This foundational purpose of what the Biden administration is doing is really the thing that should be concerning to everyone.”

Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has called the indictment against Donald Trump a “political assassination.”

Greene, a staunch Trump ally, tweeted on Thursday:

“Today’s indictment of President Trump is a political assassination attempt by Joe Biden and his henchmen to remove the leading presidential candidate from the ballot in 2024.”

“The American people will reelect President Trump! #Trump2024,” she added.

Mike Pence has hit back at the “gaggle of crackpot lawyers” that worked with Donald Trump to allegedly attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

The Guardian’s Adam Gabbatt reports:

Trump was charged with four felonies this week over his attempts to meddle with the presidential election. The 45-page indictment shows that Pence was a crucial figure in Jack Smith, the special counsel, being able to bring those charges.

“Contemporaneous notes” taken by Pence, and referred to in the indictment, document how Trump and his advisors pressured Pence to reject the certification of the election in January, which could have resulted in the House of Representatives handing Trump a second-term in office.

On Wednesday, as Trump and his legal team attempted to downplay those efforts – one of Trump’s lawyers suggested that they only asked Pence to do “pause the voting” on January 6 – the usually meek Pence reacted angrily.

“Let’s be clear on this point. It wasn’t just that they asked for a pause,” he told Fox News.

“The president specifically asked me, and his gaggle of crackpot lawyers asked me, to literally reject votes, which would have resulted in the issue being turned over to the House of Representatives, and literally chaos would have ensued.”

For the full story, click here:

Donald Trump has vowed to get his revenge on Joe Biden and his attorney general for charging him “with as many crimes as can be concocted”.

Posting on Truth Social, the former president wrote:

Look, it’s not my fault that my political opponent in the Democrat Party, Crooked Joe Biden, has told his Attorney General to charge the leading (by far!) Republican Nominee & former President of the United States, me, with as many crimes as can be concocted so that he is forced to spend large amounts of time & money to defend himself. The Dems don’t want to run against me or they would not be doing this unprecedented weaponization of “Justice.” BUT SOON, IN 2024, IT WILL BE OUR TURN. MAGA!

US Marshals have been seen inside the federal courthouse where Donald Trump is to due to appear later today.

A group of heavily armed men, including members of the service’s special operations unit, were seen arriving inside the court with tactical gear and rifles, CNN reported.

A bomb-sniffing dog, a black lab named Legend, was also seen on patrol, as well as Secret Service agents patrolling inside the building.

From NBC’s Ryan J Reilly:

Federal prosecutors have charged Donald Trump over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, the latest criminal case before the former president that comes just weeks after he was charged with retaining national defense information.

You can read the indictment here in full:

Biotech entrepeneur and GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy appeared outside the federal courthouse in Washington in an attempt to boost his visibility.

In a video posted to Twitter, Ramaswamy questioned why Trump has been indicted in three “supposedly independent prosecutions” in the midst of a presidential election. “The government does not trust the people to select their leaders,” he said.

When Donald Trump appears at the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse in Washington, DC this afternoon to answer the indictment brought against him by special counsel Jack Smith for allegedly trying to overturn his 2020 election loss, he will not be formally arrested or have his mugshot taken.

The former president will undergo digital fingerprinting as part of the booking process at the federal courthouse, and will be required to provide his social security number, date of birth, address, and other personal information, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, citing US Marshals Service spokesman Drew Wade.

Trump will not have his photograph taken during his processing, “since he’s already easily recognizable and there are already many photographs available”.

He will also not be placed under arrest, according to Wade. In accepting the indictment on Tuesday, US Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya issued a summons for his appearance, not an arrest warrant.

For those involved with the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol, special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment brought a collective sigh of relief, according to a Washington Post report.

For them, the indictment served as the start of a final stage of accountability for Donald Trump and his allies that the committee long sought, but also as a validation of the group’s work, the paper wrote, citing sources.

The indictment also elevated their findings outside of the political arena, where their work was subject to constant allegations of partisanship, bringing the credibility of the criminal justice system.

Retired group chats were revived and calls placed to old colleagues as lawmakers and investigators absorbed the news.

Tim Heaphy, the lead investigator for the committee, told the paper:

As I read the indictment, it really struck me how closely it hews to our structure and our findings. Facts are what matters. And lawyers get too much credit for facts. We gathered really important facts because a lot of people came forward and gave us those facts. Those same facts are leading to a criminal indictment of the former president.