Closing summary
Joe Biden called on Congress to allow US government regulators to take back salaries from executives of collapsed banks, as well as ban them from working in finance and levy fines against them. While his allies in the Senate seem supportive of the proposal, it remains to be seen if Republicans will get over their usual wariness towards regulation and back the move, even after the shakiness the US financial system showed in recent weeks. And, of course, there’s Donald Trump news: law enforcement is preparing for the possibility he could be indicted as soon as next week – and he’s back on YouTube.
Here’s what else happened today:
Special prosecutor Jack Smith has subpoenaed a bunch of people who work at Mar-a-Lago as part of his investigation into Trump’s possession of classified material.
Hunter Biden filed a countersuit against a Delaware electronics shop owner who is suing him for defamation. A key issue in Biden’s complaint is whether the laptop and other devices he allegedly left at the shop were actually abandoned.
No attorney-client privilege for Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran, a federal judge ruled, in what is potentially a major victory for Smith’s investigation of the former president.
Kevin McCarthy declined to say if he was on board with repealing the authorizations behind America’s involvement in the Gulf War and invasion of Iraq.
Biden keeps delaying the announcement of his re-election decision.
A federal judge has ordered Evan Corcoran, an attorney for Donald Trump, to provide more testimony to a grand jury convened by special counsel Jack Smith, saying there’s evidence the attorney may have been involved in a crime, CNN reports.
Corcoran had already spoken to the grand jury, but declined to answer some questions that he said would breach the confidentiality between an attorney and their client. According to CNN, district judge Beryl Howell granted Smith’s motion to compel Corcoran to answer those questions, saying evidence that he was hiding evidence of a crime outweighs the attorney-client exception.
Here’s more from CNN:
The decision hands Trump yet another loss under seal in court as his team and allies have tried to hold off Smith’s investigators from learning about direct conversations the former president had with some of his closest advisers.
The development is particularly notable because of accusations prosecutors would have made about Trump as they argued to the judge for the grand jury testimony.
Corcoran, an attorney-turned-witness, had previously testified to the grand jury but declined to answer some questions, citing attorney-client privilege. The department argued to the judge he should not be able to avoid answering, because his discussions with the former president may have been part of an attempt to plan a crime.
Howell’s ruling is one of her last on sealed grand jury disputes as chief judge. The Obama appointee has repeatedly green-lit Justice Department requests to pursue information about Trump’s actions during her tenure as chief of the DC District Court, but she rotates out of the administrative role on Friday.
When Corcoran first testified to the grand jury in January, he was asked about what happened in the lead-up to the August search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence.
Corcoran had drafted a statement in June that attested Trump’s team had done a “diligent search” and there were no more classified documents at Trump’s Florida residence.
After that, the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago and found hundreds of government records, including classified material, raising questions about the lawyer’s attestation.
