Trump latest news today: Defiant Christie booed over Trump criticism as special counsel strikes fake electors deal

Donald Trump told a crowd at his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey that he “doesn’t need any help” fighting his numerous legal battles and that he has actively rejected major law firms offering him assistance.

He made the comments on Thursday night, according to Mediaite.

Graig Graziosi has the details.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Friday he supports the idea of expunging the two impeachments of Donald Trump as hard-right Republican allies of the former president introduce a pair of proposals to declare it as though the historic charges never happened.

McCarthy told reporters that he agrees with Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Elise Stefanik who want to erase the charges against Trump from the former president’s impeachments of 2019 and 2021.

Josh Marcus has the story.

Will Hurd, the newest Republican 2024 presidential candidate, says he won’t sign the RNC pledge to support the eventual nominee.

“I’m not going to support Donald Trump.”

Asked if the former president betrayed the nation if the allegations against him are true, he says: “100% he did.”

Mr Hurd later tweeted: “We pledge allegiance to the United States, not political leaders. I’m working to fulfill the debate requirements but I’m not going to lie to the American people or my party for the sake of a microphone.”

In response to the news that former president Donald Trump spoke at a fundraiser for January 6 defendants at his Bedminster golf club, co-host of The View and former White House aide Alyssa Farah Griffin tweeted: “Hey Republicans: remember how mad we were when then-Sen. Kamala Harris solicited bail funds for protestors? What Trump is doing is worse.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland pushed back Friday against claims from IRS whistleblowers that the Justice Department interfered with the investigation into Hunter Biden, saying more broadly that attacks on the department’s independence are corrosive.

Elise Stefanik, the fourth highest-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives Republican, and rightwing hardliner Marjorie Taylor Greene introduced a pair of resolutions that if enacted would aim to change the record “as if such articles had never been passed”.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has responded to video footage of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s speech this morning at the Faith & Freedom Coalition conference in which he said: “Don’t tell me [woke] doesn’t affect people’s lives. I was just in San Francisco. I saw … people defecating on the sidewalk. I saw people using fentanyl. I saw people smoking crack.”

The New York representative commented on Twitter: “DeSantis led a Florida law that has already forced women to carry unviable pregnancies to term, just to watch their newborn die.

“But instead of acknowledg[ing] his brutality against women, he wants to scare you with his alleged accounts of struggling people, whom he also won’t help.”

Hunter Biden’s attorney Chris Clark gave a statement to Fox News about the WhatsApp text allegations about the president’s son: “Any verifiable words or actions of my client in the midst of a horrible addiction are solely his own and have no connection to anyone in his family.”

Following his speech at the Faith & Freedom Coalition conference, Chris Christie spoke with reporters as he departed the Washington Hilton.

The former New Jersey governor said: “We can’t pretend Donald Trump is a man of character,” before listing his reasons and who he now stands with against the former president.

Mr Christie also characterised Mr Trump as either an “idiot or a liar”.

He posted footage of his remarks to Twitter shortly after, writing: “One of the cornerstones of faith is character. I’m not afraid to say the quiet part out loud. Donald Trump is not a man of character. We all know this. Stop hiding from the truth.”