Trump trial live: Ivanka Trump set to testify in father’s fraud trial

The main focus on Donald Trump’s myriad of legal woes shifted to Lower Manhattan in October as his civil fraud case came to trial at New York state’s Supreme Court.

New York Attorney General Letitia James brought the case against the Trump Organization and maintains that between 2011 and 2021 the company falsified financial statements regarding the development of several real estate projects and artificially inflated Mr Trump’s net worth in order to get better financing terms from banks and insurance companies.

This was done by over-stating valuations of the former president’s most prestigious holdings including his triplex penthouse at Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan and his current home at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida.

As the prosecution’s case draws to a close, three of his adult children are taking the stand to testify under oath, which begs the question: how are they wrapped up in all this and why is their testimony important at the trial?

Ukraine’s president has a message for Donald Trump: Come visit if you think you will be so much help.

Volodymyr Zelensky threw down part challenge, part invitation on Sunday during an interview with Meet the Press on NBC.

“Former President Trump said that [in] about 24 hours, that he can manage it and finish the war,” Mr Zelesnky told NBC’s Kristin Welker, noting that President Joe Biden, his likely 2024 opponent, had already visited. “So he’s very welcome as well… I invite President Trump.”

The Ukrainian leader’s words hold a double-edged meaning. The invitation primarily serves as a response to Mr Trump’s ongoing comments about the Ukraine-Russia war, which he has laid at the feet of the Biden administration to play into the narrative of a “world falling apart” under the Democratic president’s leadership.

A new advert from pro-democracy organisation the Lincoln Project throws Ivanka Trump’s distance from her father, former President Donald Trump, in his face ahead of her testimony.

The former first daughter is set to testify on Wednesday, despite her withdrawal from her father’s business empire, from New York, and from the public eye altogether.

Read the full story here:

Donald Trump’s conservative allies are crafting a blueprint for a Republican presidency in 2025 which could include the use of US troops to put down protests and acts of civil disobedience across the US resulting from a Trump 2024 election victory.

In an extensive report published on Sunday, The Washington Post detailed the work being done under the umbrella of “Project 2025”, an effort by a coalition of conservative groups to prepare a policy and governing agenda for a GOP president. Though none of its connections to the Trump campaign are official, the Post reports that the coalition has ties to a number of members of Mr Trump’s inner circle, including most prominently Jeffrey Clark, the former assistant US attorney general who is now facing criminal charges in Fulton County, Georgia.

Mr Clark, who is thought to have been one of the key minds behind the development of the Trump campaign’s effort to overturn the 2020 election after court challenges had failed to do so, serves as a fellow at the Center for Renewing America, one of the groups involved in the effort. According to the Post, Mr Clark is now working on a new “legal” effort — a plan to go after Donald Trump’s enemies, prominent and otherwise, beginning on day one of a second Trump presidency.

Former first daughter Ivanka Trump will take the stand on Wednesday, in a case that could land a significant blow against her family’s business and vast real-estate empire.

Ms Trump previously failed to block a subpoena for her appearance on the witness stand, and she will testify as the final witness for the prosecution.

Her testimony inside a lower Manhattan courtroom arrives two days after Mr Trump’s, whose verbal outbursts from the witness stand this week unloaded on the case, the presiding judge and the attorney general suing him for fraud.

Alex Woodward has the full story:

A group of preeminent conservative lawyers who opposed former president Donald Trump’s efforts to manipulate the legal system are launching a new, long-term project aimed at fostering respect for the US Constitution and the rule of law in the legal profession.

The group, which initially began operating in 2018 under the name Checks and Balances, includes preeminent conservative legal figures such as J Michael Luttig, the former Fourth Circuit judge who was shortlisted as a Supreme Court pick during the George W Bush administration, and George Conway, who was former president Donald Trump’s pick to run the Justice Department civil division before he became a prominent critic of the ex-president.

Unlike other groups formed by anti-Trump conservatives during Mr Trump’s presidency, the Checks and Balances group has been a bit of a shoestring operation, until now operating with a small budget raised from its’ members.

But a source familiar with the group’s plans told The Independent that a decision was made by the group’s board to seek outside funding for the purposes of a major relaunch and rebranding operation as the “Society for the Rule of Law,” which has now acquired the proper licenses to operate as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with an affiliated 501(c)(4) “social welfare” organisation that can undertake some political work. The society’s roll-out will include a “Rule of Law summit” taking place on Wednesday evening in Washington.

Court filings in the federal election subversion case against Donald Trump appear to indicate that Special Counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution team plan to call January 6 rioters to testify against the former president.

Per the filings, the government plans to include “testimony, video, and photographic evidence that specific individuals who were at the Ellipse when the defendant exhorted them to ‘fight’ at the Capitol then violently attacked law enforcement and breached the Capitol”.

Alan Feuer of The New York Times notes that it also seems to be the case regarding the targeting of former Vice President Mike Pence.

In Donald Trump’s federal election subversion case in Washington, DC, Judge Tanya Chuktan denied the defence team’s request to extend deadlines related to pretrial motions, discovery and subpoenas until 9 February but did permit a two-week extension.

The new timetable is as follows:

Motions to compel shall be filed by November 27, 2023; any oppositions to those motions shall be filed by December 11, 2023; and any replies in support of those motions shall be filed by December 18, 2023.

Motions for Rule 17(c) subpoenas shall be filed by December 13, 2023; any oppositions to those motions shall be filed by December 27, 2023; and any replies in support of those motions shall be filed by January 3, 2024.