Trump awaits fate of business empire in New York civil fraud trial: Live updates – The Independent

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Republican faces another financial blow in the courts as Judge Arthur Engoron’s decision in civil fraud trial looms
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E Jean Carroll vows to give $83m defamation damages to ‘something Trump hates’
Donald Trump is awaiting the outcome of his civil fraud trial in New York where he stands accused of routinely inflating the value of Trump Organization assets between 2011 and 2021 to secure favourable loans and insurance deals from lenders.
The case was brought by state attorney general Letitia James who is seeking $370m in fines.
Judge Arthur Engoron had previously indicated he would deliver a verdict before the end of January.
Mr Trump, his adult sons and two former company executives have denied wrongdoing and the Republican has repeatedly attacked both Ms James and Judge Engoron on social media, accusing them of political bias.
Meanwhile, Mr Trump’s allies in the conservative media ecosystem have begun attacking the pop superstar Taylor Swift, picking up on a bizarre conspiracy theory that her fame is a Democratic “psy-op” intended to brainwash the public into following her in supporting Joe Biden at this year’s election, even though Ms Swift has yet to actually endorse the president.
As Rolling Stone quotes a MAGA insider threatening a “holy war” against the star, Fox News’ Sean Hannity accused her of “buying into” anti-Republican prejudice on his show on Tuesday night.
Voters of Tomorrow, a Gen Z-led nonpartisan organization that harnesses the political power of young Americans and previously spearheaded the “S.W.I.F.T. Initiative” to fight Ticketmaster and other monopolies, today issued the following statement on Donald Trump’s “holy war” against Taylor Swift:
Taylor warned us that the haters gonna hate, and we know all too well that Trump is America’s biggest hater. Now, the former president is attacking Taylor herself — but we are not surprised. Gen Z knew Trump was trouble when he walked into the White House and waged war on our abortion rights, voting rights, and safety. Of course, he can’t help but go after our favorite cultural icon, too. While Trump claims he is ‘more popular’ than Taylor, he is not fooling anyone. Taylor is headlining the most successful tour in history, drawing crowds that Trump only sees in his wildest dreams.
Gen Z has a message for Trump: Go ahead and keep attacking Taylor Swift. We dare you. By picking a fight with Taylor, you are picking a fight with young voters. And the last thing you need is an even worse reputation with us come November.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade have been subpoenaed to testify at the 15 February hearing concerning the motions to disqualify them from the Georgia election interference case.
The subpoenas come from a lawsuit filed on Tuesday on behalf of Trump co-defendant Mike Roman, who accuses the DA’s office of withholding information relating to hearing. Ms Willis’s office says they have complied with state law.
Mr Wade was due to be questioned today as part of his divorce case about the alleged relationship between him and his boss, Ms Willis, but he has settled the divorce on Tuesday.
Other members of the DA’s staff are also reported to be the target of subpoenas, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. They include prosecutor Daysha Young, a member of the Trump prosecution team; Deputy District Attorney Sonya Allen, a member of the anti-corruption division who has also entered the race to be Cobb County district attorney; investigators Thomas Ricks and Michael Hill; executive assistant Tia Green; and attorney Dexter Bond.
Here’s our earlier reporting on the allegations against Ms Willis:
The former president’s legal team has joined a legal effort to try to kick her off the case
Moody’s Analytics has released its last election model report, predicting a that Joe Biden will win re-election by a thin margin, supposing average turnout.
The second term could be secured on the strength of the economy but the firm warns “the upcoming presidential election will be close”.
However, as in 2020 the election will depend on key battlegrounds, with something of a cushion for the president if he carries all or most of them.
The report states:
Similar to 2020’s close and contentious race, the 2024 election will be determined in a few battleground states. On the state level, the outcome is likely to be even closer than in 2020 with five states decided by less than 1 percentage point compared with only three in the previous election. The narrowness of Biden’s margins in Georgia (+0.9 ppt), North Carolina (+0.3 ppt), Nevada (+0.2 ppt), Pennsylvania (+0.8 ppt), and Arizona (-0.8 ppt) suggests that the outcome may not be determined on election night as several states face the prospect of automatic recounts and court challenges—a situation likely to raise anxieties given the aftermath of the 2020 election.
Biden’s projected 308 electoral vote tally provides some cushion. If we start flipping the results of his slimmest victories, the loss of North Carolina and Nevada would trim his vote total to 286, still enough to achieve victory. Losing Georgia, which has 16 electoral votes, would then bring Biden to the exact threshold he needs to win a second term. Therefore, Pennsylvania appears to be the key to winning or losing the 2024 election. Losing the Keystone State’s 19 electoral votes would drop Biden to 267 votes, if he also loses North Carolinaand Nevada, and 251 votes, if he also loses Georgia, swinging the election to Trump. In other words, our model suggests that the upcoming presidential election will likely be determined in Pennsylvania.
Read the full Moody’s report here
Vanity Fair reports:
Republicans are now buzzing about the possibility of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, serving as secretary of state in Trump’s second term. According to two sources, prominent Republicans are speculating that Kushner is in the running to take charge at Foggy Bottom if Trump wins in November. One source briefed on the conversations said Republican senators have privately asked Kushner to head up the agency. According to the source, Kushner has said he is “focused on his family and his business,” and would wait until late summer to consider serving as the nation’s top diplomat.
Mr Kushner declined to comment and the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to Vanity Fair’s request for comment.
Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel used his show on Tuesday night to mock right-wing conspiracy theorists who have claimed Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are “an artificially culturally propped-up couple” created to get President Biden re-elected.
MAGA supporters have in recent weeks pushed a conspiracy theory that Taylor Swift is a Pentagon psy-op for combating misinformation.
But in the past few days, the conspiracy theory was brought to a new level when the singer attended an NFL match in which her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs star Travis Kelce, was playing.
Martha McHardy has the story:
MAGA supporters have in recent weeks pushed a conspiracy theory that Taylor Swift is a Pentagon psy-op
John Bowden explains what’s going on in the Silver State:
Nevada will be the next state to vote for the Republican nominee for president. But one could be forgiven for not remembering that fact, given the lack of media attention.
Both Nikki Haley and Donald Trump, the only two prominent contenders remaining in the fight for the Republican presidential nomination, are technically on the ballot in Nevada. But they are on different ones — Ms Haley is competing in the state’s primary, and Donald Trump is competing in the caucuses. The two won’t actually be “against” each other in the state, as Republican voters can choose to participate in both the primary and the caucus, which will be held on different days.
It’s a bewildering system that has sapped almost the entirety of the state’s political relevance for the 2024 primary season. And it’s all thanks to 2020, when a delay in the results led to many Democratic political leaders in the state, includind the late Harry Reid, pushing for the state to abandon the caucus system in favour of a primary. Only, they didn’t: Nevada now has both.
Continue reading:
Nikki Haley won’t compete in Nevada’s caucuses, which will instead hand delegates to Donald Trump
Just a few hours after a poll showing Joe Biden trailing Donald Trump in six key swing states, a new Quinnipiac University national poll shows the current president pulling ahead of the former president by six points.
Mr Biden holds a lead over Trump 50 to 44 per cent among registered voters in a hypothetical general election matchup. The survey was conducted between 25-29 January and updates a 20 December survey that had the two at 47-46 per cent in favour of the incumbent.
In today’s poll, Democrats (96-2 per cent) and independents (52-40 per cent) support Mr Biden, while Republicans (91-7 per cent) support Mr Trump.
There is good news for Nikki Haley, Mr Trump’s rival for the Republican Party nomination. In a head-to-head match up against Mr Biden, the former UN Ambassador beats the incumbent president 47 per cent to 42 per cent.
Read the full poll results here
A Republican lawmaker has nominated Donald Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize, citing his “historic” policy in the Middle East.
New York representative Claudia Tenney said in a statement that she decided to nominate the former president for his role in the Abraham Accords treaty, which formally normalised relations between the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Israel.
“Donald Trump was instrumental in facilitating the first new peace agreements in the Middle East in almost 30 years,” she claimed in a statement posted on her website.
“For decades, bureaucrats, foreign policy ‘professionals’, and international organisations insisted that additional Middle East peace agreements were impossible without a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. President Trump proved that to be false,” she added.
Martha McHardy has the story:
The Nobel Peace prize committee stresses that receiving a nomination, which any one of thousands of people can make, is not an ‘extended honour’
Donald Trump is in Washington, DC, to meet with the Teamsters union — a city he describes as a “crime fest”.
Stopping to talk to the media, the former president was asked whether he would strike Iran after the drone attack that killed three US soldiers in Jordan, and claimed that it would never have happened if he were in the White House. He then changed the topic to inflation.
Mr Trump also touched on human-trafficking and the border before moving on to talking about his civil and criminal cases. Garrett Haake of NBC News reports that the former president was asked if he would use campaign funds to pay settlements in his New York civil cases, to which he rplied that did nothing wrong. He called the Carroll case a disgrace and says he’s appealing but did not directly answer the question.
Haake further reports that Mr Trump also said says he has told lawmakers who have called him that they should not pass a border bill that isn’t a “great bill,” and calls the bill being negotiated now a terrible bill — but denies he’s opposing the bill because it’s passage could help President Joe Biden.
The former president added that senators who vote for the bill are making a “terrible mistake”.
President Joe Biden said it’s “fine” if Donald Trump remains on 2024 ballots, as the former president faces a wave of lawsuits challenging his eligibility under a constitutional clause blocking insurrectionists from holding public office.
Mr Biden, briefly speaking to reporters shouting questions outside the White House as he prepared to board a helicopter, was asked whether Mr Trump should be “allowed” to stay on presidential election ballots.
“As far as I’m concerned, that’s fine,” Mr Biden replied.
Alex Woodward reports:
Supreme Court could determine if the former president is ineligible for office under the 14th Amendment
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