Trump attacks Jack Smith after special counsel asks for narrow Jan 6 case gag order

The second Republican presidential primary debate is set to take place in Simi Valley, California, at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute on 27 September.

After the rumble in Milwaukee on 23 August the Republican party is set to face off on the debate stage once more, under the direction of moderators Stuart Varney and Dana Perino of Fox News, and Univision’s Ilia Calderón.

There were plenty of fireworks going off centre stage as eight GOP candidates began to exchange harsh words as they battled it out for the nomination for president.

In the first debate, there were three winners that made it to the top, including Mike Pence, Chris Christie, and Nikki Haley with some neutrality with Tim Scott, Asa Hutchinson and Doug Burgum.

Here’s everything you need to know about the second debate, including where to watch and how qualifications have changed.

One of the former Wisconsin Supreme Court justices tapped to investigate impeaching newly elected Justice Janet Protasiewicz for taking Democratic Party money accepted donations from the state Republican Party when he was on the court.

The former justice, Republican David Prosser, gave $500 to the conservative candidate who lost to Protasiewicz, did not recuse from cases involving a law he helped pass as a lawmaker and was investigated after a physical altercation with a liberal justice.

Prosser is one of three former justices tapped by the Republican Assembly speaker to investigate the criteria for taking the unprecedented step of impeaching a current justice. Speaker Robin Vos has floated impeachment because Protasiewicz accepted nearly $10 million from the Wisconsin Democratic Party and said during the campaign that heavily gerrymandered GOP-drawn legislative electoral maps were “unfair” and “rigged.”

The impeachment threat comes after Protasiewicz’s win this spring handed liberals a majority on the court for the first time in 15 years, which bolstered Democratic hopes it would throw out the Republican maps, legalize abortion and chip away at Republican laws enacted over the past decade-plus.

Federal prosecutors are asking the judge overseeing a case targeting Donald Trump’s alleged efforts to subvert the outcome of the 2020 presidential election to help stop his wave of “inflammatory” attacks.

Following a grand jury’s indictment in the case, the former president has “repeatedly and widely disseminated public statements” attacking Washington DC residents as well as members of the court, prosecutors and prospective witnesses, according to a filing in US District Court on 15 September.

His statement threatens “to undermine the integrity of these proceedings and prejudice the jury pool,” prosecutors warned.

Prosecutors with US Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith have asked US District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan to take “immediate” steps to ensure a fair trial and an impartial jury, including drafting a “narrowly tailored order” that restricts “certain prejudicial extrajudicial statements” from Mr Trump.

“I know him well as a friend and a former boss, I have great love and respect for him personally,” she said during a conversation with conservative commentator Steve Deace, first reported by Media Matters.

“I simply can’t support him for elected office again. Why I have chosen to distance is because of that frankly malignant, narcissistic tendency to simply say that he’s never done anything wrong.”

Ms Ellis has previously signalled she would support Ron DeSantis in 2024, and said Mr Trump’s grip on Republican voters was concerning.

Hours after the start of an historic strike among workers at the “Big Three” US automakers, President Joe Biden has urged company leadership to continue negotiating with union leaders, stressing that workers deserve a “fair share” of record profits.

In brief remarks from the White House on 15 September, Mr Biden – who has previously pledged himself as the most “pro-union” president in American history – said that American auto companies have seen those record profits “because of the extraordinary skill and sacrifices” of United Auto Workers union members.

“Those record profits have not been shared fairly, in my view, with those workers,” he said. “Auto workers … deserve a contract that sustains them and the middle class.”

Mr Biden also announced his administration will deploy two top aides to Detroit as both parties continue negotiations.

The US Department of Justice veteran oversaw anti-corruption prosecutions against multiple US politicians in his role as the head of the Department of Justice public integrity section from 2010 to 2015.

One of those cases was against former Virginia governor Robert McDonnell, a Republican against whom he secured a conviction on bribery charges, though the case was later thrown out by the US Supreme Court.

He also won a conviction of former GOP Representative Rick Renzi of Arizona, who received a sentence of three years in prison before being pardoned by Mr Trump.

A Harvard Law School graduate, Mr Smith also served in prosecutorial roles in US Attorney offices in the Middle District of Tennessee and the Eastern District of New York.

Surveillance footage captured during a Beetlejuice show in Denver appears to contradict Lauren Boebert‘s version of events and shows her vaping during the performance.

A spokesperson for the congresswoman previously denied she had vaped in the theatre, from which she was ejected on Sunday night after “causing a disturbance,” reported The Denver Post.

Ms Boebert’s team previously claimed heavy fog machines and electronic cigarettes were used during the play, which lead to a “misunderstanding” that the controversial politician was using an electronic cigarette.

But new footage, obtained by NBC, shows Ms Boebert sitting in the theater and raising her hand to her face before a puff of smoke comes out of her mouth.