Trump fumes about Smith’s trial date ahead of protective order hearing – live

In a new legal filing, the prosecutor criticised the former president’s attorneys for writing that Mr Smith’s team “has been investigating this matter for three and a half years, while the defense is starting with a blank slate”.

“Not only is this claim impossible, as January 6, 2021, was two and a half years ago, but it is disingenuous,” the Special Counsel’s office wrote.

…including the cases against former President Donald Trump and his former trade adviser Peter Navarro.

Mr Trump’s attorneys John Lauro and Todd Blanche are in the building.

The hearing commences at 10am and will focus on setting a protective order governing evidence-sharing in the case.

Donald Trump’s lead attorney made a series of TV and media appearances in the days after the former president was federally indicted for three criminal conspiracies and the obstruction of the 2020 presidential election.

John Lauro said his client’s alleged actions were protected by the First Amendment. He floated a possible defence strategy in an upcoming trial. And he claimed that the former president, who is accused of committing crimes while in office, is “immune” from the case that federal prosecutors have brought against him.

Donald Trump has baselessly claimed that the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot deleted evidence in the case.

“Nobody can believe that the Unselect J-6 Committee deleted and disposed of the evidence. They knew how bad it was. Highly Illegal!” he fumed in a late-night Truth Social post on Thursday.

The former president offered no evidence or explanation for his claim.

The district attorney of Fulton County issued a memorandum to her office staff denouncing a new lie being told about her by Donald Trump and his allies while instructing them to not comment publicly on the matter.

Fani Willis issued the memo after the Trump campaign began running an ad spot in the state suggesting falsely that she had been engaged in an extramarital affair with a rapper who was the target of a racketeering probe launched by Ms Willis’s office, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) reported on Wednesday.

There’s zero evidence for such an affair occurring, and neither of the parties alleged to have been involved have claimed as much. But that hasn’t stopped the former president and his team from making the outright dishonest assertion at least once during public campaign rallies with his followers in recent weeks, or from running ads claiming that Ms Willis “got caught hiding a relationship with a gang member she was prosecuting”.

“I guess they say that she was after a certain gang and she ended up having an affair with the head of the gang or a gang member,” Mr Trump said of Ms Willis at a rally in New Hampshire.

Donald Trump took to Truth Social on Thursday night to rant about special counsel Jack Smith’s requested date for the criminal trial over the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

On Thursday, Mr Smith’s office asked the District of Columbia judge overseeing the case for a four to six-week period beginning on 2 January next year.

The former president reacted furiously to the proposal, calling Mr Smith “an out of touch lunatic” and the suggested date a form of “election interference” – coming “just ahead of the important Iowa Caucuses”.

“Deranged Jack Smith has just asked for a trial on the Biden Indictment to take place on January 2nd., just ahead of the important Iowa Caucuses,” he fumed.

“Only an out of touch lunatic would ask for such a date, ONE DAY into the New Year, and maximum Election Interference with IOWA! Such a trial, which should never take place due to my First Amendment Rights, and massive BIDEN CORRUPTION, should only happen, if at all, AFTER THE ELECTION.

“The same with other Fake Biden Indictments. ELECTION INTERFERENCE!”

Utah Governor Spencer Cox on Thursday hit back at critics who have questioned why he, a Republican, would welcome President Joe Biden to his state rather than make a show of publicly snubbing the US chief executive over policy disagreements.

Mr Cox, who was among the official greeters who met Mr Biden as he disembarked from Air Force One on Wednesday, addressed the question of why he’d chosen to attend the president’s arrival when he spoke on Thursday ahead of Mr Biden at an event to mark the anniversary of the PACT Act, a piece of bipartisan veterans’ care legislation which the president signed into law last year.

Mr Cox said he’d welcomed him to the Beehive State on behalf of its more than three million residents.

“Anytime we get the opportunity to have a president of either party in our state, we appreciate this amazing opportunity that we have to collaborate to work closely together, to push back on policies with which we disagree and to find areas of common ground,” he said.

A court hearing will take place at 10am ET today on the matter of a protective order in the criminal case over the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Last week, special counsel Jack Smith’s office had requested a protective order in the federal criminal case limiting what Mr Trump can publicise about the case.

Such an order would not stop Mr Trump from commenting on the case altogether, but would simply prevent him from disclosing evidence such as secret grand jury materials.

The request specifically referred to a seemingly threatening Truth Social post from the former president where he wrote: “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!”

On Monday, Mr Trump’s defence team filed a motion pushing back against the protective order, claiming that his political rivals are campaigning off the back of his legal troubles.

They also claim a protective order would violate Mr Trump’s right to free speech in what they say is “a trial about First Amendment rights”.

Instead, Mr Trump’s defence is asking the judge to narrow limits of a protective order so that his right to free speech is protected.

Mr Smith’s office quickly filed a motion in response, accusing the former president of trying to “litigate this case in the media”.

Now, Judge Tanya Chutkan has ordered that a court hearing will take place to hear arguments on the matter. Mr Trump is not required to attend the hearing.