Lawyer refused Trump’s order: The Washington Post reports this morning that Alex Cannon, who was one of Donald Trump’s lawyers, refused an order from Trump to tell the National Archives that all government documents Trump had taken to Mar-a-Lago had been returned to the government when it wasn’t true. The Post also reports that Trump packed boxes of documents by himself and therefore knew what he was sending back to the government and what he was keeping, including classified documents marked top secret.
Walker denies abortion story: Herschel Walker, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Georgia, denies a report by The Daily Beast that in 2009 he paid for an abortion his girlfriend had. Walker is campaigning on an anti-abortion platform that supports the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. Walker threatened to file a lawsuit today against The Daily Beast. One of Walker’s sons, Christian Walker, last night put out a series of Tweets in which he blasted his father for pretending to be a moral person while actually being a liar.
Supreme Court hears voting rights case: The Supreme Court today takes up a case in which could give the court’s conservative majority the opportunity effectively decimate the Voting Rights Act. The case deals with redistricting in Alabama, where the state has seven Congressional districts but only one Black representative. Blacks make up 27% of the state’s population. It’s alleged the state’s Congressional districts were drawn to prevent Blacks from electing a second Congressperson, which would better reflect the state’s population.
Oath Keepers stockpiled weapons: Prosecutors in the seditious conspiracy trial of Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes and four others said in opening arguments yesterday that the Oath Keepers had stockpiled hand grenades as well as guns and ammunition and were ready to bring them to the Capitol as soon as Donald Trump invoked the insurrection act. Doing so would have legalized Trump’s use private militias in his fight to stay in power. However, Trump did not invoke the act. The Justice Department alleges that Rhodes and others plotted against the peaceful transfer of power.
Kremlin praises Musk’s plan: The Kremlin today praised American billionaire Elon Musk for suggesting that the Ukraine war could be settled by permanently turning over Crimea to Russia and having the U.N. supervise new votes in Ukrainian territory now controlled by the Russian military on whether to become part of Russia. Ukrainian officials denounced Musk’s plan saying they will never give up land that was taken by force.
Nobel Prize in Physics awarded: Three scientists are sharing the Nobel Prize in Physics, it was announced today. They are Alain Aspect, Anton Zeilinger and John Clauser. Clauser is American, Zeilinger is Austrian and Aspect is French. They worked on quantum information science.