Trump news today: Judge Aileen Cannon agrees to keep witnesses in Mar-a-Lago classified documents case secret

The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s criminal case over his alleged mishandling of classified documents has sided with special counsel Jack Smith’s office and agreed that the names of government witnesses in the case should remain secret.

In a new filing on Tuesday, US District Judge Aileen Cannon ruled that potential witnesses’ names and identifiable information must be redacted due to concerns for their safety.

But the judge refused to categorically block witness statements from being disclosed, saying there was no basis for such a “sweeping” and “blanket” restriction on their inclusion in pretrial motions.

“Although the record is clear that the Special Counsel could have, and should have, raised its current arguments previously, the Court elects, upon a full review of those newly raised arguments, to reconsider its prior Order,” she ruled.

“As for legal authority, the cases cited in the Special Counsel’s papers do not lend support to this sweeping request; nor do they appear to have been offered as such.

“And based on the Court’s independent research, granting this request would be unprecedented: the Court cannot locate any case — high-profile or otherwise — in which a court has authorized anything remotely similar to the sweeping relief sought here.”

A new ad released by the Biden campaign on Monday ripped into Donald Trump’s stance on abortion, blaming the former president for the near-death of a Texas woman who was denied the procedure due to the state’s ban.

The 60-second ad, titled “Willow’s Box”, featured an emotional interview with Amanda Zurawski, who discussed the miscarriage of her baby – whom she wanted to name Willow – and the infection that almost killed her twice when she was denied an abortion.

British foreign secretary Lord Cameron has had a face-to-face meeting with Donald Trump in Florida as part of a charm offensive designed to secure more US funding for the war in Ukraine.

The former prime minister visited the former president at his Mar-a-Lago resort despite previously calling him “protectionist, xenophobic, [and] misogynistic” and denouncing one of his policies as “divisive, stupid and wrong”.

The meeting, which the Trump campaign say included a dinner, was the first between a senior minister and Mr Trump since he left office in 2021.

Former President Donald Trump finally responded to criticism of his murky stance on reproductive rights on Monday and issued a video statement outlining abortion policy under a Trump second term.

The four-minute address was posted to his Truth Social media platform and proclaimed that the GOP would remain fundamentally opposed to abortion rights under his leadership.

He also repeated one of his favourite smears about Democrats and abortion as John Bowden reports:

Mr Trump’s fury comes after Mr Graham, who has represented South Carolina in the US Senate since 2003, told The Independent that he didn’t agree with Mr Trump on leaving abortion policy to the states, even as most Republican Senators said they backed the former president’s position.

A Wisconsin senate candidate, who has been endorsed by 77-year-old Donald Trump, has suggested that nursing home residents are too old to vote, new audio has revealed.

Martha McHardy has the story:

Donald Trump may be hundreds of miles away from Washington, sequestered his Mar-a-Lago estate, but his presence was felt keenly on Tuesday as the most senior diplomats from the US and UK gathered to address the war in Ukraine.

Special counsel Jack Smith has urged the US Supreme Court to reject Donald Trump’s “unprecedented” claim that presidential immunity protects him from facing federal charges for trying to overturn the 2020 election.

In a 66-page legal filing on Monday, the special counsel’s office wrote that “a bedrock principle of our constitutional order is that no person is above the law — including the president”.

“The Constitution does not give a president the power to conspire to defraud the United States in the certification of presidential-election results, obstruct proceedings for doing so or deprive voters of the effect of their votes,” the filing adds.

Josh Marcus has the details:

A state appeals court judge rejected his second 11th hour attempt to further delay the trial on Tuesday, one day after a judge denied his request to delay the proceedings while he tries to move the case out of Manhattan.

Mr Trump’s latest attempts to delay the proceedings follow repeated failures to stop what will be the first of four criminal trials he is expected to face in the coming months.

Alex Woodward has the full story: