Trump fraud trial ruling expected today as Fani Willis misconduct hearing resumes – live

Donald Trump, the former president and Republican frontrunner for the top office, has been sharing all kinds of messages about Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis’ hearing and making claims about the case’s weaknesses on his social media platform, Truth Social.

This morning, Trump wrote with skepticism about Willis’ claims she reimbursed her former partner and current special prosecutor Nathan Wade for personal trip expenses using cash.

“Does anybody really believe that Fani Willis paid cash to her ‘lover’ whenever they took expensive ‘trips’ together. Really? Where did she get the CASH? Pretty weak questioning yesterday!!! I guess they don’t want to insult her. No way she can explain any of this corruption away!!!” Trump wrote.

Last night, Trump wrote that the Willis incident is now trending “all over the world.”

“It was a FAKE CASE from the start, and now everybody sees it for what it is, a MAJOR LEAGUE SCANDAL! The legal pundits, experts, and scholars are all screaming that this Witch Hunt, which has hurt so many fine people and patriots, should be immediately terminated and permanently erased from everyone’s memory,” the former president wrote.

While we wait for the Fulton county hearing to get under way, here’s some news from the Associated Press about a visit Joe Biden will take today to East Palestine, Ohio, a town where a train derailed last year. The AP’s Josh Boak reports:

For over a year, President Joe Biden waited for what the White House said was the right moment to visit East Palestine, Ohio, facing criticism that he was ignoring the victims of an explosive fire caused by a train derailment.

On Friday, the president goes to the village of 5,000 at the invitation of its mayor and as the Environmental Protection Agency is on the verge of finishing an extensive cleanup paid for by the train company, Norfolk Southern. Republicans have blasted Biden for not visiting sooner and there are some enduring tensions in the community.

“The president has always said when the time is right and when it made sense for him to go, he would go,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. “And so, that’s what he’s doing.”

During Biden’s visit, there will be a separate rally for former President Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner. Trump won nearly 72% of the vote in Ohio’s Columbiana County, which includes East Palestine.

Mike Young, the rally’s coordinator, described the grass-roots event as “anti-Biden.” He said he delivered water to the community after the disaster and the president should have been an immediate presence on the ground.

“The sentiment from residents has been: Where were you a year ago?” Young said. “Too little, too late. And now Biden shows up at election time.”

The Fulton county district attorney won’t be taking the stand again, the state said.

The hearing over the effort to disqualify the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, from the sprawling election subversion case against Trump and his allies resumes this morning, with Willis expected to again take the stand for questioning.

The former romantic relationship between Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade is a sideshow to the case, which alleges Trump and his network tried to steal the 2020 election.

But it’s become a way for Republicans and Trump to undermine the case. On the campaign trail, Trump often calls the handful of court cases he now faces “election interference”, though he also campaigns on the cases, too, talking about how they’re evidence of a deep state and that he’s doing something right if so many people are coming after him. He’s spent recent weeks popping back and forth between campaign stops and courtrooms, and the fact he could end up on jail doesn’t seem to be hurting his campaign.

These cases are a main feature of the 2024 election, with Trump’s foes hoping for accountability that keeps the former president away from the White House, and his allies wanting him to fend off the challenges to show his strength.

The hearing in Fulton county will begin shortly. We’ll have coverage from on the ground and analysis from our reporters who’ve covered the case here.

You can follow a livestream of Judge Scott McAfee’s courtroom here.

Good morning, US politics readers. Yesterday was dominated by two Trump-related hearings in different parts of the country. Today, one will resume, in Georgia. And a ruling is expected in another Trump case, in New York.

• Former president and current Republican frontrunner Donald Trump appeared in a Manhattan courtroom yesterday for his first criminal trial, a case that revolves around hush money paid to the adult film star Stormy Daniels and the playboy model Karen McDougal. Trump’s run for reelection played into the president’s antics in and out of the courtroom.

• Further south, in Georgia, the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, sat for a hearing where her relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade was picked apart and questioned by a defendant in the Trump case, Mike Roman, who is seeking to have them both removed from the case, alleging a conflict of interest because of their romantic relationship.

• At issue in the hearing were the timeline of the two attorneys’ relationship and any shared finances, like Wade potentially paying for trips they took together, as defense attorneys try to make the case that Wade’s payments for working the case somehow enriched Willis.

• The Georgia hearing was salacious and heated, with Willis hitting back at defense attorneys questioning her with: “I’m not on trial, no matter how hard you try to put me on trial.”

• The hearing resumes in Georgia today at 9am eastern. Judge Scott McAfee’s courtroom has a livestream here, or you can check out news stations’ livestreams.

• Meanwhile, back in New York but in a different case from the hush money one, a ruling is expected today in a fraud trial where Trump faces a potential $370m fine and a lifetime ban on doing real estate in the state.

• The New York fraud case came from the state attorney general’s office suing the former president for inflating the value of his assets on government financial statements.

• If you’re having trouble following all the Trump cases, we have a rundown of them here, with the key players and details of the allegations in each one.

• Beyond Trumpworld, news broke late yesterday that an FBI informant, Alexander Smirnov, was charged for lying to his handler about ties between Joe Biden, his son Hunter and a Ukrainian energy company, allegations that became fodder for Republicans.

The Trump trials will probably be today’s big news in US politics again, as we follow the second day of the hearing over Willis and Wade’s relationship in Georgia and the expected ruling on the New York fraud case.