Trump aide claims he wrote ‘to-do lists’ on classified documents: Live

Elon Musk said X is looking to charge users a “small monthly payment” to tackle bots on the social network.

X, previously known as Twitter, underwent a number of changes soon after Mr Musk, the multibillionaire owner of X Corp, bought it.

The platform is now “moving to having a small, monthly payment for use of the X system” to combat “vast armies of bots”, Mr Musk said during a livestreamed conversation with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday.

However, the Tesla and SpaceX boss did not reveal how much the new plan would cost X users or what additional features subscribers would get.

During the interaction with Mr Netanyahu, the Tesla titan said X currently has 550 million “monthly users” who generate 100-200 million posts per day, adding that the new change to include a “small amount of money” would be necessary to deal with the problem posed by bots.

Under the Tesla titan, the platform restored the account of former US president Donald Trump who was banned following the 2021 Capitol riots, as well as the profiles of Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene and neo-Nazi website founder Andrew Anglin.

Hunter Biden has gone on the offensive against his Republican critics, arguing in a new lawsuit that although he is the son of the president of the United States, he shouldn’t be treated differently than any other American.

The lawsuit against the IRS is only the latest in a series of counterpunches by the president’s son. But while Hunter Biden’s lawyers might think that an aggressive approach is the best legal strategy for Biden the son, that might not be what’s best for Biden the father as he seeks reelection and tries to keep the public focused on his policy achievements.

The president has had little to say about his son’s legal woes — which now include a felony indictment — beyond that Hunter did nothing wrong and he loves his son. The White House strategy has been to keep the elder Biden head-down and focused on governing, reasoning that that’s what voters will prioritize, while working to keep Hunter’s troubles at arm’s distance.

There’s one hopeful school of thought among the president’s allies that even if all the headlines about Hunter Biden aren’t a plus for the president’s reelection campaign, the legal process could ultimately clear the air in a positive way.

“Obviously, the White House and Hunter’s teams are looking at it from different perspectives,” said Democratic political strategist David Brock. “It’s important for the facts to reach the public, and when that happens, I think ultimately that’s beneficial to the president.”

The classified documents indictment of Donald Trump would seem, on paper at least, to be the most straightforward of the four criminal cases the former president is facing.

Reams of classified files were stashed in Trump’s office and storage room and he boastfully showed off to guests one such document he acknowledged was “secret,” federal prosecutors have alleged. His own lawyer is quoted in the indictment as saying Trump encouraged him to mislead investigators who demanded the documents back, and prosecutors have since secured the cooperation of a Mar-a-Lago staffer who says the ex-president asked about deleting surveillance footage at the Palm Beach property.

But that doesn’t make the path to conviction easy, particularly with the case set for trial in a Florida courthouse expected to draw its jury pool from a conservative-leaning region of the state that supported Trump in the 2020 election. Those built-in demographics may be a challenge for prosecutors despite the evidence at their disposal, underscoring the impossibility of untangling the law from politics in an election-year trial involving a former president who is seeking to return to the White House.

“The more conservative the counties, the highest chance he has to find jurors that would be sympathetic with him,” said Richard Kibbey, a criminal defense attorney in Stuart, Florida, part of the Fort Pierce district where the jury pool is expected to be taken from.

When it comes to finding truly impartial jurors, he added, “It’s going to be very difficult given the political climate across the country. Jurors will bring their own biases into the court room.”

Molly Michael, a former assistant to Mr Trump, said on multiple occasions she was given lists of tasks on documents she later realised had markings as classified material, ABC reports, citing unnamed sources familiar with her testimony to federal investigators.

A Trump spokesperson told the network that the claims were “illegal leaks” that lacked “proper context and relevant information.”

“President Trump did nothing wrong, has always insisted on truth and transparency, and acted in a proper manner, according to the law,” the spokesperson said.

Ms Michael began working for Mr Trump in 2018 in the White House, and continued to serve the former president after office, before resigning last year.

Rudy Giuliani’s former lawyers have sued him for about $1.3m in unpaid legal fees for representing him during investigations pertaining to his attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Robert Costello and his law firm Davidoff Hutcher & Citron LLP filed the lawsuit in Manhattan state court on Monday, seeking full payment of Mr Giuliani‘s unpaid bills as well as costs and fees for their efforts to get him to pay up.

The lawsuit alleged Mr Giuliani agreed to pay over $1.5m under a retainer agreement, but only paid $214,000 and owes $1.36 million to the firm.

Mr Costello and the firm said Mr Giuliani, once celebrated as “America’s mayor” for his leadership after the 11 September 2001 attacks, breached the agreement with the company to pay invoices in full.

Mr Giuliani said he was hurt by the actions of Mr Costello, a longtime friend and his former lawyer, and said the bill “is way in excess”.

Donald Trump is expected to skip the upcoming second Republican presidential primary debate and speak to a crowd of union workers in Detroit amid the ongoing auto strike, advisers of the former president told The New York Times.

The snub comes after Mr Trump skipped the first GOP debate of the season last month, chosing instead to sit down with former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson for an in-depth interview broadcast on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The former president, who stands well ahead of the crowded Republican field in the polls, has downplayed the importance of the debates.

“The public knows who I am & what a successful Presidency I had, with Energy Independence, Strong Borders & Military, Biggest EVER Tax & Regulation Cuts, No Inflation, Strongest Economy in History, & much more,” he wrote on Truth Social in August. “I WILL THEREFORE NOT BE DOING THE DEBATES!”

The lack of a debate presence has done little to impact his front-runner status.