Trump campaign sues New York Times for libel over Russia opinion piece – as it happened

Follow the latest in US politics with Friday’s blog:

A quick look back at news of the day before we close out the blog for the afternoon:

• Speaking at an afternoon press conference, Donald Trump tried to assure the public the US is “very prepared” to combat the spread of the Coronavirus and placed vice president Mike Pence in charge of the US response to the unfolding outbreak. Reporter Amanda Holpuch has more.

• Barack Obama called on TV stations in South Carolina to pull an ad by a pro-Trump super PAC, saying that it takes Obama’s words out of context to create a misleading attack on Joe Biden.

• Donald Trump’s re-election campaign filed a libel lawsuit against the New York Times, accusing the newspaper of intentionally publishing a false article related to the investigation into Russian election interference in 2016.

• A federal appeals court in New York ruled that the Trump administration can withhold millions of dollars from law enforcement agencies in so-called sanctuary cities that don’t cooperate with immigration enforcement agencies, reported the New York Times. New York City mayor Bill de Blasio blasted the decision, saying that the ruling, if implemented, would strip local law enforcement of resources and make it more difficult for them to maintain public safety.

On Wednesday a federal appeals court ruled that the Trump administration can withhold millions of dollars from law enforcement agencies in so-called sanctuary cities that don’t cooperate with immigration enforcement agencies.

The New York Times reports that the decision by United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan makes it the first to side with the administration on whether it can withhold money to enforce cooperation.

New York City mayor Bill de Blasio blasted the decision, saying in a statement:

“President Trump’s latest retaliation against his hometown takes away security funding from the number one terrorist target in America, all because we refuse to play by his arbitrary rules,” he said, adding “We’ll see President Trump back in court. And we will win.”

Immigrant rights advocates argue that such cooperation between local police and immigration enforcement agencies make communities less safe because they discourage immigrants from reporting crimes to law enforcement out of fear they’ll face deportation or other sanctions. Cutting funds could further jeopardize police efforts, they say.

Trump on the other hand, has taken aim at sanctuary cities, arguing that they flout the rule of law and jeopardize public safety by releasing dangerous criminals into the community, despite evidence showing that sanctuary laws do not make communities less safe.

While today’s decision breaks new ground, immigration enforcement and local police have worked together with a wink and a nod, even in jurisdictions associated with sanctuary polices.

This week a jury in New York toppled Harvey Weinstein when it convicted the former movie titan of rape.

A jury of 12 at the New York supreme court took five days to reach their verdict: guilty of a criminal sex act in the first degree for forcing oral sex on the former Project Runway production assistant Miriam Haley in 2006.

The verdict was welcome news to his many accusers. It was also closely watched by Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., who’s faced criticism for not bringing charges against the film mogul long ago.

Reports the New York Times:

Mr. Vance, who leads one of the most storied district attorney’s offices in the country, was the first prosecutor to bring charges against Mr. Weinstein, and the verdict marked a triumphant moment in the career of a liberal who first ran as a champion on women’s issues.

Yet, as much as the prosecutor wanted to turn the page, he remained embattled, still struggling to regain the support of feminists and victims’ advocates who have faulted his office’s handling of sex crimes.

In an interview with the Times, Vance expressed regret to survivors of sexual assault who left his office feeling “not listened to.”

Former president Barack Obama asked TV stations in South Carolina to pull an ad by a pro-Trump super PAC, saying that it takes Obama’s words out of context to create a misleading attack on Joe Biden.

The Washington Post reported Wednesday that The Committee to Defend the President reported to the Federal Election Commission that it had spent more than $250,000 in South Carolina to oppose Biden. The paper writes that the ad falsely suggests that Obama’s voice in the narration refer to Biden.

Katie Hill, Obama’s communications director, told the Post in a statement:

This despicable ad is straight out of the Republican disinformation playbook, and it’s clearly designed to suppress turnout among minority voters in South Carolina by taking President Obama’s voice out of context and twisting his words to mislead viewers.

In the interest of truth in advertising, we are calling on TV stations to take this ad down and stop playing into the hands of bad actors who seek to sow division and confusion among the electorate.

The day before in-person voting is set to begin in California, the nation’s most populous state where 415 delegates are at stake, Joe Biden’s East Los Angeles field office is quiet, writes the New York Times. It could be a sign of things to come for Biden, even as he looks for a win in the South Carolina primary to boost his chances against Bernie Sanders.

Biden’s ground-game in the Golden State is dwarfed by those of Sanders and Mike Bloomberg.

“Interviews with party leaders in half a dozen Super Tuesday states suggest that the same vulnerabilities that plagued Mr. Biden beginning in Iowa — subpar organization, limited outreach to local Democrats and a late start to campaigning — are holding him back in the states that next week will dole out a third of the total delegates in the Democratic primary,” writes the New York Times.

Read more on Biden’s chances in California and what that could mean for his campaign.

Multiple people have been killed in Milwaukee after a shooter stormed the campus of Molson Coors, an industrial pocket located in the city’s near northwest side. Early reports indicate at least five are dead, including the shooter.

Donald Trump, speaking at a press conference on the US response to the Coronavirus outbreak, called the shooter a “wicked murderer” and said “Our hearts break for them and their loved ones.”

Former politician and current gun control advocate Gabrielle Giffords, who survived an assassination attempt by a gunman in Tucson, condemned the attack on Twitter.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is on the ground monitoring the situation. More news to come.

Donald Trump is scheduled to start speaking in the next several minutes on the US government’s response to the Coronavirus outbreak.

Tune in to the Guardian’s liveblog on the topic to hear the latest.

A US district judge has denied a motion by the Miami Herald and reporter Julie K. Brown that asked her to reconsider her ruling that a large cache of files related to Jeffrey Epstein be released.

Courthouse News reporter Adam Klasfeld Tweeted that the news is a setback to those looking to unseal the files but that there should be future opportunities to do so.

A bill to make lynching a hate crime under federal law passed the House on Wednesday.

The Emmett Till Anti-lynching Act is a nod to Emmett Till, who was 14 when a group of white men beat him with a gun, shot him and threw his body in the Tallahatchie River with a cotton-gin fan tied to his neck with barbed wire. An all-white, all-male jury later acquitted two of the suspected murderers.

The bill passed by a wide margin, 410-4. For some, just as newsworthy as the results is the fact that four voted “no” on the bill.

As US health officials warn that the Coronavirus outbreak has entered a new phase, Donald Trump is expected to address the public tonight at 6:30 ET, speaking to questions on the US government’s response to it.

So far Trump has issued messages that downplay the scope and spread of the disease despite warnings from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that the respiratory illness is likely to cause “severe disruption” to the lives of ordinary Americans.

Guardian reporter Amanda Holpuch has five things to watch for in Trump’s upcoming address:

How the US is monitoring the outbreak

While South Korea has tested more than 35,000 people for coronavirus, the US has tested 426 people, excluding those returned on evacuation flights, Holpuch writes.

Who’s in charge

The White House says the coronavirus response is in the hands of the health secretary, Alex Azar. But Ronald Klain, who held monitored the Ebola outbreak under Obama, told the New York Times that Azar is not enough: “One cabinet secretary cannot run an interagency response. Azar has the biggest civilian job in the American government. Is he doing this in his spare time?”

How much money is available

Now, the White House has requested $1.25bn in new emergency funding and to divert another $1.25bn from existing federal programs, Holpuch reports. The Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, a critic of the administration’s response to coronavirus, on Wednesday requested more than three times that amount.

Whether the US has enough equipment

Azar told a Senate panel on Tuesday that the federal government had a stockpile of 30m masks. It could need as many as 300m for health workers.

Can the president instill confidence?

It will be interesting to see if and when messages from Trump and the CDC align.

Mario Koran here on the west coast, picking up the blog from Adam in New York.

M. Saad Ejaz in New York has the post:

During Tuesday night’s fiery democratic debate, Bernie Sanders criticized Michael Bloomberg for having no supporters except other billionaires. To Sanders’ visible surprise, the audience at the debate booed him.

“Oh dear,” the Vermont Senator replied as he pointed his finger back and forth.

Commentators and analysts have since asked whether candidates shelled out thousands of dollars to crowd the expensive seats with their own supporters. “Bloomberg literally packed the audience for cheers for himself,” said Kyle Kulinski, host of the Kyle Kulinski show, “This is the most pathetic thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Most working people that I know don’t spend $1,700 to get a ticket to a debate and that’s problematic,” Sanders said after the debate. “That’s what the DNC did,” he added, referring to the Democratic National Committee.

Yet the DNC has stated that tickets were distributed equitably. “This is the most diverse audience,” tweeted Xochitl Hinojosa, a spokesperson for the DNC.

Over a thousand spots were available at the debate, according to Green Schneider, the communications director at the South Carolina Democratic Party (SCDP). Almost 400 of these went to the SCDP itself, and these were distributed among activists, party leaders, and elected officials, she said. Fifteen were given to each campaign.

As for the remaining 600 or so, some were sold to sponsors who contributed between $1,750 and $3,200 to the event and related gatherings, according to a local news station, WCSC. “This is something that the average person doesn’t usually get to go to,” one official said on local television. “These kinds of events really are set up for sponsors and things like that.”

Were these tickets bought up by Bloomberg and others? Although a local Democratic Party web site said that the “only guaranteed way to get a ticket is to become a sponsor of the debate”, this page was later deleted. And confusingly, Schneider of the SCDP said that while sponsors received access to dinners and other events, they did not receive a ticket to the debate itself.

The mystery remains.

Donald Trump’s re-election campaign filed a libel lawsuit against the New York Times, over an article related to the investigation into Russian election interference in 2016. Trump’s staff say the article’s assertion that Trump had an “overarching deal” with “Vladimir Putin’s oligarchy” is untrue.

Joe Biden picked up a boost when he was endorsed by South Carolina congressman Jim Clyburn, ahead of the state’s primary on Saturday. Clyburn, the third-ranking Democrat in the House, represents predominantly African American neighborhoods in and around Charleston and Columbia. He said Biden “has stood for the hard-working people of South Carolina”.

Bernie Sanders is targeting Amy Klobuchar’s home state of Minnesota ahead of Super Tuesday. Sanders’ campaign said he would hold an event in Minnesota on Monday. The Vermont senator is holding rallies on Friday and Saturday in Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren’s home state.

Bernie Sanders has accused Donald Trump of “taking a page from his dictator friends” after the president announced he was suing the New York Times.

“Let’s be clear: we have a president who believes he is above the law and can do and say whatever he wants without consequences,” Sanders said in a statement.

Donald Trump has ignored the Constitution, disregarded the will of Congress, and attacked the judiciary. Trump has called the press the ‘enemy of the people,’ and now – taking a page from his dictator friends around the world – is trying to dismantle the right to a free press in the First Amendment by suing the New York Times for publishing an opinion column about his dangerous relationship with Russia.

Enough. Donald Trump is the most dangerous president in modern history, and this November we will defeat him, restore the rule of law, and protect our constitutional rights.

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Lawmakers from both parties have warned that the Defense Department is undermining its own efforts to get military money, by diverting billions of dollars for the construction of President Donald Trump’s US-Mexico border wall, according to Associated Press:

The chairman of the House Armed services committee and the committee’s top Republican told Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Wednesday that overturning congressional funding decisions to shift money for the wall is an enormous problem that will have consequences.

The plan to shift money has triggered rare Republican opposition to one of Trump’s priorities.

Rep Mac Thornberry, Republican from Texas, said the result may be that Congress will place greater restrictions on the Pentagon’s ability to move money around to meet military needs. The chairman, Democratic Rep Adam Smith of Washington, said the money transfer is “very, very damaging to the Pentagon.”

“The message it sends is the Pentagon has plenty of money,” said Smith, adding that it “undercuts any arguments for any need for resources.”

The Pentagon announced this month that it was slashing billions of dollars in funding for Navy and Air Force aircraft and other military programs to free up money for the construction of the wall.

Bernie Sanders’ New Year’s resolution, more than three decades ago: “In 1978, as in other years, I hope to play some role in making working people aware that the present day reality of poverty, wage slavery and mind-destroying media and schools is not the only reality – but simply a pathetic presentation brought to us by a handful of power-hungry individuals who own and control our economy.”