Trump rants about presidential immunity as jury confirmed for criminal trial: Live

Donald Trump was forced to cancel his scheduled rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, as skies darkened and a rain storm approached the airport.

It was his first planned rally since the start of his criminal hush money trial.

Mr Trump called into the rally site near the Wilmington airport less than an hour before he was scheduled to take the stage and apologised to a few thousand supporters who had gathered throughout.

“I’m devastated that this could happen but we want to keep everybody safe,” MrTrump said, as his message was amplified by speakers to his supporters.

“I think we’re gonna have to just do a rain check. I’m so sad,” Mr Trump said.

Mr Trump promised a “bigger and better” rally to around 7,000 and 8,000 people who had gathered at the Aero Center at Wilmington airport.

Nearly 100 felony criminal charges have been levelled against the former president, who remains the presumptive nominee to be the Republican Party’s presidential candidate once more in 2024.

As his legal battles grow more complex by the day, a serious question has emerged: what happens if Mr Trump wins the nomination and campaigns for the general election as a convicted criminal?

That possibility, in turn, raises another simpler question: could the 45th president of the United States go to prison?

John Bowden explores the possibilities:

It may have only been one week. But trial has already proven eventful.

Here is Mr Trump’s landmark trial in photos:

Former president Donald Trump’s legal team has used various defences for — and attempts to delay — his hush money case in which he is accused of 34 counts of falsifying business records.

So far, none of them have worked, as Kelly Rissman explains:

John Bowden in Washington, DC reporting for The Independent writes:

Lawmakers in Washington DC have finally passed military aid for Ukraine through the GOP-controlled House following months of delays.

The $60.8bn package, part of a three-part national security supplemental that passed the Senate in February, now heads back to the upper chamber for a final vote on Tuesday.

It then heads to Joe Biden’s desk for signature. Republicans and Democrats in the upper chamber pressed their House colleagues to pass the legislation for months, citing Ukraine’s increasingly desperate situation, but the lower chamber took its time and quibbled over the bill’s intricacies, eventually splitting it into three parts and turning much of the aid to Ukraine into a loan system.

Even with that change it was a political defeat for Republicans in the House, who took public criticism from GOP members of the Senate including Mitch McConnell for weeks and eventually passed the legislation while relying on Democratic support to see it past the finish line.

Worse, Speaker Mike Johnson comes out of this ordeal at the lowest point of his speakership (so far).

“I’d be more than happy to testify, I don’t know that I will be called to testify, but I have been in touch with Trump’s defence for the better part of a year.”

A teacher, two lawyers and people working in finance are among the 12 jurors tasked with hearing the first-ever criminal trial against a president.

Donald Trump has continued his Truth Social tirade about presidential immunity with an apparent threat to President Joe Biden that he will be prosecuted for his “actual crimes” if the former president wins back the White House.

Here’s what Mr Trump wrote on Truth Social this afternoon (among many other posts on the same topic):

REMEMBER, if I don’t have Presidential Immunity, then Crooked Joe Biden doesn’t have it either, and he would certainly be Prosecuted for his many ACTUAL CRIMES, including illegally receiving massive amounts of money from Foreign Countries, including China, Ukraine, and Russia, paying off Ukraine to fire an unfriendly prosecutor, allowing millions of people to illegally Enter and Destroy our Country, SURRENDERING in Afghanistan, with Hundreds Dead, many Americans Left Behind, and handing over Billions of Dollars Worth of the Best Military Equipment anywhere on Earth, the Decimation of American Wealth through the Green New Scam, and so much more. REMEMBER, Crooked Joe Biden and his CORRUPT JUSTICE DEPARTMENT, D.A.’s and A.G.’s, has attacked his Political Opponent at a level never seen before in this Country, and wants desperately to PUT “TRUMP” IN PRISON. He is playing a very dangerous game, and the great people of America WILL NOT STAND FOR IT. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!

There is no evidence that Mr Biden received any money from foreign countries (see the disastrous Republican-led House impeachment inquiry) or paid off Ukraine.

The allegations regarding the border and Afghanistan would presumably fall under existing presidential immunity and are not technically crimes (and the allegations here appear factually flawed).

There is no decimation of American wealth through “the Green New Scam”, indeed the economy is far outpacing that of any other developed nation, unemployment is at record lows, and the stock market is at record highs.

Finally, Joe Biden has no jurisdiction or influence over criminal indictments brought against Mr Trump at the local or state level (Manhattan and Georgia).

At the federal level, the Department of Justice handed its two investigations (into the classified documents in Florida and the events leading up to January 6 in Washington, DC) over to Special Counsel Jack Smith for the very purpose of avoiding a conflict of interest and to depoliticise the process.

Further, all four Trump criminal cases were assessed by members of the public in their respective grand juries.