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Mar 10, 2024

Live updates: Trump indictment latest news in special counsel 2020 election and Georgia cases

Live Russia's war in Ukraine Live Trump 2020 election cases Live Tropical Storm Idalia By Aditi Sangal, Mike Hayes, Isabelle D'Antonio and Elise Hammond, CNN From CNN's Jeremy Herb, Hannah Rabinowitz

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By Aditi Sangal, Mike Hayes, Isabelle D'Antonio and Elise Hammond, CNN

From CNN's Jeremy Herb, Hannah Rabinowitz and Holmes Lybrand

A trial date was set Monday right in the middle of the 2024 presidential primary calendar for former President Donald Trump, while his former chief of staff took the stand in Georgia in what amounted to a mini-trial in the election subversion case there.

Here’s what to know from a busy and significant day in Trump's multiple trials:

From CNN's Jeremy Herb, Marshall Cohen, Katelyn Polantz and Jason Morris

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has taken the stand in Mark Meadows’ court hearing. He was called as a witness by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

Willis’ first witness was Kurt Hilbert, a former Trump campaign attorney. Hilbert, who was on the January 2, 2021, phone call with Donald Trump and Raffensperger, described his legal work in Fulton County on behalf of the Trump campaign after the 2020 election.

As prosecutors try to bat down arguments from former White House chief of staff Meadows that the case should moved to federal court because he was acting in a federal capacity, prosecutors have pointed out that Hilbert was not working for the US government during the call.

“I did not speak with anyone at the Department of Justice,” Hilbert said, though he noted he had some contact with a White House lawyer in late 2020.

From CNN's Kate Sullivan and Jeremy Herb

Former President Donald Trump on Monday said he would appeal a ruling by a federal judge that his criminal trial will begin March 4, 2024 as he faces charges that he sought to subvert the result of the 2020 election.

“Today a biased, Trump Hating Judge gave me only a two month extension, just what our corrupt government wanted, SUPER TUESDAY. I will APPEAL!” Trump posted on Truth Social.

It's unclear, however, if Trump can actually appeal the trial date, let alone succeed.

An appeal would be an "interlocutory appeal," which requires special permission to file from the courts, Honig said. "And if he does get an appeal, it’s very rare to reverse a district court judge’s scheduling decision."

From CNN's Jeremy Herb, Marshall Cohen, Katelyn Polantz and Jason Morris

Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows testified Monday that President Donald Trump’s January 2021 phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was Meadows’ attempt to resolve Trump’s concerns about voter fraud and “land the plane” on the “whole transfer of power” to Joe Biden.

Trump’s concerns about voter fraud were a “roadblock” to the transfer of power, Meadows said. Therefore, Meadows said he tried to get this off the former president’s list of concerns by getting on the phone with Raffensperger.

Toward the end of Meadows’ cross-examination, Georgia prosecutors pressed him on the political nature of his call.

“I didn’t see that as a violation of the Hatch Act,” Meadows testified, referencing the 1939 law that prohibits federal officials from taking political actions in their official capacity.

Meadows was asked by prosecutors whether he believed Trump had won the state of Georgia at the time of Trump’s call to Raffensperger.

“I believed there were additional things that needed to be investigated,” Meadows said.

Meadows argued that some of the things Trump raised on the call did need more scrutiny to determine who really won the election. “In my mind, that was an open question,” he said.

Meadows said that the call with Raffensperger was “fairly lengthy” and said that the former president was talking about the “allegations of fraud that he believed occurred in Georgia.”

Meadows is now done testifying. He was on the stand for roughly 3 1/2 hours.

Meadows’ team isn’t calling any additional witnesses as part of the removal hearing. They are taking a short break and then prosecutors are expected to present their case.

From CNN's Sara Murray

A bond hearing has been set for Thursday for Harrison Floyd – the only one of 19 defendants to be detained in jail in the Fulton County 2020 election subversion case against Donald Trump and his allies.

Floyd was accused of participating in a harassment campaign against local election workers. Unlike the other defendants, Floyd failed to negotiate a set bond with the district attorney’s office and a judge before turning himself in at the Fulton County jail.

In a motion for bond filed Monday, Floyd’s attorney notes that “Mr. Floyd's co-defendant, Donald J. Trump, has four (4) separate felony cases, and was given a bond by this Court.”

The attorney also pointed out that “Among the nineteen (19) defendants, Mr. Floyd who is the only African-American male, remains the only defendant denied bond.”

Last week, a magistrate judge declined to release Floyd on bond, noting that the decision had to be made by the judge assigned to the case.

Floyd raised concerns during last week’s hearing about his ability to pay for a lawyer. Judge Scott McAfee, who is assigned to the case, allowed a public defender to be assigned to Floyd, even though Floyd did not meet the local income requirements, according to court filings.

However, it appears from the latest filings that Floyd has retained local counsel of his own.

From CNN's Jeremy Herb, Marshall Cohen, Katelyn Polantz and Jason Morris

Throughout Monday's hearing in Atlanta, Mark Meadows has been questioned by a prosecutor with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ office about then-President Donald Trump’s January 2021 phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

In the call, which is included in the Fulton County indictment, Trump asked Raffensperger to “find” enough votes for him to win Georgia.

Meadows, who served as Trump's White House chief of staff, said that the former president had “a concern” about potential fraud in Atlanta and was hoping to figure out "a less-litigious way of resolving” his issues with the election results in Georgia.

Willis’ prosecutors have repeatedly highlighted that Meadows included outside, pro-Trump lawyers on that call – people who were not federal employees and didn’t work at the Department of Justice, for instance. Meadows said multiple times that he could not recall all of the outreach he did to set up the call.

Read the full transcript and listen to Trump’s 2021 call with Georgia's secretary of state.

From CNN's Katelyn Polantz and Jeremy Herb

Proceedings resumed in Atlanta's federal court shortly after 2 p.m. ET, with former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows back on the witness stand to continue his testimony.

Meadows has testified for about three hours on Monday.

A prosecutor from Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ team is cross-examining him, currently about former President Donald Trump’s January 2021 call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

From CNN's Lauren del Valle and Kara Scannell

The judges in former President Donald Trump’s federal 2020 election-related case and his New York state case regarding the alleged falsification of business records spoke last week, according to a spokesperson for the Unified Court System in New York.

Both trials are set to begin in March 2024.

Asked about the potentially overlapping criminal trial dates, spokesperson Lucian Chalfen said Judge Juan Merchan and Judge Tanya Chutkan "spoke last Thursday regarding their respective upcoming trials.”

“At this time there is nothing further to impart regarding the People of the State of New York v. Donald J. Trump,” he continued.

The former president faces 91 criminal charges across four separate cases.

Trump's federal criminal trial on charges he sought to subvert the 2020 presidential election result will begin March 4, the day before the Super Tuesday primaries, a federal judge ruled Monday.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's case against Trump, which alleges 34 felony criminal charges of falsifying business records, is set for March 25.

A spokeswoman for Bragg declined to comment. A lawyer representing Trump in that case could not be reached.

From CNN's Devan Cole

The federal judge presiding over the criminal contempt of Congress case against former President Donald Trump’s onetime trade adviser Peter Navarro in DC called some of the evidence from the defense “pretty weak sauce.”

Navarro says he defied subpoenas from the House January 6 committee because Trump directed him to do so. But US District Judge Amit P. Mehta, sitting in the same courthouse as Judge Tanya Chutkin, seemed unconvinced.

“I still don’t know what the president said,” Mehta told Navarro’s attorney Stanley Woodward, referring to the February 20, 2022, call during which Navarro said it was made clear the former president was invoking executive privilege. “I don’t have any words from the former president.”

“That’s pretty weak sauce,” Mehta said, referring to a comment Navarro says Trump made to him about regretting not letting him testify. The comment had been used by Navarro and his team to bolster their argument that Trump did invoke privilege because his subsequent regret indicated as much.

“The record is barren, there is nothing here, even after your client’s testimony,” Mehta told Woodward toward the end of Monday’s pre-trial hearing.

The judge said he would make a decision later this week on whether Navarro’s testimony could be used in his trial next month.

Navarro stood for the duration of the hearing with his arms folded, even as he fielded questions from the attorneys. When he was off the stand, he paced back and forth near his team of attorneys, and he became testy with the prosecutor once they began their cross-examination, causing the judge to instruct him on how to conduct himself.