Trump news - live: President posts ‘most important’ 46-minute speech filled with false voter fraud claims

Long-term care residents and the nation’s 20 million health workers should be the first recipients of a coronavirus vaccine, according to an advisory panel with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Independent’s Alex Woodward is following the developing story as it unfolds.

The attorney general has left the building after a “previously scheduled” meeting at the White House that took 2 hours and 25 minutes, according to press pool reporters.

The meeting also happened coincide with revelations from Barr in an Associated Press interview that the Department of Justice had not found enough voter fraud that it would have changed the outcome of the election.

Also on the same day that the Trump campaign filed legal challenges to that election in Wisconsin and held hearings on voter fraud in Michigan.

To have been a fly on Mike Pence during that meeting.

A lawyer for Donald Trump on Tuesday urged a federal appeals court to halt a lawsuit accusing the US president of exploiting his family name to promote a marketing scam targeting poor and working-class people.

The lawyer, Thomas McCarthy, told the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan the plaintiffs were “done in by the allegations of their own complaint,” and that their proposed class action concerning the multi-level marketing company American Communications Network belonged in arbitration.

Four plaintiffs, including a hospice worker, accused Trump, his adult children Donald Jr., Eric and Ivanka and an affiliate of their family company of promoting ACN in exchange for millions of dollars in secret payments from 2005 to 2015.

The plaintiffs said ACN charged $499 to sell videophones and other goods, and the Trump family conned them into thinking Donald Trump believed their investments would pay off.

Trump and his children have called the civil lawsuit, one of many against the president, politically motivated, saying they had no control over ACN and that Trump’s endorsement was merely his opinion. - Reuters

Donald Trump will not be “going away” after inauguration, according to someone who did not go away after an inauguration.

“Trump's not going away, he may have to finally have to leave the White House, but he's going to turn around the next day and say he's running for president again,' Hillary Clinton told actor Dax Shepard’s podcast.

“And then he's going to be out there, he's going to have rallies, because it's like lifeblood to him."

The Independent’s Graeme Massie unpacks the irony.

President Donald Trump has raised roughly $170 million since his Election Day defeat, a sum garnered through a nonstop stream of solicitations that have falsely claimed the election was stolen while requesting contributions for an “election defense fund."

Most of the money was raised in the days after the 3 November election, according to a person familiar with Trump's effort who requested anonymity on Tuesday to discuss details of the operation.

The amount, which approaches the sums Trump took in at the height of the campaign, offers yet another sign that he does not intend to leave the White House quietly and will remain a powerful force in Republican politics.

As Trump's chances of reelection dwindled in the hours and days after the election, his campaign began bombarding supporters with hundreds of emails and text messages that made inaccurate claims about voter fraud and election irregularities, while requesting money to fight the outcome. - AP

Attorney general William Barr appointed US attorney John Durham as a “special counsel” to give him extra protections while investigating the origins of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation into Donald Trump.

Barr revealed the appointment, made before the election, in today’s wide-ranging interview with the Associated Press.

The practical effect of the “special counsel” designation – the same given to Robert Muller in the original probe – is that Durham can continue investigations without easily being sacked.

“I decided the best thing to do would be to appoint them under the same regulation that covered Bob Mueller, to provide Durham and his team some assurance that they’d be able to complete their work regardless of the outcome of the election,” Barr told the AP.

Barr’s order to Durham, obtained by AP, says he is authorized to “investigate whether any federal official, employee or any person or entity violated the law in connection with the intelligence, counter-intelligence or law enforcement activities” directed at the 2016 presidential campaigns or Trump administration.

Attorney General William Barr was seen entering the White House shortly after telling the Associated Press the Justice Department has found no evidence of the widespread voter fraud that Donald Trump and his legal team have alleged.

The Independent’s John T Bennett is following the story as it unfolds.

Rudy Giuliani, former New York City mayor and the man leading Donald Trump's legal challenge to the 2020 election, is reported to have had discussions with the president about obtaining a pardon.

The New York Times reported Tuesday that Mr Giuliani is allegedly seeking a pre-emptive pardon from Mr Trump. The newspaper cites two unnamed people with knowledge of the discussion.  

The anonymous sources said it was no clear who broached the topic first, and it was not immediately clear if Mr Trump would follow through on the request.  

There were no immediate details regarding the crimes Mr Giuliani allegedly wants pardoned. Federal prosecutors were investigating him last summer for his involvement in Ukraine business dealings that eventually led to Mr Trump's impeachment.  

The Independent’s Graig Graziosi has the full story.

Donald Trump Jr will release an ad in Georgia on Tuesday, ahead of January’s Senate runoff elections, as some Republican officials raise concerns about his family’s involvement in the campaign.

Mr Trump Jr, 42, who is the president’s eldest son, is featured in a new six-figure radio ad that is being released in Georgia today.

The commercial is in support of Republican senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, who will face Democratic challengers Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff on 5 January in runoff elections, after no candidate got more than 50 per cent of the vote in either race on 3 November’s election.

In the ad, Mr Trump Jr tells Georgia residents that the US Senate is “on the line” and his father’s accomplishments are “on your ballot”.

The Independent’s James Crump has the full story.

“I understand that — shockingly enough — there’s sometimes problems with the scoring, and whether he’s keeping track of his score,” Obama said.

Obama made the comments during an appearance on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Monday, as the two-term president was asked whether or not he would reach out to his successor when he leaves the White House next month to “tee up”.

The Independent’s Gino Spocchia has the story.