Trump campaigns in battleground Michigan as Harris visits birthplace of GOP with Liz Cheney: Live updates

Jimmy Kimmel has joked that Mike Pence was Donald Trump’s “Baby Reindeer” after damning new allegations came to light in special counsel Jack’s Smith’s latest court filing in the federal election interference case.

The 165-page dossier, which was unsealed by a federal judge in Washington DC on Wednesday, alleges that Trump intentionally lied to voters, election officials, and even his own vice president in a “desperate” effort to cling to power. It marks the most detailed case laid out by prosecutors to date, coming after the Supreme Court ruling granted him some immunity from criminal prosecution.

The filing outlines how Trump allegedly repeatedly pressured Pence to stop the certification of the election in President Joe Biden’s favor, against the will of American voters.

Kimmel brought up the unsealed document on Wednesday night’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! show, taking a jab at Pence and Trump’s fractured relationship and likening it to the characters in Netflix’s psychological thriller.

James Liddell has the story.

A judge sentenced a former Colorado county clerk to nine years behind bars Thursday for leading a voting system data-breach scheme inspired by the rampant false claims that fraud altered the 2020 presidential outcome.

Judge Matthew Barrett handed down the sentence after jurors found Tina Peters guilty in August for allowing a man to misuse a security card to access to the Mesa County election system and for being deceptive about that person’s identity.

The man was affiliated with My Pillow chief executive Mike Lindell, a prominent promoter of false claims that voting machines were manipulated to steal the election from Trump.

At trial, prosecutors said Peters, a Republican, was seeking fame and became “fixated” on voting problems after becoming involved with those who had questioned the accuracy of the presidential election results.

A one-time hero to election deniers, Peters has been unapologetic about what happened.

Io Dodds reports on how the CEO, chairman, and controlling shareholder of Facebook parent company Meta, went from liberal darling to phone calls with Trump.

A Donald Trump-endorsed Senate candidate left debate moderators in shock on Wednesday when he declared that the US military needs to recruit “alpha” men and women into its ranks prepared to tear out and devour their own intestines – and not drag queens.

Hung Cao, a retired US Navy captain, went head-to-head against veteran Democrat Tim Kaine in a debate on Wednesday as they spar over the US senate seat in Virginia.

Joe Sommerlad has the story.

Liz Cheney, one of Donald Trump’s fiercest Republican antagonists, will join Democrat Kamala Harris at a campaign event in Wisconsin on Thursday aimed at reaching out to moderate voters and rattling the former president.

Cheney was the top Republican on the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, earning Trump’s disdain and effectively exiling herself from her own party.

Cheney lost her Wyoming seat to a Trump-endorsed candidate two years ago and she endorsed Harris, the Democratic nominee, last month. The two women will appear together in a historic white schoolhouse in Ripon, where a series of meetings held in 1854 to oppose slavery’s expansion led to the birth of the Republican Party.

Harris is opening a two-day stay in Wisconsin and Michigan, and Trump will be in Michigan on Thursday as the two candidates grapple for wins in the “blue wall” battleground states, which also include Pennsylvania.

Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign has announced the launch of Wisconsin Republicans for Harris ahead of her visit to the state with former GOP rep Liz Cheney.

More than 20 Republicans from across the state lead the group and write in an open letter: “Donald Trump does not align with Wisconsin values. To ensure our democracy and our economy remain strong for another four years, we must elect Kamala Harris and Tim Walz to the White House.”

Donald Trump laughed at his former attorney Sidney Powell over her “crazy” 2020 election conspiracies and compared them to something from Star Trek, according to the new legal filing submitted by special counsel Jack Smith in the former president’s federal election interference case.

New details about the inner workings of Trump’s alleged plot to overturn the 2020 election were revealed in the bombshell document, unsealed on Wednesday, including how even the former president thought Powell had appeared “unhinged” at a now infamous November 2020 press conference.

Rhian Lubin has the story.

Eric Garcia writes:

As the vice presidential debate wore on and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz found his feet, hitting Republican Senator JD Vance more and more, a gathering of Democrats just outside of Washington DC shifted from silent to celebratory.

Democrats and Kamala Harris supporters, many of them military veterans, had descended on the home of Micaela Pond in Arlington, Virginia, to watch what is likely to be the final face-to-face clash between the two presidential campaigns before voters head to the polls.

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