Trump news – live: Ted Cruz faces lawsuit for undermining the 2020 election results

Ted Cruz, who was one of only two senators to formally object to the 2020 election results after the 6 January attack on the US Capitol, is facing an effort to get him disbarred in Texas because of his actions after Donald Trump’s loss.

The 65 Project, a bipartisan campaign group, is specifically homing in on Mr Cruz’s participation in the notorious Texas v Pennsylvania lawsuit filed at the US Supreme Court, which asked the justices to summarily throw out the votes from four states Mr Trump lost citing non-existent fraud.

Thomas Massie, a notoriously contrarian GOP congressman who has long trafficked in Covid-19 denialism, yesterday became the only House member to vote against a bill condeming antisemitism.

He has yet to fully explain his vote. Shweta Sharma has more.

Melissa Carone, a Trump supporter whom Rudy Giuliani brought before the Michigan state legislature for a disastrous committee hearing on false claims of election fraud, has been blocked by the Michigan state department from appearing on the ballot in a state senate race.

As reported by the New York Times, this is the second time this year Ms Carone has been blocked from a state-level ballot. According to the paper, she was barred because she failed to declare she had any unpaid fines for election law violations when in fact she owed late fees for missing campaign filing dates.

During her committee appearance in December 2020, Ms Carone appeared to be incoherent and possibly intoxicated, with Mr Giuliani trying and failing to shush her as she accused a state legislator of “doing something crazy” with the state’s list of registered voters.

A Republican candidate for the governorship of Colorado has been recorded telling a roomful of supporters that if elected, he would abolish the use of the popular vote for statewide offices in favour of an electoral college system.

As reported by local outlet 9News Dencer, Mr Lopez remarked that “One of the things that I’m going to do, and I’ve already put this plan together, is, as governor, I’m going to introduce a conversation about doing away with the popular vote for statewide elected officials and doing an electoral college vote for statewide elected officials.

“I’ve already got the plan in place,” he added. “The most that any county can get is 11 electoral college votes. The least that a county can get is three.”

Mr Lopez recently made headlines with a disastrous 9News interview where he struggled to reconcile his hardline pro-life stance with a previous arrest for assaulting his pregnant wife.

He is considered the underdog in the Republican primary, where he is battling University of Colorado regent Heidi Ganahl for the nomination to challenge the relatively popular incumbent Democratic governor, Jared Polis.

Former Trump administration Russia adviser Fiona Hill, who sat by the ex-president’s side during meetings with Vladimir Putin, has described how the Russian dictator was driven to frustration by his American counterpart’s ignorance.

“He thought that somebody like Biden – who’s a transatlanticist, who knows all about Nato, who actually knows where Ukraine is, and actually knows something about the history, and is very steeped in international affairs – would be the right person to engage with,” Ms Hill said at an event held by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

“You could see that he got frustrated many times with President Trump because he had to keep explaining things, and Putin doesn’t like to do that,” she added. “Even though he loves to be able to spin his own version of events, he wants to have predictability in the person that he’s engaging with.”

You can watch the full video of her talk here.

There is no chance that Oklahoma Congressman Markwayne Mullin will be able to pass his resolution to expunge Donald Trump’s second impeachment. Instead, as with various other bills introduced by members like Marjorie Taylor Greene, the point of the legislation is to raise his profile among right-wing voters ahead of the Senate primary in his state.

We’ll be pausing this live blog for a while as we focus on the results of this week’s primaries. Come back later for further updates.

Former President Donald Trump blasted Pennsylvania’s elections procedures on social media on Wednesday, even though there are no indications of any wrongdoing with those ballots other than a printing error that was slowing the tally in one county.

He has relentlessly criticised the state’s voting procedures since his loss in Pennsylvania two years ago when it took several days to tally the results from all mailed ballots.

Here’s an explainer on how the state’s mailed ballot system works and what is causing the delay:

It would otherwise have been quite unremarkable, expect that Mastriano, 58, a right-wing state senator who was present for Trump’s January 6 speech that preceded the storming of the US Capitol has been one of the most outspoken critics of his state’s election system, and those elsewhere.

Russian analyst and Donald Trump‘s former adviser Fiona Hill has revealed new details about her past encounters with Russia’s Vladimir Putin saying the former president “frustrated” him with his lack of knowledge of geopolitical affairs.

“You could see that he got frustrated many times with President Trump because he had to keep explaining things, and Putin doesn’t like to do that,” Ms Hill said on Tuesday at a Chicago Council on Global Affairs event.

“Even though he loves to be able to spin his own version of events, he wants to have predictability in the person that he’s engaging with.”

Ms Hill, who has recently accused Mr Trump of emboldening Mr Putin on the issue of Ukraine, also talked about the timing of Moscow’s attack on Ukraine saying that Mr Putin thought Joe Biden, “who knows all about NATO, who actually knows where Ukraine is” would be the “right person to engage with”.