Jeff Sessions protests: thousands march after Trump fires attorney general – as it happened

We’re ending our live coverage for now, thanks for following along. Here’s a summary of the major developments of the day:

• Protesters across the country rallied to advocate for the protection of special counsel Robert Mueller following Trump’s firing of attorney general Jeff Sessions.
• The Florida governor and senate races are heading closer to possible recounts.
• The Trump administration moved to restrict asylum claims by migrants, with a new rule that the ACLU said would violate the law.
• State prosecutors across the US demanded that acting US attorney general Matthew Whitaker recuse himself from the Mueller probe.
• A 2014 speech of Whitaker came to light, revealing that he once said he believed that judges should be Christian.
  
• In the Georgia governor’s race, Brian Kemp declared victory and resigned as secretary of state, but Stacey Abrams said she would not give up and announced a lawsuit.
• The Democratic candidate in the tight senate race in Arizona pulled ahead by roughly 2,000 votes.
• Democrat Lucy McBath, a gun control advocate and mother of a slain teenager, won her congressional race in Georgia.
• The White House faced growing scrutiny for its decision to revoke access to CNN reporter Jim Acosta.

It appears that one of Jeff Sessions’ final acts before walking out the door was a memo seeking to limit future “consent decrees”, which are orders the previous administration used to mandate reforms at police departments.

This issue has been a priority of Sessions, targeting Obama’s efforts to force reforms at police departments with records of racial disparities in enforcement, excessive force, and unjustified stops and arrests.

Democrats, newly in control of the House, are vowing to fight for gun control after a mass shooting in California killed 12 people at a bar. The shooting happened hours before Lucy McBath, a gun control advocate and mother of a slain teenager, won her congressional race in Georgia. Here’s what she had to say about the tragedy:

In the closely watched senate race in Arizona, the Democratic nominee, Kirsten Sinema, is now ahead of GOP candidate Martha McSally – by just 2,000 votes:

It’s still too soon to know who will ultimately prevail. Earlier in the day, McSally had 856,848 votes (49.37%), while Sinema had 839,775 votes (48.39%), according to the Arizona Republic.

Here are some photos and videos from protests from across the US, now underway.

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New York attorney general Barbara Underwood and 17 other state prosecutors have sent a letter to acting US attorney general Matthew Whitaker to recuse himself from the Mueller probe:

They wrote:

You must be aware that your public comments criticizing Mr. Mueller’s investigation have been widely circulated. At various opportunities – in print, on television, and through social media – you have suggested cutting the Special Counsel’s budget or limiting his authority to follow lines of inquiry. As prosecutors and law enforcement officials committed to the rule of law, we believe that the independent Special Counsel must have the full authority to investigate and, if warranted, prosecute any violations of federal law.

The letter was signed by the attorneys general of Massachusetts, New York, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and the District of Columbia.

For a close look at the Stacey Abrams v Brian Kemp race and the allegations of voter suppression in Georgia, check out the Guardian’s in-depth video from the campaign trail:

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For a quick break from DC political news today, an 18-year-old has just become the country’s youngest mayor. In a race against two other candidates, Ben Simons won 41% of the vote and is now charged to represent the roughly 1,000 residents in his hometown Yoncalla, Oregon.

According to KEZI, the local ABC news affiliate, Simons graduated last June as his high school’s valedictorian and has worked as both a city councilor and volunteer firefighter. Now, along with being the city’s mayor, he is a student at Umpqua Community College.

“My age shouldn’t be my qualifying or disqualifying factor,” he told local reporter Brady Wakayama. “I really got the skill set and the ambition to take on this and I hope to do good for this community.”

Watch the story here:

The Associated Press, which makes definitive calls in the media about elections, has said it is closely monitoring the governor’s race in Florida, where election officials are still counting absentee ballots. The AP says it could ultimately retract its call for Republican Ron DeSantis:

AP on Tuesday called the election for Republican Ron DeSantis over Democrat Andrew Gillum. DeSantis holds a lead of 38,613 votes out of more than 8.2 million ballots counted a margin of 0.47 percentage points.

Under Florida law, a recount is mandatory if the margin of the winning candidate is less than 0.5 percentage points when the first unofficial count is verified Saturday by Florida’s secretary of state.

Should that count show DeSantis with a margin of less than 0.5 percentage points, triggering a recount, AP will retract its call for DeSantis. It is AP policy not to call a race that is facing a recount. If the race proceeds to a recount, no new call will be made until the recount is complete and the results of the election are certified by Florida officials.

Here’s the Gillum campaign’s statement from earlier:

Meanwhile, in a sign of how intense a recount could be, some commentators have noted potentially curious numbers in Florida, including in Broward County, where it appears there were fewer votes case in the Senate race than in the governor’s race:

Thousands of demonstrators in more than 900 cities around the US are expected to take the streets tonight, in protest against Trump’s firing of Jeff Sessions. The “Mueller protection rapid response” organized by progressive advocacy organization, MoveOn, was planned for 5pm local time, and protests are already kicking off on the east coast.

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The event page lists all the events scheduled for tonight with a call to arms:

Donald Trump just crossed a red line, violating the independence of the investigation pursuing criminal charges in the Trump-Russia scandal and cover-up. Trump putting himself above the law is a threat to our democracy, and we’ve got to get Congress to stop him. We’re mobilizing immediately to demand accountability, because Trump is not above the law.”

The Trump administration has moved to restrict asylum claims by migrants, with a new regulation that would block people from claiming asylum if they illegally cross the US-Mexico border.

The ACLU said it would be illegal to block the asylum process in this manner and would prohibit many individuals from applying. Said Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLU’s immigrants’ rights project:

US law specifically allows individuals to apply for asylum whether or not they are at a port of entry. It is illegal to circumvent that by agency or presidential decree.

The Department of Homeland Security secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, and the acting attorney general, Matthew Whitaker, released a statement on the rule that said:

Consistent with our immigration laws, the President has the broad authority to suspend or restrict the entry of aliens into the United States if he determines it to be in the national interest to do so. Today’s rule applies this important principle to aliens who violate such a suspension or restriction regarding the southern border imposed by the President by invoking an express authority provided by Congress to restrict eligibility for asylum. Our asylum system is overwhelmed with too many meritless asylum claims from aliens who place a tremendous burden on our resources, preventing us from being able to expeditiously grant asylum to those who truly deserve it. Today, we are using the authority granted to us by Congress to bar aliens who violate a Presidential suspension of entry or other restriction from asylum eligibility.”

The full language of the rule is available here. Read more:

Republican senator Jeff Flake has said he will try to force a vote on legislation that would protect special counsel Robert Mueller:

The AP had an independent video producer analyze the controversial video of CNN’s Jim Acosta tweeted out by the White House:

An independent video producer told the AP a video tweeted by the White House on an interaction between CNN reporter Jim Acosta and a White House intern appears to have been manipulated to make the reporter’s actions look more aggressive.

Abba Shapiro did a side-by-side and frame-by-frame analysis of AP’s video from President Donald Trump’s contentious news conference Wednesday and the version spread on Twitter by Trump press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

Shapiro said that when Acosta’s hand touches the intern’s arm as she reaches for his microphone, the action speeds up in the apparently altered video to accentuate his movement. Earlier in the video, Shapiro noticed three frames that were frozen to slow down the action. This, Shapiro said, enables the manipulated video to run the same length as the original.

The White House News Photographers Association has also released a statement condemning the White House for sharing a “manipulated video”:

Sam Levin here, taking over our live coverage. My colleague Jon Swaine has more on Matthew Whitaker, who once said that judges should be Christian and proposed blocking non-religious people from judicial appointments:

Matthew Whitaker, who was made acting attorney general on Wednesday after Trump fired Jeff Sessions, said judges needed a “biblical view of justice” and questioned the judgment of secular lawyers.

Whitaker made the remarks at a conservative forum in April 2014, where he appeared as a candidate for the Republican US Senate nomination in Iowa. Video clips of the event were saved by People For the American Way, a liberal campaign group.

The Republican candidates were asked what justification they would use to block the confirmation of federal judges nominated by Barack Obama, who was then US president.

Whitaker said he wanted to know about a judge’s judicial philosophy, along with their views on natural law, natural rights and the US founding documents. But he added: “I don’t think that gets us far enough.”

See his full story here:

Rep. Linda Sanchez has withdrawn her candidacy to be House Democratic caucus chair, citing a family issue.

That leaves New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries and California Rep. Barbara Lee in the running for the position, set to be vacated by Rep. Joe Crowley who fell to progressive challenger Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Rep. Steve Cohen called the new acting attorney general a “hatchet man hired to destroy the Mueller investigation.”

Cohen (D-Tenn.), a member of the House Judiciary Committee, said that whether Matthew Whitaker must recuse himself from overseeing the investigation - which he does not intend to do, according to reports - may be determined in court.

“Our democracy is under attack,” he said on CNN. “This is an open and notorious and brutal assault on our democracy.”

House Democrats, who won control of the body this week, have said they will investigate Trump’s firings of Jeff Sessions. They sent letters Thursday to several top administration officials demanding the preservation of all documents and materials relevant to the special counsel’s Russia investigation and the Sessions firing.

They also asked current House Judiciary chair Bob Goodlatte to hold hearings right away, but Cohen acknowledged that won’t happen.

“We might as well be writing to Santa Claus and asking him for a Lexus,” he said.