Alyssa Farah Griffin, director of strategic communications at the White House from April to December 2020, is only the latest person to make this alarming claim about her former employer, joining ex-US attorney general Bill Barr, for one.

John Bowden has this report.

The president’s campaign is targeting Trump’s criminal convictions in a new $50m advertising campaign ahead of the first presidential debate between the two candidates at the end of the month.

In the 30-second ad, which will run in all swing battleground states, voters will be told: “This election is between a convicted criminal who’s only out for himself, and a president who’s fighting for your family.”

The Biden campaign has previously steered clear of weighing in on Trump’s legal cases in an effort to avoid accusations by Republicans that President Biden is politicising the process.

Martha McHardy reports.

The president has warned of the possibility that Trump could get to appoint two new Supreme Court justices if the former president wins November’s election.

Appearing at a star-studded fundraising gala on Saturday night, Biden explained on stage that “the next president is likely to have two new Supreme Court nominees.”

He added that Trump had previously appointed two justices who were “very negative in terms of the rights of individuals.”

Amelia Neath and James Liddell have this one.

Florida senator “Little” Marco Rubio is reportedly in the final three to be Trump’s running mate, despite the former animosity between the two men when they were rivals for their party’s nomination in 2016.

Here’s more from John Bowden.

A hearing has been set for Friday this week in the case concerning Trump’s mishandling of classified documents belonging to the US government after leaving the White House in January 2021.

Judge Aileen Cannon will hold a hearing in Florida as the former president and his team continues to try to dismiss the charges against him based on the argument that special counsel Jack Smith was unlawfully appointed.

Judge Cannon has shown a great deal of interest in the question previously and has allowed outside parties to argue before her at the hearing about why the appointment was supposedly unlawful.

Florida Republican congressman Byron Donalds, seen by some to be in with a chance of being picked as Trump’s next running mate, has urged the Supreme Court to take up the former president’s New York case in which he was convicted on 34 counts of falsification of business records.

“Speaker [Mike] Johnson, myself included, and many Americans believe the Supreme Court should step into this matter,” Donalds told NBC’s Meet the Press yesterday.

Donalds referenced the lengthy appellate process in New York on Sunday, citing it as a reason why the Supreme Court should step in and called the case against Trump an attempt to “interfere” in the Republican candidate’s election campaign.

“This is being done for political purposes. Everybody knows how the court system works in New York. The only ability for this to be overturned is going to be happening two or three years from now,” Donalds said.

His comments come after Mike Johnson told Fox News that the Supreme Court should look into the case.

“There’s a lot of developments yet to come, but I do believe the Supreme Court should step in. Obviously, this is totally unprecedented,” Johnson told Fox and Friends the morning after Trump’s conviction.

Two boys who have very definitely guzzled up that MAGA Kool-Aid, North Dakota governor Doug Burgum and South Carolina senator Tim Scott, were out talking Trump yesterday, presumably doing their master’s bidding in exchange for juicy flies like Renfield.

Trump and his allies seize on every possible opportunity to claim Biden is too old and infirm to be president (see their antics regarding his appearance in Italy last week).

But their own candidate is 78 now and seemingly not as robust as he and they would have you believe.

Here’s Sinead Butler for Indy100 on his struggle to clamber down the steps of his jet on Saturday.

After his brief soujourn to church, Trump addressed another Turning Point USA event in the Motor City on Saturday, following his recent speech to Charlie Kirk’s Las Vegas chapter.

He complained about American support for Ukraine in its ongoing war with Russia and described the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, as “the greatest salesman of all time.”

The former president dismissed the $50bn aid package recently approved by the Biden administration for Ukraine, griping: “It never ends.”

He also suggested that President Biden “should have to take a cognitive test”, only to then immediately forget who had administered his own psychological exam, referring to Texas Republican representative Ronny Jackson, who was White House physician during his presidency, as “Ronny Johnson” (a confusion with Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson?).

Best of all was this bizarre sequel to his electric boats/shark attacks bit, now taking on a military tone.

The Republican was in Detroit on Saturday to address an audience of Black churchgoers, which his supporters, like Kellyanne Conway, have been keen to champion as the latest evidence of his broad appeal.

But 8,000 people? In this venue?

And just how “Black” was this crowd listening to former Trump Cabinet member Dr Ben Carson?