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The Department of Justice warned Texas on Thursday it plans to sue over the state’s decision to install a floating wall in the middle of the Rio Grande river, which forms the international border between the US and Mexico. “The State of Texas’s actions violate federal law, raise humanitarian concerns, present serious risks to public safety and the environment, and may interfere with the federal government’s ability to carry out its official duties,” the DoJ wrote in a letter to state officials, which was obtained by CNN. The letter says US law “prohibits the creation of any obstruction to the navigable capacity of waters of the United States, and further prohibits building any structure in such waters without authorization from the United States Army Corps of Engineers (“Corps”).” “Texas has the sovereign authority to defend our border, under the U.S. Constitution and the Texas Constitution,” Texas governor Greg Abbott said in a statement on twitter on Friday. “We have sent the Biden Administration numerous letters detailing our authority, including the one I hand-delivered to President Biden earlier this year.” (The governor claimed last year he is authorised under the US Constitution to carry out military-style actions along the border because of a clause concerning states under “invasion,” though legal scholars have said this is not an accurate interpretation of the provision.) The warning from the federal government is the latest challenge to the governor’s plan to install a 1,000-foot long aquatic wall of buoys and netting across the river at Eagle Pass, Texas, a busy border-crossing site. As The Independent reported, a local kayak guide has also sued the state, arguing that Texas doesn’t have jurisdiction to build an impediment along an international borderline. Mexico has also said it is investigating whether Texas broke international law with the barriers. “You’ve taken a beautiful waterway and you’ve converted it into a war zone,” Jessie Fuentes, a kayak guide who works on the Rio Grande, told The Independent. Migrant advocates have also strongly criticised the buoys. They argue such installations don’t actually slow down immigration, but rather will push migrants towards ever more remote places to cross the border, increasing the likelihood they will face a perilous and potentially lethal crossing. An estimated 250 people died crossing the Rio Grande last year, and that was before Texas installed what amounts to a giant net in the river. “It’s been proven time after time that these so-called prevention through deterrence strategies don’t work,” Fernando García of the Border Network for Human Rights told The Independent. “They have not stopped immigration flows, but what they have done is they have put immigrants at risk.” “All of this is death by policy.” Criticisms have also come from the inside. A Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) trooper, one of countless state officers deployed to the border under Mr Abbott’s Operation Lone Star, wrote in a message to superiors that the obstacles at the border, as well as alleged orders from the state to push migrants back into the water, showed that Texas has “stepped over a line into the inhumane.” The medic also detailed multiple instances in June and July in which military-style barriers along the Rio Grande caused migrants to suffer severe injuries and medical issues. He described a man who lacerated his leg on razor wire attached to a buoy while trying to rescue his son, a 15-year-old who broke his leg trying to avoid the floating barrier, and a 19-year-old who had a miscarriage while trapped in razor wire. “We need to operate it correctly in the eyes of God,” Trooper Nicholas Wingate told the Texas DPS. “We need to recognize that these are people who are made in the image of God and need to be treated as such." Texas officials have denied ordering troopers to push migrants into the water, and the claims from the trooper are under investigation. Read More Buoys, razor wire, and a Trump-y wall: How Greg Abbott turned the Rio Grande into an immigration ‘war zone’ White House condemns ‘abhorrent’ reports of Texas troopers being told to push migrant children into Rio Grande Border Patrol fails to assess medical needs for children with preexisting conditions, report says Trump demands cameras in courtroom for potential election fraud case Trump probe ‘subpoenaed CCTV from Georgia 2020 ballot counting centre’ DeSantis says charging Trump for Jan 6 is ‘criminalising political differences’

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The Georgia prosecutor investigating Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in that state is reportedly weighing a racketeering indictment against the former president and others. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis could rely on evidence tied to Mr Trump’s infamous call to the state’s top elections official to “find” votes for him, as well as the breach of voting machines by a group of Trump-connected operatives, according to The Guardian, citing two people briefed on the matter. Prosecutors are reportedly reviewing a racketeering indictment including statutes related to influencing witnesses and computer trespass. An indictment is expected within the first two weeks of August. The office has been investigating efforts to overturn election results in the state and the baseless allegations of widespread election fraud that fuelled them, adding to a long list of investigations and other legal consequences facing the leading candidate for the 2024 Republican nomination for president and his allies who rejected 2020 results. Ms Willis’s investigation is separate from the federal probe under US Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith, who is investigating a broader effort from Mr Trump and his allies to reverse election results in states Mr Trump lost to Joe Biden, culminating in a pressure campaign around Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to certify electoral college results during a joint session of Congress on 6 January, 2021. A grand jury in the Fulton County case was seated on 11 July. Ms Willis has made a career out of high-profile cases involving charges of racketeering– typically used to break up organised crime – including indictments against more than two dozen people connected to a sprawling Atlanta hip-hop empire, 38 alleged gang members, and 25 educators accused of cheating Atlanta’s public school system. Georgia’s racketeering statute requires prosecutors to show the existence of an “enterprise” with a pattern predicated on at least two other “qualifying” crimes. Evidence in the case is unlikely to be revealed until an indictment is unsealed, but a charge involving influences witnesses could look to Mr Trump’s phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which Mr Trump suggested that he “find” him 11,780 votes – enough to swing the election in the state. For the computer trespass charge, in which prosecutors would need to show that defendants used a computer or network without permission to interfere with a program or data, prosecutors could turn to the breach of voting machines in Coffee County. That breach involved a group of people working under former Trump-connected attorney Sidney Powell to copy voting machine data at the county’s election office. That data from Dominion Voting Systems machines was uploaded to a password-protected website in a spurious, failed effort to prove that the 2020 election was rigged against Mr Trump. The Independent has requested comment from the Fulton County District Attorney’s office. Roughly one year into her investigation, Ms Willis took the unusual step of asking for a special grand jury to rely on its subpoena power to compel testimony from witnesses who otherwise would not be willing to talk with prosecutors. That special grand jury was seated in May 2022 and concluded its work in January 2022 after hearing from roughly 75 witnesses before dissolving in January. A partially released report from the special grand jury shows that jurors unanimously agreed that “no widespread fraud took place” in Georgia’s election following interviews with election officials, analysis and poll workers. Mr Trump also faces criminal charges in Manhattan stemming from hush money payments allegedly made to silence stories about his alleged affairs in the lead up to the 2016 election. Mr Trump and his adult children also face a likely trial from a multi-million dollar lawsuit filed by the New York Attorney General’s office alleging a years-long fraud operation. A federal judge in Florida has also set a trial date of 20 May, 2024 on charges surrounding the alleged mishandling and illegal retention of dozens of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago property. The former president has repeatedly characterised the multiple investigations against him, including the January 6 probe, as a politically motivated “hoax” and an attempt to “steal” the 2024 election from him. On 23 July, Mr Trump published several posts on his social network Truth Social, once again calling the special prosecutor “deranged”. He claimed that investigations into him were a “coordinated HOAX,” pointing to the probe into allegations of collusion between the Trump 2016 campaign and Russia. Mr Trump also went after President Joe Biden, claiming without providing evidence that he’s a “criminal” before going on to call him “the most corrupt and incompetent President in United States history”. “Get smart, Republicans, they are trying to steal the Election from you!” he wrote before referring to Democrats and federal and state prosecutors as “monsters” who are “destroying our country”. Read More Trump classified documents trial will be six months before 2024 election as Jan 6 cases close in - latest Who is Fani Willis, the Georgia prosecutor who could take down Trump Georgia grand jury sworn in to consider Trump charges over attempts to upend 2020 election Trump, January 6 and a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election: The federal investigation, explained

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