Biden confirms he may still opt to protect Trump’s enemies from prosecution, while Trump scrambles to halt sentencing in criminal business fraud case

Attorneys for Donald Trump this morning appealed to the US supreme court to pause proceedings in the president-elect’s prosecution on business fraud charges in New York, ahead of his sentencing scheduled for Friday, Reuters reports.

Two previous appeals to stop the sentencing have failed, and now the president-elect’s attorneys are petitioning the nation’s highest court, where conservative justices, three of whom Trump appointed, hold a six-seat supermajority. Trump’s attorneys want the case put on pause while a separate appeal they have filed, which cites the court’s decision last year in a separate Trump-related case that grants presidents immunity for official acts, plays out.

Trump will this evening trek to Capitol Hill for a strategy meeting with the Republican senators tasked with enacting his administration’s priorities, ranging from mass deportations to extending tax cuts enacted during his first term.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, the rightwing Georgia congresswoman, says she will introduce legislation to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America”, as Trump proposed at a rambling press conference yesterday.

Los Angeles continues to be battered by three separate wildfires fueled by high winds. Follow our live blog as more than 1,400 firefighters attempts to contain the flames.