Trump based arrest remarks on ‘rumors’, his lawyer says as eyes on grand jury to reconvene – live

• Grand jury did not sit on Thursday or Friday
• Ex-president rails against Manhattan district attorney at rally
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Good morning US politics blog readers. We begin the new week where we left the last, watching for a grand jury in New York City to reconvene and possibly hand down a criminal indictment of Donald Trump for paying off adult film star Stormy Daniels.

The episode has turned into something of a three-ring circus, with the former president railing against Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg at a weekend rally in Texas, having previously told supporters, falsely, that he would be arrested last week.

Joe Biden hosts the Women’s Business Summit in Washington DC, and is scheduled to deliver remarks at 2.30pm.

Kamala Harris is on a goodwill trip to Africa, meeting leaders of Ghana, Tanzania and Zambia, and a host of business and community leaders. The vice-president is attempting to rebuild relations after then-president Trump’s 2018 denouncement of some African nations as “shithole countries”.

The Senate convenes this afternoon to take up measures that would formally end the Gulf and Iraq wars of 1991 and 2002. Biden says he supports the repeal of authorizations for military interventions, which advanced to a final vote with bipartisan support last week.

The first briefing of the week from the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, is scheduled for 1pm.