Georgia judge Scott McAfee will today weigh whether Donald Trump was just exercising his first amendment rights when he insisted, without evidence, that the 2020 election was stolen.

Such claims are alive and well at the Republican National Committee, where Trump recently installed several lieutenants in leadership position. The Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports that new employees are being quizzed about their views on fraud in the 2020 election:

A spokesperson for the Republican National Committee and Donald Trump did not deny a Washington Post report that said prospective RNC employees are being asked if they believe the 2020 election was stolen, constituting a “litmus test” as the 2024 election approaches.

“Candidates who worked on the frontline in battleground states or are currently in states where fraud allegations have been prevalent were asked about their work experience,” Danielle Alvarez, a spokesperson for the RNC and Trump, said in a statement.

“We want experienced staff with meaningful views on how elections are won and lost and real experience-based opinions about what happens in the trenches.”

Trump has pursued his stolen election lie through his conclusive defeat by Biden; his attempts to overturn results in key states; his incitement of the deadly January 6 attack on Congress; his resulting impeachment and acquittal; his attempts to delay or avoid trial on four federal and 10 state criminal charges concerning election subversion; and his surge to a third successive presidential nomination.

Good morning, US politics blog readers. Today in Georgia, Donald Trump’s legal team will argue that the case brought against him by Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis for allegedly trying to overturn the state’s 2020 election result should be dismissed on first amendment grounds, CNN reports. The hearing in Atlanta will be the first held since judge Scott McAfee ruled Willis could continue handling the case, but only if special prosecutor Nathan Wade quit, which he did. For Trump, the odds are not looking particularly good: two of his 18 co-defendants have made similar claims that they were merely exercising their free speech rights when claiming, without evidence, that the 2020 election was marred by fraud, but McAfee rejected their arguments.

Today’s hearing nonetheless represents a return to sorting out the actual merits of Willis’s case, which was delayed for weeks after defense attorneys alleged she had created a conflict of interest by hiring Wade, a romantic partner. The Georgia case is one of four criminal indictments against Trump, but still has no trial date – a crucial element to sort out, considering that a conviction could upend the 2024 presidential race.

Here’s what else we are watching today:

• Joe Biden this evening will head to a New York City campaign fundraiser where he is reportedly expecting to rake in a mammoth $25m, thanks to a little help from Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, both of whom will be there.

• Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor who was briefly a presidential candidate, said he would not pursue a third-party presidential bid, leaving No Labels’s much-worried-over ticket empty once again.

• White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will see what reporters want to know, sometime after 11.40am ET.