Eliana Willis

Donald Trump largely ducked speaking about the January 6 attack on the US Capitol during a campaign speech Saturday, which he delivered on the third anniversary of the insurrection, reflecting the degree to which Republican voters have absolved the former president of responsibility for that day’s deadly consequences.Trump’s remarks came a day after Joe Biden appeared in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, and spoke about how his presidential predecessor had urged his supporters to “fight like hell” shortly before they staged the Capitol attack.Trump brought up January 6 only once as he addressed hundreds of supporters in the town of Newton, Iowa, nine days before that state’s Republican caucuses are scheduled to kick off the 2024 presidential campaign. He repeated previous claims that the Democrat Biden, whom he is likely to face in a general election rematch in November, is the true threat to democracy.“You know this guy [Biden] goes around and says I’m a threat to democracy,” Trump said. “No, he’s a threat because he’s incompetent. He’s a threat to democracy.”“Nobody thought J6 was even a possibility,” Trump said later, without elaborating.Trump also attacked the former Republican representative Liz Cheney, who has been sharply critical of Trump since the January 6 attack, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol as legislators were certifying Biden’s 2020 election victory.On the other hand, Biden has repeatedly called Trump a threat to democracy on the trail, and that messaging has emerged as a central theme of his campaign so far.“We saw with our own eyes the violent mob storm the United States Capitol,” Biden said Friday. Referring to Trump, Biden continued: “He told the crowd to ‘fight like hell,’ and all hell was unleashed. He promised he would right them. Everything they did, he would be side by side with them. Then, as usual, he left the dirty work to others. He retreated to the White House.”Biden’s remarks were a clear attempt to balance out the approach at recent campaign events in Iowa by Trump’s – and those backing other Republican presidential hopefuls – who have downplayed the significance of January 6. Many of them have also embraced conspiracy theories regarding the events of that day.Trump himself has suggested during previous campaign stops that undercover FBI agents played a significant role in instigating the attack, an account not supported by official investigations.More than 1,200 people have been charged with taking part in the riot, and more than 900 have either pleaded guilty or been convicted following a trial.Nine deaths have been linked to the attack, including law enforcement suicides.Yet on Saturday, Hale Wilson, a Trump supporter from Des Moines who was at the Newton event, said of the attack: “It wasn’t really an insurrection. There were bad actors involved that got the crowd going.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump has been in Iowa to curry support before the state’s Republican caucus on 15 January, which is the first contest of the Republican presidential nominating contest. He currently leads all competitors by more than 30 percentage points in the state, according to most polls.Polls have also shown that a rematch with Biden later this year could be close and competitive despite 91 criminal charges pending against Trump, who was twice impeached during his time in the Oval Office.The criminal charges against Trump are for trying to subvert his defeat to Biden in the 2020 race, illegally retaining government secrets after he left the White House and giving hush-money payments to the adult film actor Stormy Daniels, who has reported having a sexual encounter with the former president during an earlier time in his marriage to Melania Trump.Trump additionally has grappled with civil litigation over his business practices and a rape allegation which a judge deemed to be “substantially true”.Biden on Friday said Trump’s January 6 denial betrayed an attempt “to steal history the same way he tried to steal the election”.“There’s no confusion about who Trump is or what he intends to do,” Biden remarked.
Reuters and the Associated Press contributed reporting More

Harry Dunn, a former police officer who defended the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, will run for US Congress in Maryland.On Friday, a day ahead of the third anniversary of the deadly riot, Dunn said via X, formerly known as Twitter: “On January 6, I defended our democracy from insurrectionists as a Capitol police officer. After, President Biden honoured me with the Presidential Citizens Medal.“Today, I’m running for Congress, to stop Trump’s Maga extremists and ensure it never happens again.”“Maga” is short for Trump’s campaign slogan, Make America Great Again.Nine deaths have been linked to the attack on the Capitol on 6 January 2021, which happened when Donald Trump told supporters to “fight like hell” to block certification of his election defeat by Joe Biden.The attack failed. But one police officer, Brian Sicknick, died the next day. Other officers killed themselves.Dunn – a commanding presence at 6ft 7in and 325lbs, once an offensive lineman in college football – was one of a group of officers who acquired a public profile after the riot, testifying before the House January 6 committee, appearing on television and releasing an autobiography, Standing My Ground.He will now run for Congress in Maryland’s third district, a solidly Democratic seat north-east of Washington represented by John Sarbanes, re-elected eight times but not running this year. The primary, which Dunn now joins, will be held on 14 May.In an announcement video, Dunn appeared amid a re-enactment of January 6, a Trump flag seen in the background as actors re-created the Capitol riot.Dunn took aim at Republicans in Congress now ranged behind Trump as he seeks the GOP presidential nomination again.“I swore an oath to protect our constitution, to protect our democracy,” Dunn said. “It’s what allowed me to protect some members of Congress who I knew were bigots, who helped fan the flames that started all of this.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I put country above self. The problem is, a lot of them did not. Some of the same people who stood behind us when we protected them went back on the floor of Congress and stood behind Trump. They voted to acquit him [in his ensuing impeachment trial]. And worst of all, they deny the violence and trauma that led to the death of some of my fellow officers.”Trump now faces 91 criminal charges (17 concerning election subversion), numerous civil trials, and attempts to keep him off the ballot in Colorado and Maine under the 14th amendment to the US constitution, meant to stop insurrectionists running for office. Nonetheless, he leads Republican primary polling by huge margins.“I couldn’t stand by and watch,” Dunn said. “I had another role to play. I used my voice to speak out. And a few weeks ago, I left the force after more than 15 years of service, so that today I can announce I’m running for Congress.“We can’t ever let this happen again, and you’ve heard it from Trump himself: he is hellbent on finishing what he started this day … I believe every one of us has a role to play in this fight. So join me. We’ve got a democracy to protect.” More

Joe Biden will on Friday mark the third anniversary of the deadly January 6 attack on Congress, delivering his first presidential election campaign speech of 2024 at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania – a site replete with historical meaning.A day before the anniversary, due to forecast bad weather, Biden will speak where George Washington’s army endured another dark moment: the bitter winter of 1777-78, an ordeal key to winning American independence from Britain.Biden will also speak about January 6 on Monday at the Mother Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina, where in June 2015 a gunman shot dead nine Black people in an attempt to start a race war.Donald Trump’s nearest challenger for the Republican nomination, Nikki Haley, was governor of South Carolina at the time and subsequently oversaw the removal of the Confederate battle flag from statehouse grounds.Haley has since struggled to define her position on the flag and the interests it represented, last week in New Hampshire failing to say slavery caused the civil war.But the Biden campaign is focusing on Trump, who refused to accept his conclusive defeat in 2020, spreading the lie that he was denied by electoral fraud and ultimately encouraging supporters to attempt to stop certification of Biden’s win by Congress.The attack on the Capitol delayed certification but the process was completed in the early hours of 7 January. Biden was inaugurated two weeks later.On Thursday, the Biden campaign previewed his Valley Forge speech and released Cause, an ad one adviser said would “set the stakes” for this year’s election.“I’ve made the preservation of American democracy the central issue of my presidency,” Biden says in the ad, over footage of Americans voting.But, he adds, over shots of white supremacists marching in Virginia in 2017 and the attack on Congress, “There’s something dangerous happening in America. There’s an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs in our democracy.”Wes Moore, the first Black governor of Maryland, widely seen as a possible Democratic presidential candidate in 2028 but now a Biden campaign adviser, told MSNBC: “The president is really setting the stakes and really hoping to set the platform for what people are going to hear.“From him, it is a vision for their future. From Donald Trump, they’re going to hear a vision about his future. That’s the difference.”Less than two weeks from the Iowa caucuses, Trump dominates Republican polling, regardless of 91 criminal charges – 17 concerning election subversion – in four cases, civil trials over his business affairs and a rape allegation and attempts to bar him from the ballot in Colorado and Maine under the 14th amendment, introduced after the civil war to stop insurrectionists running for office.Trump has called January 6 “a beautiful day” and supporters imprisoned because of it “great, great patriots” and “hostages”. At rallies he has played Justice for All, The Star-Spangled Banner sung by jailed rioters, interspersed with his own recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. On Saturday, he will stage a rally in Iowa, less than five days before caucuses in the midwestern state kick off the 2024 election.Republicans in Congress continue to range themselves behind Trump, the majority whip Tom Emmer’s endorsement this week completing the set of GOP House leaders. Among the rank and file, Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right representative from Georgia who has touted herself as Trump’s running mate, was due to host a January 6 commemoration in Florida, until the venue canceled it.Many observers see winning the White House as Trump’s best hope of staying out of prison. Some polling suggests a criminal conviction (also possible over retention of classified information and hush-money payments) would reduce support but for now he is competitive with Biden or leads him in surveys regarding a notional general election.Furthermore, polling shows more Americans accepting Trump’s stolen election lie.This week, the Washington Post and the University of Maryland found that only 62% of respondents said Biden’s 2020 win was legitimate, down from 69% two years ago. On the question of blame for January 6, meanwhile, the same pollsters found that 25% of Americans (and 34% of Republicans) thought it was probably or definitely true that the FBI, not Trump, was responsible for inciting the riot.Biden’s campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, referred to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan when she said: “Led by Donald Trump, Maga Republicans are running on an extreme platform of undermining the will of the American people who vote in free and fair elections, weaponising the government against their political opponents, and parroting the rhetoric of dictators.”Biden’s new ad and January 6 speeches, Chavez Rodriguez said, would “serve as a very real reminder that this election could very well determine the very fate of American democracy”.The Associated Press contributed reporting More

The attempted US coup of 6 January 2021, never ended, according to a watchdog report, since the same Donald Trump allies behind that insurrection are now leading a sham impeachment effort against Joe Biden.The report, marking three years since a mob of Trump supporters ransacked the US Capitol in a bid to overturn his election defeat, was produced by the Congressional Integrity Project and obtained by the Guardian.It argues that scores of Trump loyalists in the House of Representatives have continued to push the former president’s election lies and are ready to go further in a bid to put him back in the White House.“In fact, the key players involved in Trump’s scheme to overturn the election in 2020 are the very same Republicans leading the bogus impeachment effort against President Biden,” it says.These include Mike Johnson, the House speaker; Jim Jordan, the chair of the House judiciary committee; and James Comer, the chair of the House oversight committee, all of whom continue to push Trump’s debunked conspiracy theories and wage a crusade to impeach Biden.Last month, the House voted along party lines to officially authorise an impeachment inquiry into Biden after months of claiming that he and his son, Hunter, engaged in an influence-peddling scheme. Even some Republicans, such as Utah senator Mitt Romney, pointed out that there is no evidence of wrongdoing by Biden himself.The project’s report describes the Biden impeachment inquiry as “a partisan political stunt” designed to hurt Biden and help Trump return to the White House in 2024, and says it is “an extension of, not separate from, the events of January 6, 2021”.It quotes Jim McGovern, a Democratic congressman from Massachusetts, as saying: “They still want to overturn the election. What they couldn’t do on January 6th they’re trying to do with this process.”The report highlights the role of Johnson, who was elected speaker in October to replace the ousted Kevin McCarthy and has supported an impeachment inquiry for months. After the 2020 election, he said the outcome had been “rigged” and amplified Trump’s baseless conspiracy theories about Dominion voting machines.Johnson stayed in close contact with Trump and publicly encouraged him to “stay strong and keep fighting”. He pressured Republican colleagues to support a Texas lawsuit that sought to overturn the election on the unconstitutional premise that the expansion of vote by mail during the pandemic had been illegal, and he managed to collect signatures from more than 60% of House Republicans.On the morning of 6 January 2021, Johnson tweeted: “We MUST fight for election integrity, the Constitution, and the preservation of our republic!” Later that day he voted to overturn the 2020 election, refusing to certify the results in Arizona and Pennsylvania. In all, eight Republican senators and 139 Republican representatives voted to overturn the result.Johnson also voted against bipartisan legislation that would create a September 11-style commission to investigate the attack on the US Capitol. He refused to hold people accountable for the violence that day, voting against holding Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena from the House January 6 committee.He has attacked investigations into January 6 as a “third impeachment” and “pure political theatre”. More recently, Johnson alleged that the FBI director Christopher Wray was “hiding something” about the FBI’s presence in the Capitol on 6 January 2021, echoing a conspiracy theory spread by rightwing extremists implying that federal agents had a role in orchestrating the insurrection.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWhen asked in October whether he believed the 2020 election was stolen, Johnson refused to comment: “We’re not talking about any issues today … My position is very well-known.”Jordan, meanwhile, was a key figure in the attempt to subvert US democracy who pushed the Trump administration to “unilaterally reject certain states’ electors” the day before January 6. He opposed the creation of a January 6 committee and has refused to cooperate with any investigative efforts into the violence of that day.Before the 2022 midterm elections, Jordan stated that his investigations into Biden “will help frame up the 2024 race … We need to make sure that [Donald Trump] wins.” Last month he boasted that the impeachment inquiry against Biden was influencing polling numbers for the 2024 presidential election: “I think all that together is why you see the [polling] numbers where they are at.”The report names other key “election deniers and insurrection apologists” in Congress such as Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Paul Gosar of Arizona, Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, Pete Sessions of Texas, Byron Donalds of Florida, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Matt Gaetz of Florida, Troy Nehls of Texas, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Dan Bishop of North Carolina, Greg Steube of Florida, Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin, Scott Fitzgerald of Wisconsin and Cliff Bentz of Oregon.Kyle Herrig, the executive director of the Congressional Integrity Project, said: “The attempted impeachment of President Biden isn’t merely a political stunt: it’s an attempt to finish the job Jordan, Trump, Greene and Johnson started long before January 6, 2021, culminating in the violent attack on the Capitol.“They are willing to trash the institution of the House, its role in legitimate oversight, the constitution and our democracy. At the Congressional Integrity Project, the gloves are off, and protection of our democracy is on.” More

A new year has dawned, but the contours of the race for the Republican presidential nomination are much the same as they were throughout all of 2023. Donald Trump continues to lead in polls of the field, with the support of 62% of voters in a USA Today/Suffolk University poll released yesterday. Soon, we’ll have more than polls to go on when gauging the race for the nomination. The Iowa GOP caucuses are less than two weeks away on 15 January, and will give us an idea of whether Trump’s strong polling edge will translate to votes.Trump is as busy in court as he is on the campaign trail, dealing with the four criminal indictments that were issued against him last year. The matter closest to going to trial is his federal charges over trying to overturn the 2020 election, which is set for a 4 March start date in Washington DC. Trump is trying to convince judges at various levels that he is immune from the charges, and is expected to today file the final brief on the matter to a federal appeals court. We will see what he, or more accurately, his lawyers, have to say for themselves when it comes in.Here’s what is going on today:
The House and Senate are both out, though lawmakers are still bargaining over government funding levels, military assistance to Ukraine and Israel and potential changes to US immigration policy.
Joe Biden is returning to Washington DC from vacation in the US Virgin Islands.
Two planes collided at Tokyo’s airport, leaving five people dead as Japan recovers from Monday’s earthquake. Follow our live blog for the latest on this developing story.
Police have arrested a man who broke into the Colorado supreme court building and opened fire early this morning, CNN reports.The assailant took an unarmed security guard hostage after shooting out a window and entering the building in downtown Denver, but the Colorado state patrol said no injuries resulted from the incident. In late December, the court had in a 4-3 ruling disqualified Donald Trump from the state’s ballot for his involvement in the January 6 insurrection.Here’s more on the shooting, from CNN:
Tuesday’s incident began unfolding around 1:15 a.m. and ended nearly two hours later, when the suspect surrendered to police, according to the news release.
“There are no injuries to building occupants, the suspect, or police personnel,” the release said, adding there was “significant and extensive damage to the building.”
The incident began with a two-vehicle crash at 13th Avenue and Lincoln Street in Denver, near the Ralph L. Carr Colorado Judicial Center, which houses the state supreme court.
A person involved in that crash “reportedly pointed a handgun at the other driver,” the release said. That individual then shot out a window on the east side of the judicial center and entered the building.
The individual encountered an unarmed security guard, held the guard at gunpoint and took the guard’s keys before going to other parts of the building, including the seventh floor, where he fired more shots, the release said.
The suspect called 911 at 3 a.m. and surrendered to police, the release said.
In addition to arguing in court, Donald Trump has taken to issuing personal attacks against the prosecutors who have brought charges against him in three states and the District of Columbia. As the Guardian’s Peter Stone reports, experts fear his campaign of insults could do real damage to America’s institutions:As Donald Trump faces 91 felony counts with four trials slated for 2024, including two tied to his drives to overturn his 2020 election loss, his attacks on prosecutors are increasingly conspiratorial and authoritarian in style and threaten the rule of law, say former justice department officials.The former US president’s vitriolic attacks on a special counsel and two state prosecutors as well as some judges claim in part that the charges against Trump amount to “election interference” since he’s seeking the presidency again, and that “presidential immunity” protects Trump for his multiple actions to subvert Joe Biden’s 2020 victory.But ex-officials and other experts say Trump’s campaign and social media bashing of the four sets of criminal charges – echoed in ways by his lawyers’ court briefs – are actually a hodgepodge of conspiracy theories and very tenuous legal claims, laced with Trump’s narcissism and authoritarian impulses aimed at delaying his trials or quashing the charges.Much of Trump’s animus is aimed at the special counsel Jack Smith, who has charged him with four felony counts for election subversion, and 40 felony counts for mishandling classified documents when his presidency ended.Just days ago, prosecutors on special counsel Jack Smith’s team argued that granting Donald Trump immunity from the charges he faces for trying to overturn the 2020 election would threaten US democracy, the Associated Press reports:Special counsel Jack Smith urged a federal appeals court Saturday to reject former president Donald Trump’s claims that he is immune from prosecution, saying the suggestion that he cannot be held to account for crimes committed in office “threatens the democratic and constitutional foundation” of the country.The filing from Smith’s team was submitted before arguments next month on the legally untested question of whether a former president can be prosecuted for acts made while in the White House.Though the matter is being considered by the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia circuit, it’s likely to come again before the supreme court, which earlier this month rejected prosecutors’ request for a speedy ruling in their favor, holding that Trump can be forced to stand trial on charges that he plotted to overturn the results of the 2020 election.The outcome of the dispute is critical for both sides especially since the case has been effectively paused while Trump advances his immunity claims in the appeals court.Prosecutors are hoping a swift judgment rejecting those arguments will restart the case and keep it on track for trial, currently scheduled for 4 March in federal court in Washington. But Trump’s lawyers stand to benefit from a protracted appeals process that could significantly delay the case and potentially push it beyond the November election.After Donald Trump’s lawyers file their last written arguments in the case over his immunity claim today, they will meet alongside prosecutors from special counsel Jack Smith’s office next Tuesday to make oral arguments before the Washington DC-based federal appeals court.It’s unclear when the three-judge panel deciding the matter will rule, but the issue could then make its way to the supreme court. Last month, Smith asked the nation’s highest judges to immediately take up Trump’s claim that his position as president makes him immune from charges related to attempting to overturn the 2020 election, but the court declined to do so, saying the issue needed to follow the normal appeals process before getting to them.A new year has dawned, but the contours of the race for the Republican presidential nomination are much the same as they were throughout all of 2023. Donald Trump continues to lead in polls of the field, with the support of 62% of voters in a USA Today/Suffolk University poll released yesterday. Soon, we’ll have more than polls to go on when gauging the race for the nomination. The Iowa GOP caucuses are less than two weeks away on 15 January, and will give us an idea of whether Trump’s strong polling edge will translate to votes.Trump is as busy in court as he is on the campaign trail, dealing with the four criminal indictments that were issued against him last year. The matter closest to going to trial is his federal charges over trying to overturn the 2020 election, which is set for a 4 March start date in Washington DC. Trump is trying to convince judges at various levels that he is immune from the charges, and is expected to today file the final brief on the matter to a federal appeals court. We will see what he, or more accurately, his lawyers, have to say for themselves when it comes in.Here’s what is going on today:
The House and Senate are both out, though lawmakers are still bargaining over government funding levels, military assistance to Ukraine and Israel and potential changes to US immigration policy.
Joe Biden is returning to Washington DC from vacation in the US Virgin Islands.
Two planes collided at Tokyo’s airport, leaving five people dead as Japan recovers from Monday’s earthquake. Follow our live blog for the latest on this developing story. More

As Donald Trump faces 91 felony counts with four trials slated for 2024, including two tied to his drives to overturn his 2020 election loss, his attacks on prosecutors are increasingly conspiratorial and authoritarian in style and threaten the rule of law, say former justice department officials.The former US president’s vitriolic attacks on a special counsel and two state prosecutors as well as some judges claim in part that the charges against Trump amount to “election interference” since he’s seeking the presidency again, and that “presidential immunity” protects Trump for his multiple actions to subvert Joe Biden’s 2020 victory.But ex-officials and other experts say Trump’s campaign and social media bashing of the four sets of criminal charges – echoed in ways by his lawyers’ court briefs – are actually a hodgepodge of conspiracy theories and very tenuous legal claims, laced with Trump’s narcissism and authoritarian impulses aimed at delaying his trials or quashing the charges.Much of Trump’s animus is aimed at the special counsel Jack Smith, who has charged him with four felony counts for election subversion, and 40 felony counts for mishandling classified documents when his presidency ended.Trump’s chief goal in attacking Smith, whom he’s labelled a “deranged lunatic”, and other prosecutors and judges is to delay his trials well into 2024, or until after the election, when Trump could pardon himself if he wins, experts say.Similarly, Trump has targeted the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, who has brought a racketeering case in Georgia against Trump and 18 others for trying to overturn Biden’s win there, branding her a “rabid partisan”.Right before Christmas, Trump’s lawyers asked an appeals court in Washington to throw out Smith’s four-count subversion indictment, arguing that his actions occurred while he was in office and merited presidential immunity, and Trump in a Truth Social post on Christmas Eve blasted Smith for “election interference”.In an 82-page brief rebutting Trump’s lawyers on December 30, Smith and his legal team wrote that Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results in 2020 “threaten to undermine democracy,” and stressed Trump’s sweeping immunity claims for all his actions while in office “threatens to license Presidents to commit crimes to remain in office.”Former justice department officials say Trump’s rhetoric and tactics to tar prosecutors and judges are diversionary moves to distract from the serious charges he faces – especially for trying to subvert the 2020 election.“Claiming the federal criminal cases or the Georgia Rico action are election interference, and railing constantly about the character of the prosecutors, judges and others, is just a formulaic game to Trump,” Ty Cobb, a White House counsel during the Trump years and a former DoJ official, said.“Delay is his major strategic objective in all these cases. These criminal cases were started because of Trump’s criminal acts and his refusal to allow the peaceful transfer of government for the first time in US history. Trump’s constitutional objections to the trial-related issues are all frivolous including his claim of presidential immunity and double jeopardy.”Cobb added that Trump’s “everyone is bad but me and I am the victim” rants, lies and frivolous imperious motions and appeals are just his “authoritarianism in service of his narcissism”.Other ex-officials offer equally harsh assessments of Trump’s defenses.“The reality is that Trump has clearly done a series of illegal things and the system is holding him to account for things that he’s done,” said the former deputy attorney general Donald Ayer, who served during the George HW Bush administration. “He’s telling more lies to mischaracterize prosecutions that we should be thankful for.”Yet Trump keeps escalating his high-voltage rhetoric and revealing his authoritarian tendencies. Trump even bragged that Russian president Vladimir Putin in December echoed Trump’s charges of political persecution and election interference to bolster his claims.“Even Vladimir Putin … says that Biden’s – and this is a quote – ‘politically motivated persecution of his political rival is very good for Russia because it shows the rottenness of the American political system, which cannot pretend to teach others about democracy’,” Trump told a campaign rally in Durham, New Hampshire.For good measure, Trump complimented two other foreign authoritarian leaders, calling Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, “highly respected” and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un “very nice”.In November Trump sparked fire for slamming his opponents on the left as “vermin”, a term that echoed Adolf Hitler’s language, and the ex-president has more than once pledged in authoritarian style to appoint a special prosecutor to “go after” Biden and his family.Likewise, critics have voiced alarm at Trump’s vow of “retribution” against some powerful foes in both parties if he’s re-elected, including ex-attorney general Bill Barr. That pledge fits with Trump painting himself a victim of a vendetta by “deep state” forces at the justice department, the FBI and other agencies Trump and his allies want to rein in while expanding his executive authority, if he’s the Republican nominee and wins the presidency again.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionCritics say Trump’s attacks on the prosecutions are increasingly conspiratorial.“Of course, it’s true that Trump is the undisputed master of election interference, so he certainly knows the field,” Democratic congressman Jamie Raskin, a leading Trump critic in the House, said.“It’s hard to think of a greater case of election interference than what Trump did in 2020 and 2021. His claim of election interference is meant to give him a kind of political immunity from the consequences of his criminal actions.“He’s basically inviting the public to believe that the legal system’s response to his stealing government documents or trying to overthrow an election are illegal attempts to interfere with his political career.”Raskin noted there was some Trump-style logic to citing Putin in his defense.“We know Putin is Trump’s hero and effective cult master,” the congressman said. “So it makes sense that Trump would try to elevate him as a kind of moral arbiter. Trump would love a world where Vladimir Putin would decide the integrity of elections and prosecutions. Wouldn’t that be nice for the autocrats?”Trump’s modus operandi to stave off his trials is emblematic of how he has operated in the past, say some ex-prosecutors.“Trump has a habit of picking up allegations made against him and, like a kid in the playground, accusing the critics of doing the same thing”, such as crying “electoral interference”, said the Columbia law professor and former federal prosecutor Daniel Richman.Richman stressed that “I wouldn’t assume Trump is trying to mimic other authoritarians. He just shares their values, or the lack of them.”Other scholars see Trump’s desperate defenses and incendiary attacks on the legal system as part of his DNA.“The Trump team is looking to cobble together a defense for the indefensible,” said Timothy Naftali, a senior research scholar at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. “Trump has long been looking for and finding ways to protect himself whenever he crosses legal lines. This is who he is.”Naftali suggested: “Trump announced his second re-election bid much earlier than is traditional for major candidates. A likely reason why he announced so early – and then hardly campaigned for a long time – was to pre-empt any indictments so that he could later denounce them as ‘election interference’ and perhaps undermine any future trials. This is a man who lies and creates a reality most favorable to him.”More broadly, Raskin views Trump’s attacks on the legal system as hallmarks of fascist rulers.“Fascism is all about the destruction of the rule of law in the service of a dictator. It’s important for Trump to continue to attack our essential legal institutions. He’s also gotten to the point of dehumanizing his opponents by using words like ‘vermin’. Violence permeates his rhetoric,” he said.“Trump feels entirely emboldened by his supporters. He’s been given license by the Republican party to go as far as he wants.” More

Donald Trump will remain on Michigan’s state ballot after a ruling from the Michigan supreme court on Wednesday, which upheld a lower court order.The move sets the stage for the former president to participate in the Michigan primary despite accusations that he led an insurrection against the United States.The court’s decision not to move forward with a case against Trump sets the court in sharp contrast to the Colorado supreme court, which recently ruled to strip Trump from its state primary ballot because of his role in the January 6 riot at the US Capitol.In Michigan, as in Colorado, the challengers have invoked section 3 of the US constitution’s 14th amendment, which broadly blocks people from holding government office if they “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the US government. Legal experts are divided on whether this provision, written against the backdrop of the US civil war, applies to the office of the president. There are also questions as to whether Trump’s actions around January 6 legally constitute “insurrection or rebellion”.Colorado’s decision is currently paused on appeal. Special counsel Jack Smith has asked the US supreme court to fast-track the decision, but the nation’s highest court – which is dominated 6-3 by conservatives – has declined. However, the court will likely weigh in soon.The Michigan supreme court justices did not give a reasoning for their Wednesday decision.“We are not persuaded that the questions presented should be reviewed by this court,” the justices wrote in an unsigned, one-paragraph order.However, in a dissent where she largely agreed with the court’s order, Justice Elizabeth Welch said that procedural differences may make the difference in Colorado and Michigan’s election laws. The challengers in the case, she added, may “renew their legal efforts as to the Michigan general election later in 2024 should Trump become the Republican nominee for President of the United States or seek such office as an independent candidate”.Free Speech for the People, the group that brought the lawsuit, stressed that the Michigan supreme court’s decision was made on procedural grounds.“We are disappointed by the Michigan Supreme Court’s decision,” said Ron Fein, legal director of Free Speech For People, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said in a statement. But, Fein added: “The decision isn’t binding on any court outside Michigan and we continue our current and planned legal actions in other states to enforce Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment against Donald Trump.”Michigan is expected to be a battleground state in the 2024 US presidential election. Its primary is set for 27 February 2024. More

Donald Trump has asked an appeals court in Washington DC to throw out charges that he sought to subvert the 2020 election, in the latest of a series of high-stakes legal maneuvers between the former president’s lawyers and the US department of justice.In a filing late on Saturday lawyers for Trump argued to the DC circuit court of appeals that he is legally cloaked from liability for actions he took while serving as president.The move came a day after the US supreme court declined to expedite a request by the special counsel Jack Smith to consider the question of presidential immunity from prosecution.The latest filing is an incremental advance on the long-running legal duels between Trump and the special counsel, who may not now be able to bring the election interference complaint, one of four separate criminal cases against Trump, before a jury ahead of the next year’s election.If the election interference case is delayed, and Trump wins the election as current polls suggest he could, the former president could simply order all federal charges against him to be dropped.In Saturday’s 55-page brief to the appeals court, Trump’s lawyer D John Sauer argued in essence that under the US constitution one branch of government cannot assert judgement over another.“Under our system of separated powers, the judicial branch cannot sit in judgment over a president’s official acts,” Sauer wrote. “That doctrine is not controversial,” he added.The filing repeats what Trump’s lawyers have consistently said: that he was acting in an official capacity to ensure election integrity, and therefore under immunity because presidents cannot be criminally prosecuted for “official acts”.Under the constitution, only the Senate can impeach and convict a president – and that effort failed.In the filing, Sauer argued that executive immunity must exist because no president or former president has previously been charged with a crime.“The unbroken tradition of not exercising the supposed formidable power of criminally prosecuting a president for official acts – despite ample motive and opportunity to do so, over centuries – implies that the power does not exist,” he wrote.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHe also said that Tanya Chutkan, the judge due to hear case against Trump, was mistaken in her interpretation of limited presidential immunity when she wrote that Trump should still be “subject to federal investigation, indictment, prosecution, conviction and punishment for any criminal acts undertaken while in office”.The interplay of legislative, executive and judicial power now lie at the center of the 2024 election. Last week, Colorado’s supreme court ruled that Trump was ineligible to be on the ballot in that state because of his alleged actions to resist certification of the popular vote in 2020.But the implementation of the ruling was delayed until next month when the US supreme court may look at it.On Saturday evening, before heading to Camp David for the holiday break, Joe Biden said he “can’t think of one” reason presidents should receive absolute immunity from prosecution, as the Republican frontrunner Donald Trump has claimed. More