Eliana Willis

Rudy Giuliani and Mark Meadows, both close former political allies of Donald Trump, are among scores of people pardoned by the president over the weekend for their roles in a plot to steal the 2020 election.The maneuver is in effect symbolic, given it only applies in the federal justice system and not in state courts where Giuliani, Meadows and the others continue facing legal peril. The acts of clemency were announced in a post late on Sunday to X by US pardon attorney Ed Martin, covers 77 people said to have been the architects and agents of the scheme to install fake Republican electors in several battleground states, which would have falsely declared Trump their winner instead of the actual victor: Joe Biden.Those pardoned include Giuliani and Sidney Powell, former lawyers to Trump, and Meadows, who acted as White House chief of staff during his first term of office. Other prominent names include Jenna Ellis and John Eastman, attorneys who advised Trump during and immediately after the election that Biden won to interrupt Trump’s two terms.“Let their healing begin,” Martin said in the post, in which he thanked Trump, the attorney general, Pam Bondi, and her deputy, Todd Blanche, for “allowing me … to achieve your intent”.Martin is a staunchly conservative ally of the president said to be behind the “weaponization” of the justice department and a push to “bully, prosecute, punish and silence” Trump’s political foes and critics, including the recent indictments of the former FBI director James Comey, New York attorney general, Leticia James, and former national security adviser John Bolton.The pardons extend Trump’s efforts to rewrite the aftermath of the 2020 election and failed efforts to deny Biden the White House. On his first day back in office in January, Trump issued “full, complete and unconditional” presidential pardons for more than 1,500 people involved in the 6 January 2021 attack on Congress, in which five people died and many others, including law enforcement officers, were injured during a desperate attempt by his supporters to keep him in office.Many of those listed in Martin’s pardon document, which it specifically states “does not apply to the president of the United States”, were involved in legal cases and investigations in numerous states that Biden won, including Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada.The pardons, like those for the 6 January rioters, are “full, complete and unconditional” – and apply only in federal court, making them “largely symbolic”, according to the New York Times.Proceedings against some of the individuals are still active at state level, including in Georgia, where an election interference case against an initial 19 defendants, including Trump, has stalled due to the disqualification of the Fulton county prosecutor, Fani Willis.Ellis joined Powell and another Trump lawyer, Kenneth Chesebro, in taking a plea deal in the Georgia case in 2023. Addressing the court in tears, she admitted a felony count of aiding and abetting false statements and writings.Chesebro was disbarred in New York earlier this year for his involvement, Ellis’s Colorado law license was suspended for three years, and efforts to disbar Powell failed because a panel in Texas ruled her misdemeanor convictions in Georgia were neither serious nor intentional.Giuliani also received severe consequences as leader of the plot to keep Trump in office. He was banned from practicing law in New York and Washington DC. He was ordered to pay almost $150m to two Georgia election workers he defamed. And the former New York City mayor was also caught up in defamation trials involving two voting machine manufacturers, Dominion and Smartmatic.Meadows, meanwhile, failed to persuade the supreme court to move the Georgia election case to federal court and pleaded not guilty last year to criminal charges in Arizona, where he was among 18 indicted defendants.Trump’s proclamation, dated 7 November, described efforts to prosecute those accused of aiding his efforts to cling to power as “a grave national injustice perpetrated on the American people” and said the pardons were designed to continue “the process of national reconciliation”,The White House did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on Monday.The Associated Press contributed to this report More

In a rare interview former justice department special counsel Jack Smith has hit back against accusations that the federal prosecutions of Donald Trump he oversaw were politically motivated, calling the claims “absolutely ludicrous”.Speaking with former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann at the UK’s University College London in an interview last week, Smith defended the integrity of the criminal investigations he led and his work as special counsel in the Biden administration.“The idea that politics played a role in who worked on that case, or who got chosen, is ludicrous,” Smith said in the interview which was posted online on Tuesday.Smith led two federal investigations that resulted in unprecedented indictments against a former president, when Trump was charged in 2023 – one case concerning his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and the other involving his handling of classified materials after leaving office and the obstruction of government efforts to retrieve them. Trump pleaded not guilty in both cases and denied any wrongdoing.Both cases were dismissed following Trump’s re-election in 2024, consistent with a justice department policy barring indictment of a sitting president, which Trump became again in January 2025.Smith, who resigned from the justice department in January, said in the interview that his special counsel team had acted independently and were not interested in politics.“Those people I brought in were all former longtime, former federal prosecutors who had worked in both Republican and Democratic administrations over and over again,” he said. “These are team players who don’t want to do anything but good in the world. They’re not interested in politics.“I get very concerned when I see how easy it is to demonize these people for political ends when these are the very sort of people I think we should be celebrating,” he added. “The idea that politics would play a role in big cases like this, it’s absolutely ludicrous and it’s totally contrary to my experience as a prosecutor.”When describing the actions of the current justice department under Trump, Smith said that “nothing like what we see now has ever gone on.”He pointed to the department’s dismissal of a federal corruption case against Eric Adams, New York City’s mayor.“This case in New York City, where the case against the mayor was dismissed in the hopes that he would support the president’s political agenda,” Smith said. “I mean, just so you know, nothing like it has ever happened that I’ve ever heard of.”He also criticized the recent indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, who has been charged with one count of making a false statement to Congress and one count of obstruction of a congressional proceeding, which he denies.“This latest prosecution of the former director of the FBI,” Smith said, “just reeks of lack of process.”“Process shouldn’t be a political issue,” Smith said. “If there’s rules in the department about how to bring a case, follow those rules, you can’t say, ‘I want this outcome, let me throw the rules out’.”Smith said that the firings and attacks on public servants, “particularly nonpartisan public servants” has a “cost for our country that is incalculable” adding that “it’s hard to communicate to folks how much that is going to cost us.”“If you think getting rid of the people who know most about national security is going to make our country safer, you do not know anything about national security,” he said. “And that’s happening throughout the department – it makes me concerned.”Smith also noted how some career prosecutors have left the justice department.“They’re being asked to do things that they think are wrong and because they are not political people, they’re not going to do them,” Smith said. “And I think that explains why you’ve seen the resignations you’ve seen.”The White House and Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Guardian.In a statement to NBC, the White House said: “The Trump Administration will continue to deliver the truth to the American people while restoring integrity and accountability to our justice system.”Meanwhile, on Tuesday, House Republicans requested that Smith testify about what they described as his “partisan and politically motivated prosecutions” of Trump. More

Dominion Voting Systems, the company that makes widely used voting equipment in the United States that became synonymous with election conspiracies and Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election, has been sold.The company was purchased by Scott Leiendecker, a former Republican Missouri election official who founded KnowInk, which makes electronic pollbooks used at voting sites across the country. Leindecker purchased Dominion under a new company called Liberty Vote. Leiendecker, served as the elections director in St Louis from 2005 until 2012, according to his LinkedIn, a period during which he would have overlapped with Ed Martin, a staunch Trump ally at the justice department who served as chairman of the St Louis board of elections from 2005 to 2006.Leiendecker said in a press release the acquisition represented “a new chapter for American elections – one where trust is rebuilt from the ground up”, pledging to deliver election technology that prioritizes “paper-based transparency, security, and simplicity so that voters can be assured that every ballot is filled-in accurately and fairly counted”.“As of today, Dominion is gone. Liberty Vote assumes full ownership and operational control,” the company said in a statement.The sale comes after Dominion spent years in court defending its reputation and pursuing damages against news outlets and Trump allies who baselessly said the company’s equipment had flipped votes in 2020. In 2023, it reached a landmark $787.5m settlement with Fox over false claims about the election. The private equity firm Staple Street capital bought a 76% stake in Dominion for $38m in 2018.Newsmax, another far-right network, agreed to pay $67m to settle a libel lawsuit against Dominion earlier this year. Dominion has also reached settlements with One America News, Sidney Powell, and Rudy Giuliani over false claims over the 2020 election.Dominion was founded and headquartered in Toronto, and also operated from Denver, Colorado. The company developed software in offices across the United States, Canada, and Serbia. Its systems were used in over half the United States during the 2024 election.Financial terms of the sale were not disclosed.The newly renamed Liberty Vote said it would use hand-marked paper ballots, maintain 100% American ownership with domestic staffing and software development, and implement rigorous third-party auditing standards.The company said its approach would ensure “compliance with President Trump’s executive order” on election security, though specific details were not provided. A 25 March executive order demands states to use voting systems that have a “voter verifiable paper record” (every state except Louisiana already uses paper ballots and paper records, according to the non-profit verified voting). The order also seeks to ban equipment in which a voter’s choices are encoded in a QR code.KnowInk is “highly regarded” in the election community, said Jennifer Morrell, CEO of the elections group and a widely-respected election administration consultant.“I’m confident they would not be buying Dominion if there was any possibility they could not offer the same great services and support that they currently provide election officials with their e-pollbook and voter registration systems,” she said. More

MyPillow founder Mike Lindell defamed the election technology company Smartmatic with false statements that its voting machines helped rig the 2020 presidential election, a federal judge in Minnesota ruled recently.But US district judge Jeffrey Bryan deferred until future proceedings the question of whether Lindell – one of the country’s most prominent propagators of false claims that the 2020 election was a fraud – acted with the “actual malice” that Smartmatic still needs to prove to collect any damages.The judge said there are “genuine fact disputes” as to whether Lindell’s statements were made “with knowledge that they were false or made with reckless disregard to their falsity”. He noted that the defense says Lindell has an “unwavering belief” that his statements were truthful.The statements cited by the judge in his ruling on Friday arose from Lindell’s criticism of the results of the 2020 election in California’s Los Angeles county, which Democratic challenger Joe Biden carried with 71% of the vote over Republican incumbent Donald Trump. The results in LA county helped Biden secure the state’s 55 electoral votes as his electoral college victory sent him to the White House and ended Trump’s first presidency.The county used Smartmatic’s computerized touchscreen ballot-marking devices and was the company’s only customer for the 2020 election. Lindell alleged the machines were rigged to change Trump votes to Biden votes.The judge ruled there were 51 specific times when Lindell falsely claimed – in documentaries he produced and through various media and personal appearances – that Smartmatic interfered with the results.“The court concludes that, based on the record presented, no reasonable trier of fact could find that any of the statements at issue are true,” Bryan wrote.Smartmatic attorney Erik Connolly said they will be seeking “nine-figure damages” from Lindell and MyPillow for “spreading lies” about the company.“Smartmatic did not and could not have rigged the 2020 election,” Connolly said in a statement. “It was impossible, and everything that Mr Lindell said about Smartmatic was false.”Smartmatic has been on a winning streak, having reached settlements in 2024 with two conservative news outlets, including Newsmax and One America News Network. The Florida-based company also still has an active case against Fox News.Lindell also has made similar claims against Dominion Voting Systems. He lost a case involving the Denver-based company in June when a jury ruled that he defamed a former Dominion employee by accusing him of treason. The jury awarded $2.3m in damages.Lindell told the Associated Press shortly after the Smartmatic ruling was filed that he hadn’t seen it – but that it was “the most bizarre thing I’ve ever heard”.Lindell went on to call Smartmatic “one of the most corrupt companies in the world”, and he vowed to keep fighting until its voting machines are “melted down and turned into prison bars”. He said he will take his crusade to eliminate voting machines in favor of paper ballots all the way to the US supreme court if he has to.Lindell, known as the “MyPillow guy” for his bedding company, also said he recently re-established residence in Minnesota as a step toward a likely run for governor against the incumbent Democratic governor, Tim Walz. While MyPillow is based in the Minneapolis suburbs, Lindell had been living until recently in Texas.Lindell and MyPillow have faced a number of legal and financial setbacks in recent years, but he won a victory in July when a federal appeals court ruled he did not have to pay a $5m arbitration award to a software engineer who disputed data that Lindell claimed proved China interfered in the 2020 election. The court said the arbitration panel overstepped its authority. More