US Politics

Voters in the swing state Wisconsin will head to the polls on 4 April to determine who will replace Justice Patience Roggensack on the state supreme court.
It is down to the final two – a liberal and a conservative – and the outcome will determine majority control of the court for at least the next two years, including during the presidential election in 2024.
It is expected to be the most expensive election of its kind in history. Joan E Greve speaks to Alice Herman and Sam Levine about what is at stake

How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know More

So it finally happened. Trump has been indicted. For Democrats and scattered anti-Trumpers on the right, it will probably feel not nearly as satisfying or generate as much schadenfreude as they imagined. In fact, it might seem positively anticlimactic.After all, Trump did not get indicted for his political crimes and misdemeanors. Other investigations may still catch up with him. But the fact that there is no choreographed political theater is precisely how democracies tend to work: messy, piecemeal, ensuring that there is no impunity.Trump sycophants like Elise Stefanik and Andy Biggs complain that the country is becoming authoritarian and like “the third world”. Never mind the underlying racism of such pronouncements – the absence of spectacle proves that they are wrong, as does that fact that countries who fare far better on global democracy rankings than the US have not hesitated to go after former leaders for wrongdoing.Former German president Christian Wulff was indicted on corruption charges – and cleared. Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy was indicted for bribing a judge and for campaign finance violations; he was convicted and sentenced to prison (his appeals are pending). Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, a kind of Trump before Trump, was sentenced to four years in prison. In France, it would have once been unthinkable that a president – who, on one reading of the original, rather royalist conception of the Fifth Republic, embodies the country as a whole – could be treated like an ordinary criminal. But that is the point: the law cannot allow for exceptions; in both democracy and according to the rule of law, we are meant to be equals.To be sure, it can easily seem like, in the end, there are different rules, and different punishments, for different people: Berlusconi never saw the inside of prison; for reasons of age, his sentence was commuted to four hours a week of work with dementia patients. If appeals fail, Sarkozy would in the end only have to suffer house arrest with an electronic monitoring bracelet for his illegal campaign spending. Berlusconi has picked up his political career again and today sits very comfortably in the Italian senate. But this is again typical for democracies: there are no comprehensive show trials or even just cathartic moments; yet – unlike in countries congresswoman Stefanik would associate with the “third world” – there is no complete impunity either.Prosecutions send a signal that going into politics is not a path to avoiding justice. Berlusconi, who was in legal trouble for decades, clearly hoped that parliamentary immunity would save him from the consequences of scandal after scandal. But being popular and being innocent are not the same thing; and any good democratic system will discourage a flight forward into politics so as to avoid proper accountability. Trump also appears to have assumed that declaring his candidacy for 2024 would render indictments less likely – and it’s crucial to prove such assumptions wrong.Of course, given the clear and present danger Trump has been posing to the republic already for years, there were two moments when he could have been removed from politics once and for all; in both instances, when successful impeachments might have banned him from holding office permanently, cowardly Republicans stood in the way. Some of them might be secretly relieved that the justice system is doing the work for them now. Yet, in all likelihood, the pattern of duplicity will continue: on the one hand, clandestine hope that Trump is irreparably damaged as a presidential contender, or at least that his capacity to shape the Republican party into a personality cult is diminished; on the other, loud proclamations of loyalty and accusations that Democrats are “weaponizing” the government.No matter what Democrats say, or what a Democratic district attorney does, Republican accusations will be levelled at maximum volume and with maximum vituperation. Trump is making “retribution” central to his politics. Framing democratic contests as matters of revenge is as dangerous as it gets – but it is hardly Democrats who started it.Desires for revenge and resentments are bountiful resources for a political machine which makes a handsome profit on the side: Trump is already monetizing the indictment, just as he profited from the big lie about the election. As authoritarian populist leaders around the world have discovered, shared grievances and making everyone feel like a victim can create solidarity. This would happen no matter how well choreographed indictments are, or what Democrats say or do not say.Ironically, one factor that may undermine this political-financial business model of martyrdom is the sheer tawdriness of the hush money saga. Trump at the time evidently no longer trusted his self-assessment that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and the base would still come out for him. Hard to believe that people, after the Access Hollywood tape, would have cared about yet another, rather conventional, scandal. As subsequent years were to prove, his followers, especially evangelicals, have not been particularly exercised about his personal life.There is perhaps poetic justice in the possibility that the man who bet on being the ultimate outsider breaking all conventions may have his comeuppance as a result of a very old-fashioned scandal.
Jan-Werner Mueller is a Guardian US columnist More

A Manhattan grand jury voted to indict former President Donald Trump on March 30, 2023, for his alleged role in paying porn star Stormy Daniels hush money.

Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina confirmed the indictment.

The New York Times reported that it is not yet clear what exact charges Trump will face, but a formal indictment will likely be issued in the next few days. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is the first prosecutor ever to issue an indictment against a former president. Trump is still the center of several ongoing investigations regarding other alleged criminal activity, including actions he took while in office.

American history is rife with presidents who have used their office to extend executive authority.

Presidents are not kings. George Washington once reflected on this distinction, saying, “I had rather be on my farm than be emperor of the world.”

But American politics and presidency scholars – including me – have long worried about the idea of an imperial presidency – meaning, a president who tries to exert a level of control beyond what the Constitution spells out.

Trump was just another example of a president acting as if he was king by just another name.

People protest in Manhattan in April 2022, demanding the indictment of former President Donald Trump.
Pablo Monsalve/VIEWpress

Expanding role of the presidency

While some early presidents, notably Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln, expanded the executive branch, most were constrained by the dominance of the legislative branch in their day.

The growth of the executive branch in terms of size and power began in earnest during the 20th century.

Franklin Roosevelt attempted to pack the Supreme Court to overcome opposition to his New Deal legislation, a series of public works and spending projects in the 1930s.

Roosevelt wanted to add a justice for every existing judge on the court who did not retire by age 70 – but it was a transparent attempt to alter the court’s composition to favor his agenda, and the Senate shot it down.

Richard Nixon decided to impound money authorized for programs simply because he disagreed with them. Nixon had vetoed the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 but was overridden by Congress. He still withheld money, which eventually culminated in a 1975 Supreme Court case, in which the court ruled against Nixon.

Other presidents tried to unduly influence more mundane aspects of life.

In August 1906, for example, Theodore Roosevelt issued an executive order forcing the Government Printing Office to begin using the new spellings of 300 words – including “although” and “fixed” – in order to simplify them.

Following broad public criticism of this plan, Congress voted to reject these proposed spelling improvements in 1906.

Richard Nixon speaks with journalist David Frost in 1977, three years after Nixon resigned.
John Bryson/Getty Images

Trump’s turn

Trump’s actions and words throughout the presidency also suggest he believed that the office gave him overarching power.

For example, Trump reflected on his power over states to force them to reopen during the COVID-19 crisis, saying in April 2020, “When somebody’s president of the United States, the authority is total.” But governors actually maintained the control over what remained open or closed in their states during the pandemic.

Trump has also treated the independent judiciary as an inferior branch of government, subject to his control.

“If it’s my judges, you know how they’re gonna decide,” Trump said of his potential judicial appointees in 2016.

Chief Justice John Roberts rejected Trump’s view on this issue in 2018, saying, “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. … What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them.”

It’s classified

There is a rigorous procedure if presidents decide to declassify information. This complex process involves all classified material being reviewed by appropriate government agencies and experts at the National Archives.

But Trump claimed at one point any documents he took home were already declassified.

He later asserted, “There doesn’t have to be a process, as I understand it. … You’re the president of the United States, you can declassify just by saying it’s declassified, even by thinking about it.”

These comments help substantiate Trump’s belief in his absolute authority. There are specific procedures in place to manage declassification that do not involve psychic powers.

One real superpower

If the American presidents have one superpower, it is the power of the pardon. American presidents can pardon people, and the legislative and judiciary branches cannot prevent it.

Past presidents have used pardons largely in the service of justice, but at times to also reward personal friends or connections. But Trump took it even further, using this power seemingly as a way to reward his loyal supporters – and says he will seriously consider pardoning the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol rioters if he is reelected.

Trump also apparently considered granting himself a pardon as a way to avoid any prosecution for his involvement with the Capitol attack.

A self-pardon would also potentially place any president in constitutional murky water.

A 1919 Supreme Court ruling declared that a pardon “carries an imputation of guilt and acceptance of a confession of it.” So, if Trump had pardoned himself for anything, he would have admitted to having committed a crime – for which he could still potentially be impeached or investigated under any applicable state law, which is not covered by a presidential pardon.

Private communications about presidential pardons are shown during a hearing of the Jan. 6 committee in June 2022.
Mandel Ngan-Pool/Getty Images

After office

Since leaving office, Trump has attempted to claim post-presidential executive privilege, independent of the current administration. But President Joe Biden – who must first give Trump this privilege – never extended it to his predecessor.

Trump’s defense that he was allowed to store classified documents at Mar-a-Lago as a result of executive privilege has largely been unsuccessful in the courts.

Trump has also used his time as president to avoid any lawsuits that emerged after he left office.

In January 2023, a federal judge shot down Trump’s attempt to dismiss a 2022 defamation lawsuit filed by the writer E. Jean Carroll, who says Trump raped her in the 1990s. Trump denied the rape in 2019.

In court, Trump argued that anything he said as president should be protected and he should be given immunity during that period.

Though a ruling is still pending, Carroll has argued in court that immunity would apply only if Trump were referring to presidential matters, and not personal ones.

Former President Donald Trump speaks at an event in his Mar-a-Lago home in November 2022.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Everyone is held to the same rules

American presidents serve a limited amount of time governing before they return to the general population’s ranks.

Those privileged enough to hold the top office in the U.S. are still citizens. They are held to the same laws as everyone else and, the founders believed, should never be held above them.

Throughout history, many presidents have pushed the boundaries of power for their own personal preferences or political gain. However, Americans do have the right to push back and hold these leaders accountable to the country’s laws.

Presidents have never been monarchs. If they ever act in that manner, I believe that the people have to remind them of who they are and whom they serve. More

On Thursday, Manhattan prosecutors indicted Donald Trump. The charges against him stem from $130,000 in hush-money paid to an adult film star, Stormy Daniels.The question now looms whether the nation will face Trump-incited violence as a result. The former president threatened “death and destruction” if charged. In a now infamous social media post targeting the Black district attorney Alvin Bragg, Trump depicted himself brandishing a baseball bat at the District Attorney, and called him as an “animal” and “degenerate psychopath”.Some critics have characterized the indictment as an aggregation of record-keeping infractions, the “zombie case” that Bragg initially declined to bring. In his book People vs Donald Trump, Mark Pomerantz, a onetime lawyer in Bragg’s office, previously argued that this particular set of charges was legally wanting.Regardless, the latest fireworks will likely damage Trump with the broader electorate even as Joe Biden struggles with a banking crisis and persistent inflation. “Trump won’t change, and that shows he can’t win,” intones the Murdoch-controlled New York Post. Still, don’t bet that Fox News changes its tune.Faced with a court order, a passel of senior Trump advisors and administration officials may soon be witnesses, including Mark Meadows, Trump’s last chief of staff.The drumbeat continues. Next month, Trump stands trial for defamation and sexual assault. He faces a civil suit brought in New York by E Jean Carroll. Unlike his purported relationship with Daniels, this case centers on rape and degradation.Carroll contends that a quarter of a century ago Trump attacked her in the dressing room of a Manhattan department store. He parried that she was not his “type”. But at a recent deposition, he mistook her for Marla Maples, his second wife, raising questions about his credibility and mental acuity.The Trump-Carroll square-off will also provide the country with another opportunity to revisit history. Her lawyers will probably play the infamous Access Hollywood tape. “When you’re a star, they let you do it,” Trump said on a hot mic. “You can do anything.”Separately, a New York judge has refused to delay a $250m civil fraud action commenced by the state against Trump, his three older children and the Trump Organization, the family business. The October 2023 trial date is “written in stone”, Judge Arthur Engoron said last week.More than two decades have lapsed since a Republican-controlled House of Representatives impeached Bill Clinton over the Lewinsky affair.Lindsey Graham, then a congressman, acted as a manager at Clinton’s impeachment trial. These days, the South Carolina senator prattles about dire consequences for Democrats, anything to golf with Trump.Senator Rand Paul, the self-styled libertarian, calls for Bragg’s arrest. Marjorie Taylor Greene demands that George Soros, foreign-born and a Bragg-backer, be stripped of his US citizenship.Meanwhile, McCarthy, the speaker of the House, ordered Republicans to “immediately investigate if federal funds are being used to subvert our democracy by interfering in elections with politically motivated prosecutions”. Faced with a letter from congressional Republicans demanding documents and testimony, Bragg refused to yield.Their missive “only came after Donald Trump created a false expectation that he would be arrested,” the District Attorney shot back. Such circumstances, he wrote, did not represent “a legitimate basis for congressional inquiry”. Jim Jordan and the rest of the crew refused to take “no” for an answer. On Saturday night, Bragg told them to pound sand.Congressional Republicans now mull legislation to immunize past and current presidents from “politically motivated prosecution”. Conveniently, the Republican party has forgotten those chants of “lock her up”. The law-and-order party meddles with a live criminal investigation.The ex-reality show host closed the week with a campaign rally in Waco, Texas, site of the fatal 1993 Branch Davidian standoff. The fiery siege left more than 80 cult members and four law enforcement officials dead.Personal grievance pocked Trump’s remarks. The investigations surrounding him were “something straight out of the Stalinist Russia horror show,” he declared. Trump tore into Bragg for “prosecutorial misconduct.”After the rally, Trump reportedly suggested that Bragg had dropped the Daniels case. That couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York and served in the US Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992 More

Alvin Bragg’s official biography describes him as a “son of Harlem” who became Manhattan district attorney after “a lifetime of hard work, courage and demanding justice”.In obtaining a grand jury indictment against Donald Trump over his hush money payment to Stormy Daniels in 2016, the Democrat has now carved himself a place in history, as the man behind the first vote to criminally indict a former president.Now 49, Bragg is a Harvard-educated former assistant New York state attorney general and assistant US attorney in the southern district of New York.In 2021, he was elected as the first Black Manhattan DA and only the fourth permanent occupant of the post in 80 years.In office, his biography says, he has focused on “protecting everyday New Yorkers from abuses by the powerful, and correcting past injustices by vacating wrongful convictions”.The biography also highlights the creation of a Special Victims Division, handling “extremely sensitive cases in a trauma informed and survivor centered manner”, and an expansion of a Hate Crimes Unit.Bragg has prominent critics, however. Chief among them is Mark Pomerantz, an experienced New York prosecutor who joined an investigation of Trump begun by Bragg’s predecessor, Cyrus Vance Jr, but resigned in February 2022.In his resignation letter, Pomerantz said Trump was “guilty of numerous felony violations” in his business and political affairs and called Bragg’s initial decision to stop pursuing an indictment “a grave failure of justice”. The two men exchanged shots in the press.Last month, Pomerantz published a book in which he described efforts to make Trump’s hush money payment to Stormy Daniels a viable path to prosecution.Pomerantz called the Daniels payment a “zombie case” because it would not die. A month later, it emerged that Bragg was homing in on a Trump indictment in the very same case.Bragg’s official biography now highlights a six-count indictment against the Trump ally Steve Bannon for fraud, and the conviction of Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization chief financial officer, for tax evasion.Bragg has also faced criticism for his approach to crime, not least from the New York City police commissioner, Keechant Sewell.In early 2022, Bragg issued a memo instructing prosecutors to avoid seeking prison time for all but the most serious crimes. In a city where crime is always a key political issue, and in an atmosphere of heightened concern fueled by the disruptions of the Covid pandemic, Sewell told NYPD officers she was “severely troubled”.Bragg said the memo had been misunderstood. After a meeting, he and Sewell agreed that “police and prosecutors would weigh the individual facts and circumstances of each case with a view toward justice and work together to keep New Yorkers safe”.Later in 2022, the issue of crime and punishment in New York flared forth again. After a Hispanic Harlem shopkeeper stabbed a Black assailant, Bragg charged the shopkeeper with second-degree murder. After an outcry, the charges were dropped. More

Donald Trump and his legal team were reportedly not given advance warning that an indictment was coming down.But they have now been informed of the decision, the Associated Press has confirmed.We have not heard yet from the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, whose office is in charge of that case.A lawyer for Trump said moments ago that the former president has now been told that he’s been indicted. It has not been made public what the charges are or whether such charges will be of misdemeanor or felony status. The grand jury will have filed the indictment under seal.Observers believe this has taken the president’s team, at least in the moment, by surprise, where they are gathered at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s residence in Palm Beach, Florida.Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the indictment of Donald Trump, the former president and current presidential candidate, on criminal charges related to his hush money payment to the adult film star Stormy Daniels.Numerous US media outlets are reporting that the grand jury in New York has voted in the last few minutes to indict Trump.It is a historic move. No former president has ever been criminally indicted. We are waiting for details to emerge and for reactions from Trump or his legal team.Daniels says she had a short sexual affair with Trump in 2006. Trump denies that.Trump also denies wrongdoing, despite admitting reimbursing the $130,000 payment made by his then lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, as election day approached in late 2016.Trump claims to have been a victim of extortion, and says, via lawyers, he initially lied, saying he knew nothing of the payment, because it involved a non-disclosure agreement.News of the Daniels payment broke in early 2018, when Trump was president. Cohen later pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations, contributing to a three-year custodial sentence.Trump faces wide-ranging legal jeopardy, also including investigations of his election subversion at federal and state levels, a civil suit over his business affairs in New York and a defamation trial arising from a rape allegation by the writer E Jean Carroll.He denies all wrongdoing. In the Manhattan hush money case, as in the investigation of his election subversion in Georgia, where an indictment is thought to be imminent, Trump claims to be the victim of prosecutorial racism.According to Mark Pomerantz, a New York prosecutor who worked under Bragg, as the Manhattan DA continued an investigation begun by his predecessor, the Daniels payment came to be seen as a “zombie case” that simply would not die.It has now risen to bite Trump, potentially roiling the race for the Republican nomination to face Joe Biden at the polls next year.Stay with us for rolling coverage. More

Donald Trump has been indicted in New York, over a hush money payment made to the adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election, the New York Times reported on Thursday.The paper cited four people with knowledge of the matter.No former US president has ever been criminally indicted. The news is set to shake the race for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, in which Trump leads most polls.Trump also faces legal jeopardy over his election subversion and incitement of the January 6 attack on Congress; his attempts to overturn the 2020 result in Georgia; his retention of classified records; his business dealings; and a defamation suit arising from an allegation of rape by the writer E Jean Carroll, which Trump denies.Daniels claims an affair with Trump in 2006. Trump denies the affair but has admitted directing his then lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, to pay Daniels $130,000 for her silence.Cohen was also revealed to have arranged for $150,000 to be paid to Karen McDougal, a Playboy model who claimed to have an affair with Trump.That payment was made by David Pecker, the publisher of the National Enquirer tabloid newspaper, which squashed the story.Trump has admitted reimbursing Cohen with payments the Trump Organization logged as legal expenses.Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016 and was president from 2017 to 2021. News of the payment to Daniels broke in January 2018.Cohen pleaded guilty to violating campaign finance law, contributing to a three-year prison sentence handed down in December 2018.Investigations of the Daniels payment have dragged on. Earlier this year, Mark Pomerantz, an experienced New York prosecutor who resigned from Bragg’s team then wrote a book, called the payment a “zombie case” which would not die.Earlier this month, Cohen testified before the grand jury in the Manhattan hush money case. Hope Hicks and Kellyanne Conway, former White House aides, reportedly spoke to prosecutors, as did Daniels, Pecker and Jeffrey McConney, senior vice-president and controller of the Trump Organization.Trump did not testify. He denies wrongdoing, claiming the payments represented extortion.Earlier this week, a Trump lawyer, Joe Tacopina, told MSNBC Trump had simply taken advice from his lawyer, Cohen, which was “not a crime”. Tacopina also said the payments to Cohen were simply “legal fees”.Trump’s lawyers are expected to seek to delay the case.Andrew Weissmann, a former federal prosecutor in New York, said Trump would in all likelihood not head swiftly to court.Writing for MSNBC, Weissmann said: “Beyond Trump’s notorious abuse of the legal system by throwing sand in the gears to slow things down, a criminal case takes time.”He added: “There is no end of motions that can be filed to delay a trial, which could easily cause the litigation to be ongoing during the Republican primary season [in 2024] – something a court could also find is reason to delay any trial date.“Indeed, even in a more quotidian case, having a trial within a year of indictment would be quick.” More

Jared Moskowitz, a Florida Democrat, responded angrily to Marjorie Taylor Greene, after the far-right Georgia Republican advocated that teachers be armed.

Amid national grief and anger over the Nashville elementary school shooting, in which three children and three adults were killed, members of Congress clashed in Washington and people protested in Tennessee More