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      Supreme court to hear Trump immunity claim in election interference case

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      The US supreme court agreed on Wednesday to take up the unprecedented claim that Donald Trump has absolute immunity from prosecution in the criminal case over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, throwing into jeopardy whether it goes to trial before the 2024 election.The justices set oral arguments for the week of 22 April to consider a recent ruling by a three-judge panel at the US court of appeals for the DC circuit, which categorically rejected Trump’s immunity claim in a decision earlier this month.Trump’s criminal case will remain on hold until the supreme court ultimately rules on the matter, inserting it into the politically charged position of potentially influencing whether Trump will go to trial before the presidential election in November.The unsigned order said the court intended to address at oral arguments “whether and if so to what extent does a former president enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office”.In the federal 2020 election case, Trump faces a four-count indictment in Washington DC brought by the special counsel, Jack Smith, that charges him with conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct the congressional certification of the election results, and violating rights.Trump sought to have the charges dismissed last year, arguing in a 52-page filing that the conduct he was charged with fell under the so-called “outer perimeter” of his official duties, which meant he could not be prosecuted because of the broad protections afforded to the presidency.The motion to dismiss contended that all of Trump’s attempts to reverse his 2020 election defeat detailed in the indictment, from pressuring his vice-president, Mike Pence, to stop the congressional certification of Biden’s victory to organizing fake slates of electors, were in his capacity as president and therefore protected.At the heart of the Trump legal team’s filing was the extraordinary contention that not only was Trump entitled to absolute presidential immunity, but that the immunity applied regardless of Trump’s intent in engaging in the conduct described in the indictment.The arguments were rejected by the presiding US district judge Tanya Chutkan, and subsequently by the three-judge panel at the DC circuit, which wrote in an unsigned but unanimous decision that they could not endorse such an interpretation of executive power.“At bottom, former President Trump’s stance would collapse our system of separated powers by placing the President beyond the reach of all three Branches,” the opinion said. “We cannot accept that the office of the Presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter.”Trump’s lawyers settled on advancing the immunity claim last October in large part because it is what is known as an interlocutory appeal – an appeal that can be litigated pre-trial – and one that crucially put the case on hold while it was resolved.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionPutting the case on hold was important because Trump’s overarching strategy has been to seek delay, ideally even beyond the election, in the hopes that winning a second presidency could enable him to pardon himself or allow him to install a loyal attorney general who would drop the charges.The involvement of the supreme court now means the case continues to remain frozen until the justices issue a ruling. And even if the court rules against Trump, the case may not be ready for trial until late into the summer or beyond.The reason that Trump will not go to trial as soon as the supreme court rules is because Trump is technically entitled to the “defense preparation time” that he had remaining when he filed his first appeal to the DC circuit on 8 December 2023, which triggered the stay.Trump has 87 days remaining from that period, calculated by finding the difference between the original 4 March trial date and 8 December. The earliest that Trump could go to trial in Washington, as a result, is by adding 87 days to the date of the supreme court’s final decision.With oral arguments set for April, a ruling might not be handed down until May. Alternatively, in the worst case scenario for the special counsel, the supreme court could wait until the end of its current term in July, which could mean the trial might be delayed until late September at the earliest. More

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      If we the Black voters ‘get loud’, neither the Tories nor Donald Trump will survive | Al Sharpton

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      Donald Trump’s racist mentality has long been an open secret. In the 1970s, a federal lawsuit was brought against him for alleged racial discrimination on one of his housing developments in New York. He led the campaign calling for the death penalty against the Central Park Five, who were accused of a brutal rape but later vindicated. Even after that exoneration, he continued to suggest they were guilty.So are Black Americans flocking to support Trump? Reports are mixed. Trump himself would tell you he has a unique affinity with the Black community, but personally, I don’t buy it. Polling in 2020 estimated Trump would take 20% of the black vote. The real number was closer to 8%.After all, let’s remember what he says about us. Just this weekend, he said that Black Americans identified with him because he had faced criminal charges and we embraced his criminal mugshot. That was outright racist and insulting. For him to say that during Black History Month in the US is the epitome of an insult.And the irony is that he is the one being prosecuted – and by Black professionals at that. The New York state attorney general, Letitia James, brought the financially ruinous civil financial fraud case against Trump. Fani Willis, Fulton county district attorney, was responsible for challenging Trump’s alleged election interference in Georgia.I spend a lot of time speaking with Black voters. I host a US radio show six days a week – and from what I hear, I’m not alone in thinking that claims that he has growing support among our community are grossly exaggerated. But I do think it is fair to say that Black citizens are asking questions of the Democrats.Joe Biden has simply not done a good enough job on messaging. He needs to be more aggressive in speaking to Black voters – laying out his record, such as the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act (which Trump opposed) and his support for the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (which almost every Republican voted down). Biden should not assume people know what they haven’t been reminded of.US liberals must understand that if you take the high road and are not making noise about it, no one knows that you’re taking any road. They have to be more vocal, they have to challenge more, and not run away from the issue of race.That goes for the left in the UK, too. Arriving yesterday, I was disgusted to hear racist, Islamophobic language being used by members of the Conservative party. The Tories seem to be alarmingly Trump-like in their language. And that should be a mobilising cry to millions of Black British voters to register to vote.It shocks me that the wider British public doesn’t seem to understand the gravity of the threat to Black voting in the UK. The UK’s new photo ID legislation disproportionately disadvantages Black and minority voters. We know – similar legislation was used against us in the US. But Black people mobilised against it, and in 2021 helped to elect Raphael Warnock as Georgia’s first Black US senator. It shows the importance of fighting back.That’s why I came here: to tell leaders to use our playbook to challenge laws that suppress the Black vote – and to impress on Black communities the importance of turning out. It is imperative to democracy that we awaken the black vote in the UK and bring it alive. And we must do it simultaneously in the US.Biden has an opportunity to expose Trump’s lies and get disenfranchised communities back on side. To do that, he must be candid: he must openly call out Trump’s blatant racism for what it is. He must tell Black voters how Trump stacked the courts in a way that is detrimental to them, and that he will aggressively fight that. The Democrats still have time to recapture those whom they think they are losing. If they do that, Trump will have no recourse. He can’t undo things he has already said and done.You have to turn people on before you can turn them out. And if you turn them on to what is being done to us – what has already been said about us – you can turn people out. Liberal movements in the US and the UK have been blindly hoping that people will turn out on their own. But leaders must understand they won’t mobilise without a reason. It’s not enough to be proud in silence – we need to get loud again.
      The Rev Al Sharpton is a civil rights leader, activist and founder and president of National Action Network (Nan). As told to Lucy Pasha-Robinson.

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      Trump scores another convincing win against Haley in Michigan primary

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      Donald Trump has won Michigan’s Republican primary election, the latest in a string of convincing primary victories as he closes in on the GOP presidential nomination.The Associated Press called the race for Trump over the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley at 9pm ET.The former president has repeatedly trounced Haley in the primaries, but she has hung on with a campaign that continues to highlight areas of weakness for Trump and offers Republicans uneasy about Trump a protest vote of their own. Haley has pledged to stay in the primaries at least through next Tuesday, 5 March, when 15 states will vote and Trump could all but sew up the Republican nomination.With almost 99% of the vote counted, Trump had received 68.2% to Haley’s 26.5%.Trump did not travel to the state Tuesday night. He instead called into a Michigan GOP election night watch party in Grand Rapids, where he stressed the importance of the state in the general election and said the results Tuesday evening were “far greater than anticipated.”“We have a very simple task: We have to win on Nov. 5 and we’re going to win big,” Trump said, according to a campaign transcript. “We win Michigan, we win the whole thing.”But there are some warning signs for Trump in his easy victory in Michigan.Early reporting out of Kent county, which flipped to Biden in the 2020 presidential election, showed Trump with a slimmer margin of victory. That part of the state is significant to the conservative movement and home to the conservative mega-donors the DeVoses.Haley’s strongest performance Tuesday night came in areas with college towns like Ann Arbor, home to the University of Michigan, and suburbs around Detroit and Grand Rapids.Speaking at a press conference in Grand Rapids ahead of the primary, Haley argued that the bloc of Republicans who have continued to turn out for her despite Trump’s dominance in the primaries signaled trouble for Trump in November.“You can’t win a general election if you don’t acknowledge the 40% of Republicans who are saying we don’t want Donald Trump,” said Haley, referring to the share of Republican voters in South Carolina who voted for her.Her comments reflected the fact that even rightwing Republicans like Haley, who came up in the Tea Party movement, could find themselves alienated from today’s Republican party for refraining from supporting Trump.On Tuesday night, as the primary results trickled in, Haley told CNN she was continuing to campaign in preparation for the 15 primaries a week from today, and she criticised Trump. “He cannot win a general election,” said Haley.It is unclear where Haley’s campaign goes from here. Until now, she has powered through the losses, fuelled in part by Americans for Prosperity Action, a powerful funding arm affiliated with the Koch network. But AFP Action abandoned the Haley campaign after she lost in South Carolina, her home state. In a letter obtained by Politico, the Americans for Prosperity CEO, Emily Seidel, commended Haley as a “special leader with conviction, resolve, and steel in her spine”, but wrote that the group would instead focus on Senate and House races in the 2024 election cycle.The Michigan GOP, meanwhile has embraced Trump. This primary only decided about 30% of Republican delegates from Michigan – because of a scheduling change, to stay in compliance with Republican National Committee rules, most delegates will be assigned during the state’s Republican convention and caucus on Saturday, where Trump is strongly favoured.Even a factional crisis that has rocked the state Republican party has not dented Trump’s support among its leadership. “We’ve got our nominee,” the Michigan Republican party chairman, Pete Hoekstra, former US ambassador to the Netherlands under the Trump administration, told the Detroit News on Tuesday night as the results came in.Trump’s dominance of the early states is unparalleled since 1976, when Iowa and New Hampshire began their tradition of holding the first nominating contests. He has won resounding support from most pockets of the Republican voting base, including evangelical voters, conservatives and those who live in rural areas. But Trump has struggled with college-educated voters, losing that bloc in South Carolina to Haley last weekend. More

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      Michigan primary a test for Biden as key voters turn away over Gaza war

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      Polls began to close in Michigan on Tuesday, in a presidential primary that tested how much Joe Biden and Donald Trump should be worried about winning key groups of voters in the general election in the critical swing state.Though both were on track to win their races, Biden and Trump faced challenges within their respective parties. After underperforming in the polls and struggling with suburban and college-educated Republican voters in earlier primaries, Trump’s campaign in Michigan is dealing with a state Republican party whose local leaders have been embroiled in an ugly factional dispute, while Biden faces a campaign by anti-war activists to abandon him over the president’s continued support for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.In an interview with the Guardian, Layla Elabed, sister of the congresswoman Rashida Tlaib and campaign director for Listen to Michigan, said organizers were hoping for a showing of between 10,000 and 15,000 “uncommitted” votes, a mirror of the margin by which Hillary Clinton lost the state to Donald Trump in 2016. They passed 14,000 “uncommitted” votes by 8.30pm, according to an Associated Press count, which could be a significant rebuke of Biden.As the sun began to set on Tuesday evening, a steady stream of voters made their way to polling stations in Dearborn, where the “uncommitted” campaign has concentrated much of its resources on election day.Volunteers sat at intersections and outside the doors of the McDonald elementary school handing out campaign literature, but many of those arriving to vote had already decided to cast an uncommitted ballot.“This is to send a message to the president,” said 41-year-old Khalifah Mahdi, a local business owner who said he was voting for the first time in a primary election. “He has lost a lot of strength and respect in this first term and he needs to win that back.”Maria Ibarra, a volunteer with the Listen to Michigan campaign, said that one Dearborn precinct ran out of voter-registration applications around 7pm Eastern standard time. The voters waiting in line, Ibarra said, “want to make sure that there’s a clear message, that they want a permanent ceasefire”. By 8pm the precinct had obtained more applications.The push by Democratic voters to vote “uncommitted” in today’s primary picked up steam since organizers launched it in early February, with dozens of local elected officials in greater Detroit publicly endorsing the push.That effort has the support of the Dearborn mayor, Abdullah Hammoud, whose Detroit suburb has the largest percentage of Arab Americans of any city in the US. He wrote in a February op-ed in the New York Times that his constituents were “haunted by the images, videos and stories streaming out of Gaza” and felt “a visceral sense of betrayal” by Biden’s support for Israel.The campaign also has support from the representative Tlaib, a Palestinian American who represents Dearborn in Congress. In a video posted on social media today, Tlaib announced that she “was proud today” to vote “uncommitted” in the Democratic primary. “President Biden is not hearing us,” she said, citing a recent poll that showed about 74% of Democrats in Michigan support a ceasefire in Gaza. “This is the way we can use our democracy to say ‘listen – listen to Michigan.’”The campaign also earned the backing of the former congressman Andy Levin, who is Jewish and close to organized labor in the state, and the former 2020 presidential candidate and representative Beto O’Rourke of Texas.“We can use uncommitted to send a clear and powerful message to Joe Biden if we get enough uncommitted votes for a margin of victory,” Elabed, who voted for Biden in 2020, said. “If we’re able to replicate those numbers we can really send a message that he’s at risk of losing Michigan in the general election come November.” The Listen to Michigan campaign on Tuesday evening said they believed they would win at least one delegate at the Democratic national convention. Delegates can be awarded to candidates who earn at least 15% of the vote in a congressional district.Recent history offers some points of comparison for the ongoing “uncommitted” push in Michigan.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn 2008, when voters in Michigan, frustrated at Barack Obama’s absence from the Democratic primary ballot, launched a similar campaign, nearly 40% who cast their ballot did so for the “uncommitted” option. When Obama ran in 2012 – the last time a Democrat entered the Michigan primary as an incumbent – more than 10% of voters in the primary chose “uncommitted”.On the Republican side, Trump was expected to win comfortably against the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley – but weaknesses in his coalition that emerged in earlier primaries in South Carolina and New Hampshire could show up again in the key swing state.If Trump struggles in Kent county in western Michigan, a former Republican bastion that includes Grand Rapids and which flipped to Biden in 2020, and in Oakland county, a more upscale area in suburban Detroit where voters have also shifted away from Trump, that could be particularly telling. Haley made campaign stops in both places in the days ahead of the primary, where she argued that Trump, who won the South Carolina primary by 60% to Haley’s 40%, would struggle to pick up support from those voters.“He’s not gonna get the 40% if he’s going and calling out my supporters and saying they’re barred permanently from Maga,” Haley told a Michigan audience this weekend. “And why should the 40% have to cave to him?”But Tuesday’s vote won’t be the end of things.The Michigan GOP, to comply with national party rules on the timing of the primary, will only award 30% of its delegates to the national convention based on Tuesday’s vote. The rest will be awarded at a Saturday convention. The convention itself has been caught up in a chaotic power struggle over who the real Michigan GOP chair is – but the delegates are expected to be heavily pro-Trump. More

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      Stop fantasizing and deal with reality: it’s going to be Biden against Trump | Margaret Sullivan

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      Get Margaret Sullivan’s latest columns delivered straight to your inbox.It can be diverting – even fun – to fantasize about who might become the next president of the United States.Wouldn’t it be cool if, say, the dynamic, 52-year-old Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer were to be elected, with perhaps a forward-thinking congressman such as Jamie Raskin of Maryland or Hakeem Jeffries of New York as her vice-president?Wouldn’t it be quite an improvement over our previous disastrous president if, for example, former congresswoman Liz Cheney – or someone else who hews to facts and conscience – were the Republican nominee?It’s easy to understand this kind of speculation. Pundits must fill airtime and column inches, and regular people need something to talk about in the wake of football season. Also, next fall’s election is a compelling subject because it’s extremely consequential; it matters even more than Taylor Swift’s romance with Travis Kelce.But the fantasy window – if not slammed and locked – has closed. The passage of time, the raising of campaign funds, and the results of the primaries have made that clear.On the Republican side, former governor Nikki Haley’s loss in her home state of South Carolina was predictable but nonetheless dealt her campaign a death blow. That the only Trump challenger left standing hasn’t dropped out doesn’t change a thing.On the Democratic side, there’s no reason to think Biden won’t be the nominee. For one thing, his campaign has a whopping $56m in cash. (Trump, by contrast, according to the Washington Post, has less than $31m.) Nor has Biden been substantially challenged in the primary season, which is what the primaries are for.Weird things do happen in American politics, but unless something very weird happens, we are looking at this reality: there will be a Joe Biden v Donald Trump rematch in November.Some members of the commentariat aren’t ready for that. Ezra Klein set off another round of chatter earlier this month when he published a long New York Times essay suggesting a brokered convention in Chicago to replace Biden as the Democratic nominee.This notion was taken seriously on MSNBC’s Morning Joe and in other places where left-leaners meet to chew the fat, but that doesn’t make it any more likely.So this is an excellent moment to take a deep breath, acknowledge the obvious and act accordingly. That goes for the media and for citizens alike.Journalists should focus on our non-partisan, public-service mission. It’s not to elect a particular candidate or support anybody’s campaign, but to do our core job of informing citizens of the stakes of this election.An example of not doing that came from NBC News this week with its credulous, six-byline story headlined: “Fewer grievances, more policy: Trump aides and allies push for a post-South Carolina ‘pivot’.”Talk about fantasy! As the NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen posted: “Any reason to think [Trump] is capable of – or newly interested in – a reduction in personal invective?” If yes, where does the reporting say that? If not, “why are six NBC journalists helping to broadcast the pained wishes of his campaign staff?”No, what’s needed is relentless, well-sourced, realistic reporting on the actual candidates, their actual records and their actual plans. The aim should be that no one in America who pays attention should be in doubt about what is at stake.That should not include obsessing about Joe Biden’s advanced age, which everyone is well aware of. It’s already priced in.As Joan Walsh argued this week, Biden supporters are not immune to concerns about his age or about Kamala Harris’s unpopularity. Rather, she wrote in the Nation, they “have added up the various risks and benefits of Biden-Harris 2024 and concluded that it’s less risky to run the incumbent”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDonald Trump is also old. He’s also a would-be authoritarian. He’s the target of 91 indictments in multiple states and his allies are ready to spring into anti-democratic action on inauguration day 2025. Do most Americans understand that as well as they understand that Biden is old? I doubt it.As for citizens, there are (at least) three jobs. First, be well informed about the consequences of this election. Think about what kind of country you want to live in.Second, be actively engaged in the democratic process. For example, get people in your community – including friends and family – registered to vote. Or donate to a candidate you support. Or volunteer to be a poll worker.And finally, most importantly, vote. Don’t plan to stay home because perfection is not on the ballot, or because you disagree on a specific issue, or because you think you’re somehow registering a moral protest.The real world isn’t as pretty or as pure as the fantasy world. But it’s what we’ve got.
      Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture More

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      If Trump wins, he’ll be a vessel for the most regressive figures in US politics | Katrina vanden Heuvel

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      Fifty years ago, then governor Ronald Reagan headlined the inaugural Conservative Political Action Conference. He spoke of the US as a city on a hill, an example of human virtue and excellence, a divinely inspired nation whose best days were ahead.The speakers at last week’s conference were decidedly less inspiring. A lineup of extremists, insurrectionists and conspiracy theorists gathered for panels like “Cat Fight? Michelle v Kamala” and “Putting Our Heads in the Gas Stove”. At CPAC, you can drink “Woke Tears Water”, buy rhinestone-studded firearms and play a January 6-themed pinball machine.But it would be wrong to dismiss CPAC as a crackpot convention. It is also a harbinger of what a second Donald Trump presidency would bring, influenced by a consortium of self-proclaimed Christian nationalists and reactionary dark money groups like the Heritage Foundation who see Trump as their return ticket to relevancy.The Heritage Foundation has poured $22m into Project 2025, their plan to gut the “deep state” and radically reshape the government with a souped-up version of the unitary executive theory, which contends that the president should be allowed to enact his agenda without pesky checks and balances. To paraphrase one speaker at CPAC: “Welcome to the end of democracy.”The Heritage Foundation’s policy agenda is disturbingly radical, even by the standards of the modern Republican party. They want to dismantle the administrative state, ban abortion completely at the state and federal level, and, as always, cut taxes for the rich. They would put religious liberties over civil ones, and Christian rights over the rights of women, people of color, LGBTQ+ people and really anyone who does not look and think exactly like they do.As Trump himself said in an alarmingly theocratic speech last week: “No one will be touching the cross of Christ under the Trump administration, I swear to you.” And we have no reason to doubt him. Russell Vought, a radical involved with Project 2025 who speaks with Trump at least twice a month, is a candidate to be the next White House chief of staff.Vought works closely with the Christian nationalist William Wolfe, a former Trump administration official who has advocated for ending surrogacy, no-fault divorce, sex education in schools and policies that “subsidize single motherhood”. The Heritage Foundation has even called for “ending recreational sex”.Media coverage of Trump tends to focus on his mounting legal woes (nearly half a billion in damages and counting) and increasingly bizarre rants (magnets don’t work underwater). But such an approach misses the point. We can’t risk focusing on spectacle at the expense of strategy, and he has made his strategy perfectly clear.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHe has said he will be a dictator on “day one” and “go after” and indict those who challenge him. He’s running on a 10-point “Plan to Protect Children from Leftwing Gender Insanity”. He’s promised to send federal troops into Democratic-run “crime dens”, by which he means New York City and Chicago.He will have advantages in the courts this time around, too. Groups such as the Article III Project – an advocacy group for “constitutionalist” judges – are making sure of it. A3P is led by Mike Davis, a Trump loyalist lawyer who has been floated for attorney general. (You know, the role that Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr weren’t extreme enough for?) He has promised: “President Trump’s next generation of judges will be even more bold and tough.” And in the meantime, his organization has taken out TV ads attacking the judges and prosecutors in Trump’s criminal trials as “activists” who have “destroyed the rule of law”.If the Article III Project gets what they want, judges hearing challenges to Trump’s proposals will be judges he appointed. Not only will his policies be more dangerous and dogmatic, they’ll be better designed to withstand judicial scrutiny, especially in a friendly court.Look no further than the Alabama supreme court, which ruled last week that frozen embryos are children, imperiling the legality of IVF and foreshadowing far worse. Trump, clearly panicking, has distanced himself from this decision, but as long as he continues to nominate radical activist judges – and he will – it is nothing more than posturing.As was the case during his first term, Trump will serve as a vessel for some of the most regressive figures in American politics. And unlike last time – when he was incentivized to get re-elected legitimately – he will be unencumbered by any notion that he should abide by democratic norms or heed moderating voices. January 6 was a purity test, and he’s since cleared his ranks of people who’ve even whispered disapprovingly.Despite all of this, Trump is leading Biden in many polls. Most projections put the race at 50/50 at best. If Trump and his extremist cronies prevail in 2024, Project 2025 will be under way this time next year, stripping millions of Americans of our freedoms. The end of democracy, indeed.
      Katrina vanden Heuvel is editor and publisher of the Nation and serves on the Council on Foreign Relations More

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      New York prosecutors request Trump gag order ahead of hush-money trial

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      Manhattan prosecutors on Monday asked the judge presiding in Donald Trump’s criminal case on charges of falsifying business records to impose a gag order on the former president, seeking to bar him from attacking potential witnesses and revealing juror identities.The request, submitted by prosecutors in the office of the Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, repeatedly referenced the gag order imposed in Trump’s federal criminal trial in Washington to ask for similar limitations on what he can publicly say about the case.“[The] defendant has a long history of making public and inflammatory remarks,” the 30-page filing said. “Those remarks, as well as the inevitable reactions they incite from the defendant’s followers and allies, pose a significant threat to the orderly administration of this criminal proceeding.”The proposed gag order hewed closely to the contours of the order upheld in December by the US court of appeals for the DC circuit that decided Trump’s inflammatory statements in the federal election interference case could not remain unrestricted, despite his objections.Prosecutors asked the New York judge Juan Merchan to limit Trump from assailing people in three categories: known or foreseeable witnesses concerning their trial testimony; court staff and the district attorney’s staff as well as their families; and any prospective jurors.The filing made extensive use of Trump’s posts on his Truth Social platform decrying the criminal cases in their filing, notably including a post that Trump published in March last year when he erroneously predicted he would be arrested in connection with the business records case.“THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE & FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATE OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK,” Trump had written in a post attached as an exhibit. “PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!”The filing also drew direct lines from Trump’s inflammatory statements about the case to actions taken by his followers, arguing that immediately after that post in particular, the district attorney’s office received its first threat – even before Trump was formally charged.Trump’s lawyers are likely to oppose the gag order and could appeal it should Merchan agree with prosecutors. Still, if Merchan were to impose a gag order, he would be the latest in a string of judges in federal and state courts restricting Trump’s most acerbic remarks.The gag order request comes weeks before Trump is scheduled for trial in the Manhattan criminal case on 25 March. Last year, the district attorney’s office charged Trump with 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up hush-money payments to the porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election.Prosecutors have cast the case as an attempt by Trump to manipulate the 2016 election, arguing Trump paid $130,000 to buy Daniels’ silence about the affair because he was supposedly concerned about damaging his presidential campaign.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe charges hinge on how the hush money was recorded on Trump’s business records. Trump falsified the records, prosecutors allege, by recording the reimbursements to his former lawyer Michael Cohen – who made the payment to Daniels – as “legal expenses” from a “retainer agreement”.To make their case, prosecutors asked the judge in a separate filing on Monday to allow them to introduce ancillary evidence at trial related to their 2016 election interference theory, including other hush-money payments Trump made in advance of the 2016 election.They also asked the judge to allow them to use the infamous Access Hollywood tape where Trump boasted about groping women, which came shortly before Trump made the hush-money payment to Daniels.Trump’s lawyers pushed back at prosecutors in their own filing, asking the judge to exclude evidence about the 2016 election because it was irrelevant to the actual business records allegations. They also asked Cohen to be barred from testifying because he had previously made misstatements. More

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      Manhattan prosecutors seek gag order on Trump in hush money case – live

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      Manhattan prosecutors have asked the judge overseeing the criminal case against Donald Trump involving hush money payments to impose a gag order on the former president.Trump is already under a limited gag order in his federal election interference case in Washington, and prosecutors in Manhattan sought a similarly “narrowly tailored order restricting certain prejudicial extrajudicial statements by defendant.”In their motion, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said Trump had a “long history of making public and inflammatory remarks about the participants in various judicial proceedings against him, including jurors, witnesses, lawyers, and court staff,” adding:
      Those remarks, as well as the inevitable reactions they incite from defendant’s followers and allies, pose a significant and imminent threat to the orderly administration of this criminal proceeding and a substantial likelihood of causing material prejudice.
      If approved, the gag order would bar Trump from “making or directing others to make” statements about witnesses concerning their role in the case.Trump has been charged with 34 counts related to the alleged falsification of business records as part of a purported scheme to cover up extramarital affairs. Jury selection is set to begin on 25 March, making it the first of four criminal cases against Trump to go before a jury.
      Manhattan prosecutors have asked the judge overseeing the criminal case against Donald Trump involving hush-money payments to impose a gag order on the former president.
      Trump has appealed his $454m New York civil fraud judgment, challenging a judge’s ruling that he manipulated the value of his properties to obtain advantageous loan and insurance rates as he grew his real estate empire.
      Alexander Smirnov, the former FBI informant charged with fabricating a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving Joe Biden’s family must remain behind bars while he awaits trial, a judge ruled, reversing an earlier order releasing the man.
      Hunter Biden said, in a rare interview, that his battle to stay sober was unique because failure would be used as a political cudgel as his father, Joe Biden, seeks a second term as US president.
      Americans for Prosperity Action (AFP), the conservative Super Pac backed by billionaire Charles Koch, announced it has paused its financial support of former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination.
      Joe Biden is planning to meet with congressional leaders in Washington tomorrow as he once again tries to head off the looming prospect of a partial government shutdown at midnight on Friday.
      Joe Biden is set to make a rare visit the US-Mexico border on Thursday to meet with US border patrol agents, law enforcement and local leaders – on the same day that Donald Trump has already reportedly scheduled a border trip.
      Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC) plans to stand down beginning next week, paving the way for a slate of Donald Trump loyalists to lead the party in the run-up to the November general elections.
      Kenneth Chesebro, the former Trump attorney who allegedly devised the “fake electors” plan, concealed dozens of damning posts on a secret Twitter account and failed to share them with Michigan prosecutors, according to a report.
      US authorities are investigating organizations that coordinate organ donations over allegations that the non-profits are potentially defrauding the federal government.The federal investigation, first reported by the Washington Post, is looking at several organ procurement organizations (OPOs) that secure organs for transplants within the United States.A focus of the inquiry is investigating whether the organizations knowingly overbilled the Department of Veteran Affairs as well as Medicare, two agencies that reimburse OPOs for the procurement of organs.The investigation is also looking into whether OPOs arranged kickbacks between organizations, the Post reported, citing one person with knowledge of the investigation.The latest investigation, led by the Department of Health and Human Services as well as inspector general Michael Missal with the Department of Veterans Affairs, could lead to a mass overhaul of the organ transplant industry, the Post reported.At least six people with knowledge of the investigation told the Post that the inquiry has been taking place for several months. But it recently intensified as investigators visited the offices and homes of at least 10 chief executives at different OPOs.Kenneth Chesebro, the former Trump attorney who allegedly devised the “fake electors” plan, concealed dozens of damning posts on a secret Twitter account and failed to share them with Michigan prosecutors, according to a report.Chesebro told investigators he did not use Twitter, now known as X, or have any “alternate IDs” on social media, but a CNN report has found he had a private Twitter account where he promoted a “far more aggressive election subversion strategy” than he later told investigators.The anonymous account “BadgerPundit” included a post just days after the 2020 presidential election which said:
      You don’t get the big picture. Trump doesn’t have to get courts to declare him the winner of the vote. He just needs to convince Republican legislatures that the election was systematically rigged, but it’s impossible to run it again, so they should appoint electors instead.
      But in his interview with Michigan investigators, Chesebro said the very opposite, claiming that the entire electors plan was contingent on the courts.An internal review has blamed the Pentagon’s failure to notify government officials and the public about Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s hospitalization on privacy restrictions and said no one should be held responsible.The review, which was done by Austin’s subordinates, largely absolves anyone of wrongdoing for the secrecy surrounding his hospitalization last month, which included several days in the intensive care unit, Associated Press reported.There was “no indication of ill intent or an attempt to obfuscate”, according to an unclassified summary of the review released by the Pentagon today. Rather it in part blames the lack of information sharing on the “unprecedented situation” and says that Austin’s staff was trying to respect his medical privacy.Austin has been called to Capitol Hill on Thursday for a House hearing on the matter and is expected to face sharp criticism.Austin’s health became a focus of attention in January when he underwent prostate cancer surgery and was readmitted to hospital for several days because of complications – without the apparent knowledge of the White House.Top advisers to the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, and Donald Trump have held discussions that included efforts to secure an endorsement of the former president by McConnell, according to reports.The conversations, first reported by the New York Times, have been held between Trump’s campaign manager, Chris LaCivita, and longtime McConnell adviser, Josh Holmes. The NYT report writes:
      Donald J. Trump and Mitch McConnell haven’t said a word to each other since December 2020. But people close to both men are working behind the scenes to make bygones of the enmity between them and to pave the way for a critical endorsement of the former president by the one Republican congressional leader who has yet to offer one.
      An endorsement from McConnell would be the culmination of a relationship that was frosty even before it collapsed over the January 6 Capitol attack. The longtime Senate GOP leader blamed Trump for being “practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day.”Manhattan prosecutors have asked the judge overseeing the criminal case against Donald Trump involving hush money payments to impose a gag order on the former president.Trump is already under a limited gag order in his federal election interference case in Washington, and prosecutors in Manhattan sought a similarly “narrowly tailored order restricting certain prejudicial extrajudicial statements by defendant.”In their motion, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said Trump had a “long history of making public and inflammatory remarks about the participants in various judicial proceedings against him, including jurors, witnesses, lawyers, and court staff,” adding:
      Those remarks, as well as the inevitable reactions they incite from defendant’s followers and allies, pose a significant and imminent threat to the orderly administration of this criminal proceeding and a substantial likelihood of causing material prejudice.
      If approved, the gag order would bar Trump from “making or directing others to make” statements about witnesses concerning their role in the case.Trump has been charged with 34 counts related to the alleged falsification of business records as part of a purported scheme to cover up extramarital affairs. Jury selection is set to begin on 25 March, making it the first of four criminal cases against Trump to go before a jury.A longtime Democratic political operative has admitted he commissioned a robocall which featured an AI-created imitation of Joe Biden discouraging voters from participating in the New Hampshire presidential primary.In a statement, Steve Kramer said he resorted to “easy-to-use online technology” to mimic the president’s voice and send out the infamous automated call to 5,000 Democrats who were most likely to vote in the 23 January primary.The robocall remains the subject of a law enforcement investigation. The US government has since outlawed automated calls using AI-generated voices, saying they are a threat to democracy.“With a mere $500 investment, anyone could replicate my intentional call,” Kramer’s statement – provided to NBC News on Sunday and the Guardian on Monday – also said. “Immediate action is needed across all regulatory bodies and platforms.”Kramer’s statement stopped short of saying that he had permission from his client at the time of the robocall: the long-shot Democratic presidential candidate Dean Phillips. The Minnesota congressman’s campaign has accused Kramer of commissioning the robocall without permission, and has said it would not work with the operative again after paying him nearly $260,000 in December and January.Additionally, Kramer’s statement avoided addressing a version of events relayed by a magician and hypnotist from New Orleans who says he was paid $150 to create the audio used in the robocall.Hello US politics blog readers, it’s been a lively morning and there’s more news to come. We’ll bring you the developments as they happen.Here’s where things stand:
      Alexander Smirnov, the former FBI informant charged with fabricating a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving Joe Biden’s family must remain behind bars while he awaits trial, a judge ruled, reversing an earlier order releasing the man.
      Hunter Biden said, in a rare interview, that his battle to stay sober is unique because failure would be used as a political cudgel as his father, Joe Biden, seeks a second term as US president.
      Americans for Prosperity Action (AFP), the conservative Super Pac backed by billionaire Charles Koch, announced it has paused its financial support of former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination.
      Joe Biden is planning to meet with congressional leaders in Washington tomorrow as he once again tries to head off the looming prospect of a partial government shutdown at midnight on Friday.
      Joe Biden is set to make a rare visit the US-Mexico border on Thursday to meet with US border patrol agents, law enforcement and local leaders – on the same day that Donald Trump has already reportedly scheduled a border trip.
      Donald Trump has appealed his $454m New York civil fraud judgment, challenging a judge’s ruling that he manipulated the value of his properties to obtain advantageous loan and insurance rates as he grew his real estate empire.
      Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC) plans to stand down beginning next week, paving the way for a slate of Donald Trump loyalists to lead the party in the run-up to the November general elections.
      Former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov was re-arrested last Thursday morning while meeting with his lawyers at their offices in downtown Las Vegas, the Associated Press reports.In an emergency petition with the 9th US circuit court of appeals, Smirnov’s lawyers said US district judge Otis Wright II in Los Angeles did not have the authority to order Smirnov to be taken back into custody.The defense also criticized what it described as “biased and prejudicial statements” from Wright insinuating that Smirnov’s lawyers were acting improperly by advocating for his release.Smirnov had been an informant for more than a decade when he made the explosive allegations about the Bidens in June 2020, after “expressing bias” about Joe Biden as a presidential candidate, prosecutors said.Smirnov had only routine business dealings with Ukrainian energy company Burisma, starting in 2017, according to court documents. No evidence has emerged that Joe Biden acted corruptly or accepted bribes in his current role or previous office as vice president.While his identity wasn’t publicly known before the indictment, Smirnov’s claims have played a major part in the Republican effort in Congress to investigate the president and his family, and helped spark what is now a House impeachment inquiry into Biden.Prosecutors previously said that during an interview before his arrest last week, Smirnov admitted that “officials associated with Russian intelligence were involved in passing a story” about Hunter.Prosecutors in the FBI informant case revealed that Alexander Smirnov has reported to the FBI having extensive contact with officials associated with Russian intelligence, and claimed that such officials were involved in passing a story to him about Hunter Biden, the Associated Press reports.Prosecutors said Smirnov, who holds dual Israeli-US citizenship, had been planning to travel overseas to multiple countries days after his February 14 arrest where he said he was meeting with foreign intelligence contacts.Smirnov has not entered a plea to the charges, related to fabricating a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving Joe Biden’s family, but his lawyers have said they look forward to defending him at trial.Defense attorneys have said in pushing for his release that he has no criminal history and has strong ties to the United States, including a longtime significant other who lives in Las Vegas.In his ruling last week releasing Smirnov on GPS monitoring, US magistrate judge Daniel Albregts in Las Vegas said he was concerned about his access to what prosecutors estimate is $6 million in funds, but noted that federal guidelines required him to fashion “the least restrictive conditions” ahead of his trial.A former FBI informant charged with fabricating a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving Joe Biden’s family must remain behind bars while he awaits trial, a judge has just ruled, reversing an earlier order releasing the man, the Associated Press reports.US district judge Otis Wright II in Los Angeles ordered Alexander Smirnov’s detention after prosecutors raised concerns that the man who claims to have ties to Russian intelligence could flee the country.A different judge had released Smirnov from jail on electronic GPS monitoring after his February 14 arrest, but Wright ordered him to be taken back into custody last week after prosecutors asked to reconsider Smirnov’s detention.Wright said in a written order unsealed Friday that Smirnov’s lawyers’ efforts to free him were “likely to facilitate his absconding from the United States.”Smirnov is charged with falsely telling his FBI handler that executives from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma had paid Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, $5m each around 2015. The claim became central to the Republican impeachment inquiry of President Biden in Congress.A majority of Americans support building a wall along the US-Mexico border, according to a new poll, the first time since Donald Trump popularized the idea during his 2016 presidential bid.The Monmouth University poll, which found that 53% of respondents back a border wall, comes as both Joe Biden and Donald Trump are expected to make separate trips to the US-Mexico border in Texas on Thursday.The poll found that public concern about illegal immigration is growing, with more than eight in 10 Americans seeing it as a serious or very serious problem. Some 91% of Republicans said it is a serious problem, up from 66% in 2015.Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University polling institute, said in a statement:
      Illegal immigration has taken center stage as a defining issue this presidential election year. Other Monmouth polling found this to be Biden’s weakest policy area, including among his fellow Democrats.
      On Wednesday, Hunter Biden is due to sit for a closed-door interview with the House oversight and judiciary committees.The same panels last week interviewed James Biden, the president’s younger brother. Coupled with charges and revelations concerning Alexander Smirnov, the FBI informant behind allegations against the Bidens trumpeted by senior Republicans, the James Biden interview was widely held not to have advanced the GOP’s case.Joe Biden’s surviving son, after the death of the former Delaware attorney general Beau Biden in 2015, Hunter Biden has previously publicly discussed his struggles with grief and addiction, not least in Beautiful Things, a memoir published in 2021.Facing tax- and gun-related felony charges, Hunter Biden has sworn in federal court that he has not used alcohol or drugs since 1 June 2019. Axios said a representative said Biden continued to test negative for alcohol or drugs.Biden said he felt “a responsibility to everyone struggling through their own recovery to succeed” with his attempt to stay sober.
      I don’t care whether you’re 10 years sober, two years sober, two months sober or 200 years sober – your brain at some level is always telling you there’s still one answer.
      Embrace the state in which you came into recovery, which is that feeling of hopelessness which forces you into a choice. And then understand that what is required is that you basically have to change everything.
      In a rare interview, Hunter Biden said his battle to stay sober is unique because failure would be used as a political cudgel as his father seeks a second term as US president.“Most importantly, you have to believe that you’re worth the work, or you’ll never be able to get sober,” Joe Biden’s son told Axios on Monday. “But I often do think of the profound consequences of failure here.
      Maybe it’s the ultimate test for a recovering addict – I don’t know. I have always been in awe of people who have stayed clean and sober through tragedies and obstacles few people ever face. They are my heroes, my inspiration.
      I have something much bigger than even myself at stake. We are in the middle of a fight for the future of democracy.
      Biden, 54, became embroiled in the 2020 election between his father and Donald Trump amid Republican attempts to capitalize on his personal struggles and tangled business affairs, particularly in relation to Burisma, an energy company in Ukraine.As the 2024 election approaches, Republicans are still using Hunter Biden and Burisma as political weapons, alleging corruption as they seek to impeach the president, notwithstanding the indictment for lying of a key source also linked to Russian intelligence.That effort is in large part motivated by a desire for revenge for Democrats’ first impeachment of Donald Trump, which focused on attempts to extract dirt on the Bidens from the Ukrainian government.Following Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel’s announcement that she would step down, her co-chair Drew McKissick has also announced his resignation.McKissick, who serves as the chair of the South Carolina Republican party, is also expected to stand down on 8 March. In a statement, he said:
      I’m honored to have had the privilege to serve as RNC Co-Chair for this past year, as well as to have worked with so many grassroots leaders to help make our party successful. It’s what drives me.
      He added that he was looking forward to working with the RNC and Donald Trump’s campaign “to make sure that we WIN this November by taking back the White House, the Senate and maintaining our majority in the House of Representatives.”Americans for Prosperity Action (AFP), the conservative Super Pac backed by billionaire Charles Koch, announced it has paused its financial support of former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination.AFP Action said it “wholeheartedly” supports Haley’s plan to keep campaigning but that its backing would only come in the form of words. The announcement on Sunday came a day after Haley lost her home state’s GOP primary to Donald Trump. The statement said:
      Given the challenges in the primary states ahead, we don’t believe any outside group can make a material difference to widen her path to victory. And so while we will continue to endorse her, we will focus our resources where we can make the difference. And that’s the US Senate and House.
      Haley’s campaign described the group as a “great organization and ally in the fight for freedom and conservative government” and insisted it has “plenty of fuel to keep going”.The US Congress is lurching into a new week of political chaos.Lawmakers are not only trying to avoid a partial government shutdown but also deal with hard right House Republicans’ push for an election-year impeachment trial of the Biden administration’s top official dealing with the US-Mexico border, homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Reuters reports.The Republican-controlled House of Representatives is also grasping for a way forward on vital US aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, and plans to hear closed-door testimony from Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, in an impeachment probe that has failed so far to turn up evidence of wrongdoing by the president.Congress has been characterized by Republican brinkmanship and muddled priorities over the past year, more so since Donald Trump undermined a bipartisan border deal in the Senate and now wants aid to US allies extended as loans.Almost two months have passed since Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer agreed on a $1.59 trillion discretionary spending level for the fiscal year that began on Oct. 1, without the needed legislation to follow.
      It’s becoming more chaotic. The longer Congress is dysfunctional, the further they fall behind on very time-sensitive, high-priority legislation,” said Brian Riedl, senior fellow at the right-leaning Manhattan Institute.
      Some hardliners are threatening to oust Johnson as speaker, if the Christian conservative allows a vote on the $95bn foreign aid bill that passed the Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support.Joe Biden plans to meet with Schumer, Johnson and other congressional leaders on Tuesday. More