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      Personal questions, and a witness stays mum: key moments from the Fani Willis hearing

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      On the first day of a heated hearing, the Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis and her deputy, special prosecutor Nathan Wade, took the stand, hoping to put an end to the allegations that their past relationship threatens the criminal case against Donald Trump and his allies in their attempts to overturn the 2020 election.A defendant in the Trump case, Mike Roman, is seeking to have Willis and Wade disqualified, alleging their relationship constituted a conflict of interest. His lawyer attempted to prove Willis financially benefitted from her relationship with Wade.If Roman is successful in having Willis relieved from bringing the case, it would result in the disqualification of the entire district attorney’s office.Here were some key moments from the hearing on Thursday.A key witness decided to stay mumTerrence Bradley, a former law partner of Nathan Wade, was supposed to be the witness that set up the dominoes to fall by testifying that the district attorney’s relationship began earlier than Wade had asserted in an affidavit. Superior court judge Scott McAfee implied that a decision to quash subpoenas for Wade, Willis and others depended in part on whether Bradley’s testimony was powerful enough to overcome suspicions that the whole legal gambit was a fishing exercise and a distraction.But Bradley, who served as Wade’s divorce lawyer for a time, cited attorney-client privilege and refused to testify about the details of his knowledge about the relationship between Wade and Willis.For a moment, it appeared that this would be the beginning and end of the hearing.A former friend gave perhaps the most damning testimony – if trueRobin Bryant-Yeartie, a former friend of Willis’s, testified that she was aware that Willis was romantically engaged with Wade. Bryant-Yeartie said they had started dating in 2019, before Willis had been elected as district attorney and before Donald Trump’s “perfect phone call” to Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensberger, which set off the investigation.Bryant-Yeartie’s testimony directly contradicted Wade’s sworn statement in an affidavit in his divorce case, which said he had not been involved in a relationship with someone else while still married. Prosecutors noted in Willis’s defense that Bryant-Yeartie and Willis had had a falling out and that Bryant-Yeartie had left the district attorney’s office in acrimony, but the testimony was enough to open the door, compelling Wade, and then later Willis, to take the stand.Wade was backed into a corner, but he still surprised the courtWade’s testimony had twists and turns, revealing more of the timeline and that he had cancer in 2020, limiting his time for outside relationships during the pandemic. He also tried to underscore the way he and Willis say they shared the bills: with him paying by credit card and her reimbursing him with cash.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut the lawyers, with their persistence, sometimes left him with no choice but to be direct.“Are you asking me if I had intercourse with the district attorney?” Wade said, after attorney Steve Sadow asked him if they had any kind of personal relationship after June 2023. Wade said no and that he has had no romantic relationship since.Fani came to fight, her wayOriginally objecting to taking the stand, Willis essentially overrode her lawyers to testify on Thursday afternoon. “I’m ready to go,” she said.With the spotlight on her, Willis attempted to explain and rebuff every allegation, and refocus the message. Sometimes, she was cheeky. “He likes wine. I don’t really like wine, to be honest with you,” she said, when explaining a trip to Napa Valley with Wade. “I like Grey Goose.”At other times, she called the lawyers liars, and tried to circumvent the questions to send a message to the public. “You’re confused … I’m not on trial,” she said to attorney Ashleigh Merchant. “These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020.” More

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      Trump prosecutor Fani Willis tells misconduct hearing: ‘I’m not on trial. These people are on trial for stealing an election’ – as it happened

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      In one furious outburst, Fani Willis is angrily pushing back at what she says are personal attacks on her and Nathan Wade, and says opposing attorneys should focus their attention elsewhere.Asked if she objected to records of flights she took with Wade being demanded, she said:
      I object to you getting records. You’ve been intrusive into people’s personal lives. You’re confused. You think I’m on trial. These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020. I’m not on trial, no matter how hard you try to put me on trial.
      Willis is also defending Wade’s character, saying they are “good friends”.The judge has ordered another short break.We’re closing the US politics blog now after what was an extraordinary day, on two fronts, in the various legal cases against Donald Trump.
      In Georgia, the Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis gave testimony in a fiery first day of a misconduct hearing that could see her removed from the election interference case against the former president. “I’m not on trial here,” she insisted in one of many angry exchanges over her affair with special prosecutor Nathan Wade.
      Willis tussled with Trump lawyer Steve Sadow over the “tough conversation” she had with Nathan Wade ending their relationship and, crucially, when it occurred. Telling Sadow “you don’t have to yell at me,” Willis said their relationship was over before she indicted Trump last August.
      Willis insisted she paid Wade back for money he spent on two cruises and other trips he took with her in 2022 and early 2023.
      Willis accused Ashleigh Merchant, a lawyer for another Trump co-defendant, of telling lies about her in another heated exchange.
      Wade also took the stand, confirming their relationship ended last summer.
      Robin Yeartie, a former friend of Willis who worked in her office, testified the relationship began before Wade was hired.
      In New York, a judge set a 25 March start date for Trump’s trial on charges he made illegal hush-money payments to adult movie star Stormy Daniels, and Playboy model Karen McDougal.
      The two stories dominated the day.Also today:Join us again tomorrow, when we’ll have more from the second day of the Fani Willis misconduct hearing.A fiery first day of the misconduct case against Fani Willis, in which a judge will decide if the Fulton county district attorney will be disqualified from prosecuting the Georgia election interference case against Donald Trump, has just wrapped up for the day.The final exchange was Harry MacDougald, lawyer for Trump co-defendant Jeffrey Clark, asking Willis about any financial gifts above $100 she received from Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor she hired for the case, and with whom she had a romantic relationship.Willis says she never received any, other than him paying for dinner. She says she reimbursed him for everything, and pushed back when McDougald said there was nothing to prove she had withdrawn any cash to do so.“That’s not accurate,” Willis replied.It was a tamer exchange than those that preceded it. In one particularly hostile moment, Willis accused an attorney of repeatedly lying about her, and in another furiously exclaimed: “I’m not on trial, no matter how hard you try to put me on trial.”Judge McAfee has told all parties to reconvene at 9am ET on Friday. It’s been quite a day.Steve Sadow’s questioning of Fani Willis has now concluded, and the judge overseeing the misconduct hearing, Scott McAfee, says there’s time for a few more questions before he wraps the hearing up for the day.Next up is Allyn Stockton, lawyer for Trump’s co-defendant and former attorney Rudy Giuliani, who opened with questions about travel Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade might have made together, including trips to Washington DC that Willis has already denied took place.Next, he’s wondering about Willis’s hiring practices and contract-issuing procedures as Fulton county district attorney.It’s not yet clear where he’s going with it, but he seems to be suggesting there might be something improper about the status of employment of two of Wade’s colleagues who reportedly did work for her Willis’s office.Steve Sadow and Fani Willis are now tussling over the “tough conversation” she had with Nathan Wade ending their relationship and, crucially, when it occurred.“The physical relationship was over pre-indictment,” Willis aid, referring to the criminal election interference charges she brought, aided by special prosecutor Wade, against Donald Trump in Georgia in August 2023.But she said women and men “think differently” about what might constitute the end of a relationship. She also said there was a good deal of tension in her relationship with Wade towards the end:
      He told me one time only thing a woman can do for him is make him a sandwich. We would have brutal arguments about the fact that I am your equal.
      I don’t need anything from a man. A man is not a plan. A man is a companion. And so there was tension always in our relationship, which is why I always gave him his money back.
      I don’t need anybody to foot my bills. The only man who’s ever footed my bills completely is my daddy.
      Sadow tried again. “The romantic relationship ended before the indictment was returned. Yes or no?” he said.“To a man, yes,” Willis replied.Steve Sadow, an attorney for Donald Trump, is next to question Fani Willis, and their exchanges are even more hostile than those that preceded them.“You don’t have to yell at me. I’m able to understand. So I would ask you to not yell at me,” Willis replied when Sadow asked a question about her living arrangements during the period she was having a relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade.Willis is also repeatedly claiming the phrasing of Sadow’s questions is “inaccurate”, as is definition of “romantic” to describe her relationship with Wade.“A romantic relationship doesn’t necessarily have to be just sex. It can be dating, it can be holding hands. It can be any of those things that one might call romantic. I’m asking you whether or not prior to November 1st 2021 there was a romantic relationship with Mr Wade,” Sadow said.Willis replied: “I do not consider our relationship to have become romantic until early 2022 … sometime between February and April.”Almost inevitably, Donald Trump has now weighed in with an emailed attack on Fani Willis, and almost as inevitably it’s a fundraising appeal from his campaign, which is clearly watching today’s courtroom drama closely:
      Fani Willis was responsible for taking my mugshot! First she coordinated with the Biden White House to take me down! Then she hired her lover to go after me and paid him with taxpayer dollars,” an email to supporters says, repeating numerous unverified allegations.
      But now, right now, her corruption is being broadcast live to the whole world. I told you she’s corrupt as hell.”
      The email concludes with the oft-heard claim of a “witch-hunt” and a request to “patriots” to chip in to defeat Willis.Ashleigh Merchant, the attorney questioning Fani Willis, is asking why she chose to run for district attorney, citing a claim that Willis said she didn’t want to be “finally effed-up again”.It appears relevant because Donald Trump has claimed Willis ran for the office because she was out to get him.Willis says she felt that with her experience she was “the appropriate person” for what was a tough job:
      It was a huge sacrifice to be district attorney in Fulton County. I was doing just fine. I had a municipal court judgeship that was paying me 100 something thousand a year, and we got to show up twice a week … [the] easiest thing I’ve ever done in life.
      I also had private clients that were paying me to represent them, so I was able to have a law practice and raise two daughters by myself. They were times in life where things were hard.
      So I was telling people I don’t really want to for DA. I’m in a good position right now, I got this easy job that I enjoy being the chief judge of the city of South Fulton, making money at the law firm, and I’m not sure that I want to make the sacrifice.
      Eventually, I prayed. I think that I was the appropriate person.
      Merchant’s questioning of Willis has now concluded.Judge Scott McAfee says the heated atmosphere in the courtroom needs to cool down, and ordered a short break.When the session resumed, with Fani Willis still on the stand, he admonished all parties to respect the decorum of the court.Here’s my colleague Sam Levine’s latest take on this afternoon’s fiery proceedings:In her time on the stand, Fani Willis has twice sought to remind the audience about the stakes of the case. At issue isn’t her relationship with Wade, but democracy. “Ms Merchant’s interests are contrary to democracy your honor, not to mine,” she said at one point.In a heated exchange later she said “You’re confused… I’m not on trial. These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020.”Willis’s testimony so far has sought to explain some of the biggest questions from Wade’s testimony this morning.Explaining why she repaid Wade in cash for travel, Willis explained that she has always kept significant amounts of cash wherever she lays her head. She took from that stash to repay Wade. She has also been blunter about calling out “lies” in motions seeking to disqualify her.By way of explanation, Ashleigh Merchant, mentioned above, is the attorney currently involved in the back-and-forth with Willis on the stand. She represents Michael Roman, one of Donald Trump’s co-defendants in the election interference case that Willis is prosecuting.In one furious outburst, Fani Willis is angrily pushing back at what she says are personal attacks on her and Nathan Wade, and says opposing attorneys should focus their attention elsewhere.Asked if she objected to records of flights she took with Wade being demanded, she said:
      I object to you getting records. You’ve been intrusive into people’s personal lives. You’re confused. You think I’m on trial. These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020. I’m not on trial, no matter how hard you try to put me on trial.
      Willis is also defending Wade’s character, saying they are “good friends”.The judge has ordered another short break.There were only a handful of trips together with Nathan Wade, Fani Willis is now telling the court:
      We went to Aruba, I consider that one trip. On New Year’s Eve, we went on a cruise to the Bahamas. That’s the second trip.
      We went to Belize. That was my trip, that was, you know, his 50th [birthday] and then Napa Valley. We went around May. I don’t know the dates, but it seems to me like it was close to Mother’s Day.
      And those are the only trips.
      Fani Willis is talking about two cruises out of Miami that she took with Nathan Wade, one in October 2022.She says Wade booked and paid for the first one, but she reimbursed him “whatever it was”:
      He is the one that would book the travel. But we need to be clear when we’re talking about just because he’s booked it doesn’t mean I consider him ever having taken me any place.
      He paid for the cruise and the fights… whatever he told me it was, I gave him the money back.
      She was asked where the cash came from:
      I am sure that the source of the money is always the work sweat and tears of me.
      For many, many years, I have kept money in my house… on my worst day probably only $500 or $1,000. And my best days, I probably had $15,000 in my house, cash.
      There’s always going to be cash in my house or wherever I’m laying my head.
      But Willis said she never paid Wade more than $2,500 in any one payment.The Guardian’s Sam Levine is tweeting from the courtroom about Fani Willis’s testimony.The Fulton county district attorney is angry about “lies” told her earlier in the case, including by her former friend Robin Yeartie, who testified today that a relationship between Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade began before she hired him to work on Donald Trump’s election interference case.She’s being asked about her dealings with Yeartie, and vacations she allegedly took with Wade.Fani Willis said she was “very anxious” to testify today, and ran from her office to get to the courtroom when she heard special prosecutor Nathan Wade’s testimony had concluded.She said she had some “choice words” about the motion to disqualify her from Donald Trump’s election interference case but denies she had any substantive conversation with Wade, or anybody else about it:
      I would not have. I don’t believe I’ve had any conversation with him that is substantive related to this.
      Willis has adopted a defensive, verging on aggressive stance, and says she takes exception to allegations she slept with Wade the first day she met him, at a conference:
      Your motion tried to implicate I slept with him at that conference, which I find to be extremely offensive. Mr Wade was my teacher.
      It’s highly offensive when they replicate that you slept with somebody the first day you met with them, and I take exception to this.
      Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis has just taken the stand in the election interference case in Georgia.Almost as soon as she sat down, the judge called a five-minute break for certain documents to be copied and distributed.She’ll be testifying soon about the nature of her relationship with, and cash payments to special prosecutor Nathan Wade, who wrapped up his lengthy period of testimony just now.Stick with us…Rumours that Russia is planning to deploy nuclear weapons in space have been dampened down by experts who say that while such technology is possible, there is no need to push the panic button.The furore kicked off on Wednesday when the head of the US House of Representatives’ intelligence committee, Mike Turner, called for the Biden administration to declassify information on what he called a “serious national security threat”.While Turner gave no further details, it was later reported by news outlets, citing unnamed sources, to involve Russia’s potential deployment of a nuclear anti-satellite weapon in space. The Kremlin dismissed the claim as a “malicious fabrication”.Dr Bleddyn Bowen, an associate professor at the University of Leicester who specialises in outer space international relations and warfare, said the the lack of detail was no reason to panic. “It’s so vague and cryptic, it could be a number of different things. [But] no matter what they are, none of them are a big deal, to be honest. Everyone needs to calm down about this.”Russia is bound by several legal restrictions regarding the use or presence of nuclear weapons in space. Article 4 of the Outer Space treaty (1967) bans nuclear weapons from being put into orbit, installed on celestial bodies or otherwise stationed in outer space, while the New Start treaty aims to reduce the number of deployable nuclear arms. The Partial Nuclear Test Ban treaty (1963) bans nuclear explosions in space.You can read more here.The White House just announced that the US will engage with Russia and allies on the Outer Space treaty and has no intention of violating it.The White House national security spokesman John Kirby is telling reporters gathered in the west wing a little more detail about the “serious national security threat” that emerged into the public eye yesterday.“It’s not an active capability,” Kirby said, after confirming that the threat was related to “an anti-satellite capability that Russia is developing, while adding that “there is no immediate threat to anyone’s safety.”Kirby did not elaborate on reports that the new capability is about Russian plans to deploy nuclear weapons in space.Kirby said Joe Biden has directed a series of actions by the administration, including briefings to congressional leaders and direct diplomatic engagement with Russia about the program.The administration has not permitted more information to be made public yet, the spokesman said.It was a surprise yesterday when the head of the House intelligence committee, Mike Turner, called for the Biden administration to declassify information on what he called a “serious national security threat”.The emerging Russian system can’t directly cause “physical destruction” on Earth, Kirby just said.The White House media briefing is underway. Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre opens by lamenting the mass shooting in Kansas City, Missouri, yesterday.Gunfire erupted towards the end of the victory parade for the Kansas City Chiefs football team, after they won the Super Bowl last weekend.She repeated the White House’s call for the US Congress to ban assault weapons for the general public.Joe Biden has frequently called for such a ban during his presidency, so far to no avail. More

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      Trump says mixing Haley with Pelosi and Biden with Obama was tactic, not gaffe

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      Donald Trump claimed high-profile campaign trail gaffes, in which he seemed to think Barack Obama was still president and mistook Nikki Haley for Nancy Pelosi, were deliberate, the result of his being “sarcastic” in the first instance and choosing to “interpose” names in the second.“When I say ‘Barack Hussein Obama is the president of the United States’, [I am] meaning there’s a lot of control there because the one guy can’t put two sentences together,” the former president told supporters in North Charleston, South Carolina, on Wednesday.“So I say ‘Barack Hussein Obama’.”“The one guy” to whom Trump referred was Joe Biden, once Obama’s vice-president, who soundly beat Trump in the 2020 presidential election but whose fitness for office and a possible second term is now the subject of fierce speculation, given his age, 81, and allegations about his memory and performance.Trump, who is 77, is also the subject of fierce speculation over his mental state and fitness for office.Regardless – and despite his facing 91 criminal charges, attempts to remove him from the ballot for inciting an insurrection and civil suits including one in which he was adjudicated a rapist – the former president dominates the Republican primaries.Having won in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada, Trump enjoys huge polling leads over Haley in South Carolina, the former governor and UN ambassador’s home state which will be the next to vote.In North Charleston, Trump repeated his racist and Islamophobic dog whistle about Obama’s middle name, itself an echo of the “birther” conspiracy theory Trump helped spread (and which he recently sought to direct at Haley), which contended that Obama was not qualified to be president because he was supposedly not born in the US.“Remember Rush?” Trump asked, referring to Rush Limbaugh, the divisive rightwing talk radio host the comedian and senator Al Franken famously called a “big fat idiot” but whom Trump honoured with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2020, not long before Limbaugh died of cancer.Impersonating Limbaugh’s habit of stressing Obama’s middle name, Trump said: “He used to go, ‘Barack Hussein Obama’. ‘He’d go ‘Barack Hussein Obama’. But he did that, Rush. Do we miss Rush? Yes.“But when I say that Obama is the president of our country, bah bah bah, they go, ‘He doesn’t know that it’s Biden. He doesn’t know.’ So it’s very hard to be sarcastic.“When I interpose, because I’m not a Nikki fan and I’m not a Pelosi fan, and when I purposely interposed names, they said, ‘He didn’t know Pelosi from Nikki, from Tricky Nikki. Tricky Dicky. He didn’t know.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn remarks in New Hampshire last month, Trump appeared to think Haley had been responsible for security at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.In fact, Pelosi was speaker of the House on the day Trump sent supporters to “fight like hell” to block certification of his defeat by Biden, a riot now linked to nine deaths, more than 1,200 arrests and an attempt to remove Trump from the ballot which reached the US supreme court last week.“I interpose and they make a big deal out of it,” Trump continued. “I said, ‘No, no, I think they both stink, they have something in common. They both stink.’”According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, “interpose” means “to place in an intervening position, or to put (oneself) between”.Trump possibly meant to say he “interpolated” Pelosi’s name for Haley’s – in the sense of “to alter or corrupt … by inserting new or foreign matter”. More

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      in Elections

      Judge to consider whether to disqualify Fani Willis from Georgia election case

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      An Atlanta judge on Thursday will examine whether Fulton county prosecutors charging Donald Trump and his allies over efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia had improper romantic relations that merit being disqualified from bringing the case.The eventual outcome of the hearing – expected to take over two days before the presiding Fulton county superior judge Scott McAfee – could have far-reaching implications for one of the most perilous criminal cases against the former president.Trump’s co-defendant in the Georgia 2020 election interference case, Michael Roman, is seeking to have the Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis and her top deputy, Nathan Wade, disqualified as a result of their romantic relationship because it constituted a conflict of interest.If Roman is successful in having Willis relieved from bringing the case, it would result in the disqualification of the entire district attorney’s office, throwing into disarray a prosecution that has already been roiled politically since the allegations were made last month.The district attorney’s office has vehemently rejected the claim that the romantic relationship gave rise to a conflict, arguing in court filings that there was no impropriety under the law and there was no financial benefit to either Willis or Wade, as has been alleged.McAfee allowed the hearing to go forward after he decided on Monday that there was the possibility of conflict that he wanted to resolve. “It’s clear that disqualification can occur if evidence is produced demonstrating an actual conflict or the appearance of one,” he said at a hearing.The judge is not expected to immediately rule on the matter. The anticipated two-day proceeding is what is known as an evidentiary hearing, where both sides are expected to call witnesses to testify in open court under oath.During the potentially fraught hearing, McAfee is expected to delve into three principal issues to tackle the conflict of interest question: whether Willis financially benefited from hiring Wade, when the romantic relationship started, and whether the romantic relationship was ongoing.The main focus of the hearing is likely the testimony of Terrence Bradley, a former partner at Wade’s law firm, and those of Willis and Wade. McAfee rejected a request from the district attorney’s office to quash their subpoenas but ruled out getting into Wade’s legal qualifications.The allegations first surfaced in an 8 January motion filed by Roman’s lawyer Ashleigh Merchant, who complained about a potential conflict of interest arising from what she described as “self-dealing” between Willis and Wade as a result of their then-unconfirmed romantic relationship.Roman’s filing, in essence, accused Willis of engaging in a quasi-kickback scheme, where Wade paid for joint vacations to Florida and California using earnings of more than $650,000 from working on the Trump case. The filing also alleged the relationship had started before he was hired.The filing itself, however, provided no concrete evidence that showed alleged self-dealing. At the time, Merchant said her information was based on confidential sources and information in Wade’s divorce case. Yet when the divorce records were unsealed, there was similarly no concrete evidence.After declining to address the allegations for a month, the district attorney’s office acknowledged on 2 February that Willis and Wade had been romantically involved but only after he had been hired as a special prosecutor, and insisted there was no financial benefit because travel costs had been split.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe lawyer for Roman told the judge on Monday that she could undercut that characterization with testimony from Bradley. Indeed, the central thrust of the allegations appear to be buttressed by Bradley; the judge referred at one point to Bradley as the defense’s “star witness”.But special prosecutor Anna Cross, another top deputy on the Trump case who is also representing the district attorney’s office in the matter, told the judge Bradley’s recollections were either fabricated or misrepresented, and was restricted in what he could say because of attorney-client privilege.Whether Willis will be disqualified remains uncertain. Legal experts have generally suggested the evidence to date – there has been almost none, bar Wade’s bank statements showing he paid for a couple of trips – did not show an actual conflict of interest.The potential problem for Willis is that she was previously disqualified from investigating the Georgia lt governor Burt Jones over a lower legal standard of “appearance of impropriety”, after she publicly endorsed Jones’s political rival in that re-election race.The allegations have also threatened to turn the case into political theatre. Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, has derided the prosecution as scandal-plagued in addition to his usual refrain that the criminal charges against him are a political witch-hunt. More

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      Special counsel urges supreme court to reject Trump’s bid to delay election trial

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      The special counsel prosecuting Donald Trump on federal charges involving the former president’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss has urged the US supreme court to reject Trump’s bid to further delay trial proceedings as he presses his claim of immunity.Jack Smith’s filing to the justices responded to a request by Trump’s lawyers on Monday to put on hold a decision by a three-judge panel of the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia circuit rejecting the claim of presidential immunity from prosecution.If the justices do not immediately reject Trump’s request Smith asked the court to take up the case and hear it on a fast-track basis.Trump’s lawyers asked the justices to halt the trial proceedings pending their bid for the full slate of judges on the DC circuit to reconsider the case, and, if necessary, an appeal to the supreme court.The supreme court in December declined Smith’s request to decide the immunity claim even before the DC circuit ruled – a bid by the special counsel to speed up the process of resolving the matter. The justices opted instead to let the lower appeals court rule first, as is customary.A 4 March trial date for Trump in federal court in Washington on four criminal counts pursued by Smith in the election subversion case was postponed, with no new date yet set. Trump has pleaded not guilty and has sought to portray the case as politically motivated.“The nation has a compelling interest in seeing the charges brought to trial,” Smith said in his filing to the justices, adding that “the public interest in a prompt trial is at its zenith where, as here, a former president is charged with conspiring to subvert the electoral process so that he could remain in office”.Smith said Trump’s criminal charges reflect an alleged effort to “perpetuate himself in power and prevent the lawful winner of the 2020 presidential election from taking office. The charged crimes strike at the heart of our democracy.”“A president’s alleged criminal scheme to overturn an election and thwart the peaceful transfer of power to his successor should be the last place to recognize a novel form of absolute immunity from federal criminal law,” Smith added.Trump’s lawyers claim a months-long criminal trial of Trump “at the height of election season will radically disrupt” his ability to campaign against Joe Biden.Trump is charged with 91 felony counts across four criminal cases – in New York, Florida, Washington and Georgia. He denies all the charges and faces the threat of prison if convicted.In the federal election interference case, Trump is charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights, in his relentless pursuit to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election and remain in office.On 6 January 2021, a group of Trump’s supporters broke in to the US Capitol in a deadly but failed effort to prevent the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. Trump had urged them to “fight like hell” at a rally near the White House just before the insurrection, then did not take strong action to call the mob off after they attacked police officers and invaded Congress.On Thursday, two hearings will take place in two of the other cases. Trump is expected to attend a hearing in New York in the case involving an alleged hush money scheme during the 2016 presidential election. Prosecutors accuse Trump of illegally reimbursing his former fixer Michael Cohen for money paid to the adult film producer and actor Stormy Daniels. This case is due to go to trial in March.And in Atlanta, a judge will hold a hearing in the state election interference and racketeering case brought against Trump and multiple co-defendants, where details will be presented about Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis’s relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade.And Trump awaits the decision of a civil judge in New York on the fraud case against his family business, the Trump Organization, which could gut his real estate empire. More

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      Say it with cash: Trump’s Valentine love letter to Melania is fundraising email

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      In a Valentine’s Day fundraising message, Donald Trump sought to demonstrate the depth of his love for Melania Trump, his third wife, by referring to his lengthy list of criminal charges.“Even after every single indictment, arrest and witch hunt, you never left my side,” the message said.The probable Republican presidential nominee faces four criminal indictments: for election subversion (13 state charges, four federal), retention of classified information (40, federal) and hush-money payments to an adult film star and director who claims a sexual affair (34, state).Stormy Daniels claims to have had sex with Trump in 2006, shortly after Melania gave birth to her son, Barron Trump, a claim Trump denies despite having arranged to pay Daniels $130,000 to be quiet during the 2016 election.Nor is that Trump’s only legal problem – or product of what he claims are witch-hunts mounted by his enemies – to do with matters of sex.Last month, Trump was on the wrong end of an $83.3m judgment in a defamation case arising from an allegation of rape, from the writer E Jean Carroll, that a judge said was “substantially true”.Carroll said Trump assaulted her in a New York department store dressing room in the mid-1990s. In a deposition, Trump memorably confused a picture of Carroll for a picture of Marla Maples, his second wife.And yet, despite it all, when it comes to his current wife – and the matter of raising campaign cash – Trump remains a determined softie.Under the headline “This is a Valentine’s Day letter from Donald J Trump”, the message sent out on Wednesday began: “Dear Melania. I love you!”It then took its unexpected turn.“Even after every single indictment, arrest and witch hunt, you never left my side. You’ve always supported me through everything. I wouldn’t be the man I am today without your guidance, kindness and warmth. You will always mean the world to me, Melania! From your husband with love, Donald J Trump.”Recipients who clicked on one of three big red invitations to “send your love” were directed to a page offering the chance to send a “personalised message” to Melania – and to donate to Trump’s campaign amounts ranging from $20.24 to $3,300 or “other”.Melania Trump has recently reappeared in public with her husband, after an absence believed related to the death of her mother, Amalija Knavs, last month. Donald Trump recently told Fox News his wife “wants to make America great again, too” and would “play a big role” in his campaign to return to power.“I think she’s going to be very active in the sense of being active,” Trump added. More

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      Trump is ‘unhinged’ and ‘diminished’, says Nikki Haley

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      Donald Trump is “unhinged” and “diminished”, said Nikki Haley, the former president’s last rival for the Republican presidential nomination, on Wednesday.“To mock my husband, Michael and I can handle that,” the former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador told NBC News’s Today, referring to comments by Trump about Michael Haley, a national guard officer deployed in Djibouti.“But you mock one member of the military, you mock all members of the military … Before, when he did it, it was during the 2016 election, and everybody thought, ‘Oh, did he have a slip? What did that mean?’ The problem now is he is not the same person he was in 2016. He is unhinged. He is more diminished than he was.”In the 2016 campaign, Trump mocked John McCain, an Arizona senator and former nominee for president who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam. Having avoided the draft for that war, Trump was expected to pay a heavy political price but did not, going on to attract controversy in office for allegedly deriding those who serve.Eight years later, Trump has won Republican votes in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada and leads Haley in her own state, the next to vote, by vast margins.Haley’s use of the word “diminished” spoke to concerns about Trump’s age – 77 – but also that of the president, Joe Biden, who at 81 is facing a barrage of Republican attacks about his fitness for office. Haley, 52, has said older politicians should face cognitive tests.Initially shy of attacking Trump, Haley has turned fire his way as primary rivals have dropped out, leaving her the last impediment to a third Trump nomination. But Haley continues to say she will support Trump if he is nominated to take on Biden.“I have said any of those 14 [Republican candidates] would be better than Joe Biden,” she told NBC, “because everybody sees how diminished Joe Biden is.“[But] I will also tell you there is no way that the American people are going to vote for a convicted criminal. They’re not.”Trump faces 91 criminal charges under four indictments: 40 for retaining classified information, 34 for hush-money payments to an adult film actor, 13 for attempted election subversion in Georgia and four for attempted federal election subversion.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe former president also faces civil suits over his business affairs and was on the receiving end of an $83.3m judgment in a defamation case arising from a rape allegation a judge said was “substantially true”.After supreme court arguments last week, Trump looks set to survive state attempts to remove him from the ballot for inciting an insurrection, the attack on Congress of 6 January 2021.Despite such dramas, Trump is poised to extend control over his party by installing a loyalist and his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, as Republican National Committee co-chairs and a campaign official, Chris LaCivita, as chief operating officer.Asked about Trump’s claim she was hurting the party by staying in the primary, Haley told NBC: “From a man who spent $50m of his own campaign contributions on his personal court cases, where the RNC is broke, I’m the one hurting in resources? I don’t think so.“I’m the one that saves the Republican party. Look at every general election poll. Look at any of them. Trump loses [to Biden] by five, by seven. On a good day, he’s even. Margin of error. I defeat Biden by up to 17 points.” More

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      The US supreme court may turn this election into a constitutional crisis | Sidney Blumenthal

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      Imagine it is 6 January 2025. The bell tolls for the day of electoral college certification again. All the events of 2024 converge:The US supreme court’s likely ruling in Trump v Anderson denying Colorado’s disqualification of Trump under the constitution’s 14th amendment, section 3; the exoneration of Joe Biden by special counsel Robert Hur for handling documents while sideswiping him as near senile; the ruling on Trump’s immunity; the trial for his coup attempt; and Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s defiance of federal court rulings in deploying his national guard to the border, supported by other Republican governors who have mobilized their guard units in similar acts of nullification – all these happenings could hurtle to a convulsive confrontation.The supreme court was precisely cautioned against fostering “potentially disastrous turmoil” if it were to rule against Colorado, in an amicus brief submitted by Benjamin Ginsberg, who for decades was the leading Republican party attorney on elections, along with two prominent legal scholars, Richard Hasen, professor at the UCLA law school, and Edward Foley, professor at the Ohio State University law school.The brief by Ginsberg et al was unvarnished: “A decision from this court leaving unresolved the question of Donald Trump’s qualification to hold the office of president of the United States under section 3 of the 14th amendment until after the 2024 election would risk catastrophic political instability, chance disenfranchising millions of voters, and raise the possibility of public violence before, on, and after November 5 2024.”The brief added that “the grounds for avoiding the merits are not credible: Colorado manifestly had the authority to determine Mr Trump’s legal qualification for the office he seeks, and this court has jurisdiction to review that federal-law decision on its merits. To punt on the merits would invite chaos while risking great damage to the court’s reputation and to the Nation as a whole.”But apparently the justices failed to read this brief, just as they apparently failed to read the various amicus briefs filed by distinguished historians.Picture how the scenario might unfold as though reading it as a history from the vantage point of one year from now. The Ginsberg brief predicts the dire consequences that would flow from the supreme court ruling against Colorado. If we layer on to that prophesy the seemingly disparate events of this winter of our discontent we can see, through a mixture of fact and speculation, a disastrous unraveling.Start with the supreme court ruling that a state is not the proper body to determine a disqualification under the 14th amendment, section 3. That would, as the Ginsberg brief states, leave enforcement inevitably, by a process of elimination, to the Congress. The justices’ frantic effort to escape responsibility for upholding the plain language of the 14th amendment in the name of saving the country from a hypothetical political crisis would potentially create a very real constitutional one.In that light, the election result might prove irrelevant. The reason is that now, according to this scenario, the 119th Congress, sworn in on 3 January 2025, could reject the electors from states for Trump by deciding that he is an insurrectionist. The supreme court would have set the stage. If the Democrats were to win the House, they could remove Trump. If the Republicans win control of the Senate, the majority leader, Mitch McConnell, refusing to whip the vote for Trump, could allow a number of Republican senators to vote for Trump’s disqualification, which would void his electoral votes by both chambers.If there is a deadlock, the Ginsberg brief argues, the House still would have an option to remove Trump. Under the Electoral Vote Reform Act, the House would establish rules under the constitution’s 12th amendment in which each state delegation gets one vote in the House. But before that would have taken place, the House could vote that Trump is excluded from a 12th amendment ballot because he was disqualified under the 14th amendment, section 3. No one not on the ballot for president could be substituted. Which means that Joe Biden would be re-elected in any case.All along, throughout the entire campaign year, that would mean that Trump has never been qualified. And it would also mean that only the supreme court decision against Colorado made it seem that he was.In the hearing of the Colorado case earlier this month, Chief Justice John Roberts cast aside the pretense of the conservative doctrines of originalism and textualism on which the supreme court has eviscerated voting rights, gun control and abortion rights. He retreated into a political hypothetical that if the court ruled in Colorado’s favor Biden might be subject to attempts to remove him from the ballot as an insurrectionist.Roberts prattled, “… maybe they’ve got a stack of papers saying here’s why I think this person is guilty of insurrection, it’s not a big insurrection, something that, you know, happened down – down the street, but they say this is still an insurrection … I don’t know what the standard is for when it arises to that.”Led by Roberts, the justices refused to define an insurrection, which was the heart of the Colorado supreme court’s ruling. Roberts’ hypothetical, besides tossing overboard originalism, was more than supercilious punditry. Perhaps his scenario was based on his familiarity with the tactics of the right wing.But Roberts also inadvertently revealed an implicit contempt for the federal system of justice. If a ludicrous suit were ever to be filed against Biden claiming he was an insurrectionist, it would enter into the process of that state’s courts. Roberts apparently had scant confidence in the state courts, up to their supreme courts, to render a sensible decision to throw out transparently mischievous cases. And if a silly case somehow made it to the supreme court, Roberts himself could lead it to deny certiorari. But in his eagerness to find some cause to rule against Colorado, Roberts may have suffered a memory lapse about the fundamental workings of the judicial system.With a supreme court ruling against Colorado, Trump would hail it as a major political victory, brandishing it as proof that all of the charges against him were motivated by partisanship.Now, imagine that in the 2024 election Biden wins the popular vote for the presidency by millions. That is not such a difficulty. Only one Democrat since 1992 has lost the popular vote in a presidential election.But consider that Biden’s overall vote and vote in swing states might be hurt by a lingering ill wind from the special counsel’s report, blowing in suspicion that, despite his command of foreign policy, military affairs and congressional negotiations, he is too damn old, unlike his unsympathetic, malicious, despised and also elderly opponent.If that report imprinted the notion that Biden’s age reflected disability, then wavering voters could fail to grant Biden the credit for his accomplishments, instead giving more weight to the image of him as incapacitated, leaving the record of his presidency unexplained. Trump’s malignant rants, meanwhile, would be, as they are often now, either accepted or dismissed.Cognitive dissonance, rather than cognitive function, in the election could prove to be the critical factor. The president who lifted the country out of Trump’s massive economic and social fiasco in the Covid crisis, and steered it through the resulting inflation to a fabled soft landing, would be perceived as having little to do with his own purpose and therefore weak. On the economy, it’s the stupidity, stupid.The cognitive disconnect in failing to attribute results to Biden’s actions would have enormous political consequences. The more Biden would try to explain the benefits of his policies, the more the Maga base and suggestible voters would disbelieve him because they have already decided he was too old to do anything, a perception reinforced not only by Fox News but also by the drumbeat of mainstream and social media.The election would then disclose the tenacity of the primitive mind. Trump’s bluster would be equated with strength and his threats with energy. The more bellicose he behaves, the more he would be seen as strong; the more incoherently he babbles, the more his supporters believe he knows what he was talking about. While Biden’s irrelevant gaffes have so far been held against him, Trump’s stream of semiconsciousness has been credited as a sign of vigor. The primitive mind that instinctively associates ape-like bellowing with power will not be swayed.Special counsel Robert Hur’s report on the storage of documents at the Penn Biden Center and Biden’s home, published earlier this month, underscored the negative campaign attack. The report’s first line was that “no criminal charges are warranted”. This was followed by contradictory assertions that Biden “willfully retained” documents and that “reasonable jurors” would conclude “that he did not retain them willfully”, and that “he made an innocent mistake, rather than acting willfully – that is, with intent to break the law – as the statute requires”.Having exonerated Biden, the special counsel added this snark: “We have also considered that, at trial, Mr Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”The press attention to the latter part of the sentence has almost always left out the first part – the conjecture of a trial. Yet, as Hur made clear in the opening of his report, he had already decided that he would not bring charges because he lacked evidence, much less a single witness he could bring before a grand jury. When Hur wrote the line he knew there could be no trial.In Biden, Hur had a president “willfully” dedicated to cooperation. He appeared for a deposition at the White House for more than five crucial hours on 8 and 9 October, immediately after the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, in which he was immersed in urgent national security meetings and conversations with world leaders. There was no appearance of obstruction of justice or perjury, as there was in the documents case against Trump. Instead, Biden was willing to elevate the legal process over affairs of state.Biden’s quoted statements that appeared muddled are completely familiar to anyone who has ever had a discussion with him. I have personally had long conversations with Biden since I met him nearly 40 years ago. He has a habit of ruminating, wandering and voicing fragments of thought aloud, but always returns to his subject with considerable knowledge, experience and clear views. (I know of many people who have had conversations with Biden very recently, who report that he is focused, sharp and has a cogent grasp of the many crises he is handling at once.)Hur’s elaborately cute description of a doddering Biden was not gratuitous; it was carefully crafted. Hur knowingly lent the imprimatur of a Department of Justice report to character assassination. Then, Attorney General Merrick Garland naively released it unredacted to the public – red meat for the jackal pack.What was Robert Hur’s state of mind? The most generous interpretation of the special counsel’s innuendo may have been that he was innocent of any experience with a charming Irish American politician. The irony was surely lost on the hardwired conservative that his description of Biden fit Ronald Reagan to a T. But Hur instrumentally deployed his summary of his encounter with Biden as an excuse for his lack of evidence.Hur is a cold-blooded Javert as rightwing careerist. He is a representative man of the first generation bred entirely within the hothouse of the Federalist Society from his start to his smear. Beginning as a summer intern in 2000 at Kirkland & Ellis, where he had the model of partner Brett Kavanaugh, he clerked for Chief Justice William Rehnquist in the period when he was issuing opinions blocking abortion clinics from using Rico to sue anti-abortion protesters for damages, in Scheidler v National Organization for Women, and striking down affirmative action to increase racial diversity in college admissions, in Grutter v Bollinger and Gratz v Bollinger.Hur was an associate to then deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, who defended then attorney general William Barr’s misrepresentation of a redacted version of the Mueller report on Russian interference in the presidential election of 2016 to assist Trump. Trump appointed Hur the US attorney for Maryland, which certainly met with the approval of the Federalist Society chair, Leonard Leo. Hur has been a featured speaker at Federalist Society events since 2007.Hur’s report was not obsessional or fanatical, but professional. It was in effect his job application for the next Republican administration.Now, imagine, if the scenario of the Ginsberg brief is a catastrophe foretold, that all these events tumble unpredictably to 6 January 2025 and beyond. One of the analytic tools of historical understanding is to speculate on what might have happened if events took unexpected twists and turns. The proverb “for want of a nail” suggests that the absence of a minor factor produced a major outcome. In chaos theory, the butterfly effect describes the impact of seemingly random occurrences that set in motion a chain reaction leading to enormous change – the flapping of a butterfly’s wings that results in a distant tornado. A supreme court ruling and a special counsel’s report are more than a nail and a butterfly’s wings.So, consider the possible effects in a not-so-distant future:Disqualified by the Congress, an enraged Trump files a suit before the supreme court. But that is just a gesture. After the 2020 election, he incited a mob to attack the Capitol. Suppose that now he calls on the Texas governor – and other Republican governors – to send national guard units to enforce his “election”. Biden federalizes them, but the Republican governors proclaim that he has usurped power to keep himself in office illegitimately and that Trump is the truly elected president.Self-installed as the president of the de facto Second Confederacy, Trump’s first act is to pardon himself of all federal crimes. He has called Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orbán and Benjamin Netanyahu to request that they recognize him as the true president. Putin offers him asylum.As armies prepare to clash on a darkling plain, Trump’s last-ditch appeal in the Manhattan election fraud case for paying hush money to a porn star goes against him. The New York appellate court announces it has upheld his prison sentence and fine. Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida responds that while Trump might be the president he will honor the extradition clause of the constitution to deliver him from Mar-a-Lago as a fugitive from justice. Trump flees to Texas, where Governor Abbott refuses the extradition order. Trump proclaims he is president wherever he is.The case for remanding Trump to jail in New York then goes to the supreme court. Having decided that the 14th amendment, section 3, is not self-executing, that a state cannot enforce it, the justices must now decide whether to uphold a district attorney under a state law to seize a convicted criminal under the extradition clause, which has always been pro forma. The court puts the case on its calendar several months in the future in the spring of 2025. Its conservative members are at the moment on an extended Federalist Society retreat at a private luxury lodge in Wyoming paid for by Harlan Crow.Or we click the heels of the ruby slippers. “There’s no place like home.” We awake from a phantasmagorical dream in a bed surrounded by Aunt Em and Uncle Henry.
      Sidney Blumenthal is a Guardian US columnist. He is a former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton and has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth More