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    Giuliani says he has settled defamation dispute and will keep Florida condo

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    Rudy Giuliani’s trial over whether he must turn over his Florida condo and other prized possessions to former Georgia election workers whom he defamed was delayed on Thursday after the former New York mayor failed to show up in court.Giuliani later shared on X that he had “reached a resolution of the litigation with the plaintiffs that will result in a satisfaction of the plaintiffs’ judgment”.“This resolution does not involve an admission of liability or wrongdoing by any of the parties. I am satisfied with and have no grievances relating to the result we have reached,” he wrote.“I have been able to retain my New York co-op and Florida condominium and all of my personal belongings. No one deserves to be subjected to threats, harassment, or intimidation. This litigation has taken its toll on all parties. This whole episode was unfortunate. I and the plaintiffs have agreed not to ever talk about each other in any defamatory manner, and I urge others to do the same.”A jury ordered Giuliani to pay $148.1m to Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss in 2023 after he falsely accused the women of attempting to steal the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.Giuliani, who has shown little remorse for his actions, later turned over multiple watches as well as a 1980 Mercedes-Benz SL 500 once owned by the movie star Lauren Bacall to Freeman and Moss.A federal judge in New York had been scheduled to weigh whether Giuliani must also turn over his condo in Palm Beach, which he claims to be his permanent residence. The non-jury civil trial was also set also determine whether Giuliani must hand over three New York Yankees World Series rings to the two women.Per Giuliani’s post on X, it appears that he was not forced to turn over his condo or World Series rings.Earlier this week, Judge Lewis Liman ordered that Giuliani’s son Andrew must hold on to the rings as the trial gets under way, saying, “The point was to ensure the security of the rings,” ABC reports.This month, Giuliani, who has been disbarred in New York and Washington DC, has so far been found in contempt of court twice.Last week, Liman issued his ruling after Giuliani failed to provide financial evidence surrounding his $148m judgment, saying: “The defendant has attempted to run the clock by stalling.” At the hearing, Giuliani acknowledged that he did not always comply with the requests for information, arguing that he regarded them as a “trap” set by lawyers.Later that week, Giuliani was once again found in contempt of court for continuing to spread false statements about Freeman and Moss. Federal judge Beryl Howell in Washington DC said Giuliani had violated court orders that prevented him from defaming the two women.Giuliani’s attorney, Ted Goodman, said in response: “This is an important point that many Americans still don’t realize due to biased coverage and a campaign to silence Mayor Giuliani. This contempt ruling is designed to prevent Mayor Giuliani from exercising his constitutional rights.”After the verdict in 2023, Freeman and Moss detailed their harrowing experiences as a result of Giuliani’s lies against them. Freeman said: “I want people to understand this: money will never solve all of my problems. I can never move back to the house I called home. I will always have to be careful about where I go, and who I choose to share my name with … I miss my home, I miss my neighbors, and I miss my name.” More

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      Five key takeaways from Jack Smith’s report on alleged Trump election crimes

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      A special counsel report detailing Donald Trump’s efforts to subvert democracy was released by the justice department early on Tuesday and concluded that the president-elect would have been convicted of crimes over his failed attempt to cling to power in 2020.However, Trump’s victory in November’s US presidential election scuppered the investigation.Jack Smith was appointed as special counsel and his report was published after a fierce legal battle by Trump’s team to keep it under wraps. In it, Smith asserts that he believes the evidence would have been sufficient to convict Trump in a trial if his success in the 2024 election had not made it impossible to continue the prosecution into his attempts to stay in the Oval Office despite his electoral loss to Joe Biden in 2020.Here are some key findings:1. Trump did not cooperate fullySmith laid out the challenges he faced during the investigation, including Trump’s assertion of executive privilege to try to block witnesses from providing evidence, which forced prosecutors into sealed court battles before the case was charged.Another “significant challenge” was Trump’s “ability and willingness to use his influence and following on social media to target witnesses, courts, prosecutors”, which led prosecutors to seek a gag order to protect potential witnesses from harassment, Smith wrote.2. Smith calls allegations of political interference ‘laughable’Smith hit back at claims by the president-elect that he pursued the charges for political reasons.“While I relied greatly on the counsel, judgment, and advice of our team, I want it to be clear that the ultimate decision to bring charges against Mr Trump was mine. It is a decision I stand behind fully,” wrote Smith, who resigned from the justice department on 10 January.He added that “nobody within the Department of Justice ever sought to interfere with, or improperly influence, my prosecutorial decision making.“And to all who know me well, the claim from Mr Trump that my decisions as a prosecutor were influenced or directed by the Biden administration or other political actors is, in a word, laughable,” Smith wrote.3. Trump knew his allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 election were falseSmith wrote that Trump knew his allegations of fraud in the 2020 election were false – but he continued to make them anyway.“Mr Trump’s false claims included dozens of specific claims regarding certain states, such as that large numbers of dead, non-resident, non-citizen, or otherwise ineligible voters had cast ballots, or that voting machines had changed votes for Mr Trump to votes against him. These claims were demonstrably and, in many cases, obviously false,” Smith said.4. Smith believed Trump should be charged despite supreme court immunity rulingDespite a supreme court ruling on presidential immunity, Smith wrote that he believed the charges he filed against Trump still held water.He notes that his team was able to secure a superseding indictment from a grand jury after the top court handed down its ruling, which gave Trump immunity for official acts taken as president.“The Supreme Court’s decision required the office to reanalyze the evidence it had collected. The original indictment alleged that Mr Trump, as the incumbent president, used all available tools and powers, both private and official, to overturn the legitimate results of the election despite notice, including from official advisors, that his fraud claims were false and he had lost the election.“Given the supreme court’s ruling, the office reevaluated the evidence and assessed whether Mr Trump’s non-immune conduct – either his private conduct as a candidate or official conduct for which the office could rebut the presumption of immunity – violated federal 33 laws. The office concluded that it did. After doing so, the office sought, and a new grand jury issued, a superseding indictment with identical charges but based only on conduct that was not immune because it was either unofficial or any presumptive immunity could be rebutted.”5. Trump is furiousIn a typically incoherent social media post put online in the early hours of Tuesday, Trump’s rage at the release of the report was clear.Trump, who returns to the presidency on 20 January, wrote: “Deranged Jack Smith was unable to successfully prosecute the Political Opponent of his ‘boss,’ Crooked Joe Biden, so he ends up writing yet another ‘Report’ based on information that the Unselect Committee of Political Hacks and Thugs ILLEGALLY DESTROYED AND DELETED, because it showed how totally innocent I was, and how completely guilty Nancy Pelosi, and others, were. Jack is a lamebrain prosecutor who was unable to get his case tried before the Election, which I won in a landslide. THE VOTERS HAVE SPOKEN!!!” More

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      Rudy Giuliani found to be in contempt of court again for 2020 election lies

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      Rudy Giuliani was found in contempt of court on Friday for continuing to spread lies about two former Georgia election workers after a jury awarded the women a $148m defamation judgment.Federal judge Beryl Howell in Washington DC is the second federal judge in a matter of days to find the former New York City mayor in contempt of court.Howell found that Giuliani violated court orders barring him from defaming Wandrea “Shaye” Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman. She ordered him to review trial testimony and other materials from the case and warned him that future violations could result in possible jail time.A statement from Giuliani’s attorney, Ted Goodman, said: “The public should know that mayor Rudy Giuliani never had the opportunity to defend himself on the facts in the defamation case.“This is an important point that many Americans still don’t realize due to biased coverage and a campaign to silence Mayor Giuliani. This contempt ruling is designed to prevent Mayor Giuliani from exercising his constitutional rights.”Moss and Freeman sued Rudy Giuliani for defamation for falsely accusing them of committing election fraud in connection with the 2020 election. They said his lies upended their lives with racist threats and harassment.A jury sided with the mother and daughter, who are Black, in December 2023 and awarded them $75m in punitive damages plus roughly $73m in other damages.Attorneys for the plaintiffs asked Howell to impose civil contempt sanctions against Giuliani after they said he continued to falsely accuse Moss and Freeman of committing election fraud in connection with the 2020 election.Shortly before Friday’s hearing began, Giuliani slammed the judge in a social media post, calling her “bloodthirsty” and biased against him and the proceeding a “hypocritical waste of time”.On Monday in New York, Judge Lewis Liman found Giuliani in contempt of court for related claims that he failed to turn over evidence to help the judge decide whether he can keep a Palm Beach, Florida, condominium.Giuliani, who testified in Liman’s Manhattan courtroom on 3 January, said he didn’t turn over everything because he believed the requests were overly broad, inappropriate or even a “trap” set by the plaintiffs’ lawyers.Giuliani, 80, said in a court filing that before Friday’s hearing that he was having travel-related concerns about his health and safety. He said he gets death threats and has been told to be careful about traveling.“I had hoped the Court would understand and accommodate my needs. However, it appears I was mistaken,” he said in the filing.On the witness stand during Giuliani’s trial, Moss and Freeman described fearing for their lives after becoming the target of a false conspiracy theory that Giuliani and other Republicans spread as they tried to keep Donald Trump in power after he lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden. Trump, for whom Giuliani has previously worked as an attorney, won November’s White House election against the vice-president, Kamala Harris, and will be sworn in for a second Oval Office term on 20 January.Moss told jurors she tried to change her appearance, seldom leaves her home and suffers from panic attacks.“Money will never solve all my problems,” Freeman told reporters after the jury’s verdict. “I can never move back into the house that I call home. I will always have to be careful about where I go and who I choose to share my name with. I miss my home. I miss my neighbors and I miss my name.” More

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      DoJ to release part of report on Trump’s attempt to overturn 2020 election

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      Attorney general Merrick Garland intends to release the first part of the highly-anticipated special counsel report into Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election but will withhold the second part about Trump’s retention of classified documents, the justice department said on Wednesday.The full report by the special counsel, Jack Smith, will also be made available to the top Democrat and Republican on the House and Senate judiciary committees as long as they agree to keep the contents of the second part confidential, the department also said.Exactly when the first part of the report will become public remains unclear, since it is still temporarily blocked by a court order issued by the federal judge who presided in the documents case. The justice department’s intentions were disclosed in a court filing challenging the order.The move to make the report public still faces several hurdles. Even if the 11th circuit quickly rules in favor of release, Trump is expected to make a final challenge to the supreme court in an effort to buy time and shred the report before his 20 January inauguration.Ever since Trump won the election, ending the possibility of the cases going to trial, Smith has been preparing a final report into the Trump cases and their charging decisions, as is required under the special counsel regulations at the end of a case.The report is confidential and first gets sent to the attorney general, who has the power to decide how much becomes public. Garland had previously pledged to publish at least some of it, and the justice department’s court filings suggest the entire first volume will be released.Trump’s lawyers, including Todd Blanche who has been tapped by Trump to be his incoming deputy attorney general, reviewed a draft version of the report over the weekend in Washington and took issue with its findings but also with its very existence.The lawyers objected to Smith even being allowed to complete a report and asked that Garland remove him from his post. If Garland disagrees and Smith produces a report, the decision on whether it should become public should be left to the incoming attorney general, the lawyers suggested.The lawyers leaned heavily into their contention that Smith was improperly appointed because he was not confirmed by the Senate before he took the job – the basis on which the US district judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the classified documents case against Trump.The Trump legal team also argued that the release of the report would unfairly prejudice Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, Trump’s former co-defendants in the documents case, against whom the justice department is separately trying to resurrect the case on appeal.On Tuesday, Cannon granted a temporary injunction that prohibited the justice department from releasing the report outside of the agency until three days after the 11th circuit decided the matter.To get around the documents case situation, the special counsel’s team told the 11th circuit in its reply brief on Wednesday that it would withhold the second part of the report that discusses Trump’s retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and his efforts to obstruct justice.“This limited disclosure will further the public interest in keeping congressional leadership apprised of the significant matter within the Department while safeguarding defendants’ interests,” the filing said. More

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      in US Politics

      Judge revokes decision to retire, foiling Trump’s replacement plans

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      A US appeals court judge has taken the rare step of revoking his decision to retire from active service on the bench, depriving Donald Trump of the ability to fill a judicial vacancy.US circuit judge James Wynn, an appointee of Barack Obama on the fourth US circuit court of appeals based in Richmond, Virginia, disclosed his decision in a letter to Joe Biden on Friday.It marked the first time since Trump won the 5 November presidential election that a Democrat-appointed appellate judge has rescinded plans to take senior status, a form of semi-retirement for judges that creates vacancies presidents can fill.Two trial court judges have similarly done so, prompting complaints by conservatives including Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, who railed about an “unprecedented” spate of judges un-retiring post-election.Thom Tillis, the Republican senator who had fought to prevent Biden’s pick to fill Wynn’s seat from winning Senate confirmation, said on X that Wynn had engaged in a “blatant attempt to turn the judicial retirement system into a partisan game”.Wynn sent his letter a day after Biden’s nominee to succeed him, the North Carolina solicitor general Ryan Park, formally withdrew from consideration after his path to win Senate confirmation vanished.Senate Democrats and Republicans post-election cut a deal that cleared the way for votes on about a dozen of Biden’s remaining trial court nominees in exchange for not pushing forward with four appellate court nominees, including Park.A spokesperson for Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader, has said all four lacked sufficient votes to be confirmed.That left four seats without confirmed nominees that Trump could try to fill upon taking office on 20 January. But two vacancies were contingent upon two Democrat-appointed judges following through on their plans to leave active service.Those judges included Wynn, 70, who in January announced plans to take senior status contingent upon a successor being confirmed. On Friday, he told Biden he had changed his mind.“I apologize for any inconvenience I may have caused,” Wynn wrote.The Article III Project, a group run by Trump ally Mike Davis, late Friday announced it had meanwhile filed judicial misconduct complaints against the two trial court judges who likewise rescinded retirement plans post-election.Those judges are the US district judge Max Cogburn in North Carolina and the US district judge Algenon Marbley in Ohio. Neither responded to requests for comment. More

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      Montana supreme court blocks ban on gender-affirming care for trans minors

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      Montana’s ban on gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors has been temporarily blocked by the state supreme court on grounds that it is likely to violate the right to privacy enshrined in the state’s constitution.The top court in Montana sided on Wednesday with an earlier district court decision blocking SB 99, the ban introduced last year by the Republican-controlled state legislature. The decision will allow under-18 transgender girls and boys to continue gender-affirming medical treatment pending a full trial.Montana’s supreme court justices agreed with the district court judge Jason Marks who put a stop to the ban in September 2023, just days before it came into effect. Marks ruled: “The legislature has no interest … to justify its interference with an individual’s fundamental privacy right to obtain a particular lawful medical procedure from a healthcare provider.”The decision to allow gender-affirming treatment to continue for the time being was greeted with delight by the young plaintiffs and advocacy groups. Zooey Zephyr, a Democrat who is the first out trans member of the state legislature, said on social media: “Montana has a constitutional right to privacy, including in our healthcare decisions. Today our constitution continues to protect individuals from government overreach.”Zephyr was propelled into the national limelight in the spring of 2023 when she spoke passionately against the ban in the Montana house. She was banished from the chamber by the Republican leadership prompting large protests.Montana is among at least 26 states that have introduced bans on gender-affirming medical care for minors. By contrast, 15 states have enacted protections for under-18s seeking treatment.The state’s supreme court ruling comes at a critical moment in the nationwide battle over medical care for trans youth. Earlier this month the US supreme court heard oral arguments in a landmark case brought by the ACLU and others against Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming hormonal therapies for trans minors.The ultra-conservative supermajority of the US supreme court appeared to be minded to uphold the Tennessee ban. However, trans adolescents in Montana would be shielded against any adverse ruling from the country’s highest court because the Montana decision is based entirely on the state’s own constitution and as such is insulated from the federal courts.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I will never understand why my representatives are working to strip me of my rights and the rights of other transgender kids,” one of the plaintiffs, Phoebe Cross, a 17-year-old transgender boy, said in a statement after the state supreme court issued its decision. “Just living as a trans teenager is difficult enough, the last thing me and my peers need is to have our rights taken away.”Cross’s parents, Molly and Paul Cross, were also plaintiffs, alongside Jane and John Doe on behalf of their 16-year-old trans daughter. Two medical providers of gender-affirming care in Montana also joined the suit in protest against SB 99 that punishes doctors or healthcare professionals who knowingly violate the ban with suspension from medical practice for at least a year.Akilah Deernose, director of the ACLU of Montana which represented the plaintiffs, said the ruling “permits our clients to breathe a sigh of relief”. But she warned: “The fight for trans rights is far from over.” More

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      in US Politics

      Trump first-term inquiry into leakers led to invasive searches, report finds

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      A Department of Justice (DoJ) investigation aimed at finding leakers during Donald Trump’s first presidency resulted in invasive searches of congressional staffers’ phone and email records, often without specific cause or the prior approval of the attorney general, a report published on Tuesday has found.In findings that may trigger concerns of how Trump’s incoming administration will behave, the department’s inspector general concluded that DoJ lawyers overreached their authority in their inquiries aimed at discovering who was leaking classified information in 2017, in the early phases of the president-elect’s first stint in the White House.The phone records of two Congress members and 43 staffers – including 21 Democrats and 20 Republicans, along with two holding non-partisan roles – were sought in an aggressive effort to find the source of leaks following the firing of James Comey, the former FBI director, who was ousted by Trump.Although Michael Horowitz’s 96-page report did not identify those whose records had been searched, CNN reported that they included Kash Patel, whom Trump has nominated to be the next FBI director. Patel was a staff member of the House of Representatives’ intelligence committee at the time of the DoJ leak inquiry.Others included the then House member, and recently elected Democratic senator, Adam Schiff – branded as an “enemy within” by Trump in his successful recent presidential election campaign – and Eric Swalwell, another Democratic representative.DoJ prosecutors also sought the records of journalists from the New York Times, Washington Post and CNN as part of the investigation.The subpoenaing of reporters’ records during the first Trump administration has been previously reported and was described as “simply, simply wrong” by Joe Biden in 2021, leading to the DoJ announcing it would no longer seek a legal process to find out journalists’ sources.Since his first presidency, Trump has pledged to jail reporters who do not divulge their sources on stories he considers to have national security implications – a threat now carrying greater weight with his imminent return to the White House.Horowitz said many of the congressional records had been obtained without just cause and, as such, put Congress’s constitutional oversight function of the executive branch at risk.“[D]ozens of congressional staffers became part of the subject pool in a federal criminal investigation for doing nothing more than performing constitutionally authorized oversight of the executive branch,” he wrote.“We believe that using compulsory process to obtain such records when based solely on the close proximity in time between access to the classified information and subsequent publication of the information – which was the case with most of the process issued for non-content communications records of congressional staff in the investigations we examined – risks chilling Congress’s ability to conduct oversight of the executive branch.”The report said DoJ prosecutors did not take into account important constitutional principles governing the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches.The subpoenas requested records of whom staff had spoken to and for how long, rather than the content of their conversations.However, even such limited requests amounted to an encroachment on Congress’s constitutional powers, the report suggested.It stated: “Even non-content communications records – such as those predominantly sought here – can reveal the fact of sensitive communications of members of Congress and staffers, including with executive branch whistleblowers and with interest groups engaging in First Amendment activity.”Criticism of the department for over-zealousness during Trump’s first administration seems ironic given his insistent claims that it was weaponised against him after he left office to press criminal charges that he has dismissed as a political witch-hunt and which he has demanded be purged.It may also foreshadow developments in his forthcoming presidency after he nominated a staunch loyalist, Pam Bondi, as attorney general, after his original pick, Matt Gaetz, stepped aside amid allegations of sexual misconduct. Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to bring the DoJ under direct White House control, in contrast with the quasi-independent status it has held since the Watergate era.He has also spoken of using it to pursue his political opponents and enemies. More

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      in US Politics

      Trump picks Maga darling Harmeet Dhillon to lead civil rights cases at DoJ

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      Donald Trump picked Harmeet Dhillon, a Maga darling and ardent supporter, to lead civil rights cases at the US Department of Justice, a sign of major changes ahead in the agency’s priorities.Dhillon made her name in Maga circles by taking on culture-war cases as a San Francisco lawyer and became a fixture in rightwing media, appearing often on Fox shows. She has filed various lawsuits over election “integrity” issues and supported Trump’s quests to overturn results in 2020.In announcing Dhillon’s nomination, Trump cited a laundry list of cases she’s working on, including “taking on Big Tech for censoring our Free Speech, representing Christians who were prevented from praying together during COVID, and suing corporations who use woke policies to discriminate against their workers”.He also mentioned how Dhillon’s lawsuits on election law fought to “ensure that all, and ONLY, legal votes are counted”.“In her new role at the DOJ, Harmeet will be a tireless defender of our Constitutional Rights, and will enforce our Civil Rights and Election Laws FAIRLY and FIRMLY,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.“I’m extremely honored by President Trump’s nomination to assist with our nation’s civil rights agenda,” Dhillon wrote on Twitter/X after the nomination. “It has been my dream to be able to serve our great country, and I am so excited to be part of an incredible team of lawyers led by @PamBondi. I cannot wait to get to work!”Trump previously announced Pam Bondi, the former attorney general of Florida and a Trump defense attorney, as his pick to lead the justice department.As a lawyer in California, Dhillon has sued the University of California, Berkeley for its speech policies, represented rightwing undercover operation Project Veritas and the former Fox host Tucker Carlson, and filed lawsuits over pandemic restrictions. She served as a legal adviser to Trump in 2020 and ran to replace Ronna McDaniel as chair of the Republican National Committee in 2023, seeking to make the party organization more Trump-friendly. During the 2024 election, she was dispatched to Arizona by the Trump campaign, a decision that some saw as a sign the campaign was ready to make aggressive legal moves if needed to win there.She founded a legal non-profit, the Center for American Liberty, which uses the courts to go after violations of civil liberties and defend against the “coordinated assault on our civil liberties from corporations, politicians, socialist revolutionaries, and inept or biased government officials”, the organization’s website says.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionA Guardian investigation in 2023 found that the non-profit paid Dhillon’s law firm, Dhillon Law Group, at least $1.32m, which experts said was “problematic”. The reporting also noted that Dhillon was paid a $120,000 salary from the non-profit for working two hours a week.Democracy Docket said Dhillon has emerged as “one of the leading legal figures working to roll back voting rights across the country”. It tracked Dhillon or other attorneys at her firms as being involved in more than a dozen lawsuits across the states that challenged voting rights, election processes or Trump’s eligibility for office. She defended Trump in the Colorado case challenging his ability to run for office because of the January 6 insurrection.“Democrats are conspiring to commit the biggest election interference fraud in world history, right before our eyes, as government officials avert their eyes to the mockery of the constitution and our laws,” she said in late 2023 of efforts to keep Trump off the ballot. “This is a low point in American history.”Dhillon also faced hateful backlash from the far-right over her religion after appearing at the Republican convention in 2024. Dhillon, who is Sikh, gave a Sikh prayer at the convention, which some far-right figures called blasphemous. Before her rise in Trumpworld, she gained public attention for writing legal memos defending Sikhs who wore turbans from racial profiling after the 9/11 attacks. More

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      The Guardian view on Trump’s threat to the media: time to pass the Press Act

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      Fears of a press crackdown under Donald Trump’s second term deepened with his nomination of Kash Patel as FBI director – given his calls for retribution against journalists. Yet a rare chance to protect press freedom has emerged. The bipartisan Protect Reporters from Exploitative State Spying (Press) Act, the strongest press freedom legislation in US history, is on the brink of a vote. While President-elect Trump has urged Republicans to block it, the Senate could still deliver it to Joe Biden before the lame-duck session ends in January.The Press Act would ban secret government demands for journalists’ communications from tech giants such as Google or Verizon and protect reporters from jail for refusing to reveal sources. For investigative reporters to do their jobs – holding government officials to account for corruption and wrongdoing – they need to be able to protect the confidentiality of their sources. With courts recently weakening already-imperilled “reporter’s privilege” protections, this bill would finally give journalists in the US federal protections comparable to those afforded to other relationships where confidentiality is paramount, such as lawyers and clients, doctors and patients, and spouses.The bill has something for both Democrats and Republicans to like. The Press Act’s broad and nonpartisan definition of “journalist” takes into account the modern media landscape: you don’t have to work full-time for a mainstream media organisation to be covered. Freelancers, independent reporters writing Substack newsletters and even journalists posting primarily to social networks such as X would be included. It protects right-leaning journalists just as much as anyone at the New York Times or the Guardian.It also has commonsense national security exceptions (like preventing a terrorist attack or an imminent threat of violence) without diluting the bill’s strong protections. It’s worth remembering that Democratic administrations have abused their powers to go after the first amendment rights of journalists just as much as Republicans. The Obama administration brought a record number of prosecutions against whistleblowers, and was implicated in several government spying scandals, including secretly targeting journalists at the Associated Press and Fox News.Even the Biden administration, before reversing course after public outrage, continued pursuing at least some of the surveillance orders against news outlets that the first Trump administration initiated. That’s why, in an age of extreme political polarisation, the Press Act is about as bipartisan as it gets. The House passed the bill early in 2024 unanimously, with several prominent Republicans publicly touting its importance. The bill also has powerful co-sponsors in the Senate, ranging from Democrats such as Ron Wyden and Dick Durbin, the judiciary committee chair, to Trump-supporting Republicans like Mike Lee and Lindsey Graham.Even the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson supports the bill, as he made clear in a recent interview he did with the former Fox News and CBS reporter Catherine Herridge, who was subpoenaed to reveal a source for a story she wrote several years ago. She was recently in front of the DC court of appeals, where her lawyers argued that forcing reporters to reveal their sources in court sends a chilling effect to countless others around the country. For the bill to pass, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, must make it a priority. The lame-duck session is only a few weeks long; if senators don’t act now, we may not have this opportunity for another decade or more.

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