Law (US)

Subterms

    More stories

    • 175 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Wisconsin attorney general charges three former Trump associates in plot to overturn 2020 election

      by

      Wisconsin’s attorney general, Josh Kaul, filed felony charges on Tuesday against three men who played a key role in the effort to appoint fake electors in the state as part of Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the election.Kenneth Chesebro, Jim Troupis and Michael Roman were each charged with one felony count of forgery, according to court documents. The crime is a class H felony punishable by a fine of up to $10,000 and up to six years in prison.Chesebro was the architect of the fake elector plan. Five days after the election, he emailed Troupis, a retired judge who was leading the Trump campaign’s legal efforts in Wisconsin, to muse about the possibility of throwing out Joe Biden’s win in Wisconsin and appointing a Trump slate of electors. The two developed the scheme over the next few months. Chesebro would later work with Roman to coordinate the efforts across states and to get the slates of fake electors to Washington.Chesebro pleaded guilty to conspiracy to filing false documents for his role in the scheme in a separate case in Georgia earlier this year. Roman faces charges in Georgia and is also a defendant in an Arizona case.This is the first time Troupis, who sits on a judicial ethics panel in Wisconsin, has been charged.Wisconsin governor Tony Evers, a Democrat, released a one-word statement praising the charges. “Good,” he said.The Wisconsin complaint lays out how Chesebro, Troupis and Roman – a Trump campaign aide – coordinated to draft false electoral certificates to be signed by swing state Republicans for Trump and the former vice-president, Mike Pence. The men debated the language to be used on the false elector certificates, considering adding language to qualify that the unofficial slate of electors were contingents in the event that somehow the election results in those key swing states changed before the election was certified.In Wisconsin, the complaint notes, the false elector documents contained “no qualifying language” and presented the Trump-Pence electors as duly elected.On 14 December, the day that the Wisconsin false electors convened, Chesebro celebrated in messages to Troupis and Roman: “WI meeting of the *real* electors is a go!!!”Even as Wisconsin’s slate of false Trump electors submitted their electoral certificates, their chances of reversing the results of the 2020 election appeared increasingly slim. By a narrow 4-3 ruling, the Wisconsin supreme court on 14 December tossed Trump’s lawsuit attempting to overturn the election, accusing the campaign of “challenging the rulebook adopted before the season began”.Chesebro and Troupis were not ready to give up.In the days after the Wisconsin Trump electors met to submit their unofficial certificates, the two men flew to Washington DC to meet with Trump.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOn 17 December, Chesebro acknowleged in a message to Roman that the scheme was looking “less plausible”. Still, he argued, the Electoral Count Act could be “weaponized” to deliver Trump the election.The charges in Wisconsin come after prosecutors in four other swing states – Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Michigan – have filed criminal charges against those involved in the fake elector plot.Unlike his counterpart in the other states, Kaul did not file charges against the fake electors themselves. Earlier this year, Wisconsin’s 10 fake electors reached a settlement in a civil suit in which they agreed to never serve as presidential electors again in an election involving Trump. They also acknowledged Biden’s win.The indictments come as Trump has successfully maneuvered to delay the two criminal cases he faces for subverting the 2020 election until after November. More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump calls on supreme court to annul his guilty verdict in hush-money case

      by

      Donald Trump has called on the US supreme court to step in and annul his guilty verdict in a hush-money trial that left him with the unwanted distinction of being the first former US president to be a convicted felon.The 2024 presumptive Republican nominee made his plea in a typically florid post on his Truth Social site, highlighting that a sentencing hearing scheduled for 11 July falls just four days before the GOP’s national convention in Milwaukee, when his nomination is expected to become official.“The ‘Sentencing’ for not having done anything wrong will be, conveniently for the Fascists, 4 days before the Republican National Convention,” Trump wrote. “A Radical Left Soros backed D.A., who ran on a platform of ‘I will get Trump,’ reporting to an ‘Acting’ Local Judge, appointed by the Democrats, who is HIGHLY CONFLICTED, will make a decision which will determine the future of our Nation?”A jury in Manhattan found the ex-president guilty last Thursday on all 34 counts of falsifying documents to conceal a sexual liaison with an adult film actor, Stormy Daniels, in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, which Trump won over Hillary Clinton.The verdict, which Trump has pledged to appeal, raised the atmosphere in this year’s presidential campaign to fever pitch more than five months before polling day, with Republicans circling the wagons while Democrats sought ways to exploit it.In a worrying sign for Trump, a new ABC/Ipsos poll showed 50% of voters thought the verdict was correct, nearly double the proportion, 27%, who believed it was wrong. Nearly half of those polled, 49%, thought he should end his campaign – a step he is highly unlikely to take.The figures were even starker among “double haters” – voters who equally dislike Trump and President Joe Biden – 65% of whom supported the verdict, with two-thirds saying the former president should end his campaign. Pollsters predict the cohort could be a critical component of the swing voter constituency they believe will determine the outcome in November.By appealing to the supreme court to intervene in a case he insists is nakedly political, Trump is reprising the legal strategy deployed in his defense against special counsel Jack Smith’s charges relating to the 6 January, 2021 mob attack on the US Capitol in a bid to overturn the 2020 presidential election result in his favor.The case is currently on hold while the nine justices consider claims by Trump’s lawyers that he had complete immunity from prosecution for decisions taken while he was president.But his invocation of the court – which has a six-to-three conservative majority after Trump’s judicial appointments while he was in the White House – also comes as questions over its political impartiality are at a peak following revelations that a US flag was flown upside down at the home of Justice Samuel Alito at the time of the January 6 riot. The gesture is identical to that used by many participants in the attack as a symbol of protest against Biden’s victory.In an interview with Fox, Trump affected to be unfazed by the possibility that he could be sentenced to jail by Judge Juan Merchan at his 11 July hearing, saying: “it could happen” and that he would be “OK” with a custodial sentence or home confinement.Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney who prosecuted Trump’s case, has reportedly yet to decide whether to request a prison term or leave the decision to Merchan’s discretion.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionLegal analysts have pointed out that his conviction is for a low-level felony and that Trump has no prior convictions, making probation a more likely sentence.But the ex-president may have sullied his prospects of remaining free with his relentless verbal assaults on both men.Previous attacks on Bragg, a Democrat, have included posting a picture of himself holding a baseball bat next to a photo of the prosecutor’s head.The first Republican attack ad aiming to exploit the verdict has been posted by the GOP Senate candidate Tim Sheehy in his campaign against a Democratic incumbent, Jon Tester, in which he links his opponent for a Montana seat to a prosecution that the ad calls “a state-sponsored political persecution led by JOE BIDEN and the radical left”.“They want to throw Trump in jail, trying to rob Americans of their choice in the election,” the 30-second broadcast says.It also accuses Tester of advocating political violence against Trump, displaying footage of the senator saying: “I think you need to go back and punch him in the face.” More

    • 238 Shares149 Views

      in US Politics

      The Observer view on Donald Trump: utterly unfit for office, he should quit the race for the White House

      by

      It was the moment America, or at least America’s politicians and media, had been waiting for. It was the day justice finally caught up with Donald Trump. The former president’s manipulation of the 2016 election, by hushing up a sex scandal that threatened his chances, and his attempts to discredit a criminal justice system intent on punishing him, was famously thwarted. It was an all-time presidential and judicial first, a historic result that transformed Teflon Don into Felon Don, thanks to a jury of 12 ordinary men and women and a brave prosecutor, Alvin Bragg.Looked at another way, however, last week’s much anticipated dramatic denouement of the criminal trial of the New York playboy, billionaire and presumptive 2024 Republican presidential candidate may turn out to be less pivotal than anticipated. According to the US networks, most Americans tuned out weeks ago, not least because cameras were barred from the Manhattan courtroom. One not untypical public survey found that 67% of respondents said a conviction would make no difference to how they voted this autumn. The 34 guilty verdicts were an overnight sensation. But they may not significantly shift the political dial.The consensus view, around which most Republican and Democrat politicians, pundits and commentators swiftly coalesced, is that Trump’s disgrace will dog him for the remainder of the 2024 campaign – but will not doom him. It may even galvanise support. Evidence of the latter phenomenon came quickly. His campaign said it had raised a record $53m (£41.6m) in 24 hours after the verdict. There was a time, not long ago, when a criminal conviction would have destroyed a candidate’s chances. That time has passed.How can this be? It is, objectively, an extraordinary state of affairs. One explanation may be that twice-impeached Trump, possibly the most scandal-prone US president in history, has exhausted Americans’ capacity to be shocked. So egregious has been his behaviour, on so many occasions over the years, that no one is really surprised any more. Or perhaps this apathy and passivity are less to do with Trump and more with a broader public disillusionment with politics and politicians. Whatever the cause, it appears, regrettably, that Trump will ride out this storm and keep his bid for a second presidential term on track.Another key moment looms in early July, when Judge Juan Merchan, the target of his repeated contemptuous taunts, will decide how heavy a sentence to impose. Trump may escape jail given his age, 77, and the absence of prior convictions, although he could receive up to four years. A fine and probation look more likely. In any case, Trump has already signalled his intention to appeal. That process will almost certainly extend beyond the 5 November election. The three other major criminal trials Trump faces – over the alleged theft of classified documents, his role in the 6 January 2021 coup attempt, and electoral interference in Georgia – have all been delayed past polling day. Bottom line: if he defeats Biden, Trump will probably evade punishment entirely.If this prospect seems strange, even scandalous, then consider another big anomaly exposed by this trial. No previous US president, serving or retired, has been found guilty of a crime. Yet the hallowed US constitution makes no objection to Trump running for, and holding, the country’s highest office, even from inside a prison. This is another reason, along with the antiquated electoral college system and the politicisation of a rogue supreme court, to pursue urgent constitutional reform.Positive outcomes were not entirely drowned out by Trump’s unhinged post-trial ravings about a “rigged” process and the supposed threat posed by “millions” of terrorists and mentally unwell migrants seeking to “take over our country”. Most important is the fact that, in the end, Trump was forced to face justice like any other citizen. He is not above the law. He could not hide behind bogus claims of presidential immunity. In this instance, impunity and unaccountability, the twin curses of modern governance, did not prevail.The noisy theatrics, whingeing claims of victimisation and mendacious hype that characterised Trump’s trial performance have paradoxically served to make Biden look more stable, more sensible and certainly more statesmanlike. On Memorial Day, the president delivered a dignified speech at Arlington National Cemetery, ahead of this week’s anniversary of the 1944 D-day landings. While he was paying solemn tribute to America’s war dead, Trump was viciously ranting about “human scum” trying to “destroy” the country.Does Trump have any idea how bad this crude conduct makes him look, how diminished, mean and twisted? It’s a stark contrast with Biden, 81, always dapper and upbeat, if somewhat shaky on his feet. It is hard to imagine a less appealing pitch to the young first-time voters, independents and minorities who, pollsters say, could make all the difference in November’s half-dozen crucial swing states.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe margin of victory is predicted to be wafer thin again this autumn. Trump holds a tiny national lead, and has the edge in most of the battlegrounds. There is evidently all to play for. And while Biden remains a problematic candidate, Trump, on the forensic evidence of recent days, has proved again that he is a truly terrible one – and an unrepentant criminal to boot. He is unfit for office. He should stand down.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk More

    • 163 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Kansas supreme court rules state constitution does not provide the right to vote

      by

      In a bizarre mixed ruling combining several challenges to a 2021 election law, Kansas’s supreme court has ruled that its residents have no right to vote enshrined in the state’s constitution.The opinion centering on a ballot signature-verification measure elicited fiery dissent from three of the court’s seven justices. But the majority held that the court failed to identify a “fundamental right to vote” within the state.The measure in question requires election officials to match the signatures on advance mail ballots to a person’s voter registration record. The state supreme court reversed a lower court’s dismissal of a lawsuit that challenged that. The majority of justices on the state supreme court then rejected arguments from voting rights groups that the measure violates state constitutional voting rights.In fact, writing for the majority, Justice Caleb Stegall said that the dissenting justices wrongly accused the majority of ignoring past precedent, holding that the “fundamental right to vote” within the state constitution “simply is not there”.That finding is contrary to the US constitution, which dedicates large portions of itself to the right to vote for citizens.Justice Eric Rosen, one of the three who dissented, wrote: “It staggers my imagination to conclude Kansas citizens have no fundamental right to vote under their state constitution.“I cannot and will not condone this betrayal of our constitutional duty to safeguard the foundational rights of Kansans.”Conversely, the high court unanimously sided with the challengers of a different provision that makes it a crime for someone to give the appearance of being an election official. Voting rights groups, including the Kansas League of Women Voters and the non-profit Loud Light, argued the measure suppresses free speech and their ability to register voters as some might wrongly assume volunteers are election workers, putting them at risk of criminal prosecution.A Shawnee county district court judge had earlier rejected the groups’ request for an emergency injunction, saying that impersonation of a public official is not protected speech.But the high court faulted the new law, noting that it doesn’t include any requirement that prosecutors show intent by a voter registration volunteer to misrepresent or deceive people into believing they’re an election official, and it thus “criminalizes honest speech” where “occasional misunderstandings” are bound to occur, Stegall wrote in the majority opinion.“As such, it sweeps up protected speech in its net,” Stegall said.Because the lawsuit over the false impersonation law’s constitutionality is likely to succeed, the state supreme court ordered the lower court to reconsider issuing an emergency injunction against it.“For three years now, Kansas League of Women Voters volunteers have been forced to severely limit their assistance of voters due to this ambiguous and threatening law,” said the state chapter’s president, Martha Pint. “The league’s critical voter assistance work is not a crime, and we are confident this provision will be quickly blocked when the case returns to the district court.”Loud Light’s executive director, Davis Hammet, said he hopes the lower court “will stop the irreparable harm caused daily by the law and allow us to resume voter registration before the general election”.Neither the Kansas secretary of state, Scott Schwab, nor the state’s attorney general, Kris Kobach, responded to requests for comment on that portion of the high court’s ruling.Instead, in a joint statement, Schwab and Kobach focus on the high court’s language bolstering the signature-verification law and its upholding of a provision that says individuals may collect no more than 10 advance ballots to submit to election officials.“This ruling allows us to preserve reasonable election security laws in Kansas,” Schwab said.Supporters have argued the ballot collection restriction combats “ballot harvesting” and limits voter fraud. The Republican-led legislature passed it over a veto by Kansas’s Democratic governor, Laura Kelly.Critics have said it’s a Republican reaction to baseless claims that the 2020 presidential election, in which Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump, was not valid, prompting a wave of misinformation and voter suppression laws across the country. More

    • 163 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Neighbors say Alitos used security detail car to intimidate them after sign dispute

      by

      Neighbors of Samuel Alito and his wife described how a disagreement over political lawn signs put up in the wake of the 2020 presidential election quickly devolved into “unhinged behavior towards a complete stranger” by the supreme court justice’s wife.Emily Baden says she never intended to get into a fight with Alito and his wife, Martha-Ann, her powerful neighbors who live on the same suburban cul-de-sac as her mother outside Washington DC.Then a large black car, part of the Alitos’ security detail, started parking in front of her mother’s house instead of theirs, and Baden understood the perils of being an ordinary citizen going up against one of the most powerful men in the country.The two sides do not agree on much, but Baden, a staunch liberal, and Martha-Ann Alito, a staunch conservative, concur that they began exchanging words in late 2020, almost two months after Joe Biden’s election victory over Donald Trump. Soon after, according to Baden, the Alitos’ security detail began parking a car directly in front of her mother’s house – several houses down from its usual spots either directly in front of the Alitos or across the street from them.“This happened a handful of times,” Baden now recalls. “I took that as directly threatening.”Baden and her husband both say that the security detail’s car showed up in front of her mother’s house again two weeks ago, after the New York Times broke the story about an upside-down American flag hanging on the Alitos’ flagpole in the days before Biden’s inauguration – a symbol associated with the January 6 insurrection that sought to prevent Biden from taking office at all.Baden was no longer living with her mother by that point – she is now a mother herself and living on the west coast. Neither she nor her mother were mentioned by name in the initial Times story. Still, she found the message that this sent disturbing.“I couldn’t say who was in the car because of the tinted glass, and nobody ever said anything. I took it as a general threat,” she said. “The message was, we could do terrible things to you, and nobody would be able to do anything about it. When it comes to justices at the supreme court, they make the laws, but the laws don’t apply to them.”Baden’s husband, who did not want to be identified by name, said he, too, remembered a large black security SUV parking in front of their house, most memorably after Martha-Ann Alito confronted the couple in February 2021 and Baden let an expletive fly at the justice’s wife.“Right after, a security vehicle moved in front of our house and stayed for the remainder of the night,” he recalled.The Alitos did not immediately respond to a request from the Guardian for comment.Baden is an unusual witness to the Alito flag controversy and furore it has unleashed, because she never saw the upside-down flag flying outside the Alitos’ house and did not hear about it until the story hit the headlines two weeks ago.When the Times first contacted her, she said she didn’t want to be in any story because she had nothing to add. That changed when Alito put out a statement saying that his wife had briefly hung the flag in response to a neighbor’s use of “objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs”.Baden realised this was a reference to her. It both incensed and frightened her.“He’s lying about many, many things in that statement,” she claims. Contrary to Alito’s assertions, she alleged, it was not true that she had initiated any confrontation. She said it was also untrue that her lawn signs were directed personally at the justice or his wife.In Baden’s version of events, Martha-Ann Alito first approached her to complain about a home-made cardboard sign that said “Bye Don” on one side and “Fuck Trump” on the other – sentiments found on many similar signs around their neighborhood in Alexandria, Virginia, and in the rest of the country.Alito took further umbrage after January 6 when Baden erected signs that read “Trump Is a Fascist” and “You Are Complicit” – the latter intended, Baden says, as a condemnation of all Trump supporters, not as a message to the Alitos, who had no direct view of it from their house.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe next day, according to Baden, Martha-Ann Alito pulled up in front of their house in her car and glared at her and her partner (now her husband). The security detail started parking outside the house around the same time, and the dispute continued for more than a month, culminating in the swearing incident in mid-February and a police report that the Badens filed right after.“This was unhinged behavior towards a complete stranger, who had done nothing except put up a yard sign,” Baden charged. “I became truly afraid of what they might do.”That fear also made her hesitate about agreeing to be named publicly. She knows how quickly people can be vilified when stepping into a high-profile political controversy, and she has thought of Anita Hill, who tried in vain to stop Clarence Thomas being named to the supreme court in the early 1990s, and of Christine Blasey Ford, who testified against Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings in 2018, also to no avail.“I was scared for myself, for my mother, for my family, for anyone who shares my last name,” Baden said.Then news broke of a second flag affiliated with the “Stop the Steal” movement being flown at a second Alito home, and she felt she had no choice but to speak out.“That other flag sealed the deal for me,” she said. “I thought, if I don’t use my name, I will not be true to myself and my lifelong convictions. I believe in resistance to fascism. My grandpa fought in world war two … he was a person who quite literally fought against fascism.”Her view of Alito was further coloured by the fact that he wrote the majority opinion in the 2022 Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization – the decision that overturned Roe v Wade and ended a constitutional right to an abortion. She happened to be in Virginia when the news broke, and participated in street protests outside the Alitos’ home, at which point her signs (and almost everyone else’s) were indeed personally directed at the justice.Now, she feels compelled to add her voice to the growing calls for Alito to recuse himself from Trump-related cases before the supreme court and is willing to testify before Congress, as Hill and Blasey Ford did before her.“This story is not about me. I didn’t do anything except put a sign in my front yard,” she said. “The story is that one of the most powerful men in the country showed allegiance to an insurrection … I’m horrified by this behaviour, and want to see at least a modicum of accountability.“If I’m coming forward, it is to encourage other people to resist. I want to galvanise people and let them know they have the power. It truly gives me chills to think how close we came to a coup, and Christian fascists taking over our country. [But] this is still a democracy.” More

    • 150 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump is guilty on all counts. So what happens next? – podcast

      by

      Today, we are sharing Politics Weekly America’s latest episode with Today in Focus listeners. Donald Trump has made history again, becoming the first US president, sitting or former, to be a convicted criminal. Late on Thursday a New York jury found him guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal. Within minutes of leaving the courtroom, Trump said he would appeal. On a historic night for American politics, Jonathan Freedland and Sam Levine look at what the verdict will mean – for Trump himself, and for the election in November. Archive: CNN, CBS, MSNBC, ITV, NBC More

    • 200 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      At long last, ‘Teflon Don’ Trump couldn’t unstick himself from the legal system | Margaret Sullivan

      by

      For decades, he skated. Nothing seemed to stick to the Teflon-coated businessman-turned-president. The guy who didn’t pay his bills, who constantly lied, who mocked a disabled journalist, who insulted a Gold Star family, who bragged about grabbing women by their private parts, who praised dictators, who urged a violent mob to overturn an election, who was unperturbed as his own vice-president was threatened with hanging.Yes, he skated – through two impeachments, through countless investigations and accusations, and through so much chaos that responsible US citizens became almost numb and hopeless.And then came Thursday afternoon, when 12 regular New Yorkers – against the odds and against the conventional wisdom – simply did their civic duty and convicted Donald Trump.Unanimously. On all counts. And quickly. No hung jury, no hesitation – their deliberations lasted not weeks, but mere hours – and no mixed decisions.It took the US jury system to finally bring some accountability, with quite a bit of help from an adult film actor, a sleazy tabloid executive, and the ex-president’s former fixer, a notorious liar himself.In a world so divided that our political tribes can’t seem to agree on a single fact, we now have one that is impossible to argue with: Trump is a convicted felon, the first US president to be convicted of a crime – the crime of falsifying documents to cover up a hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels prior to the 2016 election, lest she tell her tale of their tryst.That much we know. That much can’t be denied, no matter the bitter whining on Fox News or the inevitable claims of a unfair legal system and a corrupt judge.And to those millions who have watched his destructive and sordid career for years, the jury’s decision in a New York courtroom brought a moment both regrettable and righteous.Regrettable, of course, because it’s all so sordid and shameful that this con man was able to operate with impunity.And righteous because somehow the truth won out in this lower Manhattan courtroom and because – quite simply – Trump deserves it.What we don’t know is if it will matter to his bid for the presidency in November.If you believe public opinion polls – it’s wise to be skeptical – it probably will make a difference. Not to his most loyal followers, of course, who have been taught to believe only him. These are the followers who, Trump himself famously said, wouldn’t change their votes if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue.But to some number of reasonable Americans, it will matter. They will decide that they’d rather not put a convicted felon back in the White House, where he never belonged to begin with.A new Marist poll released this week estimated that two-thirds of voters said a felony conviction wouldn’t change their minds. But 17% of the respondents (presumably representing millions of Americans) allowed that they would be less likely to vote for a convicted Trump.The rightwing media, of course, will do what it can to save him. It’s already working on the case. In the initial hour or so after the verdict, the pundit and former prosecutor Jeanine Pirro, visibly indignant, told the Fox News faithful that “this is warfare,” and “God help America after what I’ve seen in the last two weeks.”And Trump predictably blasted the trial as “rigged” and “disgraceful”, having said just on Wednesday that even the sainted Mother Teresa couldn’t have survived its horrors.But two facts remain. Trump is now a convicted felon. And there is – after his endless and appalling parade of malfeasance – some semblance of justice.
      Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture More