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      Several January 6 rioters get early releases ahead of supreme court review

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      Several January 6 rioters have won early release from their sentences ahead of a key supreme court review of the legality of a specific federal charge against them – a review that could, in turn, see them ordered to return to prison.A decision on the legal issue, which revolves around how January 6 prosecutors distinguished between conduct qualifying as “obstructing an official proceeding” of Congress and misdemeanor offenses, including shouting to interrupt a congressional hearing, is not expected until the summer, according to the Washington Post.The decision could impact convictions and sentences passed on more than 350 January 6 defendants if the supreme court decides that prosecutors misused criminal statutes to obtain the convictions.Three men have already been granted early releases, according to the Post.They include a Delaware man who carried a Confederate flag into the Capitol and was released one year into a three-year term; a Ohio man who broke through police lines to become one of the first rioters to enter the building, released six months into a 19-month sentence; and a man who entered the Senate chamber draped in a Trump flag, who was freed after serving five months of a 14-month sentence.The law that prosecutors used to charge the men was passed after the collapse of energy trading firm Enron in 2001 and crafted to limit accounting corruption. But the charge was used to prosecute some January 6 rioters in place of charging sedition or insurrection violations.The legality of using the obstruction charge has mostly been upheld by January 6 trial judges, but two judges, one Trump-appointed, have argued that it applies only to tampering or destruction of evidence.In 2021, one of those federal judges, Randolph Moss, said the government could face a “constitutional vagueness problem” if it could not articulate to the courts how the charge distinguished between obstruction of Congress and ordinary trespassing.If the supreme court decides the obstruction charge was not suitable for the January 6 rioters, the decision could also affect the election interference case against Donald Trump.Retired US district judge Thomas F Hogan, who passed sentence on 26 January 6 defendants, told Georgetown law school students earlier this year that if the supreme court rejects the use of the law it “would have a devastating effect on the prosecution side” of January 6 prosecutions that didn’t involve violence.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAmong those who could see their convictions overturned by the supreme court is Jacob Chansley, known as the “QAnon shaman” and wore a horned headdress, who was charged under the law. Other include members of the far-right Oath Keepers and Proud Boys extremist groups.Prosecutors have urged judges to delay releasing the men charged only under the contested obstruction law pending the supreme court appeal, arguing in one case that doing so into another presidential election, “would be releasing defendant into the same political maelstrom that led him to commit his crimes in the first place”. More

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      Trump’s latest attempt to delay criminal trial in hush-money case fails

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      A New York appeals court judge on Tuesday rejected Donald Trump’s latest bid to delay his hush-money criminal trial while he fights a gag order, clearing the way for jury selection to begin next week.Justice Cynthia Kern’s ruling is yet another loss for Trump, who has tried repeatedly to get the trial postponed.Trump’s lawyers had wanted the trial delayed until a full panel of appellate court judges could hear arguments on lifting or modifying a gag order that bans him from making public statements about jurors, witnesses and others connected to the hush-money case.The presumptive Republican nominee’s lawyers argue the gag order is an unconstitutional prior restraint on Trump’s free speech rights while he’s campaigning for president and fighting criminal charges.“The first amendment harms arising from this gag order right now are irreparable,” Trump lawyer Emil Bove said at an emergency hearing on Tuesday in the state’s mid-level appeals court.Bove argued that Trump shouldn’t be muzzled while critics, including his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen and the adult film star Stormy Daniels, routinely assail him. Both are key prosecution witnesses.Steven Wu, the appellate chief for the Manhattan district attorney’s office, said there is a “public interest in protecting the integrity of the trial”.“This is not political debate. These are insults,” Wu said of Trump’s statements.The trial judge, Juan M Merchan, issued the gag order last month at the urging of Manhattan prosecutors, who cited Trump’s “long history of making public and inflammatory remarks” about people involved in his legal cases.Merchan expanded the gag order last week to prohibit comments about his own family after Trump lashed out on social media at his daughter, a Democratic political consultant, and made false claims about her.It’s the second of back-to-back days for Trump’s lawyers in the appeals court.On Monday, Lizbeth González, an associate justice, rejected the defense’s request to delay the 15 April trial while Trump seeks to move his case out of heavily Democratic Manhattan.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump’s lawyers framed their gag order appeal as a lawsuit against Merchan. In New York, judges can be sued to challenge some decisions under a state law known as Article 78.Trump has used the tactic before, including against the judge in his civil fraud trial in an unsuccessful last-minute bid to delay that case last fall and again when that judge imposed a gag order on him.Trump’s hush-money criminal case involves allegations that he falsified his company’s records to hide the nature of payments to Cohen, who helped him bury negative stories during his 2016 campaign. Cohen’s activities included paying Daniels $130,000 to suppress her claims of an extramarital sexual encounter with Trump years earlier.Trump pleaded not guilty last year to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. He has denied having a sexual encounter with Daniels. His lawyers argue the payments to Cohen were legitimate legal expenses.Trump has made numerous attempts to get the trial postponed, leaning into the strategy he proclaimed to TV cameras outside a February pretrial hearing: “We want delays.” More

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      US historians file brief with supreme court rejecting Trump’s immunity claim

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      Fifteen prominent historians filed an amicus brief with the US supreme court, rejecting Donald Trump’s claim in his federal election subversion case that he is immune to criminal prosecution for acts committed as president.Authorities cited in the document include the founders Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Adams, in addition to the historians’ own work.Trump, the historians said, “asserts that a doctrine of permanent immunity from criminal liability for a president’s official acts, while not expressly provided by the constitution, must be inferred. To justify this radical assertion, he contends that the original meaning of the constitution demands it. But no plausible historical case supports his claim.”Trump faces four federal election subversion charges, arising from his attempt to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden in 2020, fueled by his lie about electoral fraud and culminating in the deadly attack on Congress of 6 January 2021.He also faces 10 election subversion charges in Georgia, 34 charges over hush-money payments in New York, 40 federal charges for retaining classified information, and multimillion-dollar penalties in civil cases over tax fraud and defamation, the latter arising from a rape allegation a judge called “substantially true”.Despite such unprecedented legal jeopardy, Trump strolled to the Republican nomination to face Biden in November and is seeking to delay all cases until after that election, so that he might dismiss them if he returns to power. His first criminal trial, in the New York hush-money case, is scheduled to begin next Monday.Despite widespread legal and historical opinion that Trump’s immunity claim is groundless, the US supreme court, to which Trump appointed three justices, will consider the claim.Oral arguments are scheduled for 25 April. The court recently dismissed attempts, supported by leading historians, to remove Trump from ballots under the 14th amendment, passed after the civil war to bar insurrectionists from office.In a filing on Monday, the special counsel Jack Smith urged the justices to reject Trump’s immunity claim as “an unprecedented assault on the structure of our government”.Seven of the 15 historians who filed the amicus brief are members of the Historians Council on the Constitution at the Brennan Center for Justice, a progressive policy institute at New York University law school.Holly Brewer, a professor of American cultural and intellectual history at the University of Maryland, said: “When designing the presidency, the founders wanted no part of the immunity from criminal prosecution claimed by English kings.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“That immunity was at the heart of what they saw as a flawed system. On both the state and national level, they wrote constitutions that held all leaders, including presidents, accountable to the laws of the country. St George Tucker, one of the most prominent judges in the new nation, laid out the principle clearly: everyone is equally bound by the law, from ‘beggars in the streets’ to presidents.”Other signatories to the brief included Jill Lepore of Harvard, author of These Truths, a history of the US; Alan Taylor of the University of Virginia, author of books including American Revolutions, about the years of independence; and Joanne Freeman of Yale, author of The Field of Blood, an influential study of political violence before the civil war.Thomas Wolf, co-counsel on the brief and director of democracy initiatives at the Brennan Center, called Trump’s immunity claim “deeply un-American”, adding: “From the birth of the country through President Clinton’s acceptance of a plea bargain in 2001 [avoiding indictment over the Monica Lewinsky affair], it has been understood that presidents can be prosecuted.“The supreme court must not delay in passing down a ruling in this case.” More

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      Special counsel urges supreme court to reject Trump immunity bid in election trial

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      The special counsel pursuing federal criminal charges against Donald Trump for his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss filed a US supreme court brief on Monday urging the justices to reject the former president’s bid for immunity from prosecution on the principle that “no person is above the law”.The case is due to be argued before the justices on 25 April. Trump has appealed a lower court’s rejection of his request to be shielded from the criminal case brought by special counsel Jack Smith because he was serving as president when he took the actions at the center of the case.In his last filing before the arguments, Smith told the justices that Trump’s actions that led to the charges, if he is convicted, would represent “an unprecedented assault on the structure of our government”.“The effective functioning of the presidency does not require that a former president be immune from accountability for these alleged violations of federal criminal law,” Smith wrote. “To the contrary, a bedrock principle of our constitutional order is that no person is above the law including the president.“Trump, the first former president to be criminally prosecuted, has pleaded not guilty in this case and the three other criminal cases he faces, seeking to paint them as politically motivated.He has argued that a former president has “absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for his official acts,” and warned that without such immunity, “the threat of future prosecution and imprisonment would become a political cudgel to influence the most sensitive and controversial presidential decisions”.In August 2023, Smith brought four federal criminal counts against Trump in the election subversion case, including conspiring to defraud the United States, obstructing the congressional certification of Biden’s electoral victory and conspiring to do so, and conspiring against right of Americans to vote.Smith’s view was backed on Monday by a group of 19 retired four-star US military officers and other former high-ranking national security officials, including retired army generals Peter Chiarelli and George Casey, former CIA director Michael Hayden and former Navy secretary Ray Mabus. In a friend-of-court brief, they called Trump’s claim of presidential immunity “contrary to the foundational principles of our democracy.““Unless [Trump’s] theory is rejected, we risk jeopardizing America’s standing as a guardian of democracy in the world and further feeding the spread of authoritarianism, thereby threatening the national security of the United States and democracies around the world,” the former officials told the justices.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe supreme court’s decision to hear arguments on Trump’s immunity bid in late April postponed his trial, giving Trump a boost as he tries to delay prosecutions while running to regain the presidency.Trump last October sought to have the charges dismissed based on his claim of immunity. US district judge Tanya Chutkan rejected that claim in December. On appeal, the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia circuit on 6 February ruled 3-0 against Trump’s claim.Trump and his allies made false claims that the 2020 election was stolen and devised a plan to use false electors to thwart congressional certification of Joe Biden’s victory. Trump also sought to pressure then vice-president Mike Pence not to allow certification to go forward. Trump’s supporters attacked the Capitol on 6 January 2021, in a bid to prevent the certification. More

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      Georgia prosecutors urge court to reject Trump attempt to disqualify Fani Willis

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      Fulton county prosecutors asked the Georgia state court of appeals on Monday to reject Donald Trump’s request to consider his claim that the district attorney should be disqualified over a relationship with her deputy, arguing that the matter was correctly settled by the lower court judge.“The present application merely reflects the applicants’ dissatisfaction with the trial court’s proper application of well-established law to the facts,” prosecutors wrote in a 19-page filing.Trump was charged alongside more than a dozen associates last year with racketeering over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. As part of their bid to dismiss the case, Trump and his co-defendants alleged the district attorney Fani Willis’s relationship meant she should be recused from the case.The effort to have Willis disqualified – which could have also resulted in the entire Fulton county district attorney’s office being disqualified – failed after the presiding judge decided, following days of evidentiary hearings, that Trump and his co-defendants did not prove a conflict of interest.The judge nonetheless ruled the relationship gave the appearance of a conflict, which needed to be addressed. For Willis to continue bringing the case, the judge ordered, her deputy Nathan Wade needed to resign from the district attorney’s office. Wade resigned later that evening.Trump and his co-defendants challenged the ruling last week, arguing to the Georgia state court of appeals that it should clarify the standard for forensic misconduct standard that would require Willis to step down and that the lower court judge should have found there was actual conflict of interest.The Georgia state court of appeals does not have to hear the case and prosecutors on Monday contended that Trump had failed to establish sufficient cause because he did not convincingly show his claims met several specific conditions.Broadly, an order from a lower court is deemed reviewable if the issue at hand is dispositive for the case, if the order appears wrongly decided on the facts and would adversely affect a defendant’s rights, or if it was a novel issue for which the appeals court should create a precedent.The filing from prosecutors argued Trump’s motion was deficient since the lower court found there was no evidence that the Willis-Wade relationship meant they had a “disqualifying personal interest” in bringing or continuing the Trump case, meaning there was also no due process violations.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIt also argued the Georgia state court of appeals has previously decided that in the absence of an “actual” conflict, as opposed to the appearance of one, a lower court could not be deemed as having made a clearly unreasonable or erroneous ruling by deciding not to disqualify a defense attorney.The filing added that even if there was some conflict, the issue had been resolved because the lower court allowed Willis to continue prosecuting the case as long as Wade resigned. “This court has sanctioned this same remedy as a cure for the potential appearance of impropriety,” prosecutors wrote. More

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      Trump Media deal faces calls for inquiry over alleged ‘influence peddling’

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      Democratic groups escalated calls on Thursday for Congress to investigate Donald Trump’s social media company Trump Media after a report that it relied partly on emergency loans in 2022 traced back to a Russian-American under federal criminal investigation to make it to its stock market debut.The move increased political scrutiny into the merger between Trump Media Technology Group and the blank-check company Digital World Acquisition – which could net Trump about $4bn – as federal prosecutors secured guilty pleas from two investors who insider-traded on the deal.In a three-page letter on Thursday, the Democratic-aligned group Congressional Integrity Project pressed the Republican House oversight chair, James Comer, to launch a parallel congressional investigation into the Trump Media merger and hold hearings into the nature of the loans.“We are calling on you to investigate possible influence peddling and corruption involving a former president and current presidential candidate,” wrote the Congressional Integrity Project’s executive director, Kyle Herrig.The request came a day after the Guardian reported that Trump Media was kept afloat in 2022 with loans provided in part by a Russian-American businessman named Anton Postolnikov, when a securities investigation delayed the original merger date and imperiled its cash reserves.The delay led Trump Media to seek bridge financing, including from an entity called ES Family Trust, which operated through an account at Paxum Bank, a small bank registered on the Caribbean island of Dominica that is best known for providing financial services to the porn industry.Leaked documents obtained by the Guardian made clear that ES Family Trust operated like a shell company for Postolnikov, who co-owns Paxum Bank and became a subject of the criminal investigation into the Trump Media merger.The concern surrounding the loans to Trump Media is that ES Family Trust may have been used to complete a transaction that Paxum itself could not, as it did not offer loans in the US because it lacked a US banking license and is not regulated by the FDIC.“The American people deserve to know the circumstances around ES Family Trust’s loan to Trump,” Herrig wrote. “It is also imperative to determine whether there was any quid pro quo discussed.”There is no indication that Trump Media had any idea about the nature of the loans beyond the fact that they were opaque, nor has the company or its executives been accused of any wrongdoing. A lawyer for Trump Media called the story a “hoax” in a statement after it was published.Still, the Trump Media merger has drawn scrutiny because Trump’s stake in the company amounts to significant increase in his net value.Even if Trump sold only some of his position, he would probably gain a major windfall that could be used to pay about $500m in legal costs stemming from his various civil and criminal cases. That would ease the burden on his political action committees, which are now paying the bills.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn addition, Postolnikov’s connection to the loans raised new questions about the involvement of Michael Shvartsman, who pleaded guilty with his brother to securities fraud weeks before he was due to go to trial on charges of insider trading and money laundering over the Trump Media merger.The Guardian reported that the creation papers for ES Family Trust named Shvartsman as a successor trustee. ES Family Trust stands to gain from the Trump Media merger because the $8m was loaned in the form of convertible notes, meaning it converted to a stake in the post-merger company.While precise figures can only be known by Trump Media, ES Family Trust’s stake in Trump Media is now worth between $20m and $40m, even after the company’s share price plummeted after a poor earnings report.“The full extent of his involvement in the trust is unclear, and getting to the bottom of that fits within your mandate as chairman of the House oversight committee,” Herrig wrote of Shvartsman.Democratic activists have been eager to attack Trump’s business deals as a counterweight to Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden, which has unsuccessfully tried to tie the president to business deals done by his son Hunter Biden, in an effort to show corruption or influence peddling.The Biden impeachment inquiry hit a major setback in February after the prosecutors charged an FBI informant with fabricating claims being used by Republicans for their allegations, that Biden and his son each sought $5m in bribes from a Ukrainian company. More

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      Man with megaphone who led Capitol rioters gets more than seven years in prison

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      A Washington state man who used a megaphone to orchestrate a mob’s attack on police officers guarding the US Capitol was sentenced on Wednesday to more than seven years in prison.Royce Lamberth, the US district judge, said videos captured Taylor James Johnatakis playing a leadership role during the January 6 riot.Johnatakis led other rioters on a charge against a police line, “barked commands” over his megaphone and shouted step-by-step directions for overpowering officers, the judge said.“In any angry mob, there are leaders and there are followers. Mr Johnatakis was a leader. He knew what he was doing that day,” the judge said before sentencing him to seven years and three months behind bars.Johnatakis, who represented himself, with an attorney on standby, has repeatedly expressed rhetoric that appears to be inspired by the anti-government “sovereign citizen” movement. He asked the judge questions at his sentencing, including: “Does the record reflect that I repent in my sins?”Lamberth, who referred to some of Johnatakis’ words as “gobbledygook,” said: “I’m not answering questions here.”Prosecutors recommended a nine-year prison sentence for Johnatakis, a self-employed installer of septic systems.“Johnatakis was not just any rioter; he led, organized, and encouraged the assault of officers at the US Capitol on January 6,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing.A jury convicted him of felony charges after a trial last year in Washington DC.Johnatakis, 40, of Kingston, Washington, had a megaphone strapped to his back when he marched to the Capitol from Donald Trump’s so-called Stop the Steal rally near the White House on January 6, when he was claiming not to have lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden.“It’s over,” he shouted at the crowd of Trump supporters. “Michael Pence has voted against the president. We are down to the nuclear option.”Johnatakis was one of the first to chase a group of police officers who were retreating up stairs outside the Capitol. He shouted and gestured for other rioters to prepare to attack.Johnatakis shouted “Go!” before he and others shoved a metal barricade into a line of police officers. He also grabbed an officer’s arm.“The crime is complete,” Johnatakis posted on social media several hours after he left the Capitol. He was arrested in February 2021. Jurors convicted him last November of seven counts, including obstruction of the January 6 joint session of Congress that belatedly certified Joe Biden’s electoral victory. The jury also convicted him of assault and civil disorder charges.Approximately 1,350 people have been charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. Over 800 of them have been sentenced, with roughly two-thirds getting terms of imprisonment ranging from several days to 22 years. More

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      For the sake of all of us, Sonia Sotomayor needs to retire from the US supreme court | Mehdi Hasan

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      Forget Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It is Sonia Sotomayor who is the greatest liberal to sit on the supreme court in my adult lifetime. The first Latina to hold the position of justice, she has blazed a relentlessly progressive trail on the highest bench in the land.Whether it was her lone dissent in a North Carolina voting rights case in 2016 (“the court’s conclusion … is a fiction”); her ingenious referencing of Ta-Nehisi Coates, James Baldwin and WEB DuBois in another 2016 dissent over unreasonable searches and seizures; or her withering observation at the Dobbs oral argument in 2021 (“Will this institution survive the stench that this creates in the public perception that the constitution and its reading are just political acts?”), Sotomayor has stood head and shoulders above both her liberal and conservative colleagues on the bench for the past 15 years.And so it is with good reason that she has been called the “conscience of the supreme court” (the Nation), “the truth teller of the supreme court” (New York Times) and “the real liberal queen of the court” (Above the Law).I happen to agree 100% with all of those descriptions. But – and it pains me to write these words – I also believe it is time for Sotomayor to retire.Why?Okay, now it is time to remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg. To recall how RBG, who had survived two bouts of cancer, refused to quit the court despite calls to do so from leading liberals during Barack Obama’s second term office. To hark back to her insistence, in multiple interviews, that it was “misguided” to insist she retire and that she would only stand down “when it’s time”. To recollect how, on her deathbed in 2020, she told her granddaughter that her “most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed” – and how it made no difference whatsoever! Donald Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett as RBG’s replacement just eight days after her death, and Senate Republicans confirmed Barrett to RBG’s vacant seat just eight days before election day.With Joe Biden trailing Trump in several swing states and Democrats also in danger of losing their razor-thin majority in the Senate, are we really prepared for history to repeat itself? Sotomayor will turn 70 in June. Of course, only Sotomayor knows the full status of her health, still it is public knowledge that she has had type 1 diabetes since she was seven; had paramedics called to her home; and is the only sitting justice to have, reportedly, traveled with a medic. To be clear: she could easily – and God willing – survive a potential Trump second term and still be dishing out dissents from the bench come 2029.But why take that risk? Why not retire now? Why not quit the bench at the same age that justices in Belgium, Australia and Japan are forced to do so?Let’s deal with the three most obvious objections.First, wouldn’t a replacement for Sotomayor that Senator Joe Manchin has to approve be less progressive, and more centrist, than our sole Latina, super-progressive justice? Perhaps. But, again, consider the alternative. Would we rather Biden replace Sotomayor with a centrist in 2024 … or Trump replace her with a far-right Federalist Society goon in 2025? Or, what if Trump doesn’t win but the Republican party takes control of the Senate and blocks a second-term Biden from replacing her between 2025 and 2028?Second, is there really any difference between a 6-3 conservative majority on the court and a 7-2 majority? Isn’t all lost already? Not quite. The damage to our democracy from a 7-2 hard-right court would be on a whole other and existential level. Yes, 6-3 has been a disaster for our progressive priorities (Dobbs! Bruen! Kennedy!) but there have also been a handful of key 5-4 victories (Redistricting! Razor wire at the border! Ghost guns!) in cases where Roberts plus one other conservative have come over from the dark side. None of that happens in a 7-2 court. The hard-right conservatives win not just most of the time but every single time.Third, how can anyone on the left dare ask the first, and only, Latina justice to quit the supreme court?It’s simple. Women in general, and Latinas especially, will suffer most from a 7-2 supreme court. It is because I am so worried about the future of minority rights in this country that I – reluctantly – want Sotomayor to step aside.This has nothing to do with her race or her gender. Forget RBG (again). Consider Stephen Breyer. You remember Breyer, right? The bookish and bespectacled liberal justice who quit the supreme court in 2022, at the age of 83, in part because of an intense pressure campaign from the left.The fact that he was a white man didn’t shield him from criticism – or from calls for him to stand down. In 2021, the progressive group Demand Justice sent a billboard truck to circle the supreme court building with the message: “Breyer, retire.” I joined in, too. “Retire, retire, retire,” I said in a monologue for my Peacock show in 2021. “Or history may end up judging you, Justice Breyer.”So why is it okay to pressure Breyer to retire but not Sotomayor? This time round, Demand Justice isn’t taking a position on whether an older liberal justice should quit while a Democratic president and Senate can still replace them and, as HuffPost reports, “on the left, there is little open debate about whether she should retire.”Democrats, it seems, still don’t seem keen on wielding power or influence over the highest court in the nation. In 2013, Barack Obama met with RBG for lunch and tried to nudge her into retiring, but as the New York Times later reported, Obama “did not directly bring up the subject of retirement to Justice Ginsburg”.Compare and contrast with Donald Trump. The finance journalist David Enrich, in his book Dark Towers, reveals how the Trump family carried out a “coordinated White House charm offensive” to persuade Justice Anthony Kennedy to retire in 2018. Trump himself, according to Vanity Fair, “worked for months to assure Kennedy his legacy would be in good hands”.The offensive was a success. Out went self-styled moderate Kennedy, in came the hard-right political operative Brett Kavanaugh.If there is to be a change to the supreme court in 2024, Biden and the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, have only a few months left to make it happen. And yet they don’t seem too bothered about Sotomayor’s age or health. Last week, the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, called it “a personal decision for her to make”.A personal decision? The prospect of a 7-2 conservative supreme court, with a far-right Federalist Soceity apparatchik having taken “liberal queen” Sotomayor’s seat on the bench, should fill us all with dread.Biden, elected Democrats, and liberals and progressives across the board should be both publicly and privately encouraging Sotomayor to consider what she wants her legacy to be, to remember what happened with RBG, and to not take any kind of gamble with the future of our democracy.If insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results, then I’m sorry but a liberal supreme court justice about to enter her 70s and refusing to retire on a Democratic president and Democratic Senate’s watch is nothing short of insane.
      Mehdi Hasan is the CEO and editor-in-chief of Zeteo More