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      ‘Unhinged’ Rudy Giuliani drank and ranted about Islam, new book claims

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      ‘Unhinged’ Rudy Giuliani drank and ranted about Islam, new book claimsEx-mayor derailed ‘train wreck’ dinner with clients and colleagues, then was later considered for secretary of state At a law firm dinner in New York in May 2016, an “unhinged” Rudy Giuliani, then Donald Trump’s suggested pick to head a commission on “radical Islamic terrorism”, behaved in a drunken and Islamophobic manner, horrifying clients and attorneys alike.Trump attorney general Barr a liar, bully and thug, says fired US attorney in bookRead moreAccording to a new book by Geoffrey Berman, a former US attorney for the southern district of New York (SDNY), at one point Giuliani turned to a Jewish man “wearing a yarmulke [who] had ordered a kosher meal” and, under the impression the man was a Muslim, said: “I’m sorry to have tell you this, but the founder of your religion is a murderer.”“It was unbelievable,” Berman writes. “Rudy was unhinged. A pall fell over the room.”Later that year, after Trump beat Hillary Clinton for the White House, Giuliani was seriously considered to be secretary of state – top diplomat for the US.He went on to closely advise Trump, as his personal attorney, during his chaotic presidency and its violent aftermath.Giuliani’s drinking has been both widely reported and discussed under oath, in testimony before the House January 6 committee regarding his behaviour during Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election.It is also a feature of Giuliani: The Rise and Tragic Fall of America’s Mayor, a new biography by Andrew Kirtzman. Among other episodes, Kirtzman recounted a period of near-collapse, during which Giuliani stayed in seclusion at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida resort.Berman’s memoir, Holding the Line: Inside the Nation’s Preeminent US Attorney’s Office and its Battle with the Trump Justice Department, will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.Berman’s main subject is his long battle with William Barr, Trump’s second attorney general, over what Berman says were attempts to use the Department of Justice for political ends. The contest between the two men culminated in a farcical attempt to fire Berman and, he writes, replace him with someone more politically pliable.Giuliani, also a former US attorney for the SDNY, was mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001, becoming known as “America’s Mayor” for his leadership during and after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. After a failed run for president in 2008 he was a close adviser to Trump when the billionaire launched his own campaign in 2015.In May 2016, Trump told Fox News he had proposed a ban on Muslims entering the US because “radical Islamic terrorism” was “a real problem”.He added: “In fact, I’m thinking about setting up a commission perhaps headed by Rudy Giuliani to take a very serious look at this problem.”Giuliani had just joined Berman’s law firm. Berman writes that he organised a “cross-selling dinner”, to introduce the former mayor and other new lawyers to clients “at a large financial institution”.Giuliani behaved well to start with, Berman says, but he “continued to drink” and “shifted the conversation to his work for Trump on immigration”. For Berman, the dinner became “an utter and complete train wreck”.Giuliani, Berman writes, shared a “wholly inaccurate, alt-right history of the creation and development of Islam, stating that it was an inherently violent religion from its origins to today”.To growing consternation among guests, Giuliani produced his phone and “showed the group drawings of violent acts purportedly committed by Muslims”.There followed the exchange with the man in the yarmulke, who “for some reason, Rudy thought … was Muslim”, even though as a two-term mayor of New York, in Berman’s words, Giuliani “was clearly acquainted with Jews”.After Giuliani’s diatribe, Berman “broke the silence with a stab at humour. ‘Well that’s seven years of client development down the drain,’ I announced.”‘Donald kept our secret’: Mar-a-Lago stay saved Giuliani from drink and depression, book saysRead moreGiuliani “wasn’t slurring his words”, Berman writes, “… but his impulses had control of him”.Berman says the story of the client dinner “never made it into the press, but it did get around”. A few weeks later, at a reunion for “hundreds” of former SDNY prosecutors, Berman was told there was “not a single former [prosecutor] in this room who has not heard about the dinner”.Kirtzman reports that stories of Giuliani’s drinking ultimately contributed to Trump deciding not to make him secretary of state. The former mayor was also discussed as a possible attorney general.Such heights now seem far away. Giuliani’s work for Trump in the attempt to overturn the 2020 election has contributed to the suspension of his law licenses and placed him in legal jeopardy, the target of a criminal investigation in Georgia.TopicsBooksRudy GiulianiRepublicansPolitics booksUS politicsDonald TrumpIslamnewsReuse this content More

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      Trump attorney general Barr a liar, bully and thug, says fired US attorney in book

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      Trump attorney general Barr a liar, bully and thug, says fired US attorney in bookIn memoir, Geoffrey Berman recounts clashes before a botched firing he insists was politically motivated Donald Trump’s second attorney general, William Barr, is stupid, a liar, a bully and a thug, according to a hard-hitting new book by Geoffrey Berman, the US attorney for the southern district of New York whose firing Barr engineered in hugely controversial fashion in summer 2020.Mar-a-Lago a magnet for spies, officials warn after nuclear file reportedly foundRead more“Several hours after Barr and I met,” Berman writes, “on a Friday night, [Barr] issued a press release saying that I was stepping down. That was a lie.“A lie told by the nation’s top law enforcement officer.”Trump’s politicization of the US Department of Justice was a hot-button issue throughout his presidency. It remains so as he claims persecution under Barr’s successor, Merrick Garland, regarding the mishandling of classified information, the Capitol attack and multiple other investigations.Berman describes his own ordeal, as Barr sought a more politically pliant occupant of the hugely powerful New York post, in Holding the Line: Inside the Nation’s Preeminent US Attorney’s Office and its Battle with the Trump Justice Department, a memoir to be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.Berman testified in Congress shortly after his dismissal. He now writes: “No one from SDNY with knowledge of [his clashes with Barr over two and a half years] has been interviewed or written about them. Until now, there has not been a firsthand account.”Berman describes clashes on issues including the prosecution of Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer, and the Halkbank investigation, concerning Turkish bankers and government officials helping Tehran circumvent the Iran nuclear deal.Barr was also attorney general under George HW Bush. He has published his own book, One Damn Thing After Another: Memoirs of an Attorney General, in which he discusses SDNY affairs but does not mention Berman. Promoting the book, Barr told NBC he “didn’t really think that much about” his former adversary.Berman calls that “an easily disprovable lie”.In Berman’s book, Barr is a constant presence. Describing the Halkbank case, Berman says Trump’s closeness to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Turkish president, meant Barr was, “always eager to please his boss, appeared to be doing Trump’s bidding” by leaning on Berman to drop charges.Berman says Barr told him he, Barr, would be “point person” for the administration on Halkbank, which Berman found “odd”.“This is a criminal case being run out of New York, right? As attorney general, Barr had a role to play. But why as White House-designated point person? That was problematic.”Berman says Barr tried to block the SDNY to benefit Trump politically. In June 2019, he says, he was summoned to a meeting where Barr told him the Halkbank case “implicates foreign policy” and, “his voice … steadily rising”, asked: “Who do you think you are to interfere?”He writes: “I’ve seen bullies work before. In fact he had used the same words with me a little more than a year before” over the appointment of Berman’s deputy, Audrey Strauss, without Barr’s approval.Berman adds: “I would describe Barr’s posture that morning as thuggish. He wanted to bludgeon me into submission.”Berman turned Barr down. He also says he told Barr a proposal to offer individuals in the Halkbank case a non-prosecution agreement without disclosing the move would be “a fraud on the court”.The Halkbank issue eventually dropped away, after Trump and Erdoğan fell out over the US withdrawal from Syria. But Barr and Berman’s enmity remained.Berman also gives his version of events in June 2020, when Barr summoned him to a meeting at the Pierre hotel in New York City.William Barr told Murdoch to ‘muzzle’ Fox News Trump critic, new book saysRead moreBerman first delivers a sharp aside about Barr’s ostentatious travel, his apparent ambitions – Berman speculates that the attorney general wanted to be secretary of state in Trump’s second term – and an infamous, secretive meeting between Barr and Rupert Murdoch that Berman calls “a scene right out of HBO’s Succession”.Berman says he did not know why Barr wanted to meet him, but thought it might be because he had refused to sign a letter attacking Bill de Blasio, then mayor of New York, over the application of Covid restrictions to religious services and protests for racial justice. Berman did not sign, he writes, because he could not be seen to act politically.At the Pierre, he says, Barr, who with his chief of staff was not wearing a mask indoors, said he wanted to “make a change in the southern district”. Berman says he knew what would come next, given changes elsewhere to instal Barr allies and moves to influence investigations of Trump aides including Roger Stone and Michael Flynn.“The reason Barr wanted me to resign immediately was so I could be replaced with an outsider he trusted,” Berman writes, adding that he was sure he could be removed other than by the judges who appointed him to fill the office on an interim basis in 2018, or by Senate confirmation of a successor.Berman turned down Barr’s offer. He says Barr then made an “especially tawdry” suggestion: that if Berman moved to run the DoJ civil division, “I could leverage it to make more money after I left government”. Berman says Barr also asked if he had civil litigation experience, a question Berman deems “almost comical”. Then Barr threatened to fire him.Berman “thought to myself, what a gross and colossal bully this guy is to threaten my livelihood”. He did not budge. Barr said he would think of other jobs. After the meeting, Berman writes, Barr asked if he would like to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission. Berman says that job “was not [Barr’s] to offer”, as the SEC chair is nominated by the president and Senate confirmed.Berman says he agreed to talk to Barr again after the weekend. Instead, that night Barr issued a press release saying Berman had agreed to resign.“It was a lie, plain and simple,” Berman writes. “I clearly told him I was not stepping down. Barr [was] the attorney general … in addition to being honest, he should be smart. And this was really stupid on his part – a complete miscalculation … he should have known at this point that I was not going to go quietly.”William Barr’s Trump book: self-serving narratives and tricky truths ignoredRead moreIn a press release of his own, Berman said he had not resigned. The next day he showed up for work, greeted by a swarm of reporters. Then, in a public letter Berman now calls “an idiotic diatribe”, Barr said Berman had been fired by Trump.Barr did drop a plan to replace Berman with an acting US attorney, instead allowing Berman’s deputy, Strauss, to succeed him. Berman says that enabled him to step aside in good conscience. He calls Barr’s move a “surrender”.Berman describes both his belief he was fired because his independence represented “a threat to Trump’s re-election” and Trump’s insistence to reporters on the day of the firing that he had not fired Berman – Barr had.“Barr’s attempt to push me out,” he writes, “was so bungled that he and Trump couldn’t even get their stories straight.”TopicsBooksWilliam BarrUS politicsDonald TrumpLaw (US)RepublicansTrump administrationnewsReuse this content More

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      The Trump officials who took children from their parents should be prosecuted | Austin Sarat and Dennis Aftergut

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      The Trump officials who took children from their parents should be prosecutedAustin Sarat and Dennis AftergutThe border policy violated international law – and prosecuting those responsible may be the best way to prevent it from happening again In the Trump administration’s four years of undermining America’s image of decency, perhaps no policy did so as effectively, or as viciously, as his family separation policy – which separated 5,000 children, some as young as four months old, from their mothers and fathers.The theory behind the policy was that inflicting excruciating pain on thousands of parents and children separated at the border would deter migration to the US. It was another example of the Trump administration’s calculated cruelty.We now know something about why officials throughout the government went along with the family separation policy. They “were under orders from Trump”, Kevin McAleenan, the Department of Homeland Security’s commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, told Caitlin Dickerson of the Atlantic. McAleenan was “just following directions”, as Dickerson puts it. Those directions came from Stephen Miller, Trump’s fiercely anti-immigrant enforcer.Just following orders. We’ve heard that before from perpetrators of great wrongs.Whatever their reasons, the actions government officials took in pursuit of the family separation policy demand a response. Doing justice for the victims of the policy demands accountability for those who designed and implemented it. And deterring such conduct in the future is only possible if there are consequences for engaging in it.International law offers a framework for accomplishing those goals and for seeing the family separation policy for what it was: a crime against humanity.But before exploring that framework, let’s examine what we know about why government officials would go along with Trump and Miller’s calculated cruelty.In 1963, the Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram offered the best-known answer. Milgram enlisted subjects in a “learning experiment”. Their job was to apply what they thought were increasing levels of electrical shock to “learners” whenever they gave incorrect answers.Unknown to subjects, the “learners” were Milgram’s collaborators. They intentionally gave wrong answers and feigned excruciating pain as the voltage seemingly increased to severe shock. Under the direction of a “research administrator”, who became increasingly firm when subjects hesitated to apply more pain, two-thirds of them ended up administering the maximum dose of “electricity”.As Milgram put it: “The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study.”Evil, it turned out, was as banal as Hannah Arendt, the famed political theorist, described it in her celebrated chronicle, Eichmann in Jerusalem. This is the evil done by those without whose complicity Trump’s family separation policy could not have been carried out.Eichmann’s 1961 conviction, and those at Nuremberg, established the principle that individuals who claimed to be “just following orders” are as culpable for crimes they commit as those who give the orders.And the 1998 “Rome statute” created a forum that can provide accountability for the people who designed and implemented the family separation policy – the international criminal court.The Rome statute authorized the ICC to prosecute individuals who commit crimes against humanity, including “inhumane acts … [that] intentionally caus[e] great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.”There is no question that systematic actions separating parents from children meet that definition.While the United States is one of only seven countries not to have ratified the Rome Statute, this fact should offer little solace to those who violate its principles. Here is why.First, under the “principle of complementarity”, the ICC may exercise its jurisdiction when a country is either unwilling or unable to investigate and prosecute crimes within its territory.Applying the complementarity doctrine, in 2011 the ICC initiated prosecution of Libya’s one-time dictator Muammar Gaddafi, though his country never ratified the Rome statute.Second, the Nuremberg principles that the United States wrote before the trials began justify prosecuting crimes against humanity in the complete absence of any agreement by an accused violators’ country. That Germany did not ratify those principles was no barrier to prosecution of Nazi officials at Nuremberg.Third, the US has signed other international agreements incorporating protections against crimes such as the ones implicated by Trump’s policy to separate families. For example, in 1992, President George HW Bush signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which Congress had ratified, making it the law of the land.Article 24 of the ICCPR provides that “[e]very child shall have, without any discrimination as to race, … national or social origin … the right to such measures of protection as are required by his status as a minor.” As the UN high commissioner for human rights emphasized in a 2010 report, “the principal normative standards of child protection are equally applicable to migrant children and children implicated in the process of migration.”Another relevant treaty under which American officials could be charged is the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, ratified by the US in 1988. It defines “torture” as “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted … for such purposes as … punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed … when such pain or suffering is inflicted … at the instigation of a public official.”While the Biden administration has made considerable progress reuniting families, it has not moved quickly enough to completely end the policy. It is up to the public to ensure that result and to demand that Trump administration officials answer for making crimes against humanity a centerpiece of US immigration policy.There is more than enough binding law and precedent for bringing charges against those officials. They should have their day in court, where they can offer their legal defenses and explain to the world why they did what they did.Prosecutors at The Hague should bring before the bar of justice Trump officials who instituted the policy of separating children from their mothers and fathers. Humanity and history require it.
      Austin Sarat is a professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College and the author of Lethal Injection and the False Promise of Humane Execution
      Dennis Aftergut, a former federal prosecutor, is of counsel to Lawyers Defending American Democracy
      TopicsUS politicsOpinionDonald TrumpTrump administrationMigrationLaw (US)United NationscommentReuse this content More

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      Trump considered hiring heavyweight Jones Day law firm during Russia inquiry, book says

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      Trump considered hiring heavyweight Jones Day law firm during Russia inquiry, book saysEx-president said to have wanted ‘someone a bit more bombastic’, writes New York Times reporter David Enrich Donald Trump considered but rejected hiring the law firm Jones Day to represent him during the Russia investigation, a new book says.Donald Trump once tried to pay a lawyer with a horse, new book saysRead moreThe news that Trump could have hired a heavyweight firm for his personal defence but chose not to – preferring “someone a bit more bombastic”, according to senior partners – comes after the former president appointed a new lawyer in his battle with the Department of Justice over the FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida for classified White House documents.In his many brushes with the law as president and after, Trump is widely seen to have struggled for quality representation.Jones Day, a huge international firm, advised Trump’s campaign in 2016 and played a major role in his administration from 2017 to 2021, most publicly through the work of Donald McGahn, a partner, as Trump’s first White House counsel.The firm’s talks about doing more personal work for Trump are described in Servants of the Damned: Giant Law Firms, Donald Trump and the Corruption of Justice, a book by the New York Times reporter David Enrich that will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.According to Enrich, at the outset of the Trump administration, McGahn “wanted to be spending his time in the White House filling the judiciary with [conservative] Federalist Society judges and, to a lesser extent, dismantling the ‘administrative state’”.The White House counsel enjoyed great success on the judges issue, piloting a process that installed hundreds of judges and saw three conservatives put on the supreme court.But, Enrich writes: “What McGahn increasingly found himself and his team spending time on was Trump’s personal legal problems.”McGahn, Enrich writes, thought Trump should have “his own, competent counsel” to deal with investigations of Russian election interference and links between Trump and Moscow, and Trump’s firing of the FBI director James Comey.That, Enrich says, led to Trump having at least two Oval Office meetings with Stephen Brogan, managing partner of Jones Day.Enrich reports that some at Jones Day thought such a deal would tie the firm too closely to Trump as his presidency pitched into controversy and chaos. Brogan was advised to pull back but pushed to land the client.“In the end, Brogan didn’t get the job,” Enrich writes, adding that it “went instead to John Dowd. The feeling among some senior Jones Day partners was that Trump wanted someone a bit more bombastic than Brogan as his defender-in-chief.”Trump’s pick had ramifications for the rest of his presidency and beyond. Dowd, a former US Marine, resigned in March 2018, his conduct of Trump’s response to the Russia investigation widely seen as a failure. McGahn, who cooperated with the special counsel Robert Mueller quit five months later.The Russia investigation bruised Trump but he escaped impeachment. He did not escape it over approaches to Ukraine involving withholding military aid while seeking dirt on rivals including Joe Biden.Because enough Republican senators stayed loyal, Trump was acquitted in his first Senate trial and in his second, for inciting the deadly Capitol attack of 6 January 2021, in his attempt to overturn his 2020 election defeat.But throughout such travails, Trump was represented by lawyers widely seen as not up to the task, including Bruce Castor, a former district attorney from Pennsylvania who gave a rambling presentation in the second impeachment trial.Two Trump lawyers could be witnesses or targets in FBI investigationRead moreThroughout his wild post-presidency, Trump has continued to struggle to hire top talent. Regarding the Mar-a-Lago search last month, critics suggest Trump’s lawyers have made life easier for the DoJ with moves including demanding details of the related affidavit and warrant be made public.Writing for The Intercept last week, the reporter James Risen said: “Even [Trump’s] cultishly loyal lawyers have become radioactive with prosecutors, angering the justice department with their efforts to politicise the case. In a court filing … the justice department said that Trump’s lawyers have leveled ‘wide-ranging meritless accusations’ against the government.”Two Trump attorneys, Christina Bobb and Evan Corcoran, may be in danger of becoming targets of an obstruction investigation, given their roles liaising with the DoJ over records stored at Mar-a-Lago.Last week, in a move widely seen as a play for better representation, Trump hired Chris Kise, a former Florida solicitor general who has won cases before the US supreme court.TopicsBooksDonald TrumpLaw (US)US politicsRepublicansPolitics booksnewsReuse this content More

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      Donald Trump once tried to pay a lawyer with a horse, new book says

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      Donald Trump once tried to pay a lawyer with a horse, new book saysNew York Times reporter David Enrich also says White House counsel Donald McGahn once called senior Trump aides ‘morons’ Donald Trump once tried to pay a lawyer he owed $2m with a deed to a horse.‘Donald kept our secret’: Mar-a-Lago stay saved Giuliani from drink and depression, book saysRead moreThe bizarre scene is described in Servants of the Damned: Giant Law Firms, Donald Trump and the Corruption of Justice, a book by David Enrich of the New York Times that will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.Enrich reports that “once he regained the capacity for speech”, the lawyer to whom Trump offered a stallion supposedly worth $5m “stammered … ‘This isn’t the 1800s. You can’t pay me with a horse.’”Accounts of Trump refusing to pay legal and other bills are legion. In New York, his business and tax affairs are the subject of civil and criminal investigations.Trump’s reluctance to pay legal fees also featured in his attempt to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election, which has landed him in further legal jeopardy.In another forthcoming book, Giuliani: The Rise and Tragic Fall of America’s Mayor, Andrew Kirtzman reports that in January 2021 Rudy Giuliani’s girlfriend sought $2.5m from Trump, for the former New York mayor’s legal work on the attempt to block Joe Biden’s win and for “defending you during the Russia hoax investigation and then the impeachment”.Maria Ryan, Kirtzman writes, made the request in the same letter in which she requested that Giuliani receive a “general pardon” and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.Ryan was not successful. The New York Times has reported that Trump told advisers Giuliani “would only get ‘paid on the come’, a reference to a bet in the casino game craps that is essentially payment on a successful roll of the dice”.Enrich’s book places particular focus on Trump’s relationship with Jones Day, a giant US law firm, and the role played by Donald McGahn, a partner, in Trump’s 2016 campaign and then in the White House.It was not all plain sailing. Enrich quotes an unnamed Jones Day associate as saying that in the early days of the campaign, after a Trump Tower meeting with Corey Lewandowski and Alan Garten, close Trump aides, McGahn said: “These guys are morons.”McGahn, Enrich writes, “disputed the quotes attributed to him, particularly the word ‘moron’”. He has, however, previously been reported to have called Trump “King Kong” behind his back.McGahn was Trump’s first White House counsel. A member of the rightwing Federalist Society, he worked with the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, on an unprecedented stacking of the federal judiciary with conservative hardliners, which ultimately included three supreme court picks.McGahn resigned in 2018, after it was revealed he cooperated extensively with Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russian election interference and links between Trump and Moscow.Enrich describes Trump’s “reputation for short-changing his lawyers (and banks and contractors and customers)” but says that in the case of Jones Day, “against all odds, Trump paid and paid again”.In contrast to the description of the alleged “morons” remark, Enrich’s story about Trump trying to pay a debt with a horse does not identify the attorney involved.Trump is reading my memoir, Kushner claims of famously book-shy bossRead moreDescribing “a lawyer at a white-shoe firm” who worked for Trump in the 1990s, Enrich writes: “The bill came to about $2m and Trump refused to pay.“After a while, the lawyer lost patience, and he showed up, unannounced, at Trump Tower. Someone sent him up to Trump’s office. Trump was initially pleased to see him – he didn’t betray any sense of sheepishness – but the lawyer was steaming.“‘I’m incredibly disappointed,’ he scolded Trump. ‘There’s no reason you haven’t paid us.’“Trump made some apologetic noises. Then he said: ‘I’m not going to pay your bill. I’m going to give you something more valuable.’ What on earth is he talking about? the lawyer wondered. ‘I have a stallion,’ Trump continued. ‘It’s worth $5m.’ Trump rummaged around in a filing cabinet and pulled out what he said was a deed to a horse. He handed it to the lawyer.”Enrich describes the lawyer’s stunned and angry response, in which he threatened to sue.Trump, Enrich writes, “eventually coughed up at least a portion of what he owed”.TopicsBooksDonald TrumpLaw (US)US politicsRepublicansPolitics booksnewsReuse this content More

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      New York enacts new gun restrictions in response to supreme court decision

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      New York enacts new gun restrictions in response to supreme court decisionAfter court overturned 1911 New York law, state lawmakers produced act to create ‘gun-free zones’ and strengthen gun control measures After a federal judge said New York could implement gun restrictions passed after the US supreme court struck down a century-old law, the state attorney general saluted “a victory in our efforts to protect New Yorkers”.Texas judge overturns state ban on young adults carrying gunsRead more“Responsible gun control measures save lives and any attempts by the gun lobby to tear down New York’s sensible gun control laws will be met with fierce defense of the law,” Letitia James said on Wednesday night.In June, in the aftermath of mass shootings at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas and a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, the conservative-dominated US supreme court overturned a New York law passed in 1911.The law said anyone wanting to carry a handgun in public had to prove “proper cause”.Justice Clarence Thomas said the 111-year-old law was a violation of the second amendment right to bear arms and also the 14th amendment, which made second-amendment rights applicable to the states.“Apart from a few late-19th-century outlier jurisdictions,” Thomas wrote, “American governments simply have not broadly prohibited the public carry of commonly used firearms for personal defense.”In dissent, Stephen Breyer, a liberal, wrote: “In 2020, 45,222 Americans were killed by firearms. Since the start of this year there have been 277 reported mass shootings – an average of more than one per day.”The same source, the Gun Violence Archive, now puts that total at 450.Breyer wrote: “Gun violence has now surpassed motor vehicle crashes as the leading cause of death among children and adolescents. Many states have tried to address some of the dangers of gun violence … the court today severely burdens states’ efforts to do so.”Joe Biden said: “I call on Americans across the country to make their voices heard on gun safety. Lives are on the line.”Kathy Hochul, the governor of New York, said: “The supreme court is setting us backwards … This decision is not just reckless, it’s reprehensible.”Hochul called the legislature back into session. It produced the Concealed Carry Improvement Act, or CCIA.As defined by James, the CCIA “strengthens requirements for concealed carry permits, prohibits guns in sensitive locations, allows private businesses to ban guns on their premises, enhances safe storage requirements, requires social media review ahead of certain gun purchases, and requires background checks on all ammunition purchases to protect New Yorkers”.The law was challenged by the Gun Owners of America and the Gun Owners Foundation. On Wednesday, the GOA said the CCIA “would essentially make all of NY a gun-free zone and infringes upon the rights of its citizens”.Judge Glenn Suddaby, of the US district court in the northern district of New York, said the two gun groups lacked standing to bring the case.But Suddaby also indicated support, describing “a strong sense of the safety that a licensed concealed handgun regularly provides, or would provide, to the many law-abiding responsible citizens in the state too powerless to physically defend themselves in public without a handgun”.An appeal is likely. The CCIA went into effect on Thursday.On Wednesday the mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, said: “The US supreme court’s … decision was the shot heard round the world that took dead aim at the safety of all New Yorkers.“New York City will defend itself against this decision, and, beginning tomorrow, new eligibility requirements for concealed carry permit applicants and restrictions on the carrying of concealed weapons in ‘sensitive locations’, like Times Square, take effect.”The new law has prompted a change in what New York City authorities officially consider to be Times Square. As the New York Times reported, the new boundaries extend far beyond the traffic-choked and neon-blitzed Midtown hub known to tourists worldwide but largely avoided by locals.Under CCIA, the Times Square “gun free zone” will run “from Ninth to Sixth Avenues and from 53rd to 40th Streets and consists of about three dozen blocks”, the paper said.One New Yorker interviewed by the Times dismissed the idea that the Port Authority Bus Terminal, on Eighth Avenue, could be considered part of Times Square, even in order to make it a gun-free zone.“Nah,” Robert Govan, 62, told the city’s paper of record. “No way. Not going to happen.”TopicsNew YorkUS gun controlUS politicsUS supreme courtUS constitution and civil libertiesLaw (US)newsReuse this content More

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      Trump appears to concede he illegally retained official documents

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      Trump appears to concede he illegally retained official documentsCourt motion submitted by ex-president’s lawyers argues some materials seized by FBI could be subject to executive privilege Donald Trump appeared to concede in his court filing over the seizure of materials from his Florida resort that he unlawfully retained official government documents, as the former president argued that some of the documents collected by the FBI could be subject to executive privilege.The motion submitted on Monday by the former president’s lawyers argued that a court should appoint a so-called special master to separate out and determine what materials the justice department can review as evidence due to privilege issues.“The documents seized at Mar-a-Lago … were created during his term as President. Accordingly, the documents are presumptively privileged until proven otherwise,” the filing said. “Only an evaluation by a neutral reviewer, a Special Master, can secure the sanctity of these privileged materials.”But the argument from Trump that the documents are subject to executive privilege protections suggests those documents are official records – which he is not authorized to keep and should have turned over to the National Archives at the end of the administration.‘Donald kept our secret’: Mar-a-Lago stay saved Giuliani from drink and depression, book saysRead moreThe motion, in that regard, appeared to concede that Trump violated one of the criminal statutes listed on the warrant used by the FBI to search the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort – 18 USC 2071 – concerning the unlawful removal of government records.“If he’s acknowledging that he’s in possession of documents that would have any colorable claim of executive privilege, those are by definition presidential records and belong at the National Archives,” said Asha Rangappa, a former FBI agent and former associate dean at Yale Law School.“And so it’s not clear that executive privilege would even be relevant to the particular crime he’s being investigated for and yet in this filing, he basically admits that he is in possession of them, which is what the government is trying to establish,” Rangappa said.Trump remains able to make the case that a special master should be appointed to review the seized documents, seek a more detailed receipt for what the FBI retrieved from Mar-a-Lago and restrain the justice department from further reviewing the materials until the process is complete.The reasoning, former US attorneys say, is that there could be communications seized by the FBI that are privileged, but not used in furtherance of a crime, and even if the justice department wanted to use them in its investigation, it should be precluded from doing so.Still, if Trump successfully argues the materials are protected by executive privilege, then he also successfully argues that he was in unlawful possession of official records. If he is unsuccessful, then executive privilege would not be a valid basis to seek a special master.A person directly involved in Trump’s legal defense noted – repeating parts in the filing – that the Presidential Records Act had no enforcement mechanism, even as they conceded that the justice department might pursue the privilege argument as a tacit admission.But Trump’s motion could throw up additional challenges for the former president, with additional passages in the filing laying out a months-long battle by the justice department to recover certain records in a pattern of interactions that could be construed as obstruction of justice.The search warrant for Mar-a-Lago listed obstruction for the statutes potentially violated, though it was not clear whether that was obstruction of the investigation into the very retrieval of government documents from Mar-a-Lago or for another, separate investigation.Yet the section in Trump’s motion titled “President Donald J Trump’s Voluntary Assistance” detailed the multiple steps the justice department took to initially retrieve 15 boxes in January, additional materials in June, and then 26 boxes when the FBI conducted its search.The filing discussed how Trump returned the 15 boxes to the National Archives, and then – one day after the National Archives told Trump’s lawyers that those boxes contained classified documents – “accepted service of a grand jury subpoena” for additional documents with classification markings.But despite taking custody of documents responsive to the subpoena, the justice department learned there may have been additional documents marked as classified, and issued a subpoena on 22 June demanding security camera footage of the hallway outside where the materials were being stored.That subpoena for security tapes, as well as a subsequent subpoena for CCTV footage of that area from just before the FBI search on 8 August, suggests the justice department did not think Trump was being entirely truthful or forthcoming in his interactions with the investigation.Those suspicions were well-founded: when the government retrieved materials from Mar-a-Lago on that second collection in June, Trump’s custodian of records attested they had given back documents responsive to the subpoena – only for the FBI to retrieve more boxes of classified materials.Separately, apart from late filing of the motion two weeks after the FBI search took place, the brief itself appears to be procedurally problematic.The motion was not filed in West Palm Beach, Florida, where the warrant was approved. Instead, it was filed in Fort Pierce, where the judge has no knowledge of the underlying affidavit – and could rule in such a way to reveal to Trump if he or his lawyers are suspects for obstruction.TopicsDonald TrumpMar-a-LagoFBILaw (US)US politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      US supreme court backs Black voters challenging Georgia election rules

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      US supreme court backs Black voters challenging Georgia election rulesRuling comes as plaintiffs say current Georgia public service commission election system discriminates against Black voters Black voters challenging Georgia’s method of electing members to the state’s public service commission scored a preliminary US supreme court order in their favor late Friday.The decision came after conflicting rulings from lower courts earlier this month, offering up a rare example of the supreme court’s 6-3 conservative majority’s siding with voters over state officials.Louisiana woman faces ‘horrifically cruel’ abortion choice over fetus missing skullRead moreEarlier this month, a federal district judge found that the current system gave Black residents’ votes less weight. Each of the commission’s five seats hold jurisdiction over a specific district, but each seatholder is elected in a statewide race that dilutes Black voters’ power, said that ruling, which came from Trump White House-appointed judge Steven Grimberg.Grimberg ordered the postponement of a November election for two commissioners’ seats to allow the state legislature the time to create a new system for electing commissioners, granting a request from a group of voters challenging the system.However, last week, the federal 11th circuit court of appeals temporarily halted Grimberg’s ruling, citing the “Purcell principle”, which discourages courts from changing election rules immediately before an election.The supreme court on Friday reinstated the Grimberg ruling, with the plaintiffs citing testimony from numerous experts who found the current Georgia public service commission election system to be discriminatory against Black voters.Political data analyst Bernard Fraga, who focuses on the behavior of voting within communities, testified that statewide voting lets Georgia’s majority white population drown out votes coming from districts with mostly Black residents.“And, because elections are staggered, a minority group has less of an opportunity to concentrate its voting strength behind a candidate of choice,” Fraga said, according to the ruling.The ruling also cited the testimony of a former employee at the US justice department’s civil rights division, Stephen Popick.He said his study on voting behavior in Georgia between 2012 and 2020 showed “voter polarization” between Black and white voters, and the latter’s candidate always won even though Black voters all got behind the same leader as a group.Plaintiffs attorney Nico Martinez on Saturday told the Guardian he is “confident the district court’s well-reasoned decision will ultimately be upheld” as the case continues playing out in the 11th circuit, which could still block Grimberg’s ruling on other grounds, paving the way again for the November election date.“We are pleased that the supreme court took this important step to ensure that this November’s [public service commission] elections are not held using a method that unlawfully dilutes the votes of millions of Black citizens in Georgia,” said Martinez, a partner at the law firm Bartlit Beck.TopicsGeorgiaUS politicsUS supreme courtLaw (US)newsReuse this content More