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

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

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      Trump allies float extreme ideas, including Trump third term, at gala

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      Donald Trump’s allies have become increasingly emboldened to float their most audacious ideas as Trump prepares to return to office, suggesting he run for an unconstitutional third term in 2028 and accusing the news media of having engaged in a criminal conspiracy with prosecutors against him.Those suggestions, by Trump’s former strategist Steve Bannon, came at a self-congratulatory gala dinner for conservatives in New York on Sunday. At times the remarks seemed like the product of the euphoria that permeated attendees.The underlying message was clear: with Trump back in the White House and with Bannon renewing his influence with the president-elect, the most extreme and polarizing proposals at the very least were up for consideration.“The viceroy Mike Davis tells me, since it doesn’t actually say consecutive, that maybe we do it again in ’28?” Bannon said of Trump possibly running again in his remarks at the New York Young Republican Club gala dinner that also saw a Trump adviser keel over the lectern and fall off the stage.Riding the wave of self-congratulatory sentiment in the room, Bannon, who ignored the black-tie dress code with a wax jacket and black-collared shirt, doubled down on pursuing a campaign of retribution against Trump’s perceived enemies in the news media and at the justice department.“We want retribution and we’re going to get retribution. You have to. It’s not personal, it’s not personal,” Bannon said to the raucous room. “They need to learn what populist, nationalist power is on the receiving end.“I need investigations, trials and then incarceration. And I’m just talking about the media. Should the media be included in the vast criminal conspiracy against President Trump? Should Andrew Weissmann on MSNBC and Rachel Maddow and all of them?“We want all your emails, all your text messages, everything you did. You colluded in a conspiracy with Merrick Garland, Nancy Pelosi, Lisa Monaco and Jack Smith,” Bannon said, name checking the attorney general, former Democratic House speaker, the deputy attorney general and the Trump special counsel.The threatening rhetoric, and especially the concept of using a criminal conspiracy statute against Trump’s political enemies, has been permeating through Bannon’s orbit for some time since the election. But Sunday night’s gala was the first time it was floated outside of the Maga ecosystem.The remarks also turned bizarre at various points as Bannon segued into talking about the importance of the bond market, perhaps in a nod to his previous life as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, and questioned whether the New York mayor, Eric Adams, was a QAnon conspiracy adherent.In a night of unexpected turns, the most dramatic moment came earlier when senior Trump campaign adviser Alex Bruesewitz keeled over the lectern and collapsed off the stage in an apparent medical episode. Organizers later said he was treated on-site and speculated he had a seizure.The gala then had a further bizarre twist when Trump’s incoming deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino took to the stage to fill the moment, but was interrupted when he got a phone call from the president-elect himself, who apparently was asking about Bruesewitz.Scavino put the call on speakerphone and had Trump address the gala in real time, but Trump mostly ended up delivering praise for Bruesewitz instead. “I guess the show goes on,” one bemused Bannon associate said to his seat neighbor as he watched the situation unfold.The gala dinner at Cipriani on Wall Street drew the same Trumpworld figures as it has for several years, including Trump’s in-house counsel Boris Epshteyn, Nigel Farage, Trump legal adviser Mike Davis, and a cast of Bannon allies including the emcee, Raheem Kassam. Kash Patel, Trump’s pick to lead the FBI, was invited to attend but did not make an appearance.Sitting at the table directly in front of the stage and next to Farage, the other guest of honor, Epshteyn was singled out by Bannon for orchestrating Trump’s legal victories including the dismissal of the criminal cases against him. “Boris, I don’t know how you did it,” Bannon said. More

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      Trump says he would consider pardoning New York mayor Eric Adams

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      President-elect Donald Trump on Monday said in a far-ranging news conference that he would consider pardoning the embattled New York City mayor, Eric Adams. Separately he called on the Biden administration to stop selling off unused portions of border wall that were purchased but not installed during his first administration.“Yeah, I would” consider pardoning Adams, Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, before saying that he was not familiar with the specifics of the charges Adams is facing.Adams is facing federal fraud and corruption charges, accused of accepting flight upgrades and other luxury travel perks valued at $100,000 along with illegal campaign contributions from a Turkish official and other foreign nationals looking to buy his influence. Multiple members of his administration have also come under investigation.Speaking at his first press conference since winning the election, Trump also threatened legal action against the Biden administration over sales of portions of border wall, saying he has spoken to the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, and other Texas officials about a potential restraining order.“We’re going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more on building the same wall we already have,” Trump said. “It’s almost a criminal act.”Congress last year required the Biden administration to dispose of the unused border wall pieces. The measure, included in the massive National Defense Authorization Act, allows for the sale or donation of the items to states on the southern border, providing they are used to refurbish existing barriers, not install new ones. Congress also directed the Pentagon to account for storage costs for the border wall material while it has gone unused.“I’m asking today, Joe Biden, to please stop selling the wall,” Trump said.While Trump described the handover between Biden and his incoming team as “a friendly transition”, he also took issue with efforts to allow some members of the federal workforce to continue working from home. Trump said that if government workers did not come back into the office under him, they would be dismissed.Trump was joined at the appearance by the SoftBank Group CEO, Masayoshi Son, who announced that the Japanese company was planning to invest $100bn in US projects over the next four years.It was a win for Trump, who has used the weeks since the election to promote his policies, negotiate with foreign leaders and try to strike deals.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn a post on his Truth Social site last week, Trump had said that anyone making a $1bn investment in the United States “will receive fully expedited approvals and permits, including, but in no way limited to, all Environmental approvals”.“GET READY TO ROCK!!!” he wrote.Deals announced with much fanfare have sometimes failed to deliver on promised investments. But the announcement nonetheless represents a major win for Trump, who has boasted that he has done more in his short transition period than his predecessor did in all four years.“There’s a whole light over the entire world,” he said Monday. “There’s a light shining over the world.” More

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      Mayorkas says no known foreign involvement in mass drone sightings

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      Alejandro Mayorkas, the US homeland security secretary, has said federal authorities “know of no foreign involvement” in the apparent mass drone sightings across the nation’s north-east region, though social and political anxieties nonetheless continued surging over the weekend amid a lack of official information.“I want to assure the American public that we are on it,” Mayorkas said.He called for “extended and expanded” authority to shoot down drones, beyond only those that pass over restricted military airspace. And the New York governor, Kathy Hochul, announced on Sunday that the federal government was prepared to deploy a high-tech drone detection system in response to the spate of sighting there, in New Jersey and Connecticut, where state and local officials are demanding more assertive federal action – with one calling the drones a “very considerable danger”.The Democrat US Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, later added his name to the request for drone detection technology. And congressman Mike Waltz of Florida, who has been chosen as the incoming White House national security adviser, said the drone issue points to gaps in security between federal agencies, and with local law enforcement.“Americans are finding it hard to believe we can’t figure out where these are coming from,” he told CBS’s Face the Nation. “From the defense department standpoint, they’re focused on bombers and cruise missiles. It’s pointing to gaps in our capabilities and in our ability to clamp down on what’s going on here.”Meanwhile, reports that an Iranian drone ship is patrolling off the US east coast were discarded as unfounded.The US domestic security chief told ABC News that there are “thousands of drones flown every day in the United States, recreational drones, commercial drones”. He also pointed out that – in September 2023 – aviation regulators enacted rules allowing drones to be flown at night, leading to more such activity.US authorities are anxious to avoid vigilantes’ responding to New Jersey’s drone invasion, fearing that innocent bystanders could be hit by falling debris or that legitimate commercial aviation could be mistaken for unexplained drones.“We want state and local authorities to also have the ability to counter drone activity under federal supervision,” Mayorkas said.Hoping to counter the relative impotence of officials to quell the public anxiety stemming from the drone sightings, Mayorkas said some were drones and others manned aircraft mistaken for drones.“There’s no question … people are seeing drones,” Mayorkas remarked. “And I want to assure the American public that we, in the federal government, have deployed additional resources, personnel, technology, to assist … in addressing the drone sightings.”A Chinese national was arrested on 9 December in California, allegedly for flying a drone over Vandenberg air force base, used for space launches and missile testing. Other military bases have also reported drone over-flights.“If we identify any foreign involvement or criminal activity, we will communicate with the American public accordingly,” Mayorkas added.Meanwhile, as Donald Trump prepares to begin his second presidency, he has demanded greater official transparency around what he has called “mystery drone sightings all over the country”.“Can this really be happening without our government’s knowledge? I don’t think so,” Trump added. “Let the public know, and now. Otherwise, shoot them down.”On Sunday, the former New Jersey governor Chris Christie was asked if the state’s residents were experiencing an outbreak of mass hysteria.“To say that this is not unusual activity is just wrong,” Christie said. “I’ve lived in New Jersey my whole life and this is the first time I’ve noticed drones over my house.”Christie said that a lack of official information had allowed conspiracy theories to overwhelm authorities’ officialese.“If you don’t fill that vacuum then all the conspiracy theories get filled in there,” Christie added. “So you get congressman Jeff Van Drew saying there’s an Iranian mothership off the coast which is provably not true.”Joe Biden’s outgoing presidential administration and state authorities have to be more vocal and let people know what they’re doing, he added.Pointing to a newish technology used in conflict zones as weapons, Christie said it was understandable that people were concerned.Hochul on Saturday joined a chorus of other elected US officials pressuring the White House for a federal response after runways at Stewart international airport were temporarily closed due to what was described as “drone activity in the airspace”.Phil Murphy, the New Jersey governor, has also contacted Biden to voice “growing concern about reports of unmanned aircraft systems”. In Connecticut, another state with elevated drone sightings since mid-November, US senator Richard Blumenthal said the aircraft should be shot down “if necessary”.But the lack of a coherent response by officials has set residents off on their own search for answers.The director of the Rebovich institute at Rider university,Micah Rasmussen, told NJ.com that the Biden administrations’ response was “a textbook case of exactly how misinformation happens and disinformation happens.“When people don’t know what to believe, they don’t believe anything,” Rasmussen said, “and that’s a dangerous position for us to be in”.The federal response had achieved the near impossible by bring Republicans and Democrats in the state together over the issue, said the New Jersey Republican assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia.“I don’t know who’s running crisis communication from the White House, but it’s embarrassing,” Fantasia told the outlet. “You know, we’re at the point now where I feel like I’m watching Star Search from the ‘80s, and they’re just auditioning spokesmodels to say stupid things.”Another New Jersey political figure, Democratic congressman Josh Gottheimer, said that hundreds of reports of drones flying overhead in federally-controlled airspace “leaves a large vacuum of information”.Since 13 November, when an unauthorized drone was spotted flying near Picatinny Arsenal, a US army research facility in New Jersey, hundreds more sightings of unidentified flying objects have been reported.Some have been described as “SUV-sized”. Some were reportedly flying in coordinated clusters. Domestic security agencies have consistently maintained they do not pose any national security or public safety threat.But military officials have confirmed 11 sightings over Picatinny base and multiple sightings over a naval weapons station, fueling anxiety.The done sightings come after the Biden administration sought to downplay a Chinese spy balloon crossing the US in early 2023 before it was ultimately shot down off the east coast.The White House national security spokesperson John Kirby has said that “it appears that many of the reported sightings are actually manned aircraft that are being operated lawfully”.But that hasn’t satisfied New Jerseyans, Rasmussen told NJ.com.He said: “You only get so many chances to explain something before people say, ‘I’ve heard enough from you. I don’t believe what you have to say. I’m done listening to you now, because clearly you’re going to insult my intelligence.’” More

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      Disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner retrying comeback

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      Anthony Weiner, the former congressman who suffered one of the most spectacular falls from grace in US politics after he was embroiled in a sexting scandal that some blame for Hillary Clinton’s defeat in the 2016 presidential election, has formally initiated yet another attempt at a comeback.Weiner, 60, has officially registered as a candidate for a New York City council seat. The filing with the city’s campaign finance board, which was first reported by the New York Post’s Craig McCarthy, marks Weiner’s latest attempt to claw his way back into public office despite his scandal-laced past.The disgraced politician’s longstanding X account reposted news of the candidate filing on Tuesday with the comment: “Mr Moneybags over here.” The remark was an apparent ironic reference to the fact that he has so far recorded zero dollars in supporters’ donations for his campaign coffers.In recent weeks, Weiner has been dangling the possibility of an attempted return to public life in front of media outlets, including his own The Middle radio show on WABC. In a recent broadcast, he told his listeners that he still craved public service, addressing his sexual misdeeds, which culminated in him serving 18 months in prison for sexually messaging an underaged girl.He said on the show that “the things in my past, the things about my addiction, the things about my acting out, the things about my background – it’s a lot, it’s a lot. But we’re at a moment that we Democrats, we seem like we come into knife fights carrying library books all the time.”Weiner has been assailed by scandal since he crashed out of Congress in 2011 after 13 years representing New Yorkers. His downfall came amid a sexting scandal involving explicit messages sent to several women, as well as the underaged girl.He made his first comeback pitch in 2013, running for New York mayor, only to flame out again in a renewed scandal over sexual texts sent under the cover name Carlos Danger.But it was the inadvertent role that Weiner played in Clinton’s agonizing defeat when Donald Trump clinched his first presidency for which Weiner will be most remembered – unflatteringly so – by many Democrats. In 2016, federal prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into Weiner’s exchange of lewd photos with a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina.The inquiry became entangled with Clinton’s White House bid because Weiner’s then wife, Huma Abedin, was vice-chair of the Democratic nominee’s presidential campaign. In the course of the investigation into Weiner’s sexting, FBI agents found emails on his personal laptop that led them to reopen an investigation into a private email server used by Clinton.The investigation, reopened just days before the 2016 election, was rapidly concluded with no incriminating evidence found against Clinton. But the damage had been done as Trump took the decisive electoral college victory despite losing the popular vote.To this day, Weiner’s sexual misconduct is regarded by many in the Democratic party as a factor behind Clinton’s defeat – and hence Trump’s elevation to the White House, which he retook in the 5 November election against Kamala Harris after losing the 2020 race to Joe Biden.“Everyone deserves a second chance,” another candidate vying for the city council seat, Sarah Batchu, told the New Republic recently. “But this guy has had third, fourth and fifth chances.” More

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      ‘Currying favor with Trump’: Eric Adams’ rightward drift sparks speculation as prosecution looms

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      Eric Adams was elected New York mayor as a centrist-sounding Democrat. A Black former cop who talked tough-on-crime but fit fairly squarely in the overwhelmingly Democratic politics of the city.But Adams was also always famed for his eccentricities and foibles – scandals over the true extent of his veganism, whether or not he might actually live in New Jersey, and some of the tall tales he would recount from his past.But few New Yorkers might have expected the most recent twist in the Adams’ story: his firm drift rightward, especially in the wake of Donald Trump’s election victory.In fact, Adams’ ever-closer relationship with Trump has sparked speculation as to exactly what the Democrat mayor of a famously liberal city – embroiled in deep legal troubles – might want from America’s soon-to-be Republican president.Recently, Adams did not dismiss switching to the Republican party, in which he had been a party member from 1995 through 2002, before turning Democrat. “I’m a part of the American party,” he said. “I love this country.”Last week alone Adams stunned observers with the depths of his rightward tilt on one of the key issues of the election: immigration. Adapting the language of extreme Republicans – who have fear-mongered over immigrant crime – Adams came out swinging for Trump, who plans a mass deportation of millions of immigrants as soon he gets back in the White House.“Well, cancel me because I’m going to protect the people of the city,” Adams said when asked if he plans to cooperate with Trump’s plan for federal deportation agents to remove migrants accused of felony crimes in the city.The comment came as Adams said he had requested a meeting with Trump’s incoming “border czar”, Tom Homan. Adams said he wanted “it clear that I’m not going to be warring with this administration”.He added: “I would love to sit down with the border czar and hear his thoughts on how we are going to address those who are harming our citizens. Find out what his plans are, where our common grounds are. We can work together.”Adams’ hard line adds a new wrinkle to how Democrat-led “sanctuary cities” such as New York, Los Angeles and Denver will adapt to the second Trump administration and raises the prospect that some top Democrat leaders may actively assist mass deportation.Adams is already looking to roll back sanctuary city laws approved by his predecessor, Bill de Blasio, that prohibit New York law enforcement – the NYPD and correction and probation departments – from cooperating with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents unless the cases involve suspected terrorists or serious public safety risks.View image in fullscreenSome moderate Democrats on the city’s usually progressive-leaning city council are supporting the move, with the councilmember Robert Holden calling in June for a repeal, saying: “Sanctuary city laws put all New Yorkers, both immigrants and longtime residents, in danger.”Kathy Hochul, New York’s governor, said recently that while she supports legal immigrants, including asylum seekers, she will cooperate with the Trump administration to remove immigrants who break the law. “Someone breaks the law, I’ll be the first one to call up Ice and say: ‘Get them out of here,’” Hochul said.But some observers look at Adams’ tack towards Trump and see other factors at play, beyond playing to a segment of the electorate tired of Democrats’ traditional softer positions on immigrants.Adams is facing a multi-count federal complaint over alleged fundraising abuses involving Turkey brought by the outgoing local US district attorney Damian Williams, a Joe Biden nominee. Adams’ trial is set for the spring, just as his mayoral re-election campaign moves into high gear.Trump has nominated Jay Clayton to be Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor. Clayton is known for bringing white-collar corruption cases while serving as commissioner of the US Securities and Exchange Commission but has no experience litigating criminal law cases, raising the question as to whether Adams is cozying up to Trump in the hope that the complaint will be dropped.Adams is also now on the same page as Trump when it comes to unfounded claims of the political weaponization of the Department of Justice. In September, Adams defiantly suggested prosecutors had gone after him because he had criticized Biden’s immigration policies.“Despite our pleas, when the federal government did nothing as its broken immigration policies overloaded our shelter system with no relief, I put the people of New York before party and politics,” he said. “I always knew that if I stood my ground for all of you, that I would be a target – and a target I became.”But amid all the fresh posturing there is no doubt that immigration is a thorny political issue.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMore than 200,000 people have come to New York over the past several years after entering the United States seeking asylum. The Adams administration has projected the cost of housing and support to New York taxpayers could hit $10bn by June next year, and Trump made pronounced inroads in the city in last month’s election, particularly among Asian voters and Hispanic voters.Yet Adams has struck a notably hard line and nationalistic language that echoes Trump. Last week, he floated the idea of deporting migrants who had been accused but not convicted of felony crimes.“If you come into this country and this city and think you are going to harm innocent New Yorkers, and innocent migrants and asylum seekers, this is not the mayor you want to be under,” Adams said last week. “I’m an American. Americans have certain rights. The constitution is for Americans. I’m not a person who snuck into this country.”That brought a pushback from civil rights groups.“Everyone residing in the United States regardless of their immigration status has specific inalienable rights under the constitution, including the right to due process,” said the New York Immigration Coalition.“Immigrant communities have been key to New York’s success, both past and present. The answer to the ongoing crisis in our city is not to turn our back on our values, but it’s to ensure fair treatment,” said Andrea Gordillo, a progressive Democrat candidate for the city council.It is possible that Adams’ recent sidling up to the incoming Trump administration is both a self-serving move and a pragmatic step in keeping with a shift in New York’s political coloring and a recognition of the reality of the next four years of Trump rule.“He’s currying favor with the Trump administration, and it’s smart for any New York mayor to have friends in Washington because the city always has problems,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran Democratic strategist.“By playing that card he’s also playing to the population of the city that have moved not insignificantly to the center and away from the left. New Yorkers are angry about the basic conditions of life here and tired of paying the cost of the nation’s problems. By doing so he’s setting himself for re-election.”There is also no doubt Adams is also dealing with a nasty criminal situation. At least seven top Adams officials have resigned or announced plans to resign as a result of the federal criminal investigation.“Making it go away would a boon to Adams’ re-election chances. Whether it is or it isn’t, everything in politics is conspiratorial by nature,” says Sheinkopf. “Any New York mayor who wants to make an enemy of the White House is nuts. New York mayors need the president no matter who they are.”By the end of last week Adams was even being asked whether he intended to stay in the Democratic party and join the Republicans. His answer was hardly a firm no.“The party that’s most important for me is the American party – I’m a part of the American party,” he said. More

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      Trump lawyers file papers to request dismissal of hush-money case

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      Donald Trump’s lawyers have filed paperwork pushing for dismissal of his Manhattan criminal hush-money case.The dismissal pitch came after Judge Juan Merchan’s decision on 22 November to indefinitely postpone the president-elect’s sentencing so lawyers on both sides can argue over its future, given Trump’s victory in the recent presidential election.While Trump’s lawyers have repeatedly pushed for dismissal to no avail, his impending return to the presidency has presented an opportunity for them to make their case once again.Merchan said in his postponement decision that Trump’s lawyers had a 2 December deadline to file their argument for dismissal. Prosecutors had a week to submit their response.Trump’s lawyers have been calling on Merchan to toss the case outright after he defeated Kamala Harris on 5 November. In previous papers seeking permission to file a formal dismissal request, Trump’s attorneys said that dismissal was required “in order to facilitate the orderly transition of executive power”.Todd Blanche, Trump’s main attorney and selection for deputy US attorney general, as well as Emil Bove, his choice for principal associate deputy attorney general, said that Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s office “appears to not yet be ready to dismiss this politically motivated and fatally flawed case, which is what is mandated by the law and will happen as justice takes its course”.They had noted that the US justice department was poised to abandon Trump’s federal cases and referred to a departmental memo that bars prosecution of sitting presidents.“As in those cases, dismissal is necessary here,” their filing argued. “Just as a sitting president is completely immune from any criminal process, so too is President Trump as president-elect.”Special counsel prosecutors who were pursuing the federal cases against Trump indeed filed paperwork on 25 November asking for their dismissal – citing justice department policy that his team has repeatedly invoked.“It has long been the position of the Department of Justice that the United States constitution forbids the federal indictment and subsequent criminal prosecution of a sitting president,” wrote Molly Gaston, the top deputy for special counsel Jack Smith.“That prohibition is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the government’s proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the government stands fully behind.”Manhattan prosecutors have argued against dismissal in prior court papers and have suggested a solution that would obviate any concerns about interrupting his presidency – including “deferral of all remaining criminal proceedings until after the end of defendant’s upcoming presidential term”. More

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      ‘People feel drained’: anti-Trump Americans face temptation to tune out

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      In late 2016, soon after Donald Trump was elected to his first White House term, many women were diligently knitting pink “pussy” hats to wear at a huge march where they protested against the election of a man who had recently boasted that he would “grab” women.There were other protests too. And across much of non-Trump-voting America, there was a sense of activism and engagement amid the shock of a Trump victory as many ordinary Americans galvanized themselves for what turned out to be one of the most chaotic presidencies in US history.Eight years later, the response of many centrist and left-leaning Americans to a Trump second term has been more muted. For many anti-Trump voters – and even some institutions – the return of Trump prompts a feeling of just wanting to ignore it all, including politics more broadly, and focus their energy elsewhere.In New York City, residents were once shocked that one of their own – Donald Trump, a man once close to Democratic power brokers in the city – had been elected, as a Republican, over Hillary Clinton. In the aftermath of November’s shock national election, they are more apt to say, “Well, we got whipped,” and move on to other topics.The left-leaning media outlet MSNBC has lost 47% of its audience since election day, according to Nielsen Media Research, while the Los Angeles Times and especially the Washington Post saw subscribers flee by the hundreds of thousands after the billionaire owners of each paper chose at the last minute not to make a presidential endorsement.After a year of intense energy, propelled by political events including two Trump assassination attempts and Joe Biden stepping down from his campaign, the mood in New York has deflated: call it the great tune-out of late 2024.It is, said Sonia Ossorio, executive director of the National Organization for Women NYC, “a coping method”.“Women’s relationship to politics is like a bad romance: you call a friend to remind you how toxic it is,” Ossorio said. “Coming to terms with the election and feeling a sense of instability about the future is personal right now, and people feel drained. It will take time and needed collective reflection to regroup.”In New York’s Washington Square Park, the site of 2016 anti-Trump protests that segued seamlessly into protests for #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, the overturning of Roe v Wade, Ukraine, Gaza and more, today there’s almost no overt sign of resistance to Trump 2.View image in fullscreen“For me it’s an exhaustion,” said Josh Marcus, a 39-year-old tech worker from El Paso, Texas, who was visiting the park with his partner, Marisha Hicks, a stay-at-home mother. The pair had come on vacation to gauge whether it might be time to move back to New York, in part to leave Texas politics behind them.“We went from disappointment that Biden was staying in,” Marcus said, which changed when “he dropped out, Kamala came in and we felt a little bit better and she had a chance. But it was the complete opposite when it came to election day.”Hicks, 45, said she was in a period of mourning. “The first time it happened I was in complete shock. This time, I almost expected it. So now I’m personally focused on strategizing for the next four years.”Both said too many losses to Trump – whether it be the Russia investigation, two impeachments, the failure of federal prosecutions and a felony conviction that appeared to do little to slow his momentum, if not the reverse – had led to a sense of inevitability.“It kept happening,” said Marcus. “We’d be thinking, ‘Surely he’s not going to get past this?’ But then you just come to expect he will – and he did.”Hicks said she had hopes that the non-politically motivated, those who did not vote at all, would now be the ones to start a revolution.“I voted, but I can totally empathize with those who didn’t. People are definitely giving Trump less attention. I certainly don’t want to read his tweets this time around.”Jaylen Alli, a street artist in the park, said he wasn’t “too big on politics in general. I don’t waste my energy, my opinions or my thoughts on these kinds of constructs. Politics is a selfish machine that doesn’t help the people.”A new study from the Cambridge Judge Business School analyzed the relationship between traditional media and social media and found that news articles were being influenced by the latter to adopt a more negative tone.“In the aftermath of the US election, people might well feel overwhelmed by the volume of negative news they’ve been exposed to,” said the study’s co-author Joe Watson.“Taking a break could be important for many reasons, including to recover.”Rosie Creamer, 54, a fashion shoot producer who was shopping for the Thanksgiving holiday on Sixth Avenue last week, said: “I can’t live my life in a future trip about what’s going to happen.” She added: “Trump said he’d build a wall and make Mexico pay for it. Did that happen? No.”Creamer said she had started to pay less attention to media reports, and to take them with a bigger grain of salt. “Every time I read an article saying ‘This could happen,’ I stop reading. It also means it could not. So we’ll see. I’ll proceed accordingly.”Rachel O’Leary Carmona, executive director at Women’s March, is planning another march on Washington in January for which the group, she says, has collected 100,000 signatures. At least 470,000 people were at the women’s march in 2017, and more than 2 million were estimated to have joined protests around the world.“I think we’re seeing a different reaction” this time around, Carmona said. “Folks are stunned and taking time to figure out what this means.”One change could be for protest to become more localized, moving away from the kind of tightly choreographed marches that characterized Trump’s first term. The protest group Indivisible has put out a new protest manual that notes political power resides in many places.According to Carmona, the diffusion of protest from national to local is an option, but she believes marches remain useful – perhaps even more so now – because she believes they bring new people into movements. “They help tell our story and demonstrate our agenda to people where they are at. They bring the movement to the people, not the people to the movement.“I’m sure that once folks are rested, they will be back in their lane, fighting,” she added. “But not every intervention is for every person.” More

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      Rudy Giuliani tells judge he can’t pay his bills in courtroom outburst

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      The former New York mayor and lawyer to Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, erupted in court on Tuesday, telling a judge: “I can’t pay my bills!”Sketches by courtroom artists, who create pictures for the media to use when cameras are not allowed in court, such as federal courts, showed a furious Giuliani, 80, pointing at the judge in his case, Lewis Liman.The hearing in federal court in Manhattan concerned a near-$150m judgment won by Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, two Georgia elections workers whom Giuliani defamed while advancing Trump’s lie that electoral fraud in 2020 cost him victory over Joe Biden.Liman said Giuliani had not been complying with orders to surrender assets.Giuliani said on Tuesday: “The implications you are making against me are wrong. I have no car, no credit card, no cash, everything I have is tied up, they have put stop orders on my business accounts, and I can’t pay my bills!”Giuliani’s fall has been spectacular. After making his name as a hard-charging prosecutor who took on organized crime, he was mayor for two terms, in office on 11 September 2001 and widely praised for his leadership after the terrorist attacks on the US. His 2008 presidential run flopped but Giuliani enjoyed a successful consulting and speaking career before allying himself with Trump when the property magnate entered Republican politics in 2015.Giuliani missed out on a cabinet appointment but became Trump’s personal attorney – work that fueled Trump’s first impeachment, in 2019 for blackmailing Ukraine for political dirt. Giuliani then became a prime driver of Trump’s failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election – work which produced criminal charges, to which he pleaded not guilty, the huge defamation judgment, and disbarments in Washington and New York.In New York on Tuesday, Giuliani’s lawyer told the judge his client had turned over assets including a Mercedes Benz sports car once owned by the film star Lauren Bacall. An attorney for Freeman and Moss said Giuliani had turned over the car but not the title to it. Attorneys for the two women have also said they have gained access to Giuliani’s $5m Upper East Side apartment in Manhattan, but have not secured “the keys, stock, or proprietary lease”.In court, the judge told Giuliani’s lawyer: “A car without a title is meaningless … your client is a competent person. He was the US attorney in the district. The notion that he can’t apply for a title certificate – ”Giuliani cut him off, saying: “I did apply for it! What am I supposed to do, make it up myself? Your implication that I have not been diligent about it is totally incorrect.”He then launched his outburst about financial problems.Giuliani’s lawyer asked Liman to extend deadlines, given he had only just started on the case after previous attorneys withdrew. Liman denied the request, saying: “You can’t restart the clock by firing one counsel and hiring another. He has already received multiple extensions, and missed multiple deadlines.”Trial is set for 16 January regarding whether Giuliani must also give Moss and Freeman his Florida home and four New York Yankees World Series commemoration rings. On Tuesday, Giuliani’s lawyer asked if the trial could be pushed back, so his client could attend inaugural events for Trump, who will be sworn in as president in Washington DC on 20 January. Liman said no.Outside court, Giuliani told reporters Liman was “going to rule against me. If you were sitting in the courtroom and couldn’t figure it out, you’re stupid.” He also said the judge’s “background is serious leftwing Democrat … about as leftwing as you get” – even while acknowledging Liman was nominated by Trump.Giuliani said he did not regret defaming Freeman and Moss.“I regret the persecution I have been put through,” he said. More