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      Trump, the ‘law-and-order’ candidate, is an adjudicated fraudster | Lloyd Green

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      The week-that-was will likely weigh heavily on the 45th president for the months and years to come. On Friday, Arthur Engoron, a New York judge, found Donald Trump and his businesses liable for conspiracy and ordered them to pay $355m. On top of that, the court banned Trump and his two adult sons from serving at the helm of any New York company for three years, while imposing a $4m penalty on both of the boys.In a 92-page decision, Engoron also lacerated Trump’s pretensions of credibility. He repeatedly tagged Trump for his allergy to the truth.“Donald Trump rarely responded to the questions asked, and he frequently interjected long, irrelevant speeches on issues far beyond the scope of the trial,” the decision reads. “His refusal to answer the questions directly, or in some cases, at all, severely compromised his credibility.”He added that the court had “found preliminarily that defendants had a propensity to engage in persistent fraud by submitting false and misleading Statements of Financial Condition … on behalf of Donald Trump”.One footnote in the legal judgment went like this: “Peterson-Withorn, Chase. ‘Donald Trump Has Been Lying About The Size of His Penthouse.’ Forbes, May 3, 2017.”For the record, Trump invoked his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination more than 400 times at deposition. “Anyone in my position not taking the fifth amendment would be a fool, an absolute fool,” he said. It is all of a piece.Trump is on a roll, of sorts. One day earlier, Juan Merchan, a second Manhattan judge, set a 25 March start date for Trump’s trial on state-law felony charges. “Stop interrupting me,” the judge scolded the defendant’s legal team.Merchan also denied Trump’s motion to dismiss the underlying 34-count indictment. According to Manhattan prosecutors, Trump purportedly directed hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels, an adult film actress, and Karen McDougal, an adult model.But Trump’s streak doesn’t end there. Last week, a US court of appeals rejected his demand for absolute immunity. US presidents are not kings, the court reminded us.“We cannot accept former President Trump’s claim that a president has unbounded authority to commit crimes that would neutralize the most fundamental check on executive power,” the unsigned but unanimous opinion read.“We cannot accept that the office of the presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter.”Then again, the US supreme court may put the case on ice. We may know more next week.Appeals are expensive. Trump will also need to bond or otherwise secure the mammoth-sized judgment. Interest accrues too. Regardless, others must pay for his sins.The forced departure of Ronna McDaniel from the helm of the Republican National Committee signals that Trump intends to make the RNC a personal piggy bank. After essentially self-financing his primary run in 2016, he turned up his palms to face off against Hillary Clinton. According to campaign finance filings, his political committees have shelled out more than $50m in legal fees.The ex-reality show host has not always been awash in cash. “My net worth fluctuates,” Trump once swore. “It goes up and down with the markets and with attitudes and with feelings, even my own feelings.”His casinos have gone bust, his companies bankrupted a half-dozen times. Restructurings pock his borrowings. Trump University is no more.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionFilings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, first uncovered by the Guardian in 2016, placed his liquidity at north of $250m as of mid-2011, his wealth at $4.2bn. This past October, Forbes pegged his worth at $2.6bn. He did not make its iconic 400 richest list. “He’s nowhere near as rich as he boasts, nor as poor as some critics claim.”The value of his assets appears to have shrunk even as his liquidity has grown. “I have over 400 – fairly substantially over $400m in cash,” he recently testified. These days, he’s staring at judgments hovering near $450m.The latest blows come on the heels of January’s $83.3m verdict in E Jean Carroll’s second defamation trial. Heading toward November, the “law-and-order” candidate is an adjudicated predator. Lewis Kaplan, the presiding judge in the Carroll cases, stressed that Trump had sexually assaulted her.Guilty verdicts loom as possibilities in both the hush money and election interference cases. Manhattan juries don’t love him, judging by the size of the recent Carroll verdict. DC juries previously convicted Trump’s cronies Steve Bannon, Peter Navarro and Roger Stone. January 6 defendants have also fared poorly.Trump later pardoned Bannon and Stone. He has vowed to do the same for those who stormed the Capitol in his name.Americans aren’t enamored with a convicted felon sitting in the Oval Office. Then again, they haven’t cottoned to the incumbent. By itself, Friday’s ruling will sway few. On the other hand, wavering voters may get off the fence if a criminal conviction or two follow.Days ago, Trump raged against Letitia James and Engoron. He blasted the attorney general as “corrupt”, the judge as “biased”, the case as “rigged”.It’s been nearly a decade since he hosted The Apprentice. The former reality show host sounds scared. Welcome to the theatre of the real.
      Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York and served in the US Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992 More

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      Trump prosecutor Fani Willis tells misconduct hearing: ‘I’m not on trial. These people are on trial for stealing an election’ – as it happened

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      In one furious outburst, Fani Willis is angrily pushing back at what she says are personal attacks on her and Nathan Wade, and says opposing attorneys should focus their attention elsewhere.Asked if she objected to records of flights she took with Wade being demanded, she said:
      I object to you getting records. You’ve been intrusive into people’s personal lives. You’re confused. You think I’m on trial. These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020. I’m not on trial, no matter how hard you try to put me on trial.
      Willis is also defending Wade’s character, saying they are “good friends”.The judge has ordered another short break.We’re closing the US politics blog now after what was an extraordinary day, on two fronts, in the various legal cases against Donald Trump.
      In Georgia, the Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis gave testimony in a fiery first day of a misconduct hearing that could see her removed from the election interference case against the former president. “I’m not on trial here,” she insisted in one of many angry exchanges over her affair with special prosecutor Nathan Wade.
      Willis tussled with Trump lawyer Steve Sadow over the “tough conversation” she had with Nathan Wade ending their relationship and, crucially, when it occurred. Telling Sadow “you don’t have to yell at me,” Willis said their relationship was over before she indicted Trump last August.
      Willis insisted she paid Wade back for money he spent on two cruises and other trips he took with her in 2022 and early 2023.
      Willis accused Ashleigh Merchant, a lawyer for another Trump co-defendant, of telling lies about her in another heated exchange.
      Wade also took the stand, confirming their relationship ended last summer.
      Robin Yeartie, a former friend of Willis who worked in her office, testified the relationship began before Wade was hired.
      In New York, a judge set a 25 March start date for Trump’s trial on charges he made illegal hush-money payments to adult movie star Stormy Daniels, and Playboy model Karen McDougal.
      The two stories dominated the day.Also today:Join us again tomorrow, when we’ll have more from the second day of the Fani Willis misconduct hearing.A fiery first day of the misconduct case against Fani Willis, in which a judge will decide if the Fulton county district attorney will be disqualified from prosecuting the Georgia election interference case against Donald Trump, has just wrapped up for the day.The final exchange was Harry MacDougald, lawyer for Trump co-defendant Jeffrey Clark, asking Willis about any financial gifts above $100 she received from Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor she hired for the case, and with whom she had a romantic relationship.Willis says she never received any, other than him paying for dinner. She says she reimbursed him for everything, and pushed back when McDougald said there was nothing to prove she had withdrawn any cash to do so.“That’s not accurate,” Willis replied.It was a tamer exchange than those that preceded it. In one particularly hostile moment, Willis accused an attorney of repeatedly lying about her, and in another furiously exclaimed: “I’m not on trial, no matter how hard you try to put me on trial.”Judge McAfee has told all parties to reconvene at 9am ET on Friday. It’s been quite a day.Steve Sadow’s questioning of Fani Willis has now concluded, and the judge overseeing the misconduct hearing, Scott McAfee, says there’s time for a few more questions before he wraps the hearing up for the day.Next up is Allyn Stockton, lawyer for Trump’s co-defendant and former attorney Rudy Giuliani, who opened with questions about travel Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade might have made together, including trips to Washington DC that Willis has already denied took place.Next, he’s wondering about Willis’s hiring practices and contract-issuing procedures as Fulton county district attorney.It’s not yet clear where he’s going with it, but he seems to be suggesting there might be something improper about the status of employment of two of Wade’s colleagues who reportedly did work for her Willis’s office.Steve Sadow and Fani Willis are now tussling over the “tough conversation” she had with Nathan Wade ending their relationship and, crucially, when it occurred.“The physical relationship was over pre-indictment,” Willis aid, referring to the criminal election interference charges she brought, aided by special prosecutor Wade, against Donald Trump in Georgia in August 2023.But she said women and men “think differently” about what might constitute the end of a relationship. She also said there was a good deal of tension in her relationship with Wade towards the end:
      He told me one time only thing a woman can do for him is make him a sandwich. We would have brutal arguments about the fact that I am your equal.
      I don’t need anything from a man. A man is not a plan. A man is a companion. And so there was tension always in our relationship, which is why I always gave him his money back.
      I don’t need anybody to foot my bills. The only man who’s ever footed my bills completely is my daddy.
      Sadow tried again. “The romantic relationship ended before the indictment was returned. Yes or no?” he said.“To a man, yes,” Willis replied.Steve Sadow, an attorney for Donald Trump, is next to question Fani Willis, and their exchanges are even more hostile than those that preceded them.“You don’t have to yell at me. I’m able to understand. So I would ask you to not yell at me,” Willis replied when Sadow asked a question about her living arrangements during the period she was having a relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade.Willis is also repeatedly claiming the phrasing of Sadow’s questions is “inaccurate”, as is definition of “romantic” to describe her relationship with Wade.“A romantic relationship doesn’t necessarily have to be just sex. It can be dating, it can be holding hands. It can be any of those things that one might call romantic. I’m asking you whether or not prior to November 1st 2021 there was a romantic relationship with Mr Wade,” Sadow said.Willis replied: “I do not consider our relationship to have become romantic until early 2022 … sometime between February and April.”Almost inevitably, Donald Trump has now weighed in with an emailed attack on Fani Willis, and almost as inevitably it’s a fundraising appeal from his campaign, which is clearly watching today’s courtroom drama closely:
      Fani Willis was responsible for taking my mugshot! First she coordinated with the Biden White House to take me down! Then she hired her lover to go after me and paid him with taxpayer dollars,” an email to supporters says, repeating numerous unverified allegations.
      But now, right now, her corruption is being broadcast live to the whole world. I told you she’s corrupt as hell.”
      The email concludes with the oft-heard claim of a “witch-hunt” and a request to “patriots” to chip in to defeat Willis.Ashleigh Merchant, the attorney questioning Fani Willis, is asking why she chose to run for district attorney, citing a claim that Willis said she didn’t want to be “finally effed-up again”.It appears relevant because Donald Trump has claimed Willis ran for the office because she was out to get him.Willis says she felt that with her experience she was “the appropriate person” for what was a tough job:
      It was a huge sacrifice to be district attorney in Fulton County. I was doing just fine. I had a municipal court judgeship that was paying me 100 something thousand a year, and we got to show up twice a week … [the] easiest thing I’ve ever done in life.
      I also had private clients that were paying me to represent them, so I was able to have a law practice and raise two daughters by myself. They were times in life where things were hard.
      So I was telling people I don’t really want to for DA. I’m in a good position right now, I got this easy job that I enjoy being the chief judge of the city of South Fulton, making money at the law firm, and I’m not sure that I want to make the sacrifice.
      Eventually, I prayed. I think that I was the appropriate person.
      Merchant’s questioning of Willis has now concluded.Judge Scott McAfee says the heated atmosphere in the courtroom needs to cool down, and ordered a short break.When the session resumed, with Fani Willis still on the stand, he admonished all parties to respect the decorum of the court.Here’s my colleague Sam Levine’s latest take on this afternoon’s fiery proceedings:In her time on the stand, Fani Willis has twice sought to remind the audience about the stakes of the case. At issue isn’t her relationship with Wade, but democracy. “Ms Merchant’s interests are contrary to democracy your honor, not to mine,” she said at one point.In a heated exchange later she said “You’re confused… I’m not on trial. These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020.”Willis’s testimony so far has sought to explain some of the biggest questions from Wade’s testimony this morning.Explaining why she repaid Wade in cash for travel, Willis explained that she has always kept significant amounts of cash wherever she lays her head. She took from that stash to repay Wade. She has also been blunter about calling out “lies” in motions seeking to disqualify her.By way of explanation, Ashleigh Merchant, mentioned above, is the attorney currently involved in the back-and-forth with Willis on the stand. She represents Michael Roman, one of Donald Trump’s co-defendants in the election interference case that Willis is prosecuting.In one furious outburst, Fani Willis is angrily pushing back at what she says are personal attacks on her and Nathan Wade, and says opposing attorneys should focus their attention elsewhere.Asked if she objected to records of flights she took with Wade being demanded, she said:
      I object to you getting records. You’ve been intrusive into people’s personal lives. You’re confused. You think I’m on trial. These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020. I’m not on trial, no matter how hard you try to put me on trial.
      Willis is also defending Wade’s character, saying they are “good friends”.The judge has ordered another short break.There were only a handful of trips together with Nathan Wade, Fani Willis is now telling the court:
      We went to Aruba, I consider that one trip. On New Year’s Eve, we went on a cruise to the Bahamas. That’s the second trip.
      We went to Belize. That was my trip, that was, you know, his 50th [birthday] and then Napa Valley. We went around May. I don’t know the dates, but it seems to me like it was close to Mother’s Day.
      And those are the only trips.
      Fani Willis is talking about two cruises out of Miami that she took with Nathan Wade, one in October 2022.She says Wade booked and paid for the first one, but she reimbursed him “whatever it was”:
      He is the one that would book the travel. But we need to be clear when we’re talking about just because he’s booked it doesn’t mean I consider him ever having taken me any place.
      He paid for the cruise and the fights… whatever he told me it was, I gave him the money back.
      She was asked where the cash came from:
      I am sure that the source of the money is always the work sweat and tears of me.
      For many, many years, I have kept money in my house… on my worst day probably only $500 or $1,000. And my best days, I probably had $15,000 in my house, cash.
      There’s always going to be cash in my house or wherever I’m laying my head.
      But Willis said she never paid Wade more than $2,500 in any one payment.The Guardian’s Sam Levine is tweeting from the courtroom about Fani Willis’s testimony.The Fulton county district attorney is angry about “lies” told her earlier in the case, including by her former friend Robin Yeartie, who testified today that a relationship between Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade began before she hired him to work on Donald Trump’s election interference case.She’s being asked about her dealings with Yeartie, and vacations she allegedly took with Wade.Fani Willis said she was “very anxious” to testify today, and ran from her office to get to the courtroom when she heard special prosecutor Nathan Wade’s testimony had concluded.She said she had some “choice words” about the motion to disqualify her from Donald Trump’s election interference case but denies she had any substantive conversation with Wade, or anybody else about it:
      I would not have. I don’t believe I’ve had any conversation with him that is substantive related to this.
      Willis has adopted a defensive, verging on aggressive stance, and says she takes exception to allegations she slept with Wade the first day she met him, at a conference:
      Your motion tried to implicate I slept with him at that conference, which I find to be extremely offensive. Mr Wade was my teacher.
      It’s highly offensive when they replicate that you slept with somebody the first day you met with them, and I take exception to this.
      Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis has just taken the stand in the election interference case in Georgia.Almost as soon as she sat down, the judge called a five-minute break for certain documents to be copied and distributed.She’ll be testifying soon about the nature of her relationship with, and cash payments to special prosecutor Nathan Wade, who wrapped up his lengthy period of testimony just now.Stick with us…Rumours that Russia is planning to deploy nuclear weapons in space have been dampened down by experts who say that while such technology is possible, there is no need to push the panic button.The furore kicked off on Wednesday when the head of the US House of Representatives’ intelligence committee, Mike Turner, called for the Biden administration to declassify information on what he called a “serious national security threat”.While Turner gave no further details, it was later reported by news outlets, citing unnamed sources, to involve Russia’s potential deployment of a nuclear anti-satellite weapon in space. The Kremlin dismissed the claim as a “malicious fabrication”.Dr Bleddyn Bowen, an associate professor at the University of Leicester who specialises in outer space international relations and warfare, said the the lack of detail was no reason to panic. “It’s so vague and cryptic, it could be a number of different things. [But] no matter what they are, none of them are a big deal, to be honest. Everyone needs to calm down about this.”Russia is bound by several legal restrictions regarding the use or presence of nuclear weapons in space. Article 4 of the Outer Space treaty (1967) bans nuclear weapons from being put into orbit, installed on celestial bodies or otherwise stationed in outer space, while the New Start treaty aims to reduce the number of deployable nuclear arms. The Partial Nuclear Test Ban treaty (1963) bans nuclear explosions in space.You can read more here.The White House just announced that the US will engage with Russia and allies on the Outer Space treaty and has no intention of violating it.The White House national security spokesman John Kirby is telling reporters gathered in the west wing a little more detail about the “serious national security threat” that emerged into the public eye yesterday.“It’s not an active capability,” Kirby said, after confirming that the threat was related to “an anti-satellite capability that Russia is developing, while adding that “there is no immediate threat to anyone’s safety.”Kirby did not elaborate on reports that the new capability is about Russian plans to deploy nuclear weapons in space.Kirby said Joe Biden has directed a series of actions by the administration, including briefings to congressional leaders and direct diplomatic engagement with Russia about the program.The administration has not permitted more information to be made public yet, the spokesman said.It was a surprise yesterday when the head of the House intelligence committee, Mike Turner, called for the Biden administration to declassify information on what he called a “serious national security threat”.The emerging Russian system can’t directly cause “physical destruction” on Earth, Kirby just said.The White House media briefing is underway. Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre opens by lamenting the mass shooting in Kansas City, Missouri, yesterday.Gunfire erupted towards the end of the victory parade for the Kansas City Chiefs football team, after they won the Super Bowl last weekend.She repeated the White House’s call for the US Congress to ban assault weapons for the general public.Joe Biden has frequently called for such a ban during his presidency, so far to no avail. More

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      Trump hush money trial set for March 2024 during Republican primaries

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      Donald Trump’s trial in New York on criminal charges over hush money payments to the porn star Stormy Daniels will begin on 25 March 2024, amid the Republican presidential primary and less than than eight months before the general election the former president hopes to contest.The trial date was announced in a hearing in a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday, Trump attending by video link from his Florida home.The judge, Juan Merchan, advised the former president to cancel all other obligations for the duration of the trial, which could last for several weeks.Trump was muted for most of the hearing, which lasted around 15 minutes. The video feed showed the former president sitting and conferring with his lawyer, Todd Blanche, in front of a backdrop of American flags.No other former president has been criminally indicted. Spokespeople for Trump did not immediately comment on news of his trial date.Trump used his Truth Social platform to lash out, claiming his “first amendment rights, ‘freedom of speech’” had been “violated” by the scheduling of the trial “right in the middle of primary season”.“This is exactly what the Radical Left Democrats wanted,” Trump wrote, also claiming “election interference”, a loaded term given widespread agreement that Russia interfered to boost his candidacy in the election he won in 2016.In April, Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 charges of falsification of business records, arising from his $130,000 payment to the porn star Stormy Daniels, during the 2016 election, to keep quiet about an alleged sexual encounter.The Tuesday hearing was also held to explain an order forbidding the disclosing of material presented by prosecutors not already publicly known.Merchan’s order bars Trump and his lawyers from disseminating evidence to third parties or posting it to social media, and requires that some sensitive material be kept only by Trump’s lawyers.Prosecutors sought the order soon after Trump was arrested, citing his history of “harassing, embarrassing, and threatening statements” about people with whom he has entered legal disputes.Trump claims to be the victim of political witch-hunts meant to silence him as he runs for the Republican nomination to face Joe Biden next year.Judge Merchan has stressed he is not seeking to gag Trump, but “bending over backwards and straining to ensure that he is given every opportunity possible to advance his candidacy”.Trump’s court appearance came after news that E Jean Carroll, the writer who accused him of rape and won $5m in a civil suit earlier this month, is seeking additional damages over his comments in a controversial CNN town hall.Just a day after he was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation, Trump called Carroll a “wack job” who “made-up” her story. He also claimed the trial was “rigged”.In a new filing in New York on Monday, lawyers for Carroll said such conduct “supports a very substantial punitive damages award in Carroll’s favor”.Carroll, a magazine columnist, says Trump raped her at a New York department store in the mid-1990s. Her new damages claim comes in a defamation suit filed in federal court in 2019, over Trump’s initial responses to her allegation and separate from the New York case, which was brought under a state law allowing victims of historic sexual crimes to sue their alleged attackers.The federal case had been on hold over the issue of whether Trump was protected because he made the comments in question while president. He does not enjoy that protection relating to comments during the CNN event.According to the New York Times, the new filing says Trump’s statements “show the depth of his malice toward Carroll, since it is hard to imagine defamatory conduct that could possibly be more motivated by hatred, ill will or spite”.Trump renewed his abuse of Carroll on social media on Monday. As he did so, George Conway, a conservative lawyer and Trump critic, told MSNBC: “The complaint that she’s been amending this time was actually the original complaint from the first lawsuit that she brought in 2019, when … Trump … from the bully pulpit of the Oval Office … basically accused her of being a liar.“And she got $3m for the second libel, in 2022, when he was dumb enough to repeat the first libel. And that time, he wasn’t president, so he didn’t have this legal argument. That’s why the first case went off on a wild goose chase in the appellate court, and now it’s come back.”The 2019 case, Conway said, “already had more damage potential [for Trump] than the case that [Carroll] already won … because he was president at the time.“It was the very, very first libel that he made on E Jean Carroll. And now the fact that he has repeated the libel after being found to have sexually abused her is really, really outrageous. And it is supportive of punitive damages.“This verdict could be greater than the $5m that she got in the first place. Frankly, I hope it is, because I think, at some point he’s got to stop lying about this and stop lying about her. How many times [are we] gonna have to go through this?”Trump’s legal problems extend beyond New York, where he also faces a multimillion-dollar civil suit over his business affairs, lodged by the state attorney general.In Georgia, indictments arising from Trump’s attempt to overturn his 2020 election defeat are expected this summer.In Washington DC, the US justice department continues to investigate Trump’s election subversion, including his incitement of the January 6 attack on Congress.Jack Smith, a special counsel appointed by attorney general Merrick Garland, is also investigating Trump’s retention of classified documents.Nonetheless, Trump enjoys huge leads over all other Republican presidential candidates. More

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      After Ivanka Trump’s strategic exit, is Tiffany the new ‘first daughter’? | Arwa Mahdawi

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      Well, it looks like Melaniawatch is officially over. The former first lady has a habit of periodically disappearing, sparking fanciful theories that she has left her philandering husband and is crashing at the Obamas’ mansion to write a tell-all. Her latest vanishing act came, understandably, after Trump was arrested last week for hush money payments to the adult film star Stormy Daniels. Melania was conspicuously absent from Trump’s arraignment and he failed to mention her in a speech where he thanked his entire family, and – bizarrely – praised his son Barron for being very tall. Like Jesus, however, Melania made a public reappearance on Easter Sunday.As soon as the where-is-Melania speculation was laid to rest, the what’s-Tiffany-up-to conjecture started. Eyebrows were raised when Trump thanked Tiffany, his youngest daughter, in his post-arraignment speech, because Trump famously has a habit of forgetting that Tiffany exists. Her siblings reportedly aren’t much kinder. According to Michael Cohen’s memoir about his time as Trump’s lapdog, Donald Jr, Eric and Ivanka (Trump’s children with his first wife, Ivana Trump) referred to Tiffany, who Trump fathered with his second wife, Marla Maples, as the “red-haired stepchild”. Cohen also claims the former president and Ivanka were rude about Tiffany’s looks.While Tiffany has always been on the sidelines in the Trump family, she has recently started to edge closer to the spotlight. Now that Trump’s eldest, Ivanka, is strategically keeping a distance from her disgraced dad, it looks like Tiffany is finally getting a little bit of her father’s attention. Publicly supporting him in his hour of need “could be her way to get closer to her father”, a source speculated to the New York Post in a recent piece titled “Is Tiffany Trump taking Ivanka’s place as Donald’s ‘First Daughter’?” Heartwarming stuff, eh? Sometimes it just takes being charged with 34 felony counts to bring a family together. More

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      Manhattan DA who indicted Trump sues Republican Jim Jordan over interference in case

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      Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg on Tuesday sued Republican congressman Jim Jordan to stop what Bragg called an “unconstitutional attack” on the ongoing criminal prosecution of former US president Donald Trump in New York.The lawsuit aims to block a subpoena of Mark Pomerantz, a former prosecutor who had led the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation of Trump. The subpoena, issued last week by the House of Representatives judiciary committee, which Jordan chairs, seeks Pomerantz’s appearance before the committee for a deposition.Trump pleaded not guilty last week to charges brought by Bragg’s office of falsifying business records to conceal a hush money payment made ahead of the 2016 election. The funds allegedly were used to buy adult film star Stormy Daniels’s silence about an affair she said she had with Trump, which the former president denies.Bragg, a Democrat, accused congressional Republicans of an “incursion” into a state criminal case.“Members of Congress are not free to invade New York’s sovereign authority for their or Mr Trump’s political aims,” Bragg’s office wrote in the lawsuit, accusing Jordan of searching for a pretext for “hauling Mr Pomerantz to Washington for a retaliatory political circus”.Pomerantz left his job at the district attorney’s office shortly after Bragg took over in early 2022, when the new DA declined to pursue an indictment of Trump based on a sprawling probe of his business practices.Earlier this year, Pomerantz published a book criticizing Bragg’s decision not to pursue those charges. He also said prosecutors had previously examined potential charges against Trump over the hush money payments, but were concerned the case would rest on a novel legal theory that may not hold up in court.In announcing the subpoena of Pomerantz last week, Jordan said Pomerantz’s public statements showed that Bragg’s prosecution of Trump was politically motivated. Bragg has said Pomerantz’s case was not ready.“If he wishes to argue that his prosecution is ‘politically motivated,’ he is free to raise that concern to the New York state criminal court,” Bragg’s office wrote in the lawsuit.“Chairman Jordan is not, however, free to unconstitutionally deploy Congress’s limited subpoena power for raw political retaliation, intimidation, or obstruction,” it added.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe judiciary committee said on Monday it would hold a field hearing next week in New York about what it called “an increase in violent crime” caused by Bragg’s policies.Bragg said murder, shooting, burglary and robbery rates were all lower in Manhattan so far this year compared with last year.On Tuesday afternoon, Jordan, who represents Ohio, tweeted: “First, they indict a president for no crime. Then, they sue to block congressional oversight when we ask questions about the federal funds they say they used to do it.” More

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      Trump bets indictments could make him 2024 nominee

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      Donald Trump appeared angry and shaken during his arraignment in Manhattan criminal court on Tuesday, but he had brushed off the moment by the weekend, contending that the indictment and other legal troubles would carry him to the 2024 Republican nomination, people close to him said.With his status as a criminal defendant subjecting him to the structures of the judicial process, the former president is playing an increasingly high-stakes game to inextricably tie his legal strategy to his political gameplan as he seeks to recapture the Oval Office next year.Trump’s wager is that using his legal troubles as a campaign issue will harden support from his base and Republican elected officials, and that support could undercut or falsely delegitimize prosecutions in Georgia or by the US justice department in other various criminal investigations.The approach may or may not work, and Trump’s advisers acknowledge that campaigning on his personal legal issues that appeal to Republican primary voters could backfire in a general election where independent voters might recoil at re-electing a former president who is charged with 34 felonies.But the benefits to Trump of using for campaign purposes his indictment over hush money allegedly paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels in 2016 has been readily apparent, providing him with a boost across all areas: in polling, in fundraising and in wall-to-wall media coverage.The person most hurt by the indictment, his advisers contend, was his expected rival for the Republican nomination: the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, who was forced to come to Trump’s defense and still fell behind him in multiple polls, which suggested a trend rather than an outlier result.In a recent Yahoo news poll, Trump was beating DeSantis 57% to 31% in a hypothetical one-to-one contest and was attracting majority support, at 52%, when pitted against a wider, 10-candidate field including DeSantis as well as the UN ambassador in the Trump administration, Nikki Haley.Trump improved his lead over DeSantis in internal polling by McLaughlin and Associates, which surveyed 1,000 likely 2024 general election voters and found Trump would beat DeSantis 63% to 30%, improving his lead from January when he was at 52% and DeSantis at 40%.Trump’s allies also noted the indictment snapped Republican members of Congress into line, with House judiciary committee chair Jim Jordan sending a flurry of subpoenas to the Manhattan district attorney’s office to get confidential information about the case against him.And Trump received a boost in fundraising, with his campaign claiming it raised more than $12m in donations in the week after the indictment. Roughly a third was from first-time donors, though the actual figure won’t be available for confirmation for several weeks.Whether the political pressure – as well as the personal attacks on prosecutors that Trump has vowed to launch – works to dissuade prosecutors is less clear. In Georgia, prosecutors expect to charge Trump and dozens of others over efforts to overturn the 2020 election in that state, a person familiar with the matter said.But if Trump cannot actually stave off prosecutions, then the next best outcome for him is to at least raise suspicions among voters across the country that the cases are politically motivated, his advisers have suggested in conversations with his legal team.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionEven beyond the major news events like Trump’s indictment or his arraignment in the New York hush money case, advisers and associates have discussed for weeks about how tying the legal strategy to the political strategy remains a winning formula, if only in the short term.At least one Trump associate noted that the former president was a “guilty pleasure” for everyone in the political ecosystem, describing how Trump-related developments give Democrats an issue to rail against and Republicans an issue to rally behind, and boost ratings for cable news outlets.The wall-to-wall coverage of Trump’s arraignment – including helicopter shots following Trump boarding his plane from his Florida Mar-a-Lago resort to New York and speedboats dogging his motorcade as it drove down FDR Drive in Manhattan – increased ratings for every major TV network.On the evening after the arraignment, Fox News topped 6.4 million viewers on Tucker Carlson’s show. MSNBC hit 2.8 million viewers and CNN peaked at 2.2 million viewers for their special coverage, exceeding their top-rated shows in the first quarter of 2023, which had respectively hauled in 3.3 million, 1.4 million and 0.6 million viewers.The Trump team has been watching cable news viewership closely. Last month, when Trump spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference, he mocked an aide for talking to CNN because of its recent ratings dip and later laughed at how TV networks would hire a speedboat “only for Trump”. More

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      Trump lawyer says he aims to get hush money case dismissed before trial

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      While Donald Trump launches verbal attacks against the prosecutor and judge overseeing his criminal charges in connection with hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels, an attorney for the former US president has said his main focus is on legal maneuvers aiming to get the case dismissed long before a trial jury is ever seated.Jim Trusty appeared on Sunday on ABC’s This Week and argued that “there’s a lot to play with” when examining whether New York state prosecutors waited too long to secure an indictment against Trump and if the ex-president intended to commit any crimes with the payments at the center of the case.The payments were made at the height of the 2016 White House race which Trump won, and Trusty also reiterated questions that his side has previously asked about whether Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s office should be able to apply “federal election law into a New York case”.“The motions to dismiss have to be a priority because they amputate this miscarriage of justice early on,” Trusty said to show host Jonathan Karl. “And I think you’ll see some very robust motions.”In his remarks to Karl, Trusty also doubled down on questions already floated by his side about whether Trump could get a fair trial in Manhattan. The New York City borough voted overwhelmingly in favor of the Democrat who defeated Trusty’s client in the 2020 presidential election, Joe Biden, after all.However, though Trusty said Manhattan is “a real stronghold of liberalism, of activism, and that infects the whole process”, he suggested pretrial dismissal motions citing statutes of limitation and an alleged lack of criminal intent are almost certain to come before one that might seek a change of trial venue.A state grand jury in Manhattan on 30 March handed up 34 felony charges of falsifying business records to cover up $130,000 in payments meant to keep Daniels quiet about claims of an extramarital sexual encounter in what Bragg’s office maintains was a conspiracy to influence the race Trump won over Hillary Clinton. Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges on Tuesday.The Daniels payments have already led to one conviction, in federal court: that of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen. Cohen, in that case, said he paid Daniels at the behest of Trump and was reimbursed by the then president during his time in the Oval Office. Prosecutors alleged that those payments were falsely classified as legal expenses as part of a conspiracy for Trump to get around state and federal election laws or to deceive tax authorities.Cohen pleaded guilty to federal crimes stemming from the hush money payments, resulting in a three-year prison sentence as well as the loss of his law license.Trusty on Sunday called Cohen “a convicted perjurer with an ax to grind” but said it would be ineffective to attack his credibility in a motion at this stage. He also suggested that Trump’s political rhetoric about Bragg being a “failed district attorney” and a “criminal” and about the judge to whom the case was allotted, Juan Merchan, being “a Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife” was unlikely to be reflected in some of his side’s upcoming legalese.“It was pointing [out] that they have a bias, that they have a political interest that is contrary to President Trump,” Trusty said about comments that prompted Merchan to issue a warning against any statements that were “likely to incite violence or civil unrest”.Trusty added: “There’s kind of a political lane and a legal lane. I’m in the legal lane. I’m not going to worry too much or be able to control the politics of the moment.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWhile Trusty didn’t elaborate on his statute of limitation mention, New York law gives prosecutors five years to charge felony falsification of business records. The last alleged false record in the indictment is from December 2017, more than five years before Bragg obtained the charges against Trump.It’s unclear how Bragg’s office might try to defend against such a line of attack. But in other settings, lawyers confronted with a motion to dismiss based on a statute of limitation often argue that steps taken to conceal the alleged wrongdoing should result in prolonging – if not entirely suspending – any relevant charging or filing deadlines.Meanwhile, Trusty’s comment about applying “federal election law into a New York case” seemed to refer to Bragg’s decision to indict the former president over payments during a federal election although the US justice department prosecutors who secured Cohen’s conviction passed on charging Trump. The justice department’s decision against charging Trump does not amount to a finding of innocence for the former president, though it remains to be seen whether Bragg’s office has enough evidence to eventually secure a conviction.Trump’s next court date in the case that made him the first former US president to be criminally charged is 4 December. But Trusty said the public should not be surprised if some of the possible motions that he discussed were filed well ahead of that date.If Trump were to eventually be found guilty as accused, it is possible that he would face up to four years in prison, the director of the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center recently told the resource website factcheck.org. Yet it is also possible that Trump would not be at risk for anything more than probation, fines and community service because he was charged as a first-time offender, Columbia University law school professor John C Coffee Jr said to factcheck.org.Despite the case in Merchan’s courtroom, Trump is widely considered to be the frontrunner to land the Republican presidential nomination for the 2024 election. More

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      Trump’s indictment and the return of his biggest concern: ‘the women’

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      In August 2015, at Trump Tower in New York, Donald Trump met with Michael Cohen, then his lawyer and fixer, and David Pecker, then chief executive of American Media, owner of the National Enquirer. According to the indictment of the former president unsealed in New York this week, Pecker agreed to help with Trump’s campaign for the Republican nomination, “looking out for negative stories” about Trump and then alerting Cohen.It was a “catch and kill” deal, a common tabloid practice in which Pecker would buy potentially damaging stories but not put them in print.Pecker “also agreed to publish negative stories” about Trump’s competitors. The media this week seized on that passage in the indictment, noting how the Enquirer baselessly linked the father of Ted Cruz, the Texas senator and Trump’s closest rival for the nomination, to Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who killed John F Kennedy.Last year, however, a New York Times reporter got to the heart of the matter. In her book Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America, Maggie Haberman says that around the same time as the meeting with Pecker and Cohen, Sam Nunberg, a political adviser, asked Trump for his “biggest concern” about running.“Trump had a simple reply: ‘The women.’”Trump now faces 34 counts, all felonies, of falsifying business records with intent to conceal another crime: breaches of campaign finance laws. All the charges relate to the $130,000 Cohen paid Stormy Daniels, the adult film star and director who claims an affair Trump denies, and how Cohen was repaid $420,000 including $50,000 for “another expense” Cohen has said was for rigged polls, another $180,000 to cover taxes and a $60,000 bonus.But the New York indictment is not the only form of legal jeopardy Trump now faces. As well as state and federal investigations of his election subversion, a federal investigation of his retention of classified records and a civil lawsuit over his business practices, he faces a civil defamation suit arising from an allegation of rape.Trump has been accused of sexual misconduct or assault by at least 26 women. One of them, the writer E Jean Carroll, says Trump raped her in a department store changing room in New York in the mid-1990s.Trump denies the allegation. Carroll has sued him twice: for defamation and for defamation and battery, the latter suit under the Adult Survivors Act, a New York law which gave alleged victims of crimes beyond the statute of limitations a year to bring civil claims. In the defamation case, trial has been delayed. The case under the Adult Survivors Act is due to go to trial on 25 April.To the New York writer Molly Jong-Fast, host of the Fast Politics podcast, there is a some sense of poetic justice in Trump finally facing a legal reckoning in cases arising from his treatment of women.But, Jong-Fast says: “The thing I’m sort of struck by is, like, how much women continually are dismissed, even in this situation.“There’s so much talk about the Stormy Daniels case, there was so little talk about actually what happened, right? There was almost nothing about how he was married to his third wife [Melania Trump], and she had just had a child [Barron Trump], and he had this affair. He denies the affair but the affair is pretty much documented.“That’s as close to truth in Trumpworld as possible. But we’re discussing the nuances of who paid the hush money and whether or not that’s a campaign contribution, and whether that rises to a federal crime.“That can be argued, but I was surprised at how little focus women had in it. How nobody was talking about like, this is a serial philanderer who has the kind of problems that serial philanderers have.“The filing talked about how he had paid off this doorman, about the illegitimate child. I guess that may have been not true … but like, you don’t pay off somebody unless you have a sense that this could actually be true.”As Jong-Fast indicates, the New York indictment detailed two other “catch and kill” deals which prosecutors said also showed “illegal conduct” admitted by Pecker and Cohen but directed by Trump himself.In late 2015, American Media paid $30,000 to a former Trump World Tower doorman who was trying to sell a story about Trump fathering a child out of wedlock.In September 2016, Cohen taped Trump talking about a payment to Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who claims an affair Trump also denies.“So what do we got to pay for this?” Trump asked. “One fifty?”American Media paid McDougal $150,000 to stay silent.After Trump won the presidency, the indictment says, American Media “released both the doorman and [McDougal] from their non-disclosure agreements”.That speaks to the central contention made by Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, in his charges over the Daniels payment: that Trump concealed it because he feared it could derail his campaign.According to Bragg’s indictment, in the McDougal case Trump “was concerned about the effect it could have on his candidacy”. In the case of the doorman, Cohen instructed Pecker “not to release [him] until after the presidential election”. Regarding Daniels, Trump is said to have directed Cohen “to delay making a payment … as long as possible … [because] if they could delay payment until after the election, they could avoid paying altogether, because at that point it would not matter if the story became public”.In short, prosecutors contend that Trump did not make and conceal hush-money deals because he wanted to avoid embarrassment or hurting his wife – the argument successfully pursued by John Edwards, the Democratic presidential candidate who made hush-money payments in 2008 but avoided conviction four years later. The case against Trump is built on the contention he broke state and federal campaign finance laws.Observers argue over whether Bragg has built a case he can win. Some expect Trump to wriggle off the hook. Others think the first prosecutor to indict a president has a good chance of securing a conviction. In either case, the indictment has brought Trump’s treatment of women back to the national spotlight.So has Trump himself. As Jong-Fast points out, as the former president this week attacked the judge in New York, who subsequently became subject to threats to his safety, so too Trump went after the judge’s wife and daughter.“If you see interviews with Stormy Daniels, she has had terrible experiences as a result of her brush with Trump. Even the judge in that case, the judge’s daughter, Trump went after them. You go after Trump, you get it. He’s like a mob boss. That’s just how he does it.” More