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      in US Politics

      Mike Pence will not appeal order to testify to January 6 grand jury

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      The former vice-president Mike Pence will not appeal an order compelling him to testify in the US justice department investigation of Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election, attempts which culminated in the deadly January 6 attack on Congress.The order was handed down last week. A spokesperson for Pence announced the decision on Wednesday, clearing the way for Pence to appear before a grand jury in Washington.Other Trump administration officials have testified in the investigation, as well as in an investigation of Trump’s retention of classified documents. Pence would be the highest-profile witness to appear before a grand jury.His closed-door testimony could offer a first-hand account of Trump’s state of mind in the weeks after he lost to Joe Biden and further expose a rift in Trump’s relationship with his former vice-president.Lawyers for Trump objected to the subpoena on grounds of executive privilege, an argument rejected by James Boasberg, a federal district court judge in Washington. Boasberg did accept arguments by Pence’s lawyers that for constitutional reasons he could not be questioned about his actions on January 6.Lawyers for Pence argued that because he served that day as president of the Senate, overseeing the certification of electoral college results, he was protected from being forced to testify under the “speech or debate” clause of the US constitution, which protects members of Congress from questioning about official legislative acts.On Wednesday, Pence’s spokesperson, Devin O’Malley, said: “Having vindicated that principle of the constitution, vice-president Pence will not appeal the judge’s ruling and will comply with the subpoena as required by law.”Lawyers for Trump could still appeal the executive privilege ruling.The justice department investigation, under the special counsel Jack Smith, is just one form of legal jeopardy faced by Trump, even as he continues to enjoy big leads in polls regarding the Republican presidential nomination.The former president was indicted in New York this week on charges related to a hush money payment to a porn star who claims an affair.Trump also faces a Georgia state election subversion investigation, the federal investigation of his retention of classified documents and civil suits in New York over his business practices and a defamation case arising from an allegation of rape.Trump denies all wrongdoing and claims to be the victim of political witch-hunts.Pence, who is expected to announce his own run for the presidency, was almost a victim of the mob Trump sent to the Capitol on 6 January 2021, seeking to block certification of Biden’s win. As rioters chanted “Hang Mike Pence” and erected a makeshift gallows, Pence was sent running for safety.Nine deaths have been linked to the attack, including law enforcement suicides. More than a thousand people have been arrested and hundreds convicted, some of seditious conspiracy.Pence has publicly addressed his interactions with Trump after election day and up to and including January 6, not least in a book, So Help Me God, seemingly meant to prepare the ground for a presidential run.As he tries to balance his own ambitions with Trump’s dominance among Republican voters, Pence has sought to distance himself from his former president.Last month, Pence told the Gridiron dinner in Washington: “President Trump was wrong. I had no right to overturn the election, and his reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day, and I know that history will hold Donald Trump accountable.”Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      in Elections

      Lachlan Murdoch ‘culpable’ for January 6 insurrection because of Fox News ‘lies’, Australian defamation case hears

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      Media mogul Lachlan Murdoch was culpable for the violent insurrection of the US Capitol after the 2020 presidential election because of lies told through Fox News, a judge has heard.In the federal court on Tuesday, barrister Michael Hodge KC said that while many media sources fuelled a conspiracy theory that Joe Biden stole the election from Donald Trump, Murdoch could still be held responsible.“He controls Fox Corporation. He permitted for the commercial and financial benefit of Fox Corporation this lie to be broadcast in the United States,” Hodge told Justice Michael Wigney.“We say that gives rise to culpability where you are allowing and promoting this lie and that lie is the motivation for the insurrection.”Hodge is representing Private Media, which publishes Crikey, as well as political editor Bernard Keane, editor-in-chief Peter Fray, chairman Eric Beecher and chief executive Will Hayward.They are seeking additional time to file their defences to Murdoch’s defamation suit over an opinion piece published in June last year and reposted in August referring to him as an “unindicted co-conspirator” with Trump over the false election claims.The publisher is seeking to add a contextual truth defence on top of its already pleaded defences of public interest and qualified privilege.
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      The proposed defence, yet to be approved by the federal court, includes personal communications between the Murdoch family revealed via separate US defamation proceedings brought against Fox by voting equipment company Dominion which claims it was falsely accused of conducting mass voter fraud.In one SMS, Rupert Murdoch tells his son Lachlan and Fox board member Paul Ryan about Trump’s “conspiracy nonsense” and refers to Fox talk show host Sean Hannity.“Wake up call for Hannity who has been privately disgusted by Trump for weeks but has been scared to lose viewers,” Rupert Murdoch wrote.Lachlan Murdoch, in the defamation case against Crikey, claims the articles conveyed a meaning that he illegally conspired with Trump to “incite a mob with murderous intent to march on the Capitol” in Washington DC on 6 January 2021.Murdoch’s barrister Sue Chrysanthou SC called the proposed contextual truth defence vague, saying it did not say how her client was culpable for the state of mind of about 2,000 people who stormed the Capitol building on 6 January.Other Murdoch-owned publications, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Post and even Fox itself had reported that Biden won the election and had disagreed with Trump’s claims.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“This defence is not rational, it is not arguable, it’s a waste of everyone’s time and it serves no legitimate end in the litigation,” the barrister said.She accused Crikey of including masses of material from the Dominion case in the Australian defamation lawsuit purely as part of its “Lachlan Murdoch campaign”.The media executive has previously alleged that Crikey has run this campaign against him to boost subscribers and gain financially.“They are happy to martyr themselves in this litigation to seek more money on the GoFundMe me campaign … to turn the case into something that resembles an inquiry and they don’t care if they win or lose,” Chrysanthou said.She urged the judge to reject the defence, saying it would mean a three-week trial scheduled to begin 9 October would have to be vacated.Wigney was due to deliver his judgment on Tuesday afternoon. More

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      in US Politics

      ‘Like lighting a match’: Trump ramps up rhetoric as legal walls close in

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      Donald Trump understands the camera. He is particular about angles, lighting and his inimitable orange hair. But come this Tuesday, in a New York courthouse, the camera will become his tormentor as Trump, once the most powerful man in the world, is told to provide a mug shot like a common criminal.The first reality TV star to be elected US president, and the first US president to be twice impeached and attempt the overthrow of an election, is now the first US president to be charged with a crime. The 76-year-old faces the humiliation of being photographed, fingerprinted and entering a plea to charges involving a 2016 hush money payment to the adult film actor Stormy Daniels.The impact of that is already being felt. There are signs that the legal perils now engulfing Trump are pushing him to new extremes. Trump has never been a conventional politician, but his divisive brand of populist-nationalism is growing ever more intense and extreme.His 2024 campaign for the White House is embracing a violent rhetoric that could inflame tensions and put America on a path to conflagration. Barricades have gone up around the courthouse in New York. Daniels canceled a Friday television interview out of “security concerns”. Trump’s language on the campaign trail and social media, haranguing his enemies, is laced with race-baiting and antisemitic conspiratorial tropes.“There’s nothing traditional about Donald Trump and there never has been, but we’ve never been in this situation before and what’s different now is how polarised we are,” said Frank Luntz, a pollster who has worked on numerous Republican election campaigns. “This is like lighting a match in the middle of a bonfire that’s been doused with gasoline. I’m afraid that we’re lighting a match and we’re going to see on Tuesday what happens.”For a moment, it had seemed that this time might be different. Trump launched his 2024 election campaign last November at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida with an uncharacteristic low energy, steering clear of his stolen election lies and insisting: “We’re going to keep it very elegant.”He then went unusually quiet before embarking on small-scale campaign events, issuing policy proposals and hiring staff in early voting states. Unlike his ramshackle 2016 effort, his campaign team appeared disciplined. The Hill website observed: “Former President Trump is doing something shocking – he’s running a campaign that is starting to look quite conventional.”But just as hopes that Trump would grow into the presidency were constantly dashed, so this newly orthodox candidate was never going to last. The trigger came two days after he became the first contender to hit the 2024 election campaign trail, delivering unremarkable speeches in the early primary states of New Hampshire and South Carolina.In a surprise move, Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, revived what had seemed be a cold case, an investigation into an alleged $130,000 payment to Daniels in the waning days of the 2016 campaign. Daniels has said she received money in exchange for keeping silent about a sexual encounter she had with Trump in 2006, when he was married to Melania Trump.As witnesses testified to a grand jury and the walls closed in, Trump used the threat to raise money and rally supporters as he seeks his party’s nomination to challenge Joe Biden next year. He abandoned all pretence of moderation and reverted to the old demagoguery.At the Conservative Political Action Conference at the National Harbor in Maryland, he spoke in apocalyptic terms of a “final battle” and vowed to supporters: “I am your retribution.” On his Truth Social media platform, he inaccurately predicted his own arrest and called for protests, echoing his charged rhetoric ahead of the January 6 2021 attack on the US Capitol by his supporters.Luntz commented: “He knows the power of that word ‘protest’. He knows what happened the last time he used that word. This is a deliberate effort to engage people in his situation and I am concerned about the consequences of him using that word.”Trump went on to warn of potential “death & destruction” if he were charged and described Bragg as an “animal” who was “doing the work of Anarchists and the Devil, who want our Country to fail”. He accused Bragg, who is Black, of racial bias and even shared an image – later removed – of himself holding a baseball bat next to a picture of the district attorney. Bragg’s office has been the target of bomb threats in recent weeks.Then, last weekend, Trump held his first campaign rally in Waco, Texas, exactly 30 years after a 51-day standoff and deadly siege there, and began by standing with hand on heart during the playing of a song that features a choir of men imprisoned for their role in the January 6 insurrection singing the national anthem, as footage from the riot was shown on big screens.The ex-president proceeded to describe the “weaponisation of law enforcement” as the biggest threat to America today and vow: “The thugs and criminals who are corrupting our justice system will be defeated, discredited and totally disgraced.”When on Thursday the grand jury had voted to indict, Trump responded in similar fashion and, significantly, Republicans rallied to his defence. Such is his grip on that party that even potential 2024 rivals felt compelled to defend his claim of a witch-hunt. Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, called the move “un-American”, while former vice-president Mike Pence told CNN the charges were “outrageous”.Both will have been aware that Trump’s campaign of rage in recent weeks has put him back in the headlines and expanded his lead in opinion polls. DeSantis, promoting a new book, has found himself going backwards. It is little surprise that Trump feels emboldened.Luntz said: “His numbers have gone up five points since this whole thing came about and I’m afraid that it will galvanise and solidify the support that had been leaving him. Donald Trump is the best politician in my lifetime at playing the victim card. There’s no one who comes close to him.”Trump alleges that there are political motivations behind all four criminal investigations he is known to face – including into his retention of classified documents and attempts to overturn his election defeat, and a separate Georgia investigation into his efforts to overturn his loss in that state. One line of attack is reframing January 6 as a heroic defence of democracy.Tara Setmayer, a senior adviser to the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group, said: “It’s clear that January 6 is a badge of valour for him, given that he’s continued to escalate the violent rhetoric similar to that which he used prior to January 6. He seems to get off on the idea of people engaging in violence on behalf of him.”She added: “He’s like a political vampire with a taste. He got a taste of what that violence can do on his behalf and now he wants more because he feels powerful.”The shift to the right goes beyond posturing. Trump has unleashed a barrage of policy proposals that include punishing doctors who provide gender-affirming care, measures that would make it harder to vote and imposing the death penalty on drug dealers. He appears to be taking the Republican party with him.Staunch allies such as Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia have risen to prominence in Congress. Republican state legislatures across the country have passed extreme legislation curtailing abortion and LGBTQ and voting rights. DeSantis, seen as Trump’s principal rival for the nomination, has adopted many of the same positions or tried to move even further right.Kurt Bardella, a Democratic strategist, said: “I don’t think he’s dragging them anywhere. They’re going willingly and voluntarily. They’re not putting up any kind of struggle. It just tells me intuitively that this is what they want, this is the kind of party that they want to be a part of because they’re doing absolutely nothing to divorce themselves from the extremism that Donald Trump regurgitates every single day.”Police are likely to close streets around the Manhattan courthouse ahead of Tuesday’s expected appearance. In a sign of the increasingly febrile atmosphere, Trump loyalist Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator for South Carolina, mocked Bragg’s sense of priorities by writing on Twitter: “How can President Trump avoid prosecution in New York? On the way to the DA’s office on Tuesday, Trump should smash some windows, rob a few shops and punch a cop. He would be released IMMEDIATELY!”A potential trial is still at least more than a year away, meaning it could occur during or after the presidential campaign. While it is unclear what specific charges Trump will face, some legal experts have said Bragg might have to rely on untested legal theories to argue that Trump falsified business records to cover up crimes such as violating federal campaign finance law.Luntz, the pollster, warned: “If you go to kill the king and the king lives, you die. If you prosecute Donald Trump and he is found innocent, there will be no stopping him. If he is found guilty, there’ll be no calming down of his most fervent supporters. Either way, it’s bad for the American democracy.” More

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      in US Politics

      The Observer view: Donald Trump deserves to face the full force of justice | Observer editorial

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      In the tumultuous, multifaceted case of Donald J Trump versus the people of the United States, the biggest question is why this former president, political con artist and serial offender is not already in jail. Trump will be charged this week in Manhattan over alleged “hush money” payments to a former porn star. This action, both welcome and overdue, makes him the first US president to be criminally indicted. Yet twice-impeached Trump stands accused of a string of infinitely more serious, well-documented crimes, including a violent attempt to overthrow the government. The continuing mystery is why justice is so long in coming.The full Trump charge sheet reads like a horror novel in which democracy is murdered. In the weeks following his clear-cut defeat by Joe Biden in November 2020, Trump did everything he could to subvert the result, legally and illegally, by making baseless accusations of fraud. This is not in dispute. Not disputed, either, is a taped telephone conversation on 2 January 2021 between Trump and Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, in which the then president pressed the latter “to find 11,780 votes” – sufficient to cancel Biden’s victory in the key swing state.Why has Trump not been criminally charged in what appears to be an open-and-shut case of shameless election interference? A special grand jury in Atlanta has recommended the prosecution of all involved in the illegal lobbying of Raffensperger. Perhaps the courage shown by Manhattan’s district attorney, Alvin Bragg, in indicting Trump will inspire his Fulton County counterpart, Fani Willis – and other state and federal prosecutors – to follow suit without further delays. If this case had been conducted in a timely manner, Trump might be behind bars now.It is more than two years since Trump incited his supporters to attack the Capitol in order to halt Congress’s ratification of Biden’s victory. The ensuing riot on 6 January 2021 led to deaths and injuries. Yet Trump did nothing to call off the mob until it was far too late. He has since hailed the rioters as heroes. Again, much of this is on the record. Congress has conducted exhaustive investigations. Why has Merrick Garland, the US attorney general, failed to act against the chief instigator as well as the perpetrators of the coup attempt? Only in November did Garland finally appoint a special counsel – which amounts, in effect, to another delay.It is hard to avoid the conclusion that reluctance to energetically pursue these and other crimes, such as Trump’s apparent theft of secret documents found at his Florida home, stems from political timidity at the top. As he showed again last week, Trump is ready and able to use his mafia-like grip on the Republican party and rightwing media to intimidate the entire US body politic. He plays the victim, turns the tables and claims Biden and the Democrats are the lawbreakers. Trump says political enemies have singled him out. Yet the only special treatment he has received is to have been allowed to avoid prosecution for so long.Diffidence over confronting Trump full-on stems in part from an understandable desire to avoid feeding national divisions. The entire Trump saga, akin to tawdry, never-ending reality TV show, is a distraction from pressing issues such as post-pandemic economic revival, the climate emergency and war in Europe. The US should focus on these challenges rather than endlessly indulge the antic ravings of a narcissistic, foul-mouthed, misogynistic crook.Biden would surely wish it so. At the start of his term, he plainly hoped that, by ignoring him, Trump would eventually go away. Yet sadly, here he is again, hogging the limelight. Trump will have his day in court amid blanket media coverage and feared street violence. He will repeat his usual inflammatory lies and slanders, proceedings will be adjourned, probably for months, and meanwhile, this arch-enemy of democracy, decency and justice will try to exploit his “victimhood” to secure the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. In a sense, Trump-ism is eternal. It cares for nothing and no one but itself.The Trump case poses potentially historic challenges for an American republic founded on the rule of law. The idea, peddled by Republicans, that a current or former president enjoys de facto immunity from prosecution is at odds with modern-day concepts of justice. The fact that it appears such a person may stand again for the White House while under criminal investigation, or even following a criminal conviction, points to dangerous flaws in America’s constitutional arrangements. No person, however famous, big-headed or threatening, should be above the law.The aggressive reaction to the indictment of many leading Republicans, and especially Ron DeSantis, Trump’s closest competitor, is dismaying. By parroting Trump’s line about “weaponisation” of the courts, the Florida governor shows himself to be no better or wiser than his egotistic rival. The party as a whole continues to place its interests ahead of the principles for which America stands. Democrats, meanwhile, should avoid talk that exacerbates national polarisation. “Lock him up!” is a tempting slogan, given how Trump used it against Hillary Clinton. But calm, restraint and patience are required. If there’s any justice, Trump’s time in court will ultimately be followed by time served.The manner in which this unprecedented legal drama is handled, and its outcome, could decide America’s immediate political future. It may also have a significant, lasting impact on US influence and moral authority in the global struggle to uphold a democratic, law-based international order. The world is watching – and that, regrettably, is what Trump likes.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk More

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      in US Politics

      US Capitol rioter who wore horned headdress to be released early

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      The US Capitol attacker who infamously wore a horned headdress and was nicknamed the “QAnon Shaman” is no longer in federal prison over the deadly January 6 uprising.Jacob Chansley, 35, was sentenced to three years and five months in prison on 17 November 2021 after pleading guilty to helping a mob of Donald Trump supporters try to prevent the congressional certification of the former president’s defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 election.Federal prisoners often complete their sentences sooner if they demonstrate good behavior, and Chansley was scheduled to be released in July. Yet ahead of that date, prison officials transferred Chansley to a halfway house in his home town of Phoenix, Arizona, federal records showed on Friday. His sentence is now scheduled to end on 25 May.There is no indication that the updated timeline of Chansley’s release is related to impassioned remarks from his attorney, Albert Watkins, on Fox News recently. Watkins went on the network and claimed that security footage from the Capitol attack, which the network aired earlier in March, showed Chansley did not have all of the material he needed to knowingly decide whether to stand trial or plead out.Watkins did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Guardian.Federal halfway house residents in general are required to find a job and may be allowed to drive or use a cellphone for employment purposes. They can also get a pass to engage in recreational weekend activities, and may later be moved from the group halfway house to confinement at a private residence.Before the Capitol attack, Chansley was a supporter of the QAnon conspiracy theory, which believes Trump is locked in mortal combat with an elite cabal of cannibalistic, pedophilic and satanist Democrats.The former president gave a fiery speech falsely claiming that he had lost to Biden because of widespread electoral fraud, and Chansley joined a large group of Trump supporters who stormed the US Capitol that day in an attack that has been linked to nine deaths, including the suicides of officers who defended the building and were left traumatized.Investigators later arrested Chansley, who was widely photographed at the Capitol attack in his outlandish garb with red, white and blue facepaint while also holding an American flag. He told them he had broken into the chamber of the US House because he was a “patriot” and Trump had requested it. While in-custody mental examinations revealed Chansley had transient schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression and anxiety, he ultimately pleaded guilty to obstructing an official proceeding.More than 1,000 people have been arrested with roles in the Capitol attack as of Friday, and many of them have pleaded guilty. Trump is not one of them, though a New York state grand jury on Thursday charged him with allegedly making an illegal hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign that he won. More

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      in Elections

      FBI informant testifies for Proud Boys defense that January 6 ‘not organized’

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      An FBI informant who marched to the US Capitol with fellow Proud Boys on January 6 testified on Wednesday that he did not know of any plans for the far-right extremist group to invade the building and didn’t think they inspired violence that day.The informant, who identified himself in court only as “Aaron”, was a defense witness at the trial of the former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and four lieutenants charged with seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors say was a plot to keep Donald Trump in the White House after the 2020 election.The informant was communicating with his FBI handler as a mob breached police barricades at the Capitol on 6 January 2021.The Proud Boys “did not do it, nor inspire”, the informant texted his handler. “The crowd did as herd mentality. Not organized.”The handler’s response was redacted from a screenshot a defense attorney showed to jurors.“Barriers down at capital [sic] building. Crowd surged forward, almost to the building now,” the informant texted.The informant said he contacted the agent because he saw it as an “emergency situation”. He testified that the FBI didn’t ask him to go to Washington or march with the Proud Boys that day.“If there was any violence and all that, they would have wanted to know,” he said of the FBI.“Aaron” is one of several Proud Boys associates who were FBI informants before or after the January 6 attack. He is the first to testify at one of the most important trials to come out of the justice department investigation of the Capitol riot.Prosecutors have employed an unusual theory that Proud Boys leaders mobilized a handpicked group of foot soldiers – or “tools” – to supply the force necessary to carry out their plot by overwhelming police and breaching barricades. The informant who testified on Wednesday was not one of those “tools”.Defense attorneys have argued there is no evidence the Proud Boys plotted to attack the Capitol and stop Congress certifying Joe Biden’s electoral victory.The informant testified that marching from the Washington Monument to the Capitol appeared to be a photo opportunity for the Proud Boys.“I didn’t know the specific purpose other than just being on the streets and being seen,” he said.Earlier in the trial, jurors heard from two former Proud Boys members who agreed to cooperate with the government after they were charged with riot-related crimes. Those witnesses, Matthew Greene and Jeremy Bertino, testified they did not know of any specific plan to storm the Capitol. Greene said group leaders celebrated the attack but did not explicitly encourage members to use force.Tarrio, a Miami resident who was national chairman of the group, and the other Proud Boys could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted of seditious conspiracy.Also on trial are Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola.Nordean, of Auburn, Washington, was a Proud Boys chapter leader. Biggs, of Ormond Beach, Florida, was a self-described organizer. Rehl was president of the chapter in Philadelphia. Pezzola was a member from Rochester, New York.The informant, who joined the Proud Boys in 2019, said he was not a group leader and did not know any of the leaders on trial.The trial started in January. Prosecutors rested their case on 20 March. Jurors are expected to hear several more days of testimony from defense witnesses before they hear closing arguments.Nordean’s attorney, Nicholas Smith, called the informant as a witness. The witness said the FBI interviewed him within 10 days of returning home from Washington.“It wasn’t very specific,” he said. “Just a lot of random questions.”The informant entered the Capitol on January 6 and was inside for about 20 minutes. He said he felt justified in entering the Capitol because he thought he could prevent rioters from destroying items of “historic significance”.“I didn’t want to be in there any longer than I had to,” the informant testified.The defense attorney Carmen Hernandez asked: “When you entered the Capitol, did you think that was something minor?”“I wasn’t thinking like that at the time,” the informant said.The informant said he believed he would not get into trouble with the FBI for something “minor” like breaking a window, as long as it could be seen as an “act of self-preservation” in a confrontation with antifascist activists. More

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      in US Politics

      Mike Pence must testify before grand jury investigating January 6 – reports

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      Former US vice-president Mike Pence must testify in front of a grand jury investigating Donald Trump’s election subversion and incitement of the January 6 attack on Congress, a federal judge reportedly ruled on Tuesday.Multiple news outlets reported the ruling, which remained under seal.Trump and Pence himself have both sought to stop Pence from testifying in the justice department investigation of Trump’s attempt to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.At issue are conversations between Pence and Trump leading up to January 6 and the attack on the Capitol, which is now linked to nine deaths, more than a thousand arrests and hundreds of convictions.Lawyers for Trump cited executive privilege, the concept that communications between a president and aides are protected.Lawyers for Pence argued he was protected by the separation of powers, via the vice-president’s role as president of the Senate, which he performed on 6 January 2021, the day supporters who were told to “fight like hell” by Trump tried to block certification of Biden’s win.On Tuesday, James E Boasberg, a judge in federal district court in Washington DC, reportedly rejected both arguments.Pence is not expected to have to answer questions about his own actions on 6 January 2021, when he was spirited away from a mob which chanted about hanging him while a makeshift gallows went up outside.Pence has described that experience in a book, So Help Me God, published ahead of an expected run against Trump for the Republican presidential nomination. He has also criticised Trump’s actions in public remarks. Trump has said the January 6 Capitol attack was Pence’s fault.On Tuesday, Pence was reportedly considering an appeal. Robert Costa, a CBS correspondent and co-author with Bob Woodward of the bestselling book Peril, about Trump’s attempt to cling onto power, said: “Pence has said he might see this all the way to the supreme court.”The Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe has described Pence’s defence as “meritless”, saying: “Pence needn’t file a foolish appeal just to prove his [pro-Trump] credentials. He’s done enough in that regard. Now he needs to show he’s law-abiding.”Reporting the ruling on Tuesday, the Associated Press said it set up the “extraordinary scenario of a former vice-president potentially testifying against his former boss in a criminal investigation”.Trump faces legal jeopardy on multiple fronts.An indictment is expected in New York, over a hush money payment to an adult film actor. His attempted election subversion is under investigation in Georgia and at the federal level. Jack Smith, the special counsel appointed by the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, is also investigating Trump’s retention of classified material.Authorities in New York have mounted a civil suit over Trump’s business affairs. In the same state, Trump also faces a defamation trial over an allegation of rape from the writer E Jean Carroll.Trump denies all wrongdoing, claiming to be the victim of prosecutors motivated by political and racial animus.He continues to lead polling regarding the Republican nomination for president. More

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      in US Politics

      Trump’s verbal assaults pose risks to prosecutors and could fuel violence

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      Donald Trump’s demagogic attacks on prosecutors investigating criminal charges against him are aimed at riling up his base and could spark violence, but show no signs of letting up as a potential indictment in at least one case looms, say legal experts.At campaign rallies, speeches and on social media Trump has lambasted state and federal prosecutors as “thugs” and claimed that two of them – who are Black – are “racist”, language designed to inflame racial tension.He has also used antisemitic tropes by referring to a conspiracy of “globalists” and the influence of billionaire Jewish financier George Soros.Trump’s drive to undercut four criminal inquiries that he faces is reaching a fever pitch as a Manhattan district attorney’s inquiry looks poised to bring charges against Trump over his key part in a $130,000 hush money payment in 2016 to adult film star Stormy Daniels with whom he allegedly had an affair.In his blitz to deter and obfuscate two of the criminal investigations, Trump has resorted to verbal assaults on two Black district attorneys in Manhattan and Georgia labeling them as “racist”, even as he simultaneously battles to win the White House again.In a broader attack on the four state and federal investigations at a Texas rally on Saturday Trump blasted the “thugs and criminals who are corrupting our justice system”, while on his Truth Social platform last week he warned of “possible death and destruction” if he’s charged in the hush money inquiry.But now Trump’s incendiary attacks against the federal and state inquiries is prompting warnings that Trump’s unrelenting attacks on prosecutors could fuel violence, as he did on January 6 with bogus claims that the 2020 was stolen from him and a mob of his backers attacked the Capitol leading to at least five deaths.“Trump’s incendiary rhetoric, amplified through his social media postings and his high decibel fearmongering in Texas, pose clear physical dangers to prosecutors and investigators,” said former acting chief of the fraud section at the justice department Paul Pelletier. “With Trump’s actions promoting the January 6 insurrection serving as a cautionary tale, the potential for violent reactions to any of his charges cannot be understated.”Ex-prosecutors see Trump reverting to tactics he’s often deployed in legal and political battles.Trump’s invective say experts won’t deter prosecutors as they separately weigh fraud, obstruction and other charges related to January 6 and other issues, but echo scare tactics he’s used before as in his two impeachments, and may help Trump’s chances of becoming the Republican nominee by angering the base which could influence primary outcomes.“None of these accusations about the motives of prosecutors, however, will negate the evidence of Trump’s own crimes. A jury will focus on the facts and the law, and not any of this name calling. The Trump strategy may work in the court of public opinion, but not in a court of law,” said Barbara McQuade, a former US attorney for the eastern district of Michigan.That may explain why Trump has received more political cover from three conservative House committee chairs, who joined his effort to intimidate Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, by launching investigations to obtain his records and testimony, threats that Bragg and legal experts have denounced as political stunts and improper.The legal stakes for Trump are enormous, and unprecedented for a former president, as the criminal inquiries have been gaining momentum with more key witnesses who have past or present ties to Trump testifying before grand juries, and others getting subpoenas.Two investigations led by special counsel Jack Smith are separately looking into possible charges against Trump for obstructing an official proceeding and defrauding the US government as he schemed with top allies to block Joe Biden from taking office, and potential obstruction and other charges tied to Trump’s retention of classified documents after he left office.Further, Fulton county Georgia district attorney, Fani Willis, has said decisions are “imminent” about potentially charging Trump and others who tried to overturn Joe Biden’s win there in 2020 with erroneous claims of fraud.Much of the probe’s work has involved a special grand jury that reportedly has recommended several indictments, with a focus on Trump’s high pressure call on 2 January 2021 to Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger beseeching him to just “find” 11,780 votes to help block Joe Biden’s win there.Trump has denied all wrong doing and denounced the inquiries as “witch hunts”.Little wonder though that Trump’s squadron of lawyers has lately filed a batch of motions in Georgia and Washington DC with mixed success to slow prosecutors as they have moved forward in gathering evidence from key witnesses and mull charges against Trump.“Blustering in court or in the media about the supposed bias or racism of the Fulton county and Manhattan county prosecutors will not convince a court to remove a democratically-elected prosecutor, and certainly the Republicans in the House of Representatives have no legal authority ability to influence the course of criminal justice in New York state proceedings,” said Fordham law professor and ex-prosecutor in New York’s southern district Bruce Green.Green stressed: “None of Trump’s moves, such as calling prosecutors racists, are likely to throw any of the prosecutors off their game: prosecutors tend to be focused, determined and thick-skinned.”Likewise, ex-US attorney in Georgia Michael Moore told the Guardian the Trump attacks on the two black prosecutors are “completely baseless. The charges of racism against the prosecutors is more of an indication of the weakness of his claims than most anything else he has said.”Moore scoffed too at the moves by Trump’s House Republican allies.“It’s rich to me that the Republicans in the House claim to be the party of limited government, but as soon as they get in power and look like they might lose another election, they immediately use their big government power to meddle in a matter that purely belongs to the local jurisdiction.”NYU law professor Stephen Gillers sees similar dynamics at play in Trump’s tactics.“Trump cannot stop the judicial process, although he can try to slow it. But he can undermine its credibility through his charges and by mobilizing his supporters. I see what he’s doing now as aimed at them, just as he tried to discredit the election returns in their eyes and anger them with baseless charges over the “steal”.The weakness of Trump’s legal moves was revealed in two court rulings in DC requiring testimony before grand juries from former top aides including ex-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in the January 6 inquiry, and one of his current lawyers Evan Corcoran in the classified documents case.The two rulings should give a good boost to the special counsel in his separate investigations of Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 loss on January 6 when Congress met to certify Joe Biden’s win about which Meadows must now testify, and Trump’s retention of classified documents at Mar a Lago after he left the White House about which Corcoran has to testify.As the four investigations intensify, more aggressive moves by Trump and his lawyers to derail potential charges in Georgia, Manhattan and from the special counsel are expected before, as well as after, any charges may be filed.“If I were on the prosecution teams in Manhattan or Georgia, I would expect Trump to assert every defense he can think of, including accusing the prosecutors of misconduct,” McQuade said.A judge on Monday ordered Fani Willis to respond by 1 May to the Trump team’s motion seeking to bar her from further investigating or charging Trump, and wants all testimony from some 75 witnesses, including Meadows and Trump’s former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, before the special grand jury rejected.The judge’s order was in response to a Trump legal motion that McQuade said “appears to be baseless”.Former Watergate prosecutor Phlip Lacovara told the Guardian that Trump’s lawyers are deploying different legal tactics in the investigations.“The Georgia strategy is partly a strategy of delay,” in which the Trump team is “raising dozens and dozens of objections, many of which are specious, in the hope that one will be sufficient to work on appeal and to keep him out of jail,” Lacovara said.In Manhattan, he added, they’re trying “to create the impression that this is a highly visible political stunt to exclude Trump from running”.That tactic could help in “trying to pollute the jury pool” since a hung jury would be good for Trump. “All he needs is one juror who believes this is all a concocted plot.”Former DoJ officials and experts expect Trump and his lawyers will keep up a frenzied stream of hyperbolic attacks and legal actions.“This is more of what we saw during the election,” said former deputy attorney general Donald Ayer who served in the George HW Bush administration. “He throws up gibberish and obstruction.” More