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      Supreme court declines to expedite decision on Trump’s immunity claim in 2020 election case

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      The US supreme court on Friday rejected a request by the special counsel to expeditiously decide whether Donald Trump has immunity from federal prosecution over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, before a lower appeals court issued its own judgment.The one sentence denial means the case is returned to the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia circuit, where a three-judge panel is scheduled to hear oral arguments in January, and the case against Trump remains frozen pending the outcome of the appeal.In declining to leapfrog the lower court and fast-track the appeal, the supreme court handed a crucial and potentially far-reaching victory to Trump as he seeks to delay as much as possible his trial, currently scheduled for next March in federal district court in Washington.The decision almost certainly slows down Trump’s federal election interference case. Even if the DC circuit rules against Trump quickly, the former president can first ask the full appeals court to rehear the case, and then has 90 days to lodge a final appeal to the supreme court.Trump was indicted in June by the special counsel Jack Smith for conspiring to impede the peaceful transfer of power, but sought to have the charges thrown out by contending he could not be prosecuted for actions he undertook as president that were related to his official duties.The filing contended that all of Trump’s attempts to reverse his 2020 election defeat in the indictment, ranging from pressuring his vice-president, Mike Pence, to stop the congressional certification to organizing fake slates of electors, were in his capacity as president and therefore protected.At the heart of the Trump legal team’s filing was the extraordinary contention that not only was Trump entitled to absolute presidential immunity, but that the immunity applied regardless of Trump’s intent in engaging in the conduct described in the indictment.This month, his motion was rejected by the presiding US district judge Tanya Chutkan. That set the stage for Trump, who had always expected the motion to fail, to lodge an appeal that would stay the case while the DC circuit considered the matter.Obtaining the stay was always part of Trump’s strategy – he is seeking delay because if he wins re-election before the trial occurs, he could arrange to have the charges dismissed – and his lawyers were counting on a lengthy appeals process that would buy the time.The strategy, according to people close to Trump’s legal team, involved Trump going to the supreme court and securing additional weeks or months of delay – only after weeks of delay before the DC circuit.But prosecutors attempted to preempt Trump’s ploy by asking the supreme court to bypass the DC circuit and resolve the immunity question directly. In court filings, the special counsel suggested keeping the March trial date was in the public interest.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe request from prosecutors that the nation’s highest court rule on a case before judgment by an appeals court – and force Trump to contend with the Supreme Court plank of his delay strategy months earlier than he anticipated – was unusual but underscored the gravity of the moment.On Friday, the court essentially sided with Trump, who had argued the day before for the special counsel’s petition to be denied, arguing on procedural grounds that prosecutors had no basis to appeal a trial court ruling that was favorable to them and where the government had not suffered any harm.The denial, appellate experts said, underscored the peril of allowing trial prosecutors to help frame issues before the supreme court, instead of having the solicitor general’s office – which normally argues on behalf of the government – refine arguments to the sensibilities of the justices.The emergency petition on the Trump immunity question did not involve the solicitor general’s office. Although the filing was signed by former deputy solicitor general Michael Dreeben, it also included the special counsel himself and two of his deputies, JP Cooley and James Pearce. More

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      Trump pressured Michigan election officers not to certify 2020 vote – report

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      Donald Trump made a phone call in November 2020 in which he put pressure on two Republican election officers in Michigan not to sign the official document from the state confirming that Joe Biden had won the presidential election there, according to an exclusive report by The Detroit News late on Thursday.The Detroit News outlet has obtained recordings of the call, made on 17 November 2020, where Trump, who was refusing to accept that he had just lost the White House to Joe Biden, and Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel talked to Wayne county election officials Monica Palmer and William Hartmann and told them they would look “terrible” if they signed to endorse Trump’s defeat in the crucial swing state, according to the report.Palmer and Harmann were members of the Wayne county board of canvassers, one of the state’s official county teams – each with two Democrats and two Republicans – appointed by state election commissioners for duties such as inspecting ballots and certifying elections for all local, countywide and district offices.Trump told them on the phone call obtained and reported by the Detroit News that: “We’ve got to fight for our country. We can’t let these people take our country away from us.”McDaniel is from Michigan and was also reportedly on the call and told the two board members: “If you can go home tonight, do not sign it,” adding “We will get you attorneys.”Trump then added: “We’ll take care of that.”The newspaper further reported that representatives of Palmer, McDaniel and Trump, contacted by the reporter in question through spokespeople, did not dispute a summary of the call that was shared with them. The News said Hartmann died in 2021.On Thursday Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung issued a statement saying that Trump’s call was “taken in furtherance of his duty as president of the United States to faithfully take care of the laws and ensure election integrity, including investigating the rigged and stolen 2020 presidential election”.The call and then Palmer and Harmann’s refusal to add their signatures to Wayne county’s official certification of Biden’s victory at the ballot box was apparently designed to sow doubt about the accuracy of the result.Palmer and Hartmann’s refusal to sign the certification and a failed attempt to withdraw their votes from the day before in which they confirmed Biden’s victory in the county did not impede Biden’s win in Michigan. That was a crucial piece of his 2020 victory on behalf of the Democratic party, with he and now-US vice president Kamala Harris beating Republicans Trump and his Vice-President Mike Pence’s bid for re-election.The report of the phone call has strong echoes of the call Trump made on 2 January 2021, in which he pressed the secretary of state in Georgia, Brad Raffensperger, to “find” enough votes to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in that state, too. News of the phone call emerged almost immediately.The pressure on Raffensperger is part of the criminal case against Trump and multiple co-defendants in Georgia, accusing them in a racketeering case of an election interference conspiracy.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Wayne county tapes in Michigan are understood not to be part at this time of the federal election interference case against Trump brought by special counsel Jack Smith on behalf of the US Department of Justice.Michigan officials are still investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn his defeat in the state in 2020. The primary season for the 2024 presidential election begins in January and Trump is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination as he seeks re-election despite facing dozens of indictments in four criminal cases – two federal cases, in which the US supreme court has now become involved, as well as one in New York and the one in Georgia.Jonathan Kinloch, a Wayne county board of canvassers member, but one of the two Democrats, told the Detroit News that the phone call from Trump and McDaniel that the outlet just reported was “insane”.“It’s just shocking that the president of the United States was at the most minute level trying to stop the election process from happening,” Kinlock told the News. More

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      Rudy Giuliani’s Chapter 11 filing lists debts totaling up to $500m

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      Paperwork submitted in Rudy Giuliani’s filing for bankruptcy protection reveal the daunting extent of debts faced by the former New York mayor turned Trump lawyer. It is a mountain added to this week by a $148m award to two former Georgia election workers.Giuliani, 79, claimed Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss were involved in electoral fraud as part of Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump in 2020.His claims were debunked and the women sued for defamation. Their award was determined last week, a decision Giuliani called “absurd”. This week a judge said the women could collect immediately. Freeman and Moss also sued Giuliani again, to stop him repeating his claims.The $148m award was included in a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing made by Giuliani in the southern district of New York on Thursday.Other sums over $1m were also listed.They include claims from Daniel Gill, a New York man who last year slapped Giuliani on the back and asked, “What’s up, scumbag?” and was subsequently charged with assault, who has sued for $2m this year.Davidoff, Hutcher & Citron, a law firm, claims $1.36m. That suit, over unpaid fees, was lodged by Robert Costello, Giuliani’s longtime lawyer, in September.Other claims were listed as “unknown”. Among them is a claim from Noelle Dunphy – a former associate who sued Giuliani in May for $10m, alleging “abuses of power, wide-ranging sexual assault and harassment, wage theft and other misconduct”. Another claim is from Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son, who sued in September, alleging “total annihilation” of his digital privacy through attempts to tie his legal and personal problems to his father, through claims about a hard drive and laptop computer.Claims from the voting machine companies Smartmatic and Dominion Voting Systems, in lawsuits over false allegations of electoral fraud, are also listed as “unknown”.Other claimants listed in the five-page filing are: Eric Coomer, a Dominion employee (for an unknown sum); BST & Co, New York accountants ($10,000); the Internal Revenue Service (income tax claims at $521,345 and $202,887); Aidala, Bertuna & Kamins, a law firm Giuliani hired in 2021 after the FBI raided his apartment ($387,859.98); Momentum Telecom ($30,000); and the New York state department of taxation and finance ($204,346 and $61,340).skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn other paperwork, Giuliani said he had as many as 49 creditors and owed between $100m and $500m. His assets were estimated at between $1m and $10m.Giuliani’s spokesperson and adviser, Ted Goodman, said: “The filing should be a surprise to no one. No person could have reasonably believed that Mayor Rudy Giuliani would be able to pay such a high punitive amount” as awarded in the Georgia defamation case.Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, Goodman added, “will afford Mayor Giuliani the opportunity and time to pursue an appeal, while providing transparency for his finances under the supervision of the bankruptcy court, to ensure all creditors are treated equally and fairly throughout the process”.David Axelrod, a former aide to Barack Obama turned political commentator, tweeted: “Giuliani files for bankruptcy protection but there is no escape from MORAL bankruptcy, which will be his lasting legacy.” More

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      Trump lawyers urge supreme court to reject fast-tracking immunity decision

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      Lawyers for Donald Trump on Wednesday urged the US supreme court to reject a request from the special counsel to expeditiously decide whether he was immune from prosecution over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, contending prosecutors lacked standing to bring the petition.The argument from the ex-president was that prosecutors had no basis to appeal a lower court ruling that was favorable to them, and should instead defer intervening in the case until a federal appeals court issued its own judgment first.“This Court’s ordinary review procedures will allow the DC Circuit to address this appeal in the first instance, thus granting this Court the benefit of an appellate court’s prior consideration,” Trump’s lawyers wrote in the 35-page filing.“The Special Counsel urges this Court to bypass those ordinary procedures, including the longstanding preference for prior consideration by at least one court of appeals, and rush to decide the issues with reckless abandon. The Court should decline that invitation at this time.”The papers filed by Trump’s lawyers in essence amounted to an attempt to refreeze the case – and indefinitely delay the March 2024 trial date – after prosecutors sought to bypass the potentially lengthy appeals process by directly asking the nation’s highest court to resolve the matter.Trump’s main argument asking the supreme court to defer the petition was procedural, arguing the narrow cases where prosecutors could appeal a favorable lower court ruling were limited to when the government had suffered some harm, which did not apply to the special counsel Jack Smith.The filing added that the court’s preference should be to allow the DC circuit to issue a judgment first, consistent with ordinary practice and especially when the DC circuit had already agreed to consider the question on an expedited basis.Whether Trump’s line of arguments will prevail remains uncertain, insofar as Trump repeatedly cited the case of Camreta v Greene (2011), in which the court expressly ruled that the fact that the victor filed the appeal did not deprive it of jurisdiction to hear the case.Trump also accused the special counsel’s office of conflating the “public interest” in a speedy trial with “partisan interest”, alleging prosecutors of wanting to go to trial before the 2024 election in order to tie him up in court during the height of his presidential campaign for political reasons.The supreme court is likely to decide whether to grant the special counsel’s appeal in short order. If it does take the case, it could schedule oral arguments in January and issue a decision within weeks. If it declines, it would return to the DC circuit’s jurisdiction.Earlier this month, Trump asked the US court of appeals for the DC circuit to reverse a decision by the trial judge rejecting his motion to dismiss the indictment on grounds that he enjoyed absolute immunity for any actions related to his official duties while president.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Trump legal team suspected the motion would fail, according to people familiar with the matter, but filed it in the knowledge that it could be appealed before trial and, crucially, that it would cause the case to be paused pending the outcome of the appeals process.Trump’s lawyers appeared to expect the DC circuit to take months to schedule oral arguments and issue a ruling. They only intended to take the matter to the supreme court after a possible loss, which could again take months to decide whether Trump could be prosecuted in the case.But prosecutors pre-empted Trump and forced him to contend with the supreme court plank of his delay strategy earlier than he expected, requesting a grant of what is known as certiorari before the DC circuit issued a judgment. Prosecutors also separately asked the DC circuit to expedite its consideration.The federal 2020 election interference trial is currently set for 4 March, the day before Super Tuesday, when 15 states are scheduled to hold Republican primaries or caucuses. Trump, the frontrunner for the GOP nomination, has been adamant that he does not want to be stuck in a courtroom.Trump has also made no secret that his overarching legal strategy, for all of his criminal cases, is to pursue procedural delays. If the cases do not go to trial before next year’s election and he wins a second term, then he could direct his handpicked attorney general to drop all of the charges.And even if the case did go to trial before November, the people said, Trump’s preference would have been for the trial to take place as close as possible to the election because it would have given his 2024 campaign ammunition to miscast the criminal case against him as political in nature. More

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      Prosecutors gain access to majority of Trump ally Scott Perry’s phone

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      A federal judge ordered the top House Republican Scott Perry to turn over nearly 1,700 records from his phone to special counsel prosecutors that could inform the extent of his role in Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, including removing justice department officials.The move by the chief US district judge James Boasberg, who oversees grand jury matters in federal court in Washington DC, means prosecutors can access the majority of the records that the FBI pulled from Perry’s phone. The device was seized in response to a court-approved warrant.Boasberg ordered Perry to produce 1,656 out of 2,055 records. The US court of appeals for the DC circuit directed Perry to individually review which materials were protected by the speech or debate clause, which shields members of Congress from legal peril connected to their official duties, and allowed him to withhold those records.The records include some of Perry’s discussions about efforts to influence the executive branch and state officials, some communications about influencing the conduct of executive branch officials – including that of the former vice-president Mike Pence, according to Boasberg’s 12-page memo.What the special counsel Jack Smith will do with the records remains unclear, given his office previously charged Trump with conspiring to reverse his 2020 election defeat without the materials back in July. Perry can also still appeal the way Boasberg applied the speech or debate clause to his communications.A defense lawyer for Perry declined to say what determinations the Pennsylvania congressman might challenge.The ruling marks the latest twist in the constitutionally fraught case. Last year, the previous chief judge, Beryl Howell, ordered Perry to turn over 2,055 of 2,219 records after finding that speech or debate protections did not apply to informal fact-finding done by members of Congress.Perry appealed to the DC circuit, which overturned Howell’s ruling in September. The court decided that “informal fact-finding” that was not part of a committee investigation, for instance, did in fact qualify as official legislative business as protected by the speech or debate clause.The three-judge panel at the DC circuit of Neomi Rao, Gregory Katsas and Karen Henderson – nominated by Trump and George HW Bush – directed Boasberg to individually re-review the records using their stricter interpretation of speech or debate protections.According to his memo, Boasberg broke down the records into three broad categories: Perry’s communications with people outside the US government, Perry’s communications with members of Congress and staff, and Perry’s communications involving members of the executive branch.The records not withheld in category one most notably included communications about procedures that Pence had to follow at the joint session of Congress to certify the election results and communications about what occurred during the January 6 Capitol attack, the memo said.Category two had more items that were withheld, such as Perry’s discussions about whether to certify the electoral votes on January 6. But Boasberg turned over Perry’s discussions about working with the executive branch and state officials on election fraud issues and influencing their conduct.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe records not withheld in category three most notably included communications that tried to influence executive branch officials’ conduct, discussions about non-legislative efforts to combat alleged election fraud, and again, procedures that Pence had to follow on January 6.Perry was the subject of special interest by the House select committee investigation into the Capitol attack because of the outsize role he played in introducing to Trump a justice department official, Jeffrey Clark, who was sympathetic to Trump’s claims about alleged election fraud.The introduction led Clark to propose sending a letter to officials in Georgia that falsely said the justice department was investigating election fraud in the state. When the acting attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen, balked, Trump suggested he would replace him with Clark so the letter would be sent.Trump only relented when he was told by Rosen that the justice department leadership would resign and the White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, said he and his deputy, Patrick Philbin, would also quit if Trump followed through. Clark never became the acting attorney general.In August, Trump and his top allies – including Clark – were charged by the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, with violating the Georgia racketeering statute over their efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state. Trump and Clark have both pleaded not guilty. More

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      Georgia election workers sue to bar Giuliani from repeating same 2020 lies

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      Two former Georgia election workers who won a $148m defamation judgment against Rudy Giuliani asked on Monday for a court order barring him from continuing to repeat the lies he spread about them following the 2020 election.The new lawsuit points to comments the former New York City mayor made during and after the damages trial last week, repeating the baseless conspiracy theories about Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss.Those statements “make clear that he intends to persist in his campaign of targeted defamation and harassment. It must stop,” attorneys for the mother and daughter wrote in court documents.Giuliani’s political adviser Ted Goodman declined to comment on the lawsuit but pointed to the former mayor’s other accomplishments, including his celebrated leadership after the 11 September terrorist attacks in 2001.Giuliani has previously acknowledged in court documents that he made public comments falsely claiming Freeman and Moss committed ballot fraud as he fought to keep his fellow Republican Donald Trump in the White House after Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election.Those claims led to racist threats and intense harassment that forced the mother and daughter to flee their homes and fear for their lives, they said in emotional testimony last week. The trial was held to determine the amount of damages after a judge found he was liable for defaming them.Giuliani has vowed to appeal the verdict, and it is not clear whether he would be able to pay the staggering damages. He has shown signs of financial strain as he defends himself against costly lawsuits and investigations stemming from his representation of Trump.Also, Giuliani is among 19 people charged in Georgia in the case accusing Trump and his Republican allies of working to subvert the state’s 2020 election results. Giuliani has pleaded not guilty and has characterized the case as politically motivated. More

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      Appeals court rejects Mark Meadows’s bid to move Georgia elections case

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      A US appeals court has ruled that the election interference case against the former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows must stay in state court in Georgia and not move to federal court as he requested.Meadows had attempted to transfer his 2020 election interference case in the state to federal court, but the court had expressed doubt in his argument that he was acting as a federal official in trying to reverse Donald Trump’s defeat by Joe Biden.Meadows has been charged with violating the Georgia racketeering statute, alongside Trump and other co-defendants by the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, over their efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.More details soon … More

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      Trump seeks to dismiss Georgia election case by claiming political speech

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      Donald Trump’s lawyer asked a judge on Monday to throw out the Georgia criminal case over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state, contending the indictment violated the former president’s first amendment rights by charging him for so-called core political speech.The motion to dismiss the election interference case brought by the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, was similar in scope and theory to Trump’s request to throw out the federal indictment in Washington DC that was rejected this month.Trump’s filing, submitted after a court hearing on the issue, directly attacked the charges that he and his allies violated Georgia’s racketeering statute in trying to reverse his 2020 election defeat, including his 2 January 2021 call pressuring the Georgia secretary of state to “find” 11,780 votes.The 19-page motion sought to reframe the indictment as an attempt to criminalize Trump’s political speech, arguing that the former president’s repeated lies that widespread fraud corrupted the vote count were supposedly aimed at prompting investigations by state legislatures.“It was directed at the bodies responsible for conducting government business, the bodies with the information in their possession, the bodies undertaking the investigations, and the bodies vested with the authority of adjudicating such complaints,” Trump’s lawyer Steve Sadow wrote.The motion also argued that Trump’s claims of election fraud were protected by the constitution’s first amendment because the US supreme court had previously decided the government could not criminalize speech on disputed political issues just because it determined the views to be false.“The first amendment prohibits the state from weaponizing its powers to silence disfavored viewpoints or prevent people from advocating such viewpoints to government officials,” Sadow wrote.Trump probably faces a steep uphill battle to have the case dismissed, especially after the US district judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington DC earlier denied Trump’s near-identical motion to dismiss with a detailed 48-page opinion that cut down the same first amendment claims.Chutkan wrote in her decision even if Trump was right that his statements disputing the outcome of the 2020 election were true, “core political speech” did not immunize him from prosecution if it was used in furtherance of criminal activity.The decision also found that it was misguided for Trump to rely on the supreme court precedent in United States v Alvarez – that the Stolen Valor Act, which prohibits an individual from falsely claiming they received a medal for serving in the military, violated the first amendment.The stolen valor case was not helpful to Trump, Chutkan suggested, because the supreme court did not undermine settled precedent allowing prosecutors to charge cases where speech was used to advance a crime.Trump and the original 18 co-defendants in August pleaded not guilty to the racketeering charges. In the weeks that followed, the former Trump lawyers Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis and Kenneth Chesebro, as well as the local GOP operative Scott Hall, took plea deals and became witnesses cooperating with the prosecution.The Fulton county district attorney’s office does not intend to offer plea deals to Trump and at least two of his top allies, including his ex-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and his former lawyer Rudy Giuliani, the Guardian reported last month. More