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      The pro-Trump Arizona fake electors scheme: what’s in the charging document?

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      The indictment against the slate of fake electors in Arizona and the Trump allies who advanced the scheme there includes a host of public statements and private exchanges that show how the group intended to overturn the state’s electoral votes for Joe Biden in 2020.Arizona’s Democratic attorney general, Kris Mayes, announced on Wednesday that a state grand jury charged the 11 false electors and seven others with nine felony counts of fraud, forgery and conspiracy. The indictment from Mayes’s office is sure to be a talking point in this year’s elections, nearly four years after the acts themselves occurred.The case’s net spans more broadly than the slate of fake electors itself, entangling Trump associates who perpetrated the theory that this “alternative” slate could be used by Congress and then vice-president Mike Pence instead of the state’s rightful electors who signed off that Biden won the state.The documents detail the steps taken behind the scenes to push the concept of using electors for Trump to pressure Pence on 6 January 2021. Trump allies, both those charged in Arizona and those who weren’t, were exchanging messages, pressuring elected officials and arranging court cases to benefit the fake electors idea, the indictment shows.And several of the fake electors themselves, by their public statements, intended for their act of signing falsely that they were the state’s true electors to be used by the Trump campaign to disrupt the electoral count and subvert the state’s Biden win.Trump himself is not charged in the Arizona case, though he is listed throughout the indictment as “unindicted co-conspirator 1”, a “former president of the United States who spread false claims of election fraud following the 2020 election”.There were also attempts to add caveats to the language in the documents signed by the fake electors in Arizona to note that they were intended only as a backup plan should judges rule in Trump’s favor, but that did not happen, the indictment alleges.The false electors included two sitting state senators, Jake Hoffman and Anthony Kern. It’s not clear how or if the state senate will respond to these charges or if it will affect their legislative actions. The senate Republicans’ spokeswoman told the Guardian she checked with a rules attorney in the chamber, who “verified there is no protocol on such a matter, as people are presumed innocent until proven guilty”.The former Arizona Republican party chair Kelli Ward was charged, as was her husband, Michael. Tyler Bowyer, a Republican national committeeman and Turning Point Action executive, was also charged, as were the other fake electors Jim Lamon, Nancy Cottle, Robert Montgomery, Samuel Moorhead, Lorraine Pellegrino and Gregory Safsten.The Trumpworld figures charged include high-profile allies such as the former New York City mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, the former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, the lawyer John Eastman, the adviser Boris Epshteyn, the attorney Jenna Ellis, the current election integrity counsel for the Republican National Committee, Christina Bobb, and the former Trump campaign operative Mike Roman.In initial documents, the names of Trump allies are redacted, making it somewhat difficult to track who allegedly said what to whom. They are identifiable by their descriptions or other details.Mayes, who won her race by less than 300 votes in 2022, is already in the Republican-led legislature’s crosshairs for this investigation and a host of other issues where she, a Democrat, is at odds with GOP lawmakers. The state house opened a committee to investigate her and her use of the office. The charges are sure to further inflame Republican lawmakers.Hoffman issued a statement saying he was innocent and intended to “vigorously” defend himself against the charges, and that Mayes had weaponized the attorney general’s office for political reasons. “I look forward to the day when I am vindicated of this disgusting political persecution by the judicial process,” he wrote.Kern responded with an “LOL!!” and changed the subject to abortion when a commenter on X said he should resign immediately. The Arizona Republican party put out a statement calling the timing of the indictments “suspiciously convenient and politically motivated” and an example of election interference, a favorite claim of Trump himself in the face of a host of charges.Charlie Kirk, the founder of the rightwing youth organization Turning Point, said he and the organization stand by Bowyer and the others charged.“The Arizona Trump electors were doing what they thought was a legally necessary step as part of a wider political and electoral dispute,” Kirk wrote on X. “They acted in the belief that Donald Trump was the true winner of Arizona in the 2020 election. They engaged in no fraud and no deception. In fact, they literally published a press release explaining what they were doing!”Didn’t hedge language despite a warningOf the seven states that saw a similar fake electors scheme, those in Pennsylvania and New Mexico used language that indicated the electors who signed for Trump were contingent on the signers later being certified as the “duly elected and qualified electors” because of court interventions that were outstanding at the time.Arizona’s documents include no such hedge, instead saying the people who signed on claimed to be the “duly elected and qualified electors” for Trump in the state.The indictment claims a Pennsylvania attorney raised concerns about that language on 12 December 2020 and requested adding in the contingency language. After that, “unindicted co-conspirator 4”, who appears to be the scheme’s architect, the attorney Kenneth Chesebro, texted a Trump campaign official to point out the issue.View image in fullscreen“Mike, I think the language at start of certificate should be changed in all states. Let’s look at the language carefully,” Chesebro wrote to a Trump ally, presumably Mike Roman.Chesebro said the hedged language could help prevent the false electors from “possibly facing legal exposure (at the hands of a partisan AG) if they seem to certify that they are currently the valid electors”.“I don’t,” the person responded. After Chesebro offered to help draft the language, the Trump operative responded: “Fuck these guys,” according to the indictment.The pressure campaignTo build the narrative of the case, the indictment walks through Trump and his allies’ intense pressure campaign on the Maricopa county board of supervisors, the state legislature and the governor, all of whom played some role in election oversight.The details here are now publicly well-known – they include calls from the White House and Trump allies to people such as the former House speaker Rusty Bowers and the county supervisor Clint Hickman, as well as a call from the White House to the former governor Doug Ducey on the day he signed off on the certification of votes.Also mentioned is the backlash and ensuing harassment that some of these officials faced from members of their own party for refusing to take part in the efforts to overturn the results.The indictment walks through the various lawsuits the Trump campaign and other state Republicans filed to try to get their claims of election fraud affirmed in court or disrupt the results in some way, none of which succeeded.Ward worked to organize the Trump electors along with others. She expressed concerns that, if there weren’t an appeal filed in one of the election cases contesting results, it “could appear treasonous” to sign on as an alternate slate without any pending court cases. An appeal in one case, Ward v Jackson, was filed in time for the slate to vote on 14 December 2020.One appeal, the indictment notes, was filed quickly as a way to “give legal ‘cover’ for the electors in AZ to ‘vote’” to create their slate, a person labeled as “unindicted co-conspirator 5”, believed to be the Arizona attorney Jack Wilenchik, wrote in an email at the time.As proof of the intent to throw the election to Trump, the indictment mentions meetings between Pence, his staff and someone who appears to be Eastman from contextual clues, where the Trump ally lays out to Pence how he could reject electoral votes from certain states, delay the court and ask state legislatures to instead step in and declare a winner. During a meeting with Pence’s chief counsel, a charged Trump associate “admitted that his plan would lose if it went before the US supreme court”, the indictment says.The indictment also notes a memo written on 23 December 2020 that envisions Pence refusing to count the Biden electors from Arizona and other states with fake slates because there were multiple slates from those places, thus giving Trump a majority of the remaining electoral votes. This memo, other reporting from the Washington Post confirms, was written by Eastman.Pence did not follow through, to the dismay of Trump and his allies.Using their own wordsThe attorney general uses the fake electors’ own words, often displayed publicly on social media platforms, to show their intent was not simply to offer an alternate slate in the face of a potential court order, but to pressure the vice-president and others to use the Trump electors instead.On 14 December 2020, at the state Republican party headquarters, the electors signed on for Trump. The party posted a picture and video of it to X. Ward wrote, “Oh yes we did! We are the electors who represent the legal voters of Arizona! #Trump2020 #MAGA.” The party released a statement on the action that was similar to a template created by Chesebro, the indictment says.The next day, Bowyer, of Turning Point, described the move as giving “potential ground to not accept electors from states with competing electors”, the indictment says.Later that month, the 11 fake electors signed on to a lawsuit against Pence from the Texas congressman Louie Gohmert seeking to have the court declare Pence had the authority to decide which electoral votes to use in states that had multiple slates, according to the indictment.After the Gohmert case was filed, Bowyer wrote on X that the vice-president had the “awesome power” of selecting which slate to use when there were two competing ones, or to select neither.Kern gave an interview to the conspiracy website Epoch Times where he said the dual slates gave Pence the choice to pick one or the other and that would then likely lead to a “contested electoral process” on 6 January.“It’s going to be just a nice constitutional lesson for all of America to see,” Kern said, according to the indictment. A couple days later, Kern called on state leaders to bring an emergency legislative session to “decertify” the Biden electors, then convene a grand jury to investigate election fraud claims. He also was at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.The day before the insurrection, Hoffman wrote to Pence and asked him to delay certification and get clarity from the legislature over which slate was “proper and accurate”.Based on their statements and machinations behind the scenes, the indictment concludes that the defendants “deceived the public with false claims of election fraud in order to prevent the lawful transfer of the presidency, to keep Unindicted Coconspirator 1 in office against the will of Arizona’s voters, and deprive Arizona voters of their right to vote and have their votes counted”. More

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      in US Politics

      Trump VP contender Kristi Noem writes of killing dog – and goat – in new book

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      In 1952, as a Republican candidate for vice-president, Richard Nixon famously stirred criticism by admitting receiving a dog, Checkers, as a political gift.In 2012, as the Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney was pilloried for tying a dog, Seamus, to the roof of the family car for a cross-country trip.But in 2024 Kristi Noem, a strong contender to be named running mate to Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, has managed to go one further – by admitting killing a dog of her own.“Cricket was a wirehair pointer, about 14 months old,” the South Dakota governor writes in a new book, adding that the dog, a female, had an “aggressive personality” and needed to be trained to be used for hunting pheasant.What unfolds over the next few pages shows how that effort went very wrong indeed – and, remarkably, how Cricket was not the only domestic animal Noem chose to kill one day in hunting season.Noem’s book – No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward – will be published in the US next month. The Guardian obtained a copy.Like other aspirants to be Trump’s second vice-president who have ventured into print, Noem offers readers a mixture of autobiography, policy prescriptions and political invective aimed at Democrats and other enemies, all of it raw material for speeches on the campaign stump.She includes her story about the ill-fated Cricket, she says, to illustrate her willingness, in politics as well as in South Dakota life, to do anything “difficult, messy and ugly” if it simply needs to be done.By taking Cricket on a pheasant hunt with older dogs, Noem says, she hoped to calm the young dog down and begin to teach her how to behave. Unfortunately, Cricket ruined the hunt, going “out of her mind with excitement, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life”.Noem describes calling Cricket, then using an electronic collar to attempt to bring her under control. Nothing worked. Then, on the way home after the hunt, as Noem stopped to talk to a local family, Cricket escaped Noem’s truck and attacked the family’s chickens, “grabb[ing] one chicken at a time, crunching it to death with one bite, then dropping it to attack another”.Cricket the untrainable dog, Noem writes, behaved like “a trained assassin”.When Noem finally grabbed Cricket, she says, the dog “whipped around to bite me”. Then, as the chickens’ owner wept, Noem repeatedly apologised, wrote the shocked family a check “for the price they asked, and helped them dispose of the carcasses littering the scene of the crime”.Through it all, Noem says, Cricket was “the picture of pure joy”.“I hated that dog,” Noem writes, adding that Cricket had proved herself “untrainable”, “dangerous to anyone she came in contact with” and “less than worthless … as a hunting dog”.“At that moment,” Noem says, “I realised I had to put her down.”Noem, who also represented her state in Congress for eight years, got her gun, then led Cricket to a gravel pit.“It was not a pleasant job,” she writes, “but it had to be done. And after it was over, I realised another unpleasant job needed to be done.”Incredibly, Noem’s tale of slaughter is not finished.Her family, she writes, also owned a male goat that was “nasty and mean”, because it had not been castrated. Furthermore, the goat smelled “disgusting, musky, rancid” and “loved to chase” Noem’s children, knocking them down and ruining their clothes.Noem decided to kill the unnamed goat the same way she had just killed Cricket the dog. But though she “dragged him to a gravel pit”, the goat jumped as she shot and therefore survived the wound. Noem says she went back to her truck, retrieved another shell, then “hurried back to the gravel pit and put him down”.At that point, Noem writes, she realised a construction crew had watched her kill both animals. The startled workers swiftly got back to work, she writes, only for a school bus to arrive and drop off Noem’s children.“Kennedy looked around confused,” Noem writes of her daughter, who asked: “Hey, where’s Cricket?”In what may prove a contender for the greatest understatement of election year, Noem adds: “I guess if I were a better politician I wouldn’t tell the story here.” More

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      in US Politics

      Trump the elephant in the room as supreme court hearing strays into the surreal

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      It took two hours and 24 minutes for the elephant in the room to be mentioned at Thursday’s US supreme court hearing. “The special counsel has expressed some concern for speed, and wanting to move forward,” said Justice Amy Coney Barrett.That was shorthand for the gargantuan stakes at play in Trump v United States. The court was being asked to consider one of the most consequential prosecutions in US history – the four federal charges brought against former president Donald Trump accusing him of attempting to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election – and whether the case can conceivably go to trial.The supreme court has already moved at such a snail’s pace that the chances of the case coming to trial before November’s presidential election – in which the accused is once again standing for the most powerful job on Earth – are growing slim. The charges were filed by special counsel Jack Smith on 1 August, almost nine months ago.With the clock ticking down, the most conservative of the nine supreme court justices appeared determined to talk about anything but the case at hand. “I’m not concerned about this case, so much as future ones,” said Neil Gorsuch, one of the three justices appointed to the supreme court by Trump.“I’m not focused on the here and now in this case,” parroted another Trump appointee, Brett Kavanaugh. “I’m very concerned about the future.”Samuel Alito repeated the mantra. “I’m going to talk about this in the abstract because what we decide is going to apply to all future presidents,” he said.What the justices appeared to be overlooking in the rush towards abstraction was that the actual substance of the case – the here and now – is of monumental significance. Trump is charged with having orchestrated a conspiracy to subvert the bedrock of democracy – the outcome of a freely held election – as the first president in US history to resist the peaceful handover of power.As Michael Dreeben, who spoke for the government, put it, Trump’s novel legal theory that he enjoys absolute immunity from criminal liability would immunize any president who commits bribery, treason, sedition and murder. Or in Trump’s case, “conspiring to use fraud to overturn the results of an election and perpetuate himself in power”.At times the epic debate, which lasted two hours and 40 minutes, strayed into the surreal. Trump’s lawyer, John Sauer, argued that a president who ordered the assassination of a political rival or who instigated a military coup could only be prosecuted if he had been impeached and convicted first by Congress.The first question from the bench came from Clarence Thomas, the justice who stubbornly refused to recuse himself despite the inconvenient truth that his wife, Ginni, was profoundly mired in Trump’s conspiracy leading up to the insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.The award for the most jaw-dropping display of jurisprudential sleight of hand goes to Alito. He invoked the goal of preserving a “stable democratic society” in support of Trump’s claim that he should be immune from prosecution for having attempted to destroy a stable democratic society.“If an incumbent who loses a very close hotly contested election knows that it is a real possibility after leaving office that he may be criminally prosecuted by a bitter political opponent, will that not lead us into a cycle that destabilizes the functioning of our country?” Alito asked.“I think it’s exactly the opposite, Justice Alito,” Dreeben replied, with admirable restraint.It was all clearly too much for Ketanji Brown Jackson. Of the three liberal justices she put up the most impassioned counter-argument for the prosecution to go ahead.“If there’s no threat of criminal prosecution, what prevents the president from just doing whatever he wants,” she said. The justice left it implicit that this particular former president is potentially less than seven months away from returning to the Oval Office.How the court will rule is less than clear. It is a fair bet that four of the conservatives – Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Thomas – will vote for an outcome that in some form spares Trump from facing a jury in DC before he faces the American electorate on 5 November.Barrett was harder to read. She appeared to be open to allowing the prosecution to proceed, albeit through a tighter lens to distinguish between Trump’s actions that were motivated by personal gain from those conducted in his official capacity.The final word may well fall – once again – to John Roberts, the chief justice. The thrust of his questioning (he alluded to one-legged stools and got stuck on the word “tautology”) suggested that he might be tempted to remand the case back to a lower court for further time-consuming deliberation.Which would play exactly into Trump’s hands. From day one, Trump’s strategy has been delay, delay, delay – with the endgame of kicking the prosecutorial can so far down the road that he can win re-election and appoint a manipulable attorney general who will scrap all charges, or even pardon himself.Which is why the elephant in the courtroom cut such a striking presence. Though with the exception of Barrett’s lone comment, it went entirely un-noted. More

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      in US Politics

      Prosecutor to appeal against Texas woman’s acquittal over voting error

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      A Texas prosecutor will appeal against a court ruling tossing out a five-year prison sentence for a woman who unintentionally tried to vote while ineligible in the 2016 election, an unexpected move that continues one of the most closely watched voting prosecutions in the US.Last month, the second court of appeals, which is based in Fort Worth, threw out the 2018 conviction of Crystal Mason, a Black woman who submitted a provisional ballot in 2016 that ultimately went uncounted. Mason was on supervised release for a federal felony at the time she voted and has said she had no idea she was ineligible. The panel said prosecutors had failed to prove Mason actually knew she was ineligible.But the Tarrant county district attorney, Phil Sorrells, a Republican, announced on Thursday he was appealing to the Texas court of criminal appeals, the highest criminal court in Texas.“The trial court’s guilty verdict should be affirmed. Voting is a cornerstone of our democracy. This office will protect the ballot box from fraudsters who think our laws don’t apply to them,” Sorrells said in a statement. “The second court of appeals’ publication of its opinion creates the very real risk that future sufficiency cases will likewise be wrongly analyzed and decided.”When election workers were unable to find Mason’s name on the voter rolls on election day in 2016, they offered her the chance to cast a provisional ballot. The key piece of evidence used to convict her was testimony from election workers saying they believed she had read an affidavit warning that someone cannot vote until they complete “any term of incarceration, parole, supervision, parole or probation”.Mason says she did not read the affidavit and that no one ever told her she could not vote. It is undisputed that she was never told she could not vote.“It is disappointing that the State has chosen to request further review of Ms Mason’s case, but we are confident that justice will ultimately prevail. The court of appeals’ decision was well reasoned and correct. It is time to give Ms Mason peace with her family,” Thomas Buser-Clancy, an attorney with the Texas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said in an email.Mason has already had to serve an additional 10 months in federal prison while she appeals the state conviction. She remains free on an appeal bond and is living in Fort Worth.“I’m truly saddened at this moment that the state in this upcoming election is still sending a message,” Mason said in a text message. “I just don’t understand. My heart is very very heavy right now.” More

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      in US Politics

      Senior Democrat calls for arrests of ‘leftwing fascists’ urging Gaza ceasefire

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      Protesters calling for Israel to cease fire in its war with Hamas who have disrupted US public events and infrastructure are practicing “leftwing fascism” or “leftwing totalitarianism”, a senior US House Democrat said, adding that such protesters are “challenging representative democracy” and should be arrested.“Intimidation is the tactic,” said Adam Smith of Washington state, the ranking Democrat on the House armed services committee. “Intimidation and an effort to silence opposition … I don’t know if there’s such a thing as leftwing fascism. If you want to just call it leftwing totalitarianism, then that’s what it is. It is a direct challenge to representative democracy now.”Smith was speaking – before the outbreak this week of mass protests on US college campuses, many producing arrests – to the One Decision Podcast and its guest host Christina Ruffini, a CBS News reporter.Ruffini asked Smith about protests in his district, including vandalism at his home and a town hall meeting disrupted by protesters demanding an end to the Israeli bombardment of Gaza prompted by attacks by Hamas on 7 October.Disruptive, aggressive protests are “illegal … completely wrong … and enormously dangerous”, Smith said, adding: “I really want people to understand – and I put out a statement after they shut down a town hall meeting that I was trying to have [in March] – what’s going on here.“And everyone’s like, ‘Well, you understand their passion and all that. And I do understand that, I do. This is a life-or-death situation. It is certainly not the only life-or-death situation that I and all policymakers deal with. But it is one that is important. But that’s not what [the protesters are] doing.“What they are trying to do is they are trying to silence opposition and intimidate decision-makers. I’ve been doing town hall meetings for 34 years now, in some pretty hotly contested environments … [but] I have never had a town hall that I couldn’t keep under control enough so that people had the chance to say their piece.“But [the protesters’] goal and their objective was not to get their point across. It was to silence anyone who dared to disagree with them, to make sure that only one voice was heard. And their other goal was to intimidate. That’s why they’re showing up at member’s houses.”More than 1,100 people were killed on 7 October when Hamas attacked Israel, also taking hostages. Since then, more than 34,000 people have been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza, where the population also faces displacement and starvation.Protesters, Smith said, “would say, ‘Children are dying. This is a huge humanitarian crisis.’ And they’re right about that … and by the way, I do have some sympathy with these people. If there are members of Congress who won’t meet with them, I meet with them. All the time. So they have an opportunity to be heard. They’re not trying to be heard. They’re trying to silence people who disagree with them.”Asked what kind of protest might be appropriate, Smith cited a recent instance in an armed services hearing in which “people came in and they didn’t say anything, they just held up bloody hands. And the chairman noticed that and said, ‘You can’t do that, you’re out, and they got up and left.”But he said: “You go back to the civil rights movement, they expected to be arrested, they knew they were violating the law. And also … you have to enforce the law. You have to make clear … that this is about more than just the issue. You know, they can be heard, but then other people get to be heard.“You come to our town hall meeting, it’s one thing to try to get attention. They got their attention. But literally, they wouldn’t stop screaming insults at me. They wouldn’t … even let me answer the very questions they were raising.“I got two words into it and they started screaming at me again. So this is a different thing than your standard protest. In my view, the solution to it is if they are committing a crime – which by the way, shutting down a freeway, shutting down an airport, intimidating people, there’s a crime – [they] ought to be arrested.”Protesting at public figures’ homes should also be subject to arrest, Smith said.“The point of it is intimidation. And I think it is harassment. It’s a crime, and I think [they should] be arrested for it.“… But you know, when you are shutting down freeways, shutting down airports, frankly putting people’s lives at risk – If you’re an ambulance trying to get through to hospital – then that’s going beyond getting your point across, and you’re trying to intimidate and silence people in a way that I think is troubling.” More

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      in US Politics

      Dozens arrested in California and Texas as campus administrators move to shut down protests – as it happened

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      Police in Texas have arrested a journalist who was covering the protest at the University of Texas at Austin. A Fox 7 photographer was reportedly arrested after getting caught between protesters and law enforcement.Officers have clashed with students after dozens of local police and state troopers formed a line to stop protesters from marching through campus. They have detained multiple people. Greg Abbott, the Texas governor, said arrests would continue until “the crowd disperses”.“These protesters belong in jail,” he said.Police arrested dozens participating in peaceful student-led protests against the war on Gaza on Wednesday.Students have set up encampments at a number of universities in recent days to protest the war on Gaza and demand the schools divest from companies that are closely linked to Israel’s military operations.Here’s the latest:
      At least 34 protesters, including a member of the media from a local news station, were arrested during demonstrations at University of Texas in Austin on Wednesday.
      Faculty at University of Texas, Austin have announced a strike in response to what they called a “militarized response” to a “peaceful, planned action” on campus.
      At least 50 protesters were detained by Los Angeles police at University of Southern California (USC) during peaceful protests. Earlier in the day, police responding to a demonstration at USC got into a back-and-forth tugging match with protesters over tents.
      Last week at Columbia University, the focal point of national student demonstrations, more than 100 students, faculty members and others were arrested.
      More than 140 additional people were arrested on Monday night at a separate protest at New York University’s Manhattan campus.
      House speaker Mike Johnson appeared at Columbia University on Wednesday where he called for the resignation of the president of the university over her handling of the protests at the school.
      Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez assailed authorities for the “reckless and dangerous act” of calling police to non-violent demonstrations.
      US schools where protests have been reported include: University of Minnesota, Harvard University, Ohio State, University of California-Berkeley, University of Southern California, University of Texas-Austin, University of Michigan; Emerson College, MIT, Tufts University, Yale University, the New School, New York University, and Columbia University. Students at Sciences Po in Paris also began a solidarity protest on Wednesday.
      The number of protesters arrested on USC’s campus has surpassed 50, according to a LA Times reporter on the scene.LAPD has arrested at least 15 protesters on the USC campus, according to a Los Angeles Times reporter on the scene.The arrests came after law enforcement and university leadership told protesters to disperse. Protesters began to clash with law enforcement, some of whom shoved students, video shows.The number of people arrested as part of the University of Texas protests on Wednesday is at least 54, according to a reporter for local news publication the Austin American-Statesman.The number comes from the Austin Lawyers Guild, a leftist group that provides protest legal defense. The Guardian has reached out to the group for more details.Some USC protesters dispersed after the arrival of LAPD officers on campus, but dozens who remained are now facing off with law enforcement.In a statement posted on X at 5.50pm PST, the university said anyone remaining at the center of campus would be arrested.Los Angeles police officers are moving onto the USC campus to arrest protesters for trespassing, as they believe many demonstrators are not students, they said.In an announcement made via helicopter, LAPD officers told the protesters “Your time is up. Leave the area or you will be arrested for trespassing.”Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israel prime minister, said on Wednesday that student protests against the war in Gaza were “horrific”, characterizing protesters as “antisemitic mobs”.While there have been reports of antisemitism on campuses in recent weeks, protest organizers have blamed such incidents on outside agitators, insisting that their movements are peaceful. A group of professors at New York University released an open letter denying that any NYU-affiliated protesters had engaged in antisemitism or intimidation of others.Many Jewish-led groups protesting the war in Gaza have also pushed back against such allegations. As protests aligned with the Jewish Passover holiday this week, encampments at Yale and Columbia held Passover seders on Monday.When asked this week whether he condemned “the antisemitic protests”, President Joe Biden said he did. “I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians,” he said.Local news station Fox 7 Austin has confirmed that one of its photographers was arrested on campus during the protests Wednesday.A video shows the photographer being pulled backwards to the ground by Texas Department of Public Safety troopers. The station says he was then detained and taken to jail.Members of the faculty at the University of Texas at Austin have condemned what they call a “militarized response” to pro-Palestine protests on campus Wednesday.The statement said the peaceful, planned action was disrupted by police and state troopers, who responded violently and “made our entire community unsafe”.“We have witnessed police punching a female student, knocking over a legal observer, dragging a student over a chain-link fence, and violently arresting students for simply standing at the front of the crowd,” the statement said.In response, the faculty members stated that on Thursday there would be “no business as usual”, suspending classes, grading and homework. They called for a gathering on campus at 12.15pm on Thursday.Many of the protesters at the University of Texas have dispersed, but others have returned to the south lawn as the large police presence has waned. The department of public safety confirmed in a public statement that there were 20 arrests as a result of protests today.As protests continue at the University of Texas in Austin, police have encouraged occupants to disperse via an audio announcement that could be heard across campus. From local news reporter Ryan Chandler:Here are photos from Austin where police, including some on horses and holding batons, blocked the main lawn at the University of Texas and pulled several students to the ground to stop demonstrators from marching through campus.Police in Texas have arrested a journalist who was covering the protest at the University of Texas at Austin. A Fox 7 photographer was reportedly arrested after getting caught between protesters and law enforcement.Officers have clashed with students after dozens of local police and state troopers formed a line to stop protesters from marching through campus. They have detained multiple people. Greg Abbott, the Texas governor, said arrests would continue until “the crowd disperses”.“These protesters belong in jail,” he said.Cal Poly Humboldt, a public university on the far northern coast of California, where pro-Palestinian students are occupying a campus building, said on Wednesday that it would remain closed through the weekend.Protesters have barricaded themselves in Siemens Hall since Monday evening despite a large showing of local law enforcement who unsuccessfully attempted to force them out. Police have arrested three protesters.Students are reportedly also holding a sit-in in another campus building.The university said it is considering keeping the campus closed beyond the weekend, and accused students of stealing items and breaking “numerous laws”.Aside from the confrontation with police, media outlets report the mood on campus has been festive. Students there told the Sacramento Bee they felt compelled to take action.“I think the solution is to get involved, because at least I can feel like I’m doing my part. Even if it’s not enough, I’m doing the best I can to make something of it. I find peace in that,” one student said.With protests under way at universities across the US, the White House said on Wednesday that Joe Biden supports freedom of expression on college campuses.“The president believes that free speech, debate and nondiscrimination on college campuses are important,” Karine Jean-Pierre, the press secretary, said at a briefing.At least 10 protesters have been arrested at the University of Texas at Austin, according to the school.Dozens of state troopers and police officers in riot gear were at the scene after hundreds of students walked out of class to protest the war in Gaza and demand the university divest from companies that manufacture machinery used in Israel’s war.“UT Austin does not tolerate disruptions of campus activities or operations like we have seen at other campuses,” a statement by the university’s division of student affairs said.
      This is an important time in our semester with students finishing classes and studying for finals and we will act first and foremost to allow those critical functions to proceed without interruption.
      House speaker Mike Johnson, speaking on the steps outside the Low Library at Columbia University, called for the resignation of the president of the university, Minouche Shafik, over her handling of the protests at the school. Johnson said:
      I am here today, joining my colleagues and calling on President Shafik to resign if she cannot immediately bring order to this chaos.
      Johnson’s speech was repeatedly interrupted by a crowd of protesters. “Enjoy your free speech,” the speaker replied.The House speaker, Mike Johnson, is giving a news conference surrounded by a group of House Republicans, amid boos and chants of “We can’t hear you” and “Free, free Palestine”.Johnson urged that the “madness has to stop” and said Jewish students had shared with him experiences of “heinous acts of bigotry” because of their faith.Quoting Winston Churchill, Johnson said “it is manifestly right that the Jews should have a National Home where some of them may be reunited.”Johnson claimed Columbia University is being “overtaken by radical extreme ideologies” that “place a target on the backs of Jewish students”, adding:
      Let me say this very simply: no American of any color or creed should ever have to live under those kinds of threats. That is not who we are in this country.
      He said he met briefly with the president of Columbia University and encouraged her to take more action against the protesters. More

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      US House speaker jeered at Columbia as tensions rise over campus protests

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      Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, was jeered by pro-Palestinian protesters at New York’s Columbia University on Wednesday afternoon as he condemned what he called a “virus of antisemitism” at colleges nationwide.His appearance came amid rising tensions over a wave of protests at campuses across the US.The demonstrations began last week after students at Columbia set up encampments calling for the university to divest from weapons manufacturers with ties to Israel. The protests have led to mass suspensions and arrests of students in New York and several other cities.As temperatures rose, Kathy Hochul, the Democratic governor of New York, called Johnson’s trip “divisive”, while the Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez assailed authorities for the “reckless and dangerous act” of calling police to non-violent demonstrations, resulting in hundreds of arrests.Also on Wednesday afternoon, the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said that Joe Biden believes free speech, debate and nondiscrimination are important on college campuses, adding that “students should feel safe on college campuses”.Johnson, flanked by a number of Republican members of Congress, drew booing as he also called for the resignation of Minouche Shafik, Columbia’s president. He accused her of failing to protect Jewish students and allowing protests that led to the arrest of dozens of people there last week.“Things have gotten so out of control that the school has canceled in-person classes, and now they’ve come up with this hybrid model, where they will discriminate against Jewish students,” he said.“They are not allowed to come to class any more for fear of their lives. And it’s detestable, as Columbia has allowed these lawless agitators and radicals to take over.”The jeering continued as Johnson condemned what he saw as the “intimidation of mob rule” at Columbia and elsewhere. “The cherished traditions of this university are being overtaken right now by radical and extreme ideologies. The madness has to stop,” he said.Hochul accused Johnson of “politicizing” the issue, and “adding to the division”, according to the New York Post.“There’s a lot more responsibilities and crises to be dealt with in Washington,” she said.Campus protests have grown across the US this week, with thousands attending marches or setting up encampments at universities from Massachusetts to California, leading to scores of arrests. Students in Los Angeles posted to X, formerly Twitter, photographs of their occupation of the University of Southern California’s Alumni Park.View image in fullscreen“We, the USC Divest from Death Coalition, establish our occupation most fundamentally in solidarity with the people of Palestine as they resist genocide and continue in their struggle for liberation,” the group, calling itself the People’s City Council, wrote.Signs around the encampment laid out the students’ demands to the university, including full transparency of USC endowment and investments, as well as divesting from Israel. Students also protested against university’s cancellation of the valedictorian speech of Muslim student Asna Tabassum, who had posted on social media in support of Palestine, earlier this month.There have also been protests at the University of California, Berkeley, and at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, where protesters barricaded themselves in a university building using furniture, tents, chains and zip ties.Rows of tents have been added to a cluster set up on the steps of UC Berkeley’s Sproul Hall at the center of campus. Starting with just a dozen, more students have joined the “Free Palestine Camp” over the last three days, a sit-in demanding their school sever its financial connections to BlackRock and other asset managers they see as complicit for financing genocide in Gaza.UC Berkeley holds a $427m investment in a BlackRock portfolio and school officials have commented that a change in their investment strategy is not on the table. There is minimal police or security presence on site, but the students say they are bracing for that to change. The group is determined to stay even if the university tries to have them forcibly removed.The protesters are also calling for an academic boycott, which would end collaborations with Israeli universities and the establishment of a new Palestinian studies program.On Wednesday, Shafik said she had extended by 48 hours a deadline for talks with protest leaders for the dismantling of a tent encampment on Columbia’s west lawn. More than 100 people were arrested at the university last week after she brought in the police, and more than 140 students, faculty members and others were arrested on Monday night at a separate protest at New York University’s Manhattan campus.“Calling in police enforcement on nonviolent demonstrations of young students on campus is an escalatory, reckless and dangerous act,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a tweet.Some Jewish students at Columbia, meanwhile, said they had been physically blocked by protesters from attending classes, and subjected to racial hatred by demonstrators demanding a ceasefire in Gaza and for the university to divest from companies linked to Israel’s military operations.Protest organizers blame outside actors for particularly inflammatory rhetoric against Jewish students.Johnson’s visit to Columbia follows a number of other trips there this week by bipartisan groups of politicians. Three competing delegations attended on Monday, Axios reported, with the entirety of New York’s Republican congressional delegation demanding Shafik’s resignation, and Democrats criticizing her for not protecting Jewish students and faculty.The White House has labeled any calls for violence and physical intimidation targeting Jewish students and the Jewish community “blatantly antisemitic”.Hochul, who called the Columbia protest “visceral” following a visit on Monday, told reporters on Wednesday that Johnson was politicizing the issue, adding: “I’d encourage the speaker to go back and perhaps take up the migrant bill, the bill to deal with closing the border, so we can deal with a real crisis that New York has.She said her Monday visit was private: “I did not bring press with me. I wanted to have a substantive conversation about public safety with the [university] president, with campus security, with the NYPD.” More

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      Arizona house votes to repeal near-total ban on abortion

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      Lawmakers in the Arizona house have voted to repeal a controversial 1864 law banning nearly all abortions, amid mounting pressure from the state’s Republicans.Three Republicans joined in with all 29 Democrats on Wednesday to support the repeal of the law, which predates Arizona’s statehood and provides no exceptions for rape or incest.The move follows weeks of effort in the state legislature to address an issue that put Republicans on the defensive in a battleground state for the presidential election. The measure will now head to the state senate, where it is expected to pass, and then to the governor’s desk.The Arizona supreme court earlier this month concluded the state can enforce a long-dormant law that permits abortions only to save the pregnant patient’s life. The ruling suggested doctors could be prosecuted under the law, first approved in 1864, and anyone who assists in an abortion could face two to five years in prison.The ruling put enormous pressure on Republicans in the state, who on the one hand are under fire from some conservatives in their base who firmly support the abortion ban, and from swing voters who strongly oppose the measure and will decide crucial races including the presidency, the US Senate and the GOP’s control of the legislature.Some prominent Republicans, including the GOP candidate for Senate, Kari Lake, have come out against the ban. But Republicans in the statehouse so far have blocked efforts by Democratic lawmakers to repeal the law.A week ago, one Republican in the Arizona house joined 29 Democrats to bring the repeal measure to a vote, but the effort failed twice on 30-30 votes. Democrats hoped one more Republican would cross party lines on Wednesday so that the repeal bill can be brought up for a vote. There appears to be enough support for repeal in the Arizona senate.Meanwhile, the office of the Arizona attorney general, Kris Mayes, on Tuesday asked the state supreme court to reconsider its decision, the Arizona Republic reported.View image in fullscreenOn Wednesday, dozens of people gathered outside the state capitol before the House and Senate were scheduled to meet, many of them carrying signs or wearing shirts showing their opposition to abortion rights.The civil war-era law had been blocked since the US supreme court’s 1973 Roe v Wade decision guaranteed the constitutional right to an abortion nationwide.After Roe v Wade was overturned in June 2022, the then Arizona attorney general, Mark Brnovich, a Republican, persuaded a state judge that the 1864 ban could be enforced. Still, the law has not actually been enforced while the case makes its way through the courts. Mayes urged the state’s highest court not to revive the law.Mayes has said the earliest the law could be enforced was 8 June, though the anti-abortion group defending the ban, the Alliance Defending Freedom, maintains county prosecutors can begin enforcing it once the supreme court’s decision becomes final, which is expected to occur this week.If the proposed repeal is signed into law by the Democratic governor, Katie Hobbs, a 2022 statute banning the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy would become the prevailing abortion law.Many abortion providers in the state have vowed to continue providing the procedure until the ban goes into effect. In neighboring California, providers are gearing up to treat Arizona patients seeking abortion care when the ban goes into effect. The California governor, Gavin Newsom, announced on Wednesday he’s introducing a proposal that would allow Arizona doctors to perform abortions for their clients in California. The change would only apply to doctors licensed in good standing in Arizona and their patients, and last through the end of November.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionView image in fullscreenThe battle over abortion access in Arizona will ultimately be decided in November. Abortion rights advocates are pushing an effort to ask Arizona voters to create a constitutional right to abortion. They have collected about 500,000 signatures, more than the almost 384,000 needed to put it on the ballot.The proposed constitutional amendment would guarantee abortion rights until a fetus could survive outside the womb, typically around 24 weeks. It also would allow later abortions to save the parent’s life, or to protect her physical or mental health.Republican lawmakers, in turn, are considering putting one or more competing abortion proposals on the November ballot.A leaked planning document outlined the approaches being considered by house Republicans, such as codifying existing abortion regulations, proposing a 14-week ban that would be “disguised as a 15-week law” because it would allow abortions until the beginning of the 15th week, and a measure that would prohibit abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, before many people know they are pregnant.House Republicans have not yet publicly released any such proposed ballot measures.Reproductive rights advocates say the issue has mobilized voters and report that people are seeking out signature-gatherers and asking about locations where their friends and family can sign to put abortion access on the ballot.“I’ve had women come up with three kids, and they’re signing. And I tell them, moms are the most important signature here, because they understand what this issue is, and what pregnancy does to the body, what pregnancy does to your life,” Susan Anthony, who has been gathering signatures in Arizona, told the Guardian.The Associated Press contributed reporting More