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      in US Politics

      Trump Georgia case: judge says he hopes to have decision on whether to disqualify Fani Willis in two weeks – live

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      A lawyer for one of Donald Trump’s co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case has argued that not removing Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, would undermine public confidence in the legal system.John Merchant, an attorney for Trump co-defendant Michael Roman, argued that just “an appearance of a conflict of interest” between Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade would be “sufficient” to disqualify her from the election subversion case.Merchant told Judge Scott McAfee that “if the court allows this kind of behavior to go on … the entire public confidence in the system will be shot”, AP reported.If the judge denies the bid to disqualify Willis, “there’s a good chance” an appeals court would overturn that ruling and order a new trial, Merchant argued, it writes.The Republican senator for Alaska, Lisa Murkowski, has endorsed Nikki Haley in the GOP presidential primary, marking the first endorsement from a sitting senator for Haley.“I’m proud to endorse Gov Nikki Haley,” Murkowski said in a statement.
      America needs someone with the right values, vigor, and judgment to serve as our next President – and in this race, there is no one better than her.
      The endorsement comes just days before Super Tuesday, when Alaska and several other states will cast their ballots.Murkowski was among seven Republican senators who voted to convict Donald Trump for his alleged role in the January 6 insurrection.In closing arguments in the hearing to determine whether the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, should be disqualified from handling the Trump election interference case, lawyers for the district attorney’s office argued that the defendants had failed to show any actual conflict of interest.Adam Abbate, a lawyer with the district attorney’s office, accused the defendants’ attorneys of pushing “speculation and conjecture” and trying to harass and embarrass Willis with questions on the witness stand that have nothing to do with the issue at hand, AP reported.“We have absolutely no evidence that Ms Willis received any financial gain or benefit” from the relationship, Abbate told the judge.Judge Scott McAfee has said he hopes to have a resolution on the motion to disqualify the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, from the case she brought against Donald Trump within the next two weeks.The hearing is now adjourned.It’s been a big day for two of Donald Trump’s most significant court cases. In the matter of the classified documents found in his possession at Mar-a-Lago, judge Aileen Cannon sounded skeptical of prosecutors’ request for a July trial, but did not set a new date. In the case alleging meddling in Georgia’s 2020 election, Trump’s attorneys argued for the removal of district attorney Fani Willis, saying failing to do so would undermine faith in the legal system. Willis is now in court as her office is expected to argue why it should remain on the case.Here’s what else is going on today:
      Joe Biden said the United States would airdrop aid into Gaza, and may also make deliveries by sea, while calling on Israel to facilitate access by land.
      Trump said Texas’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott, is a potential candidate to be his vice-president.
      Nikki Haley campaigned in Virginia ahead of its primary next week, and was interrupted by protesters calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
      Meanwhile, in Georgia, Fani Willis is back in the courtroom where a judge is considering whether to remove her from the election meddling case she brought against Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants:Joe Biden’s vow to get humanitarian aid into Gaza by air and potentially sea comes after more than 100 people were killed amid a scramble to pick up food in the besieged territory, leading even some of Israel’s allies to demand an investigation. Here’s more on that, from the Guardian’s Harriet Sherwood, Emma Graham-Harrison and Julian Borger:Israel is facing growing international pressure for an investigation after more than 100 Palestinians in Gaza were killed when desperate crowds gathered around aid trucks and Israeli troops opened fire on Thursday.Israel said people died in a crush or were run over by aid lorries although it admitted its troops had opened fire on what it called a “mob”. But the head of a hospital in Gaza said 80% of injured people brought in had gunshot wounds.The UK called for an “urgent investigation and accountability”. In a statement, David Cameron, the foreign secretary, said: “The deaths of people in Gaza waiting for an aid convoy were horrific … this must not happen again.” Israel must allow more aid into Gaza, Lord Cameron added.France called for an independent investigation into the circumstances of the disaster, and Germany said the Israeli army must fully explain what happened. Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said: “Every effort must be made to investigate what happened and ensure transparency.”The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said 112 people were killed and more than 750 others were injured as crowds rushed towards a convoy of trucks carrying food aid.The United States will work with Jordan to drop food into Gaza by air and will consider make deliveries by sea, Joe Biden said, while noting he will “insist” Israel allow more trucks bearing aid to enter the territory by land.“In the coming days, we are going to join with our friends in Jordan and others in providing airdrops of additional food and supplies into [Gaza] and seek to continue to open up other avenues into [Gaza], including the possibility of a marine corridor to deliver large amounts of humanitarian assistance,” Biden said in the Oval Office. The president initially misspoke, saying the airdrops would be done in Ukraine rather than Gaza.“In addition to expanding deliveries by land, as I said, we’re going to insist that Israel facilitate more trucks and more routes to get more and more people the help they need. No excuses, because the truth is aid flowing to Gaza is nowhere nearly enough now – it’s nowhere nearly enough. Innocent lives are on the line and children’s lives are on the line.”In a statement released just as Joe Biden announced the US would airdrop humanitarian aid into Gaza, the independent senator Bernie Sanders called on the president to approve such action – while also insisting the onus lay on Israel to help civilians.“The United States, which has helped fund the Israeli military for years, cannot sit back and allow hundreds of thousands of innocent children to starve to death. As a result of Israeli bombing and restrictions on humanitarian aid, the people of Gaza are facing an unprecedented humanitarian disaster. Whether Netanyahu’s rightwing government likes it or not, the United States must immediately begin to airdrop food, water, and other lifesaving supplies into Gaza,” the progressive lawmaker from Vermont, who caucuses with the Democrats, wrote.Here’s more:
      But while an airdrop will buy time and save lives, there is no substitute for sustained ground deliveries of what is needed to sustain life in Gaza. Israel MUST open the borders and allow the United Nations to deliver supplies in sufficient quantities. The United States should make clear that failure to do so immediately will lead to a fundamental break in the U.S. – Israeli relationship and the immediate halt of all military aid.
      The US will begin airdropping humanitarian aid into Gaza, Joe Biden has said.Biden said the airdrops will begin in the “coming days”, an announcement that came a day after more than 100 Palestinians in Gaza were killed when desperate crowds gathered around aid trucks and Israeli troops opened fire.Donald Trump’s lawyer Steve Sadow has argued that Fani Willis should be disqualified from the election interference case because she may have lied to the court about her undisclosed affair with special prosecutor Nathan Wade.Sadow said Willis’s claim under oath that her relationship with Wade did not begin until after she hired him was not credible, Reuters reports. He told the judge:
      Once you have the appearance of impropriety … the law in Georgia is clear: That’s enough to disqualify.
      Joe Biden has signed into law a short-term stopgap spending bill to avert a partial government shutdown, the White House has said.The bill was approved by the Senate on Thursday following a House vote that narrowly averted a shutdown that was due to occur this weekend.The temporary extension funds the departments of agriculture, transportation, interior and others through 8 March. It funds the Pentagon, homeland security, health and state through 22 March.A lawyer for one of Donald Trump’s co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case has argued that not removing Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, would undermine public confidence in the legal system.John Merchant, an attorney for Trump co-defendant Michael Roman, argued that just “an appearance of a conflict of interest” between Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade would be “sufficient” to disqualify her from the election subversion case.Merchant told Judge Scott McAfee that “if the court allows this kind of behavior to go on … the entire public confidence in the system will be shot”, AP reported.If the judge denies the bid to disqualify Willis, “there’s a good chance” an appeals court would overturn that ruling and order a new trial, Merchant argued, it writes.Judge Scott McAfee has said he might be able to make a decision on the hearing on Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis as he hears closing arguments in the case. CNN quotes him as saying:
      I think we’ve reached the point where I’d like to hear more of how the legal argument apply to what has already been presented, and it may already be possible for me to make a decision without those needing to be material to that decision.
      Closing arguments began about half an hour ago over whether Willis should be disqualified from handling the election interference against Trump because of her romantic relationship with a deputy handling the case. More

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      in US Politics

      ‘Absurd’: Gavin Newsom hits back over Panera wage-exemption puzzle

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      Gavin Newsom is hitting back at a news report that he pushed for an exception to the state’s new fast-food minimum wage law that benefits a wealthy campaign donor.California’s minimum wage is $16 per hour. But starting on 1 April, most fast-food restaurants in the state must pay their workers at least $20 an hour under legislation Newsom signed last year. However, the law does not apply to restaurants that have on-site bakeries and sell bread as a standalone menu item.That exception puzzled some industry watchers, and was never fully explained by Newsom or other supporters of the law. Then on Wednesday, Bloomberg News reported that the exemption was linked to opposition from the Panera Bread franchisee Greg Flynn, whose company owns 24 of the restaurants in California and has donated to Newsom’s campaigns.“This story is absurd,” the California governor’s spokesman, Alex Stack, said on Thursday.Stack said that the governor’s legal team believes Panera Bread is not exempt from the law. They said that to be exempt from the minimum wage law as a bakery, restaurants must produce bread for sale on site. The governor’s office said many chain bakeries, such as Panera Bread, mix dough at a centralized off-site location and then ship that dough to the restaurant for baking and sale.Since last year, Panera Bread has been reported as a restaurant exempt from the law and Newsom’s office has not said otherwise, even when the governor was directly asked why the chain was exempt.A message left with Panera Bread about their baking process was not immediately returned.Stack said the governor never met with Flynn about the law. A message left with the Flynn Group was not returned on Thursday. Flynn told Bloomberg he did not play a role in crafting the exemption.The Bloomberg story, citing anonymous sources, says Flynn urged the governor’s top aides to consider whether chains such as Panera should be considered fast food. It does not say that Newsom and Flynn spoke directly about the law.The Flynn Group and Flynn Properties operate 2,600 restaurants and fitness centers across 44 states, according to the company’s website. Campaign finance records show Flynn Properties and Greg Flynn – the founder, chairman and chief executive – have donated more than $220,000 to Newsom’s political campaigns since 2017. That included a $100,000 donation to Newsom’s campaign to defeat a recall attempt in 2021.The minimum wage law passed in 2023. In 2022, Flynn had publicly opposed a similar proposal, writing in an op-ed in Capitol Weekly that it would “effectively kill the franchise business model in the state”.Republican leaders in the state Legislature on Thursday criticized Newsom for the possible connection.“Put simply, campaign contributions should not buy carveouts in legislation,” the Republican state senate leader Brian Jones said. “It’s unacceptable.”Assemblymember James Gallagher, the Republican leader in the assembly, said the attorney general, Rob Bonta, or another entity responsible for investigating conflicts of interest should look into the matter.“This exemption, there is no explanation for it. Someone had to push for it,” he said.The law was authored by Assemblymember Chris Holden, a Democrat from Pasadena, who told reporters on Thursday he was not involved in the negotiations over the bill’s final amendments, which included the $20 minimum wage increase and the exemption for bakeries.He said those talks happened between the business community and labor unions – groups Holden said were brought together “through the governor’s leadership”.Holden said he did not know Flynn or his status as a Newsom campaign donor. He declined to discuss if there were any legitimate policy reasons for exempting bakeries from the law.“I’m not going to try to start parceling every individual group,” Holden said. “The way that the bill moved forward, everyone who’s in is in.”Dan Schnur, who teaches political communications at the University of Southern California and the University of California Berkeley, said the issue had the potential to damage Newsom, much like when Newsom went to dinner at the French Laundry during the pandemic at a time when he was urging people to avoid public gatherings to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. That issue gave momentum to an effort to recall Newsom from office, which eventually qualified for the ballot in 2021 but was ultimately unsuccessful.“The last time the governor got in the middle of a restaurant-related controversy, his hesitation to address it turned a small problem into a much bigger one,” Schur said. “It’s more than possible that there is a perfectly reasonable substantive policy-based reason for this exception. But if that reason exists, the governor is obligated to share it with the people of California. Otherwise they’ll assume that he did a big favor for a big donor.” More

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      in US Politics

      Biden calls for compromise while Trump goes full red meat at US-Mexico border

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      It might be seen as the first US presidential debate of 2024. Two candidates and two lecterns but 300 miles – and a political universe – apart.Joe Biden and Donald Trump spent Thursday at the US-Mexico border, a vivid display of how central the immigration issue has become to the election campaign. Since it is far from certain whether official presidential debates will happen this year, the duelling visits might be as close as it gets.And it was as clarifying about the choice facing voters as any verbal clash on the debate stage. Biden came to push legislation and appeal to the head. Trump came to push fear and appeal to the gut. It is sure to be a close-run thing.That they were at the border at all represented a win for Republicans, who have forced Democrats to play on their territory as the debate over immigration in Washington shifts further to the right.Border crossings have been at or close to record highs since Biden took office in January 2021, though they have dropped so far this year, a trend that officials attribute to increased Mexican enforcement and seasonal trends. Democrats have become increasingly eager to embrace restrictions as they are confronted by migrants sleeping in police stations and airplane hangars.Where the presidents went on Thursday, and who went with them, told its own story. Biden headed to the Rio Grande Valley city of Brownsville which, for nine years, was the busiest corridor for illegal crossings. He was accompanied by the homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, whom Republicans earlier this month narrowly voted to impeach over his handling of the border.Trump, who has echoed Adolf Hitler by arguing that immigrants entering the US illegally are “poisoning the blood of our country”, travelled to Eagle Pass in the corridor currently witnessing the highest number of crossings – though they have fallen in recent months.The former president was joined by Texas governor Greg Abbott, a Republican who deployed thousands of national guard troops and laid concertina wire and river buoys to deter illegal immigration through a programme called Operation Lone Star – sparking legal and political standoffs with the White House.It was also Abbott who vowed to “take the border to President Biden” by busing thousands of migrants to Democratic-led cities, a move of diabolical genius that nationalised an issue which has, polls show, overtaken inflation as voters’ number one concern.In public remarks, Trump went full red meat, appealing to racist instincts in ways that offered a sobering reminder of the stakes of the election. “This is a Joe Biden invasion,” he said, insisting that “men of a certain age” were coming from countries including China, Iran, Yemen, DR Congo and Syria. “They look like warriors to me.”The former president – who favours travel bans and “ideological screening” for migrants – plucked assertions out of the air: “It could be 15 million, it could be 18 million by the time he gets out of office … A very big population coming in from jails in the Congo … We have languages coming into our country that nobody even speaks those languages. They’re truly foreign languages.”View image in fullscreenTrump went on to describe the alleged crimes of illegal immigrants and claimed that Biden has “the blood of countless innocent victims” on his hands. It is safe to assume that, at this summer’s Republican national convention, a series of gratuitous and lurid stories will be told along with a parade of victims’ families.Biden, who has been on the defensive on the issue in recent months, had a very different objective. He wanted to shame congressional Republicans for rejecting a bipartisan effort to toughen immigration policies after Trump told them not to pass it and give Biden a policy victory.“Join me – or I’ll join you – in telling the Congress to pass this bipartisan border security bill,” he said, attempting to turn the tables on Trump. “We can do it together. It’s the toughest most efficient, most effective border security bill the country has ever seen. So instead of playing politics with the issue, why don’t we just get together and get it done?”That’ll be the day. But in truth any president would have struggled with this escalating crisis. Congress has been paralysed on the issue for decades. Trump left vital agencies in disarray. Climate change, war and unrest in other nations, along with cartels that see migration as a cash cow, have conjured a perfect storm for Trump’s nativist-populist message to frame the conversation.Clarissa Martinez De Castro, vice-president of the Latino Vote Initiative at UnidosUS, says: “It seems most people are hearing about the issue of immigration from Republicans rather than from Democrats. That means you are allowing your opponents to define what your position is and that would be political malpractice for any candidate or elected leader.”Last week a Marquette Law School Poll national survey found 53% of voters say Trump is better on immigration and border security, while only 25% favour Biden on the issue. And for the first time a majority (53%) said they support building a wall along the entire southern border – a promise that Trump has been making since he rode down the escalator at Trump Tower in June 2015.The dynamic leaves Biden caught between trying to please the right while not alienating the left. Republicans and Maga media are demanding draconian measures and pushing emotional buttons by highlighting cases such as the arrest of Jose Antonio Ibarra, an illegal immigrant from Venezuela, over the murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley.Biden duly embraced immigration policies that he ran against as a candidate in 2020 such as restricting asylum laws and promising to “shut down the border” if given new authority. But such measures were condemned by progressives and could put his own coalition at risk in a crucial election year.De Castro adds: “If you go back to the early 2000s, there was similarly a lack of alignment on this issue. It took work to get there, but then, for many years, Democrats were seen as aligned as the party that believed in legal immigration and a path to legality for immigrants here and smart enforcement. In some ways they have lost their voice on this, and they need to recoup that.”If Biden and Trump do share a debate stage later this year, America can only hope for a substantial debate on immigration policy. But the four-year electoral cycle and soundbite age are the enemy of the long-term reform that is sorely needed. This knottiest of political problems goes way beyond America’s borders.Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, president of NextGen America, a group focused on young voters, says: “Any immigration plan actually has to address the root causes. People are coming out of deep economic need and also fleeing very violent situations. Until you address that it doesn’t matter what kind of barriers they try and create physically at the border to make it more difficult. If they want real solutions, they have to address that.” More

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      in US Politics

      Trump to appeal ruling barring him from Illinois primary ballot over January 6 role

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      An Illinois state judge on Wednesday barred Donald Trump from appearing on the Illinois Republican presidential primary ballot because of his role in the attack at the US Capitol on January 6, but she delayed her ruling from taking effect in light of an expected appeal by the former US president.The Cook county circuit judge Tracie Porter sided with Illinois voters who argued that the former president should be disqualified from the state’s March 19 primary ballot and its 5 November general election ballot for violating the anti-insurrection clause of the US constitution’s 14th amendment.Illinois joins Colorado and Maine in attempts to disqualify Trump from running for president because of his role in the 6 January insurrection, in which Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol to try to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.Trump is currently appealing those decisions to the supreme court, which is seen as likely to reject the states’ attempts to remove the former president from their ballots.The Colorado and Maine decisions are on hold while Trump appeals. Porter said she was also staying her decision because she expected Trump’s appeal to Illinois’ appellate courts, and a potential ruling from the supreme court.The advocacy group Free Speech for People, which spearheaded the Illinois disqualification effort, praised the ruling as a “historic victory”.A campaign spokesperson for Trump, the national frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination, said in a statement that this “is an unconstitutional ruling that we will quickly appeal”.In oral arguments on 8 February, the US supreme court appeared skeptical of arguments for removing Trump from Colorado’s primary ballot, and analysts suggested the court was poised to allow Trump to remain on the ballot.The court’s chief justice, John Roberts, suggested that if the supreme court allowed Colorado to take Trump off the ballot, then the “big, plain consequences” of the decision would be a scenario in which states regularly disqualified candidates from parties they opposed.“I would expect that a goodly number of states will say whoever the Democratic candidate is, you’re off the ballot, and others, for the Republican candidate, you’re off the ballot. It will come down to just a handful of states that are going to decide the presidential election. That’s a pretty daunting consequence,” Robert said.“What’s a state doing deciding who other citizens get to vote for for president?” the liberal justice Elena Kagan said.The justices focused more on the potential consequences of their decision than on whether or not Trump engaged in insurrection on 6 January and thus should be barred from holding office.Colorado and Maine earlier removed Trump from their state ballots after determining he is disqualified under section 3 of the 14th amendment to the constitution, which was created in the wake of the US civil war.Section 3 bars from public office anyone who took an oath to support the US constitution and then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof”.In her opinion, Porter wrote that she had considered Colorado’s ruling in her decision, and noted that the court “did not reach its conclusions lightly” and that it “realized the magnitude of this decision”.Reuters contributed to this report More

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      The three Johns: Thune, Cornyn and Barrasso jostle to succeed McConnell

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      There are as many men named John or Jon in the US Senate as there are African Americans and Latinos combined. Three of them are now vying to become Republican leader in the chamber.Mitch McConnell’s announcement on Wednesday that he will step down in November opens the way for a likely contest between senators John Thune of South Dakota, John Cornyn of Texas and John Barrasso of Wyoming. It is unclear which other senators might jump into the race.The winner may well become majority leader next year, given the favourable map for Republicans in this election cycle. But they will also have to deal with either the return of Donald Trump to the White House or the ruins of another Republican presidential defeat.“I turned 82 last week,” McConnell said on the Senate floor, his voice breaking with emotion. “The end of my contributions are closer than I prefer. Father Time remains undefeated. I’m no longer the young man sitting in the back hoping colleagues remember my name. It’s time for the next generation of leadership.”At nearly 17 years, McConnell was the longest-serving Senate leader in US history, giving potential successors plenty of time to quietly manoeuvre into position for when this day finally came.Thune, 63, the second-ranking Senate Republican, said of McConnell: “He leaves really big shoes to fill … I kind of just want, today, to honour him.” Thune is respected as a powerful fundraiser and experienced political chess player. His bio on Twitter/X says: “Father. Grandfather. Husband. Sports Fan. Avid Outdoorsman. Hates Shoveling Snow.”He has a complicated relationship with Trump. He condemned the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol as “horrific”, pledged to “hold those responsible to account” and described the former president as “inexcusable”. Trump fired back by declaring the senator’s “political career over” and suggested that South Dakota governor Kristi Noem make a primary challenge in 2022. She decided to pass.But on Monday, with timing that now seems less than accidental, Thune endorsed Trump for president in 2024. He still has his work cut out to win the “Make America great again” base, however.Barrasso, 71, is the third-ranking Senate Republican as chairman of the Senate Republican Conference and relatively popular with the Republican right. He is known by many as “Wyoming’s Doctor”, according to his official website, which notes that he spent 24 years as an orthopedic surgeon and was named Wyoming Physician of the Year.Barrasso endorsed Trump in January, appearing on the conservative Fox News network to tell Sean Hannity: “We need Donald Trump back in the White House.” He has also supported several “Make America great again” candidates for the Senate, including election denier Kari Lake in Arizona.Cornyn, 72, who was Republican whip from 2013 to 2019, joined with Democrats in 2022 to pass the bipartisan gun safety act, a move that brought a critical backlash in his home state. He not formally announced a leadership bid but gives every appearance of running. He told the Texas Tribune newspaper: “I think today is about Mitch McConnell but I’ve made no secret of my intentions.”Cornyn previously served as a district judge and member of the Texas supreme court, where he ruled with the majority to overturn a lower court ruling that had found Texas’s anti-sodomy laws to be unconstitutional. The former Texas attorney general has also argued that state governments ought to have the power to ban same-sex marriage.Trump endorsed Cornyn in 2019 when the senator was running for reelection but last year Cornyn expressed scepticism about Trump’s chances. “I think President Trump’s time has passed him by,” he told the Houston Chronicle. “I don’t think President Trump understands that when you run in a general election, you have to appeal to voters beyond your base.”However, as Trump dominated the primaries, Cornyn endorsed him last month, a week after his Texas colleague Ted Cruz. “To beat Biden, Republicans need to unite around a single candidate, and it’s clear that President Trump is Republican voters’ choice,” he said.There could be other contenders. Bob Good, chairman of the the hardline House Freedom Caucus, wrote on X: “Mitch McConnell stepping down provides a great opportunity for true conservative leadership in the Senate. Sen Rick Scott would make a great Republican leader.”Scott, who challenged McConnell for the leadership and failed after the 2022 midterm elections, told reporters: “I think there’s a better way to run the Senate. So we’ll see what happens in the future.”Perhaps the most honest comment of a day to remember on Capitol Hill came from Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota. Asked who he was backing for the leadership, he told CNN: “I wouldn’t announce it early anyway because I am hoping to get a lot of free dinners out of the Johns.” More

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      in Elections

      Supreme court to hear Trump immunity claim in election interference case

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      The US supreme court agreed on Wednesday to take up the unprecedented claim that Donald Trump has absolute immunity from prosecution in the criminal case over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, throwing into jeopardy whether it goes to trial before the 2024 election.The justices set oral arguments for the week of 22 April to consider a recent ruling by a three-judge panel at the US court of appeals for the DC circuit, which categorically rejected Trump’s immunity claim in a decision earlier this month.Trump’s criminal case will remain on hold until the supreme court ultimately rules on the matter, inserting it into the politically charged position of potentially influencing whether Trump will go to trial before the presidential election in November.The unsigned order said the court intended to address at oral arguments “whether and if so to what extent does a former president enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office”.In the federal 2020 election case, Trump faces a four-count indictment in Washington DC brought by the special counsel, Jack Smith, that charges him with conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct the congressional certification of the election results, and violating rights.Trump sought to have the charges dismissed last year, arguing in a 52-page filing that the conduct he was charged with fell under the so-called “outer perimeter” of his official duties, which meant he could not be prosecuted because of the broad protections afforded to the presidency.The motion to dismiss contended that all of Trump’s attempts to reverse his 2020 election defeat detailed in the indictment, from pressuring his vice-president, Mike Pence, to stop the congressional certification of Biden’s victory 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.The arguments were rejected by the presiding US district judge Tanya Chutkan, and subsequently by the three-judge panel at the DC circuit, which wrote in an unsigned but unanimous decision that they could not endorse such an interpretation of executive power.“At bottom, former President Trump’s stance would collapse our system of separated powers by placing the President beyond the reach of all three Branches,” the opinion said. “We cannot accept that the office of the Presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter.”Trump’s lawyers settled on advancing the immunity claim last October in large part because it is what is known as an interlocutory appeal – an appeal that can be litigated pre-trial – and one that crucially put the case on hold while it was resolved.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionPutting the case on hold was important because Trump’s overarching strategy has been to seek delay, ideally even beyond the election, in the hopes that winning a second presidency could enable him to pardon himself or allow him to install a loyal attorney general who would drop the charges.The involvement of the supreme court now means the case continues to remain frozen until the justices issue a ruling. And even if the court rules against Trump, the case may not be ready for trial until late into the summer or beyond.The reason that Trump will not go to trial as soon as the supreme court rules is because Trump is technically entitled to the “defense preparation time” that he had remaining when he filed his first appeal to the DC circuit on 8 December 2023, which triggered the stay.Trump has 87 days remaining from that period, calculated by finding the difference between the original 4 March trial date and 8 December. The earliest that Trump could go to trial in Washington, as a result, is by adding 87 days to the date of the supreme court’s final decision.With oral arguments set for April, a ruling might not be handed down until May. Alternatively, in the worst case scenario for the special counsel, the supreme court could wait until the end of its current term in July, which could mean the trial might be delayed until late September at the earliest. More

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      in US Politics

      If we the Black voters ‘get loud’, neither the Tories nor Donald Trump will survive | Al Sharpton

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      Donald Trump’s racist mentality has long been an open secret. In the 1970s, a federal lawsuit was brought against him for alleged racial discrimination on one of his housing developments in New York. He led the campaign calling for the death penalty against the Central Park Five, who were accused of a brutal rape but later vindicated. Even after that exoneration, he continued to suggest they were guilty.So are Black Americans flocking to support Trump? Reports are mixed. Trump himself would tell you he has a unique affinity with the Black community, but personally, I don’t buy it. Polling in 2020 estimated Trump would take 20% of the black vote. The real number was closer to 8%.After all, let’s remember what he says about us. Just this weekend, he said that Black Americans identified with him because he had faced criminal charges and we embraced his criminal mugshot. That was outright racist and insulting. For him to say that during Black History Month in the US is the epitome of an insult.And the irony is that he is the one being prosecuted – and by Black professionals at that. The New York state attorney general, Letitia James, brought the financially ruinous civil financial fraud case against Trump. Fani Willis, Fulton county district attorney, was responsible for challenging Trump’s alleged election interference in Georgia.I spend a lot of time speaking with Black voters. I host a US radio show six days a week – and from what I hear, I’m not alone in thinking that claims that he has growing support among our community are grossly exaggerated. But I do think it is fair to say that Black citizens are asking questions of the Democrats.Joe Biden has simply not done a good enough job on messaging. He needs to be more aggressive in speaking to Black voters – laying out his record, such as the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act (which Trump opposed) and his support for the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (which almost every Republican voted down). Biden should not assume people know what they haven’t been reminded of.US liberals must understand that if you take the high road and are not making noise about it, no one knows that you’re taking any road. They have to be more vocal, they have to challenge more, and not run away from the issue of race.That goes for the left in the UK, too. Arriving yesterday, I was disgusted to hear racist, Islamophobic language being used by members of the Conservative party. The Tories seem to be alarmingly Trump-like in their language. And that should be a mobilising cry to millions of Black British voters to register to vote.It shocks me that the wider British public doesn’t seem to understand the gravity of the threat to Black voting in the UK. The UK’s new photo ID legislation disproportionately disadvantages Black and minority voters. We know – similar legislation was used against us in the US. But Black people mobilised against it, and in 2021 helped to elect Raphael Warnock as Georgia’s first Black US senator. It shows the importance of fighting back.That’s why I came here: to tell leaders to use our playbook to challenge laws that suppress the Black vote – and to impress on Black communities the importance of turning out. It is imperative to democracy that we awaken the black vote in the UK and bring it alive. And we must do it simultaneously in the US.Biden has an opportunity to expose Trump’s lies and get disenfranchised communities back on side. To do that, he must be candid: he must openly call out Trump’s blatant racism for what it is. He must tell Black voters how Trump stacked the courts in a way that is detrimental to them, and that he will aggressively fight that. The Democrats still have time to recapture those whom they think they are losing. If they do that, Trump will have no recourse. He can’t undo things he has already said and done.You have to turn people on before you can turn them out. And if you turn them on to what is being done to us – what has already been said about us – you can turn people out. Liberal movements in the US and the UK have been blindly hoping that people will turn out on their own. But leaders must understand they won’t mobilise without a reason. It’s not enough to be proud in silence – we need to get loud again.
      The Rev Al Sharpton is a civil rights leader, activist and founder and president of National Action Network (Nan). As told to Lucy Pasha-Robinson.

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      in US Politics

      Biden wins Michigan primary but sheds support over Gaza

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      Joe Biden has won the Democratic primary in Michigan – but a concerted effort by anti-war activists to vote “uncommitted” in the race could overshadow his win.The US president faced no real primary challenger in the contest. But a campaign that formed just weeks before the primary to vote “uncommitted” in protest of his continued support for Israel’s war in Gaza signaled the fury and betrayal some Arab American and younger voters in the state feel for Biden.The group pushing for voters to choose “uncommitted” – called Listen to Michigan – set the goal of 10,000 uncommitted votes in the primary. With more than half of the votes tallied Tuesday night, “uncommitted” had received 74,000 votes out of a total of more than 580,000 – almost 13% of the vote.For context, when the then president, Barack Obama, ran uncontested in the 2012 race, about 21,000 voted “uncommitted” against him in Michigan’s primary, with about 194,000 voting in total – just over 9% of voters.Trump narrowly won the state by just 11,000 votes in 2016 and organisers of the “uncommitted” effort wanted to show that they have at least the number of votes that were Trump’s margin of victory in 2016, to demonstrate how influential the bloc can be.View image in fullscreenAs results came in after polls closed at 8pm, members of the Listen to Michigan campaign gathered at a banquet hall in Dearborn and declared the results a victory for their campaign.. Attendees embraced and celebrated, many wearing the black and white keffiyeh.Before handing the microphone off to a series of speakers for the campaign, Abbas Alawieh, a Listen to Michigan spokesperson, held a moment’s silence “for every human life that has been taken from us too soon using US taxpayer funds and bombs”.“Thank you to our local and national progressive organizations and our voters of conscience, who used our democratic process to vote against war, genocide and the destruction of a people and a land,” said Layla Elabed, who launched the campaign in early February.The former congressman Andy Levin, an early and prominent local supporter of the push to vote “uncommitted”, called the movement “a child of necessity” and said the turnout so far was “a huge victory”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“There is no hope for security and peace for the Jewish people without security and peace and freedom and justice for the Palestinian people,” said Levin, to cheers.The Listen to Michigan campaign was intended as a warning for Biden to revise his so far unwavering support for Israel’s campaign in Gaza, which has killed nearly 30,000 Palestinians, ahead of the general election. The campaign is especially significant in Michigan given the state’s large Arab American population, a group that supported Biden strongly in 2020.But it isn’t clear what share of “uncommitted” voters are prepared to abandon Biden in the general election this November, when he will most likely face Donald Trump – who is campaigning on a pledge to reinstate and expand his Muslim travel ban.A day before the primary, Biden announced a ceasefire could come as soon as Monday – but both Hamas and Israeli officials denied that negotiations had progressed substantially.In a statement on Tuesday night, Biden did not address the Listen to Michigan campaign or the growing tally of voters who cast their ballots as “uncommitted”, instead touting his record on labor and warning that Trump is “threatening to drag us even further into the past as he pursues revenge and retribution”. More