ReportWire

Tag: coups and attempted coups

  • Kurdish People Fast Facts | CNN

    Kurdish People Fast Facts | CNN

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a look at Kurdish people. Kurds do not have an official homeland or country. Most reside within countries in the Middle East including northern Iraq, eastern Turkey, western Iran and small portions of northern Syria and Armenia.

    Area: Roughly 74,000 sq mi

    Population: approximately 25-30 million (some Kurds reside outside of Kurdistan)

    Religion: Most are Sunni Muslims; some practice Sufism, a type of mystic Islam

    Kurds have never achieved nation-state status, making Kurdistan a non-governmental region and one of the largest stateless nations in the world.

    Portions of the region are recognized by two countries: Iran, where the province of Kordestan lies; and northern Iraq, site of the autonomous region known as Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) or Iraqi Kurdistan.

    Kurds were mostly nomadic until the end of World War I and the breakup of the Ottoman Empire.

    Kurds make up about 10% of the population in Syria, 19% of the population of Turkey, 15-20% of the population of Iraq and are one of the largest ethnic minorities in Iran.

    The Peshmerga is a more than 100,000-strong national military force which protects Iraqi Kurdistan, and includes female fighters.

    October 30, 1918 – (TURKEY) The Armistice of Mudros marks the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I.

    November 3, 1918 – (IRAQ) With the discovery of oil in the Kurdish province of Mosul, British forces occupy the region.

    August 10, 1920 – (TURKEY) The Treaty of Sèvres outlines the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, with Turkey renouncing rights over certain areas in Asia and North Africa. It calls for the recognition of new independent states, including an autonomous Kurdistan. It is never ratified.

    July 24, 1923 – (TURKEY) The Allies and the former Ottoman Empire sign and ratify the Treaty of Lausanne, which recognizes Turkey as an independent nation. In the final treaty marking the conclusion of World War I, the Allies drop demands for an autonomous Turkish Kurdistan. The Kurdish region is eventually divided among several countries.

    1923 – (IRAQ) Former Kurdish Governor Sheikh Mahmud Barzinji stages an uprising against British rule, declaring a Kurdish kingdom in Sulaimaniya in northern Iraq.

    1924 – (IRAQ) British Forces retake Sulaimaniya.

    1943-1945 – (IRAQ/IRAN) Mustafa Barzani leads an uprising, gaining control of areas of Erbil and Badinan. When the uprising is defeated, Barzani and his forces retreat to Kurdish areas in Iran and align with nationalist fighters under the leadership of Qazi Muhammad.

    January 1946 – (IRAN) The Kurdish Republic of Mahābād is established as a Kurdish state, with backing from the Soviet Union. The short-lived country encompasses the city of Mahābād in Iran, which is largely Kurdish and near the Iraq border. However, Soviets withdraw the same year and the Republic of Mahābād collapses.

    August 16, 1946 – (IRAQ) The Kurdish Democratic Party of Iraq (KDP) is established.

    1957 – (SYRIA) 250 Kurdish children die in an arson attack on a cinema. It is blamed on Arab nationalists.

    1958 – (SYRIA) The government formally bans all Kurdish-language publications.

    1958 – (IRAQ) After Iraq’s 1958 revolution, a new constitution is established, which declares Arabs and Kurds as “partners in this homeland.”

    1961 – (IRAQ) KDP begins a rebellion in northern Iraq. Within two weeks, the Iraqi government dissolves the Kurdish Democratic Party.

    March 1970 – (IRAQ) A peace agreement between Iraqi government and Kurds grants the Kurds autonomy. Kurdish is recognized as an official language, and an amendment to the constitution states: “the Iraqi people is made up of two nationalities: the Arab nationality and the Kurdish nationality.”

    March 6, 1975 – (ALGERIA) Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi of Iran sign a treaty. Iraq gives up claims to the Shatt-al-Arab waterway, while Iran agrees to end its support of the independence seeking Kurds.

    June 1975 – (IRAQ) Former KDP Leader Jalal Talabani, establishes the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). The following year, PUK takes up an armed campaign against the Iraqi government.

    1978 – (IRAQ) KDP and PUK forces clash, leaving many dead.

    1978 – (TURKEY) Abdullah Öcalan forms the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Kurdish separatist group.

    Late 1970s – (IRAQ) The Baath Party, under Hussein’s leadership, uproots Kurds from areas with Kurdish majorities, and settles southern-Iraqi Arabs into those regions. Into the 1980s, Kurds are forcibly removed from the Iranian border as Kurds are suspected of aiding Iranian forces during the Iran-Iraq War.

    1979 – (IRAQ) Mustafa Barzani dies in Washington, DC. His son, Massoud Barzani, is elected president of KDP following his death.

    1980 – (IRAQ) The Iran-Iraq War begins. Although the KDP forces work closely with Iran, the PUK does not.

    1983 – (IRAQ) PUK agrees to a ceasefire with Iraq and begins negotiations on Kurdish autonomy.

    August 1984 – (TURKEY) PKK launches a violent separatist campaign in Turkey, starting with killing two soldiers. The conflict eventually spreads to Iran, Iraq and Syria.

    1985 – (IRAQ) The ceasefire between Iraq and PUK breaks down.

    1986 – (IRAQ) After an Iranian-sponsored reconciliation, both KDP and PUK receive support from Tehran.

    1987 – (TURKEY) Turkey imposes a state of emergency in the southeastern region of the country in response to PKK attacks.

    February-August 1988 – (IRAQ) During Operation Anfal (“spoils” in Arabic), created to quell Kurdish resistance, the Iraqi military uses large quantities of chemical weapons on Kurdish civilians. Iraqi forces destroy more than 4,000 villages in Kurdistan. It is believed that some 100,000 Kurds were killed.

    March 16, 1988 – (IRAQ) Iraq uses poison gas against the Kurdish people in Halabja in northern Iraq. Thousands of people are believed to have died in the attack.

    1990-1991 – (IRAQ) The Gulf War begins when Hussein invades Kuwait, seeking its oil reserves. There is a mass exodus of Kurds out of Iraq as more than a million flee into Turkey and Iran.

    February 28, 1991 – (IRAQ) Hussein agrees to a ceasefire, ending the Gulf War.

    March 1991 – (IRAQ) Kurdish uprising begins, and in two weeks, the Kurdish militia gains control of Iraqi Kurdistan, including the oil-rich town of Kirkuk. After allied support to the Kurds is denied, Iraq crushes the uprising. Two million Kurds flee, but are forced to hide out in the mountains as Turkey closes its border.

    April 1991 – (IRAQ) A safe haven is established in Iraqi Kurdistan by the United States, the United Kingdom and France. Iraqi forces are barred from operating within the region, and Kurds begin autonomous rule, with KDP leading the north and PUK leading the south.

    1992 – (IRAQ) In an anti-PKK operation, 20,000 Turkish troops enter Kurdish safe havens in Iraq.

    1994-1998 – (IRAQ) PUK and KDP members engage in armed conflict, known as the Fratricide War, in Iraqi Kurdistan.

    1995 – (IRAQ) Approximately 35,000 Turkish troops launch an offensive against Kurds in northern Iraq.

    1996 – (IRAQ) Iraq launches attacks against Kurdish cities, including Erbil and Kirkuk.

    October 8, 1997 – (TURKEY) The United States lists PKK as a terrorist group.

    1998 – (IRAQ) The conflict between KDP and PUK ends, and a peace agreement is reached. This is brokered by the United States, and the accord is signed in Washington.

    1999 – (TURKEY) PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan is captured in Nairobi, Kenya, by Turkish officials.

    2002 – (TURKEY) Under pressure from the European Union, Turkey legalizes broadcasts and education in the Kurdish language. Turkish forces still combat PKK, including military incursions into northern Iraq.

    May 2002 – (TURKEY) The European Union designates the PKK as a terrorist organization.

    February 1, 2004 – (IRAQ) Two suicide bombs kill more than 50 people in Erbil. The targets are the headquarters of KDP and PUK, and several top Kurdish officials from both parties are killed.

    March 2004 – (SYRIA) Nine people are killed at a football (soccer) arena in Qamishli after clashes with riot police. Kurds demonstrate throughout the city, and unrest spreads to nearby towns in the following days, after security forces open fire at the funerals.

    June 2004 – (TURKEY) State TV broadcasts Kurdish-language programs for the first time.

    April 6-7, 2005 – (IRAQ) Kurdish leader Talabani is selected the country’s president by the transitional national assembly, and is sworn in the next day.

    July 2005 – (TURKEY) Six people die from a bomb planted on a train by a Kurdish guerrilla. Turkish officials blame the PKK.

    2005 – (IRAQ) The 2005 Iraqi constitution upholds Kurdish autonomy, and designates Kurdistan as an autonomous federal region.

    August-September 2006 – (TURKEY) A wave of bomb attacks target a resort area in Turkey, as well as Istanbul. Separatist group Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAC) claims responsibility for most of the attacks and threatens it will turn Turkey into “hell.”

    December 2007 – (TURKEY) Turkey launches attacks in Iraqi Kurdistan, targeting PKK outposts.

    2009 – (TURKEY) A policy called the Kurdish Initiative increases Kurdish language rights and reduces military presence in the mostly Kurdish southeast.

    September 2010 – (IRAN) A bomb detonates during a parade in Mahābād, leaving 12 dead and dozens injured. No group claims responsibility for the attack, but authorities blame Kurdish separatists. In 2014, authorities arrest members of Koumaleh, a Kurdish armed group, for the attack.

    April 2011 – (SYRIA) Syria grants citizenship to thousands in the Kurdish region. According to Human Rights Watch, an exceptional census stripped 20% of Kurdish Syrians of their citizenship in 1962.

    October 2011 – (SYRIA) Meshaal Tammo, a Syrian Kurdish activist, is assassinated. Many Kurds blame Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime for the assassination.

    October 19, 2011 – (TURKEY) Kurdish militants kill 24 Turkish troops near the Iraqi border, a PKK base area.

    June 2012 – (TURKEY) Turkish forces strike PKK rebel bases in Iraq after a PKK attack in southern Turkey kills eight Turkish soldiers.

    July 2012 – (SYRIA) Amid the country’s civil war, Syrian security forces retreat from several Kurdish towns in the northeastern part of the country.

    August 2012 – (TURKEY) Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warns that any attempts by the PKK to launch cross-border attacks from Syria would be met by force; the Turkish Army then performs a large exercise less than a mile from border villages now controlled by the Syrian Kurdish group Democratic Union Party (PYD).

    December 2012 – (TURKEY) Erdogan announces the government has begun peace talks with the PKK.

    January 10, 2013 – (FRANCE) Three Kurdish women are found shot dead in Paris, one of whom was a founding member of the PKK.

    March 21, 2013 – (TURKEY) Imprisoned PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan calls for dialogue: a letter from him is read in the Turkish Parliament, “We for tens of years gave up our lives for this struggle, we paid a price. We have come to a point at which the guns must be silent and ideas must talk.”

    March 25, 2013 – (TURKEY) Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan and Iraqi Kurdistan Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani negotiate a framework deal that includes an outline for a direct pipeline export of oil and gas. The pipeline would have the Kurdish crude oil transported from the Kurdish Regional Government directly into Turkey, allowing the KRG to be a competitive supplier of oil to Turkey.

    June 2014 – (IRAQ) Refugees flee fighting and flood into Iraqi Kurdistan to the north as ISIS militants take over Mosul. Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) closes then reopens, with restrictions, border crossings used by those fleeing ISIS.

    June 23, 2014 – (IRAQ) Iraqi Kurdistan President Barzani says that “Iraq is obviously falling apart, and it’s obvious that the federal or central government has lost control over everything.”

    Early August 2014 – (IRAQ) Reportedly 40,000 Yazidi, a minority group of Kurdish descent, flee to a mountainous region in northwestern Iraq to escape ISIS, after the group storms Sinjar, a town near the Syrian border. Also, 100,000 Christians flee to Erbil, after Kurdish leadership there promises protection in the city.

    August 11, 2014 – (IRAQ) Kurdish fighters in Kurdistan, who are called Peshmerga, work with Iraqi armed forces to deliver aid to Yazidis stranded on Mount Sinjar after fleeing ISIS fighters.

    August 12, 2014 – (IRAQ) Some Yazidi tell CNN that PKK fighters control parts of the mountain, and have offered food and protection from ISIS.

    December 2, 2014 – (IRAQ) The government of Iraq and the government of Iraqi Kurdistan sign an agreement to share oil revenues and military resources. Iraq will now pay the salaries of Peshmerga fighters battling ISIS and act as an intermediary to deliver US weapons to Kurdish forces. The Kurdistan government will deliver more than half a million barrels of oil daily to the Iraqi government. Profits from the sale of the oil will be split between the two governments.

    January 26, 2015 – (SYRIA) After 112 days of fighting, the YPG, Kurdish fighters also known as the People’s Protection Units, take control of the city of Kobani from ISIS.

    March 21, 2015 – (TURKEY) In a letter read to thousands during a celebration in the city of Diyarbakir, imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan urges fighters under his command to lay down their arms, stop waging war against the Turkish state and join a “congress.”

    May 18, 2015 – (TURKEY) In the run-up to parliamentary elections on June 7, an explosion rocks the office of the Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) in Adana, in southeastern Turkey. Six people are injured.

    June 7, 2015 – (TURKEY) Three-year-old fledgling party Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) receives more than 13% of the vote, winning 80 seats in the 550-seat parliament.

    June 16, 2015 – (SYRIA) Kurdish forces in the Syrian town, Tal Abyad say they have defeated ISIS fighters and taken back the town on the Turkish border.

    June 23, 2015 – (SYRIA) Kurdish fighters announce that they have taken back the town of Ain Issa, located 30 miles north of the ISIS stronghold, Raqqa, a city proclaimed to be the capital of the caliphate. A military base near Ain Issa, which had been occupied by ISIS since last August, is abandoned by the terrorist group the night before the Kurdish forces seize the town.

    February 17, 2016 – (IRAQ) Turkish airstrikes target some of the PKK’s top figures in northern Iraq’s Haftanin region. Airstrikes come after a terrorist attack in Turkey kills 28, although no Kurdish group has claimed responsibility for those attacks.

    March 13, 2016 – (TURKEY) A car bomb attack kills at least 37 people in Ankara. The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, or TAK – an offshoot of the Kurdish separatist group PKK – takes responsibility for the attack.

    March 17, 2016 – (SYRIA) Kurds declare that a swath of northeastern Syria is now a separate autonomous region under Kurdish control. The claim stirs up controversy, as Syrian and Turkish officials say it goes against the goal of creating a unified country after years of civil war.

    July 20, 2016 – (TURKEY) Following a failed coup attempt, President Erdogan declares a state of emergency. In the first three months, pro-Kurdish media outlets are shut down, and tens of thousands of civil servants with alleged PKK connections are dismissed or suspended. The purge includes ministers of parliament, military leaders, police, teachers and mayors, including in the Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbakir.

    September 25, 2017 – (IRAQ) Iraqi Kurds vote in favor of declaring independence from Iraq. More than 92% of the roughly 3 million people vote “yes” to independence.

    March 23, 2019 – (SYRIA) Kurdish forces announce they have captured the eastern Syrian pocket of Baghouz, the last populated area under ISIS rule.

    October 9, 2019 – (TURKEY/SYRIA) Turkey launches a military offensive into northeastern Syria, just days after US President Donald Trump’s administration announced that US troops would leave the border area. Erdogan’s “Operation Peace Spring” is an effort to drive away Kurdish forces from the border, and use the area to resettle around two million Syrian refugees. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) who operate in the region are Kurdish-led, and still hold thousands of ISIS fighters captured in battle.

    October 17, 2019 – (TURKEY/SYRIA) US Vice President Mike Pence announces that he and Erdogan agreed to a ceasefire halting Turkey’s incursion into northern Syria. The Turkish government insists that the agreement is not a ceasefire, but only a “pause” on operations in the region.

    November 15, 2019 – (TURKEY/SYRIA) Turkey’s decision to launch a military operation targeting US-Kurdish partners in northern Syria and the Trump administration’s subsequent retreat allowed ISIS to rebuild itself and boosted its ability to launch attacks abroad, the Pentagon’s Inspector General says in an Operation Inherent Resolve quarterly report.

    March 24, 2020 – (SYRIA) The SDF releases a statement calling for a humanitarian truce in response to a United Nations appeal for a global ceasefire to combat the coronavirus.

    July 30, 2020 – (SYRIA) During a US Senate committee hearing, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confirms the Trump administration’s support for the Delta Crescent Energy firm’s deal to develop and modernize oil fields in northeast Syria under control of the SDF. The following week, Syria’s foreign ministry calls the deal an attempt to “steal” the oil.

    February 8, 2021 – (SYRIA) Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby is questioned about the Delta Crescent Energy deal during a press conference. He says that the US Department of Defense under the Joe Biden administration is focused on fighting ISIS. It is not aiding a private company.

    January 20-26, 2022 – (SYRIA) ISIS lays siege to a prison in northeast Syria, in an attempt to break out thousands of the group’s members who were detained in 2019. In coordination with US-led coalition airstrikes, SDF regains control of the prison. This is believed to be the biggest coordinated attack by ISIS since the fall of the caliphate three years prior.

    September 16, 2022 – (IRAN) Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman, dies after being detained by “morality police” and taken to a “re-education center,” allegedly for not abiding by the country’s conservative dress code. Public anger over her death combines with a range of grievances against the Islamic Republic’s oppressive regime to fuel months of nationwide demonstrations, which continue despite law makers urging the country’s judiciary to “show no leniency” to protesters.

    November 12, 2022 – (IRAN) The Norway-based Iran Human Rights NGO (IHRNGO) group claims Iranian security forces have killed at least 326 people since nationwide protests erupted two months ago. Authorities have unleashed a deadly crackdown on demonstrators, with reports of forced detentions and physical abuse being used to target the country’s Kurdish minority group.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Omar al-Bashir Fast Facts | CNN

    Omar al-Bashir Fast Facts | CNN

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a look at the life of Sudan’s former leader, Omar al-Bashir.

    Birth date: January 1, 1944

    Birth place: Hosh Bannaga, Sudan

    Birth name: Omar Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir

    Father: Name unavailable publicly

    Mother: Name unavailable publicly

    Marriages: Fatima Khalid; Widad Babiker Omer

    Education: Sudan Military Academy, 1966

    Military service: Sudanese Armed Forces

    Religion: Islam

    1960 – Joins the Sudanese Armed Forces.

    1966 – Graduates from the Sudan Military Academy.

    1973 – Serves with Egyptian forces during the October 1973 Arab-Israeli war.

    1973-1987 – Holds various military posts.

    1989-1993 – Serves as Sudan’s defense minister.

    June 30, 1989 – Leads a coup against Sudan’s Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi. Establishes and proclaims himself chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council. Dissolves the government, political parties and trade unions.

    April 1990 – Survives a coup attempt. Orders the execution of over 30 army and police officers implicated in the coup attempt.

    October 16, 1993 – Becomes president of Sudan when the Revolutionary Command Council is dissolved and Sudan is restored to civilian rule.

    March 1996 – Is reelected president with more than 75% of the vote.

    December 1999 – Dissolves the Parliament after National Congress Party chairman Hassan al-Turabi proposes laws limiting the president’s powers.

    December 2000 – Is reelected president with over 85% of the vote.

    February 2003 – Rebels in the Darfur region of Sudan rise up against the Sudanese government.

    2004 – Is criticized for not cracking down on the Janjaweed militia, a pro-government militia accused of murdering and raping people in Darfur.

    September 2007 – After meeting with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Bashir agrees to peace talks with rebels. Peace talks begin in October, but are postponed indefinitely after most of the major players fail to attend.

    July 14, 2008 – The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) files charges against Bashir for genocide and war crimes in Darfur.

    March 4, 2009 – The ICC issues an arrest warrant for Bashir.

    April 26, 2010 – Sudan’s National Election Commission certifies Bashir as the winner of recent presidential elections with 68% of the vote.

    July 12, 2010 – The ICC issues a second arrest warrant for Bashir. Combined, the warrant lists 10 counts against Bashir.

    December 12, 2014 – The ICC suspends its case against Bashir due to lack of support from the UN Security Council.

    March 9, 2015 – The ICC asks the UN Security Council to take steps to force Sudan to extradite Bashir.

    April 27, 2015 – Sudan’s Election Commission announces Bashir has been reelected president with more than 94% of the vote. Many major opposition groups boycott the election.

    June 15, 2015 – Bashir leaves South Africa just as a South African High Court decides to order his arrest. The human rights group that had petitioned the court to order Bashir’s arrest, the Southern Africa Litigation Centre, says in a statement it is disappointed that the government allowed the Sudanese president to leave before the ruling.

    November 23, 2017 – Agence France Presse and other media outlets report that during a trip to Russia, Bashir asks Putin to protect Sudan from the United States, saying he wants closer military ties with Russia.

    December 16, 2018 – Bashir visits Syria. This marks the first time an Arab League leader has visited Syria since war began there in 2011.

    February 22, 2019 – Declares a year-long state of emergency in response to months of protests nationwide and calls for his resignation.

    March 1, 2019 – Steps down as chairman of the National Congress Party.

    April 11, 2019 – After three decades of rule, Bashir is arrested and is forced from power in a military coup. Bashir’s government is dissolved, and a military council assumes control for two years to oversee a transition of power, according to a televised statement by Sudanese Defense Minister Awad Mohamed Ahmed Ibn Auf.

    May 13, 2019 – Sudan’s Public Prosecutor’s Office has instructed expedited charges be brought against Bashir in the killing of protestors, according to a statement released to CNN.

    August 19, 2019 – Bashir appears in a Khartoum court for the first day of his corruption trial. He has heightened security following a failed attempt by his supporters to break him out of prison.

    December 14, 2019 – Bashir is sentenced to two years in a correctional facility after being found guilty of corruption and illegitimate possession of foreign currency.

    February 11, 2020 – A member of Sudan’s ruling sovereign council announces that all Sudanese wanted by the ICC will be handed over, including Bashir.

    July 21, 2020 – Bashir’s trial over his role in the 1989 coup d’etat that propelled him to power begins in Khartoum. He faces a maximum sentence of death.

    August 11, 2021 – In a statement given to CNN, Sudan’s Cabinet of Ministers announce the government will hand Bashir over to the ICC along with other officials wanted over the Darfur conflict.

    April 26, 2023 – Unconfirmed reports claim Bashir is among the prisoners released from Kober prison. However, the media office of Sudan’s Police and sources familiar with the matter tell CNN that Bashir was transferred to Alia Specialized Hospital a year ago due to health problems.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • How the Senate GOP’s campaign chief is navigating Trump and messy primaries | CNN Politics

    How the Senate GOP’s campaign chief is navigating Trump and messy primaries | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Top Senate Republicans look at the prospects of a Donald Trump primary victory with trepidation, fearful his polarizing style and heavy baggage may sink GOP candidates down the ticket as their party battles for control of the chamber.

    But Sen. Steve Daines doesn’t agree.

    The Montana Republican, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, has spent the past year working to ensure Trump and Senate Republican leaders don’t clash about their preferred candidates in key primaries, after the 2022 debacle that saw a bevy of Trump-backed choices collapse in the heat of the general election and cost their party the Senate majority. So far, the two are on the same page.

    Daines argues that Trump is “strengthening” among independent voters and that could be a boon for his Senate candidates – even in purple states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and Pennsylvania. The senator says that his down-ticket candidates should embrace the former president, even as he’s facing four criminal trials with polls showing that he remains a deeply unpopular figure with wide swaths of voters.

    “What’s key is we want to make sure we have high-quality candidates running with President Trump,” Daines said. “Candidates that can again appeal beyond the Republican base – that’s my goal.”

    In an interview with CNN at NRSC headquarters, Daines detailed his latest thinking about the GOP strategy to take back the Senate, saying his candidates need to have a stronger position on abortion, signaling he’s eager to avoid a primary in the Montana race and arguing that neither Sens. Kyrsten Sinema nor Joe Manchin could hold onto their seats if they ran for reelection in their states as independents.

    And as Kari Lake is poised to announce a Senate bid in Arizona as soon as next week, Daines has some advice for the former TV broadcaster, who falsely blamed mass voting fraud for her loss in last year’s gubernatorial race in her state.

    “I think one thing we’ve learned from 2022 is voters do not want to hear about grievances from the past,” Daines said. “They want to hear about what you’re going to do for the future. And if our candidates stay on that message of looking down the highway versus the rearview mirror, I think they’ll be a lot more successful particularly in their appeal to independent voters, which usually decide elections.”

    Daines, who called Lake “very gifted” and said he’s had “positive” conversations with her, added: “I think it’s just going to be important for her to look to the future and not so much the past.”

    Asked if Trump’s repeated false claims of a “stolen” election could be problematic down-ticket, Daines instead pointed out that Trump was the last GOP president since Ronald Reagan to win Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan in 2016, though he lost those states in 2020.

    “As we continue to watch the president strengthen, we’ll see what happens here in ’24, but I’ll tell you he provides a lot of strength for us down ballot in many key states,” said Daines, who was the first member of Senate GOP leadership to endorse Trump.

    Daines’ assessment comes as he is benefitting from a highly favorable map, with 23 Democrats up for reelection, compared to just 11 for the GOP. Democratic incumbents in three states that Trump won – Ohio, Montana and West Virginia – are the most endangered, while the two best Democratic pickup opportunities – Texas and Florida – remain an uphill battle.

    “We’ll have to keep an eye on Texas – the Ted Cruz race,” Daines said. “Just because he’s Ted Cruz he’ll draw a lot of money from the other side to try to defeat Ted Cruz.”

    Beating incumbents is usually a complicated endeavor, plus Republicans are facing messy primaries that could make it harder to win a general election, including in Daines’ home-state of Montana. There, Daines has gotten behind Tim Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL who owns an aerial firefighting company. But there’s a possibility that Sheehy could face Rep. Matt Rosendale in the primary, something that Republicans fear could undercut their effort to take down 17-year incumbent Sen. Jon Tester.

    Rosendale, a member of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, narrowly lost to Tester in 2018 and is considering another run in 2024.

    “I’ve known Matt a long time. He’s a friend of mine. I like Matt Rosendale,” Daines said. “I think it’s best if he were to stay in the US House and gain seniority.”

    Unlike in the last cycle when the NRSC stayed neutral under previous leadership, the campaign committee now is taking a much heavier hand in primaries, picking and choosing which candidates to endorse. While Daines declined to say how his committee would handle the Arizona primary, he indicated they would stay out of the crowded Ohio primary, arguing the three GOP candidates battling it out there are on solid footing in the race for Sen. Sherrod Brown’s seat.

    While West Virginia remains perhaps the best pickup opportunity for the GOP, the NRSC will have a much harder time if Manchin decides to run for reelection. In an interview, Manchin signaled that if he runs again, it may be as an independent – not a Democrat.

    “I think everyone thinks of me as an independent back home,” Manchin told CNN. “I don’t think they look at me as a big D or a big R or an anti-R or anti-D or anything. They say it’s Joe, if it makes sense, he’ll do it.”

    Daines said that wouldn’t make much of a difference.

    “It’d be very difficult for Joe to get reelected in West Virginia based on looking at the numbers,” Daines said, pointing to Manchin’s support for the Inflation Reduction Act.

    Similarly, Daines said that if Sinema runs in Arizona, he doesn’t believe she can win as a third-party candidate, as she faces a GOP candidate and the likely Democratic nominee, Rep. Ruben Gallego.

    “I think Sinema will have a difficult path if she gets in the race,” he said.

    In addition to facing weaker candidates last cycle, many Republicans continue to sidestep questions on their positions over abortion – a potent issue in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade.

    But Daines says he doesn’t think abortion will be “as potent this cycle,” indicating he is pressing candidates to do a “better job” messaging on the issue to suburban women. He said that Republicans need to impress upon voters that they support limits on late-term abortions, with exceptions for rape, incest or life of the mother, arguing that’s a “more reasonable position” in line with most Americans – all the while rejecting calls for a national ban on all abortions.

    “I think we actually had candidates who just kind of ran away from the issue and kind of hoped it went away,” Daines said. “And when you do that, if you don’t take a position, the Democratic opponents there will define the issue for them. And that’s a losing strategy.”

    Daines is also in the middle of another internal party war – between Trump and Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, as the two men have been at sharp odds since the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

    Asked if he believed the two could work with each other if Trump is president again and McConnell returns as Republican leader, Daines said: “It’d be a privilege to have a Republican president and a Republican majority leader working – that’d be a nice problem to have.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • CNN Poll: Biden faces negative job ratings and concerns about his age as he gears up for 2024 | CNN Politics

    CNN Poll: Biden faces negative job ratings and concerns about his age as he gears up for 2024 | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden faces continued headwinds from broadly negative job ratings overall, widespread concerns about his age and decreased confidence among Democratic-aligned voters, according to a new CNN Poll conducted by SSRS.

    There is no clear leader in a potential rematch between Biden and former President Donald Trump, who is widely ahead in the GOP primary. And nearly half of registered voters (46%) say that any Republican presidential nominee would be a better choice than Biden in 2024.

    Meanwhile, hypothetical matchups also suggest there would be no clear leader should Biden face one of the other major GOP contenders, with one notable exception: Biden runs behind former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.

    Since Biden announced his reelection bid earlier this year – where he framed the 2024 contest as a fight against Republican extremism – his approval ratings have remained mired below the mid-40s, similar to Trump’s standing in 2019, and several points below Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton at this point ahead of their reelection campaigns.

    Still, Biden’s prospective opponents face challenges of their own: 44% of voters feel any Democratic candidate would be a better choice than Trump. Among the full public, both Biden’s and Trump’s favorability ratings stand at just 35%.

    Views of Biden’s performance in office and on where the country stands are deeply negative in the new poll. His job approval rating stands at just 39%, and 58% say that his policies have made economic conditions in the US worse, up 8 points since last fall. Seventy percent say things in the country are going badly, a persistent negativity that has held for much of Biden’s time in office, and 51% say government should be doing more to solve the nation’s problems.

    Perceptions of Biden personally are also broadly negative, with 58% saying they have an unfavorable impression of him. Fewer than half of Americans, 45%, say that Biden cares about people like them, with only 33% describing him as someone they’re proud to have as president. A smaller share of the public than ever now says that Biden inspires confidence (28%, down 7 percentage points from March) or that he has the stamina and sharpness to serve effectively as president (26%, down 6 points from March), with those declines driven largely by Democrats and independents.

    Roughly three-quarters of Americans say they’re seriously concerned that Biden’s age might negatively affect his current level of physical and mental competence (73%), and his ability to serve out another full term if reelected (76%), with a smaller 68% majority seriously concerned about his ability to understand the next generation’s concerns (that stands at 72% among those younger than 65, but just 57% of those 65 or older feel the same).

    A broad 67% majority of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters now say it’s very or extremely likely that Biden will again be the party’s presidential nominee, up from 55% who felt that way in May. But 67% also say the party should nominate someone other than Biden – up from 54% in March, though still below the high of 75% who said they were seeking an alternative last summer.

    That remains largely a show of discontent with Biden rather than support for any particular rival, with an 82% majority of those who’d prefer to see someone different saying that they don’t have any specific alternative in mind. Just 1%, respectively, name either of his two most prominent declared challengers, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. or Marianne Williamson.

    Much of the hesitation revolves around Biden’s vitality rather than his handling of the job. While strong majorities of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters continue to say that Biden cares about people like them (81%) and to approve of his overall job performance (75%), declining shares see him as inspiring confidence (51%, down 19 percentage points since March) or having the stamina and sharpness to serve effectively as president (49%, down 14 points from March).

    Asked to name their biggest concern about a Biden candidacy in 2024, 49% directly mention his age, with his mental acuity (7%) and health (7%) also top concerns, along with his ability to handle the job (7%) and his popularity and electability (6%). Just 5% say that they have no concerns.

    “I think he’s a trustworthy, honest person. But he’s so old and not totally with it,” wrote one 28-year-old Democratic voter who was surveyed. “Still love him though. But I also wish he was more progressive. It’s complicated.”

    Others see both positives and negatives to his age. “His age is a bit worrisome, but I would like to see a good strong Democrat as a consideration,” wrote a 66-year-old Democratic-leaning independent voter. “Otherwise I and husband will stick with Biden. He has wisdom many younger do not have nor understand.”

    Asked directly about the potential effects of his age, majorities of Democratic-aligned voters say they are seriously concerned that Biden’s age might negatively affect his current level of physical and mental competence (56%), his ability to win the 2024 general election if nominated (60%), and his ability to serve another full term as president if reelected (61%). Fewer, 43%, say they’re seriously concerned that his age would negatively affect his ability to understand the concerns of the next generation of Americans, although that rises to 59% among Democratic-aligned voters younger than 45. If reelected, Biden would take office in January 2025 at age 82.

    Most Democratic-aligned voters younger than 45 say they approve of Biden’s job performance overall. But in a break from older partisans, substantial majorities also say that Biden does not inspire confidence (63%), does not have the stamina and sharpness to serve effectively (64%), and that his policies have failed to improve the economy (64%).

    In an early gauge of a hypothetical Biden-Trump rematch, CNN’s poll finds, registered voters are currently split between Trump (47%) and Biden (46%), with the demographic contours that defined the 2020 race still prominent. Biden sees majority support among voters of color (58%), college graduates (56%), voters younger than 35 (55%) and women (53%), while Trump has majority support among Whites (53%), men (53%) and voters without a college degree (53%). Independent voters break in Biden’s favor, 47% to 38%, as do suburban women (51% Biden to 44% Trump). Trump holds wide, though not unanimous, support among voters who currently disapprove of Biden’s job performance, with 13% in this group saying they’d back Biden over Trump regardless.

    Presidential elections are decided by the state-by-state votes that determine the makeup of the electoral college rather than by national preferences, and given the distribution of electoral college votes among the states, a near-even race in the nationwide ballot is more likely to tilt to the Republican candidate in the electoral college count than the Democratic one.

    Nearly 6 in 10 registered voters say that their vote in a matchup between Trump and Biden would be largely motivated by their attitudes toward the former Republican president – 30% say they’d vote for Biden mostly to express their opposition to Trump, and 29% that they’d vote for Trump mostly in an affirmative show of support. Only about one-third, by contrast, said they’d see their votes mostly as a way to cast judgment on Biden.

    The criminal cases against Trump loom large over his candidacy, with both those motivated by support and those driven by opposition to him offering strongly held views on the charges. Those who say their support for Biden is more of an anti-Trump vote are near universal in saying the charges related to his role in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol (96%) and to efforts to overturn the 2020 election (93%) are disqualifying if true, while about seven in 10 of those who say their backing for Trump is to show support for him say the former president faces so many charges largely due to political abuse of the justice system (69%).

    Despite voters’ strong opinions toward Trump, Biden fares no better against any other Republican hopefuls tested in the poll. He is about even with Ron DeSantis (47% each), Mike Pence (46% Pence, 44% Biden), Tim Scott (46% Scott, 44% Biden), Vivek Ramaswamy (46% Biden, 45% Ramaswamy), and Chris Christie (44% Christie, 42% Biden). Haley stands as the only GOP candidate to hold a lead over Biden, with 49% to Biden’s 43% in a hypothetical match between the two. That difference is driven at least in part by broader support for Haley than for other Republicans among White voters with college degrees (she holds 51% of that group, compared with 48% or less for other Republicans tested in the poll).

    As of now, Republican and Republican-leaning voters are more deeply driven to vote in 2024 (71% extremely motivated) than Democratic-aligned voters (61% extremely motivated).

    The CNN Poll was conducted by SSRS from August 25-31 among a random national sample of 1,503 adults drawn from a probability-based panel, including 1,259 registered voters and 391 Democratic and Democratic-leaning independent voters. The survey included an oversample to reach a total of 898 Republicans and Republican-leaning independents; this group has been weighted to its proper size within the population. Surveys were either conducted online or by telephone with a live interviewer. Results among the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 points; among registered voters, the margin of sampling error is 3.6 points, and it is 6.0 for Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Gabon’s military coup has overthrown a powerful political dynasty. Here’s what to know | CNN

    Gabon’s military coup has overthrown a powerful political dynasty. Here’s what to know | CNN

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    A military coup thrust the Central African nation of Gabon into turmoil Wednesday, unseating the president – whose family had held power for more than half a century – just minutes after he was named the winner of a contested election.

    Ousted President Ali Bongo Ondimba, also known as Ali Bongo, has faced accusations of election fraud and corruption since he began ruling the oil-rich but poverty-stricken nation nearly 14 years ago. Following the coup, residents in the country’s capital were seen celebrating and embracing soldiers on the street.

    But much remains uncertain, with Bongo reportedly under house arrest, his son arrested, all borders closed and the government ostensibly shut down. International leaders have expressed concern and condemnation of the coup, some warning their citizens in Gabon to shelter in place.

    Here’s what you need to know.

    The military’s power grab began Wednesday, shortly after Gabon’s election authority said Bongo had been re-elected president following last weekend’s election.

    Men in army uniforms announced on national television that they had seized power. They said the election results were voided, all borders shut, and numerous government bodies dissolved, including both houses of parliament.

    The coup leaders said Bongo had been placed under house arrest, surrounded by “family and doctors.” The ousted president’s son, Noureddin Bongo Valentin, was arrested alongside six others for “high treason.”

    A video aired by the Agence France-Presse news agency shows Bongo seated in what looks like a library, saying he was “at the residence” and didn’t know what was happening. “My son is somewhere, my wife is another place,” he said.

    It was not immediately clear under what circumstances the clip was filmed.x

    Meanwhile, the junta named Gen. Brice Oligui Nguema – who was once the bodyguard of Bongo’s late father, the previous ruler of Gabon – as a transitional leader.

    Speaking to French newspaper Le Monde on Wednesday, Oligui claimed Bongo was enjoying “all his rights” as a “normal Gabonese” citizen.

    Videos of celebration in Gabon circulated online Wednesday, including footage of soldiers carrying Oligui on their shoulders and shouting “president.”

    Residents in the capital Libreville were seen dancing on the streets, according to videos shared with CNN and posted on social media. In one video obtained by CNN, people can be seen shouting “liberated!” and waving the Gabon flag in the Nzeng Ayong district of the capital, alongside military vehicles.

    Similar scenes played out in other parts of Gabon, including the second-largest city Port-Gentil.

    Some members of the Gabonese diaspora also celebrated Wednesday, with students from Gabon gathering outside the country’s embassy in Dakar, Senegal.

    “I assure you that what the Gabonese people wanted was just for the Bongo PDG system to leave power,” one student said, referring to Bongo’s political party, according to Reuters. “Because as we said, 60 years is too much.”

    Gabonese soldiers hoist up Gen. Brice Oligui Nguema in Libreville on August 30, 2023.

    It’s hard to say – and there’s still a lot we don’t know.

    The junta will temporarily restore the country’s constitutional court, resume domestic flights and establish the “institutions of the transition,” a spokesperson said Thursday. The military is expected to swear in Oligui as transitional president before the constitutional court on Monday.

    It also pledged to continue public services in the country, and to follow the country’s commitments domestically and internationally.

    The military imposed a curfew from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. and national borders will remain closed “until further notice,” a junta spokesperson said. However, Oligui has ordered signal to be restored to international radio and television channels.

    But questions remain over what will happen to the country’s leadership; what awaits Bongo and his family; and what the coup means for Gabon’s international standing and diplomatic relationships.

    On Thursday, Gabon’s main opposition members expressed gratitude to the military – but called on it to resume the election process, complete the vote count and grant victory to Bongo’s main challenger in the election.

    The opposition representative invited military leaders to talks, and to “limit the consequences in the lives of our compatriots.”

    Ali Bongo, 64, took over from his father, Omar Bongo, who died of cardiac arrest while receiving treatment for intestinal cancer in Span in 2009, following nearly 42 years in office.

    The elder Bongo came to power in 1967, seven years after Gabon gained independence from France.

    He ruled over the small nation with an iron fist, imposing a one-party system for years and only allowing multi-party rule in 1991, though his party retained its grip on government.

    Ali Bongo began his political career in 1981, serving as foreign minister, congressman and defense minister before becoming president in 2009, according to the Gabonese embassy website in the United States.

    Gabon's then-President Omar Bongo Ondimba with bodyguard Brice Oligui Nguema and French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris on July 2, 2008.

    But the Bongos have their fair share of critics, especially given the country’s enormous wealth gap. A French financial police investigation in 2007 found the Bongo family owned 39 properties in France, 70 bank accounts, and nine luxury cars worth a total of 1.5 million euros, according to Reuters.

    Each of Ali Bongo’s three election victories has been deeply disputed, sometimes sparking violent nationwide protests. This week’s election has been decried by the opposition as fraudulent; Bongo’s team has rejected allegations of electoral irregularities.

    Similarly in 2016, after Bongo was named the election victor, his main challenger said the decision by the country’s constitutional court to validate the contested result was “biased.” Another failed coup attempt against Bongo took place in 2019.

    Gabon's ousted president Ali Bongo Ondimba appears in a video aired after the coup on August 30.

    There have been multiple coups over the past three years in Africa’s former French colonies – Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger, Tunisia and now Gabon – that threaten a reversal of the democratization process the continent has undergone in the past two decades.

    Coups in Africa were rampant in the early postcolonial decades, with coup leaders offering similar reasons for toppling governments: corruption, mismanagement and poverty, according to political analyst Remi Adekoya.

    These justifications still resonate with many Africans today, he wrote for CNN in 2021 – and in many countries, people feel these problems are worsening. All the while, the population is growing in the world’s youngest continent, intensifying already fierce competition for resources.

    These conditions have helped drive more recent coups – with many young Africans disillusioned with allegedly corrupt leaders and ready for radical change, as seen by the celebrations in Gabon Wednesday, and similar celebrations after the Guinea coup two years ago.

    The Gabon coup has been widely criticized by other African nations and in the West. The African Union, representing 55 member states, condemned the coup and has suspended Gabon from participating in all of the group’s activities “until the restoration of constitutional order.”

    The Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) also condemned the takeover and called for dialogue to return the country to civilian rule. It is expected to hold a meeting with the heads of state of member nations to discuss “the path to follow” regarding Gabon.

    United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres also condemned the coup Wednesday, according to his spokesperson. Guterres expressed concern over “reports of serious infringements of fundamental freedoms” during the contested election, but urged all parties to respect the rule of law and human rights.

    US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Wednesday the United States is “strongly opposed to military seizures or unconstitutional transfers of power,” and urged coup leaders to “preserve civilian rule.” He added: “The United States stands with the people of Gabon.”

    The US embassy in Gabon advised its citizens in the country to shelter in place and limit “unnecessary movements around town.” Americans in Gabon should “keep a low profile … avoid demonstrations … make contingency plans to leave … (and) have evacuation plans that do not rely on US government assistance,” it said on its website.

    The European Union’s top diplomat said the bloc “rejects” the coup, though he said the EU shared “deep concerns” about how the electoral process was held. He said the EU currently has no plans to evacuate its staff based in Gabon.

    Similar statements were made by other European nations including the United Kingdom, Germany, and Spain.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • ECOWAS sets ‘D-Day’ for possible military intervention in Niger | CNN

    ECOWAS sets ‘D-Day’ for possible military intervention in Niger | CNN

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    The West African regional bloc ECOWAS says it has chosen an undisclosed “D-Day” for a possible military intervention to restore Niger’s democratically elected president following last month’s coup.

    Abdel-Fatau Musah, the Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace & Security of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) bloc, said that military forces are “ready to go anytime the order is given” for military intervention in Niger.

    “The D-day is also decided, which we are not going to disclose,” Musah told journalists after the two-day meeting of West African defense chiefs in the Ghanaian capital of Accra.

    Last week, ECOWAS ordered the “activation” of a regional standby force to prepare itself to enter Niger, which was taken over by a military junta on July 26.

    On Friday, Musah reiterated that the bloc’s priority remains “the restoration of the constitutional order in the shortest possible time.”

    “We are not going to engage in endless dialogue. It must be fruitful,” the commissioner added.

    He also called once again for the release of the country’s “legitimate” leader, the ousted president Mohamed Bazoum, who has been held under house arrest with his wife and son since he was overthrown by the armed junta.

    Niger’s junta claimed it had gathered evidence to prosecute him for what it says amount to “high treason.”

    Niger, which lies at the heart of Africa’s Sahel, was one of the few remaining democracies in the region.

    Bazoum’s election win in 2021 marked a relatively peaceful transfer of power and capped years of military coups following Niger’s independence from France in 1960.

    Leaders ECOWAS responded to the coup by enacting sanctions and issuing an ultimatum to the ruling military junta: stand down within a week or face a potential military intervention.

    “That is why we say all options are on the table. If they [the junta] want to take the peaceful pathway to the restoration of constitutional order in the country, then we can stand down the military option because it is not our preferred option,” Musah said.

    The commissioner said the bloc had decided that the “coup in Niger is one coup too many,” for the region, adding that there will be no further meetings of ECOWAS defense chiefs on the issue.

    “We are putting a stop to it at this time,” Musah said in his concluding remarks.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Exclusive: Georgia prosecutors have messages showing Trump’s team is behind voting system breach | CNN Politics

    Exclusive: Georgia prosecutors have messages showing Trump’s team is behind voting system breach | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Atlanta-area prosecutors investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia are in possession of text messages and emails directly connecting members of Donald Trump’s legal team to the early January 2021 voting system breach in Coffee County, sources tell CNN.

    Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is expected to seek charges against more than a dozen individuals when her team presents its case before a grand jury next week. Several individuals involved in the voting systems breach in Coffee County are among those who may face charges in the sprawling criminal probe.

    Investigators in the Georgia criminal probe have long suspected the breach was not an organic effort sprung from sympathetic Trump supporters in rural and heavily Republican Coffee County – a county Trump won by nearly 70% of the vote. They have gathered evidence indicating it was a top-down push by Trump’s team to access sensitive voting software, according to people familiar with the situation.

    Trump allies attempted to access voting systems after the 2020 election as part of the broader push to produce evidence that could back up the former president’s baseless claims of widespread fraud.

    While Trump’s January 2021 call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and effort to put forward fake slates of electors have long been considered key pillars of Willis’ criminal probe, the voting system breach in Coffee County quietly emerged as an area of focus for investigators roughly one year ago. Since then, new evidence has slowly been uncovered about the role of Trump’s attorneys, the operatives they hired and how the breach, as well as others like it in other key states, factored into broader plans for overturning the election.

    Together, the text messages and other court documents show how Trump lawyers and a group of hired operatives sought to access Coffee County’s voting systems in the days before January 6, 2021, as the former president’s allies continued a desperate hunt for any evidence of widespread fraud they could use to delay certification of Joe Biden’s electoral victory.

     Last year, a former Trump official testified under oath to the House January 6 select committee that plans to access voting systems in Georgia were discussed in meetings at the White House, including during an Oval Office meeting on December 18, 2020,  that included Trump. 

    Six days before pro-Trump operatives gained unauthorized access to voting systems, the local elections official who allegedly helped facilitate the breach sent a “written invitation” to attorneys working for Trump, according to text messages obtained by CNN.

    Investigators have scrutinized the actions of various individuals who were involved, including Misty Hampton, a former Coffee County elections official who authored the letter of invitation referenced in text messages and other documents that have been turned over to prosecutors, multiple sources told CNN.

    They have also examined the involvement of Trump’s then attorney Rudy Giuliani – who was informed last year he was a target in the Fulton County investigation – and fellow Trump lawyer Sidney Powell as part of their probe, according to people familiar with the matter.

    A spokesperson for Willis’ office declined to comment.

    The letter of invitation was shared with attorneys and an investigator working with Giuliani at the time, the text messages obtained by CNN show.

    On January 1, 2021 – days ahead of the January 7 voting systems breach – Katherine Friess – an attorney working with Giuliani, Sidney Powell and other Trump allies shared a “written invitation” to examine voting systems in Coffee County with a group of Trump allies.

    That group included members of Sullivan Strickler, a firm hired by Trump’s attorneys to examine voting systems in the small, heavily Republican Georgia county, according to text messages obtained by CNN.

    That same day, Friess sent a “Letter of invitation to Coffee County, Georgia” to former NYPD Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik, who was working with Giuliani to find evidence that would back up their baseless claims of potential widespread voter fraud, according to court documents filed as part of an ongoing civil case.

    Friess then notified operatives who carried out the Coffee County breach and others working directly with Giuliani that Trump’s team had secured written permission, the texts show.

    CNN has not reviewed the substance of the invitation letter itself, only communications that confirm it was provided to Friess, Kerik and Sullivan Strickler employees.

    Friess could not be reached for comment.

    The messages and documents appear to link Giuliani to the Coffee County breach, while shedding light on another channel of communication between pro-Trump attorneys and the battleground state operatives who worked together to provide unauthorized individuals access to sensitive voting equipment.

    “Rudy Giuliani had nothing to do with this,” said Robert Costello, Giuliani’s attorney. “You can’t attach Rudy Giuliani to Sidney Powell’s crackpot idea.”

    “Just landed back in DC with the Mayor huge things starting to come together!” an employee from the firm Sullivan Strickler, which was hired by Sidney Powell to examine voting systems in Coffee County, wrote in a group chat with other colleagues on January 1.

    Former New York Mayor Giuliani was consistently referred to as “the Mayor,” in other texts sent by the same individual and others at the time.

    “Most immediately, we were just granted access – by written invitation! – to Coffee County’s systems. Yay!” the text reads.

    Shortly after Election Day, Hampton – still serving as the top election official for Coffee County – warned during a state election board meeting that Dominion voting machines could “very easily” be manipulated to flip votes from one candidate to another. It’s a claim that has been repeatedly debunked.

    But the Trump campaign officials took notice and reached out to Hampton that same day. “I would like to obtain as much information as possible,” a Trump campaign staffer emailed Hampton at the time, according to documents released as part of a public records request and first reported by the Washington Post.

    In early December, Hampton then delayed certification of Joe Biden’s win in Georgia by refusing to validate the recount results by a key deadline. Coffee County was the only county in Georgia that failed to certify its election results due to issues raised by Hampton at the time.

    Hampton also posted a video online claiming to expose problems with the county’s Dominion voting system. That video was used by Trump’s lawyers, including Giuliani, as part of their push to convince legislators from multiple states that there was evidence the 2020 election results were tainted by voting system issues.

    Text messages and other documents obtained by CNN show Trump allies were seeking access to Coffee County’s voting system by mid-December amid increasing demands for proof of widespread election fraud.

    Coffee County was specifically cited in draft executive orders for seizing voting machines that were presented to Trump on December 18, 2020, during a chaotic Oval Office meeting, CNN has reported. During that same meeting, Giuliani alluded to a plan to gain “voluntary access” to machines in Georgia, according to testimony from him and others before the House January 6 committee.

    Days later, Hampton shared the written invitation to access the county’s election office with a Trump lawyer, text messages obtained by CNN show. She and another location elections official, Cathy Latham, allegedly helped Trump operatives gain access to the county’s voting systems, according to documents, testimony and surveillance video produced as part of a long-running civil lawsuit focused on election security in Georgia.

    Latham, who also served as a fake elector from Georgia after the 2020 election, has come under scrutiny for her role in the Coffee County breach after surveillance video showed she allowed unauthorized outsiders to spend hours examining voting systems there.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Where in the world is Wagner warlord Prigozhin? At large and in charge, apparently | CNN

    Where in the world is Wagner warlord Prigozhin? At large and in charge, apparently | CNN

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Late last week, imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny was handed a harsh judgment: After a court hit him with a new 19-year sentence in a penal colony, he was sent immediately to a punishment cell.

    It was a stark contrast to the fate of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Russian mercenary group Wagner. Back in June, Prigozhin led the abortive mutiny that presented the biggest challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin in over two decades of rule. While Prigozhin’s troops stopped short of Moscow, a furious Putin said in a televised speech that those on the “path of treason” would face punishment. Almost two months later, in the case of the Wagner chief, this simply hasn’t happened.

    Clearly, the price for confronting Putin is not fixed. Perhaps more surprisingly, Prigozhin hasn’t even kept a low profile since the June uprising.

    Just weeks after the insurrection, Prigozhin popped up on the sidelines of the recent Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg, shaking hands with a dignitary from the Central African Republic (CAR).

    To be sure, the mercenary boss was not striking a martial pose: While subscribers to his Telegram channel have become accustomed to seeing him in camouflage and tactical gear, Prigozhin was spotted in a polo shirt and mom jeans, cutting a seemingly more mild-mannered figure than in months past.

    But pity the poor Russian diplomat who has to explain why Prigozhin – whose forces shot down Russian military aircraft and killed Russian military servicemembers on their march toward the capital – remains at large.

    That’s exactly what happened when CNN’s Christiane Amanpour confronted Andrei Kelin, the Russian ambassador to the United Kingdom, about the bizarre spectacle of Prigozhin’s post-mutiny appearance.

    Wagner’s insurrection, Kelin conceded, might constitute a form of “high treason.” But the ambassador went on to explain that Putin has decided to let bygones be bygones.

    “The president has qualified it when it has started, then it was all over,” Kelin said. “Now he’s traveling someplace, so we do recognize some hero deeds by Wagner groups,” alluding to Wagner’s apparent battlefield successes around the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.

    Amanpour, however, pressed Kelin further.

    “What I would like to understand, why is it that people like (jailed dissident Vladimir) Kara-Murza, the intellectual, others, Navalny are in jail for verbally protesting and disagreeing with the Russian government, but… Prigozhin, who tried to commit a coup against the Kremlin, maybe even against the President himself – an armed coup – is still wandering around free in Russia? He was photographed meeting with African leaders during this week’s summit in St. Petersburg, why is he not in jail for treason?”

    Kelin evaded at first, saying he didn’t recall that Russian soldiers died during the Wagner mutiny. Pressed by Amanpour, Kelin conceded that he had no explanation. Longtime observers, too, are searching for explanations about Prigozhin’s future.

    Andrei Kelin, Russia's ambassador to the United Kingdom, was interviewed by CNN's Christiane Amanpour on August 4.

    Experts believe that the Wagner boss still has value to Putin, even though the stature of both men has diminished.

    “Prigozhin’s stock with the Kremlin has clearly taken a hit,” said Candace Rondeaux, director of Future Frontlines, an open source intelligence service at the think tank New America. “But since Putin lost even more stock after the mutiny it seems he believes some utility remains in keeping Prigozhin around.”

    Prigozhin’s business acumen – and his skill at concealing commercial gains through an opaque network of front companies and offshore operations – are an asset for Putin’s Russia, which has been hit by sweeping Western economic sanctions, Rondeaux said.

    “At this point, Prigozhin’s networks of shell companies are the best insurance Putin has to keep Russia’s war economy,” she said. “But it’s not likely to stay that way forever – eventually something has got to give. And there is a good chance once it does we’ll see more spectacular events closer to the border between Poland and Belarus.”

    Rondeaux was referring to the recent relocation of some Wagner fighters to Belarus. The move – apparently part of a deal brokered to end the June mutiny – has already raised alarms in Poland, a NATO member next door to Belarus.

    Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki recently said that 100 troops from Wagner were moving toward a thin strip of land between Poland and Lithuania, with the possible intent of posing as migrants to cross the border.

    It’s unclear exactly how many Wagner troops are in Belarus, and whether or not they have access to heavy weaponry. But Morawiecki seemed to be pointing to one potential scenario for Wagner mischief: Promoting some kind of destabilization along NATO’s eastern frontier.

    And then there are Prigozhin’s plans for another region: Vulnerable and unstable countries in Africa, where Wagner has already conducted a series of operations.

    Speaking after Wagner fighters relocated to Belarus, Prigozhin suggested he remained focused on this core African market.

    “To ensure that there are no secrets and behind-the-scenes conversations, I am informing you that the Wagner Group continues its activities in Africa, as well as at the training centers in Belarus,” Prigozhin said in an audio message shared on Telegram accounts associated with the Wagner group.

    Prigozhin’s forces are already implicated in activities in Sudan – where Wagner has supplied the militia battling Sudan’s army – and has operated extensively in the CAR and in Libya.

    He may also sense opportunities in Niger, after a recent military coup threatened to spark a major regional crisis. In a recent Telegram message, Prigozhin hinted that Wagner might be ready to offer its services there.

    “What happened in Niger has been brewing for years,” Prigozhin said. “The former colonizers are trying to keep the people of African countries in check. In order to keep them in check, the former colonizers are filling these countries with terrorists and various bandit formations. Thus creating a colossal security crisis.”

    Then followed his hard sell. “The population suffers,” he said. “And this is the (the reason for the) love for PMC Wagner, this is the high efficiency of PMC Wagner. Because a thousand soldiers of PMC Wagner are able to establish order and destroy terrorists, preventing them from harming the peaceful population of states.”

    That might be dismissed as pure bluster and salesmanship. But it’s worth noting that Prigozhin’s sale pitch was at odds with the view of the Russian Foreign Ministry, which called for the “prompt release” of Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum by the military.

    And that’s where things can still get interesting back in Russia. By defying Putin and evading punishment, Prigozhin seems to have built and sustained a competing center of gravity to the Kremlin.

    In a recent analysis, Tatiana Stanovaya, senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said Prigozhin had effectively chipped away at the “power vertical” – Putin’s longstanding system of top-down rule.

    “Putin’s much-hyped ‘power vertical’ has disappeared,” she wrote. “Instead of a strong hand, there are dozens of mini-Prigozhins, and while they may be more predictable than the Wagner leader, they are no less dangerous. All of them know full well that a post-Putin Russia is already here – even as Putin remains in charge – and that it’s time to take up arms and prepare for a battle for power.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • NYT: Architect of Trump fake electors plot thought SCOTUS would ‘likely’ reject plan, but pushed ahead anyway | CNN Politics

    NYT: Architect of Trump fake electors plot thought SCOTUS would ‘likely’ reject plan, but pushed ahead anyway | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]


    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    An internal Trump campaign memo from December 2020, made public Tuesday by The New York Times, reveals new details about how the campaign initiated its plan to subvert the Electoral College process and install fake GOP electors in multiple states after losing the 2020 presidential election.

    In the December 6, 2020, memo, pro-Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro laid out the plan to put forth slates of Republican electors in seven key swing states that then-President Donald Trump lost. The memo then outlines how then-Vice President Mike Pence, while presiding over the Electoral College certification on January 6, 2021, should declare “that it is his constitutional power and duty, alone, as President of the Senate, to both open and count the votes” from the GOP electors.

    Chesebro conceded in the memo that this idea was a “controversial” long shot that would “likely” be rejected by the Supreme Court – but nonetheless promoted the strategy. He wrote that despite the legal dubiousness, “letting matters play out this way would guarantee that public attention would be riveted on the evidence of electoral abuses by the Democrats and would also buy the Trump campaign more time to win litigation that would deprive Biden of electoral votes and/or add to Trump’s column.”

    The fake electors scheme has become an integral part of the recent federal indictment against Trump, which alleges the plot took shape after it became clear that efforts to convince state officials to not certify Joe Biden’s victories would be unsuccessful.

    CNN previously reported that the scheme was overseen by Trump campaign officials and led by Rudy Giuliani. Chesebro, who authored the newly released memo, is an unindicted co-conspirator in the Trump indictment and was described by prosecutors as “an attorney who assisted in devising and attempting to implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding.” He has not been charged with any crimes.

    According to Trump’s January 6-related indictment and previous CNN reporting, there were multiple planning calls between Trump campaign officials and GOP state operatives, and Giuliani participated in at least one call. The Trump campaign lined up supporters to fill elector slots, secured meeting rooms for the fake electors to meet on December 14, 2020, and circulated drafts of fake certificates that they later signed.

    At the time, their actions were largely dismissed as an elaborate political cosplay. But it eventually became clear that this was part of an orchestrated plan.

    “Under the plan, the submission of these fraudulent slates would create a fake controversy at the certification proceeding and position the Vice President-presiding on January 6 as President of the Senate to supplant legitimate electors with the Defendant’s fake electors and certify the Defendant as president,” the indictment states.

    Prosecutors say Chesebro told Guiliani – both identified in the indictment only as co-conspirator 5 and co-conspirator 1, respectively – that he had been told by state-level operatives that “it could appear treasonous for the AZ electors to vote on Monday if there is no pending court proceeding.”

    “I recognize that what I suggest is a bold, controversial strategy, and that there are many reasons why it might not end up being executed on Jan. 6,” Chesebro wrote in the December 6 memo, despite pushing the idea and outlining a plan in the days to come. “But as long as it is one possible option, to preserve it as a possibility it is important that the Trump-Pence electors cast their electoral votes on Dec. 14.”

    That is ultimately what ended up happening on December 14, 2020.

    Many of the fake GOP electors who signed the phony certificates that day have since come under legal scrutiny: The fake electors from Michigan are facing state-level felony charges for forgery and publishing a counterfeit record, and many of the fake electors from Georgia are targets of the 2020-related criminal probe in Fulton County.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • A day of legal action in Trump imbroglio previews a chaotic 2024 election year | CNN Politics

    A day of legal action in Trump imbroglio previews a chaotic 2024 election year | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    A whirl of developments in a quartet of cases in four separate cities encapsulate the vast legal quagmire swamping Donald Trump and threatening to overwhelm the entire 2024 presidential campaign.

    But Monday’s hectic lawyering was just a tame preview of next year when the ex-president and current Republican front-runner may be constantly shuttling between courtroom criminal trials and the campaign trail.

    A day of legal intrigue brought revelations, judgments, disputes and filings in cases related to Trump’s bid to overturn the 2020 election, the classified documents case, efforts to thwart Joe Biden’s win in Georgia, and even in a defamation case dating back to Trump’s personal behavior toward women in the 1990s.

    It’s already almost impossible for voters who may be asked to decide whether Trump is fit for a return to the Oval Office – or at least to carry the GOP banner into the election – to keep pace with all the competing legal twists and the scale of his plight.

    A confusing fog in which all the cases blend together could work to the former president’s advantage as he seeks a White House comeback while proclaiming he’s a victim of political persecution by the Biden administration.

    But the deeper his legal mire gets, Trump’s rivals for the GOP nomination are getting braver in suggesting that his fight against becoming a convicted felon could be a general election liability. Trump’s dominance in the GOP primary has been boosted from his criminal indictments to date. But the sheer volume of cases unfolding alongside his campaign is increasingly daunting.

    In Washington, Trump’s lawyers just beat a deadline to file a brief in a dispute over the handling of evidence ahead of a trial in the election subversion case, and accused the government of seeking to muzzle his voice as he runs for a new White House term.

    In another glimpse into the breadth of special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation that could prove troubling to the ex-president, CNN exclusively reported that Trump ally Bernie Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner, met Smith’s investigators for an interview on Monday. The discussion focused on what Trump’s former attorney and Kerik’s associate, Rudy Giuliani – otherwise known as Co-Conspirator 1 – did to try to convince the former president he actually won the 2020 election. The question will be a key one when the case finally comes to trial.

    Trump’s tough day in the courts had opened with a judge in Manhattan throwing out his defamation counter suit against E. Jean Carroll, which he did in stark language that recalled the ex-president’s loss in an earlier civil trial in which the jury found he sexually abused the writer.

    Then, in a surprise move in West Palm Beach, Florida, the Trump-appointed judge who will oversee his classified documents trial asked lawyers for co-defendant Walt Nauta to comment on the legality of prosecutors using a Washington grand jury to keep investigating. The fact the probe is still active despite several indictments is hardly a good sign for Trump. And Judge Aileen Cannon’s move revived debate over whether she was favoring the ex-president’s team following criticism of her earlier handling of a dispute over documents taken from Trump’s home in an FBI search.

    There were also new signs in Atlanta that indictments could be imminent in a probe into efforts to steal Biden’s election win in the key state, as it emerged that ex-Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, a Republican and CNN political contributor, has been subpoenaed to testify to a grand jury.

    All of this frenzied activity unfolding on one day represents just a snapshot of the complex legal morass now surrounding Trump. It’s just a taste of the enormous strain the ex-president is about to feel as he campaigns for a return to the Oval Office. The crush of cases will also impose increasing financial demands. Already, Trump’s leadership PAC has been diverting cash raised from small-dollar donors to pay legal fees for the former president and associates that might instead have gone toward the 2024 campaign.

    In several of the cases on Monday, there were signs of the extraordinary complications inherent in prosecuting a former president and the front-runner for the Republican nomination. Judges, for instance, are faced with decisions that would normally go unnoticed by the public in the court system but that will now attract a glaring media and political spotlight.

    And while Monday was notable for a head-spinning sequence of legal maneuvering, it did not even encompass all of the pending cases against Trump. He is also due to go on trial in March – in the middle of the GOP primary season – in a case arising from a hush money payment to an adult film star. As with his other indictments, Trump has pleaded not guilty.

    For all his capacity to operate in the eye of converging storms of scandal and controversy, Trump’s mood is becoming increasingly agitated. In recent days he has attacked Smith, the Justice Department, the judge in the election subversion case, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell, and even the US national women’s soccer team after they crashed out of the World Cup on penalties.

    One of Trump’s most incendiary posts on his Truth Social network was at the center of one of Monday’s legal dramas – wrangling between Smith’s prosecutors and Trump’s lawyers over the handling of evidence at the center of the forthcoming trial.

    Prosecutors cited Trump writing on his Truth Social network on Friday, “If you go after me, I’m coming after you!” in a filing that requested strict rules on how he could use evidence that will be turned over to the defense as part of the pre-trial discovery process. Trump’s lawyers had asked for an extension to Monday’s deadline, but Judge Tanya Chutkan refused, in a fresh sign of her possible willingness to schedule a swift trial, which the ex-president wants to delay until after the 2024 election.

    In its brief, the defense proposed narrower rules than those sought by prosecutors. Spats over discovery aren’t unusual early in a trial process. But Trump’s filing added insight into how his team will approach a case in which he has pleaded not guilty.

    “In a trial about First Amendment rights, the government seeks to restrict First Amendment rights,” the attorneys said in the court filing.

    When it comes to Smith’s indictment, Trump’s lawyers are arguing that he was within his rights to claim the election was stolen. Smith’s strategy is, however, apparently designed to avoid a First Amendment trap, and alleges that the criminal activity occurred not in what Trump said, but in actions like the ex-president’s pressure on local officials over the election and on former Vice President Mike Pence to delay its certification.

    The Trump team’s filing went on to claim that the case was in itself an example of political victimization of their client, underscoring the fusion between his courtroom defense and his presidential campaign.

    “Worse, it does so against its administration’s primary political opponent, during an election season in which the administration, prominent party members, and media allies have campaigned on the indictment and proliferated its false allegations,” the filing said.

    In a Monday night order, Chutkan signaled she would hold a hearing this week on the dispute and told the parties to come up with, by 3 p.m. Tuesday, two options for when such a hearing could be held this week.

    Any prolonged debate over the terms of the pre-discovery process – let alone the many other expected pre-trial motions – will play into the hands of the defense. Trump is showing every sign that part of his motivation in running for a second White House term is to reacquire executive powers that could lead to federal cases against him being frozen. The timing of the January 6, 2021, case, and any potential conviction, is therefore hugely significant with a general election looming in November 2024.

    Trump has called for the recusal of Chutkan, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama. His legal team has called for a shift of trial venue away from the diverse US capital, potentially to West Virginia, one of the Whitest and most pro-Trump states in the nation. These pre-trial gambits are unlikely to succeed. But they help to create extreme pressure on the judge and to build a case for Trump supporters that the legal process is biased against him – a narrative that could provide especially inflammatory if he is eventually convicted.

    Trump’s rhetoric about the case has raised some concerns about the possibility of witness intimidation – especially as some of his supporters who were tried for their part in the mob attack on the US Capitol on January 6, have testified that they were spurred to action by his rhetoric.

    CNN observed increased security around Chutkan on Monday. Security is also increased around the Superior Court in Fulton County, Georgia, where a decision is expected in days on whether to hit Trump with a fourth criminal indictment.

    Any normal political candidate would have seen their political ambitions crushed by even one of the cases in Trump’s bulging portfolio of legal jeopardy. It is, however, a sign of the ex-president’s extraordinary and unbroken hold on the Republican Party and its voters that he is still the runaway front-runner in the primary.

    But one of his top rivals, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, is slowly becoming more willing to criticize Trump publicly, after being cautious about alienating Trump supporters who feel the ex-president is the victim of a political witch hunt. DeSantis told NBC that “of course” Trump lost the 2024 election, as he blitzes early voting states New Hampshire and Iowa and makes the case that the ex-president’s legal exposure is a distraction the GOP cannot afford if it is to oust Biden from the White House after a single term. It may seem absurd that DeSantis is risking his political career by stating the obvious truth about the 2020 election, but Trump has made signing up to his false reality a test of loyalty among base voters.

    And Pence, who rejected Trump’s public pressure to thwart the certification of Biden’s election – a scheme at the center of Smith’s case – indicated over the weekend that he may testify in Trump’s trial if required to do so by law.

    The spectacle of a former vice presidential running mate testifying against the man who picked him for his ticket would be an extreme twist even in the Trump era of shattered political conventions.

    Thanks to Trump’s unfathomable and widening legal nightmare, nothing about the 2024 election is going to be anywhere near normal.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Takeaways from the arraignment of Donald Trump in the special counsel’s election subversion case | CNN Politics

    Takeaways from the arraignment of Donald Trump in the special counsel’s election subversion case | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump pleaded not guilty in a Washington, DC, federal courthouse Thursday to federal criminal charges stemming from his plots to overturn the 2020 election, in a 27-minute proceeding where the first flashes of the defense’s tactics emerged.

    It was the third occasion that Trump was arraigned on criminal charges this year, and the hearing marked the public debut of the team of lawyers in special counsel Jack Smith’s office who will be leading the prosecution.

    Here are takeaways from the hearing:

    In the classified documents case that Smith has also brought against the former president in June, the Trump team has sought to slow-walk the schedule for the proceedings. There were hints of a similar strategy in the first hearing in the election subversion case.

    Much of Thursday’s hearing was staid and to-script. But the tone sharpened when the judge said the prosecutors should file recommendations for the trial date and length in seven days, and that the Trump team should respond within seven days after that.

    Trump attorney John Lauro told the judge that they would need to look at the amount of evidence they’ll be receiving from the government – which he said could be “massive” — before they could address that question.

    “There is no question in our mind, your honor, that Mr. Trump is entitled to a fair and just trial,” Lauro said, nodding both to Trump’s right to a speedy trial as well as his right to due process.

    Prosecutor Thomas Windom previewed that the special counsel would propose this case unfolding under a normal timeline under the Speedy Trial Act, which sets a time limit – unless certain exemptions are sought – for criminal cases to go to trial.

    Judge Tanya Chutkan intends to schedule a trial date at an August 28 hearing, a magistrate judge said Thursday. Before the trial, Chutkan may need to preside over disputes over whether the case should be dismissed to do legal flaws, when the trial should start and what evidence can be presented to a jury.

    Trump may argue that a trial should wait until after the 2024 election, an argument his legal team made unsuccessfully in the classified documents case, and his lawyers have also previewed efforts to seek a change of venue for the case, with claims that the DC jury pool is politically biased against the former president and 2024 Republican front-runner.

    There’s likely to be more added to the pile of legal problems on the former president’s plate.

    In Georgia, in the coming weeks, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is expected to bring charges in her election subversion probe and it’s possible that Trump will be indicted in that.

    And then there’s the other case from Smith alleging Trump mishandled classified documents from his White House and then obstructed the probe into the materials. That case is currently scheduled to go trial next May, and there will be regular pre-trial proceedings (at which, Trump is not required to appear) before that. There’s also the criminal case that Manhattan prosecutors brought against Trump for a 2016 campaign hush money scheme, currently slated for trial in March.

    Additionally there’s number of civil lawsuits he faces, including a second defamation case brought by E. Jean Carroll, well as the New York attorney general’s civil fraud case against his family and businesses.

    This court calendar is overlaid against his 2024 campaign schedule as well. The first Republican presidential debate, for instance, is on August 23.

    Though Trump will not be required to appear in court for hearings on pre-trial matters, he may seek to do so, if he embraces a strategy of making a spectacle out of the election subversion case. Speaking on the airport tarmac, Trump made brief remarks that the prosecution was political after Thursday’s hearing, and he routinely fundraises off of every new development putting him in deeper legal trouble.

    Thursday marked the public debut of the Smith team that will handle the election subversion prosecution. (Some of the special counsel lawyers who are leading the classified documents case were previously involved in the public proceedings stemming from the lawsuit Trump filed last year challenging the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago).

    Smith himself attended the hearing, as he did for Trump’s first appearance in the classified documents case in Florida earlier this year. As the courtroom waited for the hearing to start, Smith and Trump occasionally looked over at one another – Smith looking towards Trump more often than Trump looked over to him.

    Windom – who moved from the US attorney’s office in Maryland to play a central role in the federal election subversion investigation, spoke on behalf of the government Thursday. Also at the prosecutors’ table was Molly Gaston, an alum of the DC US attorney’s public integrity section, which handles some of the most politically sensitive cases for the Justice Department.

    Gaston was a lead prosecutor on last year’s contempt of Congress case against ex-Trump adviser Steve Bannon, and also worked on the prosecutions of Rick Gates – a former Trump campaign aide – and Paul Manafort, Trump’s 2016 campaign chairman. Gaston was also present in the courtroom Tuesday when the foreperson of the grand jury for the 2020 election probe returned the indictment against Trump.

    Trump was represented by Lauro and Todd Blanche at Thursday’s hearing. Lauro is a relatively recent addition to the Trump legal team and is handling the 2020-election related matters.

    Blanche, meanwhile, has been across several Trump cases. He is representing Trump in Smith’s classified documents prosecution as well is in the 2016 campaign hush money case brought by Manhattan’s district attorney.

    Evan Corcoran, who has not formally entered an appearance in the case, attended the hearing, sitting on the row in the courtroom well behind the defense table.

    Lauro did the talking for the defense at Thursday’s hearing. He’s also made himself a prominent defender of the former president in the public arena, with multiple appearance in recent days on CNN and other networks.

    While the defense lawyers were mostly there Thursday to walk Trump through the steps of a first appearance and arraignment, Lauro had the opportunity to show the vigor with which he’ll argue on behalf of his client. He didn’t get into the substantive defense arguments that he has previewed in TV hits, but his insistence that the Trump team may need more time before nailing down a trial schedule was emphatic.

    “All that we would ask, your honor, is the time to fairly defend our client. And to do that we need a little time,” he said.

    While Trump’s hearing Thursday largely followed the script of the arraignments he’s had in the classified documents and the 2016 hush money criminal cases against him. But it was happening in a courthouse that has had to constantly had to process and re-process the violence of January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol that his election lies helped provoke.

    For the last two-and-a-half years since the attack, the former president has been a stalking horse in the DC courthouse, which has hosted the proceedings for more than 1,000 Trump supporters who have been have been charged for the riot.

    Judges have obliquely acknowledged the role the former president played in egging on the mob, while recounting the direct view they had to the violence that day. Defense attorneys and prosecutors have argued over how much of the blame should be placed on him. Metropolitan and Capitol police officers are frequently seen in the courthouse to testify about the physical and psychological trauma they suffered from the riot. And defendants and their families, in their pleas for mercy, have invoked Trump as well.

    In the election subversion case, Trump’s attorneys have previewed arguments that the case should be moved elsewhere, given the city’s political bent. But the DC federal courthouse is where hundreds of his supporters have received fair trials, with some securing acquittals, in the Capitol mob cases.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • 21 Donald Trump election lies listed in his new indictment | CNN Politics

    21 Donald Trump election lies listed in his new indictment | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]


    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Special counsel Jack Smith said Tuesday that the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol was “fueled by lies” told by former President Donald Trump. The indictment of Trump on four new federal criminal charges, all related to the former president’s effort to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election, lays out some of those lies one by one.

    Even in listing 21 lies, the 45-page indictment does not come close to capturing the entirety of Trump’s massive catalogue of false claims about the election. But the list is illustrative nonetheless – highlighting the breadth of election-related topics Trump was dishonest about, the large number of states his election dishonesty spanned, and, critically, his willingness to persist in privately and publicly making dishonest assertions even after they had been debunked to him directly.

    Here is the list of 21.

    1. The lie that fraud changed the outcome of the 2020 election, that Trump “had actually won,” and that the election was “stolen.” (Pages 1 and 40-41 of the indictment)

    Trump’s claim of a stolen election whose winner was determined by massive fraud was (and continues to be) his overarching lie about the election. The indictment asserts that Trump knew as early as 2020 that his narrative was false – and had been told as such by numerous senior officials in his administration and allies outside the federal government – but persisted in deploying it anyway, including on January 6 itself.

    2. The lie that fake pro-Trump Electoral College electors in seven states were legitimate electors. (Pages 5 and 26)

    The indictment alleges that Trump and his alleged co-conspirators “organized” the phony slates of electors and then “caused” the slates to be transmitted to Vice President Mike Pence and other government officials to try to get them counted on January 6, the day Congress met to count the electoral votes.

    3. The lie that the Justice Department had identified significant concerns that may have affected the outcome of the election. (Pages 6 and 27)

    Attorney General William Barr and other top Justice Department officials had told Trump that his claims of major fraud had proved to be untrue. But the indictment alleges that Trump still sought to have the Justice Department “make knowingly false claims of election fraud to officials in the targeted states through a formal letter under the Acting Attorney General’s signature, thus giving the Defendant’s lies the backing of the federal government and attempting to improperly influence the targeted states to replace legitimate Biden electors with the Defendant’s.”

    4. The lie that Pence had the power to reject Biden’s electoral votes. (Pages 6, 32-38)

    Pence had repeatedly and correctly told Trump that he did not have the constitutional or legal right to send electoral votes back to the states as Trump wanted. The indictment notes that Trump nonetheless repeatedly declared that Pence could do so – first in private conversations and White House meetings, then in tweets on January 5 and January 6, then in Trump’s January 6 speech in Washington at a rally before the riot – in which Trump, angry at Pence, allegedly inserted the false claim into his prepared text even after advisors had managed to temporarily get it removed.

    5. The lie that “the Vice President and I are in total agreement that the Vice President has the power to act.” (Page 36)

    The indictment alleges that the day before the riot, Trump “approved and caused” his campaign to issue a false statement saying Pence agreed with him about having the power to reject electoral votes – even though Trump knew, from a one-on-one meeting with Pence hours prior, that Pence continued to firmly disagree.

    6. The lie that Georgia had thousands of ballots cast in the names of dead people. (Pages 8 and 16)

    The indictment notes that Georgia’s top elections official – Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger – a republican – explained to Trump in a phone call on January 2, 2021 that this claim was false, but that Trump repeated it in his January 6 rally speech anyway. Raffensperger said in the phone call and then in a January 6 letter to Congress that just two potential dead-voter cases had been discovered in the state; Raffensperger said in late 2021 that the total had been updated and stood at four.

    7. The lie that Pennsylvania had 205,000 more votes than voters. (Pages 8 and 20)

    The indictment notes that Trump’s acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen and acting deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue had both told him that this claim was false, but he kept making it anyway – including in the January 6 rally speech.

    8. The lie that there had been a suspicious “dump” of votes in Detroit, Michigan. (Pages 9 and 17)

    The indictment notes that Barr, the attorney general, told Trump on December 1, 2020 that this was false – as CNN and others had noted, supposedly nefarious “dumps” Trump kept talking about were merely ballots being counted and added to the public totals as normal – but that Trump still repeated the false claim in public remarks the next day. And Barr wasn’t the only one to try to dissuade Trump from this claim. The indictment also notes that Michigan’s Republican Senate majority leader, Mike Shirkey, had told Trump in an Oval Office meeting on November 20, 2020 that Trump had lost the state “not because of fraud” but because Trump had “underperformed with certain voter populations.”

    9. The lie that Nevada had tens of thousands of double votes and other fraud. (Page 9)

    The indictment notes that Nevada’s top elections official – Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, also a Republican – had publicly posted a “Facts vs. Myths” document explaining that Nevada judges had rejected such claims.

    10. The lie that more than 30,000 non-citizens had voted in Arizona. (Pages 9 and 11)

    The indictment notes that Trump put the number at “over 36,000” in his January 6 speech – even though, the indictment says, his own campaign manager “had explained to him that such claims were false” and Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, a Republican who had supported Trump in the election, “had issued a public statement that there was no evidence of substantial fraud in Arizona.”

    11. The lie that voting machines in swing states had switched votes from Trump to Biden. (Page 9)

    This is a reference to false conspiracy theories about Dominion Voting Systems machines, which Trump kept repeating long after it was thoroughly debunked by his own administration’s election cybersecurity security arm and many others. The indictment says, “The Defendant’s Attorney General, Acting Attorney General, and Acting Deputy Attorney General all had explained to him that this was false, and numerous recounts and audits had confirmed the accuracy of voting machines.”

    12. The lie that Dominion machines had been involved in “massive election fraud.” (Page 12)

    The indictment notes that Trump, on Twitter, promoted a lawsuit filed by an alleged co-conspirator, whom CNN has identified as lawyer Sidney Powell, that alleged “massive election fraud” involving Dominion – even though, the indictment says, Trump privately acknowledged to advisors that the claims were “unsupported” and told them Powell sounded “crazy.”

    13. The lie that “a substantial number of non-citizens, non-residents, and dead people had voted fraudulently in Arizona.” (Page 10)

    The indictment alleges that Trump and an alleged co-conspirator, whom CNN has identified as former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, made these baseless claims on a November 22, 2020 phone call with Bowers; the indictment says Giuliani never provided evidence and eventually said, at a December 1, 2020 meeting with Bowers, “words to the effect of, ‘We don’t have the evidence, but we have lots of theories.”

    14. The lie that Fulton County, Georgia elections workers had engaged in “ballot stuffing.” (Pages 13 and 14)

    This is the long-debunked lie – which Trump has continued to repeat in 2023 – that a video had caught two elections workers in Atlanta breaking the law. The workers were simply doing their jobs, and, as the indictment notes, they were cleared of wrongdoing by state officials in 2020 – but Trump continued to make the claims even after Raffensperger and Justice Department officials directly and repeatedly told him they were unfounded.

    15. The lie that thousands of out-of-state voters cast ballots in Georgia. (Page 16)

    The indictment notes that Trump made this claim on his infamous January 2, 2021 call with Raffensperger, whose staff responded that the claim was inaccurate. An official in Raffensberger’s office explained to Trump that the voters in question had authentically moved back to Georgia and legitimately cast ballots.

    16. The lie that Raffensperger “was unwilling, or unable,” to address Trump’s claims about a “‘ballots under table’ scam, ballot destruction, out of state ‘voters’, dead voters, and more.” (Page 16)

    In fact, contrary to this Trump tweet the day after the call, Raffensperger and his staff had addressed and debunked all of these false Trump claims.

    17. The lie that there was substantial fraud in Wisconsin and that the state had tens of thousands of unlawful votes. (Page 21)

    False and false. But the indictment notes that Trump made the vague fraud claim in a tweet on December 21, 2020, after the state Supreme Court upheld Biden’s win, and repeated the more specific claim about tens of thousands of unlawful votes in the January 6 speech.

    18. The lie that Wisconsin had more votes counted than it had actual voters. (Page 21)

    This, like Trump’s similar claim about Pennsylvania, is not true. But the indictment alleges that Trump raised the claim in a December 27, 2020 conversation with acting attorney general Rosen and acting deputy attorney general Donoghue, who informed him that it was false.

    19. The lie that the election was “corrupt.” (Page 28)

    The indictment alleges that when acting attorney general Rosen told Trump on the December 27, 2020 call that the Justice Department couldn’t and wouldn’t change the outcome of the election, Trump responded, “Just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.” (Deputy attorney general Donoghue memorialized the reported Trump remark in his handwritten notes, which CNN reported on in 2021 and which were subsequently published by the House committee that investigated the Capitol riot.)

    20. The lie that Trump won every state by hundreds of thousands of votes. (Page 34)

    The indictment says that, at a January 4, 2021 meeting intended to convince Pence to unlawfully reject Biden’s electoral votes and send them back to swing-state legislatures, Pence took notes describing Trump as saying, “Bottom line-won every state by 100,000s of votes.” This was, obviously, false even if Trump was specifically talking about swing states won by Biden rather than every state in the nation.

    21. The lie that Pennsylvania “want[s] to recertify.” (Page 38)

    Trump made this false claim in his January 6 speech. In reality, some Republican state legislators in Pennsylvania had expressed a desire to at least delay the congressional affirmation of Biden’s victory – but the state’s Democratic governor and top elections official, who actually had election certification power in the state, had no desire to recertify Biden’s legitimate win.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • A Niger coup leader meets with Wagner-allied junta in Mali | CNN

    A Niger coup leader meets with Wagner-allied junta in Mali | CNN

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    General Salifou Mody, one of the Niger officers who seized power in a military coup last week, visited Mali on Wednesday, according to the Mali presidency, amid speculation of a possible interest in the Wagner mercenary group, which has a presence in the country.

    Mali’s transitional president, Assimi Goïta, hosted Mody and a large Nigerien military delegation on Wednesday, according to pictures and a statement posted on Facebook by the Mali presidency.

    Mody called the meeting “part of a complex regional context,” the Mali presidency said, and thanked Malian authorities “for their support and accompaniment since the seizure of power by the CNSP,” referring to the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland where Mody is vice president.

    Hundreds of Wagner contractors are stationed in Mali at the invitation of the country’s military junta, to quell an Islamist insurgency brewing in an area where the borders of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger meet.

    Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin last week celebrated the coup in the landlocked West African country, saying his private military company could also help with situations like the one unfolding in Niger.

    The dramatic ouster of Niger’s President Bazoum last week alarmed Western leaders, including the US and France, which are both key stakeholders in Niger’s crackdown on local Islamist insurgencies.

    US officials have warned that the Russian mercenary group could now seek new opportunities in Niger. “I would not be surprised to see Wagner attempt to exploit this situation to their own advantage as they’ve attempted to exploit other situations in Africa to their own advantage,” State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said Wednesday.

    Miller added that “any attempt by the military leaders in Niger to bring the Wagner forces into Niger would be a sign, yet another sign that they do not have the best interests of the Nigerien people at heart.”

    A number of CNN investigations, and others by human rights groups, have established Wagner’s involvement in and complicity with atrocities against civilian populations in Sudan, Mali and the Central African Republic, where they have been employed to assist local defense forces against rebellions and insurgencies, and suppress opposition.

    The coup has provoked a split reaction from countries in the Sahel region, where the threat of militant extremism in recent years has destabilized local governments and led to volatility.

    On Monday, Mali and Burkina Faso’s governments said they would consider any military intervention “an act of war” against them and put their armies on standby.

    Mali presidency’s statement said General Mody told his host he had come to explore “ways and means to strengthen our security cooperation, at a time when some countries are planning to intervene militarily in our country.”

    The statement comes after the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on Sunday threatened to use force if Niger’s ousted president, Mohamed Bazoum, was not reinstated within one week.

    ECOWAS also imposed a travel ban and asset freeze for the military officials involved in the coup attempt, as well as for their family members and civilians who accept to participate in any institutions or government established by the officials.

    Burkina Faso and Mali expressed their solidarity with Nigerien authorities and said they would not participate in any measures against Niger by ECOWAS, calling the sanctions “illegal, illegitimate and inhuman.” Guinea also expressed its solidarity with Niger on Monday.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Sen. Tim Kaine says ‘powerful argument’ 14th Amendment could disqualify Trump | CNN Politics

    Sen. Tim Kaine says ‘powerful argument’ 14th Amendment could disqualify Trump | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine said Sunday “there’s a powerful argument to be made” for barring Donald Trump from the presidential ballot based on the 14th Amendment’s ban on insurrectionists holding public office.

    “My sense is it’s probably going to get resolved in the courts,” Kaine said on “ABC This Week,” adding that Democrats’ focus should be on winning in 2024.

    Legal experts have pointed to the 14th Amendment as a potential long-shot avenue to keep Trump from becoming president. The amendment includes a post-Civil War “disqualification clause” that bars anyone from holding public office if they “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion.” The Constitution does not, however, spell out how to enforce this ban and it has only been applied twice since the late 1800s, when it was used extensively against former Confederates.

    Election officials in battleground states, including attorneys general in Michigan and New Hampshire, have said they’re anticipating outside groups to file lawsuits on the matter, and are studying the legality of the provision and how it may disqualify Trump from appearing on ballots in their states.

    Liberal activists have championed the 14th Amendment’s disqualification clause and have already vowed to file suits to disqualify the former president, a tactic they have used against other elected officials to little success – though some prominent conservative legal scholars have recently endorsed the idea.

    Does the 14th Amendment make Trump ineligible? Hear what law professor thinks

    Kaine voiced support for the idea, saying, “The language (of the amendment) is specific: If you give aid and comfort to those who engage in an insurrection against the Constitution of the United States — it doesn’t say against the United States, it says against the Constitution. In my view, the attack on the Capitol that day was designed for a particular purpose … and that was to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power as is laid out in the Constitution.”

    Kaine also said that he had discussed using the provision with fellow senators during Trump’s second impeachment in 2021, remarking that he thought it would “have been a more productive way to go to do a declaration under that section of the 14th Amendment.”

    He floated the idea of a censure vote in Congress under the 14th Amendment as an alternative way of holding Trump accountable and keeping him from holding public office again after the Senate acquitted the former president in a failed impeachment vote. Seven GOP senators joined the chamber’s 50 Democratic and Independent members in finding Trump guilty of inciting a riot on January 6.

    Kaine noted that Virginia will host its own races later this year to decide the makeup of its split legislature in an election that will act as a window into the state of politics in the battleground state ahead of next year’s presidential race.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Former Trump adviser Peter Navarro convicted of contempt of Congress | CNN Politics

    Former Trump adviser Peter Navarro convicted of contempt of Congress | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Former Donald Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro has been convicted of contempt of Congress for not complying to a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.

    Navarro is the second ex-aide to the former president to be prosecuted for his lack of cooperation with the committee. Steve Bannon was convicted last year on two contempt counts. Bannon’s case is currently on appeal.

    Navarro pledged to appeal based on executive privilege issues.

    “We knew going in what the verdict was going to be. That is why this is going to the appeals court,” he told reporters outside the courthouse. “And we feel – look, I said from the beginning this is going to the Supreme Court. I said from the beginning I’m willing to go to prison to settle this issue, I’m willing to do that.”

    Hear from ex-Trump aide after guilty of contempt verdict

    Asked by CNN if he’s spoken with the former president or reached out for help on legal bills, Navarro called Trump “a rock,” but did not elaborate on any communications.

    “President Trump has been a rock in terms of assistance. We talk when we need to talk,” Navarro said. “He will win the presidential race in 2024, in November. You know why? Because the people are tired of Joe Biden weaponizing courts like this and the Department of Justice.”

    After the verdict was read, Navarro’s lawyers sought a mistrial, raising concerns about any influence alleged protestors may have had when jurors took a break outdoors Thursday afternoon. US District Judge Amit Mehta did not immediately rule on the motion.

    The judge scheduled Navarro’s sentencing for January 12, 2024.

    Tim Mulvey, former spokesperson for House January 6 committee, celebrated the verdict.

    “His defiance of the committee was brazen. Like the other witnesses who attempted to stonewall the committee, he thought he was above the law. He isn’t. That’s a good thing for the rule of law. I imagine that those under indictment right now are getting a good reminder of that right now,” Mulvey told CNN in a statement.

    Prosecutors told the jury during closing arguments Thursday that Navarro “made a choice” not to comply with a February 2022 subpoena.

    Justice Department attorney Elizabeth Aloi said that government only works if people play by the rules and are held accountable if they don’t.

    “The subpoena – it is not hard to understand,” she said, adding that Navarro knew “what he was required to do and when he was required to do it.”

    Navarro’s attorney Stanley Woodward contested the idea that the subpoena was simple, staying that the subpoena did not specify where in the Capitol complex Navarro was supposed to show up for his deposition.

    He also said that prosecutors failed to prove that Navarro was willful in his failure to comply with the subpoena, arguing that prosecutors hadn’t established that his non-compliance with the demand for testimony was not the result of a mistake or accident.

    “Why didn’t the government present evidence to you about where Dr. Navarro was or what he was doing” on the day of the scheduled deposition, Woodward asked the jury. “Something stinks.”

    Prosecutor John Crabb responded: “Who cares where he was. What matters is where he wasn’t.”

    Crabb repeatedly referred to Navarro as “that man’ while pointing to him, telling the jury at one point, “that man thinks he is above the law.”

    The gestures elicited strong reactions from Navarro, who at times threw up his hand, shook his head or laughed. Woodward eventually jumped up and whispered to his client, and the two stood quietly together for the remainder of the proceeding.

    The jury was attentive during closing arguments, watching carefully as lawyers presented their final case. Navarro stood directly across the room with his hands clasped and stared at jurors intently.

    After the jury was dismissed, Woodward told the judge that the defense was seeking a mistrial because they had learned the jury had taken an outdoor break shortly before rendering the verdict and that during that break, they were around a “number” of January 6-related protestors demonstrating and chanting outside of the court.

    “It’s obvious the jury would have heard those protestors,” Woodward said. “It’s impossible for us to know what influence that would have” on their verdict.

    Crabb challenged the idea that there were protestors in the park next to the courthouse where the jurors took their break. Woodward countered that Navarro himself had been “accosted” earlier in the day by a protestor when he was coming through that park.

    Mehta said he knew that jurors had asked to take their break outside, where they were accompanied by a court security officer, but that he was not aware that protestors were in the park. He told Woodward that he was not going to rule on the mistrial request without receiving more briefing and evidence.

    Navarro was briefly interrupted by protesters when he left the courthouse after the verdict was read Thursday.

    It’s a “sad day for America, not ‘cause … they were guilty verdicts, because I can’t come out and have an honest, decent conversation with the people of America,” Navarro said.

    “People of America, I want you to understand that this is the problem we have right here – this kind of divide in our country between the woke Marxist left and everybody else here. And this is nuts,” he added.

    Navarro joined the Trump White House to advise on trade and became a well-known face of the Trump administration, while earning a reputation for sparring behind the scenes with his White House colleagues.

    He played a prominent role in the administration’s Covid-19 response as well. He led some of the efforts to speed up the deployment of medical supplies and also was a defender of fringe Trump views about the virus, including the former president’s advocacy of the controversial drug hydroxychloroquine.

    Navarro was still working at the White House in the period after the 2020 election and lost a pre-trial fight to argue to the jury that Trump asserted an executive privilege that shielded him from the subpoena, and he and his attorneys have signaled that, if convicted, he will raise that and other legal issues on appeal.

    “So today’s ‘Judgment Day,’” Navarro told reporters as he walked into the courthouse Thursday.

    “I have been stripped, stripped of virtually every defense by the court and yet there is some defense left and the reality here is the government has not proved his case,” he said. “Please understand that the Biden-weaponized Department of Justice is the biggest law firm in the world. That’s what I’m fighting against.”

    The trial itself moved forward this week with notable speed and simplicity. It took less than a day for the jury to hear all the evidence in the case.

    Prosecutors put just three witnesses on the stand, all former staff members of the House January 6 committee. The Justice Department used their testimony to make the case that the committee had good reason to subpoena Navarro and that he was informed repeatedly of its demands.

    In her closing argument, prosecutor Aloi told the jury that Navarro “had knowledge about a plan to delay the activities of Congress on January 6.”

    “The defendant was more than happy to share that knowledge” in television interviews and in other public remarks, Aloi said, “except to the congressional committee that could do something about” preventing a future attack.

    Woodward sought to paint the mention about the attack on the Capitol and the disruption of the peaceful transfer of power as a distraction.

    “This case is not about what happened on January 6,” Woodward said in his closing argument.

    Navarro’s defense team engaged in only brief cross examination, questioning just one of the government’s witnesses. His lawyers were focused on the element of the charge that requires a showing that Navarro was willful and deliberate in his decision not to comply with the subpoena – meaning that his lack of compliance was not the result of an inadvertent mistake or accident.

    The defense did not put on any witnesses of their own, having abandoned a plan to call an FBI agent who worked on the Justice Department probe into Navarro for questioning on the lack of DOJ investigating into Navarro’s whereabouts on the day his committee deposition was scheduled.

    Navarro’s service as a Trump White House aide has generated continuing legal troubles for the former trade adviser – troubles that go beyond the criminal case.

    The Justice Department brought a civil lawsuit against him to obtain government records from Navarro’s personal email account that were withheld from the National Archives upon his departure from government. He has appealed the ruling against him in that case.

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • What happened this week and what’s next in Trump legal world | CNN Politics

    What happened this week and what’s next in Trump legal world | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Donald Trump’s legal schedule is getting fuller by the day as the political season heats up, with the former president facing multiple criminal charges with more possibly on the way.

    This week, Trump was indicted on charges of leading a conspiracy to overturn his 2020 presidential election defeat and had to travel to Washington, DC, to plead not guilty in federal court.

    Now comes a flurry of legal filings and the possibility of yet another indictment, this time in Georgia, where a grand jury is looking at efforts to flip his defeat in the Peach State.

    READ: Tracking the criminal indictments in one place

    Here’s what happened this week and what’s next:

    Special counsel Jack Smith dropped the hammer against Trump on Tuesday, charging the former president with conspiracy and attempting to obstruct Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s electoral victory. That effort ultimately led to the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.

    “(F)or more than two months following election day on November 3, 2020, the defendant spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won,” the indictment states.

    “These claims were false, and the Defendant knew they were false,” it adds, referring to Trump. “But the defendant disseminated them anyway – to make his knowingly false claims appear legitimate, create an intense atmosphere of mistrust and anger, and erode public faith in the administration of the election.”

    READ: CNN’s annotation of the indictment

    Trump took the short trip from his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club to appear in federal court on Thursday to enter a not guilty plea to all charges.

    The arraignment was at a courthouse that’s been central to the efforts to hold people accountable for the January 6 riot. Over 1,000 people charged in Capitol riot cases have made a similar appearance as Trump’s – the building is located within sight of the Capitol and judges there have overseen trials or sentencing of the rioters.

    One of the next major issues in the Trump case will be when to set a trial date. Judge Tanya Chutkan – who has sentenced multiple rioters – appears to be moving quickly on that front.

    The Trump team signaled Thursday that it doesn’t think this case can be sent to trial in the normal timeline as dictated under a federal law known the Speedy Trial Act that allows for exemptions in certain circumstance. The special counsel’s office disagrees.

    Trump has until Tuesday to file a motion that would pause the clock under the Speedy Trial Act, which would help to slow the pace down, and prosecutors have until August 13 to issue any objection to the request.

    Another critical filing will be next Thursday, when the special counsel must propose a trial date and say how long it will likely take them to put on their case before the jury. Trump must respond by August 17.

    The next hearing – the first before Chutkan – will be August 28. Trump does not have to appear in person.

    Meanwhile, the first Republican primary debate is August 23, though it’s unclear if Trump will participate.

    Meanwhile, Smith’s indictment cites six unnamed co-conspirators who allegedly worked with Trump to support his efforts. CNN can identify five of the six.

    “Co-Conspirator 1” is former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani. “2” is former Trump lawyer John Eastman, who masterminded the plan to appoint false electors and is now facing disbarment proceedings in California. “3” is former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, who worked with Giuliani in court. “4” is former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, who Trump at one point hoped to install as acting attorney general to help him overturn the election. “5” is pro-Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro, who sent an email to Giuliani about the fake electors plot.

    The identity of “6” is unclear. The indictment says this person is a political consultant who is tied to the fake elector slate in Pennsylvania.

    The next moment in the criminal case against Trump is Thursday, August 10, when a magistrate judge in Florida will hear the plea of Mar-a-Lago maintenance worker Carlos De Oliveira, who allegedly attempted to delete security camera footage at the former president’s resort after the Justice Department issued a subpoena for it.

    Trump, via court filing Friday, pleaded not guilty to the charges recently added to the case and indicated to the court that he would not be physically present for the arraignment.

    Lawyers for co-defendant Walt Nauta will be present to enter their client’s plea to the new counts.

    READ: Mar-a-lago indictment annotated

    A grand jury hearing evidence in Smith’s investigation returned the superseding indictment in late July against Trump, who had already faced 37 criminal charges, charging the former president with one additional count of willful retention of national defense information and two additional obstruction counts.

    Also next week, Trump’s lawyers will have a chance to respond to claims by prosecutors that he is unwilling to travel to a secured facility to access classified documents being turned over to the defense for the case. By August 10, Trump will have to respond to Smith’s proposal for a protective order restricting access to classified discovery in the case, and in the filings with the proposal, prosecutors have said that Trump has requested to view the documents in Mar-a-Lago or Bedminster – a request Smith’s team opposes.

    Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is expected to ask a grand jury to file charges by September 1 in her probe into efforts by Trump and allies to overturn Georgia’s 2020 presidential election result.

    “The work is accomplished,” Willis told CNN affiliate WXIA at a back-to-school event. “We’ve been working for two and half years. We’re ready to go.”

    Security at the Fulton County courthouse has notably increased in anticipation of Willis’ actions.

    READ: Timeline of Trump’s efforts in Georgia to overturn the election

    A federal judge last week dismissed a $475 million defamation lawsuit Trump brought against CNN that accused the network of defaming him by using the phrase “the big lie” and allegedly comparing him to Adolf Hitler.

    District Judge Raag Singhal, a 2019 appointee of Trump’s, said that use of the phrase or similar statements are opinion that don’t meet the standard for defamation.

    “CNN’s use of the phrase ‘the Big Lie’ in connection with Trump’s election challenges does not give rise to a plausible inference that Trump advocates the persecution and genocide of Jews or any other group of people. No reasonable viewer could (or should) plausibly make that reference,” Singhal wrote.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Election officials reject calls to unilaterally block Trump from ballot using 14th Amendment but will defer to courts | CNN Politics

    Election officials reject calls to unilaterally block Trump from ballot using 14th Amendment but will defer to courts | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Election officials in key states have recently rejected calls to unilaterally remove former President Donald Trump from the 2024 ballot and are saying courts should decide whether he’s disqualified by the 14th Amendment’s “insurrectionist ban.”

    The secretaries of state who oversee elections in Michigan, Georgia, New Hampshire and Minnesota have recently said they don’t have the power on their own to invoke the 14th Amendment and block Trump from the presidential ballot.

    These officials, which include Democrats and Republicans, come from states comprising 45 electoral votes.

    Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, said Thursday in a Washington Post op-ed that this unilateral approach was “misguided” and “the courts” should decide.

    Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, said in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that this would “reinforce the grievances of those who see the system as rigged and corrupt.”

    A provision of the 14th Amendment, which was approved after the Civil War, says any American official who takes an oath to uphold the US Constitution is disqualified from holding future office if they “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” or have “given aid or comfort” to insurrectionists.

    However, the Constitution doesn’t spell out how to enforce this ban, and it has been applied only twice since the late 1800s, when it was used against former Confederates.

    Liberal advocacy groups and some leading conservative legal scholars believe this arcane provision applies to Trump because of his attempts to overturn the 2020 election and block the peaceful transfer of power and for inciting the attack on the US Capitol.

    Trump denies wrongdoing regarding the January 6, 2021, attack and says these candidacy challenges have “no legal basis.” He has pleaded not guilty to separate federal and state indictments that charged him with crimes stemming from his attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

    The left-leaning groups have filed major lawsuits in Minnesota and Colorado, asking courts to prohibit election officials from putting Trump’s name on the ballot. But some of these experts have also claimed the provision is “self-executing,” meaning that election officials involved in the ballot-printing process can simply disqualify Trump on their own.

    That more aggressive approach is now being rejected by election officials in key states.

    “Many states do not have a law on the books empowering the secretary of state to judge the eligibility of presidential candidates,” said Derek Muller, an election law expert who teaches at the Notre Dame Law School. “It’s no surprise that many secretaries would disclaim any such power.”

    The Democratic secretary of state in Minnesota and the GOP secretary of state in New Hampshire also said they won’t block Trump from the ballot without court intervention.

    “As long as he submits his declaration of candidacy and signs it under the penalty of perjury, pays the $1,000 filing fee, his name will appear on the presidential primary ballot,” New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan told reporters Wednesday.

    Ron Fein, the legal director of Free Speech for People, which is one of the organizations behind the anti-Trump candidacy challenges, said his group will “continue to press this critical matter in the courts” so election officials will “carry out their duty to bar Trump from their state ballots.”

    “While some secretaries of state may claim that they do not have the authority to follow the constitutional mandate of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, the bottom line remains that Donald Trump is disqualified from appearing on any state ballot based on his role of inciting, mobilizing, and facilitating the January 6th insurrection,” Fein said in a statement.

    This story has been updated with additional details.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Trump claims he can’t get a fair trial in DC as latest indictment dominates GOP primary | CNN Politics

    Trump claims he can’t get a fair trial in DC as latest indictment dominates GOP primary | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump, who is facing charges in Washington, DC for allegedly conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election, claimed on Sunday that he wouldn’t receive a fair trial in the nation’s capital as he continues to rail against his latest indictment.

    “No way I can get a fair trial, or even close to a fair trial, in Washington, D.C. There are many reasons for this, but just one is that I am calling for a federal takeover of this filthy and crime ridden embarrassment to our nation,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.

    If he were to ask in court to move his federal criminal case out of Washington, DC, the former president would join three dozen January 6, 2021, riot defendants who have asked to move their cases out of DC.

    No judges – even those appointed by Trump – have ever agreed. And appeals courts and other judges have overwhelmingly kept high-profile cases in the districts where charges are filed.

    Several January 6 defendants have argued that there’s been too much pretrial publicity in DC for a fair trial and that the jury pool in the city would be too biased.

    But the Supreme Court has previously held that trials can still be fair even if they have received widespread publicity, and the DC District Court has used specific questioning of potential jurors and instructions to try to ensure fair trials for January 6 defendants.

    Just last week, prosecutors argued against a Capitol riot defendant’s change of venue request in the DC federal court, arguing that many politically known defendants, including Trump’s adviser Roger Stone, have been fairly tried in the downtown Washington courthouse.

    The court also refused to move the trial of the co-conspirators of Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal, at a time when the city was also voting heavily Democratic.

    “The fact that most District residents voted against Donald Trump does not mean those residents could not impartially consider the evidence against those charged in connection with the events on January 6,” Justice Department prosecutors wrote in a court filing at the end of July – an assertion that the judges of the DC District Court have widely agreed.

    Still, Trump attorney John Lauro on Sunday cast doubt on the idea that Trump could receive a fair trial in the nation’s capital. In an interview on CBS’ “Face The Nation,” Lauro suggested West Virginia as a more diverse alternative.

    “We would like a diverse venue. A diverse jury … that reflects the characteristics of the American people,” Lauro said. Speaking to CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” Sunday, Lauro also advocated for cameras in the courtroom in order to show the public “what kind of prosecution is going on.”

    When Lauro expressed similar concerns about a fair trial at Trump’s arraignment last week, the magistrate judge responded: “I can guarantee everybody that there will be a fair process and fair trial in this court. So let me just respond to that comment, Mr. Lauro, I’m certain of that.”

    The DC appeals court has found that voting patterns shouldn’t play into where a trial is held and that national news coverage can work against the need to move a trial.

    “Scandal at the highest levels of the federal government is simply not a local crime of peculiar interest to the residents of the District of Columbia,” the DC Circuit Court of Appeals found about the Watergate conspirators’ trial in 1976.

    DC jurors on major January 6 cases, including an Oath Keepers seditious conspiracy case, sometimes spend days deliberating and have delivered nuanced verdicts, including some acquittals.

    Trump’s latest indictment comes against the backdrop of the 2024 GOP primary contest. Republican candidates have largely sought to walk a fine line between knocking the former president’s growing legal troubles and not alienating his base of supporters.

    GOP presidential hopeful Chris Christie on Sunday touted his experience as a prosecutor in the heavily Democratic state of New Jersey on Sunday as he told Bash he always got convictions on political corruption cases.

    “So my view is, yeah, I believe jurors can be fair. I believe in the American people. And I believe in the fact that jurors will listen fairly and impartially,” Christie said.

    Former Vice President Mike Pence, who recently made his sharpest condemnation of Trump, told CBS on Sunday he “would hope” Trump can receive a fair trial in Washington.

    Notably, according to the law in DC determined during the Watergate conspirators’ case and other appeals court decisions, defendants can ask for a change of venue, but if they are denied, they can’t appeal it until after the trial takes place.

    That’s one reason why the January 6 defendants’ trials have gone forward without delay even though so many attempted to move their cases out of Washington, DC.

    Other high-profile cases where defendants have tried and failed to move their cases then also failed to overturn their convictions later with appeals include the Enron-related trial of Jeffrey Skilling in Houston and Boston Marathon bomber Dzokhar Tsarnaev, who was tried in Boston.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Trump’s indictments — and mug shot — are deepening his supporters’ anger and revving up their support | CNN Politics

    Trump’s indictments — and mug shot — are deepening his supporters’ anger and revving up their support | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Phil Jensen wore a bright red T-shirt with Donald Trump’s mug shot and “NEVER SURRENDER!” printed on it to the former president’s rally in Rapid City, South Dakota, last week. The longtime state legislator loved the shirt so much, he planned on giving half a dozen to his friends and family.

    “He looks defiant,” Jensen said of the photo taken at an Atlanta jail after Trump was indicted over his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state.

    “And I love it because he has every right to be,” the South Dakota Republican said. “He was railroaded.”

    In more than 40 interviews with CNN in Iowa, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Alabama, South Dakota and Texas, Trump supporters said the 91 criminal charges in four separate cases against him have only deepened their support of the former president. They repeated Trump’s unfounded claims that he was the subject of a politically motivated “witch hunt” and said they believed the charges showed the system was rigged against him – and, by extension, them.

    A majority of Americans think that the charges against Trump are valid and that he should be prosecuted, recent polls show, but Trump maintains a tight grip on the Republican Party and his front-runner status in the 2024 GOP presidential primary is undisputed.

    “What they’re doing to him is persecution,” said Corey Bonner of Texas. “They’re going after an old American president, they’ve been going after him since the beginning, they haven’t stopped, and they’re not going to stop. And this is where we have to stand up and fight.”

    At a summer gathering for Alabama Republicans, 81-year-old retired schoolteacher Carolyn McNeese echoed Trump’s attacks on the prosecutors who have charged him and said she thought they were “evil.”

    “They want him out because they’re scared of him,” McNeese said.

    Those interviewed said they believed that President Joe Biden’s son Hunter was the one who needed to be charged and that Republicans faced a different standard under the justice system. And some said that perhaps Trump did commit crimes, but it didn’t change their opinion of him because, as Texas resident Bobby Wilson put it, “We all have sinned; we all have some things that we’ve done.”

    “He’s probably guilty, but it doesn’t matter,” said Jace Kirschenman, an 18-year-old in South Dakota who works in construction.

    He said nothing could deter him from voting for Trump next year.

    “You show me a perfect person in this world, and I’ll show you a blue pig with wings,” said Corey Shawgo, a 34-year-old truck driver in Pennsylvania who attended Trump’s rally in Erie. “Everyone makes mistakes.”

    Like many other Trump supporters interviewed, Scott Akers of Alabama immediately pointed to Hunter Biden when asked about Trump’s mounting legal peril.

    “We have something finally start to come out about the connection between Hunter Biden’s shady dealings and his father and then, like two days later, there’s a federal indictment,” Akers said. “The timing of it is very ironic.”

    The president’s son has been the subject of investigations by House Republicans and the federal Justice Department. The House GOP probe has so far failed to surface any evidence showing Joe Biden profited from his son’s business dealings, but it has found that the younger Biden used his father’s names to help advance deals. Separately, Hunter Biden was indicted on Thursday by special counsel David Weiss in connection to a gun he purchased in 2018.

    Intertwined with their outrage over the indictments, some Trump supporters are raising the specter of heightened political violence if Trump were to be convicted.

    “This country’s a powder keg. You know, we’ve ‘bout had it,” said Frank Yurisic, 76, who attended Trump’s Pennsylvania rally.

    “I think there could very well possibly be violence,” Yurisic said. “If they march on Washington, I’ll be one of the ones there. I don’t think they realize how upset the people are in this country about what’s going on.”

    The predictions of possible violence made by some Trump supporters in interviews with CNN echo Trump’s warnings of what could happen were he to be convicted.

    Before Trump’s first indictment in March, he had warned about “potential death and destruction” if a Manhattan grand jury were to indict him on charges related to a hush money payment to an adult film star. When asked in an Iowa radio interview in July how he thought his supporters would react if he did ultimately end up behind bars, Trump said, “I think it’s a very dangerous thing to even talk about because we do have a tremendously passionate group of voters.”

    “There’ll be backlash, and it’ll probably be severe,” said Jim Vanoy, an 80-year-old Trump supporter who lives in Alabama. He said he thought there would be a “good degree of violence” if Trump is convicted.

    Rachel Kleinfeld, a senior fellow in the democracy, conflict and governance program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the US has seen “vastly increased” political violence since Trump took office in 2017.

    “He unleashed some of the worst parts of the American id in normalizing violence as a way to solve political differences. And so we’re seeing neighbors killing neighbors, people killing business owners over political disputes all over the country,” she said.

    But Kleinfeld pointed to the lengthy prison sentences meted out to some participants in the deadly January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol as a potential deterrent to political violence. Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the far-right militia group Oath Keepers, was sentenced to 18 years in prison and Enrique Tarrio, the former head of the far-right Proud Boys, was sentenced to 22 years. Kleinfeld also noted the two-and-a-half-year prison sentence handed down to an Iowa man for threatening Arizona’s attorney general and a Phoenix-area election official.

    “What we’re seeing now is a summer of a lot of accountability, where people are starting to be held to account for violence, and that is the best possible thing for reducing future violence,” she said.

    Trump supporter Amanda Hamak-Leon and her boyfriend are seen at his Rapid City, South Dakota, rally on September 8, 2023.

    Trump continues to defend his supporters who were part of the January 6 mob and said in a recent interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson that there was “love and unity” among those who had gathered in Washington that day.

    His lies about the 2020 election, which fueled the riot at the Capitol, were repeated on the campaign trail by his supporters in interviews with CNN. Many said they felt confident in Trump’s chances in a rematch with Biden in 2024.

    “Unless they convict him of something, I don’t care,” said Mark Roling, 63, of Pennsylvania. “In fact, I kind of like it. Every time they indict him, he gets stronger.”

    Trump has widened his polling lead over the rest of the GOP field since his first criminal charges were announced this spring, and his campaign has reported fundraising boosts in the wake of his indictments. That has vexed many Democrats, independents and more moderate Republican voters, who question how his supporters aren’t turned off by the serious and numerous criminal charges against Trump and believe the indictments should disqualify him from a second term as president.

    “He’s making a psychic connection between his troubles with government and people’s troubles with government. And it’s working,” said Craig Shirley, who has written four books on former President Ronald Reagan and has been a Republican strategist for decades.

    “So many Americans have had bad experiences with government over the years,” Shirley said. “They’ve had bad experiences with the IRS. They’ve had bad experiences with police forces. They’ve had bad experiences with school boards. They’ve had bad experiences with any manifestation of some form of government, and that has made them more and more anti-establishment.”

    Trump has been intentional on the campaign trail about making his supporters feel like his indictments are personal to them. “I’m being indicted for you,” he says at every rally. “They’re not coming after me, they’re coming after you, and I’m just standing in their way.”

    “It’s very much like a family protecting one of their own,” Whit Ayres, a veteran GOP pollster, said of how Trump’s supporters have rallied around the former president.

    “He came down the escalator in 2015, saying, ‘I am doing this for you. I am your protector. I am the only one looking out for you. And an attack on me is an attack on you.’ And he has been beating that drum now for eight years, and it’s accepted as true by millions of his supporters,” Ayres said.

    The day after Trump was booked at the Fulton County jail in Atlanta, his campaign said it had the highest-grossing fundraising day of the entire campaign to date, raising $4.18 million. A few days later, the campaign said it had raked in nearly $3 million off mug shot merchandise alone.

    A vendor sells T-shirts featuring Trump's mug shot outside his Rapid City, South Dakota, rally on September 8, 2023.

    But the market for mug shot merchandise extends well beyond the official campaign store as private vendors see their sales skyrocket.

    “This is the new ‘Let’s Go Brandon,’” said Sam Smith, a private vendor at Trump’s Rapid City rally, referring to the right-wing slogan used to insult Joe Biden. Smith, who travels around the country to sell merchandise outside the former president’s events, said he made solid money for two years off “Let’s Go Brandon” products.

    Longtime Trump supporter Amanda Hamak-Leon bought matching mug shot T-shirts on Amazon that said “WANTED FOR PRESIDENT” for her and her boyfriend to wear to Trump’s rally in Rapid City.

    “It really ticked me off,” Hamak-Leon said of Trump’s indictments. “I just feel like now for six-plus years they’ve been going after him with anything that they can, taking shots in the dark. It just makes me like him more that he just keeps going and is not letting this stop him.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Trump says it was ‘my decision’ to try to overturn 2020 election results | CNN Politics

    Trump says it was ‘my decision’ to try to overturn 2020 election results | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump said that he received counsel from numerous people shortly after the 2020 election but that it was his decision to push the false claim he won the presidency and try to overturn the results.

    “It was my decision, but I listened to some people,” Trump told NBC’s “Meet the Press” in an interview that aired Sunday.

    Trump has been indicted over his efforts to subvert the 2020 election results. He has pleaded not guilty in all cases and denied any wrongdoing.

    A central premise of special counsel Jack Smith’s case, according to his indictment of the former president, is that Trump knew the election claims he was making were false after being told by close aides that he had lost but disseminated them anyway to make them appear legitimate – all in service of an alleged criminal conspiracy.

    “I was listening to different people, and when I added it all up, the election was rigged,” Trump told Kristen Welker in the interview, again pushing the false claim as he seeks the 2024 Republican nomination for president.

    “You know who I listen to? Myself. I saw what happened,” Trump said.

    The former president said he didn’t listen to his attorneys who told him he lost the election because he didn’t respect them.

    “You hire them, you’ve never met these people, you get a recommendation, they turn out to be RINOs (Republicans in name only), or they turn out to be not so good. In many cases, I didn’t respect them,” Trump said. “But I did respect others. I respected many others that said the election was rigged.”

    Following his election loss, Trump tried multiple avenues to overturn the election results. He pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and another official to “recalculate” the numbers and “find” enough votes to let him win.

    Trump’s campaign also tried to install fake GOP electors in seven swing states.

    The House select committee that investigated Trump’s actions in the lead-up to the January 6, 2021, insurrection argued that the evidence shows he actively worked to “transmit false Electoral College ballots to Congress and the National Archives” despite concerns among his lawyers that doing so could be unlawful.

    “That evidence has led to an overriding and straightforward conclusion: the central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, whom many others followed. None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him,” the committee’s final report states.

    Smith’s federal election interference investigation is one of four criminal cases against the former president. Trump is facing four charges in Smith’s case, including obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the United States.

    Trump was also charged in a sweeping Georgia indictment accusing him of being the head of a “criminal enterprise” to overturn the 2020 election.

    [ad_2]

    Source link