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

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

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    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.

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  • Biden administration defends communications with social media companies in high-stakes court fight | CNN Business

    Biden administration defends communications with social media companies in high-stakes court fight | CNN Business

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    Washington, DC
    CNN
     — 

    The Biden administration on Thursday defended its communications with social media giants in court, arguing those channels must stay open so that the federal government can help protect the public from threats to election security, Covid-19 misinformation and other dangers.

    The closely watched court fight reflects how social media has become an informational battleground for major social issues. It has revealed the messy challenges for social media companies as they try to manage the massive amounts of information on their platforms.

    And it has highlighted warnings by independent researchers, watchdog groups and government officials that malicious actors will continue to try to disrupt the country’s democracy by flooding the internet with bogus and divisive material ahead of the 2024 elections.

    In oral arguments before a New Orleans-based federal appeals court, the US government challenged a July injunction that blocked several federal agencies from discussing certain social media posts and sharing other information with online platforms, amid allegations by state governments that those communications amounted to a form of unconstitutional censorship.

    The appeals court last month temporarily blocked the injunction from taking effect. But the outcome of Thursday’s arguments will determine the ultimate fate of the order, which placed new limits on the Departments of Homeland Security, Health and Human Services and other federal agencies’ ability to coordinate with tech companies and civil society groups.

    If upheld by the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, the injunction would suppress a broad range of public-private partnerships and undermine the US government’s mission to protect the public, the Biden administration argued.

    “For example, if there were a natural disaster, and there were untrue statements circulating on social media that were damaging to the public interest, the government would be powerless under the injunction to discourage social media companies from further disseminating those incorrect statements,” said Daniel Tenny, a Justice Department lawyer.

    Now, a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit is set to decide how executive agencies may respond to those threats.

    At issue is whether the US government unconstitutionally pressured social media platforms into censoring users’ speech, particularly when the government flagged posts to the platforms that it believed violated the companies’ own terms of service.

    During more than an hour of oral arguments Thursday, the three judges handling the appeal gave little indication of how they would rule in the case, with one judge asking just a couple of questions during the hearing. The other two spent much of the time pressing attorneys for the Biden administration and the plaintiffs in the case on issues concerning the scope of the injunction and whether the states even had the legal right – or standing – to bring the lawsuit.

    Before them is not only the request to reverse the lower court injunction, but also one from the administration to issue a more lasting pause on that injunction while the judges weigh the challenge to it.

    In briefs submitted to the court ahead of Thursday’s hearing, the Biden administration argued that a lower court judge was wrong to have identified the government communications with social media companies as potentially, in his words, “the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ [sic] history.”

    “There is a categorical, well-settled distinction between persuasion and coercion,” the administration’s lawyers wrote, adding that the lower court “equated legitimate efforts at persuasion with illicit efforts to coerce.”

    The administration’s opponents in the case, which include the states of Missouri and Louisiana, have argued that the federal government’s communications with social media companies are a violation of the First Amendment because even “‘encouragement short of compulsion’ can transform private conduct [by social media companies] into government action” that infringes on users’ speech rights.

    “Every one of these federal agencies has insinuated themselves into the content moderation decisions of major social media platforms,” D. John Sauer, an attorney representing the state of Louisiana, told the judges on Thursday. Hypothetically speaking, he added: “The Surgeon General can say, ‘All this speech is terrible, it’s awful.’ …. But what he can’t do is pick up the phone and say, ‘Take it down.’”

    In addition to the states, five individuals are also plaintiffs in the suit. They include three doctors who have been critical of state and federal pandemic-era restrictions, a Louisiana woman who claims she was censored by social media companies for her online criticisms of Covid health measures and a man who runs a far-right website known for pushing conspiracy theories.

    Much of Thursday’s oral arguments hinged on the definition of coercive communication and how courts have analyzed government pressure against private parties in past cases.

    But the states also claimed that there could be a pathway to finding a constitutional violation if the court agreed that social media companies, in heeding the administration’s calls to action, had been effectively turned into agents of the US government.

    In the past month, after District Judge Terry Doughty issued his injunction, current and former US officials, along with outside researchers and academics, have worried that the order could lead to a chilling effect for efforts to protect US elections.

    “There is no serious dispute that foreign adversaries have and continue to attempt to interfere in our elections and that they use social media to do it,” FBI Director Christopher Wray testified to the House Judiciary Committee in July. “President Trump himself in 2018 declared a national emergency to that very effect, and the Senate Intelligence Committee — in a bipartisan, overwhelmingly bipartisan way — not only found the same thing but called for more information-sharing between us and the social media.”

    Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, the panel’s chair, remains unconvinced. Earlier this week, he and other Republican lawmakers filed their own brief to the appeals court, accusing the Biden administration of a campaign to stifle speech.

    “On issue after issue, the Biden Administration has distorted the free marketplace of ideas promised by the First Amendment, bringing the weight of federal authority to bear on any speech it dislikes—including memes and jokes,” Jordan and the other lawmakers wrote. “Of course, Big Tech companies often required little coercion to do the Administration’s bidding on some issues. Generally eager to please their ideological allies and overseers in the federal government, these companies and other private entities have repeatedly censored accurate speech on important public issues.”

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  • Gun rights organizations sue New Mexico governor over gun violence order | CNN Politics

    Gun rights organizations sue New Mexico governor over gun violence order | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The National Association for Gun Rights filed a lawsuit against New Mexico’s Democratic governor and health secretary Saturday over orders declaring gun violence a public health emergency and suspending open and concealed carry laws in cities and counties based on crime statistics.

    Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham issued the emergency order after the shooting deaths of three children from July through September, as well as a pair of mass shootings in the state.

    The lawsuit, filed in the US district court for New Mexico on Saturday, lists Lujan Grisham and New Mexico Department of Health Secretary Patrick Allen as defendants.

    The National Association for Gun Rights argues in the lawsuit that the orders violate the Second Amendment.

    “The State must justify the Carry Prohibition by demonstrating that it is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. But it is impossible for the State to meet this burden, because there is no such historical tradition of firearms regulation in this Nation,” the lawsuit reads.

    Throughout the suit, the plaintiffs cite a 2022 Supreme Court decision that struck down a New York gun law that restricted the right to concealed carry outside the home.

    The lawsuit also lists Albuquerque resident Foster Allen Haines as a plaintiff. Haines intended to partake in the state’s open carry law, according to the complaint.

    “Haines is precluded from doing so by the Carry Prohibition, which deprives him of his fundamental right to keep and bear arms for lawful purposes protected by the Second Amendment,” the lawsuit reads.

    The plaintiffs ask the court to grant an injunction prohibiting the emergency order from being enforced, the lawsuit states.

    A second lawsuit was also filed Saturday against Lujan Grisham; Allen; Department of Public Safety Secretary Jason Bowie; and State Police Chief W. Troy Weisler by Bernalillo County resident Randy Donk and the Gun Owners of America. The suit likens the executive order and public health emergency declaration to “martial law” and argues that it is a suspension of constitutional rights.

    This lawsuit also asks the court for an immediate temporary restraining order and later a preliminary and permanent injunction to be granted.

    Caroline Sweeney, a spokesperson for Lujan Grisham, said in a statement Sunday that the governor “is prepared to fight challenges to her decision.”

    “Gun violence is a public health emergency in the state and extraordinary measures are required to prevent more innocent New Mexicans from being killed by guns,” the statement said.

    CNN has reached out to the Department of Health for comment on the lawsuits.

    Lujan Grisham last week also issued a statewide enforcement plan that includes a 30-day suspension of open and concealed carry laws in Albuquerque and surrounding Bernalillo County, CNN previously reported.

    The order, which went into immediate effect, temporarily bans the carrying of guns on public property in those counties with certain exceptions, according to the governor’s office. Citizens with carry permits will still be allowed to possess their weapons on private property such as gun ranges and gun stores if the firearm is transported in a locked box, or if a trigger lock or other mechanism is used to render the gun incapable of being fired.

    The order also prohibits firearms on state property, including state buildings and schools, as well as at parks and other places where children gather. Under the order, licensed firearm dealers will be inspected monthly by New Mexico’s Regulation and Licensing Division to ensure compliance with sales and storage laws.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • US government and 17 states sue Amazon in landmark monopoly case | CNN Business

    US government and 17 states sue Amazon in landmark monopoly case | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    The US government and 17 states are suing Amazon in a landmark monopoly case reflecting years of allegations that the e-commerce giant abused its economic dominance and harmed fair competition.

    The groundbreaking lawsuit by the Federal Trade Commission and 17 attorneys general marks the US government’s sharpest attack yet against Amazon, a company that started off selling books on the internet but has since become known as “the everything store,” expanding into selling a vast range of consumer products, creating a globe-spanning logistics network and becoming a powerhouse in other technologies such as cloud computing.

    The complaint alleges Amazon unfairly promotes its own platform and services at the expense of third-party sellers who rely on the company’s e-commerce marketplace for distribution.

    For example, according to the FTC, Amazon has harmed competition by requiring sellers on its platform to purchase Amazon’s in-house logistics services in order to secure the best seller benefits, referred to as “Prime” eligibility. It also claims the company anticompetitively forces sellers to list their products on Amazon at the lowest prices anywhere on the web, instead of allowing sellers to offer their products at competing marketplaces for a lower price.

    That practice is already the subject of a separate lawsuit targeting Amazon filed by California’s attorney general last year.

    Because of Amazon’s dominance in e-commerce, sellers have little option but to accept Amazon’s terms, the FTC alleges, resulting in higher prices for consumers and a worse consumer experience. Amazon also ranks its own products in marketplace search results higher than those sold by third parties, the FTC said.

    Amazon is “squarely focused on preventing anyone else from gaining that same critical mass of customers,” FTC Chair Lina Khan told reporters Tuesday. “This complaint reflects the cutting edge and best thinking on how competition occurs in digital markets and, similarly, the tactics that Amazon has used to suffocate rivals, deprive them of oxygen, and really leave a stunted landscape in its wake.”

    The states involved in the case are Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin.

    The complaint was filed in the US District Court for the Western District of Washington, and seeks a court order blocking Amazon from engaging in the allegedly anticompetitive behavior. Khan declined to say Tuesday whether the agency will be seeking a breakup of the company, saying the case is currently focused on proving Amazon’s liability under federal antitrust law.

    The suit makes Amazon the third tech giant after Google and Meta to be hit with sweeping US government allegations that the company spent years violating federal antitrust laws, reflecting policymakers’ growing worldwide hostility toward Big Tech that intensified after 2016. The litigation could take years to play out. But just as Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his spectacular wealth have inspired critics to draw comparisons to America’s Gilded Age, so may the FTC lawsuit come to symbolize a modern repeat of the antitrust crackdown of the early 20th century.

    In a release, Khan accused Amazon of using “punitive and coercive tactics” to preserve an illegal monopoly.

    “Amazon is now exploiting its monopoly power to enrich itself while raising prices and degrading service for the tens of millions of American families who shop on its platform and the hundreds of thousands of businesses that rely on Amazon to reach them,” Khan said. “Today’s lawsuit seeks to hold Amazon to account for these monopolistic practices and restore the lost promise of free and fair competition.”

    “Today’s suit makes clear the FTC’s focus has radically departed from its mission of protecting consumers and competition. The practices the FTC is challenging have helped to spur competition and innovation across the retail industry, and have produced greater selection, lower prices, and faster delivery speeds for Amazon customers and greater opportunity for the many businesses that sell in Amazon’s store,”said David Zapolsky, Amazon’s Senior Vice President of Global Public policy and General Counsel. “If the FTC gets its way, the result would be fewer products to choose from, higher prices, slower deliveries for consumers, and reduced options for small businesses—the opposite of what antitrust law is designed to do. The lawsuit filed by the FTC today is wrong on the facts and the law, and we look forward to making that case in court.”

    For years, Amazon’s critics including US lawmakers, European regulators, third-party sellers, consumer advocacy groups and more have accused the company of everything from mistreating its workers to forcing its third-party sellers to accept anticompetitive terms. Amazon has unfairly used sellers’ own commercial data against them, opponents have said, so it can figure out what products Amazon should sell itself. And the fact that Amazon competes with sellers on the very same marketplace it controls represents a conflict of interest that should be considered illegal, many of Amazon’s critics have said.

    The lawsuit represents a watershed moment in Khan’s career. She is widely credited with kickstarting antitrust scrutiny of Amazon in the United States with a seminal law paper in 2017. She later helped lead a congressional investigation into the tech industry’s alleged competition abuses, detailing in a 450-page report how Amazon — as well as Apple, Google and Meta — enjoy “monopoly power” and that there is “significant evidence” to show that the companies’ anticompetitive conduct has hindered innovation, reduced consumer choice and weakened democracy.

    The investigation led to a raft of legislative proposals aimed at reining in the companies, but the most significant ones have stalled under a barrage of industry lobbying and decisions by congressional leaders not to bring the bills up for a final vote.

    Lawmakers’ inaction has left it to antitrust enforcers to police the tech industry’s alleged harms to competition. In 2021, President Joe Biden stunned many in Washington when he tapped Khan not only to serve on the FTC but to lead the agency, sending a signal that he supported tough antitrust oversight.

    Since then Khan has taken an aggressive enforcement posture, particularly toward the tech industry. Under her watch, the FTC has sued to block numerous tech acquisitions, most notably Microsoft’s $69 billion deal to acquire video game publisher Activision Blizzard. It has moved to restrict how companies may collect and use consumers’ personal information, and warned them of the risks of generative artificial intelligence.

    Throughout, the FTC has scrutinized Amazon — suing the company in June for allegedly tricking millions of consumers into signing up for Amazon Prime and reaching multimillion-dollar settlements in May with the company over alleged privacy violations linked to Amazon’s smart home devices.

    But the latest suit against Amazon may rank as the most significant of all, because it drives at the heart of Amazon’s e-commerce business and focuses on some of the most persistent criticisms of the company. In a sign of how threatening Amazon perceived Khan’s ascent to be, the company in 2021 called for her recusal from all cases involving the tech giant.

    Khan has resisted those calls. On Tuesday, the FTC said it held a unanimous 3-0 vote authorizing the lawsuit; Khan was among those voting to proceed.

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  • Two more Trump co-defendants plead guilty. What next? | CNN Politics

    Two more Trump co-defendants plead guilty. What next? | CNN Politics

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    A version of this story appeared in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.



    CNN
     — 

    With the frightening Israel-Hamas war and a major spoke of the US government – the House of Representatives – unsolvably speakerless and in a state of paralysis, a pair of guilty pleas in a Georgia courtroom almost feels like Page 2 news.

    But these particular guilty pleas this week come from two of former President Donald Trump’s co-defendants, the second and third such admissions of guilt in the criminal case brought against him for trying to overturn Georgia’s 2020 presidential election result.

    • Sidney Powell, a public face of Trump’s attempts to challenge the election results in 2020 and 2021, pleaded guilty Thursday. The former Trump attorney will avoid jail time but agreed to testify as a witness and pleaded guilty to six misdemeanors for conspiracy to commit intentional interference, downgraded from felony charges she had faced.
    • Kenneth Chesebro, a less public face of the effort, was an attorney who helped engineer the fake electors plot. He pleaded guilty Friday to a single felony, conspiracy to commit filing false documents. He’s also likely to avoid jail time.
    • Scott Hall, a bail bondsman, pleaded guilty last month after being accused of conspiring to unlawfully access voter data and ballot-counting machines at the Coffee County election office on January 7, 2021.

    That leaves Trump and 15 other co-defendants awaiting trial in the case. Trial dates have not been set, and Trump has pleaded not guilty.

    Along with the three other upcoming criminal trials in New York, Washington, DC, and Florida and the ongoing civil trial in New York, the Georgia proceedings are part of a complicated web of legal problems percolating beneath the 2024 election.

    Chesebro admitted to entering into a conspiracy specifically with Trump to create a slate of fake electors in Georgia, along with two other attorneys, Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman.

    CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Elliot Williams noted that the Georgia case, brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, has had its detractors, because it included 18 co-defendants along with Trump, which could make it seem politically motivated.

    But guilty pleas, Williams said, are now evidence that crimes were committed as Trump tried to make Joe Biden’s 2020 victory disappear.

    “This ought to pour cold water on the notion that this was just a partisan witch hunt to target the president and his allies,” Williams told Jim Sciutto on CNN Max.

    CNN’s report on his guilty plea notes that “Chesebro acknowledged in the plea that he ‘created and distributed false Electoral College documents’ to Trump operatives in Georgia and other states, and that he worked ‘in coordination with’ the Trump campaign.”

    All but one charge against Chesebro was dropped, and he has agreed to testify at trial.

    Just because Powell’s plea agreement did not mention Trump does not mean she might not be asked about him under oath, as CNN’s Marshall Cohen notes:

    Most notably, Powell attended a White House meeting on December 18, 2020, where some of Trump’s most extreme supporters encouraged him to name her as a special counsel to investigate supposed voter fraud, to consider declaring martial law and to sign executive orders that would direct the military to seize voting machines.

    Cohen adds that whatever Powell tells Georgia prosecutors could be used in the federal election subversion case brought by special counsel Jack Smith.

    One gag order was issued by Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the federal 2020 election subversion case in Washington, DC. Trump is appealing, arguing she “took away my right to speak,” and on Friday Chutkan put a temporary freeze on the order.

    Chutkan has been insistent that the federal case get underway on schedule, in March, at the pinnacle of primary season.

    Trump made those comments about his freedom of speech as he entered a courtroom in New York, where he faces a civil fraud trial brought by the state attorney general. He is also under a gag order in that case, and that judge, Arthur Engoron, fined Trump $5,000 on Friday for violating the gag order after a social media post targeting a court employee was left up on Trump’s campaign website.

    Engoron said future violations could even ultimately lead him to imprison Trump.

    The court developments are an important reminder that as Trump cruises toward the Republican presidential nomination, at least according to public opinion polls, he is also in very real legal peril – something Trump acknowledged, before the gag-order-related threat from Engoron in New York, when the former president talked about the prospect of prison during an event in Clive, Iowa.

    “What they don’t understand is that I am willing to go to jail if that’s what it takes for our country to win and become a democracy again,” Trump said at the rally.

    There is some bizarre irony in the comments since he’s charged in connection with trying to subvert an election, one of the fundamental pillars of democracy.

    Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who is among those challenging Trump for the Republican presidential nomination, said on CNN that he doesn’t believe Trump is willing to go to jail.

    “The last place he wants to spend five minutes is in jail,” Christie said. He complained that Trump has failed to appear at Republican presidential debates.

    “Donald Trump doesn’t want any legitimate debate or discussion about his conduct,” Christie said.

    Republicans like Christie are running out of time and opportunity to challenge Trump. Another debate is scheduled for November 8 in Miami, but Christie has not yet qualified. NBC is sponsoring the debate, along with the right-wing outlets Salem Radio Network and Rumble.

    Oliver Darcy, CNN’s senior media reporter, argues the arrangement creates strange bedfellows.

    “It’s no surprise that the GOP, which veered sharply to the right during Donald Trump’s presidency, would select Salem and Rumble as partners,” Darcy writes, “but it is striking that NBC News would agree to link arms with such organizations.”

    Anti-Trump Republicans want some of the candidates challenging him to drop out of the race so that the opposition can coalesce around an individual alternative. The debate stage November 8 is expected to be much smaller, perhaps with only a few people.

    But don’t expect the former president to show. Trump is planning a rally nearby to draw attention away from his rivals.

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  • DeSantis suspends Orlando-area state attorney in second sacking of democratically elected prosecutor | CNN Politics

    DeSantis suspends Orlando-area state attorney in second sacking of democratically elected prosecutor | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday announced the suspension of the Orlando-area state attorney, the second time he has removed a democratically elected prosecutor whose politics did not align with his conservative views.

    DeSantis said he was removing Monique Worrell of Florida’s 9th Judicial Circuit for “neglect of duty and incompetence” and accused her of pursuing lenient sentences and declining to prosecute certain charges.

    “Prosecutors have a duty to faithfully enforce the law. One’s political agenda cannot trump this solemn duty. Refusing to faithfully enforce the laws of Florida puts our communities in danger and victimizes innocent Floridians,” DeSantis said.

    The criticisms echo ones raised last year when DeSantis contentiously removed another Democratic state attorney, Tampa’s elected prosecutor Andrew Warren. Democrats accused DeSantis, at the time, of abusing his power for political gain. A federal judge reviewing Warren’s suspension raised questions about the political motivations behind the maneuver, noting DeSantis’ office had calculated the dollar amount of free media generated by his actions.

    But the move earned DeSantis glowing coverage from conservative outlets and the episode became a staple of the governor’s political speeches in the lead up to the launch of a White House bid.

    Now, with his presidential campaign struggling to gain traction, DeSantis has once again used his vast executive authority in a way that has already brought the national spotlight on him. By the time DeSantis stepped to the lectern in Tallahassee’s capitol building to deliver the news, Fox News had published a story on his latest maneuver.

    DeSantis was joined at the news conference by two local sheriffs – neither of which serves a county that overlaps with Worrell’s jurisdiction. They used their time at the microphone to heap praise on the governor as a law and order leader.

    “This governor has always put the victims, always put the law-abiding citizens ahead of the criminals. Always. And that’s exactly what he’s done here today,” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said.

    Worrell, who said she was informed of her suspension Wednesday morning by phone, vowed to fight back against her removal, calling it a “political hit job” orchestrated to benefit the Republican’s presidential campaign.

    “I am a duly elected state attorney for the Ninth Judicial Circuit,” Worrell said at a news conference outside the Orange County Courthouse in Orlando. “And nothing done by a weak dictator can change that.”

    Worrell said she is considering legal action, but also acknowledged the long odds.

    On Thursday, she told CNN’s John Berman on “Anderson Cooper 360” that she will also run for the office again in 2024.

    “I have filed for reelection, and I plan to continue to run and rewin my seat by the will of the voters the way democracy works in this country. And be the duly elected state attorney once again,” Worrell said.

    The governor and local law enforcement, she told Berman, have been “pushing false narratives” about her role in the legal system.

    “It’s really important to be clear the criminal legal system is a collaborative system. It doesn’t only rest on the shoulders of the state attorney,” Worrell said. “There is a judiciary. There is law enforcement. There is a defense bar. And these are the components of the criminal legal system. Any decisions that had been made by attorneys in my office have been ratified by the judiciary.”

    The Florida constitution allows a governor to remove an elected official for “malfeasance, misfeasance, neglect of duty, habitual drunkenness, incompetence, or permanent inability to perform official duties.” No previous Florida executive has interpreted that power as broadly as DeSantis. The state Senate can reinstate Worrell, but the chamber is controlled by Republicans closely aligned with DeSantis and have rarely stood in his way.

    Warren’s attempts at reinstatement have failed. A federal judge ruled DeSantis had acted unconstitutionally in suspending Warren, writing that there was “not a hint of misconduct by Mr. Warren” in the trial record, but he ultimately dismissed the case saying he did not have the power to intervene on a state matter. The state Supreme Court tossed Warren’s lawsuit in state court earlier this summer.

    As a candidate, DeSantis has made reigning in government overreach a top priority, a promise that his critics say is in conflict with how he has led during episodes such as Wednesday. DeSantis has repeatedly blasted President Joe Biden for what he says is the “weaponization” of the US Department of Justice and has accused state and federal prosecutors of pursuing a political agenda in targeting former President Donald Trump.

    According to her biography – which as of Wednesday morning was still posted on her office’s website – Worrell worked as a public defender in the Orlando area and later as a clinical law professor at the University of Florida College of Law.

    In 2020, Worrell won a contested Democratic primary to become the party’s nominee for state attorney serving Orange and Osceola counties. She was elected that fall with 66% of the vote in a deeply blue part of the state.

    “​Monique was elected to bring reform to a criminal legal system that is fundamentally flawed, in order to achieve equity and to move our system towards justice,” her bio said.

    Worrell replaced Aramis Ayala, another reform prosecutor whose approach conflicted with the state’s Republican leadership. When Ayala announced she would not pursue capital punishment in any cases, then-Gov. Rick Scott moved death penalty cases to another state attorney though he did not suspend her from office.

    DeSantis began to publicly lay the groundwork for Worrell’s ouster in February, when a teenage gunman in Orlando was accused of shooting and killing a 9-year-old girl, a journalist and a 38-year-old woman. DeSantis accused Worrell of failing to keep the gunman behind bars for a previous charge.

    “I know the state attorney in Orlando thinks that you don’t prosecute people, and that’s the way that somehow you have better communities. That does not work,” DeSantis said at the time.

    At Wednesday’s news conference, DeSantis and others pointed to heinous crimes from the past year allegedly committed by people with previous charges.

    In suspending Worrell, DeSantis cited a “pattern or practice” to avoid mandatory sentences for gun crimes and minimum mandatory sentences for drug trafficking offenses. DeSantis also said Worrell had allowed juveniles to avoid “serious charges and incarceration” and had avoided “valid and applicable” sentencing enhancements or limiting charges for child pornography.

    On Wednesday, Worrell disputed characterizations made by the Florida governor that her office was too lenient on criminals, insisting that crime is down under her watch. DeSantis never reached out to express concerns with her operation, she said.

    Florida Democratic Party chairwoman Nikki Fried called Worrell’s ouster a “political hit job” that “threatens democracy” and demanded her immediate reinstatement.

    “Ron’s presidential campaign has been a disaster of epic proportions, but attacking law and order in service of his culture wars isn’t the solution to his problems,” Fried said.

    DeSantis replaced Worrell with Andrew Bain, who has served as a judge on the 9th Judicial Circuit.

    DeSantis left the news conference without taking questions from reporters.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Trump may try to move the Fulton County criminal case to federal court. Here’s why | CNN Politics

    Trump may try to move the Fulton County criminal case to federal court. Here’s why | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Just hours after former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows was dealt state charges accusing him, along with 18 other defendants including Donald Trump, of taking part in a broad criminal conspiracy to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results, he mounted an effort to move his case to federal court.

    The former president is also expected to try to move the case to federal court, according to multiple sources familiar with his legal team’s thinking.

    The attempt to transfer his case from the Superior Court in Fulton County, Georgia, to the federal court for the US Northern District of Georgia – a process officially referred to as “removal” – is the first in what is expected to be a series of major pre-trial issues District Attorney Fani Willis must navigate as she pursues convictions against the 19 defendants.

    Successfully transferring their cases to federal court could provide some key advantages.

    For starters, litigating the effort could help delay things, a strategy Trump has employed time and time and time and time again.

    Should the case actually go to trial in the federal court, Trump and Meadows or others could end up with a jury pool more sympathetic than the one they might get from around Atlanta, where the state courthouse for this case is based. The district that includes Fulton County also includes the heavily Republican northern part of the state.

    And if the case is removed to federal court and goes to trial, the limits of Georgia’s RICO statute – which has been used aggressively and successfully by Willis – could be under the microscope of a federal judge, who would be able to field novel legal challenges to it by a defendant.

    “There’s very few cases in Georgia interpreting the RICO statute,” said Andrew Fleischman, a Georgia criminal defense attorney, adding that a successful removal in this case would allow a federal judge to “ask a bunch of questions” about the 1980 state law.

    Other advantages include the fact that unlike the Fulton County courtroom where the proceedings are expected to unfold, cameras are not allowed in federal courts, something that could be advantageous for Trump, who is running for president again.

    Trump and Meadows could also argue in federal court that they are protected because their efforts were part of their official duties as president and White House chief of staff, respectively.

    Some major questions over the removal possibility loom large, including whether a successful removal bid would transfer the entire case of 19 people to federal court or if it would allow the defendant to sever their case from the others, with some remaining in state court.

    Just as with the criminal case charging people with trying to overturn an election, there is very little precedent here for judges to follow.

    While there have been ample removal proceedings in civil cases, and the case law in that scenario is very well established, “criminal removal is very rare – especially in cases with multiple defendants,” said Steve Vladeck, a CNN Supreme Court analyst and University of Texas School of Law professor, who clerked for the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Georgia.

    Clark Cunningham, a law professor at Georgia State University, said he believes “the whole indictment moves as one.”

    “And of course, that’s going to be fine with the other defendants, they would rather be in federal court. They would rather have things move slowly. The question would be would the district attorney then try to sever out the people that were not federal (employees),” he said. “Those things remain to be seen.”

    Willis said on Monday that she plans to try the 19 defendants together, so fighting the removal request will likely be a top priority for her office in the coming days and weeks. That alone could upset her hopes to bring the case to trial next March.

    Meadows, in a court document filed Tuesday afternoon, argued that Willis’ case against him should be transferred to district court that includes Fulton County because the alleged conduct of his that creates the basis of Willis’ charges was done as part of his job as the last White House chief of staff during Trump’s tenure.

    He’s citing a federal law that allows civil action or criminal prosecution to be removed to federal court if the lawsuit or prosecution relates to conduct performed “under color” of a US office or agency.

    Willis accused Meadows of participating in a number of the 161 “overt acts” that make up the RICO charge, including traveling to a site in Cobb County, Georgia, where a ballot audit was taking place so he could “observe the signature match audit being performed there … despite the fact that the audit process was not open to the public.”

    He’s also being accused of breaking state law when he took part in a January 2021 phone call that included Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which Meadows and Trump urged Raffensperger to take part in the fake electors scheme.

    “Nothing Mr. Meadows is alleged in the indictment to have done is criminal per se: arranging Oval Office meetings, contacting state officials on the President’s behalf, visiting a state government building, and setting up a phone call for the President. One would expect a Chief of Staff to the President of the United States to do these sorts of things,” Meadows’ filing states.

    District Judge Steve Jones, an appointee of Barack Obama, has scheduled a hearing for August 28 on the issue.

    Though Meadows was the first defendant in the Fulton County case to mount a removal bid, he likely won’t be the last.

    In addition to Trump, the former president’s ex-lawyer Rudy Giuliani – who also faces 13 charges in the case – argued during his radio show on Tuesday that the same law Meadows cited in his filing “almost an automatic removal” to federal court.

    “As a person acting as (Trump’s) agent – that’s what a lawyer is, his agent – I have a right to remove it to federal court,” Giuliani said, arguing some of the other defendants could also make similar removal claims.

    For Trump, a potential removal bid won’t be a new exercise. The former president attempted the same thing in the hush money criminal case brought against him in New York, but a federal judge rejected that effort last month. Trump has pleaded not guilty in that case.

    Legal experts told CNN that Trump’s arguments for removal in the Georgia matter would likely be stronger than the ones he put forth in New York, but that his case for removal likely won’t be ironclad.

    “Every one of the alleged crimes he did as a candidate, not as president, in my opinion,” said Clark Cunningham, a law professor at Georgia State University. “But he does have an argument. And it’s going to have to be heard out in the federal courts.”

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  • Federal judge restores part of Georgia’s law that had banned gender-affirming care for trans youth | CNN Politics

    Federal judge restores part of Georgia’s law that had banned gender-affirming care for trans youth | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    A federal judge on Tuesday restored the enforcement of a law in Georgia that banned licensed medical professionals in the state from providing patients under the age of 18 with cross-sex hormone therapy.

    Last month, a federal judge temporarily blocked parts of Georgia’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth from going into effect, finding that potential effects to transgender youth, “including risks of depression, anxiety, disordered eating, self-harm, and suicidal ideation – outweigh any harm the State will experience from the injunction.”

    The next day, an appellate court sided with an Alabama state law in a challenge to its gender-affirming care ban, which is similar to Georgia’s, finding that the plaintiffs “have not presented any authority that supports the existence of a constitutional right to treat [one’s] children with transitioning medications subject to medically accepted standards.”

    In its order on Tuesday, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia cited the Alabama decision in restoring the enforcement of the ban, believing that to intervene in Georgia’s ban while the appeals process unfolds in Alabama could result in an order that conflicts with a potential precedent established by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes the two districts where challenges to the bans are playing out.

    “It is undisputed that this Court’s preliminary injunction order rests on legal grounds that have been squarely rejected by the panel in Eknes-Tucker (the Alabama decision), and that this Court’s injunction cannot stand on the bases articulated in the order,” District Judge Sarah Geraghty wrote in her order.

    She also wrote, “The Court deems it prudent to await further developments in Eknes-Tucker before adjudicating the motion to reconsider.”

    Georgia law, Senate Bill 140, bans licensed medical professionals in the state from providing patients under the age of 18 with cross-sex hormone therapy and initially went into effect on July 1. Healthcare providers could face criminal and civil penalties if they do not comply with the law.

    The legal challenge to SB 140 was brought in late June by four transgender youth in the state and their families, as well as an advocacy group whose work includes “connecting families of transgender children to local practitioners who provide gender-affirming medical care,” according to a complaint.

    The law allows minors who started “hormone replacement therapies” before July 1 to continue the treatment. None of the minor plaintiffs have started the therapy, according to the lawsuit, though all of them are planning to in the future. Two of the minors are taking puberty-blocking medication, the suit said.

    Gender-affirming care spans a range of evidence-based treatments and approaches. The types of care vary by the age and goals of the recipient, and are considered the standard of care by many mainstream medical associations.

    Enacting restrictions on gender-affirming care for trans youth has emerged as a key issue for conservatives, with at least 20 states having limited components of the care in recent years. When Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed SB 140 in March, he argued the law would “ensure we protect the health and wellbeing of Georgia’s children.”

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  • Federal appeals court extends limits on Biden administration communications with social media companies to top US cybersecurity agency | CNN Business

    Federal appeals court extends limits on Biden administration communications with social media companies to top US cybersecurity agency | CNN Business

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    A federal appeals court has expanded the scope of a ruling that limits the Biden administration’s communications with social media companies, saying it now also applies to a top US cybersecurity agency.

    The ruling last month from the conservative 5th Circuit US Court of Appeals severely limits the ability of the White House, the surgeon general, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the FBI to communicate with social media companies about content related to Covid-19 and elections that the government views as misinformation.

    The preliminary injunction had been on pause and a recent procedural snafu over a request from the plaintiffs in the case to broaden its scope led the court on Tuesday to withdraw its earlier opinion and issue a new one that now includes the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. That agency is charged with protecting non-military networks from hacking and other homeland security threats.

    Similar to the ruling last month, in which the appeals court said the federal government had “likely violated the First Amendment” when it leaned on platforms to moderate some content, the new ruling says CISA violates the Constitution.

    “CISA used its frequent interactions with social media platforms to push them to adopt more restrictive policies on censoring election-related speech,” the three-judge panel wrote.

    “The platforms’ censorship decisions were made under policies that CISA has pressured them into adopting and based on CISA’s determination of the veracity of the flagged information,” they continued. “Thus, CISA likely significantly encouraged the platforms’ content-moderation decisions and thereby violated the First Amendment.”

    The plaintiffs in the suit, which include Missouri and Louisiana’s attorneys general, as well as several individual plaintiffs, had also asked the court to expand the scope in other ways, including by making it apply to some State Department officials. But the court’s new ruling was only modified to add CISA as an enjoined entity.

    The judges said they were pausing their new injunction for 10 days, and the Biden administration has the option of asking the Supreme Court to issue a more lasting pause on the modified ruling.

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  • 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

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    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.

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  • Regulators give green light to driverless taxis in San Francisco | CNN Business

    Regulators give green light to driverless taxis in San Francisco | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    California regulators gave approval Thursday to two rival robotaxi companies, Cruise and Waymo, to operate their driverless cars 24/7 across all of San Francisco and charge passengers for their services.

    The much-anticipated vote, which followed roughly six hours of public comment both for and against driverless taxis, came amid clashes between the robotaxi companies and some residents of the hilly city. San Francisco first responders, city transportation leaders and local activists are among those who shared concerns about the technology.

    The California Public Utilities Commission regulates self-driving cars in the state and voted 3-to-1 in favor of Waymo and Cruise expanding their operations.

    That means residents and visitors to San Francisco will be able to pay a fare to ride in a driverless taxi, ushering in new automated competition to cab and ridehail drivers.

    “Today’s permit marks the true beginning of our commercial operations in San Francisco,” said Tekedra Mawakana, co-CEO of Waymo, in a press release.

    Cruise spokesperson Drew Pusateri said in a statement to CNN that the 24/7 driverless service is a “historic industry milestone” that puts Cruise “in a position to compete with traditional ridehail, and challenge an unsafe, inaccessible transportation status quo.”

    Until Thursday’s vote, Cruise and Waymo could offer only limited service to San Francisco residents.

    Cruise – a subsidiary of General Motors – could charge a fare only for overnight rides occurring between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. in select parts of the city. Waymo, owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet, could charge a fare only for rides with a human driver in the vehicle.

    Now, Cruise and Waymo can charge a fare for their driverless rides and 24/7 access to San Francisco streets as they do so.

    Cruise officials told state commissioners at a recent public hearing that it deploys about 300 vehicles at night and 100 during the day, while Waymo officials said that around 100 of its 250 vehicles are on the road at any given time.

    The autonomous ride-hailing service offered by Cruise and Waymo allows users to request a ride similar to Uber or Lyft. There is a difference, of course: The car has no driver.

    Members of the public packed the commission’s San Francisco headquarters to share their thoughts with state commissioners in one-minute increments during the meeting. Critics pointed to driverless cars freezing in traffic and blocking first responders, while advocates said they felt the cars drove more defensively than human drivers.

    Although the decision ultimately laid in the hands of state regulators, who delayed the vote twice, local officials also expressed their dissent.

    The San Francisco Police Officers Association, San Francisco Deputy Sheriffs’ Association and the San Francisco Fire Fighters Local 798 all wrote letters to the CPUC in the week leading up to the originally scheduled vote on June 29. Each expressed concerns that autonomous vehicles could impede emergency responders.

    “The time that it takes for an officer or any other public safety employee to try and interact with an autonomous vehicle is frustrating in the best-case scenario, but when they can not comprehend our demands to move to the side of the roadway and are stopped in the middle of the roadway blocking emergency response units, then it rises to another level of danger,” wrote Tracy McCray, president of the San Francisco Police Officers Association in June, “and that is unacceptable.”

    The San Francisco Fire Department has recorded 55 incidents of driverless vehicles interfering with their emergency responses in 2023 as of Wednesday, the department confirmed to CNN.

    In one incident reported by the department on Saturday, a Waymo car pulled up between a car on fire and the fire truck aiming to put it out.

    Other instances include robotaxis driving through yellow tape into the scene of a shooting, blocking firehouse driveways such that a fire truck farther away had to respond to the scene, and requiring firefighters to reroute, according to Fire Chief Jeanine Nicholson.

    “It should not be up to my people to have to move their vehicle out of the way when we’re responding to one of our 160,000 calls,” Nicholson told CNN in June.

    Robotaxi companies have often touted their safety records. Out of 3 million driverless miles, a Cruise car has not been involved in a single fatality or life-threatening injury, according to the company. In a February review of its first million driverless miles, Waymo said their cars caused no reported injuries and that 55% of all contact events were the result of a human driver hitting a stationary Waymo vehicle.

    2022 was the worst year on record for traffic fatalities in San Francisco since 2014, according to city data. Cruise said that when benchmarked against human drivers in comparable driving environments, its vehicles were involved in 54% fewer collisions overall.

    The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency said in a California Public Utilities Commission meeting on Monday that it had logged almost 600 incidents involving autonomous vehicles since the technology first launched in San Francisco. The agency said they believe this is “a fraction” of actual incidents due to what they allege is a lack of data transparency.

    Genevieve Shiroma, the dissenting commissioner in the 3-1 vote, recommended the commission delay the vote until they received a “better understanding of the safety impacts” of the vehicles.

    “First responders should not be prevented from doing their job. The fact that an injury or fatality has not occurred yet is not the end of the inquiry,” Shiroma said. “The commission needs a better explanation regarding why these events occur.”

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  • House Judiciary Committee expected to launch inquiry into Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis | CNN Politics

    House Judiciary Committee expected to launch inquiry into Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee is expected to open a congressional investigation into Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis as soon as Thursday, a source tells CNN – the same day former President Donald Trump is slated to surrender at the county jail after being charged for participating in schemes to meddle with Georgia’s 2020 election results.

    The committee is expected to ask Willis whether she was coordinating with the Justice Department, which has indicted Trump twice in two separate cases, or used federal dollars to complete her investigation that culminated in the fourth indictment of Trump, the source added. The anticipated questions from Republicans about whether Willis used federal funding in her state-level investigation mirrors the same line of inquiry that Republicans used to probe Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who indicted Trump in New York for falsifying business records to cover up an alleged hush money scheme.

    Meanwhile, Georgia Republicans could launch their own state-level investigation into Willis’ probe, according to GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who has spoken to top officials in the state about a potential probe. She has also been pushing for a congressional-led inquiry into Willis, who has previously dismissed GOP accusations accusing her of being partisan and consistently defended her investigation.

    “I’m going to be talking to (House Judiciary Chair) Jim Jordan, (House Oversight Chair) Jamie Comer, and I’d like to also ask (Speaker) Kevin McCarthy his thoughts on looking at doing an investigation if there is a collaboration or conspiracy of any kind between the Department of Justice and Jack Smith’s special counsel’s office with the state DA’s,” Greene told CNN. “So, I think that could be a place of oversight.”

    It all amounts to a familiar playbook for House Republicans, who have been quick to try to use their congressional majority – which includes the ability to launch investigations, issue subpoenas and restrict funding – to defend the former president and offer up some counter programming amid his mounting legal battles. But they’ve also run into some resistance in their extraordinary efforts to intervene in ongoing criminal matters, while there are questions about what jurisdiction they have over state-level investigations.

    As their target list on behalf of Trump grows, House Republicans are also cranking up the heat on their own investigations into the Biden family.

    Just this week, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy vowed to move ahead with an impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden after the House returns from August recess if the Biden administration does not turn over more documents and information related to the Republican led investigations related to Hunter Biden – the strongest sign yet that House Republicans are poised to launch an impeachment inquiry of the president.

    A McCarthy spokesperson did not respond to CNN’s request for comment to elaborate on the speaker’s remark that opening an impeachment inquiry hinged on whether committees received the “bank statements, the credit card statements and other” documents they were asking for.

    House Oversight chair James Comer has subpoenaed six banks for information regarding specific Biden family business associates, received testimony from Hunter Biden’s associates and reviewed hundreds of suspicious activity reports related to the Biden family at the Treasury Department. The Kentucky Republican has not yet subpoenaed bank records from Biden family members themselves. He boasted in June on Fox Business that “every subpoena that I have signed as chairman of the House Oversight Committee over the last five months, we’ve gotten 100% of what we’ve requested, whether it’s with the FBI, or with banks, or with Treasury.”

    The House Judiciary chair, GOP Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, just subpoenaed four individuals involved in the Hunter Biden criminal probe and has requested a number of documents and interviews pertaining to special counsel David Weiss’ ongoing criminal investigation.

    There is still some skepticism among more moderate Republicans, however, about whether they should be trying to intervene in ongoing investigations and whether an impeachment inquiry is warranted.

    Behind the scenes, members of the House Judiciary panel, who would help oversee an impeachment inquiry, have recently been discussing how all signs are pointing towards the House launching one in short order.

    “We had even some of our more moderate members saying that the oversight wasn’t serious if the next step wasn’t an impeachment inquiry,” Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, a top Trump surrogate and Judiciary panel member, told CNN about a recent committee call. “There was great interest among my Judiciary colleagues to really include and involve everyone in the conference. There’s a real desire to get everyone on board and go through the evidence with those who might remain skeptical.”

    Trump’s allies have called for Congress to expunge Trump’s two previous impeachments, a move that has sparked pushback by many even among House Republicans.

    Greene, who spoke with McCarthy on Tuesday, said she doesn’t think the votes are there yet for expunging Trump’s previous two impeachments, even as the former president continues to promote the idea on Truth Social. But she said, “I think the impeachment inquiry looks very, very good.”

    “He is spending the recess talking about it constantly,” Greene added of McCarthy. “I really feel strongly that that’s something that’s going to happen.”

    Even before Trump’s indictment in Fulton County his congressional allies were laying the groundwork to take aim at Willis and broader election laws.

    GOP Rep. Russell Fry of South Carolina introduced a longshot bill earlier this year to give current and former presidents and vice presidents the ability to move their civil or criminal cases from a state court to a federal court as the investigation in Fulton County was ongoing. Fry introduced the bill shortly after Trump was indicted by Bragg on more than 30 counts related to business fraud.

    The Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over Fry’s bill, is examining ways to move this bill forward and schedule a markup, two sources familiar with the process told CNN.

    Fry, who tweeted shortly after the Fulton County indictment that the outcome underscores the need for his bill, said in a statement to CNN, “these rogue prosecutors shouldn’t be able to wield unwarranted power and target our nation’s top leaders for their political agendas.”

    Separately, the House Committee on Administration has been working on a conservative election integrity package that Republicans are calling “transformative,” but Democrats frame as “designed to appease extremist election deniers.”

    Republicans argue the bill gives states the tools to strengthen voter integrity, implement selection reforms in Washington, DC, and protects conservatives’ political speech. Democrats, meanwhile, contest the legislation attacks the freedom to vote, burdens election workers and creates less transparency in elections.

    One of the nine hearings that Republicans held on the bill, which recently passed out of committee and is ready for a floor vote in the House, was held last month in Atlanta.

    The top Democrat on the panel, Rep. Joe Morelle of New York, accused Republicans of playing defense for Trump through the field hearing, which Republicans have said was not the case.

    “One might ask, why are we here in Georgia? The answer is simple. We’re here because in 2020, Joe Biden won and Donald Trump lost. There was no widespread voter fraud in Georgia, there were no suitcases full of fake ballots, no voting machines changed any votes. In fact, we know of only one possible crime that took place, because it was recorded on tape,” Morelle said.

    Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have also accused their Republican counterparts of coinciding the release of key interview transcripts with days consumed by Trump’s legal woes, according to a recent memo released by Democratic committee staff.

    An Oversight Committee spokesperson said in a statement to CNN, “to be clear, there was absolutely no connection between the transcript releases and anything else covered in the news.”

    The types of moves Republicans made on behalf of Trump in the wake of the Fulton County indictment are not necessarily new. After Trump was indicted by the Department of Justice in two separate cases, Greene called for Congress to defund Smith’s office, who is overseeing the two federal indictment cases, and House Freedom Caucus members issued a statement Monday that they would not support even a short-term government spending bill that does not address what they see as the weaponization of the Department of Justice.

    Gaetz recently introduced a resolution to censure and condemn the judge presiding over Trump’s federal indictment in the 2020 election subversion case.

    Despite the partisan back and forth, Trump’s Capitol Hill allies remain unfazed. But, not all Republicans have bought into the Trump defensive strategy.

    “Nobody is paying attention other than the people who are obsessed with Trump,” a senior Republican lawmaker told CNN.

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  • DeSantis faces new leadership test as Hurricane Idalia barrels toward Florida | CNN Politics

    DeSantis faces new leadership test as Hurricane Idalia barrels toward Florida | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    With the eyes of the country on Hurricane Idalia as it spins toward Florida’s Gulf Coast, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential ambitions are also under the spotlight as he puts his campaign on hold to manage the crisis at home.

    DeSantis flew back to Tallahassee from Iowa on Saturday night and has since appeared regularly on Florida televisions with updates on Idalia’s path and state efforts to prepare for the approaching storm. From behind a lectern with the state seal, the Republican governor has matter-of-factly shared logistics and warnings.

    The coming days will present a range of tests for DeSantis to navigate during a critical juncture in his governorship and White House bid. His stewardship of the hurricane response and recovery efforts will be closely scrutinized by his political opponents and Republican voters, watching whether he can lead through difficult moments, comfort the aggrieved and learn from the lessons of past storms.

    It is not clear when DeSantis will return to the campaign trail. In a text message to supporters, his campaign said it would go dark for a few days, adding: “Before we sign off, can we ask you to chip in any amount you can to support our end-of-month fundraising push?”

    For his part, DeSantis said he will be in Florida for as long as necessary.

    “You do what you need to do,” DeSantis said Tuesday. “So that’s what we’re doing. It’s going to be no different than what we did during Hurricane Ian [last year]. I’m hoping that this storm is not as catastrophic as Hurricane Ian was, but we’re gonna do what we need to do because it’s just something that’s important.”

    While no Florida executive would publicly suggest a hurricane is an opportunity to showcase leadership chops, past storms have certainly tested governors and forged their legacies. DeSantis’ predecessor, Republican Rick Scott, dealt with Hurricane Michael just weeks before the 2018 election, when he was running for US Senate against incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson. Scott leaned into managing the crisis with gusto and ultimately won his race in a recount.

    Perhaps no one did more to solidify their standing among Floridians during such disasters as former GOP Gov. Jeb Bush, whose handling of eight hurricanes during a deadly two-year stretch of tropical weather is still remembered by those who experienced the devastation. One of those hurricanes, Katrina, forever altered perceptions of the presidency of Bush’s older brother, George W. Bush, showcasing how storms can also plunge an executive into crisis.

    Those past Florida governors, though, were not running for president. Rarely have incumbent state executives faced a disaster of Idalia’s potential magnitude in the throes of a White House bid.

    The most notable recent exception is Republican Chris Christie, who as New Jersey governor in 2016 returned to his home state to manage a blizzard amid criticism for putting the presidential race ahead of his elected duties. At the time, Christie was campaigning in New Hampshire, which was just weeks away from holding the first-in-the-nation primary. Christie is once again running for the GOP nomination.

    “I don’t think any presidential candidate wants to be taken off the campaign trail. But you can’t ignore your day job,” said Alex Conant, a senior adviser to Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign. “Insufficient responses to storms have ended political careers. Every governor takes the threat of a hurricane seriously because if the response is mishandled, not only are lives at stake, but there’s political fallout.”

    In the past 24 hours, DeSantis’ team has signaled it would not shy away from showcasing the governor’s storm response to Republican voters. His aides have shared posts on social media of people praising DeSantis’ activity so far, with his office press secretary writing on X, “Find you a leader that shows up like @GovRonDeSantis.” In a memo sent Tuesday, DeSantis spokesman Andrew Romeo wrote that DeSantis is “now at the helm of Florida’s hurricane response and is working with local officials across the state to do everything necessary to ensure Florida is fully prepared.”

    “This is the strong leadership in times of crisis that Americans can expect from a President DeSantis,” Romeo added.

    Just as he did last year, when Hurricane Ian slammed into Florida amid his race for reelection, DeSantis has vowed to put partisan politics aside for the time being. Though a regular critic of President Joe Biden – including over the Democrat’s response to the Maui wildfires – DeSantis said he has spoken with the president and expects the two administrations to work in concert toward Florida’s recovery.

    “There’s time and a place to have political season, but then there’s a time and a place to say that this is something that’s life-threatening. This is something that could potentially cost somebody their life, it could cost them their livelihood, and we have responsibility as Americans to come together,” DeSantis said Monday.

    (Coming off the devastation in Hawaii, Biden is facing a separate range of questions about his administration’s response to yet another natural catastrophe.)

    DeSantis’ departure from the campaign trail comes just days after the first GOP presidential debate at a moment when his team believes voters are starting to tune into the race. He is trailing Donald Trump in GOP primary polling but is aggressively challenging the former president in early nominating states.

    The Florida governor is also staving off a field of GOP contenders, who must now also balance sensitivities around Hurricane Idalia with their attempts to overcome DeSantis in the polls.

    “DeSantis is going to get a breather in terms of attacks,” said Todd Belt, director of the political management program at George Washington University and author of “The Post-Heroic Presidency.”

    “This is similar to what we see in the rally-around-the-flag phenomena,” Belt said. “When there’s something that affects the country more generally, the other party ceases attacks on the incumbent party. It helps in the polls, at least temporarily. It would look really bad for other Republicans to criticize DeSantis during this time, and the question is how long will they wait? It’s worth noting that Florida is an extremely important electoral state.”

    Storm response has already become part of DeSantis’ pitch to voters. On the campaign trail, he has often shared the story of the swift reopening of two bridges destroyed by Hurricane Ian as evidence of his executive management. DeSantis has also asserted that he could send his “Florida people” to the southern border to build a wall.

    “Come on, Joe (Biden),” he said earlier this year. “Let us get it done. We’ll do it.”

    But Ian also generated some negative attention for DeSantis. Images of the governor wearing white rain boots and campaign gear as he surveyed storm-ravaged regions provided fodder for his political detractors and were spread widely on social media by Democrats and Trump supporters.

    DeSantis was also forced to defend the late local evacuation orders last year that left many coastal residents in Lee County unprepared for Ian’s deadly turn, despite the persistent threat of cataclysmic storm surge.

    Though DeSantis said this week that the state has not changed its evacuation protocols, he and state officials have emphasized that Idalia could bring dangerous storm surge all along Florida’s west coast, even outside the projected path of the storm. This year, he has spent time warning residents who are outside the forecasted “cone” – or the probable track of the center of the storm.

    Idalia is forecast to make landfall near Florida’s Big Bend area as a Category 3 hurricane or stronger, potentially bringing record storm surge to a part of the state’s west coast that has not experienced a storm of this magnitude in more than 150 years.

    While the storm is perhaps an opportunity for DeSantis to show strength in mobilizing his administration to respond to a storm, the expected devastation also has the potential to challenge DeSantis’ limitations as a consoler in chief, a role Biden has embraced during national tragedies.

    DeSantis’ capacity for compassion has already come under fire this week following his rushed response to Saturday’s killing of three Black people by a White gunman in Jacksonville. His office on Saturday shared a video statement from DeSantis that seemed hastily shot in front of white vinyl siding in Iowa, during which he called the racially targeted attack “totally unacceptable.” The next day he attended a vigil for the victims where he called the shooter a “major league scumbag.”

    The tone of his remarks and his appearance at the vigil drew criticism from those who wanted DeSantis to acknowledge efforts by his administration to alter how Florida students learn about race and the lived experience of Black Americans.

    “A white man in his early twenties specifically went to kill BLACK PEOPLE,” Democratic state Rep. Angie Nixon, who represents Jacksonville and was photographed next to DeSantis at the vigil wearing a “Stand with Black Women” shirt, posted on X. “The governor of our state of Florida has created an environment ripe for this.”

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  • DeSantis pushes back on man who blamed him for Jacksonville shooting deaths: ‘That is nonsense’ | CNN Politics

    DeSantis pushes back on man who blamed him for Jacksonville shooting deaths: ‘That is nonsense’ | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis aggressively pushed back Thursday against a man who blamed him for the deaths in a racially motivated attack in Jacksonville last month.

    “I did not allow anything with that,” DeSantis – also a 2024 Republican presidential candidate – said to the man. “I’m not gonna let you accuse me of committing criminal activity. I’m not gonna take that.”

    DeSantis was taking questions Thursday morning following a news conference focused on his anti-Covid-19 mandate policies in light of an uptick in new cases. The man, who first thanked DeSantis for his military service, quickly moved to criticize him, saying the governor “allowed people to hunt people like me.”

    It is unclear from the taping of the news conference who the man is and if he represents any particular outlet or group.

    The Florida governor has eased gun restrictions in his state, including signing a bill that allows the carry of concealed weapons without a permit. And as he looks to secure the GOP presidential nomination next year, DeSantis has positioned himself as a more conservative alternative to Donald Trump on the issue of guns.

    The Jacksonville community is still reeling from the deadly rampage late last month that killed three Black people. On August 26, a White gunman first went to a historically Black university before open firing at a Dollar General a few minutes later using two, legally purchased firearms, CNN previously reported.

    DeSantis condemned the attack at a vigil the following day, adding, “We are not going to let people be targeted based on their race.” He pledged state funds to the community and the university.

    But the man pointed to the state’s relaxed gun policies, telling the Florida governor that he is “one of the Americans who does not agree” with all of the policies he’s enacted and that he has “allowed weapons to be put on the streets” that led to people’s deaths including the recent Jacksonville shooting.

    “That is nonsense, that is such nonsense,” DeSantis said animatedly. “We’ve done more to support law enforcement in this state than anybody throughout the United States.”

    “The notion that we’re not supportive of safety is absurd,” he added.

    As the large pool of GOP presidential hopefuls look to ramp up their campaign following Labor Day, DeSantis is nearly 30 percentage points behind Trump and the governor’s backing has dipped by 8 points since June, a recent CNN poll showed.

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  • Trump asks judge to dismiss Georgia election subversion charges against him | CNN Politics

    Trump asks judge to dismiss Georgia election subversion charges against him | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump is asking a court to dismiss several criminal charges against him in the Georgia 2020 election interference case.

    His filings on Monday are Trump’s opening salvo of legal arguments to challenge the state-level charges.

    The filings indicate Trump wants to adopt the legal arguments his racketeering co-defendants Rudy Giuliani, Kenneth Chesebro and Ray Smith have already made in court filings.

    Giuliani filed his challenge Friday, asking Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee to toss his indictment due to “deficiencies,” his lawyers argued, that render it invalid. Chesebro, the pro-Trump lawyer who devised the “fake electors” scheme, filed a similar challenge last month that argued the indictment “fails to sufficiently set out the charge or any violation of the law.”

    Smith, an attorney for Trump’s 2020 campaign in Georgia, filed his extensive motion challenging the indictment also on Monday, arguing that the indictment had “voluminous” defects and that the state failed to meet the racketeering statute.

    Motions like these are common at the start of a criminal case, and they are rarely successful.

    The former president is asking for the state charges to be tossed even as he has indicated in court filings that he may ask for the case to be moved to federal court, where he can try to invoke protections for federal officials.

    Trump faces 13 counts – including racketeering, conspiracy charges and soliciting a public official to violate their oath of office – in the sprawling indictment brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis last month against him and 18 co-defendants for their roles in attempting to reverse Georgia’s 2020 election results. All 19 defendants – including Trump, Giuliani, Chesebro and Smith – have pleaded not guilty in the case.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Donald Trump is testing the resilience of Iowa’s evangelical voters | CNN Politics

    Donald Trump is testing the resilience of Iowa’s evangelical voters | CNN Politics

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    Des Moines, Iowa
    CNN
     — 

    Donald Trump is testing the resilience of his evangelical support in Iowa, a key constituency that could solidify – or slow – his march to the Republican presidential nomination.

    The former president’s latest comments on abortion, in which he called Florida’s six-week ban a “terrible mistake” and declined to offer a clear view on a federal ban, are being closely scrutinized by his rivals and Christian conservatives, a crucial GOP voting bloc in Iowa.

    “For evangelicals, there are probably four issues that matter. Life is usually right at the top,” said Mike Demastus, pastor of the Fort Des Moines Church of Christ. “Most people, the way they evaluate presidential elections, is what the gas price is. But for an evangelical? No.”

    Less than four months before the Iowa caucuses open the Republican nominating contest, nuances on abortion policy will be at the center of conversation here among faith leaders like Demastus, who has met with most of the GOP candidates.

    He expressed concern over Trump’s remarks on abortion since the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. But he also acknowledged that Trump’s key role in the decision – appointing three of the six justices who voted with the majority – helps the former president keep evangelical voters in his corner, at least for now.

    “The fact that Trump is leading in polls – he is – but you can’t take it for granted. There’s so many unknowns with Trump right now,” Demastus said in an interview. “There’s a loyalty with Trump, and people that follow him. You can’t just peel that away from some, but I think many people in the evangelical community right now are willing to hear from other people.”

    Whether Iowa Republicans are willing to hear from – or actually vote for – one of Trump’s many challengers is an open question. The answer could rest inside Iowa churches, where candidates are going to great lengths to win over evangelicals, who in 2016 comprised nearly two-thirds of all GOP caucus attendees.

    “They are very appreciative of the former president, but they are exhausted as well,” said Bob Vander Plaats, president of influential Christian group The Family Leader. “Iowa is tailor-made to upend Trump. If he loses Iowa, there’s a competitive nomination process. If he wins Iowa, I think it’s over.”

    The Iowa caucuses, in effect, have become a furious race for second place.

    While Vander Plaats has been a leading Trump critic, his assessment of the Iowa caucuses is shared by allies of the former president, who plans to step up his Iowa appearances for the rest of the year. Starting with a visit to Dubuque on Wednesday, the Trump campaign is intensifying its focus here in hopes of “squeezing off the oxygen” for other rivals, a Trump adviser told CNN.

    The pursuit of evangelical voters is a top priority for most candidates, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who bowed his head as he stood at the center of a prayer circle during a weekend stop at the Fort Des Moines Church of Christ.

    “Our rights are endowed by God,” DeSantis told those assembled in the sanctuary. “They do not come from the government.”

    The Florida governor leaned into the abortion debate Monday, seizing on Trump’s comments and offering a warning to voters during an interview with Radio Iowa: “I think all pro-lifers should know that he’s preparing to sell you out.”

    South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott called out his rivals by name Monday night at a town hall in Mason City, Iowa, telling voters which GOP contenders did not support a federal abortion ban. “I will use my entire presidency fighting for a 15-week limit,” he said.

    Scott also has long been highlighting his faith, often weaving in Bible verses on the campaign trail and in his television ads. Former Vice President Mike Pence frequently talks about his religious awakening and his support for a federal abortion ban after 15 weeks of pregnancy, as a minimum.

    Trump was the only major presidential candidate to bypass the annual Faith and Freedom Coalition’s fall banquet this past weekend in Des Moines, but Rebekah Gerling proudly wore a Trump sticker as she walked through the convention center. She said she supports the former president as strongly as she ever has.

    “I love everything that he stands for,” Gerling said. “He’s willing to stand up for other people who do love God and believe.”

    When Gerling was asked whether she was troubled by the criminal indictments the former president is facing, her friend, Theresa Gibson, also wearing a Trump sticker, jumped in before she could answer, calling the charges “false accusations.”

    “They’re just going after him because he’s the front-runner,” Gibson said, “and he’s very highly supported.”

    Sally Hofmann, a Republican voter who said faith drives many of her decisions, credits Trump for his appointments to the Supreme Court. But she said she is open to supporting another candidate when she walks into her neighborhood caucus in January.

    “I like a lot of what Trump has done in office, but his personality concerns me a little bit,” Hofmann said. “I like what Nikki Haley is doing. I like DeSantis too. I’m in that range.”

    She said some of her friends and her daughter are concerned about Trump’s rhetoric and conduct. She said it bothers her too, but she’s willing to look beyond it if necessary.

    “Like I told my daughter, if I go to a doctor, and that doctor is such a good doctor to evaluate and treat my issue but doesn’t have the personality that I’m most comfortable with, I’ll still go to that doctor,” Hofmann said. “So that’s the way I look at Trump.”

    Inside the Fort Des Moines Church of Christ, where Demastus has preached for more than two decades, he explained how he came around to Trump in the first place. He supported Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas in 2016 and was suspicious of Trump’s intentions before he took office.

    “He started to do what he said he would do,” Demastus said. “I said some pretty harsh things about him at the time, but let me be clear: He won me over. He won me over because he was consistent.”

    For now, Demastus echoes the sentiment of many other faith leaders, saying he is undecided, waiting and watching as the Republican presidential primary unfolds. He believes the indictments against Trump are politically motivated but worries they could weaken his chances in the general election.

    “With all the litigation that’s going on, what’s going to happen? Is he going to receive a felony conviction or not?” Demastus said, ticking through a list of uncertainties hanging over the race. “I think that’s why a lot of these candidates are still in it.”

    This story has been updated with additional reaction.

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  • 26-year-old tech CEO found dead in Baltimore with signs of blunt-force trauma | CNN Business

    26-year-old tech CEO found dead in Baltimore with signs of blunt-force trauma | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    The Baltimore Police Department has announced an arrest warrant for a suspect wanted for the murder of Pava LaPere, the 26-year-old CEO of startup EcoMap Technologies, who was found dead in a downtown Baltimore apartment Monday with signs of blunt-force trauma to her head.

    Police are looking for 32-year-old Jason Dean Billingsley, Acting Police Commissioner Richard Worley said during a news conference Tuesday.

    Officers responded to a call for service at an apartment complex in the 300 block of West Franklin Street at around 11:34 a.m. Monday, according to Baltimore police. Upon arriving, the officers found LaPere with severe injuries to her head. Police have not released any further information on her death.

    The medical examiner’s office took possession of the body, and an examination is pending, police said.

    Billingsley is wanted for first-degree murder, assault, reckless endangerment and additional charges. He should be considered armed and dangerous, police said.

    “This individual will kill and he will rape. He will do anything he can to cause harm,” Worley warned.

    Baltimore police said they do not believe LaPere and Billingsley knew each other.

    The police did not say how they identified Billingsley as a suspect.

    In a message to Billingsley, Worley urged him to turn himself in. “We will find you, so I would ask you to turn yourself in to any officer, any police station,” he said.

    EcoMap was founded by LaPere and Sherrod Davis while LaPere was a 21-year-old college student at Johns Hopkins, according to EcoMap’s website. With just over 30 employees, the startup is part of the artificial intelligence wave. It sells AI tools, including a customizable chatbot, that aim to make clients’ information easier to access and customer communications more seamless, the company says.

    The company confirmed LaPere’s passing to CNN.

    “With profound sadness and shock, EcoMap announces the tragic and untimely passing of our beloved Founder and CEO, Pava LaPere,” EcoMap said in a statement. “The circumstances surrounding Pava’s death are deeply distressing, and our deepest condolences are with her family, friends, and loved ones during this incredibly devastating time.”

    In August, the company said it had reached nearly $8 million in financing.

    Earlier this year, LaPere was named on the Forbes 30 under 30 list in the social impact category.

    “Pava was not only the visionary force behind EcoMap but was also a deeply compassionate and dedicated leader. Her untiring commitment to our company, to Baltimore, to amplifying the critical work of ecosystems across the country, and to building a deeply inclusive culture as a leader, friend, and partner set a standard for leadership, and her legacy will live on through the work we continue to do,” the company said.

    The CEO of Baltimore-based company Fearless, Delali Dzirasa, served as a mentor to LaPere and remembers her as being a determined leader who was highly regarded across the community.

    “There is no person on planet Earth that could tell Pava that she couldn’t do something,” Dzirasa said. “Even though she was a force, she always made space for other people,” he told CNN.

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  • Illinois Supreme Court upholds state’s assault-style weapons ban | CNN Politics

    Illinois Supreme Court upholds state’s assault-style weapons ban | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The Illinois Supreme Court on Friday upheld the state’s assault-style weapons ban in a 4-3 ruling after months of legal challenges sought to dismantle the law.

    State lawmakers in January passed, and Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed into law, a measure to ban assault-style rifles and high-capacity magazines. Those who already own such rifles face limitations on their sale and transfer and must register them with the Illinois State Police by 2024.

    That law – which came about six months after the July 2022 Highland Park, Illinois, shooting – faced immediate lawsuits in state and federal court that argued it violated the Illinois and US constitutions.

    A Macon County Circuit Court judge found earlier this year that exemptions to the law, including for law enforcement officers and armed guards at federally supervised nuclear sites, violated the equal protection clause of the state’s constitution.

    The Illinois Supreme Court agreed to fast-track the state’s appeal, and in a 20-page opinion, reversed the circuit court’s judgment. The majority’s opinion claimed to focus on two core issues brought by the plaintiffs: Whether the law violated the plaintiffs’ right to equal protection and if it constituted special legislation that created laws for some firearms owners and not others. The majority opinion notably did not decide if the ban violated the Second Amendment, asserting that the plaintiffs had waived this issue.

    “We express no opinion on the potential viability of plaintiffs’ waived claim concerning the Second Amendment,” they wrote.

    However, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, Jerry Stocks, told CNN the majority justices misrepresented their arguments. Stocks said the Second Amendment is a fundamental right inextricably linked to their arguments and thus should have weighed heavily on scrutiny of the ban. Ignoring the issue altogether was improper, he said.

    “We have a circus in Illinois and the clowns are in charge right now,” Stocks said.

    Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul said the new law is a “critical part” of the state’s efforts to combat gun violence, and Pritzker’s office hailed the decision to uphold “a commonsense gun reform law to keep mass-killing machines off of our streets and out of our schools, malls, parks, and places of worship.”

    Nancy Rotering, the Democratic mayor of Highland Park, called on Congress to act on tougher federal restrictions and said Friday’s decision “sends a message to residents that saving lives takes precedence over thoughts and prayers and acknowledges the importance of sensible gun control measures.”

    Illinois has struggled to restrict the flow of illegal guns, particularly in Chicago, while officials in the state have faced legal hurdles to implementing new gun restrictions.

    Despite gun rights advocates challenging the assault-style weapons ban and asking the US Supreme Court to block the ban – along with a city ordinance passed last year by Naperville, Illinois, that bans the sale of assault rifles – the US Supreme Court in May refused to intervene.

    This story has been updated with additional details.

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  • Read: Georgia special grand jury report on Trump’s election interference | CNN Politics

    Read: Georgia special grand jury report on Trump’s election interference | CNN Politics

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    A Georgia state judge released the full final report Friday morning of the special grand jury that investigated Donald Trump and his allies’ attempts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia.

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  • Landmark Google trial opens with sweeping DOJ accusations of illegal monopolization | CNN Business

    Landmark Google trial opens with sweeping DOJ accusations of illegal monopolization | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    US prosecutors opened a landmark antitrust trial against Google on Tuesday with sweeping allegations that for years the company intentionally stifled competition challenging its massive search engine, accusing the tech giant of spending billions to operate an illegal monopoly that has harmed every computer and mobile device user in the United States.

    In opening remarks before a federal judge in Washington, lawyers for the Justice Department alleged that Google’s negotiation of exclusive contracts with wireless carriers and phone makers helped cement its dominant position in violation of US antitrust law.

    The Google case has been described as one of the largest US antitrust trials since the federal government took on Microsoft in the 1990s, and involves some similar arguments about the tying of multiple proprietary products. The multi-week trial is expected to feature witness testimony from Google CEO Sundar Pichai, as well as other senior executives or former employees from Google, Apple, Microsoft and Samsung.

    The effects of Google’s alleged misconduct are vast, DOJ lawyer Kenneth Dintzer told the court.

    “This case is about the future of the internet, and whether Google’s search engine will ever face meaningful competition,” Dintzer said, adding that Google pays more than $10 billion a year to Apple and other companies to ensure that Google is the default or only search engine available on browsers and mobile devices used by millions.

    Also anticompetitive, the Justice Department said, are Google’s contracts to ensure that Android devices come with Google apps and services — including Google search — preinstalled.

    The deals guarantee a steady flow of user data to Google that further reinforces its monopoly, the US government said, leading to other consequences such as harms to consumer privacy and higher advertising prices.

    “This feedback loop, this wheel has been turning for 12 years, and it always turns to Google’s advantage,” Dintzer said. The practice ultimately affects what consumers see in search results and prevents new rivals from gaining scale and market share, he added.

    For Google’s opening statement, attorney John Schmidtlein said that Apple’s decision to make Google the default search engine in its Safari browser demonstrates how Google’s search engine is the superior product consumers prefer.

    “Apple repeatedly chose Google as the default because Apple believed it was the best experience for its users,” he said.

    The Google case “could not be more different” from the historic Microsoft litigation at the turn of the millennium, Schmidtlein continued.

    Where the Microsoft case revolved around that company’s alleged harms to Netscape, a small browser maker, the Google case is based on claims that Google search has harmed a much larger and more powerful entity: Microsoft and its Bing search engine, Schmidtlein said.

    “Google competed on the merits to win preinstallation and default status” on consumer devices and browsers, he insisted, attacking Microsoft as a failed search engine developer.

    “The evidence will show that Microsoft’s Bing search engine failed to win customers because Microsoft did not invest [and] did not innovate,” Schmidtlein added. “At every critical juncture, the evidence will show that they were beaten in the market.”

    And Schmidtlein argued that forbidding Google from being able to compete for default status on browsers and devices would lead to its own harms to competition in search, stating that contracts ensuring that Android devices come with certain apps preinstalled such as Google Maps and Gmail also promotes competition — against Apple.

    “Google’s Android agreements are important components of a business model that has sustained the most important competitor to Apple for mobile devices in the United States,” Schmidtlein said.

    Google has previously said that consumers choose Google’s search engine because it is the best and that they prefer it, not because of anticompetitive practices.

    But DOJ prosecutors said Tuesday that they plan to present evidence in the case that Google knew what it was doing was illegal and that the company “hid and destroyed documents because they knew they were violating the antitrust laws.”

    “The harm from Google contracts affects every phone and computer in the country,” Dintzer said.

    Kent Walker, Google’s president of global affairs, and Rep. Ken Buck from Colorado were in attendance for the opening. Buck, a vocal tech industry critic, is the former top Republican on the House antitrust subcommittee — which in 2020 released a widely publicized investigative report finding that Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook enjoyed “monopoly power.”

    Kent Walker, President of Global Affairs and Chief legal officer of Alphabet Inc., arrives at federal court on September 12, 2023 in Washington, DC. Google will defend its default-search deals in an antitrust trial against the U.S. Justice Department which begins today.

    The trial marks the culmination of two ongoing lawsuits against Google that started during the Trump administration.

    In separate complaints, the Justice Department and dozens of states accused Google in 2020 of abusing its dominance in online search but were eventually consolidated into a single case.

    Google’s search business provides more than half of the $283 billion in revenue and $76 billion in net income Google’s parent company, Alphabet, recorded in 2022. Search has fueled the company’s growth to a more than $1.7 trillion market capitalization.

    “This is a backwards-looking case at a time of unprecedented innovation,” said Walker in a statement, “including breakthroughs in AI, new apps and new services, all of which are creating more competition and more options for people than ever before. People don’t use Google because they have to — they use it because they want to. It’s easy to switch your default search engine — we’re long past the era of dial-up internet and CD-ROMs.”

    The trial may also be a bellwether for the more assertive antitrust agenda of the Biden administration.

    At the time the lawsuit was first filed, US antitrust officials did not rule out the possibility of a Google breakup, warning that Google’s behavior could threaten future innovation or the rise of a Google successor.

    Separately, a group of states, led by Colorado, made additional allegations against Google, claiming that the way Google structures its search results page harms competition by prioritizing the company’s own apps and services over web pages, links, reviews and content from other third-party sites.

    But the judge overseeing the case, Judge Amit Mehta in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, tossed out those claims in a ruling last month, narrowing the scope of allegations Google must defend and saying the states had not done enough to show a trial was necessary to determine whether Google’s search results rankings were anticompetitive.

    Despite that ruling, the trial represents the US government’s furthest progress in challenging Google to date. Mehta has said Google’s pole position among search engines on browsers and smartphones “is a hotly disputed issue” and that the trial will determine “whether, as a matter of actual market reality, Google’s position as the default search engine across multiple browsers is a form of exclusionary Conduct.”

    In January, meanwhile, the Biden administration launched another antitrust suit against Google in opposition to the company’s advertising technology business, accusing it of maintaining an illegal monopoly. That case remains in its early stages at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

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