Trump arrives at courthouse to face new charges

Former President Donald Trump arrived at the federal courthouse in Washington Thursday to be processed by authorities ahead of his arraignment on charges that he sought to derail the transfer of presidential power in 2020.

Trump was expected to plead not guilty to four felony charges stemming from his months-long bid to seize a second term despite losing the election to President Joe Biden. The charges, brought by special counsel Jack Smith and approved by a federal grand jury earlier this week, are: conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to deprive Americans of the right to a fair election process; conspiracy to obstruct Congress’ proceedings on Jan. 6, 2021; and the carrying out of that obstruction effort.

Trump’s motorcade arrived at the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. courthouse around 3:15 p.m. after Trump flew to Washington from his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, earlier in the day. The courthouse is located across the street from the Capitol, where thousands of his supporters rioted two and a half years ago in what prosecutors say was the culmination of Trump's effort to subvert the election results.

On Thursday, pro-Trump sentiment was muted, with only a few stray Trump supporters demonstrating outside the courthouse under a gray, overcast sky.

After turning himself into authorities, Trump was expected to be booked as a criminal defendant and then appear briefly before Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya to enter a plea. Although Upadhyaya is presiding over the arraignment, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan has been assigned to handle the case and will likely preside over most future court appearances.

Trump attacked Chutkan in a social media post a few hours before he came to court, calling her “unfair.” Chutkan, an Obama appointee, ruled against Trump in 2021 when she allowed the House Jan. 6 select committee to access Trump’s White House records. Much of the evidence in those records has now resurfaced in the new indictment.

The arraignment is Trump’s third since April — an extraordinary sequence for a nation in which no president or former president had ever been indicted until Trump was indicted in three cases this year. As he mounts a bid to return to the White House, those three prosecutions seek to hold him criminally culpable for a diverse range of conduct that he undertook both during and after his presidency.

One case, brought by New York City prosecutors, accuses him of falsifying business records in connection with hush money payments to a porn star. Another, brought by the special counsel, accuses him of hoarding classified documents after he left the White House. And the newest case from Smith’s team accuses Trump of orchestrating a conspiracy to try to overturn the 2020 election.

He may soon face yet another criminal case in Fulton County, Georgia, where District Attorney Fani Willis expects to announce charges soon in her investigation into election interference in that state.

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It’s not just the Trudeaus: Politics is bad for marriage

OTTAWA, Ont. — Government towns can take down even the healthiest marriages.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, a storybook political power couple whose relationship was deeply ingrained in the Liberal Party's rise to power in 2015, jointly announced a legal separation Wednesday.

The three Trudeau kids will stay at Rideau Cottage, a secure residence that has housed the Trudeau brood for almost eight years. Their mom will live at a separate residence in Ottawa. The family will vacation together next week, and the parents will start co-parenting.

The consensus around Ottawa after the Trudeaus shared their news was something resembling a shrug. Basically: “Not my business, let's move on.”

But there was also a sense of acknowledgement among those who work in and around Parliament Hill — long hours and frayed nerves work against the vitality of most relationships.

The prime minister is not even the first member of his own Cabinet to endure a split. Plenty of his party caucus and other MPs in the House have watched marriages succumb to politics.

Hill culture invites disaster. Ninety-hour workweeks. More travel in a month than most people see in a year. Unpredictable schedules. Missed birthday parties. Job insecurity. Lonely nights in hotels and a cocktail circuit — with free drinks — just down the street.

Even when MPs get back home to their ridings, community barbecues, town halls, cultural events and constituents often come first.

And it's not only elected people. Small armies of overworked staffers, lobbyists and journalists log endless hours, miss out on their own family time and make the same evening rounds.

Many high-profile divorces manage to fly under the radar, evading the public eye.

Last June, Liberal MP Patrick Weiler claimed in the House of Commons that up to 85 percent of MPs experience divorce. Maclean's magazine reported the same rate in 2013 based on a Library of Parliament study.

The number of annual divorces in Canada have dropped in recent decades, according to the federal agency that tracks demographic trends. "In 2019, Canada had the second-lowest crude divorce rate among G-7 countries," Statistics Canada reported in 2022.

In an emotional speech at a parliamentary committee last fall, Cabinet minister Mark Holland said he was “in a really desperate spot” after losing his seat in the 2011 federal election.

"I had thrown my entire universe into this enterprise at the expense of, unfortunately, a lot of other things that I should have taken better care of," he told the committee, then considering the merits of hybrid Parliament that could offer lawmakers more flexibility to do their jobs — voting from home, for example.

"I was told that I was toxic. The Conservatives hated me. No organization would want to hire me. My marriage failed. As I mentioned, my space with my children was not in a good place. Most particularly, my career, my passion, the thing that I had believed so ardently in that was the purpose of my life, was in ashes at my feet."

Kevin Bosch, a managing partner at Sandstone Group and a longtime Liberal staffer, offers up one small fix for Ottawa's long hours and solitary lifestyle: Close shop on Fridays.

The House, Bosch tells POLITICO, could learn from the Senate of Canada, which sits three days a week. The skeleton crew of MPs and ministers who sit in the House on Fridays — a day when few items of consequence crack the agenda — are already watching seconds tick by before they can zip to the airport and fly home.

The Hill vet says the House should adjourn for the week on Thursdays.

Stephen Kelly, a Conservative staffer dating to the era of former prime minister Brian Mulroney, says he witnessed change for the better over the years.

"Families rarely moved to Ottawa. Housing allowances have made that a possibility,” he tweeted. “Eliminating routine night sittings helped. If you’re mindful of the need for balance, it’s possible to achieve it."

A laudable goal. But in a government town, a healthy balance between endless work and family life outside the fishbowl is more the exception than the rule — a casualty of politics that plenty of committee testimony insisted could be improved by remote voting and virtual committee attendance — features of a hybrid Parliament.

MPs in Canada's House of Commons voted in June to extend Covid-era hybrid rules until the next election.

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U.S. military may put armed troops on commercial ships in Strait of Hormuz to stop Iran seizures

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The U.S. military is considering putting armed personnel on commercial ships traveling through the Strait of Hormuz, in what would be an unheard of action aimed at stopping Iran from seizing and harassing civilian vessels, four American officials told The Associated Press on Thursday.

America didn’t even take the step during the “Tanker War,” which culminated with the U.S. Navy and Iran fighting a one-day naval battle in 1988 that was the Navy’s largest since World War II.

While officials offered few details of the plan, it comes as thousands of Marines and sailors on both the amphibious assault ship USS Bataan and the USS Carter Hall, a landing ship, are on their way to the Persian Gulf. Those Marines and sailors could provide the backbone for any armed guard mission in the strait, through which 20 percent of all the world’s crude oil passes.

Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the AP about the U.S. proposal.

Four U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the proposal, acknowledged its broad details. The officials stressed no final decision had been made and that discussions continue between U.S. military officials and America’s Gulf Arab allies in the region.

Officials said the Marines and Navy sailors would provide the security only at the request of the ships involved.

The Bataan and Carter Hall left Norfolk, Va., on July 10 on a mission the Pentagon described as being “in response to recent attempts by Iran to threaten the free flow of commerce in the Strait of Hormuz and its surrounding waters.” The Bataan passed through the Strait of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean Sea last week on its way to the Mideast.

Already, the U.S. has sent A-10 Thunderbolt II warplanes, F-16 and F-35 fighters, as well as the destroyer USS Thomas Hudner, to the region over Iran’s actions at sea.

The deployment has captured Iran’s attention, with its chief diplomat telling neighboring nations that the region doesn’t need “foreigners” providing security. On Wednesday, Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard launched a surprise military drill on disputed islands in the Persian Gulf, with swarms of small fast boats, paratroopers and missile units taking part.

The renewed hostilities come as Iran now enriches uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels after the collapse of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

The U.S. also has pursued ships across the world believed to be carrying sanctioned Iranian oil. Oil industry worries over another seizure by Iran likely has left a ship allegedly carrying Iranian oil stranded off Texas as no company has yet to unload it.

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New Jersey Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver's legacy: A progressive champion and 'ideal public servant'

Sheila Oliver rose out of local politics in the Democratic stronghold of Essex County to the height of power in New Jersey — often championing progressive causes later embraced by the state.

Oliver, who died this week at age 71, was the first Black woman Assembly speaker in state history and the second to lead a legislative chamber in the country before becoming Gov. Phil Murphy’s lieutenant governor. In that role she was the first Black woman in New Jersey to hold statewide elected office.

During her four years as speaker, from 2010 to 2014, she was perhaps the most powerful progressive in state government while Republican Gov. Chris Christie was governor and centrist Democrat Steve Sweeney was Senate president. As New Jersey's third most powerful elected official, Oliver helped steer the direction of the state — crafting budgets, determining what legislation did or did not get voted on and shaping committee assignments in her chamber.

At times, Oliver was the only woman in the room, said former Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg.

“She had to deal with what was sometimes a tough environment in New Jersey to be progressive and move issues forward when she was in that backroom,” Weinberg said. “She functioned in a difficult world and she did it with grace.”

While Oliver found common ground with the Christie-led front office — helping usher through landmark reforms on public worker pension and health benefits — she also pushed for causes that hit roadblocks with the Republican governor, such as a marriage equality law, increasing the minimum wage and restoring funding for Planned Parenthood. Those causes, however, would later come to fruition in the Murphy administration.

“Christie was trying to run us over, and she really held the Democratic Party line during that time,” said Michael Muller, who was then executive director for the Democratic Assembly Campaign Committee.

He remembers Oliver pushing back when Christie defunded Planned Parenthood. Even though she lost those fights — until Murphy took office and restored funding — she still took them on.

“She fought on principle because this was about the long view,” Muller said.

Oliver also nudged Muller to invest in burgeoning Democratic districts to help build the party and its bench of candidates. One of those pushes was a 2011 race in which Vin Gopal ran for Assembly. Gopal lost that race — but now he’s a state senator.

Bill Caruso, executive director of the Assembly Majority Office during much of Oliver’s time as speaker, remembered how Oliver pushed a “quixotic effort” for marriage equality legislation even as it awaited Christie’s veto.

Caruso, along with other marriage equality proponents, recalled an impassioned 12-minute speech Oliver gave on the Assembly floor where she called on her Assembly colleagues to fight against “one of the last legalized barriers to equal rights.”

“We were able to push that bill over [to the governor’s desk] because the speaker of the General Assembly said, ‘On this one, I'm stepping down as speaker and I want to speak on the bill,’” Jeannine LaRue, a longtime Trenton lobbyist, recalled in an interview.

The bill narrowly passed with 42 votes — and Christie promptly vetoed it.

Same-sex couples were allowed to marry in 2013 after the state Supreme Court declined to block a lower court’s ruling to allow same-sex marriages; the Christie administration dropped its appeal shortly after. Murphy formally codified gay marriage into law in early 2022.

Years before Murphy signed into law a gradual increase in the state’s hourly minimum wage to $15, Oliver fought to increase it to $8.50 and tie it to inflation. In the Assembly and as lieutenant governor, she opposed carve-outs to exclude raising the minimum wage to $15 for farmworkers, calling it “discriminatory.”

“Her work launched efforts that would then lead to New Jersey becoming one of the handful of states to raise the wage to $15 an hour,” Sara Cullinane, director of Make the Road New Jersey, which pushed for increasing the minimum wage, said in an interview. “She knew the impact that raising the wage could have on so many working class people of color in our state.”

Cullinane also pointed out that Oliver introduced legislation to strengthen protections for workers at temporary agencies. Separate but similar legislation aimed at helping those workers finally hit the governor’s desk earlier this year.

Oliver also worked with Christie on pension and benefits reform — though she later accused him of not keeping his end of the deal. The reforms, known as Chapter 78, were not the financial panacea proponents had hoped for and riled public sector unions, upset that their members had to pay more for their health care contributions.

Caruso, the former Oliver staffer, noted that Oliver pushed for provisions more favorable to the public sector unions, like allowing certain provisions to “sunset” after a few years — which Christie was reluctant to support but ultimately did.

In her first year as speaker, Caruso also recalled Christie proposing budget cuts, with some programs Oliver was adamant be spared.

“She stood the line on [the] general assistance, welfare benefit side of the equation,” Caruso said. “A constituency that did not have a lobby advocate at the time.”

Kevin O’Dowd, formerly a legislative liaison and chief of staff to Christie who is now co-CEO of Cooper University Health Care, recalled Oliver being a “strong, deliberative leader” who was willing to find compromise.

“She was always willing to hear out what the other side of the issue was, before ultimately reaching a final conclusion or a final position on a bill or another matter,” O’Dowd said.

While Oliver's trailblazing time as speaker and second-in-line to the state’s highest office will lead her obituary, one of her legislative running mates from Essex County politics, Assemblymember Thomas Giblin (D-Essex), remembered Oliver fighting to keep open the local hospital now known as CareWell Health Medical Center.

“I credit her a lot for saving East Orange General,” said Giblin, who has known Oliver for 35 years and ran on the same ticket as her a half dozen times.

Giblin got to know Oliver when she was working for former Newark Mayor Kenneth Gibson during one of her first forays into politics, a narrow loss against Robert Bowser, the late mayor of East Orange.

He said Oliver “left a lasting legacy as far as what an ideal public servant should be and she will be sorely missed.”

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Turkey fumes as Disney axes founding father series after Armenian outcry

Atatürk shouldn’t get the ‘Disney treatment,’ Armenian group warns.

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Senate goes into lockdown after reports of possible active shooter

Washington Metropolitan Police spokesperson Hugh Carew later said the call reporting an active shooter "appears to be a bad call" with no injuries and no shooter located.

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The Pittsburgh synagogue gunman will be sentenced to death for the nation’s worst antisemitic attack

PITTSBURGH — The gunman who stormed a synagogue in the heart of Pittsburgh’s Jewish community and killed 11 worshippers will be sentenced to death for perpetrating the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history.

Robert Bowers spewed hatred of Jews and espoused white supremacist beliefs online before methodically planning and carrying out the 2018 massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue, where members of three congregations had gathered for Sabbath worship and study. Bowers, a truck driver from suburban Baldwin, also wounded two worshippers and five responding police officers.

The same federal jury that convicted the 50-year-old Bowers on 63 criminal counts recommended Wednesday that he be put to death for an attack whose impacts continue to reverberate nearly five years later. A judge will formally impose the sentence later.

The verdict came after a lengthy trial in which jurors heard in chilling detail how Bowers reloaded at least twice, stepped over the bloodied bodies of his victims to look for more people to shoot, and surrendered only when he ran out of ammunition. In the sentencing phase, grieving family members told the jury about the lives that Bowers took — a 97-year-old woman and intellectually disabled brothers among them — and the unrelenting pain of their loss. Survivors testified about their own lasting pain, both physical and emotional.

Through it all, Bowers showed little reaction to the proceeding that would decide his fate — typically looking down at papers or screens at the defense table. He even told a psychiatrist that he thought the trial was helping to spread his antisemitic message.

It was the first federal death sentence imposed during the presidency of Joe Biden, whose 2020 campaign included a pledge to end capital punishment. Biden’s Justice Department has placed a moratorium on federal executions and has declined to authorize the death penalty in hundreds of new cases where it could apply. But federal prosecutors said death was the appropriate punishment for Bowers, citing the vulnerability of his mainly elderly victims and his hate-based targeting of a religious community. Most victims’ families said Bowers should die for his crimes.

Bowers’ lawyers never contested his guilt, focusing their efforts on trying to save his life. They presented evidence of a horrific childhood marked by trauma and neglect. They also claimed Bowers had severe, untreated mental illness, saying he killed out of a delusional belief that Jews were helping to cause a genocide of white people. The defense argued that schizophrenia and brain abnormalities made Bowers more susceptible to being influenced by the extremist content he found online.

The prosecution denied mental illness had anything to do with it, saying Bowers knew exactly what he was doing when he violated the sanctity of a house of worship by opening fire on terrified congregants with an AR-15 rifle and other weapons, shooting everyone he could find.

Bowers blasted his way into Tree of Life on Oct. 27, 2018, and killed members of the Dor Hadash, New Light and Tree of Life congregations, which shared the synagogue building.

The victims were Joyce Fienberg, 75; Richard Gottfried, 65; Rose Mallinger, 97; Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz, 66; brothers David Rosenthal, 54, and Cecil Rosenthal, 59; Bernice Simon, 84, and her husband, Sylvan Simon, 86; Dan Stein, 71; Melvin Wax, 87; and Irving Younger, 69.

Bowers, who traded gunfire with responding officers and was shot three times, told police at the scene that “all these Jews need to die,” according to testimony. Ahead of the attack, he posted, liked or shared a stream of virulently antisemitic content on Gab, a social media platform popular with the far right. He has expressed no remorse for the killings, telling mental health experts he saw himself as a soldier in a race war, took pride in the attack and wished he had shot more people.

In emotional testimony, the victims’ family members described what Bowers took from them. “My world has fallen apart,” Sharyn Stein, Dan Stein’s widow, told the jury.

Survivors and other affected by the attack will have another opportunity to address the court — and Bowers — when he is formally sentenced by the judge.

The synagogue has been closed since the shootings. The Tree of Life congregation is working on an overhauled synagogue complex that would house a sanctuary, museum, memorial and center for fighting antisemitism.

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