‘Offensive’: Georgia prosecutor excoriates Jordan for probe into Trump charges

The Georgia district attorney at the heart of former President Donald Trump’s latest indictment on Thursday rebuked House Republicans’ investigation into her office, accusing them of blatantly trying to obstruct a criminal proceeding.

Fulton County DA Fani Willis on Thursday sent a fiery letter to House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, responding to his decision to launch an investigation into the Georgia office just hours before Trump appeared in court late last month on charges related to interfering in the 2020 election.

In the blistering, nine-page response, Willis called Jordan’s actions “offensive,” accused him of being “misinformed” and said it’s “clear that you lack a basic understanding of the law, its practice, and the ethical obligations of attorneys generally and prosecutors specifically.”

Jordan requested information about Willis’ use of federal funding and any conversations her office had with the Justice Department or special counsel Jack Smith, who has brought charges against Trump in both a classified documents case and over his actions during the 2020 election. But Willis, in her letter, said that Jordan’s “obvious purpose is to obstruct a Georgia criminal proceeding and to advance outrageous partisan misrepresentations.”

“Your attempt to invoke congressional authority to intrude upon and interfere with an active criminal case in Georgia is flagrantly at odds with the Constitution. … There is absolutely no support for Congress purporting to second guess or somehow supervise an ongoing Georgia criminal investigation and prosecution,” she added in the letter to Jordan.

A spokesperson for the Judiciary Committee chair didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Willis’ letter, a copy of which was obtained by POLITICO.

The back-and-forth comes after Willis charged Trump and 18 allies with racketeering charges for attempting to subvert President Joe Biden’s victory in the state during the 2020 election. Trump pleaded not guilty late last month to the charges, the fourth set he has faced over the past year.

Jordan’s request for information followed a familiar playbook Republicans have taken against Trump’s other two prosecutors, Smith and New York district attorney Alvin Bragg. The committee similarly sent a letter to Bragg in the spring, though that probe fell out of the spotlight as other Trump investigations moved to the forefront.

House Republicans have little recourse to fight Trump’s charges outside of their investigation powers. They could take up legislation that would let a former president or vice president move a case from state to federal courts, or try to target funds through spending bills, but the Democratic-controlled Senate would certainly block those efforts.

Willis, in her letter, did provide some details on federal funds that her office receives — one of Jordan’s requests. But the bulk of her letter offered several pointed criticisms of the House GOP’s request, including that it would involve sharing non-public information about an ongoing investigation. And she pointedly argued that it was time for him to “deal with some basic realities.”

“The basic premise of your letter is wrong. The criminal defendant about which you expressconcern was fully aware of the existence of the criminal investigation being conducted by the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office at the time he announced his candidacy for President. I have no doubt that many Americans are the subject of criminal investigations and prosecutions at any given moment,” Willis wrote.

“An announcement of a candidacy for elected office, whether President of the United States, Congress, or state or local office, is not and cannot be a bar to criminal investigation or prosecution,” she added. “Any notion to the contrary is offensive to our democracy and to the fundamental principle that all people are equal before the law.”

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Anti-affirmative action group drops admissions lawsuit against Yale

Students for Fair Admissions dropped its lawsuit challenging Yale University’s race-conscious admissions policies after the Supreme Court gutted the practice in June.

The anti-affirmative action group and the Ivy League school voluntarily agreed to drop the case after Yale agreed to make several updates to its admissions process ahead of the fall 2023 undergraduate admissions season.

Key context: SFFA filed its challenge in February 2021, but the lawsuit was paused as the Supreme Court weighed the group’s challenges against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina. In a ruling divided along ideological lines, the high court's six-justice conservative majority found that the universities discriminated against white and Asian American applicants by using race-conscious policies that benefited applicants from underrepresented backgrounds.

The lawsuit against Yale was similar to the one against Harvard and UNC, but stemmed from a Trump administration challenge that SFFA fought to keep alive in the courts. The Trump administration filed the lawsuit in October 2020 following a two-year investigation into the Ivy League institution's admissions practices. It was the strongest move by the Trump administration to rebuke the use of race in university admissions, and the Education Department and Justice Department investigation found that Yale discriminated against Asian American applicants.

Admissions changes at Yale: The joint stipulation filed Thursday in the United States District Court of Connecticut outlined the changes the university agreed to implement in light of the Supreme Court case and the voluntary dismissal. SFFA and Yale, according to the document, discussed the institution’s response to the Supreme Court case and Yale provide “supporting documentation” of its changes ahead of the dismissal. Here’s a rundown of the changes:

— Yale said it has updated its training materials to make clear that race cannot be used as a factor in admissions decisions.

— The university agreed to take “technological steps” to ensure that no one involved in admissions decisions has access to race data or a race “check-box” at any time during the admissions review cycle.

— Yale’s admissions office also agreed to not run any reports during the review cycle that would provide any aggregate data of the racial composition of admitted students.

— Race will also not be considered when calculating or awarding financial aid at Yale.

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Canada’s Conservatives recruit Brexiteer and ‘canceled’ former general to fire up grassroots

OTTAWA, Ont. — As Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre strides into his party’s convention with a surge ahead of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the polls, a prominent U.K. Brexiteer says conservatives around the world should take note.

Lord Daniel Hannan tells POLITICO that Poilievre is one of the most interesting center-right leaders “on the international stage right now” for having “already transformed the demographics of his party, reaching out to young people.”

Hannan will share his praise of Poilievre with Canadians as the closing keynote speaker at this week’s Conservative Party convention, a three-day confab in Quebec City that will invigorate a party dead-set on ousting Canada’s eight-year old Liberal government in the next election.

The former member of European Parliament was even making the case last summer that Poilievre would be the ideal candidate to replace Boris Johnson as U.K. Tory leader.

Hannan made the cheeky endorsement in a July 2022 Daily Telegraph column, praising Poilievre as an “unapologetic tax cutter” who “does not hide from the culture wars,” and swooning over his “mastery of social media” to rapidly expand the party base — just the type of figure Britain’s Tories needed.

“It’s an absolute no-brainer,” he wrote.

Poilievre, who was elected party leader a year ago, is soaring in the polls as he hammers elites and the Liberal government while praising “common people,” the ordinary working Canadians struggling with high interest rates, inflation and a housing market many families have been priced out of — at a time when the global economy is still in the throes of disruptions from pandemic decision making and crises like the war in Ukraine.

Not at all like American political conventions, the Canadian events are perfunctory conferences for the grassroots where the backroom chatter among key players and organizers is more important to the party than what gets marquee billing on the floor — save for eruptions over controversial policies, like one that seeks to limit gender-affirming care.

The speakers’ lineup at the biennial confab has already turned heads, with one keynote by the former politician who had played an instrumental role pumping up Brexit and another by a retired Canadian general who made waves with culture-war comments controversial enough to force his resignation from a research organization’s board.

Hannan, a vocal critic of pandemic lockdowns and the head of a free market think tank called the Institute for Free Trade, is back by demand. He was a hit at the Conservatives’ 2018 convention in Nova Scotia, mocking Trudeau as a “bimbo supply teacher with a nice smile.”

He also made some pitches for updating trade policy: “What about a trade deal between the U.K. and Canada that simply said whatever is legal in your country is automatically legal in ours and vice versa? This applies to services. It applies to professional qualifications,” he said at the time. “And if we have such a deal between the United Kingdom and Canada, it becomes very difficult not to extend that same deal to the United States.”

Another speaker, retired Lt.-Gen. Michel Maisonneuve, will address the convention when it opens Thursday night.

His last big public speech earned him a standing O from senior Canadian military officers, followed by the boot from the board of a chronic pain research organization because of his comments slamming climate change policies and cancel culture. He sounded off on a range of Canadian culture-war points, like the removal of historical statues and apologies by leaders made to various groups. Maisonneuve has protested about being “canceled.”

The speech, which was quoted in the Ottawa Citizen newspaper, took aim at divisive political leaders, although named no one specific: “Can you imagine a military leader labeling half of his command as deplorables, fringe radicals and less-thans, and then expect them to fight as one?”

Stephen Saideman, director of the Canadian Defence and Security Network at Carleton University, attended that speech. He penned a warning in the Globe and Mail newspaper that Maisonneuve’s appearance could be a troubling sign Canada may follow in the U.S.’s footsteps with the increasing politicization of civil-military relations, via a political party giving a platform to Maisonneuve’s claims the military has become too woke.

Not that the Liberals haven’t also mixed military with politics. In 2015, Trudeau appointed former Lt.-Col. Harjit Sajjan as defense minister — an unusual move in Canadian politics to put a former military officer at the helm.

The Conservatives also have saved a speaking slot for former Defense Minister Peter MacKay, a statesmanly figure in the party with a vintage from the Stephen Harper-era who sought party leadership in 2020 with a more centrist appeal and who once campaigned for Canada to meet its NATO spending target.

There’s a balancing act at play in managing all the theatrics and messaging.

“For the Conservative Party of Canada to be successful, it still has to subscribe to a big tent party philosophy,” said J.P. Lewis, a political science professor at the University of New Brunswick with expertise in Canada’s conservative movement.

That even speaks to the mix of characters in play — more polemical figures and old guard speakers like MacKay.

“Maybe just to contrast with the Republican Party, for our party to the right, there’s still an attempt to maintain that balance, … maintain that coalition of right-of-center voters — and politicians, for that matter.”

The main event will be the speech by Poilievre, who won leadership a year ago and has emerged in Canadian politics as the “clear front-runner” based on his strong polling, on the back of “fatigue” with the Trudeau government, Lewis notes — although it could still be a year or two before the next election is called.

At the Liberals’ May convention, Justin Trudeau took campaign-style shots at Poilievre, dismissing his rival as cartoonish: “His slogans and buzzwords are not serious solutions to the serious challenges we’re facing.”

Poilievre, who has struck a nerve of collective anxiety about squeezed household finances, fired back at Trudeau when interest rates went up in June: “You and your spending, your out-of-control debt and taxation are leading us headline into a full-scale financial crisis. And I will not let you do it.”

The Conservative leader takes the stage prime time on Friday, after working on softening his tone over the summer, shedding his old image of an attack-dog politician to appear more relatable.

He’ll have everyone’s attention.

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Miami school board again shuts down LGBTQ month recognition

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — School board members in Miami rejected a proclamation early Thursday morning that would have recognized October as “LGBTQ history month” in the latest example of Florida’s parental rights laws influencing public education.

The decision, which came around 1 a.m. after hours of public comment and debate, illustrates how local education policy has changed since 2021, when Miami-Dade County school board members last acknowledged LGBTQ history month. Over the last two years, the school board in Miami, like many other counties, has been reshaped with candidates aligned with Gov. Ron DeSantis and conservative leaders who support the parental rights policies labeled as “Don’t Say Gay” by opponents.

“This is about someone’s sexual preference, and not a cultural issue,” said Roberto Alonso, a Miami-Dade County school board member endorsed by DeSantis who voted against the recognition. “It’s imposing ideologies and a sexual discussion that should not be happening inside of our schools.”

The recognition was shut down by a 5-3 vote following dozens of public speakers filling the school board auditorium representing both sides of the issue, reminiscent of the scene that played out last year when a similar item was proposed and also denied.

The idea was introduced to herald October as a reminder “to all cultures within our wider community of the important roles that LGBTQ people have taken in shaping the social, historical, legal, and political worlds we live in today.” It specifically stated that the board’s observation would be “in accordance with state and federal law” in hopes of avoiding a confrontation with the controversial parental rights law.

Better known as “Don’t Say Gay,” the policy prohibits teachers from leading instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation to pre-K through grade eight students and was expanded this year to restrict the usage of pronouns in schools. Under a separate Board of Education rule, teachers run the risk of losing their educator credentials for leading instruction on those topics to students through 12th grade. These policies are a key part of Florida’s attempt to root out traces of liberal “indoctrination” in local schools, particularly centered on lessons and books about race and sexuality.

Supporters of the proclamation, such as board member Lucia Baez-Geller who introduced it, claimed that the proposal was a “ceremonial” and “nonbinding” way to support LGBTQ students and families. Opposition to the recognition, according to Baez-Geller, was sparked by the “anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and agenda” from the DeSantis administration and Legislature. She noted that the idea was not seen as controversial when it passed 8-1 two years ago.

“This didn’t happen in 2021 before the Parental Rights in Education bill,” Baez-Geller said during the meeting.

“It’s the cultural politics, it’s the political agendas, it’s the war on minorities, it’s the war on people who already are struggling,” she added.

But the recognition was a nonstarter for the conservative-leaning members of Miami’s school board, including two members endorsed — and donated to — by DeSantis and state Republicans. They claimed the proposal violated the “intent” and “spirit” of the parental rights laws and rejected it in support of parents who want to “avoid the sexualization” of their children. Two other members who voted against the measure were appointed by DeSantis earlier this year.

“I really don’t know how a teacher is expected to recognize, observe and celebrate this month without being perceived by students’ parents as instruction or without crossing the line and becoming instruction,” said board Vice Chair Danny Espino, a DeSantis appointee.

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Trump suffers another legal loss to E. Jean Carroll, as judge rules he defamed her as president

NEW YORK — A federal judge ruled Wednesday that former President Donald Trump defamed the writer E. Jean Carroll in 2019 after she publicly claimed that he raped her decades earlier — a decision that paves the way for a jury to decide how much additional money in damages Trump should pay to Carroll.

It’s the latest legal setback for Trump in a pair of civil lawsuits that Carroll brought against him. Four months ago, a jury found that Trump sexually abused Carroll in the 1990s and that he defamed her in 2022 when he called her account a “hoax.” The jury ordered Trump to pay Carroll $5 million.

Carroll’s second case, which is scheduled to go to trial in January, focuses on separate statements that Trump made about her while he was president. He said in 2019 that Carroll was peddling a false rape accusation and he suggested that she was motivated by money.

In a 25-page opinion on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled that, based on the outcome of the earlier trial, most of the 2019 statements at issue in the upcoming case are defamatory — and that Trump is liable for them.

That leaves only the issue of damages for the next jury to decide. Any damages Trump is ordered to pay over the 2019 statements would be on top of the $5 million verdict in the prior case. Trump has appealed that verdict.

In his ruling Wednesday, however, Kaplan withheld judgment on one of Trump’s 2019 statements at issue in the lawsuit, saying “neither party adequately has addressed whether or not summary judgment should be granted or denied” in connection with a comment Trump made to The Hill newspaper in June 2019.

Trump’s lawyers had disputed that the outcome of the trial earlier this year in connection with his 2022 statements should determine whether the comments he made about Carroll while president were defamatory.

The verdict in May included a jury award of $2 million in compensatory damages for the sexual abuse claim, $2.7 million in compensatory damages for the defamation claim and an additional punitive damages award of $228,000.

A lawyer for Carroll, Roberta Kaplan (who is not related to the judge), said Wednesday: “We look forward to trial limited to damages for the original defamatory statements Donald Trump made about our client E. Jean Carroll in 2019.”

A lawyer for Trump, Alina Habba, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

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Google to require disclosure of AI use in political ads

Starting in November, Google will mandate all political advertisements label the use of artificial intelligence tools and synthetic content in their videos, images and audio.

As campaigns and digital strategists explore using generative AI-tools heading into the 2024 election cycle, Google is the first tech company to announce an AI-related disclosure requirement for political advertisers.

Increased AI scrutiny in politics: Already, a PAC supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ run for president used an AI-generated version of Donald Trump’s voice this summer on YouTube.

While the Federal Election Commission hasn’t set rules on using AI in political campaign ads, in August it voted to seek public comments on whether to update its misinformation policy to include deceptive AI ads.

The Google policy change also comes as Congress is working on comprehensive legislation to set guardrails on AI, and is meeting with leaders next week in the generative AI space, including Google CEO Sundar Pichai, which owns AI subsidiary DeepMind.

The specifics: Google’s latest rule update — which also applies to YouTube video ads — requires all verified advertisers to prominently disclose whether their ads contain “synthetic content that inauthentically depicts real or realistic-looking people or events.” The company mandates the disclosure be “clear and conspicuous” on the video, image or audio content. Such disclosure language could be “this video content was synthetically generated,” or “this audio was computer generated,” the company said.

A disclosure wouldn’t be required if AI tools were used in editing techniques, like resizing or cropping, or in background edits that don’t create realistic interpretations of actual events.

Political ads that don't have disclosures will be blocked from running or later removed if they evaded initial detection, said a Google spokesperson, but advertisers can appeal, or resubmit their ads with disclosures.

Elections worldwide: Google’s policy updates its existing election ads rules in regions outside the U.S. as well, including Europe, India and Brazil — which all have elections in 2024 as well. It will also apply to advertisements using “deepfakes,” which are videos or images that have been synthetically created to mislead, that are banned under the company’s existing misrepresentation policy.

Facebook currently doesn’t require the disclosure of synthetic or AI-generated content in its ads policies. It does have a policy banning manipulated media in videos that are not in advertisements, and bans the use of deepfakes.

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Newsom signs executive order preparing California for AI

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order to study the development, use and risks of generative artificial intelligence — one of the most significant steps taken by a state to potentially regulate the rapidly growing technology.

Newsom’s order includes directives to state agencies and departments to perform a joint analysis on the risk AI poses to California’s energy infrastructure; issue guidelines for public sector procurement of generative AI based on White House and National Institute for Standards and Technology-issued guidelines; provide AI training for state government workers; and develop a framework to analyze generative AI’s impact on vulnerable communities.

The executive order is the state’s first step toward understanding how to govern AI, said Alex Stack, the deputy communications director for Newsom. The order primarily deals with the government’s own use of generative AI.

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