Trump camp and Colorado GOP talk post court ruling steps

Top officials with Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and the Colorado Republican Party spoke on Thursday to discuss plans of action after the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to throw the former president off of the Republican primary ballot.

The call, which involved Clayton Henson, a former White House aide who has been a liaison between the Trump campaign and state parties, was confirmed by Dave Williams, the chair of the Colorado GOP.

Williams said that the Colorado GOP will appeal the Colorado court’s decision — holding that Trump was invalidated from appearing on the ballot because he’d incited an insurrection on Jan. 6 — to the Supreme Court. Depending on how the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, he said, the party would ask the Republican National Committee for a waiver to hold a caucus instead of a primary election.

In the meantime, Williams made a request to the Trump campaign.

“I certainly expressed to Clayton you know, Colorado Republicans would love to see [Trump] come out so that they can, you know, give them a good show of support. And I’m sure he’ll go ahead and pass that on to the president,” Williams said. “We would welcome him to come out but we understand if he needs to focus on Iowa.”

The Trump campaign confirmed the “check up call” to follow up on the Colorado GOP filing an addendum to potentially hold a caucus. The Colorado GOP has also been in contact with the RNC.

It is unclear whether Trump will make a visit to Colorado. The former president is expected to campaign heavily in Iowa in the runup to the Jan. 15 caucuses. He will then be campaigning in New Hampshire ahead of the Jan. 23 primary. Colorado is one of 17 states and territories that will be holding its nominating contest on March 5, also known as Super Tuesday.

Among Trump’s aides and allies, the Colorado court’s decision has been seen as a legal nuisance and a much larger political gift. Though the widespread expectation is that the ruling will be reversed or put on hold, the former president continues to face deep peril in criminal and civil cases across jurisdictions in Georgia, Florida, New York and Washington, D.C.

Trump’s Republican rivals and critics have rallied to his defense in the aftermath of the Colorado decision. Fresh fundraising pleas were blasted out to supporters. The Trump campaign sent out a list of 55 elected officials, political allies, and Trump-friendly legal experts ranging from House Speaker Mike Johnson to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) criticizing the Colorado court decision. And Trump, as he’s prone to do, leaned into the ruling by playing the victim.

The decision will play into an effort already underway to turn a Biden campaign attack line — that Trump represents a threat to democracy — back on the incumbent president and his party.

During an appearance in Iowa early this month, Trump called Biden a “destroyer of American democracy.” Trump argued that Biden was using the justice system against him, despite there being no evidence that the president has had any connection to the four indictments Trump is facing. The Trump campaign has distributed black and white signs to supporters that read “Biden Attacks Democracy,” and at a recent event Trump stood underneath a large banner emblazoned with the same phrase.

In the wake of the Colorado decision, the campaign plans to continue to lean into messaging that Biden is “against Democracy.” That will be a “big part” moving forward, said Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign.

“We need to be able to highlight what Biden and his team are doing, disenfranchising voters on a wide scale, not just on a national scale, but in these states and what they’re doing is taking democracy out of the hands of the public, out of the voters,” Cheung said.

Biden has argued that a second Trump administration — and the MAGA movement as a whole — are a threat to democracy. And Trump has provided a fair amount of fodder. The former president has continued to spread lies about the 2020 elections, repeatedly downplayed the insurrection and recently said that he would be a dictator for a day if elected, if only to pass immigration and drilling policies.

Officials close to his campaign have discussed revamping the Justice Department to go after perceived enemies and purging the government ranks of officials who are at ideological odds with them.

The hope of these Trump allies is that the Colorado court’s decision muddies the waters for team Biden and provides team Trump with ample political ammunition just weeks ahead of the Iowa caucuses.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Biden said it was “self evident” that Trump was an insurrectionist, but said it was up to the courts to decide whether Trump was ineligible to service under the 14th Amendment clause, which bars anyone who swore an oath to the constitution and engaged in an insurrection from holding office.

“You saw it all. Now whether the 14th Amendment applies, I’ll let the court make that decision. But he certainly supported an insurrection,” Biden said. “No question about it — none, zero. And he seems to be doubling down on everything.”

from Politics, Policy, Political News Top Stories https://ift.tt/lWL2XQ4
via IFTTT

Read More

DeSantis: ‘I wish Trump hadn’t been indicted on any of this stuff.’

Ron DeSantis said in an interview aired Thursday that Donald Trump’s indictments “distorted the primary,” depriving competitors of attention.

"I would say if I could have one thing change, I wish Trump hadn't been indicted on any of this stuff. I mean, honestly, from Alvin Bragg on,” DeSantis said on Christian Broadcasting Network, referring to the Manhattan district attorney’s case that claims Trump falsified business records connected to hush money payments made to silence affair allegations from porn star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign.

DeSantis, who has fallen back in the Republican presidential primary, told CBN “someone like a Bragg would not have brought that case if it was anyone other than Donald Trump and so someone like that is distorting justice, which is bad, but I also think it distorted the primary.”

Asked whether he thinks that helped Trump, the overwhelming frontrunner, DeSantis said, "It's both that but then it also just crowded out I think so much other stuff and it's sucked out a lot of oxygen.”

“I think for the primary, it distorted. Yeah, I think it distorted," DeSantis said during the CBN interview on the campaign trail in Iowa.

The Florida governor’s comments served to frame expectations as he scrambles to gain traction with just weeks to go before primary voting begins. He is not only running far behind Trump but is in a close race for second place with Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor.

from Politics, Policy, Political News Top Stories https://ift.tt/F5pxuWB
via IFTTT

Read More

Murkowski slams Trump for ‘hateful, harmful’ anti-immigration comments

Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski condemned former President Donald Trump's recent anti-immigrant comments, calling them “hateful, harmful rhetoric” in a social media post Wednesday.

“With the exception of Alaska Natives and Native Peoples, most of us are daughters and sons of immigrants who came to this country to build a better life for themselves and their families. Legal immigration from people across the world is woven into the fabric of American exceptionalism, and comments from the former president couldn’t be further from the truth,” Murkowski said in a post to X, formerly known as Twitter.

“This is more hateful, harmful rhetoric from Donald Trump that is poisoning our country,” the Alaska senator added.

Murkowski’s post addressed Trump’s remarks at a campaign rally Saturday, where he said immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.”

Civil rights groups and the Biden campaign quickly compared Trump’s comments to language used by Adolf Hitler during the Nazi regime, and the White House accused Trump of “echoing the grotesque rhetoric of fascists and violent white supremacists.”

Trump doubled down on the comments on Tuesday, telling an audience in Iowa: ““They’re destroying the blood of our country. That’s what they’re doing — they’re destroying our country.”

Although several other GOP senators distanced themselves from Trump’s remarks, few did so in such strong terms. Murkowski has criticized Trump in the past, and voted to convict the former president after his second impeachment in 2021.

from Politics, Policy, Political News Top Stories https://ift.tt/R17f38U
via IFTTT

Read More

Humanitarian groups urge Austin to halt Israel aid over Gaza operations

A group of prominent humanitarian organizations is calling on Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to halt military and other aid to Israel over its operations in Gaza that they say have caused “staggering” civilian harm, according to a letter sent to the Pentagon chief on Wednesday.

The groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, urged Austin in the letter to “withhold U.S. assistance, in accordance with U.S. law and policy, that would facilitate violations of international humanitarian law” and “refrain from transferring explosive weapons to Israel for use in Gaza.” The letter, which POLITICO obtained, was also sent to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser.

The groups argue Austin has failed to live up to his own sweeping overhaul of the Pentagon’s efforts to reduce harm to civilians in U.S. military operations, under the Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan.

“The Department’s response to the devastating harm in Gaza has failed to live up to – and actively undermined – the commitments set by the CHMR-AP,” the groups wrote, using the acronym for the action plan. “To protect civilians in Gaza and live up to the aspirations of the CHMR-AP, administration rhetoric on the protection of civilians must be backed by action and leverage.”

DOD spokesperson Sabrina Singh declined to comment on the letter.

The letter comes as Austin and Gen. C.Q. Brown, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, huddled with their Israeli counterparts this week in the Biden administration’s latest effort to press Israel to do more to stop the bloodshed in Gaza. Israel says it warns civilians before strikes and blames Hamas for hiding within civilian locations like schools and hospitals, pledging to continue operations until the militant group is eliminated.

Austin has recently been advising Israeli leaders to begin moving from major combat to a more precise and targeted campaign against Hamas. Israel’s operations have flattened much of northern Gaza, displaced over 1 million and killed almost 20,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities.

“Protecting Palestinian civilians in Gaza is both a moral duty and a strategic imperative,” Austin said on Monday in Tel Aviv, noting that during his meetings he offered “thoughts about how to transition from high-intensity operations to lower intensity and more surgical operations.”

While the groups wrote that they appreciate Austin’s comments, they added his remarks “appear detached from the ongoing reality of Israel’s operations, which continue to cause devastating levels of civilian harm and destruction and inhibit the provision of life-saving humanitarian aid – all using U.S. support.”

“The result is civilian harm at a massive scale amidst a humanitarian crisis,” they wrote.

Other signatories to the letter included Airwars, Anera, Center for Civilians in Conflict, Humanity & Inclusion, InterAction, Doctors Without Borders USA, Norwegian Refugee Council USA, Oxfam America, PAX, Refugees International, Save the Children US and Zomia Center.

In the letter, the groups noted that the United States is Israel’s “largest provider of security assistance and arms”; Washington gives $3.8 billion to Israel annually. They argue the U.S. therefore has a “responsibility” to ensure that assistance does not contribute to human rights violations.

The groups also argue that any human rights violations in Gaza by Israeli forces should prompt the U.S. to withhold security assistance based on U.S. law and policy. President Joe Biden’s own Conventional Arms Transfer policy, governing all U.S. arms transfers, prohibits Washington from sending weapons when the administration assesses it is “more likely than not” that the arms will be used to violate human rights, the letter notes.

Further, despite “well-documented and credible allegations of gross violations of human rights” by the Israeli military, the U.S. has never cut off any Israeli units from security assistance as is required by the Leahy Law, according to the letter.

In addition, section 6201I of the Foreign Assistance Act bars U.S. security assistance to any country where the government “prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance.”

The U.S. should also stop transferring explosive weapons to Israel for use in Gaza, in accordance with the U.S. commitment last year to limit civilian harm caused by the use of explosive weapons in populated areas, the groups wrote. The U.S. along with 82 other nations endorsed the Political Declaration on Strengthening the Protection of Civilians from the Humanitarian Consequences Arising from the Use of Explosive Weapons in Populated Areas in November 2022.

The groups specifically pointed to Austin’s overhaul of how the Pentagon reduces civilian harm, which he announced in the fall of 2022. The Pentagon is expected to soon release the details of its plan to implement the strategy, according to one person familiar with the discussions, who was granted anonymity to speak ahead of an announcement.

One objective of the plan stipulates that DOD will incorporate civilian harm risk assessments and “tailored conditionality” into U.S. security cooperation, the groups note.

They urged Austin to “categorically oppose” the targeting of civilians, “indiscriminate” attacks that fail to distinguish between civilian and military targets, the holding back of humanitarian assistance, and the use of “siege tactics to deprive the civilian population of items indispensable to its survival.”

The groups also cited Biden’s recent remarks that Israel has engaged in “indiscriminate bombing,” arguing that the practice clearly violates international humanitarian law.

The letter criticized U.S. officials’ claims that there are “no conditions” applied to U.S. assistance to Israel, as well as statements that the administration is not currently assessing Israel’s compliance with international humanitarian law, or IHL.

“Conditions ensuring compliance with IHL and human rights, including the facilitation of humanitarian assistance, should be the baseline of all U.S. assistance to any country,” according to the letter.

from Politics, Policy, Political News Top Stories https://ift.tt/Rn9hS76
via IFTTT

Read More

Prosecutors eyed obstruction charges months before Jack Smith took over Trump case

Months before special counsel Jack Smith took over the case, federal prosecutors in Washington, D.C. were considering obstruction charges in connection with Donald Trump’s bid to subvert the 2020 election.

A newly unsealed court filing related to the Trump grand jury investigation shows that prosecutors were eyeing the charge — which had already been deployed against dozens of Jan. 6 riot defendants — at least by September 2022 and perhaps as early as the spring.

It’s not clear whether the prosecutors at the time were considering bringing the charge against Trump himself or only against people in his orbit. Eventually, Smith did charge Trump with obstruction in the summer of 2023. The unsealed document underscores the Justice Department’s long and laborious pursuit of evidence to support the obstruction allegations now lodged against Trump — even as the statute itself could be upended by the Supreme Court.

The filing relates to search warrants obtained by prosecutors in June and July 2022 to scour the personal email accounts of former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, his deputy Kenneth Klukowski and the Chapman University account of attorney John Eastman. Those warrants had previously been disclosed by U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell, who unsealed documents connected to the search a full year ago.

However, the versions of the documents released last year were redacted to conceal the precise charges being considered by prosecutors as they obtained those warrants. On Tuesday, the newly unsealed document revealed that the potential charges included “obstruction of an official proceeding” and “false statements.”

Smith took over the investigation two months after federal prosecutors obtained access to Clark’s emails — including hundreds of drafts of an autobiography that included his thoughts related to the 2020 election. And in August 2023, Smith obtained a grand jury indictment charging Trump himself with the same obstruction charge that prosecutors were investigating before he took over the case. Clark was identified as “co-conspirator 4,” one of six alleged co-conspirators who all remain uncharged.

The filing indicates federal prosecutors began weighing obstruction charges in connection with the Trump probe well before the House’s Jan. 6 select committee formally recommended that the former president be indicted on the charge. The “obstruction of an official proceeding” law — which has now been leveled against more than 300 Jan. 6 defendants — is itself under scrutiny by the Supreme Court, which agreed last week to consider a challenge to the way prosecutors have used it against the pro-Trump rioters.

The new filing underscores the protracted and elaborate process that prosecutors undertook before bringing charges against Trump. Despite Trump’s repeated claims that prosecutors timed the criminal charges against him to coincide with his bid to retake the White House, the underlying documents show that the Justice Department fought extensive battles throughout 2022 to access crucial information to support a criminal case.

Those battles appeared to begin around the same time that California-based U.S. District Court Judge David Carter concluded that Trump and Eastman “likely” conspired to disrupt the transfer of power, including by their attempts to obstruct Congress’ Jan. 6 proceedings. Carter’s March 28, 2022 opinion — which came after the Jan. 6 committee similarly suggested Trump may have committed obstruction — was the first judicial determination that Trump may have violated the law, and it facilitated the House panel’s access to Eastman’s emails.

But it would be another six months before the Justice Department would win closed-door court battles to access Clark’s emails. The battles included three springtime hearings to develop a “filter protocol” meant to shield privileged materials from investigators, the approval of an initial search warrant to seize Eastman and Clark’s devices in June 2022, additional search warrants to govern the review of those devices, disclosing the files to Clark and his attorney, and a final determination by Howell in September 2022 that permitted investigators to access a subset of the seized files.

The end of this process coincided with a series of secret legal battles by Trump seeking to block investigators’ access to key witnesses like his White House counsel Pat Cipollone and former chief of staff Mark Meadows. Those battles began in October 2022, when prosecutors sought to interview top aides to former Vice President Mike Pence, and ended in April, when Trump’s objections were defeated and top aides, as well as Pence himself, testified before the grand jury.

from Politics, Policy, Political News Top Stories https://ift.tt/noDCFYI
via IFTTT

Read More

Google to pay $700 million to US states, consumers in app store settlement

Google has agreed to pay $700 million and make several other concessions to settle allegations that it had been stifling competition against its Android app store — the same issue that went to trial in another case that could result in even bigger changes.

Although Google struck the deal with state attorneys general in September, the settlement’s terms weren’t revealed until late Monday in documents filed in San Francisco federal court. The disclosure came a week after a federal court jury rebuked Google for deploying anticompetitive tactics in its Play Store for Android apps.

The settlement with the states includes $630 million to compensate U.S. consumers funneled into a payment processing system that state attorneys general alleged drove up the prices for digital transactions within apps downloaded from the Play Store. That store caters to the Android software that powers most of the world’s smartphones.

Like Apple does in its iPhone app store, Google collects commissions ranging from 15 percent to 30 percent on in-app purchases — fees that state attorneys general contended drove prices higher than they would have been had there been an open market for payment processing. Those commissions generated billions of dollars in profit annually for Google, according to evidence presented in the recent trial focused on its Play Store.

Eligible consumers will receive at least $2, according to the settlement, and may get additional payments based on their spending on the Play store between Aug. 16, 2016 and Sept. 30, 2023. Consumers are supposed to be automatically notified about various options for how they can receive their cut of the money.

Another $70 million of the pre-trial settlement will cover the penalties and other costs that Google is being forced to pay to the states.

Google also agreed to make other changes designed to make it even easier for consumers to download and install Android apps from other outlets besides its Play Store for the next five years. It will refrain from issuing as many security warnings, or “scare screens,” when alternative choices are being used.

The makers of Android apps will also gain more flexibility to offer alternative payment choices to consumers instead of having transactions automatically processed through the Play Store and its commission system. Apps will also be able to promote lower prices available to consumers who choose an alternate to the Play Store’s payment processing.

Wilson White, Google’s vice president of government affairs and public policy, framed the deal as a positive for the company, despite the money and concessions it entails. The settlement “builds on Android’s choice and flexibility, maintains strong security protections, and retains Google’s ability to compete with other (software) makers, and invest in the Android ecosystem for users and developers,” White wrote in a blog post.

Although the state attorneys general hailed the settlement as a huge win for consumers, it didn’t go far enough for Epic Games, which spearheaded the attack on Google’s app store practices with an antitrust lawsuit filed in August 2020.

Epic, the maker of the popular Fortnite video game, rebuffed the settlement in September and instead chose to take its case to trial, even though it had already lost on most of its key claims in a similar trial targeting Apple and its iPhone app store in 2021.

The Apple trial, though, was decided by a federal judge instead of the jury that vindicated Epic with a unanimous verdict that Google had built anticompetitive barriers around the Play Store. Google has vowed to appeal the verdict.

But the trial’s outcome nevertheless raises the specter of Google potentially being ordered to pay even more money as punishment for its past practices and making even more dramatic changes to its lucrative Android app ecosystem.

Those changes will be determined next year by U.S. District Judge James Donato, who presided over the Epic Games trial. Donato also still must approve Google’s Play Store settlement with the states.

Google faces an even bigger legal threat in another antitrust case targeting its dominant search engine that serves as the centerpiece of a digital ad empire that generates more than $200 billion in sales annually. Closing arguments in a trial pitting Google against the Justice Department are scheduled for early May before a federal judge in Washington D.C.

from Politics, Policy, Political News Top Stories https://ift.tt/vFT2skW
via IFTTT

Read More

Appeals court shoots down Mark Meadows’ bid to derail Georgia racketeering case

A federal appeals court has denied Mark Meadows’ bid to move his Georgia-based criminal charges into federal court, rejecting a procedural gambit that could have derailed the state’s election-related charges against not only Meadows but also Donald Trump.

In an unsparing opinion written by a stalwart conservative judge, the court ruled that Meadows, who served as Trump’s White House chief of staff, must fight the charges against him in state court in Atlanta. Meadows had aimed to transfer the charges before a federal judge in hopes of having them quickly tossed out.

Meadows could appeal Monday’s ruling to the Supreme Court. But for now, the ruling from a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals keeps on track Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ racketeering prosecution of Trump, Meadows and a dozen other allies for efforts connected to Trump’s bid to subvert the 2020 election. Former Justice Department official Jeff Clark and three GOP activists who falsely signed Electoral College paperwork are also seeking to transfer their cases to federal court, though Monday’s ruling is likely a harbinger of doom for those efforts.

The 3-0 decision was authored by the court’s conservative chief judge, William Pryor. Had they agreed with Meadows and transferred the charges to federal court, it could have upended the case against Trump and all of the defendants, causing significant delays and even a potential ruling that the matter could be dismissed altogether because of its relationship to Trump’s authority as president.

Instead, the panel ruled that a law permitting federal officials to transfer state-level charges into federal court applies only to current government officials, not former ones like Meadows. And the panel of the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit concluded that, even if Meadows were still in office, his argument would still fail because the state’s charges against Meadows are about an alleged criminal agreement to join a conspiracy, not about any actions Meadows took as Trump’s chief of staff.

Throughout his 36-page opinion, Pryor expressed bewilderment at Meadows’ unlimited conception of his duties as Trump’s chief of staff. Meadows' lawyers argued that nearly every action he took was part of his official White House responsibilities — even when they involved making campaign decisions to aid Trump’s reelection.

"We cannot rubberstamp Meadows' legal opinion that the president's chief of staff has unfettered authority,” Pryor wrote.

The panel found that Meadows’ efforts to contact Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger about possibly altering the outcome of the 2020 election fell squarely outside his official duties. His decision to join a call with Trump and Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021 — a now-infamous call that is at the heart of the state prosecution — “reflected a clear attempt to further Trump’s ‘private litigation interests,’” rather than any government function.

The panel characterized Meadows’ December 2020 visit to Georgia as an attempt to “infiltrate” an ongoing recount — an act, Pryor said, that was far outside his official duties.

“Meadows cannot point to any authority for influencing state officials with allegations of election fraud,” Pryor wrote. “At bottom, whatever the chief of staff’s role with respect to state election administration, that role does not include altering valid election results in favor of a particular candidate.”

Pryor, an appointee of President George W. Bush, dismissed much of Meadows’ legal position. The judge said Meadows was trying to simultaneously argue that his official duties encompassed some partisan political matters while also acknowledging he was not permitted while acting in his official job to get involved in election-related advocacy for any candidate.

“Meadows cannot have it both ways,” Pryor wrote. “He cannot shelter behind testimony about the breadth of his official responsibilities, while disclaiming his admissions that he understood electioneering activity to be out of bounds. That he repeatedly denied having any role in, or speaking on behalf of, the Trump campaign, reflects his recognition that such activities were forbidden to him as chief of staff.”

Though the ruling was unanimous, the two other judges — Obama appointee Robin Rosenbaum and Biden appointee Nancy Abudu — issued a stark warning that the court’s interpretation could produce a “nightmare scenario” and “cripple the federal government” by allowing state prosecutors to intimidate and interfere with federal officials by subjecting them to the threat of criminal action in state court.

The Democrat-appointed judges explicitly urged Congress to change the law, known as a “removal” statute, to make clear that former officials prosecuted over their official duties can move their cases to federal court even after those officials have left their posts.

“These types of actions can cripple government operations, discourage federal officers from faithfully performing their duties and dissuade talented people from entering public service,” Rosenbaum wrote, in a concurring opinion Abudu joined.

An attorney for Meadows, George Terwilliger III, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the decision and to indicate whether Meadows plans to appeal to the full bench of the 11th Circuit or to the Supreme Court.

from Politics, Policy, Political News Top Stories https://ift.tt/ClRvq1A
via IFTTT

Read More