List of All Articles with Tag 'pol'

The Donald Trump campaign’s comparison of the latest criminal charges against him to Nazi Germany is “beyond the pale, in terms of offensiveness and ignorance”, CNN’s Jake Tapper has said. The former president was indicted on Tuesday on four charges by a grand jury hearing evidence in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election. This is Mr Trump’s third criminal indictment, his second federal indictment and his first for his alleged conduct while in office as president. In response to the indictment, the Trump campaign issued a statement that the charges against him amounted to election interference along with the comparison to Nazi Germany. “The lawlessness of these persecutions of President Trump and his supporters is reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, the former Soviet Union, and other authoritarian, dictatorial regimes,” a part of the lengthy statement said. “These un-American witch hunts will fail.” Tapper denounced Mr Trump for the ignorant comparison while his colleague Kaitlan Collins, who read his full statement said it was a glimpse of the Trump team’s argument to challenge the charges. “They’re saying it’s persecution and that it is reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s and the former Soviet Union. Just giving you a kind of window into the argument they’re going to be making tying this all back to the campaign,” Collins said. The remarks also drew criticism from activists and civil rights organisations. “Comparing this indictment to Nazi Germany in the 1930s is factually incorrect, completely inappropriate and flat out offensive,” said Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt. “As we have said time and again, such comparisons have no place in politics and are shameful.” The reaction by CNN’s Tapper was followed by Fox News host Jesse Watters’ outburst of comparing the indictment to a war crime on the order of the atomic bombing or germ warfare. “This is overkill,” Watters said in a segment on Tuesday. “This is political germ warfare. These are political war crimes. It’s an atrocity. It’s like not just dropping one atomic bomb, you drop 15 dozen.” Later in his show, Watters shopped short of refuting the various charges against Mr Trump, but rather said they shouldn’t be considered significant crimes. The latest legal woe comes for Mr Trump as he faces the prospect of yet another potential indictment in Georgia where the former president was recorded on a phone call pressuring top officials to “find” him enough votes to reverse his loss in the state to Joe Biden during the 2020 election. Read More Trump indictment live updates: Grand jury charges Trump on four counts in 2020 election interference probe Revealed: ‘Monster’ care worker raped elderly dementia patients - but authorities don’t know how many How prosecutors could charge Trump with racketeering in Georgia case Trump indicted on four counts in 2020 election interference probe – live Takeaways from the Trump indictment that alleges a campaign of 'fraud and deceit' The judge assigned to Trump's Jan. 6 case is a tough punisher of Capitol rioters

Three Minnesota State Patrol troopers are on leave after one of them fatally shot a man during a traffic stop early Monday in Minneapolis, and the state is investigating the shooting, authorities say.

"The United States of America v. Donald J. Trump" instantly became one of the most consequential documents in American history.

District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who has been assigned to preside over former President Donald Trump's criminal case in Washington, DC, has repeatedly spoken out in very strong terms against the efforts to overturn the election and disrupt the transfer of power.

Special counsel Jack Smith unveiled his case alleging that former President Donald Trump broke several laws in his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, with a grand jury indictment returned Tuesday that illustrated the depth and breadth of the federal criminal investigation.

Donald Trump has been indicted on federal charges related to 2020 election subversion, a stunning third time this year that the former president has faced criminal charges.

The historic indictment against Donald Trump in the special counsel's probe into January 6, 2021, and efforts to overturn the 2020 election says that he "enlisted co-conspirators to assist him in his criminal efforts."

Special Counsel Jack Smith said in a statement that the insurrection on January 6 was an “unprecedented assault” on democracy. The prosecutor spoke following the indictment of former President Donald Trump in relation to his attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Mr Smith said the indictment “sets forth the crimes charged in detail. I encourage everyone to read it in full”. “The attack on our nation's capitol on January 6 2021, was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy,” he added. “As described in the indictment, it was fueled by lies. Lies by the defendant targeted at obstructing a bedrock function of the US government – the nation's process of collecting, counting and certifying the results of the presidential election.” “The men and women of law enforcement who defended the US Capitol on January 6 are heroes. They are patriots and they're the very best of us,” the special counsel said. “They did not just defend a building or the people sheltering in it, they put their lives on the line to defend who we are as a country and as a people.” Mr Smith added: “They defended the very institutions and principles that define the United States.” A grand jury in Washington, DC voted to indict Mr Trump on four counts on Tuesday, including conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights. The indictment states that Mr Trump took part in a “conspiracy to defraud the United States by using dishonesty, fraud, and deceit to impair, obstruct, and defeat the lawful federal government function by which the results of the presidential election are collected, counted, and certified by the federal government”. It states that he conspired to “corruptly obstruct and impede the January 6 congressional proceeding at which the collected results of the presidential election are counted and certified” and orchestrated a “conspiracy against the right to vote and to have one’s vote counted”. On Tuesday evening, Mr Smith said, “Since the attack on our capital, the Department of Justice has remained committed to ensuring accountability for those criminally responsible for what happened that day”. “This case is brought consistent with that commitment and our investigation of other individuals continues,” he added. “In this case, my office will seek a speedy trial so that our evidence can be tested in court and judged by a jury of citizens. In the meantime, I must emphasize that the indictment is only an allegation and that the defendant must be presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.” Prosecutors claim that Mr Trump had six co-conspirators, five of which were attorneys. Mr Trump and the “co-conspirators used knowingly false claims of election fraud to get state legislators and election officials to subvert the legitimate election results and change electoral votes for the Defendant’s opponent, Joseph R. Biden, Jr., to electoral votes for the Defendant,” the indictment states. They also argue that Mr Trump “pushed officials in certain states to ignore the popular vote; disenfranchise millions of voters; dismiss legitimate electors; and ultimately, cause the ascertainment of and voting by illegitimate electors”. Mr Smith ended his statement by thanking “the members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation who are working on this investigation with my office, as well as the many career prosecutors and law enforcement agents from around the country who have worked on previous January 6 investigations. “These women and men are public servants of the very highest order and it is a privilege to work alongside them.” Read More Trump indictment - live: Trump faces four criminal charges in indictment over 2020 election interference Marjorie Taylor Greene calls for Jack Smith’s office to be defunded amid Trump indictment DeSantis calls new Trump indictment ‘unfair’ - while pushing his own campaign

Republican presidential candidates seeking to make the second debate stage in September will face tougher criteria for doing so, according to a person familiar with the new rules.

A special prosecutor accuses the former US president of "prolific lies about election fraud".

A Washington DC grand jury has voted to charge former president Donald Trump with TK counts of violating three sections of the federal criminal code as he and a group of allies schemed to find a way to somehow keep him in the White House for a second term despite losing the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden. The grand jurors, who have spent months hearing evidence and witness testimony as part of a long-running probe into Mr Trump’s efforts to overturn his election loss and the January 6 attack on the Capitol which sprung from those efforts, approved the indictment against Mr Trump on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstruction of an official proceeding, and deprivation of rights under colour of law on Tuesday after a four-hour presentation by Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith and his team of prosecutors. Specifically, the indictment alleges that the ex-president engaged in a “conspiracy to defraud the United States by using dishonesty, fraud, and deceit to impair, obstruct, and defeat the lawful federal government function by which the results of the presidential election are collected, counted, and certified by the federal government,” conspired to “corruptly obstruct and impede the January 6 congressional proceeding at which the collected results of the presidential election are counted and certified,” and conspired against “conspiracy against the right to vote and to have one’s vote counted”. The latest charges against Mr Trump are some of the most serious allegations levied against the twice-impeached, now thrice-indicted former president, and are just the first of two possible sets of charges that he could face as a result of his efforts to unlawfully reverse the result of his defeat nearly three years ago. A separate grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia has also been hearing evidence about efforts by Mr Trump and his allies to pressure Peach State officials into reversing his loss to Mr Biden there, and the district attorney who has been supervising that process has said charges be approved against multiple targets in the coming days. The addition of a second federal indictment to the legal troubles facing Mr Trump is certain to complicate his quest to return to the White House by winning next year’s presidential election. He is scheduled to be tried in two separate criminal cases against him, including on the federal charges against him and co-defendants Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira which are pending in a Florida federal court as a result of their alleged roles in the ex-president’s alleged unlawful retention of national defence information and obstruction of justice. A separate case against him for allegedly falsifying business records in his former home state of New York is set to go to trial in March 2024, while the federal case in Florida is scheduled for trial in late May 2024. The ex-president has maintained that the multiple investigations against him amount to “election interference” and a politically motivated “hoax,” and has repeatedly attacked the prosecutors investigating him in extremely personal terms. These latest charges against Mr Trump are the result of an eight-month investigation by Mr Smith, who was appointed by US Attorney General Merrick Garland in November 2022 to supervise a pair of probes focusing on the ex-president’s conduct. In addition to investigating the ex-president’s alleged unlawful retention of national defence information, Mr Smith was also handed control long-running probe into the events leading up to the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, when a riotous mob of Mr Trump’s supporters stormed the seat of the US legislature in hopes of blocking the final certification of his loss to Mr Biden. While prosecutors in the office of the US Attorney for the District of Columbia have charged more than 1,000 people for various crimes committed during the riot — including rare seditious conspiracy charges against members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers extremist groups — the charges against Mr Trump [and his co-defendants] are the first to be brought against anyone for the efforts to overturn the election which arguably led to the Capitol attack. Mr Trump was impeached for inciting the attack with just days left in his presidency, and though a majority of senators voted to convict him, they fell short of the two-thirds supermajority required to sustain a conviction. But the ex-president and his co-defendants are not being charged for organising, inciting or fomenting what was the worst attack on the Capitol since British troops set it ablaze in 1814. Instead, the charges against them are for crimes which prosecutors allege to have been committed as Mr Trump sought to employ a variety of strategies by which he and his allies thought he could reverse or override the will of voters, including pressuring state legislatures to use their own authority to replace swing state electors for Mr Biden with electors for Mr Trump. Mr Trump and his allies also pushed state officials, most notably Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, to act to decertify Mr Biden’s wins in swing states, according to prosecutors. Figures connected to Mr Trump’s campaign also spearheaded an effort to submit forged electoral college certificates to the National Archives and to the Senate, while Mr Trump personally sought to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence into unilaterally throwing out the legitimate electoral certificates for Mr Biden in favour of the forged ones listing Mr Trump as the winner. The case currently pending against him in the Southern District of Florida arose out of a criminal referral from the National Archives and Records Administration after officials discovered documents bearing classification markings in a set of 15 boxes which the agency had retrieved from Mr Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago, the 1920’s-era Palm Beach mansion turned private beach club where he maintains his primary residence and post-presidential office. Investigators later discovered more than 100 additional documents with classification markings during an 8 August 2021 search of Mr Trump’s property, and in June charged him with unlawfully withholding the documents from the government and obstructing efforts to determine whether all the classified documents in his possession had been returned. Read More Trump indicted for his efforts to overturn 2020 presidential election results. Follow live updates Prosecutor involved in Jan. 6 cases says indictment has been returned as Trump braces for charges It's Kamala Harris vs. Ron DeSantis in the fight over Florida's new teachings on slavery Trump begs Congress to help save him from his legal troubles Who is Jack Smith? The ex-war crimes prosecutor who is coming for Trump Donald Trump is the first former president arrested on federal charges. Can he still run in 2024?

A federal grand jury has indicted former President Donald Trump in special counsel Jack Smith's investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election leading up to the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.