Donald Trump’s claim that “presidential immunity” protects him from prosecution in his federal election interference case will soon be heard by the US Supreme Court.
On Monday, special counsel Jack Smith asked the nation’s highest court to expedite and rule on the matter speedily – something the court agreed to do just hours later. Mr Trump now has until 4pm on 20 December to respond.
The latest twist in the case comes as Mr Trump’s civil fraud trial is wrapping up in New York.
The former president was expected to return to the stand on Monday but suddenly backed out of testifying in an all-caps Truth Social rant on Sunday.
Also in Washington, DC, the defamation trial of Trump lawyer and former mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani got underway following the selection of an eight-person jury.
A judge has already found Mr Giuliani liable for defaming Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss by falsely claiming they committed election fraud.
On Monday, Mr Giuliani spewed his defamatory comments once again outside the courtroom.
Key Points
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Jack Smith asks US Supreme Court justices to rule on Trump immunity — and quick
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Trump backs out of testifying at New York fraud trial
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Giuliani defamation trial: Day one
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Appeals court upholds Trump’s gag order in election conspiracy case
22:13 , Oliver O’Connell
And with that, the Giuliani defamation trial wraps for the day.
Day three will begin at 9.15am ET tomorrow.
Giuliani defamation trial: Video depositions continue
22:09 , Oliver O’Connell
The jury is being played the video deposition of Jenna Ellis, who recently struck a plea deal with the Fulton County DA for her involvement in that case.
The video is Ms Ellis repeatedly pleading the fifth to questions.
We’re approaching 18 minute of Ellis repeatedly pleading the Fifth. Plaintiffs have already disclosed that she pleaded the Fifth about 308 times in her deposition. Ray Smith, a Georgia attorney for Trump, pleaded the Fifth more than 400 times as well, the lawyers revealed.
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) December 12, 2023
If you have $4,600 to spare, perhaps consider donating to charity instead
22:00 , Oliver O’Connell
Mike Bedigan reports:
Donald Trump has offered fans the chance to buy a “historic” gift for loved ones this Christmas – a piece of the suit worn while taking his now infamous mugshot – for the bargain price of $4,600.
On Tuesday, the former president announced that a new series of his digital trading cards, titled The Mugshot Edition, was now on sale.
When customers purchase 47 of the digital trading cards, featuring various patriotic pop art depictions of Mr Trump – at $99 a pop – they will also be gifted a special physical card.
That card will feature a strip of material taken from the suit worn by Mr Trump when he was formally arrested in Fulton County, Georgia, on 24 August. The resulting picture was the first-ever mugshot of a United States president.
Continued…
Trump is giving away pieces of suit worn in his mug shot – with a $4,600 catch
21:37 , Oliver O’Connell
Next up, the jury is shown deposition excerpts from Christina Bobb who says she was put in touch with Giuliani after the 2020 election by Chanel Rion of One America News.
A text is shown in which Giuliani asks her on 4 December 2020 to send Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers a copy of the Georgia surveillance video showing Ms Moss and Ms Freeman exchanging ginger mints.
In her message to Bowers, she refers to it as proof of “illegal ballot stuffing”.
Guliani defamation trial: Video depositions shown to jury
21:33 , Oliver O’Connell
Two Trump World video depositions are shown to the jury after Ms Moss’s testimony concludes.
The first is from former NYPD commissioner Bernie Kerik and concerns a strategic communications plan shared by Giuliani’s team that targeted Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss by name.
Kerik eventually shared the plan with the January 6th Committee.
Jurors are also shown a tweet from Kerik falsely accusing the two plaintiffs of electoral misconduct.
21:26 , Oliver O’Connell
A second rebuttal witness takes the stand despite objections from Kise. Judge Engoron says he will allow questioning to proceed for now.
Eric Lewis, an accounting professor at Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, is objected to on the grounds he’s not a certified public accountant and does not have any research work or published articles or books, according to the defence team.
On the stand, Professor Lewis says he does, in fact, conduct academic research, before listing his qualifications.
21:20 , Oliver O’Connell
In cross-examination by the Trump legal team, Mr Sneddon tells Chris Robert that he didn’t remember who defendant Jeff McConney was until he was contacted recently by the New York AG’s office, and that he didn’t know the inaccurate 30,000 square footage figure for the triplex was an issue until told about it.
Under questioning by Robert, Sneddon confirms that he didn’t remember who McConney was until he was contacted recently by the AG’s office, and didn’t know the 30,000 sq foot triplex thing was an issue until the government told him about it.
— Stewart Bishop (@stewartbishop) December 12, 2023
21:16 , Oliver O’Connell
As questioning continues, we learn that it was former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg who gave Mr Sneddon the false square footage of the Trump penthouse.
In another 2012 email, Sneddon tells McConney that he’s valued the penthouse at $120 million to $180 million.
— Stewart Bishop (@stewartbishop) December 12, 2023
NY fraud trial: Rebuttal witnesses
21:13 , Oliver O’Connell
Alex Woodward reports:
As expected from the morning session, Donald Trump’s team really doesn’t want rebuttal witnesses to mention anything that relates to previous testimony.
Earlier, Trump attorney Christopher Kise was furiously objecting to the judge’s consideration of rebuttal witnesses from the New York attorney general’s office, and now, after the NY AG’s team introduces Kevin Sneddon, a former Trump International Realty executive who can talk about the size of Trump’s triplex penthouse, Mr Kise again stands up to object.
As we all know by now, the penthouse was falsely valued based on having 30,000 square footage. It’s actually less than 11,000.
Who came up with that valuation, and under whose direction, and for what reason? Those haven’t been answered – yet…
20:58 , Oliver O’Connell
On redirect, plaintiffs’ attorney John Langford begins by asking Ms Moss if she would like to be working now, to which she responds that in an ideal world, she would still be working at “the only job I’ve known” but no longer has a sense of purpose.
“Most days now I pray that God does not wake me up and I just disappear.”
She continues by saying she rarely goes out, and if she does, she is never alone. Security accompanies her even in Washington to attend the trial.
Langford asks her what she thinks Giuliani meant when he compared her to a bank robber and says she and her mother were passing USB sticks like “vials of heroine or cocaine”.
“That’s what he thinks when he looks at Black people,” she responds.
Giuliani shakes his head as he sits at the defence table.
Langford asks what Moss thinks Giuliani meant when he compared her to a bank robber and said she and her mother were passing USBs like “vials of heroin or cocaine.”
Moss: “That’s what he thinks when he looks at Black people.”
Giuliani is at the defense table shaking his head.
— Jordan Fischer (@JordanOnRecord) December 12, 2023
Trump resorts to old excuse over his ‘dictator’ comments – he was ‘joking’
20:40 , Oliver O’Connell
But is anyone laughing?
John Bowden reports:
As Donald Trump continues to face vocal condemnations after refusing to deny that he would be a “dictator” during his second term, the former president is turning to a familiar excuse to explain his eyebrow-raising remarks.
The ex-president has been at the centre of a small firestorm since his appearance last Wednesday on Fox News for a town hall-style interview with Sean Hannity, his counter-programming for the fourth GOP presidential debate. During that interview, a visibly flustered Hannity was left sputtering after Mr Trump’s off-colour quip about whether he would act with authoritarian tendencies if returned to power.
Read on…
Trump resorts to old excuse over his ‘dictator’ comments – he was ‘joking’
Giuliani defamation trial: Moss says harassment continues
20:27 , Oliver O’Connell
Ms Moss says that the harassment continues.
People have found her new home and sent her cut-up clippings of her face.
That was just a few months ago. She’s blocked people from being able to message her on Facebook, she blocked on LinkedIn, and she signed up for DeleteMe. They even went after her Pinterest.
Sibley asks if she or her mother have had it worse, to which Ms Moss replies that it’s “like two people getting jumped, and deciding who got jumped worse”.
Asking about her mental health and diagnosis, Sibley questions whether there is anything in her medical records that attributes it to Giuliani.
“It started with Trump and his homeboys… his allies.”
Cross-examination concludes and the court goes on a short break.
Sibley, pursuing a somewhat murky strategy here, is repeatedly pressing Moss on her mental health treatment and diagnoses. He asks if there’s anything in her medical records that attributes it to Giuliani.
Moss: “It started with Trump and his homeboys… his allies.”
— Jordan Fischer (@JordanOnRecord) December 12, 2023
NY fraud trial: Defence rests (for real)
20:15 , Oliver O’Connell
Alex Woodward reports:
Donald Trump’s legal team has officially rested its case in their client’s fraud trial – but lead attorney Chris Kise is asking the judge for a fourth time (or fifth?) for a directed verdict, arguing that there is “no evidence of fraud, no victims, no damage”.
They’ll submit this in writing but Judge Arthur Engoron is likely to shoot that down, again.
“There’s no way I’m going to grant that, but [you can] send me something,” the judge says.
“This is a colossal waste of resources,” New York attorney general’s office counsel Kevin Wallace tells Justice Engoron. “We already have a 45-page PowerPoint presentation on a directed verdict from Mr Kise.”
“This is silly,” he says.
The trial moves on to the NY AG’s rebuttal witnesses.
Giuliani defamation trial: Defence cross-examines Moss
20:10 , Oliver O’Connell
Giuliani’s lawyer Joseph Sibley asks about the details of the settlement reached by One America News with Ms Moss and Ms Freeman.
Ms Moss says they “recanted their lies” and had to post the truth as many times and as for as long as the false claims were up.
Asked if other election workers at the State Farm Arena were targeted by threats, she says the entire staff was “tormented” by picket lines with confederate flags, and some has things thrown at them.
Ms Moss is asked if Giuliani ever said anything about the plaintiffs’ race. She responds: “He assumed we were all Dems because we were Black.”
Sibley asks if Ms Moss believes the defendant intended for her and her mother to receive racist messages.
“He didn’t go onto BET Nightly News to spread his lies… he went to places where he knew his people would hear.”
Giuliani knew his audience and the type of people who would fall for his lies, Moss says.
“He did not go to BET nightly news to spew his lies,” Moss said.
— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) December 12, 2023
Asked if she had any evidence that Giuliani intended there to be violence against them, Ms Moss says that he said their homes should be searched and they should be locked up “so the world thought they should do it for him”.
Sibley asks: “The racist messages we saw earlier and have heard throughout the trial could just as easily have been caused by the Gateway Pundit, correct?”
Ms Moss says people were parroting Giuliani’s words and his false claims.
Report: Trump contacted ex-Mar-a-Lago employee turned witness
20:00 , Oliver O’Connell
Donald Trump and his associates allegedly repeatedly contacted a former Mar-a-Lago employee who knew of key conversations and moments in the federal classified documents case against the former president.
According to multiple human sources and other material accessed by CNN, Mr Trump took a rare step and reached out to the employee a few days after he quit working at the Florida estate to inquire why he was leaving.
Mr Trump’s associates later allegedly offered the former employee free tickets to a golf tournament.
The former employee, who later told the federal special counsel’s office investigating the documents case about the communications, even allegedly got an offer from Mr Trump’s lawyer for assistance in finding legal representation, with the lawyer mentioning in a voicemail that he was aware the former employee had been subpoenaed to provide information to a grand jury.
The Independent has contacted the Justice Department and a lawyer for the former president in the documents case for comment.
Josh Marcus reports.
Trump contacted ex-Mar-a-Lago employee turned witness, report claims
NY fraud trial: Trump defence rests case (almost)
19:43 , Oliver O’Connell
Alex Woodward reports:
Donald Trump’s defence has almost rested its case, after several weeks of testimony from a series of accounting and real estate experts that Trump’s attorneys hoped would boost their defence of the former president.
Eli Bartov, an NYU accounting professor who was paid nearly $900,000 for his testimony by the Trump Organization and Trump’s presidential campaign, repeatedly stated that banks drew their own analysis of Trump’s financial state that was not based on his statements of financial condition – the allegedly fraudulent documents at the centre of the case.
In a final round of questioning, Trump attorney Jesus Suarez showed Mr Bartov a Deutsche Bank credit report that tells lending officers to use their own judgment to make adjustments to their clients’ numbers.
“They were performing an independent analysis based on their judgments and assumptions” and did not use Mr Trump’s, Mr Bartov said.
Lawyers with the office of the New York attorney general are expected to present two rebuttal witnesses before this phase of the trial comes to a close.
However, before we get there the defence wanted to move some documents into evidence which is not to the liking of the NY AG’s office — they claim they are being sandbagged.
“All of these documents were on the plaintiffs’ exhibit list,” Trump attorney Christopher Kise tells the court.
“We don’t want more time..we want the defendants to rest their case,” Kevin Wallace of the AG’s office says. “The defendants, if they don’t have a witness, they should be resting.”
Giuliani defamation trial: ‘Maybe the truth needs to be screamed just as loud and just as many times as the lies’
19:40 , Oliver O’Connell
Sibley says The Gateway Pundit was the first to post the State Farm Arena video of Ms Moss and Ms Freeman. He asks how they’re different from Giuliani.
Ms Moss replies: “They’re no different. They’re all on the same hate train together. It was just Mr Giuliani driving the bus picking up these people and spreading lies.”
Asked why she is seeking such a large financial award from Giuliani, she says: “I want to vindicate myself. I want to receive some type of justice for everything me and my family have been through.”
Sibley asks what steps Ms Moss has taken to try and restore her reputation, to which she replies: “It’s kind of hard to do when extremely powerful people are still spreading lies about you.”
Ms Moss also says: “I’m sure by hitting someone in the pockets… that will definitely leave an impression for the next person who tries to spew lies about the next election worker.”
“I cannot personally repair my reputation at the moment because your client is still lying on me and ruining my reputation. Like, how could you work in law if everyone is saying you’re a horrible lawyer?” says Ms Moss
Sibley responds: “You’d be surprised, actually.”
“Maybe the truth needs to be screamed just as loud and just as many times as the lies.”
“Maybe the truth needs to be screamed just as loud and just as many times as the lies,” Moss said.
— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) December 12, 2023
ICYMI: Supreme Court will look at Trump’s claim of presidential immunity
19:30 , Oliver O’Connell
The US Supreme Court has agreed to expedite consideration of special counsel Jack Smith’s request for a decision on Donald Trump’s “immunity” claim in his election subversion case that the former president wants dismissed.
An answer would mark the first time the nation’s highest court has weighed in on the criminal prosecutions of the former president, who was charged in a grand jury indictment for his alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Hours after Mr Smith’s request on Monday, justices agreed to expedite the case. Mr Trump has until 4pm on 20 December to respond.
Alex Woodward reports.
Trump’s ‘presidential immunity’ claim will be tested at the Supreme Court
19:17 , Oliver O’Connell
Cross-examination of Ms Moss by Sibley begins with Giuliani’s lawyer saying: “My client, as you heard last night, likes to talk a lot. Unfortunately.”
They discuss the video footage of Ms Freeman, mother of Ms Moss and co-plaintiff, handing her a ginger mint. Giuliani falsely claimed it was a USB drive that was somehow being used to throw the election to Joe Biden.
Sibley asks if Ms Moss can understand how a layperson would look at a video of a box being pulled from under a desk and ballots being scanned multiple times and think something was going on.
There is an objection which Judge Howell sustains. She notes that it deals with issues that have already been resolved.
Giuliani defamation trial: Judge addresses last night’s comments to media
19:04 , Oliver O’Connell
After returning from lunch, Judge Beryl Howell addresses Giuliani’s remarks to the media last night in which he claimed he had not defamed the plaintiffs and the allegations of electoral fraud were correct. The jury has not been brought back in yet.
“Mr Sibley has a hard job,” Judge Howell said of Giuliani’s lawyer before asking if the defendant plans to claim on the stand that his false statements about the plaintiffs are true.
Sibley says that his client should be able to defend himself.
“Who knows what he believed when, because we have no discovery of that!” Judge Howell says, once again pointing out how Giuliani has disregarded the case. “We’re in the situation we’re in because of your client.”
“Who knows what he believed when, because we have no discovery of that!” Howell says, once again pointing out how Giuliani has blown off this case. “We’re in the situation we’re in because of your client.”
— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) December 12, 2023
She adds: “That’s a decision that was made after multiple opportunities to respond to discovery. So that’s water under the bridge for you all.”
Because of Giuliani’s actions, it’s tough to know whether he knew he was flat-out lying, or if he was just acting recklessly by pandering to an audience who wanted to eat that up, says the judge.
“In some ways, I feel like I’m saving him from himself,” says Judge Howell, instructing Giuliani and his lawyer that he should not be testifying that the lies he told about the two election workers were true.
Sibley, trying very hard not to just flat out say he can’t control what Giuliani is going to say on the stand, says he’s advised him about the court’s orders and the threat of contempt.
Judge Howell: “Contempt has been a running theme throughout this case.”
— Jordan Fischer (@JordanOnRecord) December 12, 2023
Hunter Biden asks judge to toss federal gun charges
19:00 , Oliver O’Connell
Hunter Biden is asking a judge to toss his federal gun charges, arguing that prosecutors have broken a deal previously struck in the case and that Special Counsel David Weiss is bending to the will of Republican critics.
The embattled son of President Joe Biden was hit with three felony gun charges in Delaware in September over a gun purchase in October 2018 when he was in the grips of drug addiction.
Prosecutors allege that Hunter Biden unlawfully possessed a Colt Cobra 38SPL revolver for 11 days, after he falsely claimed on a gun purchase form that he didn’t use drugs.
Under federal law, an unlawful drug user cannot legally possess a firearm.
Rachel Sharp has the details.
Hunter Biden asks judge to toss federal gun charges
‘The most historically significant artifact in United States history’ will not be in the Smithsonian
18:40 , Oliver O’Connell
Former President Donald Trump is selling pieces of the suit he wore for his mugshot in Fulton County, Georgia, where he has been indicted for his alleged attempts to overthrow the results of a democratic election.
He describes it as “the most historically significant artifact in United States history” which is quite the oversell and really disses anything they have in the Smithsonian.
The former President of the United States is selling pieces of the suit he wore for his mugshot in Fulton County, Georgia, where he has been indicted for his alleged attempts to overthrow the results of a democratic election. pic.twitter.com/wOQhRih5mI
— Anna Bower (@AnnaBower) December 12, 2023
Kaitlan Collins calls out Ron Johnson over baseless election fraud claims
18:30 , Oliver O’Connell
Wisconsin Republican Senator Ron Johnson was called out on CNN after pushing baseless claims about Democrats having taken similar actions to Republicans who put forward fake electors in 2020.
On Monday night, Mr Johnson was asked about Republicans in Wisconsin who falsely claimed that they were electors for then-President Donald Trump in the 2020 election.
The senator responded by claiming that Democrats have done the same thing “repeatedly in all kinds of different states,” but when asked to provide an example, he was unable to do so, simply telling anchor Kaitlan Collins to “check the books”.
Gustaf Kilander reports.
Ron Johnson called out by CNN host for baseless election fraud claims
Jimmy Kimmel gives perfect response to George Santos’ demand for $20,000 over Cameo prank
18:15 , Oliver O’Connell
“Can you imagine if I get sued by George Santos for fraud?” joked Mr Kimmel, who said the stunt aimed to test what Mr Santos would be willing to say for money.
Martha McHardy has the story:
Jimmy Kimmel’s perfect response to George Santos’ demand for $20,000 over Cameo prank
17:55 , Oliver O’Connell
Before the court breaks for lunch, Ms Moss says the lies continue to impact her life, explaining that if a vehicle follows her she has to stop because she panics. If she goes to get her nails or hair done she has to be the last client of the day. She has anxiety attacks at her son’s football games.
“I don’t like going anywhere. I don’t like that feeling. It’s like a serious fear. I’m crying hysterically. I just can’t take that fear,” she tells the jury.
“I can’t get beyond the feeling that someone is going to act upon what they’re messaging me, because they never stop. They never stop.”
“It just feels like I am trapped under somebody’s boot… It feels like I’m in a dark place and I’m surrounded by lies and conspiracies. Like I’m surrounded by a swamp of loneliness and sadness and negativity,” Ms Moss says. “I still feel like I’m in that cycle of eat, sleep, cry, look online.”
17:42 , Oliver O’Connell
There is an objection from Giuliani’s attorney Joseph Sibley. Judge Howell overruled the objection, but Sibley asked to see how Ms Moss knew about what Giuliani said last night.
Moss says when she and her mother got back to their hotel they saw Giuliani on a TV in the lobby. She thought maybe he was finally taking responsibility, but then she heard what he said.
— Jordan Fischer (@JordanOnRecord) December 12, 2023
Giuliani defamation trial: Moss describes therapy and impact on family
17:39 , Oliver O’Connell
Ms Moss tells the jury she eventually sought treatment and was diagnosed with acute stress disorder but avoided therapists for a long time.
Eventually, in 2022, she went back to therapy and was diagnosed with major depressive disorder and acute stress. She says she’s still struggling with those issues.
“I don’t know if I’ll be in therapy forever. I hope not. I pray not.”
The harassment was not just of Ms Moss and her mother Ruby Freeman. She tells court about how a group of people barged into her grandmother’s home looking for her, saying they were going to make a citizen’s arrest on her and her mother.
Her then 14-year-old son was using her old cell phone as a hotspot to connect to the internet to do online classes because of the pandemic, but once Giuliani’s lies were broadcast, people found her number and were constantly calling and messaging, which knocked him offline.
Ms Moss says she tried to explain to him what was going on. He had heard the abusive messages on her phone and wanted to protect her. His schoolwork suffered and he ended up failing every class.
She is asked if Mr Giuliani has ever apologised to her, to which she replies no.
Ms Moss is then asked if he is still spreading lies about her.
“Yes, he was still spreading lies last night,” she replies.
NY fraud trial: Defence expert cross-examination concludes
17:16 , Oliver O’Connell
Alex Woodward reports from Lower Manhattan:
The cross-examination of the expert witness for the defence Eli Bartov has concluded at the New York State Supreme Court.
Mr Bartov had suggested that Trump had enough cash to self-finance the Trump Doral golf course redevelopment. He rejected a line of questioning about that as too hypothetical.
When Donald Trump Jr testified, attorneys put up a slide showing that the Trump Organization “invested $250m into renovating every inch of the property”.
How could Trump have done that if he self-financed?
“If he hypothetically self-financed the loan he might’ve taken a different course of action,” Mr Bartov said. “It’s too many hypotheticals to figure out what he could have done if he self-financed.”
Mr Bartov also said he read Judge Arthur Engoron’s summary judgment and found it “very informative”.
“I think I have a very general understanding of the ruling,” he said.
Notably, Mr Bartov served as a witness for the New York Attorney General’s office in a 2019 case against Exxon.
Louis Solomon shows him a court ruling from that case, finding that Mr Bartov’s testimony was “unpersuasive” and “flatly contradicted by the weight of the evidence”.
Mr Bartov said he wasn’t aware of that document. That was the last question from the NY AG’s office.
There will be another round of questioning from Trump’s attorneys before he’s dismissed.
17:10 , Oliver O’Connell
Ms Moss says: “Before December 2020 my life was lit. My life was great. I was always out. I was very sociable. I wasn’t worried about going out alone.”
“I’m like a hermit crab now,” she adds, saying she is anxious, no longer goes out, has gained a lot of weight from stress-eating, and cries all the time.
Describing the death threats both she and her mother have received she begins to cry and says she is “extremely scared” and “always scared”.
Asked what she is most scared of, she chillingly replies: “I’m most scared of my son finding me and my mom hanging in front of our house or having to get news at school that I was killed. That’s what I’m most afraid of.”
Ms Moss adds that the situation led to tend of a 10-year relationship and that she has lost friends because she doesn’t want people to get hurt for being associated with her.
“I’ve just secluded myself,” she says.
“My worst nightmare is I will open my door to go to work… and there will be a crowd with nooses and pitchforks. And they’re there to get me.”
Giuliani defamation trial: Moss describes becoming a pariah at work
17:00 , Oliver O’Connell
Plaintiff Shaye Moss tells the jury she became a pariah at work after Giuliani’s false accusations and became fearful someone would attack her on the three-block walk to the office.
She was embarrassed at the comments people would make about her and her mother at commissioner’s meetings repeating Giuliani’s false claims.
Working at the county elections office eventually became untenable. She became so desperate to leave she applied at Chick-fil-A and was ready to cook fries for minimum wage if that’s what it took. She had previously been making approximately $35,000 before taxes.
However, during the Chick-fil-A interview, she was shown an article about her.
Looking for that last-minute Christmas gift? Trump has you covered…
16:43 , Oliver O’Connell
Yes, he’s selling pieces of the suit he wore when he had his mugshot taken at the Fulton County Jail…
No, really.
Due to the great Excitement and Success of my previous TRUMP DIGITAL TRADING CARDS, we’re doing it again – The MugShot Edition, available RIGHT NOW. Plus, buy 47 cards and get a piece of the suit I wore for the “Mugshot Photo,” and also get an invite to a Gala Dinner with me at Mar-a-Lago! Don’t wait, they’ll go FAST (I believe!). I’m happy if you’re happy. Have fun. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
16:40 , Oliver O’Connell
Giuliani defamation trial: Plaintiff describes aftermath of Giuliani lies
16:35 , Oliver O’Connell
Ms Moss’ attorney shows jurors a clip from Giuliani’s Christmas 2020 video podcast.
Asked whether she created a fake water main break, Ms Moss says no. Did she count ballots multiple times? No. Did she steal the election? No.
The video shows her working, she said.
“That was the worst Christmas that I’ve ever had,” Ms Moss testified. “In the midst of all of this, my goal was still to make sure that everything was ready for our next election… I still was working hard.”
“Things ain’t never returned to normal,” she said. “Every single aspect of my life has changed.”
She left her job in April 2022, when she was 38. She hadn’t planned on leaving and has wanted to retire as a county worker and make her family proud.
Ms Moss also says that before she left she didn’t get the promotion she was expecting after the election, although she had to write all the procedures for the person who got the position.
“It was like, ‘I know you didn’t do anything wrong, but it’s how it looks.’”
Moss says she was back-benched and it became clear she wasn’t going to be allowed to ever touch a ballot again. People she trained got jobs over her.
Moss: “It felt like a slap in the face… It felt like my job that I love has been taken away from me because of lies.”
— Jordan Fischer (@JordanOnRecord) December 12, 2023
NY fraud trial: Cross-examination of defence expert witness continues
16:27 , Oliver O’Connell
Alex Woodward reports from the New York State Supreme Court:
Defence expert witness Eli Bartov testified last week that Deutsche Bank did not rely on Donald Trump’s statements of financial condition to make deals with the former president — these are the documents at the heart of the case.
Deutsche Bank tended to give lowball estimates of assets provided by clients. Documents from the bank appear to show that it adjusted Mr Trump’s values in his statements of financial condition by 50 per cent.
So wouldn’t that mean that Deutsche Bank would have to rely on those statements in order to get to the bank’s number?
Louis Solomon with the New York Attorney General’s office keeps trying to get Mr Bartov to answer that with a yes or no answer.
We’re looking through Mr Bartov’s sworn statement from August, where he claimed that Mr Trump’s statements of financial condition “did not impact significantly Deutsche Bank’s decisions to extend loans … or to set these loans’ interest rates.”
He also said that Deutsche Bank’s reliance on those documents was “marginal”, and that they were “generally” consistent with accounting standards.
The questioning from Solomon is hammering him on these statements, which are not absolute. He could’ve said Trump’s financial statements had no impact, Solomon said. He asked why Bartov qualified them instead.
16:24 , Oliver O’Connell
Ms Moss said about Giuliani’s false claims against her and her mother after an audio clip from the former mayor’s show is played in court: “My reaction is how can someone with so much power go public and talk about things that he obviously has no clue about? It’s just obvious that it’s lies. It’s hurtful. It’s untrue, and it’s unfair.”
She recalls she had to walk about three blocks from her job to the parking lot after receiving threatening messages and was afraid.
“I had to go home and sit with that, and continue to read them as they come in… I felt lost, I felt confused, I was a mess.”
Facebook messages Ms Moss received are shown. In one she is called a “dirty f***** n***** b****” and that she and her mother should be in jail.
Another message reads: “Be glad its 2020 and not 1920.”
Ms Moss says she will never forget it.
The next day she went to her hair stylist and asked to be made unrecogniseable. She had her long bleached blonde braids cut and dyed strawberry blonde.
Nevertheless, Ms Moss says: “Everyone knew who I was… They weren’t afraid to come up to you and tell you the lies they heard. I was afraid for my life. I was afraid someone was going to try to hurt me and there was nothing anyone could do about it.”
16:14 , Oliver O’Connell
Ms Moss is shown the video footage that Giuliani falsely claims shows electoral fraud.
She says it actually shows the election workers working very hard to ensure everyone’s vote is counted.
Ms Moss says: “I was shocked. I didn’t know what to think. I was dumbfounded. I learned that I had been receiving all kinds of hateful, racist, violent, nasty, negative messages.”
One message on Facebook said she had committed treason and would be going to prison. She was confused and fearful for her safety and that of her mother.
“I was looking at the messages, I was reading them… It didn’t make sense. It didn’t make any sense at all.”
16:07 , Oliver O’Connell
Ms Moss describes the day after Giuliani spoke to the Georgia State Senate: “December 4, 2020, was the last day I was this outgoing, bubbly, happy Shaye. That was the day that everything changed. Everything in my life changed. I changed. Everything in my life just flipped upside down.”
“Crazy lies were spread about me and my mom,” she adds. “All these crazy lies were spread about us on that day. Publicly. Everywhere.”
Ms Moss recalls her director calling her into his office. It was then she was shown videos and lies about her and her mother.
Giuliani defamation trial: Plaintiff Shaye Moss takes the stand
15:55 , Oliver O’Connell
Plaintiff Shaye Moss has taken the stand at Rudy Giuliani’s defamation trial.
She is visibly nervous but smiles at the jury and introduces herself as 39 years old mother, a “proud Georgia resident” and a former election worker.
Ms Moss says she loved her job and had grown up hearing stories from her grandmother about how women and Black people didn’t always have the right to vote.
She felt like she was making her grandmother proud by working on the election.
“I worked really hard to learn everything I needed to do, it was like a golden ticket, like Willy Wonka, I was just so proud of myself that I was able to become a permanent employee.”
Here’s what Ms Moss told the January 6 select committee during its public hearings in 2022:
USB drive Giuliani said showed vote fraud was a mint, witness tells Jan 6 hearing
NY fraud trial: Trump claims he wanted to testify
15:43 , Oliver O’Connell
In a post on Truth Social this morning, Donald Trump claims he wanted to testify on Monday in his civil fraud trial in New York but claims the gag order placed on him by Judge Arthur Engoron (to stop him from attacking court staff) violated his constitutional right to defend himself.
Here’s what the former president wrote:
I wanted to testify on Monday, despite the fact that I already testified successfully, answering all questions having to do with the Fake, No Victims, No Jury lawsuit, thrown at me by the Corrupt Racist A.G., Letitia James, and presided over by a Trump hating judge who suffers from a massive case of Trump Derangement Syndrome, and is a puppet for the CROOKED A.G. Anyway, the Judge, Arthur Engoron, put a GAG ORDER on me, even when I testify, totally taking away my constitutional right to defend myself. We are appealing, but how would you like to be a witness and not be allowed free snd honest speech. THE TRIAL IS RIGGED. I DID NOTHING WRONG!!!
Giuliani defamation trial: Attorneys for plaintiffs ask court to stop Giuliani further violating court orders
15:41 , Oliver O’Connell
In a late-night court filing, attorneys for Ms Freeman and Ms Moss ask the court to instruct the counsel for the defence that he violated the court’s order when he made his remarks to the media last night. He is not allowed to argue that he is not liable for defamation, as that has already been decided by the court.
You can read the full filing here.
Giuliani defamation trial: Witnesses debunk electoral fraud claims
15:37 , Oliver O’Connell
Back in Washington, DC, the jury at Rudy Giuliani’s defamation watches taped deposition from Georgia election investigator Frank Braun.
He explains that the reason Fulton County workers — including Ms Moss and Ms Shaye —returned to counting ballots after observers had left was because of a late call from the secretary of state’s office telling them they couldn’t go home until they finished the batches they had already begun.
Another video deposition is played of Frances Watson, another Georgia election investigator who got a call about the 2020 vote count from Donald Trump himself.
In her deposition, she explains that what Giuliani claims was electoral fraud was actually the vote counters doing their job. She also confirms the testimony of Mr Braun.
WATSON also repeatedly emphasizes that no observers were kicked out. They left when the election workers started to wrap for the night. But then those workers were ordered by the state to continue counting.
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) December 12, 2023
Ms Watson also talks about the myth regarding a water main leak. It was a relatively minor incident in a discreet area of the arena. Workers moved quickly to ensure no equipment or ballots were compromised. None were and the counting and tabulating continued.
She also explains that sometimes workers needed to scan batches of ballots more than once, per their training, to ensure accuracy. Those ballots are only tabulated once in the system.
Investigators confirmed logs showed no double-counting of ballots.
Meanwhile, on Long Island…
15:29 , Oliver O’Connell
Watch live: George Santos appears in court ahead of corruption trial
NY fraud trial: Defence objects to NY AG rebuttal witnesses
15:27 , Oliver O’Connell
Donald Trump’s lawyers are objecting to the New York Attorney General’s rebuttal witnesses as the defence case comes to an end.
Read what they wrote to Justice Arthur Engoron.
Trump lawyer Christopher Kise is arguing before the judge, claiming that the rebuttal witnesses are an attempt to “backfield” the case after the court heard from defence witnesses.
The AG’s office has a “hole in their case in chief” but it “doesn’t give them license” to add more witnesses after “realizing they hadn’t established what they need to establish.”
“This is a reversible error. Letting this in under these circumstances … to backfield their case, and deprive us an opportunity, I don’t see how that’s supported in any case law,” he said.
Plaintiffs can’t “wait to see what we put on and tack it on as rebutting,” he said. “It’s not really rebuttal evidence when it directly responds to an affirmative element in their case. It’s nothing new.”
Louis Solomon with the AG’s office said it’s “insane” that the court has been hearing from Kise on this for 15 minutes.
Seth Meyers destroys GOP reactions to Trump ‘dictator’ comments
15:20 , Oliver O’Connell
Late-night show host Seth Meyers poked fun at the GOP lawmakers still making excuses for Donald Trump after the former president said he would become a “dictator” on his first day of office if he is elected in 2024.
On Monday night’s Late Night with Seth Meyers, Mr Meyers rolled CNN clips showing Republican politicians scrabbling to justify Mr Trump’s comments.
Senator Lindsey Graham simply smiled and told reporters that the former president was just “joking”.
Meanwhile, Senator John Thune just passed Mr Trump’s choice words off as “fairly, kind of, typical Trump rhetoric”.
Mr Meyers said that GOP lawmakers have been excusing Mr Trump’s “jokes” for years, brushing them off as gags when Mr Trump’s uncontrollable comments backfire.
Amelia Neath reports on the rest of Meyers’ comments:
Seth Meyers destroys Republican responses to Trump ‘dictator’ comments
NY fraud trial: End in sight for testimony
15:10 , Oliver O’Connell
Alex Woodward reports from the New York State Supreme Court in Lower Manhattan:
After more than 11 weeks, the civil fraud trial in New York County Supreme Court that imperils Donald Trump’s business is coming to an end.
On Sunday night, he backed out of testifying for a second time the night before he was scheduled to be there.
In all-caps screeds on his Truth Social, he claimed he has already said enough, repeated false statements about the case and attacks against the judge overseeing it, called the Black state attorney general suing him “racist”, and claimed that a defence witness who is resuming testimony this morning gave “strong” and “irrefutable” evidence to support him.
Witness statements from “world-renowned experts, highly respected bank [and] insurance executives, real estate professionals, as well as others, both honest [and] credible” proved that he “clearly [and] unequivocally” did nothing wrong, the former president claimed.
Without Trump, the courtroom went dark on Monday.
On Tuesday morning, the courtroom will continue to hear from defence witness Eli Bartov, an NYU accounting professor who was paid nearly $900,000 by Mr Trump’s business and presidential campaign for his testimony. He returns to the witness stand for unfinished business, including cross-examination from the New York attorney general’s office.
Judge Arthur Engoron’s courtroom in lower Manhattan was back to business as usual on Tuesday, with a smaller crowd of reporters filling the benches and fewer law enforcement officers circling the room without Trump in the building.
After Bartov’s testimony, state lawyers are expected to bring up their own final pair of witnesses before the trial goes dark, again, until January.
Final briefs will be submitted to the court next month, followed by closing arguments and, finally, a ruling from the judge.
Trump mocks Haley’s ‘surge’
15:02 , Oliver O’Connell
Donald Trump mocked Nikki Haley’s polling numbers on Monday night, posting on Truth Social:
Where’s the Nikki Surge? I hear about it from the Fake News Media, but don’t see it in the Polls, or on the Ground. In any event, I hope she and DeSanctimonious are doing well, and continue the same “Surge” as they’ve had for the past eight weeks!
Strong debate performances by Haley have led some to see the former UN Ambassador as a viable alternative to the former president in 2024. Polling numbers are yet to reflect that.
CNN reports that Ms Haley will get a significant endorsement today from New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu.
What Rudy said last night…
14:44 , Oliver O’Connell
Rudy Giuliani stands accused of once again defaming election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, whom he falsely accused of changing votes during the counting of the 2020 election.
Attorneys for the election workers argued in a filing late Monday that the former Trump lawyer and New York mayor crafted arguments with his lawyer that went against the court’s previous ruling that Mr Giuliani’s defamatory statements about the election workers were false.
The legal filing from the attorneys for the mother and daughter points to an ABC News report in which Mr Giuliani said he “told the truth” about the election workers “changing votes”. He added that he shouldn’t be held accountable because of “other people overreacting”.
Gustaf Kilander has the story:
Rudy Giuliani spews defamatory claims about election workers outside defamation trial
Giuliani defamation trial: Contentious start to proceedings
14:28 , Oliver O’Connell
Judge Beryl Howell is not happy.
Politico’s Kyle Cheney reports that she begins the day by upbraiding both Giuliani and his attorney, Joe Sibley, for indecipherable objections to exhibits, telling them: “Your objections have to be intelligible.”
Judge Howell then scolds the former mayor for his comments outside the court yesterday noting that they “could support another defamation claim”.
Further, she is incredulous about how his lawyer can say in court that the plaintiffs are “good people” who didn’t deserve what happened to them only for his client to then say outside the court that they are criminals.
Sibley admits: “I’m not sure how it’s reconcilable.”
HOWELL is incredulous: How could Giuliani’s lawyer say Freeman/Moss are “good people” who didn’t deserve what happened to them when Rudy is outside the courthouse saying they are criminals.
“I’m not sure how it’s reconcilable,” Giuliani’s lawyer Joe Sibley admits.
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) December 12, 2023
He then claims that it is Giuliani’s age that’s the issue: “This has taken a bit of a toll on him. He’s almost 80 years old. I think he was sitting here all day at trial at his age.”
The judge says that he seems to be paying close attention and is responsive, so capacity doesn’t appear to be an issue, but wonders if he can follow court orders when testifying.
Sibley emphasises that he can’t control what Giuliani does outside of court.
The jury is brought in and the plaintiffs will begin with a video deposition from Georgia election investigator Frank Braun to help establish that the electoral fraud allegations against Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss were debunked.
Giuliani defamation trial: Day two getting underway
14:17 , Oliver O’Connell
Rudy Giuliani is back in federal court in Washington, DC — even making it on time today after his lateness yesterday — for the second day of his defamation damages trial.
Today, we can expect to see testimony from plaintiff Ruby Freeman and/or Shaye Moss as well as their expert who will advocate for a multimillion-dollar award.
As the former mayor of New York left the courthouse yesterday, he yet again smeared the two plaintiffs:
Giuliani defamation trial: Yesterday in court
14:12 , Oliver O’Connell
In a hearing in front of state lawmakers in Georgia on 11 December 2020, Rudy Giuliani baselessly accused a mother-daughter pair of election workers in the state of “quite obviously surreptitiously passing around USB ports as if they are vials of heroin or cocaine”.
He smeared Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss as criminals whose workplaces and homes should be searched for evidence of voter fraud.
Donald Trump’s former attorney, who launched spurious lawsuits to overturn 2020 presidential election results, also appeared on podcasts and television shows to falsely claim those women wheeled a suitcase loaded with fraudulent ballots into a vote-counting centre and used a flash drive to manipulate the results to ensure Joe Biden’s victory.
Three years and one day after he introduced those bogus claims to Georgia lawmakers, Mr Giuliani sat with his attorneys for the first day of a civil trial in a federal courtroom in Washington DC, where an eight-member jury will determine how much he owes for defaming them.
Alex Woodward reports on Monday’s proceedings.
Rudy Giuliani lied about election workers. A jury will decide what he owes them
What would it take for Tucker Carlson to be Trump’s running mate?
13:50 , Oliver O’Connell
Loud divine intervention apparently.
Graig Graziosi has the story.
Tucker Carlson reveals what would need to happen for him to be Trump’s running-mate
Poll: Trump leads Biden in key swing states
13:30 , Oliver O’Connell
Former President Donald Trump leads incumbent President Joe Biden in both Georgia and Michigan, polling by CNN has found.
Mr Trump leads Mr Biden in Georgia by 49 to 44 per cent and in Michigan by 50 to 40 per cent. Survey respondents in both states hold negative views of Mr Biden’s policies, job performance, and sharpness.
In Michigan, 10 per cent said they don’t support either candidate. Mr Trump’s lead is increased by voters who say they didn’t vote in 2020 – this group breaks for the former president by 26 points in Georgia and by 40 in Michigan. Respondents who say they voted in 2020 reported having broken for Mr Biden in the last election but they now lean in Mr Trump’s direction in both swing states. Mr Biden is currently retaining fewer of his 2020 supporters compared to Mr Trump.
While Mr Trump faces the challenge of getting politically disengaged people to turn up to the polls, Mr Biden is confronted with having to convince those who backed him in the past to do so again, despite their negative views of his leadership.
Read the full article
WATCH: Trump struggles over the word ‘cognitively’ during Iowa town hall
13:10 , Rachel Sharp
Full story: Jack Smith asks US Supreme Court justices to rule on Trump immunity — and quick
12:45 , Oliver O’Connell
Special counsel Jack Smith is asking the US Supreme Court to quickly determine whether Donald Trump is immune from prosecution in an election subversion case the former president wants dismissed.
An answer would mark the first time the nation’s highest court has weighed in on the criminal prosecutions of the former president, who was charged in a grand jury indictment for his alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Mr Trump has argued that he is protected from prosecution for crimes committed while in office, citing “presidential immunity” that the federal judge overseeing the case has rejected.
The former president has appealed that ruling.
In a filing to the Supreme Court on Monday, Mr Smith’s team with the US Department of Justice asks for the justices to determine “whether a former President is absolutely immune from federal prosecution for crimes committed while in office or is constitutionally protected from federal prosecution when he has been impeached but not convicted before the criminal proceedings begin.”
“The United States recognizes that this is an extraordinary request,” according to the filing. “This is an extraordinary case.”
Alex Woodward reports.
Jack Smith asks SCOTUS to rule on Trump immunity in election case — and quick
Trump resorts to old excuse over his ‘dictator’ comments – he was ‘joking’
12:30 , Rachel Sharp
Donald Trump has resorted to an old excuse over his “dictator” comments – that he was just “joking”.
The former president took to Truth Social on Monday to brush off his comments after he was asked if he would be a dictator if he takes back the White House in 2024.
Mr Trump had replied that he would only be “on day one” of his presidency.
Here’s his latest comments on the matter:
Fake News writer Peter “Obama” Baker of the Failing New York Times (READERSHIP & SUBSCRIPTIONS WAY DOWN FROM THE GOOD OL’ TRUMP YEARS!), whose claim to fame is that, “he will never write anything good about the GREAT job President Trump did,” just wrote, in a major, front page story, that I want to be a Dictator, but doesn’t mention it was said in a joking manner, and completed with “but only for a day, because I’m going to close the Border, and DRILL, DRILL, DRILL,” a much different attitude and meaning!
Arrest made over alleged Ramaswamy assassination plot
12:00 , Oliver O’Connell
A man has been arrested after allegedly threatening to kill Vivek Ramaswamy and his supporters at an event on Monday, according to newly released court records.
The suspect, 30-year-old Tyler Anderson, was first reported to police by the Republican presidential hopeful’s staff last week after he allegedly responded to one of the campaign’s texts about an upcoming campaign event.
“We are grateful to law enforcement for their swiftness and professionalism in handling this matter and pray for the safety of all Americans,” Ramaswamy campaign spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement shared with The Independent.
Mike Bedigan reports.
Man arrested for allegedly threatening to assassinate Vivek Ramaswamy
Trump contacted ex-Mar-a-Lago employee turned witness, report claims
11:30 , Rachel Sharp
Donald Trump and his associates allegedly repeatedly contacted a former Mar-a-Lago employee who knew of key conversations and moments in the federal classified documents case against the former president.
According to multiple human sources and other material accessed by CNN, Mr Trump took a rare step and reached out to the employee a few days after he quit working at the Florida estate to inquire why he was leaving.
Mr Trump’s associates later allegedly offered the former employee free tickets to a golf tournament.
The former employee, who later told the federal special counsel’s office investigating the documents case about the communications, even allegedly got an offer from Mr Trump’s lawyer for assistance in finding legal representation, with the lawyer mentioning in a voicemail that he was aware the former employee had been subpoenaed to provide information to a grand jury.
Read the full story:
Trump contacted ex-Mar-a-Lago employee turned witness, report claims
Poll: Trump hits new high in Iowa poll weeks out from caucuses
11:00 , Oliver O’Connell
A new poll shows that a majority of likely Iowa caucusgoers support former president Donald Trump, with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley trailing significantly.
The new NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll shows that 51 per cent of Republicans back the four-times-indicted-twice-impeached former president ahead of the 15 January caucus.
Mr Trump’s support has grown since October, when 43 per cent of likely caucusgoers backed him, it reveals.
Mr Trump also has a wide lead among many of the key groups within Iowa’s electorate, with 51 per cent of white evangelicals supporting him as their first choice; 59 per cent of self-identified Republicans; 63 per cent of first-time caucusgoers; and 66 per cent of white men without a college degree.
Mr Trump also has a wide lead against his nearest competitor Mr DeSantis.
Eric Garcia reports:
Trump hits new high in Iowa poll weeks before caucuses
How prosecutors could use Trump’s Twitter evidence in his election conspiracy case
10:30 , Rachel Sharp
When and where Donald Trump used Twitter while a mob of his supporters stormed the US Capitol on January 6 will be used as key evidence in the former president’s trial on criminal conspiracy charges, according to federal prosecutors.
Monday’s court filing outlining three expert witnesses who are expected to testify at trial include people who work with geolocation data on mobile devices – including phones that belonged to Mr Trump and others at the White House – and who have previously mapped the movement of rioters who breached the Capitol grounds and halls of Congress.
One potential witness “plotted the location history data for Google accounts and devices” among people who joined then-President Trump’s rally at the Ellipse before marching to the Capitol.
Their testimony “will describe and explain the resulting graphical representations of that data, and it will aid the jury in understanding the movements of individuals toward the Capitol area during and after” Mr Trump’s speech that day, according to prosecutors.
Read the full story:
How prosecutors could use Trump’s Twitter evidence in his election conspiracy case
Romney: No evidence to back House’s attempt at Biden impeachment
10:00 , Oliver O’Connell
Mitt Romney is once again making it harder for House Republicans to convince reporters and voters that the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden is legitimate.
The retiring Republican senator from Utah, who notably was the only Republican to vote to convict Donald Trump in both of the former president’s two impeachment trials, appeared on Meet the Press on Sunday for an interview with host Kristin Welker.
Mr Romney, 76, is not running for reelection in 2024 and has given his age as one reason for his retirement — a not-so-subtle dig at both Mr Biden and the former president. He has long cast doubt on the legitimacy of the House GOP impeachment effort, which has uncovered much innuendo from the president’s son Hunter regarding his father’s supposed involvement in his son’s business dealings, but no direct evidence actually proving that the elder Biden was involved in or even aware of his son’s boasting.
Read the full article
Federal prosecutors preview their expert witness list in Trump’s election conspiracy case
09:00 , Oliver O’Connell
Federal prosecutors have previewed their expert witness list in Donald Trump’s election conspiracy case. The list includes:
-
An expert who “plotted the location history data for Google accounts and devices associated with individuals who moved, on January 6, 2021, from an area at or near the Ellipse to an area encompassing the United States Capitol building” and whose testimony “will describe and explain the resulting graphical representations of that data, and it will aid the jury in understanding the movements of individuals toward the Capitol area during and after the defendant’s speech at the Ellipse.”
-
Another expert “will testify about: the process of determining device location; the collection and use of location history data by Google, LLC; and location history data produced in response to a search warrant and included in the graphical representation prepared by Expert 1.”
-
And another will “testify that he/she: (1) extracted and processed data from the White House cell phones used by the defendant and one other individual (Individual 1); (2) reviewed and analyzed data on the defendant’s phone and on Individual 1’s phone, including analyzing images found on the phones and websites visited; (3) determined the usage of these phones throughout the post-election period, including on and around January 6, 2021; and (4) specifically identified the periods of time during which the defendant’s phone was unlocked and the Twitter application was open on January 6.”
Read the full summary of anticipated expert witnesses
NY fraud trial: What happened in court on Monday?
08:00 , Oliver O’Connell
The short answer is… not a lot.
Alex Woodward explains why:
Trump backs out of fraud trial testimony after failing to block gag order
Full story: Jack Smith asks US Supreme Court justices to rule on Trump immunity — and quick
06:00 , Oliver O’Connell
Special counsel Jack Smith is asking the US Supreme Court to quickly determine whether Donald Trump is immune from prosecution in an election subversion case the former president wants dismissed.
An answer would mark the first time the nation’s highest court has weighed in on the criminal prosecutions of the former president, who was charged in a grand jury indictment for his alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Mr Trump has argued that he is protected from prosecution for crimes committed while in office, citing “presidential immunity” that the federal judge overseeing the case has rejected.
The former president has appealed that ruling.
In a filing to the Supreme Court on Monday, Mr Smith’s team with the US Department of Justice asks for the justices to determine “whether a former President is absolutely immune from federal prosecution for crimes committed while in office or is constitutionally protected from federal prosecution when he has been impeached but not convicted before the criminal proceedings begin.”
“The United States recognizes that this is an extraordinary request,” according to the filing. “This is an extraordinary case.”
Alex Woodward reports.
Jack Smith asks SCOTUS to rule on Trump immunity in election case — and quick
Analysis: Will young voters deliver the fatal blow to Biden’s campaign?
04:00 , Oliver O’Connell
Andrew Feinberg writes:
Unfortunately for Mr Biden, his 2024 campaign is flying into what looks to be hurricane-force headwinds, as detailed by an Emerson College poll released on Friday.
The survey found that voters under 30 years of age are turning away from the 81-year-old president, with 76 per cent of younger voters complaining that their parents had more or better economic opportunities than their generation does.
According to the survey, Mr Trump holds a four-point lead over the man who defeated him in 2020, with 47 per cent support to Mr Biden’s 43 per cent. Another nine per cent of voters surveyed said they are still undecided at this point.
The results get worse for the 46th president when GOP favourite and professed spoiler Robert F Kennedy Jr’s independent bid is included in the survey, along with third-party candidates Cornel West and Jill Stein.
Read on…
Young voters could deliver the fatal blow to Biden’s campaign
Trump gaffes ‘not intentional’ and ‘no question’ he has ‘lost a step’, says Megyn Kelly
03:00 , Oliver O’Connell
Following her return as a moderator on 6 December, Megyn Kelly called into Glenn Beck’s show to talk about the fourth Republican debate and the current state of the GOP field.
After praising the performance of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for having “his best debate yet” and saying that Nikki Haley did not do well because “she shrunk away” and giving her take on the more divisive figures of Vivek Ramaswamy and Chris Christie, Kelly was then asked about Donald Trump.
Beck asked whether the former president and current frontrunner in the race to be the Republican Party’s nominee for 2024 “has faded from where he was in 2020”.
Read the full article
Earlier: Appeals court upholds Trump’s gag order in election conspiracy case
02:00 , Oliver O’Connell
A federal appeals court has upheld key parts of a gag order that blocks Donald Trump from attacking witnesses in his election conspiracy case.
The gag order put in place by US District Judge Tanya Chutkan prohibited the former president from launching a “pretrial smear campaign” as he seeks the 2024 Republican nomination for president, the judge wrote in October.
Federal appellate court judges in Washington DC on Friday agreed that some of Mr Trump’s public statements “pose a significant and imminent threat to the fair and orderly adjudication of the ongoing criminal proceeding, warranting a speech-constraining protective order,” but said that the initial order “sweeps in more protected speech than is necessary.”
Mr Trump’s attorneys argued that the order unconstitutionally interferes with his “core political speech” as he runs for president while defending himself from several lawsuits and four criminal prosecutions, including two cases surrounding his alleged attempts to unlawfully overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Appeals court upholds Trump’s gag order in election conspiracy case
Trump contacted ex-Mar-a-Lago employee turned witness, report claims
01:53 , Josh Marcus
Donald Trump and his associates allegedly repeatedly contacted a former Mar-a-Lago employee who knew of key conversations and moments in the federal classified documents case against the former president.
According to multiple human sources and other material accessed by CNN, Mr Trump took a rare step and reached out to the employee a few days after he quit working at the Florida estate to inquire why he was leaving.
Trump associates later allegedly offered the former employee free tickets to a golf tournament.
The employee, who later spoke about the contacts with the federal special counsel’s office investigating the documents case, even allegedly got an offer from Mr Trump’s lawyer for assistance in finding legal representation, with the lawyer mentioning in a voicemail he was aware the former employee had been subpoenaed to provide information to a grand jury.
More details in our full story.
Trump contacted ex-Mar-a-Lago employee turned witness, report claims
Fraud trial expert witness paid almost $900,000 by Trump
01:00 , Oliver O’Connell
The final defence expert witness for Donald Trump and his co-defendants in a trial stemming from a blockbuster fraud lawsuit was paid nearly $900,000 for his testimony.
Across two days of testimony inside New York County Supreme Court this week, New York University accounting professor Eli Bartov labeled the complaint against the former president, his adult sons and associates under the Trump Organization umbrella “absurd”.
On Thursday, he told the court that he went through New York Attorney General Letitia James’s complaint “allegation by allegation” to “try to find at least something, some proof, that would provide some basis” for them.
“Most of their claims were simply unsupported,” he said. “My main finding is that there is no evidence whatsoever of any accounting fraud.”
Trump fraud trial defence witness was paid nearly $900,000 for testimony
ICYMI: After seeing courtroom sketch, Trump says he needs to lose weight
00:00 , Oliver O’Connell
There are only two defence witnesses left in Donald Trump’s fraud trial, and the former president is one of them.
He returned to New York County Supreme Court on Thursday for the first time in more than a month, but not as a witness. He sat with his attorneys inside Judge Arthur Engoron’s courtroom in lower Manhattan to watch testimony intended to bolster his defence – his first courtroom appearance since leaving his own chaotic day on the witness stand on 6 November.
After a morning break, Mr Trump paused to chat with two courtroom sketch artists seated behind the team of lawyers for New York Attorney General Letitia James, whose fraud lawsuit against the former president, his two oldest sons and their chief business associates launched a trial that is now in its 10th week.
The artists, hired by news organisations to capture the inside of the no-photos-allowed courtroom, got his approval. “Nice,” he said.
He told them “it looks like I need to lose some weight” as he gestured to his neck, they told The Independent.
Read the full article
Giuliani trial: Today in court
Monday 11 December 2023 23:19 , Oliver O’Connell
In a hearing in front of state lawmakers in Georgia on 11 December 2020, Rudy Giuliani baselessly accused a mother-daughter pair of election workers in the state of “quite obviously surreptitiously passing around USB ports as if they are vials of heroin or cocaine”.
He smeared Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss as criminals whose workplaces and homes should be searched for evidence of voter fraud.
Donald Trump’s former attorney, who launched spurious lawsuits to overturn 2020 presidential election results, also appeared on podcasts and television shows to falsely claim those women wheeled a suitcase loaded with fraudulent ballots into a vote-counting centre and used a flash drive to manipulate the results to ensure Joe Biden’s victory.
Three years and one day after he introduced those bogus claims to Georgia lawmakers, Mr Giuliani sat with his attorneys for the first day of a civil trial in a federal courtroom in Washington DC, where an eight-member jury will determine how much he owes for defaming them.
Alex Woodward reports on today’s proceedings.
Rudy Giuliani lied about election workers. A jury will decide what he owes them
Trump 2024 campaign responds to special counsel Supreme Court request
Monday 11 December 2023 23:06 , Oliver O’Connell
Trump is FUMING over Jack Smith’s petition to the Supreme Court have his appeal heard by them on an expedited basis, and the court granting the request to review it hours later. pic.twitter.com/QfF3lT5iNx
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) December 11, 2023
The ABCs of Donald Trump
Monday 11 December 2023 23:00 , Kelly Rissman
Donald Trump is well-known for a lot of things: his divisiveness, his career in real estate, The Apprentice, his lawsuits, for being the only president to be impeached twice. But perhaps nothing has infiltrated society more than Mr Trump’s unique linguistic style.
Whether he’s posting on Truth Social, speaking at a campaign rally, or testifying in court, Mr Trump never seems to be at a loss for words — and sometimes, he even makes up new ones.
From uttering gaffes to tweeting typos (like “covfefe”) to misreading words (like “Nambia”) to dismissing his opponent with a harsh nickname, his terminology quickly turns iconic.
Here, The Independent offers a dictionary guide to the Mr Trump’s most memorable phrases:
C is for Covfefe: The ABCs of Donald Trump
Federal prosecutors preview their expert witness list in Trump’s election conspiracy case
Monday 11 December 2023 22:57 , Oliver O’Connell
Federal prosecutors have previewed their expert witness list in Donald Trump’s election conspiracy case. The list includes:
-
An expert who “plotted the location history data for Google accounts and devices associated with individuals who moved, on January 6, 2021, from an area at or near the Ellipse to an area encompassing the United States Capitol building” and whose testimony “will describe and explain the resulting graphical representations of that data, and it will aid the jury in understanding the movements of individuals toward the Capitol area during and after the defendant’s speech at the Ellipse.”
-
Another expert “will testify about: the process of determining device location; the collection and use of location history data by Google, LLC; and location history data produced in response to a search warrant and included in the graphical representation prepared by Expert 1.”
-
And another will “testify that he/she: (1) extracted and processed data from the White House cell phones used by the defendant and one other individual (Individual 1); (2) reviewed and analyzed data on the defendant’s phone and on Individual 1’s phone, including analyzing images found on the phones and websites visited; (3) determined the usage of these phones throughout the post-election period, including on and around January 6, 2021; and (4) specifically identified the periods of time during which the defendant’s phone was unlocked and the Twitter application was open on January 6.”
Read the full summary of anticipated expert testimony.
Full story: Jack Smith asks US Supreme Court justices to rule on Trump immunity — and quick
Monday 11 December 2023 22:00 , Oliver O’Connell
Special counsel Jack Smith is asking the US Supreme Court to quickly determine whether Donald Trump is immune from prosecution in an election subversion case the former president wants dismissed.
An answer would mark the first time the nation’s highest court has weighed in on the criminal prosecutions of the former president, who was charged in a grand jury indictment for his alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Mr Trump has argued that he is protected from prosecution for crimes committed while in office, citing “presidential immunity” that the federal judge overseeing the case has rejected.
The former president has appealed that ruling.
In a filing to the Supreme Court on Monday, Mr Smith’s team with the US Department of Justice asks for the justices to determine “whether a former President is absolutely immune from federal prosecution for crimes committed while in office or is constitutionally protected from federal prosecution when he has been impeached but not convicted before the criminal proceedings begin.”
“The United States recognizes that this is an extraordinary request,” according to the filing. “This is an extraordinary case.”
Alex Woodward reports.
Jack Smith asks Supreme Court to rule on Trump immunity in election conspiracy case
Voices: House Republicans are about to begin their half-baked impeachment inquiry of Joe Biden
Monday 11 December 2023 21:30 , Oliver O’Connell
Eric Garcia writes:
The House of Representatives has a mountain of work that it needs to complete. After buying itself some time by passing a “laddered” continuing resolution wherein half of the spending bills expire in January and the other in February, the House is still not on track to pass spending bills. The package it passed to aid Israel was little more than a right-wing gimmick that would have stripped funding from the IRS, something it knew Democrats in the Senate would never agree to passing.
But instead of focusing on the business of governing, the House will go down another boodoggle and begin the process of opening up an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. This is, of course, a continuation of the boondoggle attempt to impeach the sitting president that began during former speaker Kevin McCarthy’s tenure, which in and of itself was an attempt to appeal to the most extreme factions in the House Republican conference.
On Tuesday, the House Rules Committee will hold a hearing on the resolution to begin the impeachment inquiry. But the fact remains that the House Republican conference so far has not definitively made the case to the American public that any of Mr Biden’s actions have amounted to the level of a crime worthy of impeachment.
That matters because, despite what proponents will say, impeachment is and always will be a political act. The public needs to at least believe that the president committed a crime.
Continued…
Read the full article
Giuliani trial – First witness: Regina Scott, Jensen Hughes
Monday 11 December 2023 21:16 , Oliver O’Connell
The first witness for the plaintiffs in the Rudy Giuliani defamation trial is Regina Scott, a senior consultant with Jensen Hughes.
The company has provided threat and reputational monitoring as well as physical security for Ms Freeman and Ms Moss since late 2020.
A spreadsheet is introduced documenting public references to the two plaintiffs since they began appearing on 3 December 2020 when Mr Giuliani spoke to the Georgia State Senate. There are repeated objections to basic questions about the document to the annoyance of Judge Howell.
The document was compiled in May 2023 and reports there were more than 710,000 mentions of the pair between 21 November 2020 and 1 May 2023. More than 600,000 (approximately 90 per cent) were on Twitter and analysis shows they found “largely negative sentiment trends”.
Ms Scott reads out one of the mentions of Ms Freeman in which the poster says they would die happy if she were convicted of treason and they would love to see her executed. Another mentions the “Day of the Rope” a reference to mass hangings in a white supremacist book.
Another report finds that between August and November of this year, there were a further 320,000 mentions of the two women. During this same period, Ms Scott says Mr Giuliani has referenced them a total of 20 times including as recently as last Monday.
She says of the case: “The type of violent, and racist, and graphic material, that’s on a level that we don’t see at all in our work.”
What would need to happen for Tucker Carlson to be Trump’s running mate?
Monday 11 December 2023 21:00 , Oliver O’Connell
Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson said God would have to “yell” at him before he would consider joining Donald Trump‘s presidential campaign as a running-mate.
Carlson was speaking at a fundraiser for the American Principles Project in Virginia and was asked by an audience member about a report published in Axios claiming that Melania Trump wanted him to join her husband on his 2024 ticket.
“God would have to yell at me very loud,” he told the audience, according to The Messenger.
Regarding Ms Trump, he said he didn’t “know her, really,” and recognised the absurdity of him seeking elected office.
Graig Graziosi reports.
Tucker Carlson reveals what would need to happen for him to be Trump’s running-mate
Giuliani attorney lays out defence
Monday 11 December 2023 20:40 , Oliver O’Connell
In his opening statement, Mr Giuliani’s attorney Joseph Sibley admitted his client did something wrong and there was “no question” Ms Freeman and Ms Moss were harmed.
However, he contended that Mr Giuliani’s role was minimal because of the “breadth and scope” of the action against the mother and daughter.
“You’re going to see a lot of evidence that these women were harmed, but not much evidence that Mr Giuliani was the cause,” said Sibley.
He said that what they are asking for in damages dwarfs what Johnny Depp was awarded in his 2022 defamation case ($10m) — Judge Howell asked him to stick to the facts of the case.
Sibley said at the end of the trial he would suggest a damages amount that is “fair and proportional” to his client’s role but did not say what that figure was.
“If you award the damages they are asking for, it will be the end of Mr Giuliani.”
Sibley: “You’re going to see a lot of evidence that these women were harmed, but not much evidence that Mr. Giuliani was the cause.”
— Jordan Fischer (@JordanOnRecord) December 11, 2023
Man arrested for allegedly threatening to assassinate Vivek Ramaswamy
Monday 11 December 2023 20:30 , Oliver O’Connell
A man has been arrested after allegedly threatening to kill Vivek Ramaswamy and his supporters at an event on Monday, according to newly released court records.
The suspect, 30-year-old Tyler Anderson, was first reported to police by the Republican presidential hopeful’s staff last week after he allegedly responded to one of the campaign’s texts about an upcoming campaign event.
“We are grateful to law enforcement for their swiftness and professionalism in handling this matter and pray for the safety of all Americans,” Ramaswamy campaign spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement shared with The Independent.
Read more…
Man arrested for allegedly threatening to assassinate Vivek Ramaswamy
Attorney describes damages Freeman and Moss are seeking from Giuliani
Monday 11 December 2023 20:13 , Oliver O’Connell
Michael Gottlieb, who is also representing Ms Freeman and Ms Moss explained to the jury about the damages that the mother and daughter are seeking from Mr Giuliani.
Their suit seeks between $15.5m and $43m in both compensatory damages for emotional and reputational harm and punitive damages due to the outrageous conduct of the defendant.
Gottlieb explained that since Mr Giuliani began targeting the two women, the “vile, racist, hateful comments” have never stopped.
One witness, Dr Ashlee Humphreys of Northwestern University, will testify that the statements made by the former mayor of New York generated anywhere between 146-400 million impressions online.
“We will ask you to think about how needless, how cruel, it is for powerful figures like Mr Giuliani to target election workers and volunteers and brand them as fraudsters and criminals without evidence,” said Gottlieb.
“In the United States of America, behaviour like Rudy Giuliani’s is not the inevitable result of politics. It is not acceptable, and it will not be tolerated.”
Jan 6 rioter spouts conspiracies as he’s jailed for 11 years
Monday 11 December 2023 20:00 , Oliver O’Connell
Former California police chief Alan Hostetter went on a conspiratorial rant moments before a federal judge sentenced him to more than 11 years in prison for conspiring to bring weapons to the US Capitol during the January 6 riot.
The 58-year-old, who represented himself at trial, told the court on Thursday that the January 6 insurrection was an “obvious set up” that was faked by “crisis actors,” and claimed that Ashli Babbitt, a rioter killed by a police officer at the Capitol, was actually still alive.
The former chief of the La Habra Police Department was convicted in July on four felony counts, including conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding and carrying a dangerous or deadly weapon onto Capitol grounds.
Hostetter joined the Capitol riot with a hatchet in his backpack, and incited others to violence with a bullhorn on January 6, according to prosecutors. He was not accused of entering the Capitol building itself.
“Through his words and deeds on January 6, Alan Hostetter was a terrorist and it’s important that be said,” assistant US attorney Anthony William Mariano said during the sentencing, WUSA9 reports.
After his incendiary testimony, Hostetter was reportedly confronted by Babbit’s mother, and claimed, “This feels like it’s staged,” according to the station.
Read the full article
Attorney describes how Giuliani’s words led to ‘vicious’ and ‘racist’ abuse of Freeman and Moss
Monday 11 December 2023 19:53 , Oliver O’Connell
Von DuBose, representing Ms Freeman and Ms Moss, delivered his opening statement to the jury, emphasising how Mr Giuliani “stole the lives” of his clients by “destroying their names”.
A montage of voicemails they received is played to the court involving offensive, violent, and racist language directed at the mother and daughter. They are referred to as prostitutes and in one call the n-word is chanted again and again.
Following the montage, a clip is played of Mr Giuliani making his false claims set to a video timeline of his tweets. This culminates with his claim to the Georgia State Senate about the two using “USB ports” to somehow flip the election.
“As you will hear, none of that – none of that – was true. But the millions of people who heard the lies didn’t wait for confirmation,” said DuBose.
He added that the response to Mr Giuliani’s words was “swift, it was racist, and it was vicious”.
Returning to the topic of the USB drive, DuBose told the jury there is no video of them handing it around as it doesn’t exist. They were exchanging a pack of ginger mints, which he held up in court.
He starts with a montage of voicemails the mother and daughter received. They’re filed with offensive, violent and racist language. In one, the caller chants the n-word over and over again. In another the caller refers to Moss and Freeman as prostitutes.
— Jordan Fischer (@JordanOnRecord) December 11, 2023
DuBose added that there was a “strategic communications plan” for Trump and his surrogates to use the claims about the mother and daughter as part of their efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
In audio of Trump’s call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger the jury heard how he mentioned Ms Freeman and Ms Moss 18 times. He called Ms Moss “a professional vote scammer and hustler”. Trump also mentioned Fulton County in his January 6 speech in Washington,
Wisconsin secretary of state calls for removal of fake Trump elector from elections commission
Monday 11 December 2023 19:30 , AP
Wisconsin’s Democratic secretary of state on Monday called for a Republican who served as a fake elector for former President Donald Trump and admitted that their work was used in an attempt to improperly overturn the 2020 presidential election to be removed from his position on the Wisconsin Elections Commission.
Bob Spindell was one of 10 Republicans who signed certificates in 2020 falsely stating that Trump had won Wisconsin. President Joe Biden won the battleground state.
Spindell and other nine fake electors conceded in a legal settlement last week that Biden had won the state and agreed to not serve as electors in next year’s election or in any in which Trump is running. They also agreed that their actions were “part of an attempt to improperly overturn the 2020 presidential election results.”
But they also avoided paying any damages and didn’t accept any liability or admit any wrongdoing for their actions.
Spindell, who didn’t respond to voicemails or text messages left last week and on Monday seeking comment, is one of three Republicans on the Wisconsin Elections Commission, which also has three Democratic members. The commission is tasked with administering the state’s elections, but it is Wisconsin’s more than 1,800 local election clerks who actually run elections.
On Monday, Wisconsin Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski became the latest Democrat to call for Spindell to lose his seat on the bipartisan elections commission.
“He is clearly not fit,” Godlewski said in an interview. “He doesn’t have the moral compass or ability to follow the law and he needs to be removed.”
Giuliani defamation trial gets underway
Monday 11 December 2023 19:15 , Oliver O’Connell
Rudy Giuliani’s civil defamation trial has begun with the defendant seated beside his attorney, Joseph Sibley.
Judge Beryl Howell is presiding over the case and instructed the jury that the former mayor of New York has already been found liable for defamation and that their job is only to determine damages.
She says that as a consequence of his failure to provide discovery, they must assume he intentionally tried to hide financial information to deflate his worth and intentionally tried to hide information about his podcast to deflate the reach of his words.
Neither of the plaintiffs, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss will have to provide evidence that they were harmed by Mr Giuliani’s false claims of election fraud, which is already presumed, but they will have to show they suffered damages in emotional distress for one of the counts.
It has already been found that Mr Giuliani engaged in a conspiracy with former president Donald Trump, his 2020 campaign, rightwing network OAN and one of its on-air personalities to defame Ms Freeman and Ms Moss.
Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss are presumed to be harmed by Rudy Giuliani’s defamatory claims, so they don’t have to provide any evidence that they were harmed.
They will have to show they suffered damages in emotional distress for one of the counts.
— Jordan Fischer (@JordanOnRecord) December 11, 2023
Trump gaffes ‘not intentional’ and ‘no question’ he has ‘lost a step’, says Megyn Kelly
Monday 11 December 2023 19:00 , Oliver O’Connell
Following her return as a moderator on 6 December, Megyn Kelly called into Glenn Beck’s show to talk about the fourth Republican debate and the current state of the GOP field.
After praising the performance of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for having “his best debate yet” and saying that Nikki Haley did not do well because “she shrunk away” and giving her take on the more divisive figures of Vivek Ramaswamy and Chris Christie, Kelly was then asked about Donald Trump.
Beck asked whether the former president and current frontrunner in the race to be the Republican Party’s nominee for 2024 “has faded from where he was in 2020”.
Continued…
Read the full article
Bad news for Biden as Trump leads in swing states
Monday 11 December 2023 18:40 , Oliver O’Connell
Former President Donald Trump leads incumbent President Joe Biden in both Georgia and Michigan, polling by CNN has found.
Mr Trump leads Mr Biden in Georgia by 49 to 44 per cent and in Michigan by 50 to 40 per cent. Survey respondents in both states hold negative views of Mr Biden’s policies, job performance, and sharpness.
In Michigan, 10 per cent said they don’t support either candidate. Mr Trump’s lead is increased by voters who say they didn’t vote in 2020 – this group breaks for the former president by 26 points in Georgia and by 40 in Michigan. Respondents who say they voted in 2020 reported having broken for Mr Biden in the last election but they now lean in Mr Trump’s direction in both swing states. Mr Biden is currently retaining fewer of his 2020 supporters compared to Mr Trump.
While Mr Trump faces the challenge of getting politically disengaged people to turn up to the polls, Mr Biden is confronted with having to convince those who backed him in the past to do so again, despite their negative views of his leadership.
Gustaf Kilander reports:
Trump leads Biden in swing states amid terrible ratings for incumbent
ICYMI: Appeals court upholds Trump’s gag order in election conspiracy case
Monday 11 December 2023 18:20 , Oliver O’Connell
A federal appeals court has upheld key parts of a gag order that blocks Donald Trump from attacking witnesses in his election conspiracy case.
The gag order put in place by US District Judge Tanya Chutkan prohibited the former president from launching a “pretrial smear campaign” as he seeks the 2024 Republican nomination for president, the judge wrote in October.
Federal appellate court judges in Washington DC on Friday agreed that some of Mr Trump’s public statements “pose a significant and imminent threat to the fair and orderly adjudication of the ongoing criminal proceeding, warranting a speech-constraining protective order,” but said that the initial order “sweeps in more protected speech than is necessary.”
Alex Woodward reports.
Appeals court upholds Trump’s gag order in election conspiracy case
Full story: Jack Smith asks Supreme Court to rule on Trump immunity in election conspiracy case
Monday 11 December 2023 18:00 , Oliver O’Connell
Special counsel Jack Smith is asking the US Supreme Court to quickly determine whether Donald Trump is immune from prosecution in an election subversion case the former president wants dismissed.
An answer would make the first time the nation’s highest court has weighed in on the criminal prosecutions of the former president, who was charged in a grand jury indictment for his alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Mr Trump has argued that he is immune from prosecution for crimes committed while in office, citing “presidential immunity” that the federal judge overseeing the case has rejected.
The former president has appealed that ruling.
Alex Woodward has the latest:
Jack Smith asks Supreme Court to rule on Trump immunity in election conspiracy case
The ABCs of Donald Trump
Monday 11 December 2023 17:50 , Kelly Rissman
Donald Trump is well-known for a lot of things: his divisiveness, his career in real estate, The Apprentice, his lawsuits, for being the only president to be impeached twice. But perhaps nothing has infiltrated society more than Mr Trump’s unique linguistic style.
Whether he’s posting on Truth Social, speaking at a campaign rally, or testifying in court, Mr Trump never seems to be at a loss for words — and sometimes, he even makes up new ones.
From uttering gaffes to tweeting typos (like “covfefe”) to misreading words (like “Nambia”) to dismissing his opponent with a harsh nickname, his terminology quickly turns iconic.
Here, The Independent offers a dictionary guide to the Mr Trump’s most memorable phrases:
C is for Covfefe: The ABCs of Donald Trump
Special counsel asks Supreme Court to rule quickly on whether Trump is immune from prosecution
Monday 11 December 2023 17:49 , Oliver O’Connell
Special Counsel Jack Smith has asked the Supreme Court of the United States to weigh in on whether former president Donald Trump is immune from prosecution for crimes committed while in office relating to efforts to overturn the 2020 Presidential election.
The question presented to the court is: “Whether a former President is absolutely immune from federal prosecution for crimes committed while in office or is constitutionally protected from federal prosecution when he has been impeached but not convicted before the criminal proceedings begin.”
Read the full petition.
Jury selected for defamation trial of Rudy Giuliani
Monday 11 December 2023 17:29 , Oliver O’Connell
An eight-person jury has been selected for the defamation trial of Rudy Giuliani. As it is a civil case only eight people were needed from the prospective group of Washington, DC residents.
The trial will now get started at 1.30pm.
An eight person jury is seated. Trial begins at 130p
— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) December 11, 2023
It is almost three years ago to the day that the former mayor of New York appeared in front of Georgia lawmakers on 10 December 2020 to smear Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss.
Here’s what you need to know about the case:
Rudy Giuliani goes on trial for defaming Georgia election workers
Last week in court: Trump watches expert defence testimony
Monday 11 December 2023 17:10 , Oliver O’Connell
Trump returned to New York County Supreme Court on Thursday for the first time in more than a month, but not as a witness. He sat with his attorneys inside Judge Arthur Engoron’s courtroom in lower Manhattan to watch testimony intended to bolster his defence – his first courtroom appearance since leaving his own chaotic day on the witness stand on 6 November.
After a morning break, Mr Trump paused to chat with two courtroom sketch artists seated behind the team of lawyers for New York Attorney General Letitia James, whose fraud lawsuit against the former president, his two oldest sons and their chief business associates launched a trial that is now in its 10th week.
The artists, hired by news organisations to capture the inside of the no-photos-allowed courtroom, got his approval. “Nice,” he said.
He told them “it looks like I need to lose some weight” as he gestured to his neck, they told The Independent.
Alex Woodward reports.
Trump says he needs to lose weight after seeing courtroom sketch
Congress is now the House of Maga
Monday 11 December 2023 16:50 , Oliver O’Connell
Eric Garcia writes:
Earlier this week, amid news that Kevin McCarthy would exit Congress at the end of the month, an unusual admission from the former speaker went viral.
“When you look at the Democrats, they actually look like America. When I look at my party, we look like the most restrictive country club in America,” he told the New York Times last month. He made similar comments in October while speaking at Oxford.
Plenty of people noted that Mr McCarthy was right: the House Republican conference is incredibly white with a smattering of some women and Latinos. However, Mr McCarthy has desperately tried to diversify the GOP. In many ways, he was trying to continue the mission that began as a member of the Young Guns: a group of fresh-faced, energetic young conservatives that included Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor.
This new crop would serve as an answer to Barack Obama’s election, himself a sign of a diversifying America. There was just one problem: while the GOP needed to grow its pool of voters, most of the base adamantly refused any kind of changes and wanted the GOP to move even further to the right, beginning first with the Tea Party and culminating in the election of Donald Trump.
Read more…
Kevin McCarthy’s exit shows how the GOP establishment failed to tame the radicals
With Iowa caucuses just weeks away, trump hits new high in Iowa
Monday 11 December 2023 16:30 , Oliver O’Connell
A new poll shows that a majority of likely Iowa caucusgoers support former president Donald Trump, with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley trailing significantly.
The new NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll shows that 51 per cent of Republicans back the four-times-indicted-twice-impeached former president ahead of the 15 January caucus.
Mr Trump’s support has grown since October, when 43 per cent of likely caucusgoers backed him, it reveals.
Eric Garcia reports.
Trump hits new high in Iowa poll weeks before caucuses
Watch: Trump lawyer Alina Habba insisted Trump would testify today… he decided not to
Monday 11 December 2023 16:10 , Oliver O’Connell
Trump chickened out of testifying tomorrow. Alina Habba a few days ago: “He will take that stand on Monday. He will open himself up to whatever they want because he’s not afraid. People who are afraid cower. Trump doesn’t cower.” pic.twitter.com/4P4OgRVpYh
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) December 10, 2023
‘America will burn’ if Trump is jailed before election, says Megyn Kelly
Monday 11 December 2023 15:50 , Oliver O’Connell
NewsNation debate moderator Megyn Kelly has a dire prediction for American politics should Donald Trump face actual consequences for any of the more than 90 felony charges he now faces in court.
Kelly spoke to far-right gadfly Glenn Beck this past week after she was part of the team moderating the fourth and final Republican primary debate of 2023; a handful have just been scheduled to occur over January and February.
In her conversation with Beck, Kelly explained that she thought there would be violence in the streets were Mr Trump to be convicted and imprisoned before the 2024 election occurs next November.
John Bowden reports.
Megyn Kelly says ‘America will burn’ if Trump is jailed before election
Jury selection underway at Giuliani defamation trial
Monday 11 December 2023 15:30 , Oliver O’Connell
Jury selection is underway at Rudy Giuliani’s defamation trial in Washington, DC. The former mayor of New York was sued by plaintiffs Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss who he falsely accused of election fraud.
The court has already found Mr Giuliani is liable for defamation so the jury must now determine the amount of damages owed to Ms Freeman and Miss Moss.
Some of the case-specific questions that the prospective jurors are being asked ahead of individual questioning, incl. whether they believe Biden’s 2020 election was illegitimate and if they’ve ever used the phrase “Let’s Go Brandon” pic.twitter.com/wHTpi7dKss
— Zoe Tillman (@ZoeTillman) December 11, 2023
Watch: Trump tells bizarre anecdote about general during New York Republican dinner
Monday 11 December 2023 15:15 , Oliver O’Connell
Trump claims a General who had seen soldiers die on the battlefield told him the bravest thing he ever saw was Trump’s “locker room talk” answer during the debate pic.twitter.com/j6cqtCjq3T
— Acyn (@Acyn) December 10, 2023
Special counsel rejects Trump claims of election fraud and interference
Monday 11 December 2023 14:58 , Oliver O’Connell
In another US District court filing, Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office opposes a demand by attorneys for Donald Trump for an “unprecedented expansion of the Government’s discovery obligations” including the search of files of separate entities for information not relevant to the case. Such an undertaking would significantly delay the trial.
The lengthy filing gives this example of what the former president’s team is looking for:
In support of his Motion to Compel, the defendant suggests that the Government relied only on a selection of politically biased officials (ECF No. 167 at 1-2), but he does not and cannot substantiate this theatrical claim. To the contrary, as the defendant is aware from the discovery that has been provided, the Government asked every pertinent witness—including the former DNI, former Acting Secretary of DHS, former Acting Deputy Secretary of DHS, former CISA Director, former Acting CISA Director, former CISA Senior Cyber Counsel, former National Security Advisor (“NSA”), former Deputy NSA, former Chief of Staff to the National Security Council, former Chairman of the Election Assistance Commission (“EAC”), Presidential Intelligence Briefer, former Secretary of Defense, and former senior DOJ leadership—if they were aware of any evidence that a domestic or foreign actor flipped a single vote in a voting machine during the presidential election. The answer from every single official was no.
To create the false impression that there might actually be support for his lies about voting machines, the defendant, without context, threads his filing with discussion of irrelevant network breaches around the time of the 2020 election. See ECF No. 167 at 15, 26 (arguing that compromises of “several networks that managed some election functions” were enough to call into question the security of the election). In doing so, the defendant attempts to manufacture confusion by willfully ignoring the distinction between voting machines (charged in the indictment) and registration websites (not charged in the indictment). Voting machines, like those manufactured by Dominion, are the systems used to cast and tabulate votes. They are not connected to the internet, cannot be accessed remotely, and are secured through redundant protections, such as logic and accuracy testing, paper-ballot audits, forensic scans, robust physical security, and federal certification. The states also run voter registration databases, which can be remotely accessed but are not used for voting or tabulation. While no country or cyber actor changed a single vote in a machine, there were isolated cases of foreign countries stealing registration data to target voters with disinformation—actions that constituted foreign influence, not interference.
You can read the full filing here.
Jack Smith files response to keep federal election interference case on track
Monday 11 December 2023 14:35 , Oliver O’Connell
Special Counsel Jack Smith has filed a response with the United States District Court for the District of Columbia opposing Donald Trump’s motion to stay proceedings in his federal election crimes trial pending an appeal of a ruling that rejected his attempt to dismiss the case on presidential immunity grounds.
Granting a stay would seriously jeopardise the current case schedule with the trial set to begin on 4 March 2024.
The special counsel’s office is keen to keep things on track and argues in response that it would be better to proceed with the current schedule so that if the appeal was not in the former president’s favour then everything can proceed as planned.
You can read the full response here.
Click here to read the full blog on The Independent’s website
