Merrick Garland appoints special counsel to oversee Trump investigations
Donald Trump is facing a second lawsuit from author E Jean Carroll, who accuses him of raping her in a New York department store in the 1990s.
Availing herself of a new state law that comes into effect today, Ms Carroll is suing Mr Trump for rape and sexual assault as well as defamation over recent comments he made calling her a “con job” and accusing her of lying about her allegations.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department is reportedly seeking to question Mike Pence as part of its ongoing investigation into January 6 and Donald Trump’s months-long effort to overturn the 2020 election.
Mr Pence was presiding over in the ceritfication of the election results at the time the Capitol was attacked by a horde of Trump supporters and right-wing extremists. His life was directly threatened by rioters during the attack, and his security team was forced to rush him away to a secure position just a few feet from where attackers had breached the building.
E Jean Carroll files new rape lawsuit against Trump
Author E Jean Carroll has filed a new lawsuit accusing Donald Trump of raping her in the late 1990s, availing herself of a new state law that allows sexual abuse survivors the chance to file a claim after the statute of limitations has expired.
Ms Carroll is already suing Mr Trump for defamation over his previous claims that she is lying about her allegation, but her new case points to subsequent accusations he levelled more recently in social media posts calling her a “con job”.
The former president has long denied all the allegations against him, and has fought for years to stop Ms Carroll’s case being heard in court.
Andrew Naughtie24 November 2022 12:53
Woman convicted of storming Pelosi’s office in Jan. 6 attack
A Pennsylvania woman linked to the far-right “Groyper” extremist movement has been convicted of several federal charges related to her actions on January 6.
Riley June Williams joined a mob’s attack on the Capitol after attending the “Stop the Steal” rally, where then-President Donald Trump addressed thousands of supporters earlier that day. Entering Pelosi’s office, she found a laptop on a table and told another rioter, “Dude, put on gloves,” before someone with a black gloved hand removed the computer, according to prosecutors.
Williams later bragged online that she stole Pelosi’s gavel, laptop and hard drives and that she “gave the electronic devices, or attempted to give them, to unspecified Russian individuals,” prosecutors said in a June 2022 court filing. To date, they haven’t been recovered.
Read more about the sentence she could face and her involvement in the far-right’s hate movements:
John Bowden24 November 2022 12:20
Manhattan prosecutors re-examining Trump hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels, report says
Prosecutors working under Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr are reportedly re-examining whether criminal charges can be brought against former president Donald Trump as a result of $130,000 payment his company made to cover up his affair with adult film actress Stormy Daniels.
According to the New York Times, Mr Bragg’s office has recently sought to jump-start a long-dead investigation into the payments, which federal prosecutors used as evidence to prosecute Mr Trump’s ex-attorney, Michael Cohen, for campaign finance law violations.
Read more from Andrew Feinberg:
Andrew Naughtie24 November 2022 11:50
Aspiring country singer charged for threats to kill fact-checkers and FBI agent over Trump ‘slander’
He faces more than a decade in prison if convicted.
Read more about the escalating threats faced by FBI agents after their raid of Mar-a-Lago in September:
John Bowden24 November 2022 11:20
John Oliver blasts Elon Musk for ‘decimating his staff and degrading Twitter’
On Sunday’s episode of Last Week Tonight (20 November), host John Oliver said Twitter has been a “total mess” since new CEO Elon Musk took the reins, arguing that “many of the worst people on Twitter” seem to think his takeover is a sign that they can unleash vitriol.
“One analysis [found] the use of a racial slur spiking nearly 500 percent in the 12 hours after his deal was finalised, which is pretty shocking,” the host said, “even for a website where a regular trending topic is sometimes just ‘The Jews’.
“You’ll log in and see 30,000 people tweeting about ‘The Jews’ on a Tuesday afternoon, and you do not want to click to find out why.”
John Bowden24 November 2022 10:20
NewsWorldAmericasUS politics Ivanka Trump tried to escape judge’s order to monitor Trump family finances, report says
Former White House aide Ivanka Trump attemped to wriggle her way out of a court order appointing a special monitor to oversee the major transactions of the Trump Organization and individuals with connections to the company, according to The Daily Beast.
The news outlet reported on Monday that the ex-president’s eldest daughter sought through letters from her attorneys to the court to have her name removed from the order, a step that her two brothers Eric and Donald Jr did not take as the New York attorney general’s lawsuit against the company progresses.
John Bowden has more on Ivanka Trump’s latest effort to distance herself from her own family after a disastrous end to four years in the White House:
John Bowden24 November 2022 09:20
Prosecution rests in Trump Organization tax fraud case after just two witnesses
The New York City prosecutors hoping to convict former president Donald Trump’s eponymous real estate and licensing company of violating state tax laws by paying for apartments, cars and other benefits to top executives without reporting the cost as compensation finished presenting their case against the Trump Organization on Monday.
Prosecutors rested their case earlier than expected after presenting testimony from two of the company’s top executives over the last eight days in court.
Among those who testified was Allen Weisselberg, the company’s former CFO.
Read more from Andrew Feinberg about New York’s efforts to prosecute the Trump Organization:
Prosecution rests in Trump Organization tax fraud case after just two witnesses
The New York City prosecutors hoping to convict former president Donald Trump’s eponymous real estate and licensing company of violating state tax laws by paying for apartments, cars and other benefits to top executives without reporting the cost as compensation finished presenting their case against the Trump Organization on Monday.
John Bowden24 November 2022 08:20
Conservatives complain about Trump special counsel wife’s links to Michelle Obama
Conservatives are furious after it was revealed that the wife of the prosecutor appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to determine whether Donald Trump will face any criminal charges is apparently a Democratic donor who was involved in a documentary about Michelle Obama.
Jack Smith, a career prosecutor at the Justice Department, was tapped by Mr Garland to make the decision regarding Mr Trump’s legal fate earlier this month. It notably followed the announcement by Mr Trump that he would seek the White House a third time.
Read more about how Mr Smith is connected to Ms Obama as well as Joe Biden, the man Mr Trump has accused of weaponising the Justice Department:
John Bowden24 November 2022 07:20
Trump rages at Bill Barr for saying it was increasingly likely ex-president would face criminal charges
Calling him “sloppy,” “weak” and a “disgruntled former employee”, Donald Trump laid into his former attorney general this week after Bill Barr suggested that he thought it was now likely that federal prosecutors would indict him over his retention of documents at Mar-a-Lago.
Mr Trump also claimed that the Mar-a-Lago documents case was a hoax. “He knows nothing about the document hoax, and as a lawyer and former AG, shouldn’t be talking.”
Read more about Mr Trump’s latest meltdown in response to the betrayal of a former ally:
John Bowden24 November 2022 06:20
Judge warns Trump he needs to lawyer up days before E Jean Carroll expected to file rape case
A federal judge warned Donald Trump to decide on his lawyers, and fast, ahead of a coming suit from writer E Jean Carroll accusing Mr Trump of raping her in a Manhattan department store in the 1990s.
The warning came on Tuesday, during a conference in a defamation suit Ms Carroll filed after Mr Trump called the writer’s allegations, first aired in an excerpt of her memoir published in New York magazine, false and an attempt to drum up publicity.
“Your client has known this is coming for months, and he would be well-advised to decide who’s representing him in it,” US district judge Lewis Kaplan told Alina Habba, the former president’s attorney in the defamation case, on Tuesday.
Read more about the case’s new developments in The Independent:
John Bowden24 November 2022 05:20