“By the way, there was Antifa, there was FBI, there were a lot of other people there too leading the charge,” Mr Trump said at a rally in Sioux, Center Iowa on Friday, 5 January. “You saw the same people that I did.”
Mr Trump also said at the campaign event that he believed the audience on January 6, 2021 was the “biggest crowd, I believe, I ever spoke to—you never hear about that do you?”
He then turned to “the hostages,” seemingly referring to those arrested and charged for their actions on January 6. “The J6 hostages, I call them. Nobody’s been treated ever in history so badly as those people,” he said.
Their imprisonment, Mr Trump said, will go down as “one of the saddest things in the history of our country. And they went there to protest a rigged election.”
The Justice Department reported since the 2021 riot, over 1,200 individuals have been charged with crimes connected to the Capitol attack, while more than 700 people have pleaded guilty to various federal charges.
Saturday, January 6, 2024 marks three years since the violent attack on the Capitol building, which led to the deaths of four rioters and five police officers and left many more injured.
Mr Trump’s false claims about the Capitol riot and 2020 election fraud come as he faces his own accusations federally and in Georgia regarding his alleged efforts to overturn the presidential election.
In its final report in 2022, the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack also named Mr Trump as the “central cause” of the riot “whom many others followed.”
Despite the “rigged election” claims, the former president is running again — and holds a substantial lead in the GOP polls. His campaign speech in Iowa comes less than two weeks before the state’s caucuses, which kick off the primary elections.
Supreme Court to decide if emergency room doctors can perform medically necessary abortions in states that prohibit them
Devan Cole, CNN – January 5, 2024
The Supreme Court said Friday that it will decide whether emergency room doctors can perform medically necessary abortions in states that prohibit them, bypassing the court of appeals to resolve on an expedited basis a lawsuit brought by the United States against Idaho.
It’s the second major abortion case the court will consider this year amid the fallout from the reversal of Roe v. Wade in 2022. The justices are already set to hear a case about access to the abortion drug mifepristone – even in states where the procedure is legal.
Idaho’s Defense of Life Act is a near total ban on abortion, but there is an exception to prevent the mother’s death. The law imposes penalties on doctors who perform prohibited abortions unless the “physician determined in good faith medical judgement and based on the facts known to the physician at the time, that the abortion was necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman.” Physicians who violate the law could face criminal penalties and risk the suspension of their licenses.
The Biden administration sued, claiming that a provision of a federal Medicare statue – the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) – preempts Idaho’s law in emergency rooms.
The federal law requires hospitals to provide stabilizing care to emergency room patients regardless of their ability to pay. It was enacted to ensure that the poor and uninsured receive emergency medical care at hospitals receiving Medicare reimbursement.
A district court in Idaho blocked the law in hospital emergency rooms that receive Medicare funding, holding that the state law interferes with a federal Medicare statute.
In 2022, US District Judge B. Lynn Winmill said that the “broad scope” of Idaho’s near-total ban on abortion meant that he was not convinced that it would be possible for emergency health care workers to “simultaneously comply with obligations” under both state and federal law. “The state law must therefore yield to federal law to the extent of that conflict,” he wrote.
A federal appeals court later agreed to put the district court ruling on hold pending appeal, but a larger panel of judges on the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals lifted the pause on November 13. The Idaho law will now be in effect pending the Supreme Court’s decision.
The state, represented by a conservative legal group that opposes abortion, then turned to the Supreme Court, asking the justices to step in on an emergency basis to put the district court ruling on hold while appeals play out.
“After Dobbs,” Erin Hawley a lawyer for the Alliance Defending Freedom told the justices in court papers, “the United States adopted the novel view that EMTALA creates a federal right to abortion in emergency rooms, even though EMTALA is silent on abortion and actually requires stabilizing for the unborn children of pregnant women.”
The Justice Department warned the justices that the law’s provision could have “devastating harms” for women in the state and urged the court to keep that part of it on pause.
“As the district court recognized, when state law criminalizes essential care required by federal law, ordinary principles of preemption require state law to give way,” Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said in court papers.
“The narrow preliminary injunction is preserving the status quo and protecting women and doctors in Idaho from the devastating harms that would result if doctors could be subjected to criminal prosecution for providing essential emergency care,” Prelogar wrote.
The ruling will have national implications.
“While the mifepristone case is especially relevant for the availability of abortions in states in which they are still largely legal, this case has enormous ramifications for the availability of abortions in emergency circumstances in states in which they are not,” said Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at the University of Texas School of Law.
This story has been updated with additional details.
Supreme Court allows Idaho’s near-total abortion ban in emergency room in blow to Biden
John Fritze, USA TODAY – January 5, 2024
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Friday allowed Idaho to enforce its strict abortion ban in emergency rooms for now, rebuffing a Biden administration effort to ensure additional access to the procedure in red-state hospitals.
The court also agreed to hear arguments in the case this spring, placing a second major abortion case before the justices just over a year after the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Idaho’s law makes it a crime for doctors to perform an abortion unless a physician can demonstrate that the mother’s life is in danger. The Biden administration claimed a separate federal law requires emergency rooms to provide “stabilizing care,” including abortions, for a broader range of circumstances, such as if a patient’s health is in “serious jeopardy.”
At issue in this case is a federal law that requires hospitals that receive federal funding, such as through Medicare, to provide stabilizing treatment to patients even if they can’t afford to pay. The idea was to ensure hospitals would provide basic care to all patients.
After the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe, the Biden administration said that the federal law requires hospitals to provide that same care to pregnant patients, including performing an abortion, if necessary, regardless of a state ban on the procedure.
Idaho officials said President Joe Biden was attempting to interpret the Medicare law into a “federal super-statute on the issue of abortion, one that strips Idaho of its sovereign interest in protecting innocent human life and turns emergency rooms into a federal enclave where state standards of care do not apply.”
But the Justice Department said the guidance was simply clarifying existing federal law. That federal law, federal officials said, trumps state abortion bans that went into effect last year.
Protesters mark the first anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade by displaying a neon sign in support of abortion access on June 23, 2023.
Women can experience severe medical conditions during pregnancy that would not be covered by exceptions for the life of a mother, including sepsis, uncontrollable bleeding, kidney failure, and loss of fertility.
Twenty conservative states, many with strict abortion bans, backed Idaho. But it’s not only conservative states with strict bans where the Biden administration’s guidance would potentially have an impact.
Even states without strict abortion bans – or states with more expansive exceptions than Idaho’s – could be affected. For one thing, the federal law at issue applies to religiously affiliated hospitals that receive federal funding but decline to provide abortions even though their state law would otherwise allow them.
A federal appeals court in California sided with the Biden administration on a temporary basis earlier this month, blocking enforcement of the provisions of the Idaho law at issue.
Abortion rights groups reach petition threshold to put abortion on Florida ballot in 2024
Carlos Suarez and Denise Royal – January 5, 2024
A coalition of Florida abortion rights supporters announced on Friday they have gathered enough signatures to put a state constitutional amendment protecting the right to an abortion on the ballot in 2024. Election officials have verified 910,946 petitions submitted by Floridians Protecting Freedom, according to the Florida Division of Elections website.
The group said it needed 891,523 verified petitions to make it on the ballot. They said they expect to receive official notification from the Florida Division of Elections in the coming weeks.
If the measure makes it on to the ballot, Florida will join several other states where voters have weighed in directly on reproductive rights since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The initiative could also boost voter turnout, as it has in states like Ohio, which could give Democrats an advantage as President Joe Biden looks to secure another term.
“The fact that we only launched our campaign eight months ago and we’ve already reached our petition goal speaks to the unprecedented support and momentum there is to get politicians out of our private lives and health care decisions,” said campaign director Lauren Brenzel.
“Most initiative campaigns never make it this far. The ones that do usually spend far more or take much longer to qualify, which is why we’re so confident that voters will approve our amendment once they’re given a chance to vote,” Brenzel added.
The Florida Supreme Court still must approve the language of the ballot measure which is being challenged by Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody.
The proposed amendments reads, “No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.’
In a legal brief filed in October, Moody asked the Court to kill the amendment, arguing the language is vague and confusing.
Moody argued that it uses language aimed at tricking voters. The brief specifically takes aim at terms like “health,” “viability” and “healthcare provider” and says they are too ambiguous.
Oral arguments are scheduled on February 7 in front of the Florida Supreme Court.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, appointed five of the seven justices on the current court, giving it a conservative majority.
Should the measure make it on the ballot and be approved by at least 60% voters, the amendment would undo Florida’s current 15-week ban on abortions. In 2023, lawmakers passed a 6-week ban, which will only go into effect if the 15-week ban is upheld by the Florida Supreme Court.
This story has been updated with additional information.
Abortion initiative hits milestone for getting in front of Florida voters
Mike Schneider – January 5, 2024
FILE – Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody speaks at a news conference, Jan. 26, 2023, in Miami. A petition initiative that would enshrine abortion rights in the Florida constitution on Friday, Jan. 5, 2024, reached the necessary number of verified signatures to qualify for the 2024 ballot. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier, File)
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A petition initiative that would enshrine abortion rights in the Florida constitution on Friday reached the necessary number of verified signatures to qualify for the 2024 ballot, officials said.
More than 911,000 signatures have been verified, according to the Florida Division of Elections, surpassing the more than 891,500 petition signatures required by the state to put a ballot initiative before voters.
If the measure ultimately makes it on the fall ballot, voters in the third-most populous U.S. state could join citizens of other states in deciding what, if any, abortion protections or restrictions there should be following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022.
Since that landmark 1973 case giving constitutional protections for abortion across the United States was overturned in the Dobbs decision, voters in at least seven states have supported ballot measures protecting abortion rights or rejected measures aimed at limiting access. Constitutional amendments to protect access are already on the ballots for 2024 in Maryland and New York.
“We know what will happen if reproductive rights make it onto the ballot in 2024 — just like in every other state since Dobbs, Florida voters will choose to keep the government out of their health care decisions,” said Nikki Fried, chair of the Florida Democratic Party.
The proposed amendment would allow abortions in Florida to remain legal until the fetus is viable, as determined by the patient’s health care provider. If the amendment makes the ballot, it will need at least 60% voter approval to take effect.
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody says that abortion rights proponents and opponents have differing interpretations as to what viability means. Those differences along with the failure to define “health” and “health-care provider,” she said, are enough to deceive voters and potentially open a box of legal questions in the future.
Because of that, the Republican attorney general has asked the state Supreme Court to keep the proposed measure off the ballot, saying proponents are waging “a war” to protect the procedure and ultimately will seek to expand those rights in future years.
The court will hear arguments Feb. 7 on whether the ballot language should be approved.
A law Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis approved last year banning abortion after 15 weeks is being challenged in court.
If the courts uphold the law — DeSantis appointed five of the Supreme Court’s seven justices — a bill DeSantis signed this year will ban abortion after six weeks, which is before many women know they are pregnant. DeSantis, who is running for president, has said he would support a federal abortion ban after 15 weeks.
Any change in abortion access in Florida will be felt out of state as well because the Sunshine State traditionally has been a haven for women in the southeastern U.S. seeking abortions. There are bans on abortion at all stages of pregnancy in nearby Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi and a ban on terminating pregnancies in Georgia after cardiac activity can be detected.
Kavanaugh will ‘step up’ to keep Trump on ballots, ex-president’s lawyer says
Martin Pengelly in Washington – January 5, 2024
Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
Brett Kavanaugh, the US supreme court justice, will “step up” for Donald Trump and help defeat attempts to remove the former president from the ballot in Colorado and Maine for inciting an insurrection, a Trump lawyer said.
“I think it should be a slam dunk in the supreme court,” Alina Habba told Fox News on Thursday night. “I have faith in them.
“You know, people like Kavanaugh, who the president fought for, who the president went through hell to get into place, he’ll step up. Those people will step up. Not because they’re pro-Trump but because they’re pro-law, because they’re pro-fairness. And the law on this is very clear.”
Kavanaugh was the second of three justices appointed by Trump, creating a 6-3 rightwing majority that has delivered major Republican victories including removing the federal right to abortion and loosening gun control laws.
Habba’s reference to Trump “going through hell” was to a stormy confirmation during which Kavanaugh was accused of sexual assault, which he angrily denied. Trump reportedly wavered on Kavanaugh, only for senior Republicans to persuade him to stay strong.
Observers were quick to notice Habba’s apparent invitation to corruption.
Michael Kagan, a law professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said: “Legal ethics alert. If … Kavanaugh feels in any way that he owes Trump and will ‘step up’, then [Habba] should be sanctioned by the bar for saying this on TV and thus trying to prejudice a proceeding.”
Last month, the Colorado supreme court and the Maine secretary of state ruled that Trump should be removed from the ballot under the 14th amendment to the US constitution, passed after the civil war to stop insurrectionists holding office.
Trump incited the deadly January 6 attack on Congress in 2021, an attempt to stop certification of his defeat by Joe Biden. Impeached but acquitted, he is now the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination this year.
Trump has appealed both state rulings. In a supreme court filing in the Colorado case, lawyers argued that only Congress could resolve such a dispute and that the presidency was not an office of state as defined in the 14th amendment.
The relevant text does not mention the presidency or vice-presidency. ABC News has reported exchanges in debate in 1866 in which those positions are covered.
The supreme court has not yet said if it will consider the matter.
Norm Eisen, a White House ethics tsar turned CNN legal analyst, said: “It’s likely … the supreme court will move to resolve this. They may do it quickly. They may not do it quickly because by filing this petition … Trump has stayed the Colorado proceedings. So at the moment he remains on the ballot. The supreme court does have to speak to it.”
Habba said:
“[Trump] has not been charged with insurrection. He has not been prosecuted for it. He has not been found guilty of it.”
She then made her prediction about Kavanaugh and other justices “stepping up”.
Trump ‘dictator’ comments raise questions about democracy. Here are 5 guardrails – if they hold
Riley Beggin and Angele Latham – January 5, 2024
As he seeks a second term in office, former President Donald Trump has indicated he plans to dramatically expand the power of the presidency and upturn democratic precedents.
Multiple American presidents of both parties have tested the bounds of executive power. But these pledges – and Trump’s unwillingness to acknowledge the valid results of the 2020 election, including saying the “termination” of the Constitution would be appropriate to overturn it − have experts in authoritarianism particularly on edge for what a second term would bring.
The United States government was built to withstand attempts to concentrate power in the hands of a single leader by vesting authority in Congress and the courts to check the president. There are also several agencies that operate independently of the president and decades of precedent that can create additional guardrails for democracy.
Experts who spoke with USA TODAY had varied opinions on the strength of those guardrails to stand up to potential abuses of power. Some said a widespread abandonment of democratic principles is unlikely; others suggested Trump has already proven they can be worn down.
Former President Donald Trump speaks after exiting the courtroom for a break at New York Supreme Court, Dec. 7, 2023, in New York.
In either case, they said, the strength of American democracy depends on how willing people are within the system to defend it in the face of retaliation.
“There is a possibility that the Constitution’s limits are exposed,” said Daniel Kiel, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Memphis. The Constitution sets rules to protect democracy, but it works only if people follow them, he said.
“If we don’t have voluntary adherence to the rules of the game, then it reveals that the Constitution on its own isn’t enough.”
Here’s more on five key guardrails at play in curbing potential abuses of executive power.
The courts
The judicial system, a co-equal branch of government, is a major arbiter of whether policies spearheaded by Congress or the president are legal.
“One of the guardrails against presidential dictatorship is the expectation that the other institutions will push back,” said Joel Goldstein, a law professor and constitutional expert at St. Louis University School of Law. “The Constitution requires every member of Congress, every member of the court, to take an oath to support the Constitution. And the premise behind that is that if you have a president who steps out of his or her lane, exceeds his or her power, as preventions to dictatorship the other institutions will push back.”
Trump has had a particularly significant influence on the court system: He appointed more than 200 federal judges in four years in office, only about 30% fewer than Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, who each served two terms.
A relatively high proportion of those were in the higher ranks. For instance, he appointed 54 judges to the nation’s 13 powerful appeals courts (compared with 55 appointed by Obama and 62 by Bush). He also appointed three U.S. Supreme Court justices, more than any president since Ronald Reagan. That created the conservative supermajority now serving on the nation’s highest court.
Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts, Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito attend a private ceremony for retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor before public repose in the Great Hall at the Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on Dec. 18, 2023.
But that doesn’t mean the justices would allow a significant power grab. In fact, the Supreme Court has ruled against Trump in more cases than any president in modern history.
Trump and the Supreme Court would likely be on the same page about some disputes, said Philip Gorski, a political sociologist at Yale University, such as his plan to purge the civil service.
But “the real acid test would be around elections and presidential immunity,” he said.
The high court has already made one key decision in Trump’s favor: In late December, it declined special counsel Jack Smith’s request to take up Trump’s claim that he is immune from prosecution in the federal election interference case. The move is a boon for Trump in that it may delay the start of his March 4 trial, which is schedule a day before 16 states hold primary elections.
Congress
“One of the most important checks on executive power – the most obvious and the most powerful – is Congress,” said Sheri Berman, a political science professor at Barnard College.
Congress was built to be a co-equal branch of government with the president. But as the United States became a larger global player and the number of federal agencies expanded, presidents gained much more power to shape policy without the help of Congress.
Goldstein said that apart from a citizen’s initial vote, the role of Congress to uphold an equal separation of powers is one of the most vital to prevent extreme presidential overreach.
US House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., speaks to the press after meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on December 12, 2023.
The legislative branch has the power to rein in a president. They are the only branch with constitutional power to tax and spend, can pass laws limiting executive branch regulatory powers (especially with a president set on slashing regulation), and remain able to impeach, convict and remove a president from office – but only with enough support in the House and Senate.
But “one of the things that I think has made Trump so dangerous is that the Republican Party has pretty much fallen in behind him,” Berman said. Trump remains extraordinarily popular among the GOP base – and he doesn’t hesitate to go after members of his own party who publicly defy him – which can make it challenging for a Republican-controlled Congress to be a significant check on his power, she said.
The ‘power ministries’
Trump has claimed he is being targeted for political reasons by Smith, the nonpartisan special prosecutor, and pledged to use the Justice Department to “go after” President Joe Biden and other political adversaries if elected.
He also has said he would send the National Guard into cities with high crime rates “until law and order is restored” and to the southern border “to stop the invasion” of record numbers of migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. Trump and his top military leaders clashed over Trump’s suggestion of using military might to quell protests in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis in summer 2020.
“The real threat is if he is able to purge and co-opt the power ministries: law enforcement, defense, intelligence,” said Yale’s Gorski. “Failing that, he can’t really go beyond being a norm-defying president.”
FBI Director Christopher Wray, speaks with reporters during a news conference at the Department of Justice on Dec. 6, 2023, in Washington, as from left, Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Deputy Director Staci Barrera, of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri of the Criminal Division, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and Attorney General Merrick Garland, look on.More
There are multiple reasons to believe those “power ministries” would stand firm, he said. The militaries of successful strongmen are often drawn from the region or ethnic group that has strong ties to the leader. “The fact that we have a really cross-class, multiracial, inclusive military is certainly a buttress,” he said.
Gorski and Berman said the defense communities are staffed with people who are largely nonpartisan, professional and committed to defending the Constitution.
“Because of the strong ethos within each of those agencies or branches of the government – I would still expect considerable pushback,” Gorski said.
Elections
Multiple experts noted there is an often-overlooked guardrail to protect democracy that can prevent concerns of overreach from the very beginning: voting.
“The first act of rejection of these anti-democratic proposals should be at the ballot,” said Frederico Finchelstein, a history professor at the New School for Social Research in New York.
“If that is not effective, the situation will be very problematic because then you will have a person who is supported by votes” to deliver on anti-democratic promises – a voter mandate that could bolster arguments for more authoritarian policies, he said.
Lee Curran of Cherry Hill emerges from the voting booth after casting his vote at the Erlton Fire Company, district 25 in Cherry Hill, N.J. Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022.
Goldstein expressed a similar sentiment.
“A democratic government is the antithesis of a dictatorship – and so the first guardrail against presidential dictatorship is not to elect somebody who has tendencies toward authoritarianism or dictatorial tendencies,” he said.
Though the right to vote is the first step in checking presidential power, Kiel warns that should Trump be duly elected in 2024, that electoral support might embolden him to push the limits of his presidential power.
“There was already a second reelection effort (by Trump) that failed, and so the voters have limited his power by voting him out of office,” Kiel said. Trump has been impeached twice − and acquitted twice in the Senate − and lost election once, he added: “If he were to be returned to office … I do think it’s a unique scenario in that one might feel more emboldened to test those limits of presidential power because those limits have proven already inadequate.”
The press
A primary guardrail of democracy, multiple experts noted, is also often the loudest one in the room: the press.
“The freedom of the press, the freedom of speech − our system depends upon a belief that the press and dissidents can speak against the government,” Goldstein said. “And that you as a citizen are not being unpatriotic by criticizing the government − it’s our patriotic duty to criticize the government when it acts improperly.”
But the attitude of a presidential administration toward the press can drastically affect the public’s trust in America’s oldest institution.
Trump has been a vocal critic, repeatedly claiming the press is intentionally peddling false information about him and his former administration. Kash Patel, a close ally who is likely to have a national security role in a second Trump administration, said that a new administration would “go out and find the conspirators” in the media.
TUCSON, ARIZONA – JULY 31: Kash Patel, a former chief of staff to then-acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, speaks during a campaign event for Republican election candidates at the Whiskey Roads Restaurant & Bar on July 31, 2022 in Tucson, Arizona. With less than two days to go before the Arizona primary election, candidates continue campaigning across the state. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)More
Patel’s statements reflect a growing gap among Americans regarding the trustworthiness and efficacy of reputable news organizations to provide that constitutional guardrail.
In 2020, the Pew Research Center found that the gap between Americans who view a number of notable news sources as “trustworthy” versus “untrustworthy” has widened significantly since 2014 – and almost entirely along political lines.
Indeed, another study found that the number of citizens who believed that news organizations’ criticism of elected leaders “(kept) them from doing things they shouldn’t” split dramatically after the first year of Trump’s presidency.
In January 2016, 75% of respondents believed news organizations protected from governmental overreach, and the gap between Republican-leaning respondents and Democrat-leaning respondents spanned 3 points. One year into Trump’s term, that gap widened to 47 points.
Looking forward
These five factors each have a role to play in protecting democracy in the United States, the experts who spoke with USA TODAY said. But their success hinges on the people inside each institution acting in the country’s best interest.
“Ultimately, any guardrail on presidential authoritarianism or dictatorship depends upon government officials and citizens valuing constitutional principle above short-term partisan advantage,” said Goldstein, of St. Louis University.
When people are more interested in “protecting their own team” than following the Constitution, he said, “then the system can unwind.”
Houthis launch sea drone to attack ships hours after US, allies issue final warning
Tara Copp – January 4, 2024
FILE – U.S. Navy Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, who heads the Navy’s Bahrain-based 5th Fleet, speaks at an event at the International Defense Exhibition and Conference in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Feb. 21, 2023. The top commander of U.S. naval forces in the Middle East says Yemen’s Houthi rebels are showing no signs of ending their “reckless” attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea. But Vice Adm. Brad Cooper said in an Associated Press interview on Saturday that more nations are joining the international maritime mission to protect vessels in the vital waterway and trade traffic is beginning to pick up. (AP Photo/Jon Gambrell, File)More
WASHINGTON (AP) — An armed unmanned surface vessel launched from Houthi-controlled Yemen got within a “couple of miles” of U.S. Navy and commercial vessels in the Red Sea before detonating on Thursday, just hours after the White House and a host of partner nations issued a final warning to the Iran-backed militia group to cease the attacks or face potential military action.
Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, the head of U.S. Navy operations in the Middle East, said it was the first time the Houthis had used an unmanned surface vessel, or USV, since their harassment of commercial ships in the Red Sea began after the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war. They have, however, used them in years past.
Fabian Hinz, a missile expert and research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said the USV’s are a key part of the Houthi maritime arsenal and were used during previous battles against the Saudi coalition forces that intervened in Yemen’s war. They have regularly been used as suicide drone boats that explode upon impact.
Most of the Houthis’ USVs are likely assembled in Yemen but often fitted with components made in Iran, such as computerized guidance systems, Hinz said.
At the United Nations, U.S. deputy ambassador Christopher Lu said at a emergency Security Council meeting on Wednesday that Iran has supplied the Houthis with money and advanced weapons systems, including drones, land attack cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. He said Iran also has been deeply involved in planning the Houthis’ attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea.
He said the United States isn’t seeking a confrontation with Iran, but Tehran has a choice.
“It can continue its current course,” Lu said, “or it can withhold its support without which the Houthis would struggle to effectively track and strike commercial vessels navigating shipping lanes through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.”
This raises questions as to whether any action against the Houthis would also address Iran’s role in any way, which could risk widening the conflict.
A statement Wednesday signed by the United States, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore and the United Kingdom gave the Houthis what a senior Biden administration official described as a final warning.
“Let our message now be clear: we call for the immediate end of these illegal attacks and release of unlawfully detained vessels and crews,” the countries said in the statement. “The Houthis will bear the responsibility of the consequences should they continue to threaten lives, the global economy, and free flow of commerce in the region’s critical waterways.”
Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder would not say whether any military action would follow Thursday’s launch of the sea drone.
″I’ll let the statement speak for itself, which, again, represented many nations around the world and highlighted that if these strikes don’t stop, there will be consequences,” Ryder said.
Since late October, the Houthis have launched scores of one-way attack drones and missiles at commercial vessels transiting the Red Sea. U.S. Navy warships have also intercepted ballistic missiles the Pentagon says were headed toward Israel. Cooper said a total of 61 missiles and drones have been shot down by U.S. warships.
In response to the Houthi attacks, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in December announced Operation Prosperity Guardian, with the United States and other countries sending additional ships to the southern Red Sea to provide protection for commercial vessels passing through the critical Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
Cooper said 1,500 commercial ships have been able to transit safely since the operation was launched on Dec. 18.
However, the Houthis have continued to launch missiles and attack drones, prompting the White House and 12 allies to issue what amounted to a final warning Wednesday to cease their attacks on vessels in the Red Sea or face potential targeted military action.
Cooper said Operation Prosperity Guardian was solely defensive in nature and separate from any military action the U.S. might take if the Houthi attacks continue.
The U.S., United Kingdom and France are providing most of the warships now, and Greece and Denmark will also be providing vessels, he said.
Associated Press writer Jack Jeffery in London and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.
“Unprofessional”: Experts blast Trump lawyer for saying Brett Kavanaugh “quid pro quo part out loud”
Igor Derysh – January 5, 2024
Alina Habba ANNA WATTS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Trump attorney Alina Habba on Thursday suggested that Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh would “step up” and rule in favor of the former president because he “fought for” him.
Trump on Wednesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a Colorado Supreme Court ruling barring him from the presidential primary ballot under the Constitution’s “insurrectionist” clause. Trump has privately told people that he thinks the Supreme Court will “overwhelmingly” overturn the ruling but has also expressed concern that the conservative justices he appointed “will worry about being perceived as ‘political’ and may rule against him,” according to The New York Times.
Habba echoed Trump’s worries in an interview with Fox News.
“That’s a concern that he’s voiced to me, he’s voiced to everybody publicly, not privately. And I can tell you that his concern is a valid one,” she said. “They’re trying so hard to look neutral that sometimes they make the wrong call.”
But in a later appearance on the network with host Sean Hannity, Habba said the case should be a “slam dunk in the Supreme Court.”
“You know people like Kavanaugh ― who the president fought for, who the president went through hell to get into place ― he’ll step up,” she said. “Those people will step up. Not because they’re pro-Trump but because they’re pro-law. Because they’re pro-fairness, and the law on this is very clear.”
CNN host Phil Mattingly was taken aback as he played the clip on Friday.
“If a Democrat said that about the Justice Department or Merrick Garland or fill-in-the-blank here, there would be an absolute implosion. That’s bonkers,” he said.
“She’s saying the quiet part out loud,” replied panelist Jon Avlon. “She’s saying that Brett Kavanaugh will step up and side with the president because he appointed him. That goes against every basic idea of law and independence of the judiciary. And frankly, it puts Kavanaugh in a bit of a box.”
Legal experts skewered the lawyers’ Fox News remarks.
“That’s not how this works,” tweeted national security attorney Bradley Moss. “Imagine for a second if a lawyer for Clinton, Obama or Biden said this. It’d be a massive scandal at Fox,” he added.
“Alina Habba saying the quid pro quo part out loud here,” wrote MSNBC legal analyst Katie Phang.
“Yet another example of Habba demonstrating how unprofessional she is as an attorney,” national security lawyer Mark Zaid added.
“No shame. No decency”: Experts shocked at “weakness” of Trump’s bizarre Supreme Court ballot appeal
Igor Derysh – January 4, 2024
Donald Trump Scott Olson/Getty Images
Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday appealed the Colorado ruling barring him from the state’s primary ballot to the Supreme Court.
The Colorado Supreme Court last month found that Trump engaged in an insurrection on Jan. 6 and was barred from appearing on the ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment — a post-Civil War provision barring insurrectionists from office.
Trump’s lawyers in a filing asked the U.S. Supreme Court to put his name back on the ballot, arguing it would “mark the first time in the history of the United States that the judiciary has prevented voters from casting ballots for the leading major-party presidential candidate.”
Trump’s team called on the court to “return the right to vote for their candidate of choice to the voters,” arguing that only Congress has the authority to determine who is eligible for the presidency.
Trump’s team also disputed that he engaged in insurrection, citing a “long history of political protests that have turned violent.”
Legal experts criticized Trump’s filing starting with the very first line, which noted that it is a “fundamental principle” of the Constitution that “the people should choose whom they please to govern them.”
“No shame. No decency,” tweeted former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, alluding to Trump’s own efforts to disenfranchise voters after his 2020 loss.
“The sort of gall that the brief represents, it’s really, I think, shocking,” former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, who served on special counsel Bob Mueller’s team, told MSNBC. “It’s really sort of beyond the pale and legally wrong.”
“Donald Trump is charged with, essentially, disenfranchising, trying to disenfranchise 80 million people,” Weissmann said.
Conservative attorney George Conway went through the indictment on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Thursday.
“This is a bizarre document, and I think it reflects the weakness of Trump’s position,” he said.
“He is throwing stuff up at the wall, or throwing stuff up in a zoo cage, and seeing what would stick,” Conway said, noting that Trump lacks “real appellate advocates” on his legal team and that the filing is effectively “channeling Trump’s narcissism.”
“The third reason, I think, is the fundamental weakness of his position. The fifth point in this brief, point five, Roman numeral five, is he didn’t engage in insurrection. It is not number one. The reason is, it’s because his arguments are very, very weak. If you look at the question in terms of President Trump should be removed from the ballot, it’s kind of a shocking notion to those of us who haven’t lived, until now, in an era where public officials engage in insurrection. But it was familiar to the people who enacted the 14th amendment,” he said.
“When you go through the issues one by one by one, the way lawyers are supposed to, his case looks terrible,” he added.
CNN legal analyst Elie Honig, a former federal prosecutor, noted that Trump’s argument that he did not engage in insurrection is a “weak argument.”
“First on the facts but second, the Supreme Court’s not going to touch that,” he said. “They’re not a fact-finder, they don’t do trials. They generally won’t make that kind of finding.”
Honig said it is unclear how the court might look at Trump’s arguments that the matter should be left to Congress or that he was not given due process in the Colorado case.
“And then the fourth argument is this claim that the term ‘officers,’ as it’s used in the insurrection clause, doesn’t include the president. I tend to side with Colorado and [the plaintiffs] on that one. You can carve that up linguistically either way but just [on] common sense, how could it not apply to the president?” Honig questioned. “All of this is new… whatever happens here, we’re all going to learn together.”
