This surprise argument could derail Trump’s effort to delay the Jan. 6 trial
Harry Litman – January 3, 2024
A sketch of former President Trump conferring with one of his lawyers at the federal courthouse in Washington last summer. (Dana Verkouteren / Associated Press)
As all eyes watched every word filed by Donald Trump and federal prosecutors ahead of next week’s crucial arguments on immunity, a third party slipped in the side door with a brief that may dramatically foil the former president’s efforts to leverage the issue for maximum delay.
The watchdog organization American Oversight, which is not a party to the case, successfully petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to accept its friend-of-the-court brief on the ground that it provides a “unique perspective.”
Indeed it does. The brief makes the apparently compelling argument that the court shouldn’t be hearing this appeal at all because it lacks jurisdiction — that is, the power to consider it in the first place. If the court agrees, it would mean dismissing the appeal and returning the case to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, abruptly aborting Trump’s best opportunity to delay the federal Jan. 6 trial.
Trump’s argument is that he is entitled to avoid trial because the Constitution prohibits indicting him for conduct he undertook as president, at least if it was within the “outer perimeter” of his official duties. Most observers, including me, think Trump will lose the claim on the merits, but it’s likely that the U.S. Supreme Court will have to make that pivotal determination. The question is when — before trial, putting the case on ice, or afterward.
Chutkan has decided that she can’t go forward with the trial until that’s settled, reasoning that immunity is a right not to go to trial in the first place. That suggests that even if Trump is bound to lose his claim, he will be able to string out the process for at least a couple of months, bumping back the start of probably the most important of the four criminal trials he faces. Originally scheduled for March, the trial is thereby being delayed deeper into Trump’s campaign to return to the White House.
Enter the American Oversight brief, written by lawyers with the Washington-based firm Arnold & Porter. The brief relies on a unanimous 1989 Supreme Court opinion, Midland Asphalt Corp. vs. United States, written by the late Justice Antonin Scalia. The defendant in the criminal case, Midland Asphalt, had moved unsuccessfully for a dismissal of the charges based on the prosecution’s alleged violation of grand jury rules.
The Supreme Court held that neither it nor the circuit court had the power to hear the case on “interlocutory appeal,” or before trial. As with the vast majority of issues that may arise at trial, the court ruled, this one could be considered only after a conviction.
The court emphasized that in criminal cases, the compelling interest in prompt trials demands that courts apply the interlocutory appeal doctrine “with utmost strictness.” Federal courts have jurisdiction over such appeals, the justices found, only if they are brought under a constitutional or statutory provision that expressly gives the defendant a right not to go to trial.
Since the Midland Asphalt opinion, the court has identified only three categories of motions that may be considered before trial in criminal cases: motions to reduce bail and those concerning the double jeopardy clause in the Constitution’s 5th Amendment, and the speech or debate clause, which protects legislators from being “questioned” — that is, tried — at all.
Trump’s immunity argument therefore doesn’t seem to fit within Midland Asphalt’s exceptions. It doesn’t rest on any explicit constitutional guarantee. And the D.C. Circuit Court previously held that a right based on constitutional principles such as the separation of powers doesn’t cut it.
The Justice Department and Trump had been assuming the D.C. Circuit Court has jurisdiction based on Nixon vs. Fitzgerald, which established broad but not endless immunity from lawsuits over a president’s conduct while in office. But that civil case was not subject to the “utmost strictness” standard the Supreme Court has applied to criminal trials. It also predated the Midland Asphalt opinion, which the Justice Department somewhat bafflingly failed to mention.
There may be a reason the Midland Asphalt doctrine doesn’t apply here, but I can’t think of one.
Jurisdiction is an issue that courts take extremely seriously, and I think the D.C. Circuit Court should and probably will consider the argument that it lacks jurisdiction very carefully. It’s already ordered the parties to address American Oversight’s position at oral argument Tuesday, when it’s likely to be a subject of intense questioning.
If the argument succeeds, it will be an appellate version of the sort of Perry Mason moment that rarely happens in a real courtroom. With a wave of a jurisdictional wand, Trump would be back in the district court preparing for an only slightly delayed trial.
Here’s why MAGA politicians are deflecting hard & getting VERY NERVOUS about that Epstein list
Ariel Messman-Rucker – January 3, 2024
Alex Jones, Donald Trump, and Marjorie Taylor Greene
After spending decades calling queer people child predators and groomers, we can’t help but notice that Republicans are getting REAL NERVOUS about who is going to be named in the Jeffrey Epstein court documents that are about to be released.
U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska recently ordered that the names of 200 associates of Epstein be released on Wednesday, January 3, causing some members of the GOP to push wild conspiracy theories to explain why Donald Trump is going to appear on documents connected to a child sex trafficker.
It’s almost as if right-wing zealots will say literally anything to stay in power.
The list of names will include victims, associates, and employees and could potentially contain the names of high-profile figures. Trump, former President Bill Clinton, and the U.K.’s Prince Andrew are all believed to be among the names on the list, reports Forbes.
While the names of the two former presidents are expected to appear on Epstein’s flight logs, there is no evidence that either of them spent time on Epstein’s island, where underage girls were taken. But that hasn’t stopped admitted liar Alex Jones and MAGA-die hard Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from floating the theory that the former president’s name only appears on the list because “deep state” federal operatives are trying to destroy his name.
They need a new story because this one is getting tired. Honestly, we’ve known these documents were coming out for a while now; you’d think they would have used that time to come up with something a little more creative—though, that might be impossible because they clearly suffer from MAGA brain rot.
Recently, on his show InfoWars, Jones claimed that the CIA has previously faked lists like this in connection with Israeli and British intelligence agencies. “If they put out a client list, and that’s possible that it could be fake, because Epstein’s dead. And that’s something very possible.” Jones said, according to LGBT Nation.
The ease at which Jones tries to blow off Trump being associated with a known child sex trafficker is especially rich considering he and his guests have repeatedly called LGBTQ+ people pedophiles.
“[Trump] gets devoted to one woman at a time, gets totally obsessed with them, totally nice to them,” Jones continued.
Right, because a man who has been married three times, has been accused of sexual misconduct by 26 women, and allegedly had multiple extra-marital affairs is loyal to one woman. The math ain’t mathing.
Greene, on the other hand, took a different tack and focused her vitriol on Clinton to draw attention away from Trump. “For some us, it’s no surprise at all that Bill Clinton will be named in the Jeffrey Epstein files,” she wrote in a January 3 post on X, formerly Twitter. “We said it a long time ago, but they labeled us conspiracy theorists. There will be lots of names you’ve never heard of, and the IC collected info on them. Pedophiles belong in jail, not on secret government lists.”
Did she forget that Trump’s name will appear on that same list? Are these people capable of not being GIANT hypocrites?
We guess it would be too much to ask for Greene, a woman who has spent years spewing hate at the LGBTQ+ community and calling all queer people pedophiles, to hold members of her party accountable for the heinous acts she accuses us of. It’s better to play a game of ‘Hey, look over there!”
Republicans may close their eyes and pretend there are no right-wingers on the list, but we’ll be here to remind them.
Trump Will Lose 2024 Because Americans Worry ‘He’s Going to Start a World War,’ Biden’s Deputy Campaign Manager Says | Video
Dessi Gomez – January 3, 2024
Joe Biden’s deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks thinks Donald Trump won’t be reelected in 2024 because American voters fear, among other things, a world war.
Fulks appeared on “CNN News Central” with anchor John Berman Wednesday to discuss why Trump shouldn’t be reelected considering the lessons learned in the first term of his presidency.
“American voters know what it feels like to wake up every day and be afraid of what their president is going to tweet, if he’s going to start a world war because he can’t control his temper, right? These are the things that are at stake. And voters know that now,” Fulks said. “They’ve seen Donald Trump, which is exactly why the most people turned out than ever before to send Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to the White House in 2020.”
Fulks added that voters today should look to Hillary Clinton, who largely predicted Trump’s behavior as president while running against him in 2016 simply by taking the embattled politician at his word.
“Sec. Clinton was right: We should have taken Donald Trump at his word. But the difference here is that Donald Trump has now had four years to prove exactly what he would do,” Fulks said.
He added: “So, maybe you’re right, maybe we should take him at his words and his actions because when he was president, he did all the things that he said he would do. And so that’s the major difference that we have now heading into 2024 is that American voters have seen what Donald Trump would do.”
Watch the full clip from the “CNN News Central” segment in the video above.
Opinion Columnist, reporting from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Credit…Amir Cohen/Reuters
I’ve been The Times’s foreign affairs columnist since 1995, and one of the most enduring lessons I’ve learned is that there are good seasons and bad seasons in this business, which are defined by the big choices made by the biggest players.
My first decade or so saw its share of bad choices — mainly around America’s response to Sept. 11 — but they were accompanied by a lot of more hopeful ones: the birth of democracy in Russia and Eastern Europe, thanks to the choices of Mikhail Gorbachev. The Oslo peace process, thanks to the choices of Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat. China’s accelerating opening to the world, thanks to the choices of Deng Xiaoping. India’s embrace of globalization, thanks to choices initiated by Manmohan Singh. The expansion of the European Union, the election of America’s first Black president and the evolution of South Africa into a multiracial democracy focused on reconciliation rather than retribution — all the result of good choices from both leaders and led. There were even signs of a world finally beginning to take climate change seriously.
On balance, these choices nudged world politics toward a more positive trajectory — a feeling of more people being connected and able to realize their full potential peacefully. It was exciting to wake up each day and think about which one of these trends to get behind as a columnist.
For the last few years, though, I’ve felt the opposite — that so much of my work was decrying bad choices made by big players: Vladimir Putin’s tightening dictatorship and aggression, culminating in his brutal invasion of Ukraine; Xi Jinping’s reversal of China’s opening; Israel’s election of the most right-wing government in its history; the cascading effects of climate change; the loss of control over America’s southern border; and, maybe most ominously, an authoritarian drift, not only in European countries like Turkey, Poland and Hungary but in America’s own Republican Party as well.
To put it another way: If I think about the three pillars that have stabilized the world since I became a journalist in 1978 — a strong America committed to protecting a liberal global order with the help of healthy multilateral institutions like NATO, a steadily growing China always there to buoy the world economy, and mostly stable borders in Europe and the developing world — all three are being shaken by big choices by big players over the last decade. This is triggering a U.S.-China cold war, mass migrations from south to north and an America that has become more unreliable than indispensable.
But that’s not the half of it. Because now that advanced military technologies like drones are readily available, smaller players can wield much more power and project it more widely than ever before, enabling even their bad choices to shake the world. Just look at how shipping companies across the globe are having to reroute their traffic and pay higher insurance rates today because the Houthis, Yemeni tribesmen you never heard about until recently, have acquired drones and rockets and started disrupting sea traffic around the Red Sea and through the Suez Canal.
This is why I referred to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as our first true world war, and why I feel that Hamas’s war with Israel is in some ways our second true world war.
They are being fought on both physical battlefields and digital ones, with huge global reach and implications. Like farmers in Argentina who were stymied when they suddenly lost their fertilizer supplies from Ukraine and Russia. Like young TikTok users around the world observing, opining, protesting and boycotting global chains, such as Zara and McDonald’s, after being enraged by something they saw on a 15-second feed from Gaza. Like a pro-Israel hacker group claiming credit for shutting down some 70 percent of Iran’s gas stations the other day, presumably in retaliation for Iran’s support for Hamas. And so many more.
Indeed, in today’s tightly wired world, it is possible that the war over the Gaza Strip — which is roughly twice the size of Washington, D.C. — could decide the next president in Washington, D.C., as some young Democrats abandon President Biden because of his support for Israel.
But before we become too pessimistic, let us remember that these choices are just that: choices. There was nothing inevitable or foreordained about them. People and leaders always have agency — and as observers we must never fall prey to the cowardly and dishonest “well, they had no choice” crowd.
Gorbachev, Deng, Anwar el-Sadat, Menachem Begin, George H.W. Bush and Volodymyr Zelensky, to name but a few, faced excruciating choices, but they chose forks in the road that led to a safer and more prosperous world, at least for a time. Others, alas, have done the opposite.
To close out the year, it’s through this prism of choices that I want to re-examine the story that has consumed me, and I dare say much of the world, since Oct. 7: the Israel-Hamas war. It was not as inevitable as some want you to think.
Credit…Samar Abu Elouf for The New York Times
I began thinking about this a few weeks ago, when I flew to Dubai to attend the United Nations climate summit. If you’ve never been there, the Dubai airport has some of the longest concourses in the world. And when my Emirates flight landed, we parked close to one end of the B concourse — so when I looked out the window I saw lined up in a perfectly symmetrical row some 15 Emirates long-haul passenger jets, stretching far into the distance. And the thought occurred to me: What is the essential ingredient that Dubai has and Gaza lacks? Because both began, in one sense, as the convergence of sand and seawater at crucial intersections of the world.
It’s not oil — oil plays only a small role in Dubai’s diversified economy today. And it’s not democracy. Dubai is not a democracy and does not aspire to be one. But people are now flocking to live here from all over the world — its population of more than 3.5 million has surged since the outbreak of Covid. Why? The short answer is visionary leadership.
Dubai has benefited from two generations of monarchs in the United Arab Emirates who had a powerful vision of how the U.A.E. in general and the emirate of Dubai in particular could choose to be Arab, modern, pluralistic, globalized and embracing of a moderate interpretation of Islam. Their formula incorporates a radical openness to the world, an emphasis on free markets and education, a ban on extremist political Islam, relatively little corruption, a strong rule of law promulgated from the top down and a relentless commitment to economic diversification, talent recruitment and development.
There are a million things one could criticize about Dubai, from labor rights for the many foreign workers who run the place to real estate booms and busts, overbuilding and the lack of a truly free press or freedom of assembly, to name but a few. But the fact that Arabs and others keep wanting to live, work, play and start businesses here indicates that the leadership has converted its intensely hot promontory on the Persian Gulf into one of the world’s most prosperous crossroads for trade, tourism, transport, innovation, shipping and golf — with a skyline of skyscrapers, one over 2,700 feet high, that would be the envy of Hong Kong or Manhattan.
And it has all been done in the shadow (and with the envy) of a dangerous Islamic Republic of Iran. When I first visited Dubai in 1980, there were still traditional wooden fishing dhows in the harbor. Today, DP World, the Emirati logistics company, manages cargo logistics and port terminals all over the world. Any of Dubai’s neighbors — Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, Iran and Saudi Arabia — could have done the same with their similar coastlines, but it was the U.A.E. that pulled it off by making the choices it made.
I toured the site of the U.N.’s global climate conference with the U.A.E.’s minister of state for international cooperation, Reem al-Hashimy, who oversaw the building of Dubai’s massive 2020 Expo City, which was repurposed to hold the event. In three hours spent walking around, we were stopped at least six or seven times by young Emirati women in black robes in groups of two or three, who asked if I could just step aside for a second while they took selfies with Reem or whether I would be their photographer. She was their rock-star role model — this Harvard- and Tufts-educated, nonroyal woman in a leadership role as a government contractor.
Compare that with Gaza, where the role models today are Hamas martyrs in its endless war with Israel.
Among the most ignorant and vile things that have been said about this Gaza war is that Hamas had no choice — that its wars with Israel, culminating on Oct. 7 with a murderous rampage, the kidnappings of Israelis as young as 10 months and as old as 86 and the rape of Israeli women, could somehow be excused as a justifiable jailbreak by pent-up males.
No.
Let’s go to the videotape: In September 2005, Ariel Sharon completed a unilateral withdrawal of all Israeli forces and settlements from Gaza, which Israel occupied in the 1967 war. In short order, Hamas began attacking the crossing points between Gaza and Israel to show that even if Israel was gone, the resistance movement wasn’t over; these crossing points were a lifeline for commerce and jobs, and Israel eventually reduced the number of crossings from six to two.
In January 2006, the Palestinians held elections hoping to give the Palestinian Authority legitimacy to run Gaza and the West Bank. There was a debate among Israeli, Palestinian and Bush administration officials over whether Hamas should be allowed to run in the elections — because it had rejected the Oslo peace accords with Israel.
Yossi Beilin, one of the Israeli architects of Oslo, told me that he and others argued that Hamas should not be allowed to run, as did many members of Fatah, Arafat’s group, who had embraced Oslo and recognized Israel. But the Bush team insisted that Hamas be permitted to run without embracing Oslo, hoping that it would lose and this would be its ultimate refutation. Unfortunately, for complex reasons, Fatah ran unrealistically high numbers of candidates in many districts, dividing the vote, while the more disciplined Hamas ran carefully targeted slates and managed to win the parliamentary majority.
Hamas then faced a critical choice: Now that it controlled the Palestinian parliament, it could work within the Oslo Accords and the Paris protocol that governed economic ties between Israel, Gaza and the West Bank — or not.
Hamas chose not to — making a clash between Hamas and Fatah, which supported Oslo, inevitable. In the end, Hamas violently ousted Fatah from Gaza in 2007, killing some of its officials and making clear that it would not abide by the Oslo Accords or the Paris protocol. That led to the first Israeli economic blockade of Gaza — and what would be 22 years of on-and-off Hamas rocket attacks, Israeli checkpoint openings and closings, wars and cease-fires, all culminating on Oct. 7.
These were fateful choices. Once Sharon pulled Israel out of Gaza, Palestinians were left, for the first time ever, with total control over a piece of land. Yes, it was an impoverished slice of sand and coastal seawater, with some agricultural areas. And it was not the ancestral home of most of its residents. But it was theirs to build anything they wanted.
Had Hamas embraced Oslo and chosen to build its own Dubai, not only would the world have lined up to aid and invest in it; it would have been the most powerful springboard conceivable for a Palestinian state in the West Bank, in the heart of the Palestinian ancestral homeland. Palestinians would have proved to themselves, to Israelis and to the world what they could do when they had their own territory.
But Hamas decided instead to make Gaza a springboard for destroying Israel. To put it another way, Hamas had a choice: to replicate Dubai in 2023 or replicate Hanoi in 1968. It chose to replicate Hanoi, whose Củ Chi tunnel network served as the launchpad for the ’68 Tet offensive.
Hamas is not simply engaged in some pure-as-the-driven-snow anticolonial struggle against Israel. Only Hamas’s useful idiots on U.S. college campuses would believe that. Hamas is engaged in a raw power struggle with Fatah over who will control Gaza and the West Bank, and it’s engaged in a power struggle in the region — alongside other pro-Muslim Brotherhood parties and regimes (like Turkey and Qatar) — against pro-Western monarchies like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait and the U.A.E. and military-led regimes like Egypt’s.
In that struggle, Hamas wanted Gaza isolated and in conflict with Israel because that allowed Hamas to maintain its iron-fisted political and Islamist grip over the strip, forgoing elections and controlling all the smuggling routes in and out, which funded its tunnels and war machine and the lifestyle of its leaders and loyalists — every bit as much as Iran’s Islamic regime today needs its hostility with America to justify its iron grip over Iranian society and the Revolutionary Guard’s control of all of its smuggling. Every bit as much as Hezbollah needs its conflict with Israel to justify building its own army inside Lebanon, controlling its drug smuggling and not permitting any Lebanese government hostile to its interests to govern, no matter who is elected. And every bit as much as Vladimir Putin needs his conflict with NATO to justify his grip on power, the militarization of Russian society and his and his cronies’ looting of the state coffers.
This is now a common strategy for consolidating and holding power forever by a single political faction and disguising it with an ideology of resistance. It’s no wonder they all support one another.
There is so much to criticize about Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, which I have consistently opposed. But please, spare me the Harvard Yard nonsense that this war is all about the innocent, colonized oppressed and the evil, colonizing oppressors; that Israel alone was responsible for the isolation of Gaza; and that the only choice Hamas had for years was to create an underground “skyline” of tunnels up to 230 feet deep (contra Dubai) and that its only choice on Oct. 7 was martyrdom.
Credit…Pool photo by Menahem Kahana
Hamas has never wavered from being more interested in destroying the Jewish state than in building a Palestinian state — because that goal of annihilating Israel is what has enabled Hamas to justify its hold on power indefinitely, even though Gaza has known only economic misery since Hamas seized control.
We do those Palestinians who truly want and deserve a state of their own no favors by pretending otherwise.
Gazans know the truth. Fresh polling data reported by AFP indicates that on the eve of Oct. 7, “many Gazans were hostile to Hamas ahead of the group’s brutal Oct. 7 attack on Israel, with some describing its rule as a second occupation.”
As Hamas’s grip over Gaza is loosened, I predict we will hear a lot more of these Gazan voices on what they really think of Hamas, and it will be embarrassing to Hamas’s apologists on U.S. campuses.
But our story about agency and choices does not stop there. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister — 16 years — also made choices. And even before this war, he made terrible ones — for Israel and for Jews all over the world.
The list is long: Before this war, Netanyahu actively worked to keep the Palestinians divided and weak by strengthening Hamas in Gaza with billions of dollars from Qatar, while simultaneously working to discredit and delegitimize the more moderate Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, committed to Oslo and nonviolence in the West Bank. That way Netanyahu could tell every U.S. president, in effect: I’d love to make peace with the Palestinians, but they are divided, and moreover, the best of them can’t control the West Bank and the worst of them control Gaza. So what do you want from me?
Netanyahu’s goal has always been to destroy the Oslo option once and for all. In that, Bibi and Hamas have always needed each other: Bibi to tell the United States and Israelis that he had no choice, and Hamas to tell Gazans and its new and naïve supporters around the world that the Palestinians’ only choice was armed struggle led by Hamas.
The only exit from this mutually assured destruction is to bring in some transformed version of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank — or a whole new P.L.O.-appointed government of Palestinian technocrats — in partnership with moderate Arab states like Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. But when I raise that with many Israelis right now, they tell me, “Tom, it’s not the time. No one wants to hear it.”
That makes me want to scream: No, it is exactly the time. Don’t they get it? Netanyahu’s greatest political achievement has been to persuade Israelis and the world that it’s never the right time to talk about the morally corrosive occupation and how to help build a credible Palestinian partner to take it off Israel’s hands.
He and the settlers wore everyone down. When I covered the State Department in the early 1990s, West Bank settlements were routinely described by U.S. officials as “obstacles to peace.” But that phrase was gradually dropped. The Trump administration even decided to stop calling the West Bank “occupied” territory.
The reason I insist on talking about these choices now is because Israel is being surrounded by what I call Iran’s landcraft carriers (as opposed to our aircraft carriers): Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and Shiite militias in Iraq. Iran is squeezing Israel into a multifront war with its proxies. I truly worry for Israel.
But Israel will have neither the sympathy of the world that it needs nor the multiple allies it needs to confront this Iranian octopus, nor the Palestinian partners it needs to govern any post-Hamas Gaza, nor the lasting support of its best friend in the world, Joe Biden, unless it is ready to choose a long-term pathway for separating from the Palestinians with an improved, legitimate Palestinian partner.
Biden has been shouting that in Netanyahu’s ears in their private calls.
For all these reasons, if Netanyahu keeps refusing because, once again, politically, the time is not right for him, Biden will have to choose, too — between America’s interests and Netanyahu’s.
Netanyahu has been out to undermine the cornerstone of U.S. Middle East policy for the last three decades — the Oslo framework of two states for two people that guarantees Palestinian statehood and Israeli security, which neither side ever gave its best shot. Destroying the Oslo framework is not in America’s interest.
In sum, this war is so ugly, deadly and painful, it is no wonder that so many Palestinians and Israelis want to just focus on survival and not on any of the choices that got them here. The Haaretz writer Dahlia Scheindlin put it beautifully in a recent essay:
The situation today is so terrible that people run from reality as they run from rockets — and hide in the shelter of their blind spots. It’s pointless to wag fingers. The only thing left to do is try and change that reality.
For me, choosing that path will always be in season.
“Extreme sabotage”: Trump rants about new “10,000 soldiers” conspiracy theory on Truth Social
Gabriella Ferrigine – January 2, 2024
Donald Trump Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Former President Donald Trump spent a portion of his New Year’s holiday blasting perceived political adversaries on his Truth Social platform, on the heels of his Christmas rant in which he told special counsel Jack Smith, President Joe Biden, and others to “ROT IN HELL.” On Monday evening, Trump unleashed an invective targeting former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and once again at Smith.
“Why did American Disaster Liz Cheney, who suffers from TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome), and was defeated for Congress by the largest margin for a sitting Congressman or Congresswoman in the history of our Country, ILLEGALLY DELETE & DESTROY most of the evidence, and related items, from the January 6th Committee of Political Thugs and Misfits,” Trump wrote. “THIS ACT OF EXTREME SABOTAGE MAKES IT IMPOSSIBLE FOR MY LAWYERS TO PROPERLY PREPARE FOR, AND PRESENT, A PROPER DEFENSE OF THEIR CLIENT, ME. All of the information on Crazy Nancy Pelosi turning down 10,000 soldiers that I offered to to guard the Capitol Building, and beyond, is gone. The ridiculous Deranged Jack Smith case on Immunity, which the most respected legal minds in the Country say I am fully entitled to, is now completely compromised and should be thrown out and terminated, JUST LIKE THE RADICAL LEFT LUNATICS DID TO THE EVIDENCE!”
While Trump’s public and online bashing of political rivals is hardly a new phenomenon, this most recent post contains traces of conspiracy theory rhetoric — that any exonerating evidence is mysteriously “gone” — is something that his followers could latch onto,” Mediaite noted. Conspiracy theories such as this work because they cannot be proven false,” wrote Mediaite’s Colby Hall, referencing Trump’s claims of a stolen election in 2020. “But this is where we are at the moment,” Hall added, “and it appears that Trump has resorted to the ‘they lost my homework’ legal strategy, which may reveal just how desperate he actually is.”
‘A formulaic game’: former officials say Trump’s attacks threaten rule of law
Peter Stone in Washington DC – January 1, 2024
Photograph: Charlie Neibergall/AP
As Donald Trump faces 91 felony counts with four trials slated for 2024, including two tied to his drives to overturn his 2020 election loss, his attacks on prosecutors are increasingly conspiratorial and authoritarian in style and threaten the rule of law, say former justice department officials.
The former US president’s vitriolic attacks on a special counsel and two state prosecutors as well as some judges claim in part that the charges against Trump amount to “election interference” since he’s seeking the presidency again, and that “presidential immunity” protects Trump for his multiple actions to subvert Joe Biden’s 2020 victory.
But ex-officials and other experts say Trump’s campaign and social media bashing of the four sets of criminal charges – echoed in ways by his lawyers’ court briefs – are actually a hodgepodge of conspiracy theories and very tenuous legal claims, laced with Trump’s narcissism and authoritarian impulses aimed at delaying his trials or quashing the charges.
Much of Trump’s animus is aimed at the special counsel Jack Smith, who has charged him with four felony counts for election subversion, and 40 felony counts for mishandling classified documents when his presidency ended.
Trump’s chief goal in attacking Smith, whom he’s labelled a “deranged lunatic”, and other prosecutors and judges is to delay his trials well into 2024, or until after the election, when Trump could pardon himself if he wins, experts say.
Similarly, Trump has targeted the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, who has brought a racketeering case in Georgia against Trump and 18 others for trying to overturn Biden’s win there, branding her a “rabid partisan”.
Right before Christmas, Trump’s lawyers asked an appeals court in Washington to throw out Smith’s four-count subversion indictment, arguing that his actions occurred while he was in office and merited presidential immunity, and Trump in a Truth Social post on Christmas Eve blasted Smith for “election interference”.
In an 82-page brief rebutting Trump’s lawyers on December 30, Smith and his legal team wrote that Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results in 2020 “threaten to undermine democracy,” and stressed Trump’s sweeping immunity claims for all his actions while in office “threatens to license Presidents to commit crimes to remain in office.”
Former justice department officials say Trump’s rhetoric and tactics to tar prosecutors and judges are diversionary moves to distract from the serious charges he faces – especially for trying to subvert the 2020 election.
Delay is his major strategic objective in all these cases … Trump’s constitutional objections to the trial-related issues are all frivolous
Former Trump lawyer Ty Cobb
“Claiming the federal criminal cases or the Georgia Rico action are election interference, and railing constantly about the character of the prosecutors, judges and others, is just a formulaic game to Trump,” Ty Cobb, a White House counsel during the Trump years and a former DoJ official, said.
“Delay is his major strategic objective in all these cases. These criminal cases were started because of Trump’s criminal acts and his refusal to allow the peaceful transfer of government for the first time in US history. Trump’s constitutional objections to the trial-related issues are all frivolous including his claim of presidential immunity and double jeopardy.”
Cobb added that Trump’s “everyone is bad but me and I am the victim” rants, lies and frivolous imperious motions and appeals are just his “authoritarianism in service of his narcissism”.
Other ex-officials offer equally harsh assessments of Trump’s defenses.
“The reality is that Trump has clearly done a series of illegal things and the system is holding him to account for things that he’s done,” said the former deputy attorney general Donald Ayer, who served during the George HW Bush administration. “He’s telling more lies to mischaracterize prosecutions that we should be thankful for.”
Yet Trump keeps escalating his high-voltage rhetoric and revealing his authoritarian tendencies. Trump even bragged that Russian president Vladimir Putin in December echoed Trump’s charges of political persecution and election interference to bolster his claims.
“Even Vladimir Putin … says that Biden’s – and this is a quote – ‘politically motivated persecution of his political rival is very good for Russia because it shows the rottenness of the American political system, which cannot pretend to teach others about democracy’,” Trump told a campaign rally in Durham, New Hampshire.
For good measure, Trump complimented two other foreign authoritarian leaders, calling Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, “highly respected” and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un “very nice”.
In November Trump sparked fire for slamming his opponents on the left as “vermin”, a term that echoed Adolf Hitler’s language, and the ex-president has more than once pledged in authoritarian style to appoint a special prosecutor to “go after” Biden and his family.
Likewise, critics have voiced alarm at Trump’s vow of “retribution” against some powerful foes in both parties if he’s re-elected, including ex-attorney general Bill Barr. That pledge fits with Trump painting himself a victim of a vendetta by “deep state” forces at the justice department, the FBI and other agencies Trump and his allies want to rein in while expanding his executive authority, if he’s the Republican nominee and wins the presidency again.
Critics say Trump’s attacks on the prosecutions are increasingly conspiratorial.
“Of course, it’s true that Trump is the undisputed master of election interference, so he certainly knows the field,” Democratic congressman Jamie Raskin, a leading Trump critic in the House, said.
“It’s hard to think of a greater case of election interference than what Trump did in 2020 and 2021. His claim of election interference is meant to give him a kind of political immunity from the consequences of his criminal actions.
“He’s basically inviting the public to believe that the legal system’s response to his stealing government documents or trying to overthrow an election are illegal attempts to interfere with his political career.”
Raskin noted there was some Trump-style logic to citing Putin in his defense.
“We know Putin is Trump’s hero and effective cult master,” the congressman said. “So it makes sense that Trump would try to elevate him as a kind of moral arbiter. Trump would love a world where Vladimir Putin would decide the integrity of elections and prosecutions. Wouldn’t that be nice for the autocrats?”
Trump’s modus operandi to stave off his trials is emblematic of how he has operated in the past, say some ex-prosecutors.
“Trump has a habit of picking up allegations made against him and, like a kid in the playground, accusing the critics of doing the same thing”, such as crying “electoral interference”, said the Columbia law professor and former federal prosecutor Daniel Richman.
Richman stressed that “I wouldn’t assume Trump is trying to mimic other authoritarians. He just shares their values, or the lack of them.”
Other scholars see Trump’s desperate defenses and incendiary attacks on the legal system as part of his DNA.
Trump feels entirely emboldened by his supporters. He’s been given license by the Republican party to go as far as he wants
Congressman Jamie Raskin
“The Trump team is looking to cobble together a defense for the indefensible,” said Timothy Naftali, a senior research scholar at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. “Trump has long been looking for and finding ways to protect himself whenever he crosses legal lines. This is who he is.”
Naftali suggested: “Trump announced his second re-election bid much earlier than is traditional for major candidates. A likely reason why he announced so early – and then hardly campaigned for a long time – was to pre-empt any indictments so that he could later denounce them as ‘election interference’ and perhaps undermine any future trials. This is a man who lies and creates a reality most favorable to him.”
More broadly, Raskin views Trump’s attacks on the legal system as hallmarks of fascist rulers.
“Fascism is all about the destruction of the rule of law in the service of a dictator. It’s important for Trump to continue to attack our essential legal institutions. He’s also gotten to the point of dehumanizing his opponents by using words like ‘vermin’. Violence permeates his rhetoric,” he said.
“Trump feels entirely emboldened by his supporters. He’s been given license by the Republican party to go as far as he wants.”
North Korea’s Kim Jong-un promises launch of new spy satellites in 2024
Stuti Mishra – December 31, 2023
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspected the country’s first military reconnaissance satellite and gave the green light for its next action plan, Pyongyang’s state media said on Wednesday, adding that the satellite is “ready for loading” on a rocket.
The North Korean leader announced on Saturday that the “grave situation requires us to accelerate works to acquire overwhelming war response capabilities and thorough and perfect military readiness to suppress any types of provocations by the enemies at a stroke”.
“Because of reckless moves by the enemies to invade us, it is a fait accompli that a war can break out at any time on the Korean peninsula,” he said.
Unveiling his bold vision for 2024, Mr Kim said he plans to introduce cutting-edge unmanned combat equipment such as armed drones and powerful electronic warfare devices along with bolstering the country’s nuclear capabilities.
He criticised the United States and its allies for unprecedented actions, pushing the Korean Peninsula to the verge of nuclear conflict.
Mr Kim directed the launch of three additional military spy satellites in 2024, building upon the success of the country’s first reconnaissance satellite launched in November.
His assertion to expand North Korea’s nuclear weapons arsenal comes despite international pressure. In his speech, he ordered the acceleration of nuclear weapons production and development, signalling a continued focus on modernising the country’s nuclear capabilities.
“Based on the experience of successfully launching and operating the first reconnaissance satellite in 2023, the task of launching three additional reconnaissance satellites in 2024 was declared to vigorously promote the development of space science and technology,” the statement published by KCNA read.
Since last year, Mr Kim’s military has test-fired more than 100 ballistic missiles, many of them nuclear-capable weapons, in violation of a UN Security Council resolution that prohibits North Korea from using ballistic missile technology.
South Korea’s spy agency raised alert last week that North Korea can launch military provocations and cyberattacks ahead of South Korean parliamentary elections in April and the US presidential election in November.
“Pyongyang might be waiting out the US presidential election to see what its provocations can buy it with the next administration,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul.
The North Korean leader also announced that North Korea will no longer seek reunification with South Korea. He said inter-Korean relations had become “a relationship between two hostile countries and two belligerents at war”.
“It’s time for us to acknowledge the reality and clarify our relationship with the South,” Mr Kim added.
North Korea’s Kim says armed conflict becoming reality because of US – KCNA
Jack Kim – December 31, 2023
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un meets with commanders of the Korean People’s ArmyNorth Korean leader Kim Jong Un attends the 2024 New Year’s Grand Performance at the May 1st Stadium in Pyongyang
SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un told the country’s military commanders the most powerful means must be mobilized to destroy the United States and South Korea if they choose military confrontation, state media reported on Monday.
Kim said the danger of an armed confrontation on the Korean peninsula is fast becoming a reality because of hostile maneuvers by the enemies including the United States, requiring the country to “sharpen the treasured sword” to protect itself.
“If the enemy opt for military confrontation … our army should deal a deadly blow to thoroughly annihilate them by mobilizing all the toughest means and potentialities without moment’s hesitation,” KCNA news agency quoted Kim as saying.
Kim made the comments as he hosted senior military leaders on Sunday at the ruling Workers’ Party (WPK) headquarters to congratulate them on the accomplishments made in 2023, the state news agency said.
North Korea in 2023 tested its largest ballistic missiles and launched its first military reconnaissance satellite, which Kim has called major advances in modernizing the country’s military.
The call to upgrade the country’s military readiness follows the pledge made at the conclusion of a five-day WPK meeting that ended on Saturday to boost its nuclear arsenal, build military drones and launch three new spy satellites in 2024.
The escalation of rhetoric from Kim comes as the United States increased drills with South Korea in the past year, deploying more strategic military assets, including a nuclear missile submarine, aircraft carriers and large bombers.
It also comes ahead of a year that will see pivotal elections in both South Korea and the United States, which Pyongyang likely sees as an opportunity to increase its leverage by stepping up a campaign of military pressure.
On Monday, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol pledged to accelerate work to complete a missile defence system and a system using U.S. extended deterrence to “fundamentally deter any North Korean nuclear and missile threat.”
Extended deterrence refers to the strategy of using U.S. military assets including nuclear weapons to deter and, in the event of an attack against an ally, respond.
In separate reports, KCNA said Kim hosted a reception for senior members of the ruling party and attended a late night “grand art performance” celebrating the new year at the May Day stadium in Pyongyang, where senior party members, soldiers and members of the diplomatic corps were present.
The show featured ice skaters, acrobats and choirs, and fireworks lit up the sky at midnight, as the venue filled “with great happiness and boundless excitement of seeing in the New Year with the benevolent father of the great socialist family.”
(Reporting by Jack Kim; Editing by Diane Craft, Lisa Shumaker and Kim Coghill)
North Korea’s Kim vows to launch 3 more spy satellites and produce more nuclear materials in 2024
Associated Press – December 31, 2023
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un vowed to launch three additional military spy satellites, produce more nuclear materials and introduce modern attack drones in 2024, as he called for “overwhelming” war readiness to cope with U.S.-led confrontational moves, state media reported Sunday.
Kim’s comments, made during a key ruling Workers’ Party meeting to set state goals for next year, suggest he’ll intensify a run of weapons tests ahead of the U.S. presidential elections in November. Observers say Kim believes a boosted nuclear capability would give him another chance for high-stakes diplomacy with the U.S. to win sanctions relief if former President Donald Trump returns to the White House.
During the five-day meeting that ended Saturday, Kim said “vicious” anti-North Korea moves by the United States and its followers “have reached the extremes unprecedented in history,” pushing the Korean Peninsula to the brink of a nuclear war, according to the official Korean Central News Agency. Kim cited the expansion of U.S.-South Korean military exercises and the temporary deployment of powerful U.S. military assets such as bombers and a nuclear-armed submarine in South Korea — steps the allies have taken in response to the North’s weapons testing spree since last year.
Kim called for “the overwhelming war response capability” to deter potential enemy provocations, KCNA said.
He set forth plans to launch three more military spy satellites next year in addition to the country’s first reconnaissance satellite launched in November. He underscored the need to establish “a reliable foundation” to build more nuclear weapons, an apparent reference to facilities producing fissile materials like weapons-grade plutonium and highly enriched uranium. Kim also ordered authorities to enhance submarine capabilities and develop various types of modern unmanned combat equipment such as armed drones.
“Pyongyang might be waiting out the U.S. presidential election to see what its provocations can buy it with the next administration,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul.
“The Kim regime has closed the political door on denuclearization negotiations but could offer rhetorical restraint and a testing freeze in exchange for sanctions relief,” Easley said. “Although North Korea has no intention of giving up nuclear weapons, it might try to extract payment for acting like a so-called responsible nuclear power.”
Kim has been focusing on modernizing his nuclear arsenal since his diplomacy with Trump broke down in 2019 due to wrangling over how much sanctions relief the North could get for a partial surrender of its nuclear program. Experts say Kim likely thinks that Trump, if elected for a second term, could make concessions as the U.S. is preoccupied with the Russia-Ukraine war and the Israel-Hamas fighting.
Nam Sung-wook, a professor at Korea University in South Korea, said if President Joe Biden is reelected, North Korea won’t get what it wants. But he predicted a Trump win could revive diplomacy, saying Trump will likely say during his campaign that he can convince North Korea to suspend intimidating weapons tests.
He said Kim’s vow to ramp up production of plutonium and uranium is meant to strengthen his negotiating cards. Nam said North Korea will also test-launch more intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the continental U.S. this year.
“North Korea will act to the fullest extent under its timetable for provocation until the U.S. election day,” Nam said.
During his speech at the party meeting, Kim used bellicose, derisive rhetoric against South Korea, calling it “a hemiplegic malformation and colonial subordinate state” whose society is “tainted by Yankee culture.” He said South Korea must not be considered as a partner for reconciliation or unification. He ordered the military to use all available means including nuclear weapons to conquer South Korea in the event of a conflict.
South Korea’s Unification Ministry responded Sunday saying it strongly condemns North Korea for advancing its nuclear program and displaying hostility toward its neighbors. A statement said South Korea will try to overwhelmingly deter North Korean threats based on a solid alliance with the United States.
Some analysts have speculated that limited clashes between the Koreas along their tense land and sea border could happen in the coming year. South Korea’s spy agency said last week that North Korea will likely launch military provocations and cyberattacks ahead of South Korean parliamentary elections in April and the U.S. presidential election in November.
Kim also maintained that North Korea must solidify cooperation with “anti-imperialist, independent” countries that he said oppose U.S.-led Western hegemony.
Kim didn’t name the countries. But North Korea has been seeking to beef up its cooperation with Russia and China, which have repeatedly blocked attempts by the U.S. and allies to toughen U.N. sanctions on the North over its banned missile tests. The U.S. and South Korea accuse North Korea of supplying artillery and ammunition to Russia in return for high-tech Russian technologies for its own military programs.
Julianne Smith, U.S. permanent representative to NATO, said earlier this month the U.S. assessed that the suspected Russian technologies North Korea seeks are related to fighter aircraft, surface-to-air missiles, armored vehicles, ballistic missile production equipment or materials of that kind. Smith said U.S. intelligence indicates that North Korea had provided Russia with more than 1,000 containers of military equipment and munitions.
South Korean officials said Russian support likely enabled North Korea to put its spy satellite into orbit for the first time on Nov. 21. Many foreign experts are skeptical about the satellite’s ability but South Korean Defense Minister Shin Wonsik said in November that Russia could help North Korea produce higher-resolution satellite photos.
Yang Uk, an analyst at Seoul’s Asan Institute for Policy Studies, said that North Korea hasn’t yet obtained functioning ICBMs that can launch nuclear strikes on the continental U.S. But he said North Korea’s shorter-range nuclear-armed missiles can reach South Korea and Japan, where a total of 80,000 American troops are stationed.
Estimates on the size of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal vary, ranging from 20-30 bombs to more than 100. The U.N. atomic agency and foreign experts recently said North Korea appears to have started operating a light-water reactor at its main nuclear complex in a possible attempt to secure a new source for weapons-grade plutonium.
Meanwhile, Kim said during the meeting that North Korea made “eye-opening” economic achievements by fulfilling or exceeding set quotas in major areas such as farming, housing construction and fisheries. Nam, the professor, said the self-praise appears aimed at burnishing Kim’s image as a leader who cares about public livelihoods as well as military issues.
North Korea’s Kim orders military to ‘thoroughly annihilate’ US, South Korea if provoked
Hyung-Jin Kim – December 31, 2023
In this photo provided by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un delivers a speech during a year-end plenary meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party, which was held between Dec. 26, and Dec. 30, 2023, in Pyongyang, North Korea. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this image distributed by the North Korean government. The content of this image is as provided and cannot be independently verified. Korean language watermark on image as provided by source reads: “KCNA” which is the abbreviation for Korean Central News Agency. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)In this photo provided by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center, attends a year-end plenary meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party, which was held between Dec. 26, and Dec. 30, 2023, in Pyongyang, North Korea. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this image distributed by the North Korean government. The content of this image is as provided and cannot be independently verified. Korean language watermark on image as provided by source reads: “KCNA” which is the abbreviation for Korean Central News Agency. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)People attend the New Year’s eve gala of youth and students at Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, North Korea Sunday, Dec. 31, 2023. (AP Photo/Jon Chol Jin)
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered his military to “thoroughly annihilate” the United States and South Korea if provoked, state media reported Monday, after he vowed to boost national defense to cope with what he called an unprecedented U.S.-led confrontation.
Kim is expected to ramp up weapons tests in 2024 ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November. Many experts say he likely believes his expanded nuclear arsenal would allow him to wrest U.S. concessions if former President Donald Trump is reelected.
In a five-day major ruling party meeting last week, Kim said he will launch three more military spy satellites, produce more nuclear materials and develop attack drones this year in what observers say is an attempt to increase his leverage in future diplomacy with the U.S.
In a meeting on Sunday with commanding army officers, Kim said it is urgent to sharpen “the treasured sword” to safeguard national security, an apparent reference to his country’s nuclear weapons program. He cited “the U.S. and other hostile forces’ military confrontation moves,” according to the official Korean Central News Agency.
Kim stressed that “our army should deal a deadly blow to thoroughly annihilate them by mobilizing all the toughest means and potentialities without moment’s hesitation” if they opt for military confrontation and provocations against North Korea, KCNA said.
In his New Year’s Day address Monday, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said he will strengthen his military’s preemptive strike, missile defense and retaliatory capabilities in response to the North Korean nuclear threat.
“The Republic of Korea is building genuine, lasting peace through strength, not a submissive peace that is dependent on the goodwill of the adversary,” Yoon said, using South Korea’s official name.
At the party meeting, Kim called South Korea “a hemiplegic malformation and colonial subordinate state” whose society is “tainted by Yankee culture.” He said his military must use all available means including nuclear weapons to “suppress the whole territory of South Korea” in the event of a conflict.
South Korea’s Defense Ministry warned in response that if North Korea attempts to use nuclear weapons, South Korean and U.S. forces will punish it overwhelmingly, resulting in the end of the Kim government.
Experts say small-scale military clashes between North and South Korea could happen this year along their heavily armed border. They say North Korea is also expected to test-launch intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the mainland U.S. and other major new weapons.
In 2018-19, Kim met Trump in three rounds of talks on North Korea’s expanding nuclear arsenal. The diplomacy fell apart after the U.S. rejected Kim’s offer to dismantle his main nuclear complex, a limited step, in exchange for extensive reductions in U.S.-led sanctions.
Since 2022, North Korea has conducted more than 100 missile tests, prompting the U.S. and South Korea to expand their joint military drills. North Korea has also tried to strengthen its relationships with China and Russia, which blocked efforts by the U.S. and its partners in the U.N. Security Council to toughen U.N. sanctions on North Korea over its weapons tests.
KCNA said Kim and Chinese President Xi Jinping exchanged New Year’s Day messages on Monday on bolstering bilateral ties. North Korea faces suspicions that it has supplied conventional arms for Russia’s war in Ukraine in return for sophisticated Russian technologies to enhance the North’s military programs.
Estimates of the size of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal vary, ranging from about 20-30 bombs to more than 100. Many foreign experts say North Korea still has some technological hurdles to overcome to produce functioning nuclear-armed ICBMs, though its shorter-range nuclear-capable missiles can reach South Korea and Japan.
