BREAKING: Judge CHUTKAN has *denied* Trump's motion to dismiss his criminal charges based on a claim of "presidential immunity. ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_p…
"Defendant’s four-year service as Commander in Chief did not bestow on him the divine right of kings to evade the criminal accountability that governs his fellow citizens." ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_p…
Trump's charges in the Washington D.C. case do not violate the First Amendment because "it is well established that the First Amendment does not protect speech that is used as an instrument of a crime," Chutkan rules.
NEWS: The constitution does *not* preclude Trump from being prosecuted for trying to subvert the 2020 election, Judge Chutkan rules. In fact, the charges he's facing are precisely the kind George Washington warned of, she says.
Chutkan has now developed something of a habit of telling Donald Trump he is not a king, as she did in her ruling granting the Jan. 6 committee access to his White House records from NARA. politico.com/news/2023/12/0…
This ruling is certain to be appealed and all but certain to reach the Supreme Court. It's the most difficult test of Jack SMith's D.C. indictment and will likely determine whether Trump faces trial at all ahead of the 2024 election.
Chutkan twice cited the hours-old appeals court decision finding Trump can be sued for claims that his Jan. 6 speech at the Ellipse incited violence at the Capitol.
MORE: Chutkan’s relatively swift ruling on this extremely tricky constitutional question is aligned with special counsel Smith’s plea that she act on the immunity question quickly — since it’s one of the few issues Trump can appeal pretrial.
MORE: The department's sweeping effort to identify a classified info leak — which included seeking phone/email logs for Schiff/Swalwell and 43 staffers — was done without proper oversight and risks chilling Congress' legitimate work, the IG found. politico.com/news/2024/12/1…
Kash PATEL was among those swept up in this search, and he unsuccessfully sued over it last year. But the IG found that the 43 searched staffers were split along partisan lines w/ no evidence of political motivation. politico.com/news/2024/12/1…
Judges are pushing back on efforts to sweep Jan. 6 under the rug but worried that a large swath of the public has moved on. politico.com/news/2024/12/0…
Judge Lamberth ordered a misdemeanor defendant — previoulsy convicted of a felony that was tossed because of SCOTUS — immediately jailed for a 12mo sentence.
And Judge Jackson worried that the "volume's getting turned up" on disinformation about 2020. politico.com/news/2024/12/0…
HAPPENING NOW: Enrique Tarrio, testifying at the trial of MPD officer Shane Lamond, has been combative, evasive and, at times, contradictory.
He seems to be relishing his attempt to fluster prosecutors. Drew a contempt threat from Juge Jackson when he refused to discuss Jan. 6.
The contempt threat for the former Proud Boys leader came on the first question from DOJ, when the prosecutor asked him if Proud Boys traveled to Washington on Jan. 6. Tarrio refused to answer and suggested he would plead the 5th even though he waived his 5th yesterday.
Tarrio also talked about timing his trip to Washington, D.C. for Jan. 4, 2021 because he knew he would be arrested for burning a BLM banner the month before and wanted to ensure he could be arrested and processed in time to be out for Jan. 6 events.
BIDEN calls Hunter’s case “selective prosecution” instigated by his political adversaries. Not exactly the ringing endorsement of the special counsel process his DOJ has long made.
Biden says “raw politics” infected the case, causing a “miscarriage of justice.”
NEW: Donald Trump hasn’t said a word since the election about his intent to pardon Jan. 6 defendants. It’s prompted some anxiety among supporters and a raging debate about his intentions.
That debate has been compounded by the replacement of Matt Gaetz — a fervent ally of Jan. 6 defendants — with Pam Bondi, who has maintained radio silence on the issue for four years. politico.com/news/2024/11/3…
Trump’s transition team exacerbated the issue by vowing Trump would consider pardons “case by case,” a signal that he might not implement the sweeping blanket pardon many J6 defenders have called for. politico.com/news/2024/11/3…
NEW: Few people have been more integrally linked to Donald Trump’s Jan. 6 gambit than Matt Gaetz.
Now, a man who has done as much as anyone to rewrite the history of that effort, could lead the prosecutors who have called it a stain on our democracy. politico.com/news/2024/11/1…
Before Jan. 6, Gaetz fomented false claims of voter fraud, then joined strategy sessions with Trump and other GOP lawmakers about overturning the election. He was in a meeting with Pence before Jan. 6. politico.com/news/2024/11/1…
GAETZ would later ask repeatedly for a pardon, one Eric Herschmann described as so broad and unbounded it would be unworkable. politico.com/news/2024/11/1…