Donald Trump news and discussions

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Appeals court removes prosecutor Fani Willis from Georgia election case against Trump and others

Source: Associated Press

Story by KATE BRUMBACK

ATLANTA (AP) -- A state appeals court on Thursday removed Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from the Georgia election interference case against Donald Trump and others but did not dismiss the indictment, leaving the future of the prosecution uncertain.

The case against Trump and more than a dozen others had already been largely stalled for months while the Georgia Court of Appeals considered the pretrial appeal.

The new ruling means it will be up to the Prosecuting Attorneys' Council of Georgia to find another prosecutor to take over the case and to decide whether to continue to pursue it, though that could be delayed if Willis decides to appeal to the state Supreme Court.

Whether it is ultimately Willis or another prosecutor in charge, it seems unlikely that a prosecution against Trump could continue while he’s president for the next four years. But there are 14 other defendants who still face charges.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/trump-fani-w ... 323f687972

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Judge upholds Trump's felony conviction, but does not plan to order jail time

NEW YORK -- President-elect Donald Trump will be sentenced on 34 counts of falsifying business records ahead of his swearing-in on Jan. 20, but is not expected to face jail time, a judge ruled Friday. The decision to uphold Trump's conviction and schedule the sentencing Jan. 10 almost certainly means Trump will be the first felon to serve as a U.S. president.

New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan wrote in his ruling that he does not intend to sentence Trump to jail. He said he plans to order an "unconditional discharge," a designation in New York criminal courts for a non-jail and non-probation sentence that carries no other obligations.

Trump was convicted in May of falsifying business records to conceal a hush money payment to an adult-film star ahead of the 2016 election. He faced up to four years in prison, but many experts said incarceration was unlikely because of his age and his lack of prior convictions. Since Trump's victory at the polls in November, his lawyers have argued that anything short of dismissing the case would violate laws that protect the transition process and grant immunity from prosecution to sitting presidents.

In his decision, Merchan rejected those arguments. He called the Trump team's claims a "novel theory" of presidential immunity that would amount to an abuse of his legal discretion. "The Defendant has presented no valid argument to convince this Court otherwise," he said. "Binding precedent does not provide that an individual, upon becoming President, can retroactively dismiss or vacate prior criminal acts nor does it grant blanket Presidential-elect immunity. This Court is therefore forbidden from recognizing either form of immunity."

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... -sentence/

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Trump's lawyers ask judge to halt Friday's hush money case sentencing while they appeal to block it

Source: AP

Updated 10:49 AM EST, January 6, 2025

NEW YORK (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump on Monday moved to halt this week’s sentencing in his hush money case while he appeals a judge’s decision that upheld the historic verdict and put him on course to be the first president to take office convicted of felony crimes.

Trump’s lawyers said they will ask a New York appeals court to reverse Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan’s ruling last week, which set the case for sentencing on Friday — a little more than a week before his inauguration. Merchan rejected Trump’s bid to throw out the May 30 verdict because of his impending return to the White House. Trump’s lawyers said they will also appeal a prior decision in which the judge refused to dismiss the case on presidential immunity grounds.

In his decision last week, the judge signaled he is not likely to sentence Trump, a Republican, to any punishment for his historic conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Trump has said that it “would be the end of the Presidency as we know it” if the ruling is allowed to stand.

Trump’s lawyers argued Monday that their appeal to the Appellate Division of the state’s trial court should trigger what’s known as an automatic stay, or pause, in the proceedings. If that doesn’t happen, they said, Merchan should step in and halt Friday’s sentencing.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/trump-hush-m ... 9e75f28485

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Justice Department says it plans to release only part of special counsel's Trump report for now

Source: AP

Updated 10:15 AM EST, January 8, 2025

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Justice Department said Wednesday that it will release special counsel Jack Smith's findings on Donald Trump's efforts to undo the results of the 2020 presidential election but will keep under wraps for now the rest of the record focused on the president-elect's hoarding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

The revelation was made in a filing to a federal appeals court that was considering a defense request to block the release of the two-volume report while charges remain pending against two Trump co-defendants in the Florida case accusing the Republican former president and current president-elect of illegally holding classified documents. Aileen Cannon, the Trump-appointed judge presiding over the classified documents case, granted the request Tuesday, issuing a temporary block on the report.

The Justice Department said it would proceed with plans to release the first of two volumes centered on the election interference case but would make the classified documents section of the report available only to the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees for their private review as long as the case against Trump's co-defendants is ongoing.

"This limited disclosure will further the public interest in keeping congressional leadership apprised of a significant matter within the Department while safeguarding defendants' interests," the filing said.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/trump-jack-s ... 8d692d45e0

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US supreme court rejects Trump bid to call off sentencing in hush-money case


Thu 9 Jan 2025 19.20 EST

The US supreme court on Thursday declined to delay Donald Trump’s upcoming sentencing in his hush-money case.

Trump had asked the US’s highest legal body to call off Friday’s sentencing in the hush-money case after New York courts refused to postpone the sentencing by Judge Juan Merchan.

Merchan presided over Trump’s trial and conviction last May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Trump has denied wrongdoing.

Merchan has indicated he will not impose jail time, fines or probation, but Trump’s lawyers argued a felony conviction would still have intolerable side-effects, including distracting him as he prepares to take office in just over a week’s time.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... sentencing

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Donald Trump Sentenced In Historic New York Hush Money Trial

Source: HuffPost

President-elect Donald Trump received a sentence of unconditional discharge — or effectively no punishment — at a Friday hearing with New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan, which puts an end to his hush money trial more than seven months after his unprecedented conviction.

Trump appeared in court on a video feed from Mar-a-Lago, his Florida club, wearing a red and white striped tie and a frown. He was seated alongside his attorney Todd Blanche, with U.S. flags in the background.

Trump initially allowed Blanche to speak for him, averting his eyes from the camera. But he took the opportunity to address the court when Merchan offered it to him.

“This has been a very terrible experience. I think it’s been a tremendous setback for New York and the New York court system,” Trump said. “It was done to damage my reputation so I’d lose the election, and obviously it didn’t work.”

Read more: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-se ... 06b7289727

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Alito and Trump Make the Supreme Court’s Troubles Even Worse
by Steve Benen
January 9, 2025

Introduction:

(MSNBC) A few weeks ago, Gallup released the results of a national survey that found Americans’ confidence in the nation’s judiciary had reached a record low: Only 35% of the country said they have confidence in the courts, down from 59% as recently as 2020.

Contextualizing the poll, Gallup’s analysis added, “Few countries and territories have seen larger percentage-point drops in confidence in the judiciary (over a similar four-year span) than the U.S. These include Myanmar (from 2018 to 2022) overlapping the return to military rule in 2021, Venezuela (2012-2016) amid deep economic and political turmoil, and Syria (2009-2013) in the runup to and early years of civil war, and others that have experienced their own kinds of disorder in the past two decades.”

It was against this backdrop that Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts soon after issued an annual end-of-year report, complaining of criticisms that he characterized as unwarranted. “Unfortunately, not all actors engage in ‘informed criticism’ or anything remotely resembling it,” the conservative jurist wrote.

While I can appreciate Roberts’ concerns about the high court’s institutional reputation, if he wants to better understand why public confidence is faltering to historic degrees, there’s no shortage of evidence for the chief justice to consider. Take the latest NBC News report, for example.

Justice Samuel Alito confirmed Wednesday that he took a phone call from Donald Trump one day before the president-elect asked the Supreme Court to halt his upcoming sentencing, but insisted that the case was not discussed. Alito said in a statement that they spoke Tuesday afternoon after one of his former law clerks, William Levi, “asked me to take a call from President-elect Trump regarding his qualifications to serve in a government position.”

Read more here: https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-sh ... na186946

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Trump plans to issue Day 1 pardons for some convicted January 6 rioters

By Alayna Treene, Alison Main and Marshall Cohen, CNN
5 minute read
Published 1:07 PM EST, Sun January 19, 2025

(CNN) -- President-elect Donald Trump and his team have drafted a slate of pardons for people convicted for their role in the January 6 Capitol attack to be issued on Day 1, shortly after Trump is sworn in as president, two sources familiar with the plans told CNN.

Trump has repeatedly said he planned to swiftly pardon people who were convicted for their role in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. During a December interview with Time Magazine, Trump said: "I'll be looking at J6 early on, maybe the first nine minutes."

The extent of the initial pardons is still unclear; however, one of the sources described them as enough to be seen as "delivering on his long-held promise." About 1,270 people have been convicted of January 6-related crimes, and the vast majority of those defendants pleaded guilty. Only a couple hundred are currently behind bars.

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Several Republican allies of Trump have said they expect him to approach the pardons on a case-by-case basis, but two key GOP lawmakers on Sunday refused to rule out Trump potentially issuing pardons for some of the roughly 174 defendants charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon against police officers.

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Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/19/politics ... index.html

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Trump pardons roughly 1,500 criminal defendants charged in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack

Source: nbc


The sweeping pardons would mark the beginning of the end of one of the largest investigations in FBI history.


Jan. 20, 2025, 6:44 PM CST / Updated Jan. 20, 2025, 6:49 PM CST
By Ryan J. Reilly

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said on Monday that he was issuing roughly 1,500 pardons and commuting the sentences of six of his supporters in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, when thousands of them stormed the building amid his false claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged against him.

He made the remarks after returning to the White House Monday evening.


An attorney for Enrique Tarrio, the Proud Boys leader convicted of seditious conspiracy, told NBC News on Monday that his client was being processed for release from FCI Pollock, a medium security federal prison in Louisiana. Tarrio was serving 22 years in federal prison after being convicted of seditious conspiracy.

“He is being processed out,” attorney Nayib Hassan said. “We do not know what type of clemency he is receiving."

The pardons would fulfill one of Trump's central campaign promises. Immediately after the Jan. 6 attack, Trump sought to distance himself from the attack, saying that those who broke the law should be held accountable. ..................

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justic ... rcna187735

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Trump pardons roughly 1,500 criminal defendants charged in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack

Source: nbc


The sweeping pardons would mark the beginning of the end of one of the largest investigations in FBI history.


Jan. 20, 2025, 6:44 PM CST / Updated Jan. 20, 2025, 6:49 PM CST
By Ryan J. Reilly

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said on Monday that he was issuing roughly 1,500 pardons and commuting the sentences of six of his supporters in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, when thousands of them stormed the building amid his false claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged against him.

He made the remarks after returning to the White House Monday evening.


An attorney for Enrique Tarrio, the Proud Boys leader convicted of seditious conspiracy, told NBC News on Monday that his client was being processed for release from FCI Pollock, a medium security federal prison in Louisiana. Tarrio was serving 22 years in federal prison after being convicted of seditious conspiracy.

“He is being processed out,” attorney Nayib Hassan said. “We do not know what type of clemency he is receiving."

The pardons would fulfill one of Trump's central campaign promises. Immediately after the Jan. 6 attack, Trump sought to distance himself from the attack, saying that those who broke the law should be held accountable. ..................

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justic ... rcna187735

The sweeping pardons would mark the beginning of the end of justice, law, and order in the nation.