Key Trump allies indicted over fake electors plot as ex-president heads back to court

You Know Who showed the best and worst of himself on his social network last night, gleefully skewering the rank hypocrisy of his former US attorney general Bill Barr and launching into an appalling attack on Joe Biden in which he refers to the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville in 2017 as a “peanut” compared to the current pro-Palestinian demonstrations on college campuses and alleges, utterly baselessly and irresponsibly, that the president “HATES Israel and Hates the Jewish people” but “HATES the Palestinians even more”.

Except it has. To him. Twice.

The former president faces a gag order in his civil fraud trial that prevents him and other parties in the case from publicly attacking court staff and their families. He also faces a gag in his federal election interference case that blocks him from attacks against witnesses, court staff and other lawyers.

Yet Trump is once again lashing out at the gag order in his criminal case in Manhattan where he is forbidden from publicly attacking witnesses and court staff and their families, which he is calling “totally UNCONSTITUTIONAL” in his latest Truth Social post.

“The Gag Order imposed on me, a political candidate running for the highest office in the land, is totally UNCONSTITUTIONAL! Nothing like this has ever happened before,” he wrote on Wednesday.

“The Conflicted Judges friends and party members can say whatever they want about me, but I am not allowed to respond,” he added. “The Trial is Rigged and should never have been allowed to take place on a charge that virtually every legal scholar and expert say is bogus, THERE IS NO CRIME. This is a Political Witch Hunt – ELECTION INTERFERENCE!”

New York Justice Juan Merchan is expected to rule on whether the former president can be held in contempt and fined for his attacks against witnesses in the case.

More here:

The second day of trial testimony in Trump’s hush money case continued with David Pecker, the former publisher of the tabloid National Enquirer.

He walked the jury through his relationship with Trump; the arrangement concocted during the 2016 campaign to ensure unflattering stories died; and how that scheme was put into practice — including a plan to bury a bogus story of an alleged affair, which Pecker said could’ve been the magazine’s biggest story since the death of Elvis Presley.

Manhattan prosecutors reveal election crime driving Trump’s hush money case

A critical question hovering over Donald Trump’s criminal case in New York is whether prosecutors can convince a jury that the former president’s alleged falsification of business records are tied to a “primary” crime.

Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records, which – on their own – are misdemeanor offences.

But Manhattan prosecutors have elevated those charges to felonies by tying them to another offence – one that involves a conspiracy to manipulate an election.

Prosecutors began outlining those “other” crimes in court filings one month after Mr Trump was indicted last year. Justice Juan Merchan allowed them to move forward on three of them.

On Tuesday, prosecutors introduced one in court, suggesting t hat Trump falsified those business records with the intent to commit or conceal a conspiracy to “promote” his election through “unlawful means”.

More on the prosecution’s strategy here:

In April 2020, then-President Donald Trump suggested that Covid-19 could be treated with a “disinfectant” by “injection or almost a cleaning” inside the body.

“I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning? As you see, it gets in the lungs, it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that,” he said from the White House at the time.

On Wednesday, President Joe Biden ridiculed his remarks during a campaign speech to union leaders.

“Remember when he was trying to deal with Covid and he said ‘just inject a little bleach in your vein?’ He missed. It all went to his hair,” he said.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” he said to applause and laughter. “You guys are a bad influence on me.”

Donald Trump’s lawyers are back in Georgia with a motion that calls on the judge overseeing his election interference case to drop two of the charges against him.

Two of the counts against him involve the filing of false documents, which Trump’s attorneys claim can only be filed at the federal level – not in state court.

“The alleged conduct which the state is attempting to prosecute in counts 15 and 27 is addressed by the federal false statement statute and thus jurisdiction is exclusively vested in federal court,” attorney Steve Sadow wrote on Wednesday.

“As such, the state is without jurisdiction or authority to prosecute President Trump when the plain purpose of doing so is to protect the integrity of federal matters,” he added. “The statute at issue here reaches too far and may not be applied to criminalize the conduct alleged in counts 15 and 27. Those counts must be dismissed.”

Michael Cohen is both a crucial witness for the prosecution in Donald Trump’s criminal trial in New York and a frequent target of the former president, who is accused of repeatedly violating a trial gag order that blocks him from attacking witnesses.

On Wednesday, one day after a hearing on Trump’s alleged gag order violations, Cohen agreed to gag himself.

“Despite not being the gagged defendant, out of respect for Judge Merchan and the prosecutors, I will cease posting anything about Donald on my X (formerly Twitter) account or on the Mea Culpa Podcast until after my trial testimony,” he wrote.

“See you all in a month (or more).”

In what is setting up to be a landmark ruling from the nation’s highest court, the nine justices will determine if Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results by making false claims of election fraud, allegedly trying to install fake electors and pressuring former vice president Mike Pence to decertify election results were part of his “official acts” as president, and if those are protected from criminal prosecution.

Ariana Baio answers your questions about the historic case before the courton Thursday:

A grand jury indicted 11 Arizona Republicans and seven others for their role in an alleged scheme to keep Donald Trump in the White House by falsely certifying the state’s 2020 election results as a Trump win.

The indictment accuses the group of trying to prevent “the lawful transfer of the presidency of the United States, keeping President Donald J. Trump in office against the will of Arizona voters, and depriving Arizona voters of their right to vote and have their votes counted.”

“We conducted a thorough and professional investigation over the past 13 months into the fake electors scheme in our state,” Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes said in a video on Wednesday announcing the charges. “I understand for some of you today didn’t come fast enough. And I know I’ll be criticized by others for conducting this investigation at all. But as I’ve stated before, and we’ll say here again, today, I will not allow American democracy to be undermined.”