Thursday, November 21, 2024
Trump Transition Live Updates: Gaetz Withdraws as Attorney General Pick
Trump Transition Live Updates: Gaetz Withdraws as Attorney General Pick
Where Things Stand
“Matt Gaetz, the former representative whom President-elect Donald J. Trump wanted as his attorney general, has withdrawn from consideration. Sexual misconduct allegations against Mr. Gaetz had drawn much scrutiny, including from senators who would vote to approve him for the position. Read more ›
Vice President-elect JD Vance had urged Senate Republicans to support Mr. Gaetz in meetings in the Capitol on Wednesday. Republicans on the House Ethics Committee voted against releasing the panel’s report into sexual misconduct and illicit drug use allegations against Mr. Gaetz. Read more ›
Mr. Vance is accompanying another administration nominee to meetings on Capitol Hill on Thursday: Pete Hegseth, the candidate for defense secretary. Mr. Hegseth is also facing sexual misconduct allegations, stemming from a 2017 encounter he asserted was consensual. Read more›“
Wednesday, November 20, 2024
Unexpected Turns in Trump Election Cases Raise Questions About Their Durability
Unexpected Turns in Trump Election Cases Raise Questions About Their Durability
“Canceled oral arguments in one case and a judge’s recusal in another have added to questions about the future of four state cases against Donald J. Trump and his allies.
Election interference cases against President-elect Donald J. Trump and his allies are moving forward in Georgia and Arizona, but recent complications in each case have fueled speculation about whether the prosecutions are in more fragile shape than they were before Mr. Trump won the election.
While nobody expects Mr. Trump himself to be tried while he is in office, dozens of his former aides and allies are still being prosecuted in at least four states. Some of the most prominent Trump associates, including Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer, and Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff, are facing charges in both Georgia and Arizona; Georgia is the only state in which Mr. Trump has been indicted.
But the cases are a long way from trial. This week, the Georgia Court of Appeals abruptly canceled oral arguments on whether the prosecutor leading the case in that state, Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, should be disqualified. A lower court judge had ruled against the defense’s effort to disqualify Ms. Willis, stemming from revelations that she had a romantic relationship with the outside lawyer her office hired to run the Trump prosecution.
The oral arguments had been scheduled for Dec. 5. The court offered no explanation for the move.
The appeals court clerk said in an interview on Tuesday that the cancellation would most likely not affect the mid-March deadline by which the court has to rule on the disqualification matter. While the judges have not said what drove their decision to call off oral arguments, the clerk said it might just signal that the judges decided to rely completely on legal briefs from the numerous defense lawyers.
“The information we got is that everybody wanted to speak,” said Christina Smith, the clerk of the Court of Appeals. “You have 60 minutes of argument and most of the eight lawyers wanted to argue. It would have been a lot of transitioning.”
Mr. Trump’s main lawyer in Georgia, Steven Sadow, declined to comment, as did Ms. Willis’s office.
The development in Georgia came on the heels of a decision last week by the presiding judge in a similar case in Arizona to recuse himself. Defendants in that case had called for the judge, Bruce Cohen, to be disqualified after it surfaced that he had circulated an email to judicial colleagues saying that his “blood boiled” after Mr. Trump reposted a crude joke about Vice President Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton, and expressing anger about offensive statements made by some Trump supporters about Ms. Harris.
The Arizona judge’s recusal will almost certainly delay decisions on motions filed by the defendants to dismiss the charges. A hearing has been scheduled for Thursday before a new judge.
State prosecutors in Michigan and Wisconsin are also bringing cases related to efforts by Mr. Trump and his allies to cling to power after he lost the 2020 election. A similar case in Nevada was dismissed this year, but is being appealed by the state attorney general’s office.
Mr. Trump’s victory in the 2024 election makes it unlikely that he will be tried, at least while he is in office. The Justice Department has a policy against prosecuting sitting presidents, and while the issue has not been tested at the state level, legal scholars expect that the courts will shield Mr. Trump from prosecution over the next four years.
A number of current and former Trump aides are among those who have been charged. In Arizona, they include Boris Epshteyn, one of Mr. Trump’s most prominent advisers who has played a central role in the cabinet selection process. Christina Bobb, a lawyer at the Republican National Committee, is also a defendant in the Arizona case.
The Arizona case has been scheduled for trial in January 2026. There is no trial date yet in the Georgia case.
Danny Hakim is a reporter on the Investigations team at The Times, focused primarily on politics. More about Danny Hakim“
Tuesday, November 19, 2024
Donald Trump’s hush-money sentencing date postponed | Donald Trump | The Guardian
Donald Trump’s hush-money sentencing date postponed
"Delay of 26 November sentencing comes as outcome of criminal case left in question following election win
Donald Trump’s scheduled 26 November sentencing in his Manhattan criminal hush-money case has been adjourned, according to a court calendar entry on Tuesday.
This postponement comes as many are questioning the fate of these proceedings in the aftermath of his win over Kamala Harris.
Prosecutors in Donald Trump’s Manhattan criminal hush-money case are expected to submit paperwork on Tuesday indicating how they believe the case should proceed in light of the election.
The expected filing comes one week after Judge Juan Merchan delayed ruling on Trump’s presidential immunity bid. Merchan’s postponement followed prosecution and defense filings requesting a delay in proceedings after Trump’s victory.
The filing this week would come in the wake of several postponements of Trump’s sentencing in his state-level case. On 30 May, Trump was found guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in a plot to influence the 2016 election.
This verdict seemed poised to deal a potentially deadly blow to Trump’s campaign as the then presumptive Republican presidential candidate. The campaign for Joe Biden, who at the time was running for re-election, remarked: “no one is above the law” in an email shortly after the jury’s decision.
Indeed, the criminal case against Trump cast him as a man who seemed to be lacking moral character required of the office. The prosecution said that Trump falsely recorded repayments to his then lawyer, Michael Cohen, for a $130,000 payment to the adult film star Stormy Daniels, so she would remain silent her about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump, as “legal expenses”.
Prosecutors told jurors that these misstatements were recorded to mask Trump’s violation of New York election law, which holds criminal promoting election of any person to office through illicit means.
Jurors were told that those illegal means were the $130,000 payoff to Daniels. The money was, they claimed, an unlawful campaign contribution, as it was paid to boost Trump’s 2016 bid – going over the $2,700 individual contribution cap.
Trump’s poll numbers held throughout the trial, and he did not lose support despite becoming the first US president – former or sitting – to not only stand criminal trial but also to be found guilty of a crime. He was chosen as the Republican presidential nominee and bested Kamala Harris on 5 November in the race for president.
Trump’s original sentencing date was 10 July. This proceeding was put off following the 1 July US supreme court ruling that gave sitting presidents broad immunity for official acts undertaken while in office.
Trump’s team pushed Merchan to postpone his sentencing following the supreme court’s decision. Trump also tried to challenge his conviction, noting the supreme court decision.
Merchan consented to considering the legal issues and delayed sentencing until 18 September “if such is still necessary”. In August, Trump’s lawyers requested additional time, arguing that they needed it to potentially appeal Merchan’s ruling.
On 6 September, Merchan pushed Trump’s sentencing back again to 26 November – weeks after election day – writing that the situation was “fraught with complexities”. The delay, Merchan said, was intended to “to avoid any appearance – however unwarranted – that the proceeding has been affected by or seeks to affect the approaching presidential election in which the defendant is a candidate”.
The prosecution on 10 November emailed Merchan noting that Trump’s lawyers had requested they agree to a postponement in order to look over “a number of arguments based on the impact on this proceeding from the results of the presidential election; defendant’s forthcoming certification as president-elect on January 6, 2025; and his inauguration on January 20, 2025”.
“The people agree that these are unprecedented circumstances and that arguments raised by defense counsel in correspondence to the people on Friday require careful consideration to ensure that any further steps in this proceeding appropriately balance the competing interests of (1) a jury verdict of guilty following trial that has the presumption of regularity; and (2) the office of the president,” prosecutors said in their missive.
Prosecutors requested that Merchan give them time to “assess recent developments” and allow them until 19 November to indicate what they think are “appropriate steps going forward”. Prosecutors said they had spoken with Trump’s team and that they agreed to this request.
The weekend of prosecutors’ filing, Trump’s lawyers argued that there were “strong reasons for the requested stay, and eventually dismissal of the case in the interests of justice”.
Trump’s win has thwarted his other criminal cases, including the federal election interference and classified documents cases. The state-level election case in Georgia is on pause pending appeal in the wake of news that the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, had hired a man with whom she had an affair as prosecutor."
Opinion | Trump, the Military and Plans for Mass Deportation - The New York Times
Trump, the Military and Plans for Mass Deportation
To the Editor:
"Re “Trump Confirms Plans to Use the Military to Assist in Mass Deportations” (news article, nytimes.com, Nov. 18):
Although President Biden has promised a smooth transition for Donald Trump after this election, we Americans should take strong steps, including mass protests and smart political strategies to oppose and stop all efforts of the Trump administration to conduct mass deportations of immigrants.
The former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and now Mr. Trump’s choice to be “border czar,” Thomas Homan, has said that immigrants can avoid the horrific family separation by being deported together. I guess he means that those immigrants who are here legally can choose to leave the U.S. with children and relatives who are being deported.
We Americans who value justice, liberty and morality must oppose and fight against the ruthless and fiendish plans of Mr. Trump and his acolytes, who have little respect for the traditional values of our great nation. The time to fight for justice is now, and powerful and peaceful protests should start now so Mr. Trump knows what he faces when he takes office.
Michael J. Gorman
Queens
The writer is a retired New York Police Department lieutenant.
To the Editor:
How will government officers find all those undocumented immigrants they plan to round up in the largest mass deportation of immigrants in American history?
Undocumented immigrants look no different than anyone else walking down the street. Which means that you and I — all 345 million of us in this country — are subject to being stopped and forced to prove we are here legally.
To limit the field, officers may be forced to stop only people who look “foreign.” Of course, many people born here look “foreign.” Many people who are foreign don’t look foreign. Will courts allow profiling based on appearance?
When we are stopped, how will we even prove we are legal so we can stay out of the planned detention camps? We all don’t go around with immigration or naturalization papers. We don’t all have passports. I don’t carry ID unless I’m driving, drinking or using the AARP discount. My only proof is my birth certificate, which I can’t even find.
Even if courts say it is legal to stop anyone for any reason, how long would Americans put up with their own government harassing them?
The government may try to ease the pain by setting up offices in every city and requiring everyone to go there with proof of citizenship. Employees will then issue us cards to carry at all times to show officers. Or the government might force us to get tattoos on our arms or foreheads so we won’t even have to be stopped.
Mass deportation will encroach on our liberty. But the sacrifice will be worth it to rid America of the scourge of “illegals,” the president will tell us. If you are legal, he’ll say, you shouldn’t mind having your rights violated.
Joe Kollin
Lake Worth, Fla.
To the Editor:
I have some questions for those who favor mass deportation:
Do you grow your own food? Do you kill, gut and process the beef cattle, hogs, poultry and fish yourself?
After the men, women and children who do these jobs are deported, will you step up? Will you?
Food for thought.
Florence England
Kansas City, Mo.
To the Editor:
Re “Trump Won, So Would-Be Migrants Hurry North or Opt to Stay Home” (news article, Nov. 10):
Immigrants have arrived on our shores since the earliest days. They have risked their lives to come despite hostility and violence directed at them, not dissuaded from their desire to escape poverty, war and disease and strive for a better life.
Deterring immigration the way Donald Trump seems to be planning may temporarily reduce the number of migrants in the country, but it won’t change much in the long term.
Immigrants will continue to arrive at our borders. Walls won’t stop them. The border police won’t stop them. Jail won’t stop them. For centuries people have crossed oceans and deserts, rivers and jungles, just for a chance to pursue the American dream.
Prohibition failed. “Just Say No” to drugs failed. So too will Mr. Trump’s war on immigration fail.
Scott J. Stein
New York
Tears After the Election
To the Editor:
Re “On Nov. 6 the Girls Cried, and the Boys Played Minecraft,” by Naomi Beinart (Opinion guest essay, Nov. 19):
Eight years ago, when Donald Trump was first elected, one of the bright young women in my 10th-grade American literature class was crying, and from the look of her eyes, the crying had been going on all morning. Not unexpectedly, some of the boys in the class teased her. She and I spoke privately, and I shared with her that I felt the same way.
Reading Ms. Beinart’s essay reminded me of that day, and my former student and I realized the extent of Mr. Trump’s success: He has divided us not only politically, but by gender as well.
Nevertheless, Ms. Beinart’s dismay at the election results is notable for two reasons: One, she is actually paying attention to the present and to the future, and two, not to paint too rosy a picture, when she is of voting age and beyond, I do hope she remains engaged and directs her passion in a way that can constructively improve the lives of all us. Even those guys who are so stuck in Minecraft mode.
Stephanie Nicholas Acquadro
Westfield, N.J.
To the Editor:
A powerful and moving piece, and eloquent. Naomi Beinart clearly represents, in her grace and articulation, the best of our young people, and is cause for enduring hope in chilling times. She is the silver lining.
Larry Goral
Bayfield, Colo.
Don’t Cut Education Funds
To the Editor:
Re “Is Education Department in Jeopardy of Shutdown?” (news article, Nov. 14):
I believe the push to shut down the Department of Education will have far-reaching consequences for students, educators and schools, especially in marginalized communities.
I appreciate that the article highlights the negative consequences that a shutdown of the Department of Education would have on gender-based discrimination policies and higher education programs that it oversees, but I don’t believe that the article adequately addresses how devastating the loss of federal funding would be for low-income areas that don’t have the ability to make up funding at state or local levels.
A shutdown would force schools to make cuts in services, staff or programs. Long-term, it could lead to widening inequities in educational access and quality for those who live in underserved communities.
Rather than shutting down the Department of Education, we should focus on strengthening and improving it to ensure that every student has an equal chance to receive a quality education.
Katie O’Bryan
Marietta, Ga.
The writer is a graduate student at the University of Georgia.
Roofless in Buffalo
To the Editor:
Re “Bills Fans Buy Bonds ‘With an Attitude’” (Sports, Nov. 13):
As a fan who has been going to Buffalo Bills games for 60 years, I think the real insult to the “Bills Mafia” and anyone in western New York who has ever sat through a Buffalo Bills game during a lake effect blizzard is that one of the snowiest N.F.L. markets in the country will now have a gorgeous new multi-billion-dollar showpiece that doesn’t even have a roof.
One has to question the sanity of the local and state politicians who make these myopic decisions.
S.J. Sherman
Bethesda, Md."
Monday, November 18, 2024
Trump allies, Republicans eye changes to federal safety net programs - The Washington Post
Trump allies eye overhauling Medicaid, food stamps in tax legislation
"President-elect Donald Trump’s economic advisers and congressional Republicans have begun preliminary discussions about making significant changes to Medicaid, food stamps and other federal safety net programs to offset the enormous cost of extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts next year.
Among the options under discussion by GOP lawmakers and aides are new work requirements and spending caps for the programs, according to seven people familiar with the talks, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Those conversations have included some economic officials on Trump’s transition team, the people said.
However, concern is high among some Republicans about the political downsides of such cuts, which would affect programs that provide support for at least 70 million low-income Americans, and some people familiar with the talks stressed that discussions are preliminary.
“I don’t think that passing just an extension of tax cuts that shows on paper an increase in the deficit [is] going to be challenging,” said one GOP tax adviser. “But the other side of the coin is, you start to add things to reduce the deficit, and that gets politically more challenging.”
The discussions center on Trump’s 2017 tax bill, which lowered taxes for the vast majority of Americans. Major portions of that law are set to expire at the end of next year, and extending those provisions — as Trump has proposed — would add more than $4 trillion to the already soaring national debt over the next decade, according to congressional bookkeepers. The debt exceeds $36 trillion now. Trump also campaigned on a bevy of new tax cuts — such as ending taxes on tips and overtime — which tack trillions more onto the overall price tag.
Trump presidential transition
While Republican leaders support extending the tax cuts, many are concerned that the resulting loss of revenue would further increase borrowing, so the hunt for savings is on: In addition to social safety net programs, many Republicans are also looking to repurpose clean energy funds approved by Democrats. Trump’s tariff plans could also raise additional revenue. But those ideas may prove unworkable or insufficient to fully account for the cost of a sweeping new tax package.
Republicans warn that Medicaid spending has ballooned in the wake of the Affordable Care Act’s expansion, saying that the program’s structure puts outsize pressure on the federal budget. While states administer the program, the federal government provides matching payments that heavily subsidize it.
House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) told reporters Wednesday that a “responsible and reasonable work requirement” for Medicaid benefits resembling the one that already exists for food stamps could yield about $100 billion in savings. He also said another $160 billion in reduced costs could come from checking Medicaid eligibility more than once per year.
“I feel like there are some common sense, reasonable things, that almost 90 percent of the American people would say, ‘That’s got to change,’” Arrington said.
One influential conservative think tank, the Paragon Health Institute, published a July paperoutlining some additional Medicaid changes that it said would cut federal deficits by more than $500 billion over a decade.
Republicans are also discussing stripping presidential authority to recalculate benefits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the food stamp program known as SNAP, lawmakers say. The 2017 farm bill allowed the White House to increase benefits even if doing so raised the national debt. Republicans argue that if they eliminate that authority and hemmed in SNAP benefits — which increase automatically with inflation — that should count as reducing the deficit by tens of billions of dollars, according to some estimates.
Limiting what food items SNAP recipients can purchase with benefits would also reduce costs. House Republicans have pushed a similar proposal in recent spending bills.
One GOP tax adviser said lawmakers were looking at broadening work requirements for SNAP eligibility, something the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 playbook recommends.
Republicans have long denied that they are trying to reduce benefits for low-income Americans on either Medicaid or food stamps. They have framed their efforts as an attempt to reduce wasteful and unnecessary spending, arguing that streamlining the programs would preserve government benefits, not penalize people who use them.
“We know the plays, we know the reforms that are needed at this time,” Arrington said. “We know there’s tremendous waste. What we don’t seem to have in the hour of action, like when we have the trifecta and unified Republican leadership, is the political courage to do it for the love of country. [Trump] does. And whether you like it or not, if you’re on the other side of the political spectrum, you at least have to respect that he’s going to do what he thinks is right.”
The last time Republicans controlled both branches of Congress and the White House, in the first two years of Trump’s first term, they came within one Senate vote of repealing the Affordable Care Act — amid a significant backlash even in GOP-controlled states to plans to cut Medicaid spending. More than 70 million people receive health benefits through Medicaid. One plan considered by the Senate in 2017 would have lowered Medicaid enrollment by 15 million people, with most of them unlikely to find alternate health coverage, according to projections by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
Some conservatives are grumbling that Democrats are beginning to rerun their strategies from those battles, working to shore up political support for Medicaid before Trump can take office by calling attention to the number of enrollees in GOP-controlled districts. Voter anger at GOP efforts to roll back health-care protections helped propel Democrats to major victories in the 2018 midterm elections.
“You’ll have to see the details of what they’re proposing, but most of these achieve their savings not by stopping waste but instead by preventing eligible people from successfully signing up by creating so much red tape,” said Bobby Kogan, senior director of federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank. “What we’ve seen in some states that have tried this is a significant portion of the eligible population unable to successfully enroll, without health care.”
The politics of federal safety net programs has frequently splintered the GOP coalition. Some GOP aides and policy experts predict cuts to Medicaid and food stamps will ultimately be jettisoned from any tax bill, particularly if the legislation also has a cut in the corporate tax rate.
“Some of them are looking at Medicaid and food stamps. When you talk about spending, that is the place they immediately go,” said one GOP policy adviser. “But I’m not sure they want the headlines about paying for tax cuts by cutting those programs.”
If Congress balks at lowering Medicaid spending, Republicans may be able to reduce it anyway. While Trump vowed to protect Medicaid as a candidate during his 2016 presidential bid, the first Trump administration allowed 13 GOP-led states to add work requirements to their Medicaid programs, a controversial change that was the focus of legal battles. The requirements only took full effect in one state, Arkansas, for a five-month period when about 18,000 people were dropped from the program.
The Biden administration rescinded approval for those states’ work requirements, with liberals citing evidence that the initiatives created new administrative burdens and arguing that it jeopardized enrollees’ health. But the new Trump administration could again issue waivers that allow states to impose work requirements on enrollees, say current and former officials.
Supporters of the idea include Bobby Jindal, a former Louisiana governor whom some Republicans have pushed as a candidate for a major role in Trump’s new administration and who has long criticized Medicaid’s structure as bloated and inefficient.
Another possibility: dropping efforts begun by the Biden administration to ensure that states are helping people who lost Medicaid coverage as pandemic-era protections came to an end.
Paragon, the conservative think tank, has proposed phasing down federal payments for Medicaid enrollees covered by the expansion of the Affordable Care Act or changing the federal formula that sets how much money the federal government sends states for Medicaid. The group says that the current payment formulas wrongly reward states for covering healthy, able-bodied adults who have gained coverage through the recent expansion, and also favor richer states.
Brian Blase, a co-author of the Paragon paper and a former Trump health official, has briefed GOP lawmakers and staff, according to people on Capitol Hill. Blase has argued that the current Medicaid financing structure allows “gimmicks” that states have used to obtain extra federal dollars, such as taxing health-care providers to draw down additional Medicaid reimbursement — with the money going back to providers and also being used for unrelated state priorities.
Blase declined to comment. But many conservatives say cuts to federal health spending are necessary for the nation’s fiscal health.
“You can’t talk about getting to a balanced budget or any serious constraint on spending without dealing with health care,” said Newt Gingrich, who served as speaker of the House in the 1990s and remains an adviser to GOP policymakers. “There’s a lot of things you can do to make it more efficient and better.”
Sunday, November 17, 2024
Israeli Strikes in Central and Northern Gaza Kill More Than 30 People - The New York Times
Over 30 People Killed in Israeli Strikes in Central and Northern Gaza
"As Israel’s military wages a renewed offensive in the northern part of the enclave, Al Bureij and Nuseirat in central Gaza came under attack.
Israeli airstrikes pummeled two areas in central Gaza and a town in the north of the enclave on Sunday morning, killing more than 30 people and wounding several others, according to local rescue and emergency services.
In central Gaza, a strike on a home in Nuseirat killed four people, the Palestinian Civil Defense said in a statement. Strikes in nearby Al Bureij killed 13 people, according to Mahmoud Basal, a spokesman for the Civil Defense, an emergency rescue group. He said that several others were wounded and that rescuers were still searching for people under the rubble.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the strikes in central Gaza, which came as it is waging a renewed offensive in the northern part of the enclave. In an effort to stamp out what the military has called a Hamas resurgence, Israeli troops, tanks and armed drones have bombarded northern Gaza almost daily.
On Sunday, the town of Beit Lahia again came under attack. Mr. Basal said that an Israeli strike on a house there killed 15 people, and that another strike hit a residential building where dozens of people were sheltering. Information on casualties from the strike on the residential building was not immediately available because rescue teams were unable to reach the area, he added.
When asked about Beit Lahia, the Israeli military said that it had carried out several strikes on “terrorist targets” in the town overnight and that there had been continuous efforts to evacuate the civilian population from northern Gaza, where its forces have been operating for over a month.
Gaza’s Civil Defense said it was forced to cease rescue operations in the north late last month because of attacks by the Israeli military on its members and destruction of its equipment.
Gabby Sobelman contributed reporting from Rehovot, Israel.
Hiba Yazbek covers the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with a focus on Palestinian affairs and society in the Gaza Strip, the occupied West Bank and Israel. More about Hiba Yazbek"