Trump says he would have ‘every right’ to ‘go after’ adversaries if re-elected – live
"Donald Trump says he would have the ‘right’ to retaliate against Joe Biden and other political adversaries if he returns to the presidency
Days after a New York City jury found him guilty of 34 felony charges for falsifying his business records to conceal hush-money payments made ahead of the 2016 election, Donald Trump on Wednesday said he would have the power to retaliate against Joe Biden and other political adversaries, if he returns to the presidency.
“Look, when this election is over, based on what they’ve done, I would have every right to go after them, and it’s easy, because it’s Joe Biden and you see all the criminality, all of the money that’s going into the family and him, all of this money from China, from Russia, from Ukraine,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News conservative commentator Sean Hannity.
Trump appears to suggest he would pursue corruption charges against Biden. House Republicans have tried for years to prove that the president has profited illicitly from his family’s overseas business dealings, but have yet to turn up proof. Last year, they began the process of impeaching Biden, but have yet to bring the charges up for a vote, in part because they have not been able to find evidence to support them.
While Donald Trump’s felony business fraud trial in New York concluded last week with a guilty verdict, other prosecutions of the former president have stalled. Yesterday, an appeals court in Georgia put his trial on election fraud charges on hold, likely until after the 2024 election, the Guardian’s George Chidi reports:
The Georgia court of appeals has put a hold on the trial of Donald Trump and other defendants while it considers whether to disqualify the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, the lead prosecutor in the case.
Trump had appealed an order by the Fulton county superior court judge Scott McAfee that declined to disqualify Willis after bombshell revelations about a romantic relationship with her chosen special prosecutor. As part of their effort to dismiss the case, Trump and his co-defendants alleged Willis’s relationship meant she should be recused from the case.
On Monday, the appeals court selected a three-judge panel to hear the appeal and docketed the case to be heard in October. Then on Wednesday, the court paused the case while this argument plays out.
Both Trump’s attorney Steve Sadow and a spokesperson for Willis’s office declined to comment on the court’s order.
The order staying the case in Fulton county essentially ensures that the former president will not be tried on charges of election interference and racketeering in Georgia before the November election.
“The history books will look back on what the country lost by not having a televised trial before November 2024 and historians will wonder what Fani Wills was thinking. And they’ll just scratch their heads,” said Anthony Michael Kreis, a constitutional law professor in Georgia and a close observer of the case. “I don’t know how much Judge McAfee could have done between now and the appeal’s pendency anyway. But the real loss is McAfee’s ability to deal with the question of presidential immunity and the supremacy clause over the summer.”
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