(WASHINGTON) — Voting for the Republican presidential caucuses in the Northern Mariana Islands is on Friday, three days after former President Donald Trump became the party’s presumptive 2024 nominee.
Democrats on the islands voted on Tuesday. President Joe Biden, who is set for a November rematch with Trump, won.
Teritory’s significance The Northern Marianas are a U.S. territory and not a state — so the islands do not cast electoral votes for president of the United States. However, they do hold primary caucuses.
The Northern Mariana Islands awards 11 delegates in the Democrats’ national convention in August and 9 delegates in the Republican Convention.
South Dakota’s Governor Kristi Noem arrives to speak during the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) meeting on Feb. 23, 2024, in National Harbor, Maryland. — Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem is facing scrutiny after posting a video on social media promoting the dental work she received from a practice in Texas, with a nonprofit claiming in a new lawsuit that she must have a secret “financial relationship” with the dentists.
Noem on Monday shared a nearly five-minute video on “X,” formerly known as Twitter, boasting that she loves “her new family” at cosmetic dentist Smile Texas, based in Sugar Land. In her video, she lauds the practice, saying she has been looking to address some dental concerns after a bicycle accident.
“It means a lot to me that something as small as your smile really can change the world … it has been a gift to be here at Smile Texas,” Noem says in the video.
The post — shared by Noem on her personal X page and not through official government channels — leaves some things unclear, including whether or not, as alleged in the lawsuit, Noem was compensated for the post or if she received her services at a discount or completely pro bono in exchange for the content, as is typical among social media influencers, often referred to as “sponcon,” or sponsored content.
The consumer advocacy group Travelers United on Wednesday filed the suit against Noem in Washington, D.C., under the Consumer Protection Procedures Act, accusing her of “misleading” and “deceptive” advertising, per the complaint reviewed by ABC News.
The group further claims that Noem has a “financial relationship” with the dental practice and did not disclose such an agreement.
“Someone with a very busy job does not take time off of that job to make a free advertisement for medical services in another state,” the suit states. “There are many dentists and cosmetic dentists in South Dakota. … Kristi Noem acted here as an influencer.”
Both Noem’s office and Smile Texas have not responded to ABC News’ requests for comment. The owner of the practice said in a statement to a New York magazine reporter that medical privacy laws prevent them from commenting.
Lauren Wolfe, an attorney at Travelers United, issued a statement to ABC News saying, in part, “We believe consumers have a right to know when a post is an advertisement and when a post is an influencer’s genuine thoughts. This is not just our belief, it is the law.”
Separately, on Thursday, Noem posted on X to promote Fit My Feet, a shoe company in South Dakota that she said made custom insoles for her. The video is not labeled as sponsored or an ad.
(NEW YORK) — Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent presidential campaign is approaching several key milestones as Democratic scrutiny of him ramps up.
He will soon select a running mate, after teasing names like New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers, and he continues to tick off states where he claims volunteers have gathered enough signatures to get him on the ballot in November.
Meanwhile, with a Donald Trump-Joe Biden matchup now set, Kennedy is polling well enough that, should the numbers hold eight months from now, he could potentially spoil various state results for either Trump or Biden — though it’s less clear whose voters the former Democrat would appeal more to.
Kennedy’s campaign is facing increased attacks, too, with some critics aligned with the major parties fearful he could peel away crucial ballots in the swing states whose thin margins have decided recent presidential races.
The Democratic National Committee is getting directly involved and has created its first team to counter independent and third-party candidates, with an eye specifically on Kennedy — a member of perhaps the country’s most famous Democratic family — sources familiar confirmed to ABC News.
The party hired veteran operative Lis Smith, widely known for her aggressive work bolstering then-candidate Pete Buttigieg during the 2020 presidential race. A spokesperson for the team said Kennedy and other outside candidates were potential “stalking horses for Donald Trump,” a label that Kennedy rejects.
On Wednesday, Kennedy’s campaign said he plans to announce his running mate choice on March 26 in Oakland, California. Kennedy has told ABC News that Rodgers is among his preferred choices, though Rodgers hasn’t commented.
He has spoken approvingly of Kennedy in the past, however, according to ESPN. He and Kennedy also have gone hiking together, according to a photo that Kennedy recently shared on social media. (And Rodgers, like Kennedy, has spoken misleadingly about COVID-19 vaccines.)
Kennedy had been set to select his running mate in the coming weeks, his campaign manager previously told ABC News, due mostly to the requirement that he have one to apply for ballot access as an independent in certain states.
Increasingly less likely, though, appears to be a run atop the Libertarian Party’s ticket. While Kennedy invited speculation about the move — because it would give him the thing he needs most: access to each state’s ballot — he has not signaled that he’s moving any closer to trying to earn the party’s nomination.
Kennedy attended last month’s California Libertarian Party convention (reportedly to a mixed reception), but he will not be at this weekend’s New York gathering, according to Prince Agarwal, the campaign’s state director.
That leaves him, at least in the meantime, with the responsibility of getting himself on the ballot in every state, a painstaking and expensive process that requires dispatching volunteers to gather thousands of signatures.
But Kennedy, who ran as a Democrat until October, seems energized by the process.
“Over the long term … it’s going to put us in better shape,” he told ABC News in Las Vegas last month, noting that the people his volunteers solicit for signatures are voters his team can later contact to urge them to cast ballots for him.
He told Fox News recently that he has found it “extraordinarily easy, actually, to persuade people to sign.”
The campaign has so far secured access to just one state’s ballot — Utah — but says it has gathered enough signatures in at least three others, including the swing state of Nevada.
Officials in each of those states have either not responded to requests for comment or have told ABC News they will not work to verify the signatures until a later date.
American Values 2024, a super PAC which supports Kennedy but is legally barred from coordinating with the campaign, has also been working to get Kennedy on the ballot in several states — even gathering enough signatures, it says, in three more battleground states: Arizona, Georgia and Michigan.
However, the group’s activities spurred a complaint from the DNC with the Federal Election Commission last month, claiming that its ballot access efforts are illegal.
Tony Lyons, co-chair of American Values 2024, has denied the accusations, but the Kennedy campaign is nevertheless working to accrue its own signatures in Arizona: The campaign’s website lists several future ballot access events in the state.
The political action committee also said on social media this week that they are “no longer collecting signatures in any additional states,” citing Kennedy’s own efforts.
Democrats on the attack
So far, Democrats more so than Republicans have treated Kennedy as a 2024 threat, citing contributions from one megadonor to paint his campaign as a ploy to poach Biden voters and hand the presidency to Trump.
“It’s not a coincidence that [Kennedy] … is now being propped up by practically $20 million from the largest donor to Donald Trump this cycle,” Smith, the strategist now leading the Democrats’ anti-Kennedy efforts, told ABC News, referring to Timothy Mellon, a deep-pocketed businessman who has given to both pro-Trump and pro-Kennedy groups.
In February, the DNC paid to erect billboards in Michigan, a key presidential battleground, featuring photos of both Kennedy and Trump.
“Same biggest donor,” it read.
Mellon did not respond to interview requests, but in a statement through Lyons, the co-chair of American Values 2024, he said, in part: “The fact that Kennedy gets so much bipartisan support tells me … that he’s the one candidate who can unite the country and root out corruption.”
Kennedy’s campaign pitches itself as designed to help “reunite America” and mixes platform planks from both major parties, with a focus both on environmentalism and the “humanitarian crisis” at the border along with labor rights and housing and education costs and pledges to “end … censorship and surveillance” and “bring home the troops.”
Public polling indicates Kennedy is a long shot to win the presidency. He scratches double-digits in some recent general election polls, but that’s it.
But if that level of support endures to the general election, it could affect the results in critical swing states like Georgia and Michigan which either Biden or Trump won in 2016 and 2020 by mere percentage points or less.
While polling indicates Kennedy may be taking support from Biden, conversations with some of his most vocal supporters suggest the truth is more complex: Almost every one of a nearly dozen people who spoke to ABC News at a Kennedy rally in Las Vegas this winter said they would vote for Trump if Kennedy were not in the race.
Some cited Kennedy’s self-described support for free speech and his skepticism of vaccines, especially those for COVID-19.
“I’ve been an anti-vaxxer since 1980 since a reaction that I had to a vaccination,” Linda Thompson, a 64-year-old salesperson, told ABC News at the rally. “I like a lot of what he says.”
Kennedy, an environmental lawyer, has made his distrust of vaccines, pharmaceutical companies and federal health agencies a core part of his national profile.
He and his allies reject the notion that he is “anti-vaccine,” but Kennedy’s own words call that into question: In an interview last year with podcaster Lex Fridman, for example, he said, “There is no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective.”
Presented with the clip months later on CNN, Kennedy called that remark “a bad choice of words.”
“I can say right now there is no medicine for cancer that’s safe and effective. It doesn’t mean I’m against all medicines. I’ve been fighting for two years to get mercury out of fish. Nobody calls me anti-fish,” he said.
Josh Novotney, a Philadelphia-based Republican consultant, told ABC News that Kennedy’s view on vaccines “definitely is something that hits with Republicans” more than Democrats.
But, he added, “I think this year, more than a lot of years, someone like that is going to draw from both sides,” citing the distaste many Americans have with a Trump-Biden rematch.
“The question is, which base of the two major parties is more discontent with their nominee? And I think Kennedy probably has a better shot with the base that has more discontent, and my gut there is that’s Democrats,” said Novotney.
Kennedy’s donors: friends and $100k worth of alpaca shawls
Though Democrats focus on Mellon, Kennedy’s bid is supported by an eclectic group of donors, including lifelong Democrats and deep-pocketed friends who had never given to a political candidate before now.
A $7 million pro-Kennedy ad which popped onto Americans’ screens in the second quarter of the Super Bowl — and which angered some members of Kennedy’s family over its riffing on President John F. Kennedy’s 1960 campaign spot — was bankrolled in large part by Nicole Shanahan, a California lawyer who has given to Democratic candidates.
Shanahan told ABC News she initially supported Kennedy last year, when he was running as a Democrat, because she “thought he would bring a new voice about environmental health to the party.”
Now, she is “concerned for the DNC.”
“I want to see the DNC fostering their core values and I don’t think that they have been doing a good job with that as of late,” said Shanahan, who still calls herself a “lifelong Democrat” likely to support Democratic candidates in certain down-ballot races this year. “But I have faith that they can turn it around and I think they can return to the core values of the party — and I hope they do, and I’m here for it.”
Multiple other high-dollar donors who spoke to ABC News cited their personal relationships with Kennedy — and Kennedy’s “character” — as reasons for giving to the campaign, even if they think the odds of him winning are low.
“I think it’s a long shot and I think it’s going to take a miracle,” said Jeff Hays, a Utah filmmaker (whose anthology includes a documentary titled, “The Real RFK Jr.”) who began giving to Kennedy after being “moved” by his biography, he said.
“And I would not be surprised to see a miracle,” he said.
Lessing Stern, who gave $50,000 to American Values 2024 in January, called Kennedy “a close friend.”
“I know him. I know his character. I know what he’s all about,” Stern told ABC News.
Among the largest donations to Kennedy’s bid is also the strangest: more than $100,000 worth of alpaca shawls, handed out to the roughly 250 people who attended Kennedy’s birthday party earlier this winter.
Daniel Adams, who co-owns an alpaca-based clothing business, gave the in-kind contribution to American Values 2024 to support a candidate he told ABC News is “exactly what our country needs at the moment.”
ABC News’ Brittany Shepherd contributed to this report.
(FORT PIERCE, Fla.) — A U.S. district judge denied former President Donald Trump’s motion to dismiss his federal classified documents case based on unconstitutional vagueness, one of the two motions — the other being his protection under the Presidential Records Act — that his lawyers used to argue dismissing the case.
Judge Aileen Cannon had earlier expressed skepticism regarding the motions to dismiss the indictment throughout the hearing, suggesting that dismissing it based on the Presidential Records Act would be “difficult to see.”
Trump was in the Florida courtroom Thursday, where his attorneys argued for the dismissal of his classified documents case.
Special counsel Jack Smith, who brought the charges against Trump, was also in attendance.
Cannon began the hearing without making any mention of the case’s trial date and instead directed the defense lawyers to begin arguing their motion to dismiss based on unconstitutional vagueness.
“These charges must be struck and dismissed,” defense lawyer Emil Bove argued.
Discussing the Presidential Records Act, Bove suggested that Trump is a victim of a double standard compared to other presidents who allegedly retained sensitive information, directly mentioning the conduct of Presidents Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan and Joe Biden.
Cannon responded to the defense argument with skepticism — at one point suggesting the defense motion was “premature” — and peppered Bove with questions about definitions and hypotheticals of Trump’s conduct.
“When does it become unauthorized?” Cannon asked.
“President Trump designated the records as personal when he took them out of the White House,” Bove said.
“What is your definition of unauthorized?” Cannon later asked.
“Judge — I don’t have one, and that is why the statute is unconstitutionally vague applied to President Trump,” Bove said.
Moving on to unconstitutional vagueness, Cannon also said she was skeptical of dismissing Trump’s classified documents case on that motion, describing the request as “quite an extraordinary step.”
“It’s warranted here,” Bove said.
At one point, Cannon asked special counsel prosecutor Jay Bratt if any “high ranking official” including a president or vice president has been charged with mishandling classified documents.
“There was never a situation remotely similar to this one,” Bratt said.
Cannon also asked Bratt if he was familiar with cases where individuals who “no longer had clearances” were prosecuted.
“I have had a Q clearance for 15 years, I can view classified documents in a SCIF, I can’t take, I can’t take them home and leave them in my basement,” Bratt said.
In his argument, Bratt argued the documents in question “were not created by Trump” and instead are documents that were provided to the former president in classified briefings.
Defense attorney Todd Blanche argued that Trump had the authority to designate his records as personal – rather than presidential — before he removed documents from the White House. According to Blanche, Trump’s actions aligned with longstanding approach taken by past presidents.
“Presidents since George Washington have taken materials from the White House,” Blanche said, arguing that the National Archives lacks the authority to question Trump’s determination about presidential and personal records.
“The only time that the government has taken a different position … is President Trump. Period,” Blanche said.
However, Cannon pushed back — suggesting on two separate occasions that the argument would not merit dismissal — and said that Blanche’s argument would be better suited at trial, rather than in a motion to dismiss.
“I am not seeing how any of that leads to a dismissal of the indictment,” Cannon said.
Cannon concluded the hearing Thursday saying she would take the motions under advisement.
“I will be ruling on them promptly,” she said.
Cannon had scheduled the hearing in Fort Pierce, Florida, to consider two of Trump’s motions to dismiss the case based on what Trump’s attorneys claim is Smith’s unconstitutionally vague use of the Espionage Act and his application of the Presidential Records Act.
In response, Smith had argued that the former president’s motions to dismiss the case are yet another example of Trump believing he is above the law.
“Trump’s claims rest on three fundamental errors, all of which reflect his view that, as a former President, the Nation’s laws and principles of accountability that govern every other citizen do not apply to him,” prosecutors wrote in a filing responding to Trump’s motion to dismiss based on the Presidential Record Act.
In addition to Trump, his co-defendants in the case, aide Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira, were expected to attend the hearing.
The full-day hearing comes one day after a Georgia judge dismissed six counts of the sprawling election interference case against Trump and 18 co-defendants, including three counts against the former president himself.
The ruling leaves Trump still facing 10 counts in Georgia, where he and the other defendants pleaded not guilty to all charges last August. Four of Trump’s co-defendants subsequently took plea deals in exchange for agreeing to testify against other defendants in that case.
The Presidential Records Act
In Thursday’s hearing, much of the debate has centered around to a law that originated from another moment in history when a president faced the prospect of criminal charges.
Enacted in the years following the Watergate scandal — when lawmakers feared President Richard Nixon might destroy records upon leaving office — the 1978 Presidential Records Act governs the ownership and preservation of presidential records.
Trump’s lawyers have argued that the law conferred on Trump the power to designate the documents at issue as personal, making his retention of the documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate lawful.
“President Trump was still the President of the United States when, for example, many of the documents at issue were packed (presumably by the GSA), transported, and delivered to Mar-A-Lago,” a filing from Trump’s attorneys said.
Defense lawyers have also argued that the law does not permit criminal charges and that Trump had the final say over the handling of presidential records, rather than officials at the National Archives, where presidential records are stored once the president has left office.
“DOJ and NARA have adopted this position with respect to government officials whose last name is not Trump,” the filing said regarding the Justice Department and the National Archives and Records Administration.
Smith, in his filing, has responded to this argument by writing that the records at the center of the case are undoubtedly presidential records — not Trump’s personal records — and that the former president is trying to argue that the law does not apply to him.
“Even if the raft of highly classified documents that Trump took from the White House to Mar-a-Lago were somehow categorized as ‘personal’ under the PRA, that would not render his retention of those documents ‘authorized,'” Smith wrote.
The Espionage Act
Defense lawyers have also argued that the part of the Espionage Act related to the retention of defense materials is unconstitutionally vague when applied to former President Trump.
Characterizing the section of the law at issue as “the most confusing and complex of all the federal espionage statutes,” defense lawyers wrote that charging Trump with the law violates “the due process principles and separation-of-powers concerns that animate the vagueness doctrine.”
Citing parts of special counsel Robert Hur’s report into President Biden’s retention of classified documents, for which Biden was not charged, they argued that penalizing Trump for retaining documents amounts to selective and vindictive prosecution.
“There is far too much indeterminacy around the meaning of ‘unauthorized possession’ with respect to President Trump and the types of documents at issue,” the filing said.
Prosecutors responded by arguing the statute is perfectly clear — and that Trump ought to have known that, given his previous position as commander-in-chief. Trump’s attempts to delay and obstruct the investigation are also telltale signs that he was violating the law, prosecutors said.
“The statute’s prohibitions are clear,” the filing said. “And as a former President, Trump could not have failed to understand the paramount importance of protecting the Nation’s national-security and military secrets, including the obligations not to take unauthorized possession of, or willfully retain, national defense information.”
An uncertain trial date
The trial itself is currently scheduled to start in mid-May, but earlier this month Judge Cannon held a hearing to hear arguments over moving the trial to a new, later date. Smith’s team proposed July 8 as a new date, while Trump’s lawyers argued that the trial should take place after the 2024 presidential election.
Cannon did not issue any rulings or make any formal scheduling changes regarding the trial’s start date, which is still scheduled for May 20.
“A lot of work needs to be done in the pretrial phase of this case,” the judge said.
It is unclear if Cannon will address the trial date at Thursday’s hearing, as Trump’s legal calendar continues to fill up. The former president is scheduled to go on trial in New York on March 25 on charges of falsifying business records in connection with a hush payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election. He has denied all wrongdoing.
(NEW YORK) — Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz on Thursday was served a subpoena to sit for a deposition in a civil lawsuit that involves allegations he had sex with a 17-year old-girl, sources tell ABC News, as part of a suit brought by a friend of the congressman against the young woman and others.
Gaetz was issued the subpoena, which has not been previously reported, by attorneys representing the woman who is now in her 20s and was at the center of a years-long investigation by the Justice Department into allegations that the Florida congressman had sex with her when she was a minor, sources said.
The congressman’s deposition is slated for April 5, according to sources, and is part of a sprawling defamation and racketeering lawsuit brought by Gaetz’s longtime friend, former Florida House member and lobbyist Chris Dorworth, against the woman and others.
The deposition could see Gaetz asked under oath about his alleged sexual activity with the woman when she was a minor.
“Can confirm that Matt Gaetz has been served for his deposition,” John Clune, one of the attorneys for the woman, told ABC News.
A representative for Gaetz did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
When news of the allegations against Gaetz first broke in March 2021, Gaetz denied them in an interview with Tucker Carlson on Fox News, where he also claimed the 17-year-old girl “doesn’t exist.”
According to court documents, Dorworth filed a lawsuit last year against Gaetz’s one-time associate Joel Greenberg, who in 2022 was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to several charges including sex trafficking a minor, members of his wealthy family, and the woman Gaetz allegedly had sex with when she was a minor.
Dorworth alleged in the lawsuit a complicated effort to falsely accuse him of “child sex trafficking, sex with a minor, prostitution, obstruction of justice, and an illegal ghost candidate scheme,” according to the suit.
And while Gaetz is not a party in the civil suit, the lawsuit mentions the Florida congressman by name and the allegations against him numerous times, including alleging that the one-time minor at the center of the case worked to “falsely implicated Dorworth, Gaetz, and others in sexual impropriety.”
The young woman, identified in the lawsuit as “A.B.”, filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, with her lawyers writing, “Mr. Dorworth seeks to recast A.B. as Mr. Greenberg’s partner in crime and a participant in a conspiracy to destroy Mr. Dorworth’s reputation … the Complaint improperly seeks to preempt any claims A.B. may have against Mr. Dorworth for raping and trafficking her by making a threadbare request for expansive declaratory judgment.”
Greenberg in 2021 pleaded guilty to multiple federal crimes, including sex trafficking of the woman when she was a minor and introducing her to other “adult men” who also had sex with her when she was underage, according to court documents. As part of that plea deal, Greenberg agreed to provide “substantial assistance” to DOJ prosecutors as part of their investigation into Gaetz and others, according to sources familiar with the arrangement.
In a motion to dismiss the defamation and racketeering suit, Greenberg’s attorney Fritz Scheller wrote that the lawsuit “approaches the incredible, if not ludicrous.”
“To accept the Plaintiff’s RICO claim, one must accept a series of irrational premises that provide its foundation. That is, that Joel Greenberg colluded with his victim AB to falsely implicate the Plaintiff to reduce the former’s criminal liability or alternatively so that AB could bring a civil lawsuit against Gaetz and the Plaintiff,” Scheller wrote.
The Justice Department informed Gaetz in 2023 that they were declining to bring charges against him, and he has repeatedly denied all wrongdoing, including the allegations that he had sex with a minor.
Gaetz is also facing a congressional ethics probe into a string of allegations stemming from the Justice Department investigation including sex trafficking a minor and potential lobbying violations.
ABC News first reported in February that the House Ethics Committee had issued a subpoena for the testimony of a separate woman involved in the case, Gaetz’s former girlfriend, as part of the panel’s ongoing probe.
In Gaetz’s 2021 interview with Fox News, Carlson asked the congressman, “They’re saying there is a 17-year-old girl who you had a relationship with — is that true? Who is this girl?”
“The person doesn’t exist,” Gaetz replied. “I have not had a relationship with a 17-year-old, that is totally false.”
(FORT PIERCE, Fla.) — Former President Donald Trump is in a Florida courtroom where his attorneys are arguing for the dismissal of his federal classified documents case.
Special counsel Jack Smith, who brought the charges against Trump, is also in attendance.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon began the hearing without making any mention of the case’s trial date and instead directed the defense lawyers to begin arguing their motion to dismiss based on unconditional vagueness.
“These charges must be struck and dismissed,” defense lawyer Emil Bove argued.
Bove suggested that Trump is a victim of a double standard compared to other presidents who allegedly retained sensitive information, directly mentioning the conduct of Presidents Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, and Joe Biden.
Cannon responded to the defense argument with skepticism – at one point suggesting the defense motion was “premature” – and peppered Bove with questions about definitions and hypotheticals of Trump’s conduct.
“When does it become unauthorized?” Cannon asked.
“President Trump designated the records as personal when he took them out of the White House,” Bove said.
“What is your definition of unauthorized?” Cannon later asked.
“Judge – I don’t have one, and that is why the statute is unconstitutionally vague applied to President Trump,” Bove said.
Cannon had scheduled the hearing in Fort Pierce, Florida, to consider two of Trump’s motions to dismiss the case based on what Trump’s attorneys claim is Smith’s unconstitutionally vague use of the Espionage Act and his application of the Presidential Records Act.
In response, Smith had argued that the former president’s motions to dismiss the case are yet another example of Trump believing he is above the law.
“Trump’s claims rest on three fundamental errors, all of which reflect his view that, as a former President, the Nation’s laws and principles of accountability that govern every other citizen do not apply to him,” prosecutors wrote in a filing responding to Trump’s motion to dismiss based on the Presidential Record Act.
In addition to Trump, his co-defendants in the case, aide Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira, were expected to attend the hearing.
The full-day hearing comes one day after a Georgia judge dismissed six counts of the sprawling election interference case against Trump and 18 co-defendants, including three counts against the former president himself.
The ruling leaves Trump still facing 10 counts in Georgia, where he and the other defendants pleaded not guilty to all charges last August. Four of Trump’s co-defendants subsequently took plea deals in exchange for agreeing to testify against other defendants in that case.
The Presidential Records Act
In the hearing Thursday, the first motion to dismiss that Cannon will consider relates to a law that originated from another moment in history when a president faced the prospect of criminal charges.
Enacted in the years following the Watergate scandal — when lawmakers feared President Richard Nixon might destroy records upon leaving office — the 1978 Presidential Records Act governs the ownership and preservation of presidential records.
Trump’s lawyers have argued that the law conferred on Trump the power to designate the documents at issue as personal, making his retention of the documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate lawful.
“President Trump was still the President of the United States when, for example, many of the documents at issue were packed (presumably by the GSA), transported, and delivered to Mar-A-Lago,” a filing from Trump’s attorneys said.
Defense lawyers have also argued that the law does not permit criminal charges, and that Trump had the final say over the handling of presidential records, rather than officials at the National Archives, where presidential records are stored once the president has left office.
“DOJ and NARA have adopted this position with respect to government officials whose last name is not Trump,” the filing said regarding the Justice Department and the National Archives and Records Administration.
Smith, in his filing, has responded to this argument by writing that the records at the center of the case are undoubtedly presidential records — not Trump’s personal records — and that the former president is trying to argue that the law does not apply to him.
“Even if the raft of highly classified documents that Trump took from the White House to Mar-a-Lago were somehow categorized as ‘personal’ under the PRA, that would not render his retention of those documents ‘authorized,'” Smith wrote.
The Espionage Act
Defense lawyers have also argued that the part of the Espionage Act related to the retention of defense materials is unconstitutionally vague when applied to former President Trump.
Characterizing the section of the law at issue as “the most confusing and complex of all the federal espionage statutes,” defense lawyers wrote that charging Trump with the law violates “the due process principles and separation-of-powers concerns that animate the vagueness doctrine.”
Citing parts of special counsel Robert Hur’s report into President Joe Biden’s retention of classified documents, for which Biden was not charged, they argued that penalizing Trump for retaining documents amounts to selective and vindictive prosecution.
“There is far too much indeterminacy around the meaning of ‘unauthorized possession’ with respect to President Trump and the types of documents at issue,” the filing said.
Prosecutors responded by arguing the statute is perfectly clear — and that Trump ought to have known that, given his previous position as commander-in-chief. Trump’s attempts to delay and obstruct the investigation are also telltale signs that he was violating the law, prosecutors said.
“The statute’s prohibitions are clear,” the filing said. “And as a former President, Trump could not have failed to understand the paramount importance of protecting the Nation’s national-security and military secrets, including the obligations not to take unauthorized possession of, or willfully retain, national defense information.”
An uncertain trial date
The trial itself is currently scheduled to start in mid-May, but earlier this month Judge Cannon held a hearing to hear arguments over moving the trial to a new, later date. Smith’s team proposed July 8 as a new date, while Trump’s lawyers argued that the trial should take place after the 2024 presidential election.
Cannon did not issue any rulings or make any formal scheduling changes regarding the trial’s start date, which is still scheduled for May 20.
“A lot of work needs to be done in the pretrial phase of this case,” the judge said.
It is unclear if Cannon will address the trial date at Thursday’s hearing, as Trump’s legal calendar continues to fill up. The former president is scheduled to go on trial in New York on March 25 on charges of falsifying business records in connection with a hush payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election. He has denied all wrongdoing.
(ATLANTA) — A Fulton County judge on Wednesday quashed multiple counts contained in the election interference indictment against former President Donald Trump and several of his co-defendants.
The order from Judge Scott McAfee dismissed six counts related to a specific charge: Solicitation of Violation of Oath by a Public Officer. That charge specifically relates to Trump’s Jan. 2, 2021, phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, which in part sparked the probe.
Of the 13 counts Trump faced, three of them were tossed by the judge’s order. Trump now faces 10 counts in the case.
The ruling is a partial win for Trump and several of his co-defendants, who filed to dismiss the counts on the grounds that they were legally deficient.
Judge McAfee essentially agreed, writing that they “fail to allege sufficient detail” in exactly what part of the oath the defendants were allegedly trying to get public officials to violate. He said the “lack of detail concerning an essential legal element” is “fatal.”
“They do not give the Defendants enough information to prepare their defenses intelligently, as the Defendants could have violated the Constitutions and thus the statute in dozens, if not hundreds, of distinct ways,” the order says.
But the ruling left in place the most serious charge of the indictment — the racketeering charge that all 15 of the remaining defendants face.
The judge gave the Fulton County district attorney’s office six months to refile the quashed charges, if they choose to do so.
The DA’s office declined to comment to ABC News.
The motions, called demurrers, were brought by Trump, his former attorney Rudy Giuliani, former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, election lawyer John Eastman, and others.
Wednesday’s order by the judge quashes three of the 13 counts against Giuliani, who no longer faces two counts of solicitation and one count of false statements and writings, according the order.
The conduct underpinning those now-dropped counts dates back to December of 2020, when Giuliani made three public appearances at hearings before Georgia state lawmakers — one in the Georgia House of Representatives and two in the Georgia Senate — where he aired unfounded allegations of fraud in the 2020 election and encouraged lawmakers to assign a false slate of electors.
Giuliani now faces 10 counts in the Fulton County indictment.
The judge’s order quashes one of the two counts against Meadows, who now faces one count — the racketeering or RICO count that all 19 defendants were charged with.
It quashes one of the nine counts against Eastman; three of the 12 counts against Georgia lawyer Ray Smith III; and one of the 10 counts against Georgia lawyer Robert Cheeley.
Multiple defense attorneys in the case praised the ruling.
“The Court made the correct legal decision to grant the special demurrers and quash important counts of the indictment brought by DA Fani Willis,” Trump attorney Steve Sadow said in a statement. “The ruling is a correct application of the law, as the prosecution failed to make specific allegations of any alleged wrongdoing on those counts.”
Don Samuel, the lawyer for Smith who filed the original demurrer, said in a statement to ABC News that he was “delighted with the court’s ruling.”
“We believe this is the first step to exonerate Ray of all the charges,” Samuel said. “A few more counts to go.”
Trump and 18 others pleaded not guilty last August to all charges in a sweeping racketeering indictment for alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia. Defendants Kenneth Chesebro, Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis and Scott Hall subsequently took plea deals in exchange for agreeing to testify against other defendants.
The former president has blasted the district attorney’s investigation as being politically motivated.
Senator Elizabeth Warren during a Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee hearing in Washington, DC, Mar. 7, 2024. (Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — As polls show rising inflation weighing on American families, President Joe Biden has slammed companies for engaging in “shrinkflation,” allegedly decreasing the size or servings of a product while keeping the price the same.
During his State of the Union address Thursday, he criticized “shrinkflation,” calling on Congress to pass legislation that would discourage the practice.
On ABC’s GMA3 on Wednesday, Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren touted a Senate bill that she is co-sponsoring with fellow Democrat Bob Casey of Pennsylvania.
Warren said the bill would empower the Federal Trade Commission to go after companies involved in “shrinkflation” — as it does with other forms of deceptive pricing.
“I understand if companies’ prices have gone up and they pass it on, some of that pricing, to the consumer, I totally get that. But that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about price gouging,” she said.
Warren also praised Biden and said he created a task force to target deceptive pricing.
“He’s going after these big corporations that aren’t passing along price increases to themselves but are using inflation as a cover to keep those prices high,” Warren said.
Asked if she were worried how the issues of inflation and the economy could show up at the ballot box this election year, Warren said her bill is “about fairness.”
“If you need to raise the price of a bag of Doritos by 15 cents, then at least pay me the courtesy of telling me that’s what you’re doing,” Warren said.
Back in February, in a Super Bowl Sunday ad, Biden blasted the practice.
“I’ve had enough of what they call ‘shrinkflation.’ It’s a rip-off. Some companies are trying to pull a fast one by shrinking the products little by little and hoping you won’t notice. Give me a break,” Biden said. “The American public is tired of being played for suckers. I’m calling on companies to put a stop to this.”
Biden and his allies have faced backlash for focusing attention on shrinkflation instead of inflation in general. On March 5, a beloved Muppet echoed their cause.
The Sesame Street character Cookie Monster posted on X: “Me hate shrinkflation! Me cookies are getting smaller.”
Biden, along with multiple Democratic senators, responded to Cookie Monster.
Last Tuesday, Biden said he was “stunned” to find out “shrinkflation” “actually happened” to the fictional children’s show character.
“I’ll tell you who did notice — Cookie Monster,” Biden said.
(FORT PIERCE, Fla.) — Former President Donald Trump is expected to be in the courtroom Thursday when his attorneys argue for the dismissal of his federal classified documents case.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon scheduled the hearing in Fort Pierce, Florida, to consider two of Trump’s motions to dismiss the case based on what Trump’s attorneys claim is special counsel Jack Smith’s unconstitutionally vague use of the Espionage Act and his application of the Presidential Records Act.
In response, Smith argues that the former president’s motions to dismiss the case are yet another example of Trump believing he is above the law.
“Trump’s claims rest on three fundamental errors, all of which reflect his view that, as a former President, the Nation’s laws and principles of accountability that govern every other citizen do not apply to him,” prosecutors wrote in a filing responding to Trump’s motion to dismiss based on the Presidential Record Act.
In addition to Trump, his co-defendants in the case, aide Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira, are both expected to attend the hearing.
The full-day hearing comes one day after a Georgia judge dismissed six counts of the sprawling election interference case against Trump and 18 co-defendants, including three counts against the former president himself.
The ruling leaves Trump still facing 10 counts in Georgia, where he and the other defendants pleaded not guilty to all charges last August. Four of Trump’s co-defendants subsequently took plea deals in exchange for agreeing to testify against other defendants in that case.
The Presidential Records Act
In the hearing Thursday, the first motion to dismiss that Cannon will consider relates to a law that originated from another moment in history when a president faced the prospect of criminal charges.
Enacted in the years following the Watergate scandal — when lawmakers feared President Richard Nixon might destroy records upon leaving office — the 1978 Presidential Records Act governs the ownership and preservation of presidential records.
Trump’s lawyers have argued that the law conferred on Trump the power to designate the documents at issue as personal, making his retention of the documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate lawful.
“President Trump was still the President of the United States when, for example, many of the documents at issue were packed (presumably by the GSA), transported, and delivered to Mar-A-Lago,” a filing from Trump’s attorneys said.
Defense lawyers have also argued that the law does not permit criminal charges, and that Trump had the final say over the handling of presidential records, rather than officials at the National Archives, where presidential records are stored once the president has left office.
“DOJ and NARA have adopted this position with respect to government officials whose last name is not Trump,” the filing said regarding the Justice Department and the National Archives and Records Administration.
Smith, in his filing, responded to this argument by writing that the records at the center of the case are undoubtedly presidential records — not Trump’s personal records — and that the former president is trying to argue that the law does not apply to him.
“Even if the raft of highly classified documents that Trump took from the White House to Mar-a-Lago were somehow categorized as ‘personal’ under the PRA, that would not render his retention of those documents ‘authorized,'” Smith wrote.
The Espionage Act
Defense lawyers have also argued that the part of the Espionage Act related to the retention of defense materials is unconstitutionally vague when applied to former President Trump.
Characterizing the section of the law at issue as “the most confusing and complex of all the federal espionage statutes,” defense lawyers wrote that charging Trump with the law violates “the due process principles and separation-of-powers concerns that animate the vagueness doctrine.”
Citing parts of special counsel Robert Hur’s report into President Joe Biden’s retention of classified documents, for which Biden was not charged, they argued that penalizing Trump for retaining documents amounts to selective and vindictive prosecution.
“There is far too much indeterminacy around the meaning of ‘unauthorized possession’ with respect to President Trump and the types of documents at issue,” the filing said.
Prosecutors responded by arguing the statute is perfectly clear — and that Trump ought to have known that, given his previous position as commander-in-chief. Trump’s attempts to delay and obstruct the investigation are also telltale signs that he was violating the law, prosecutors said.
“The statute’s prohibitions are clear,” the filing said. “And as a former President, Trump could not have failed to understand the paramount importance of protecting the Nation’s national-security and military secrets, including the obligations not to take unauthorized possession of, or willfully retain, national defense information.”
An uncertain trial date
The trial itself is currently scheduled to start in mid-May, but earlier this month Judge Cannon held a hearing to hear arguments over moving the trial to a new, later date. Smith’s team proposed July 8 as a new date, while Trump’s lawyers argued that the trial should take place after the 2024 presidential election.
Cannon did not issue any rulings or make any formal scheduling changes regarding the trial’s start date, which is still scheduled for May 20.
“A lot of work needs to be done in the pretrial phase of this case,” the judge said.
It is unclear if Cannon will address the trial date at Thursday’s hearing, as Trump’s legal calendar continues to fill up. The former president is scheduled to go on trial in New York on March 25 on charges of falsifying business records in connection with a hush payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election. He has denied all wrongdoing.
(WASHINGTON) — The chairman and chief executive of the insurance company that guaranteed former President Donald Trump’s $92 million bond in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case said in a letter Wednesday that the company’s participation “has nothing to do with the underlying merits or with favoring any of the parties in the case.”
He also said the bond is “fully collateralized,” though the letter did not say how much cash or what assets Trump used as collateral.
Chubb CEO Evan Greenberg sent the letter to any customer, agent, broker or investor who inquired about the bond.
“As the surety, we don’t take sides, it would be wrong for us to do so and we are in no way supporting the defendant. We are supporting and are part of the justice system plumbing included in this case,” the letter said. “When Chubb issues an appeal bond, it isn’t making judgments about the claims, even when the claims involve alleged reprehensible conduct.”
“I fully realize how polarizing and emotional this case and the defendant are and how easy it would be for Chubb to just say no. However, we support the rule of law and our role in it. We considered this the right thing to do and we frankly left our own personal feelings aside,” the letter said.
Chubb itself also issued two statements, one of which clarified Greenberg’s appointment to a trade advisory panel by then-President Trump.
“Evan Greenberg was appointed to the advisory committee in 2018, along with: James P. Hoffa (International Brotherhood of Teamsters), Harold McGraw III, C. Fred Bergsten (Peterson Institute of International Economics) and Timothy P. Smucker of Ohio. He served on the committee under both the Trump and Biden administrations until March 2023,” the statement said.
Trump in January was ordered to pay $83.3 million in damages, plus interest, to Carroll, a former Elle magazine columnist, for defaming her in 2019 when he denied her allegation that he sexually abused her in the dressing room of a Manhattan department store in the 1990s. Trump, who said Carroll was “totally lying” and that she was “not my type,” has denied all wrongdoing.
