Special counsel Jack Smith taking steps to wind down federal cases against Trump

https://www.npr.org/2024/11/06/g-s1-33021/trump-trials-jack-smith-election-2024

Updated November 6, 20245:12 PM ET

Carrie Johnson

Special counsel Jack Smith delivers remarks about an unsealed indictment against former President Donald Trump on Aug. 1, 2023, in Washington, D.C.

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Donald Trump started this year fighting two federal prosecutions that threatened to send him to prison. But he will end it free and clear of his most significant criminal legal problems.

With his resounding victory at the polls, and a longstanding Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president, the key question is not if, but when, prosecutors move to dismiss or delay his federal election interference case in Washington, D.C.

Trump recently said he would fire special counsel Jack Smith “within two seconds” after he returned to the White House. Now, that won’t be necessary to bring his federal criminal troubles to an end.

Smith is taking steps to end both federal cases against Trump before the president-elect takes office, according to a source familiar with the Justice Department deliberations.

1. What are the outstanding cases the federal government has lodged against Trump?

A grand jury in Washington indicted Trump this year on four felony charges in connection with his effort to cling to power in 2020, culminating in the violent siege on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Judge Tanya Chutkan had set a trial date for March 2024, but that date came and went, after the Supreme Court accepted the case and ultimately handed Trump significant immunity from prosecution for official actions he took in the White House.

The judge is just now beginning to consider what parts of the prosecution’s case amount to official acts, and which are private conduct of a person seeking rather than holding office.

The Justice Department has appealed in a separate criminal case against Trump that accuses the former president of hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort and refusing to the return them to the FBI.

Judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed to the bench by Trump, dismissed the documents case on July 15, the first day of the Republican National Convention this year, reasoning that the way the special counsel had been appointed violates the Constitution. The Justice Department has been seeking review by a higher court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

2. What does Trump’s election victory mean for these cases?

They’re on life support and likely to end even before the inauguration in January.

On the campaign trial, now President-elect Trump has vowed to fire the special counsel, Jack Smith, on his first day in office. But Trump would not need to dismiss Smith or order any new DOJ officials to fire Smith in order to end the criminal prosecutions.

President-elect Donald Trump delivers remarks during the Georgia state GOP convention in June 2023 after a grand jury indicted him on 37 felony counts in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s classified documents probe.

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

In 2000, a lawyer in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which advises the federal government on its powers and boundaries, concluded that a sitting president could not be indicted or prosecuted because that “would unconstitutionally undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions.”

Administrations led by Republicans and Democrats have adopted the DOJ policy against prosecuting presidents.

The Florida case involving classified documents is a bit more complicated. DOJ could file notice with the appeals court that it is abandoning the appeal. But that case involves two other defendants, Walt Nauta and Carlos de Oliveira.

Dismissing the appeal outright would also mean walking away from cases that prosecutors built against those two defendants, Trump’s personal aide and the property manager at Mar-a-Lago.

What’s more, the federal government may have a broader interest, because Cannon’s reasoning could upend the way special prosecutors have been appointed for decades.

But one DOJ veteran who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly told NPR that Cannon’s ruling would not be considered binding precedent, so the stakes could be lower.

Former Attorney General William Barr says voters have evaluated the allegations against Trump—and decisively rendered their own verdict.

“Further maneuvering on these cases in the weeks ahead would serve no legitimate purpose and only distract the country and the incoming administration from the task at hand,” Barr said in a written statement first reported by the Guardian.

3. What happens to the special counsel, Jack Smith?

Special counsels are obligated to file a report on their actions with the Attorney General when they finish their work. The current attorney general, Merrick Garland, has pledged to make most of those reports public.

If Smith’s written report is not complete by Inauguration Day, it will be up to new DOJ leaders to decide its fate.

Mike Davis, a Trump ally, told a conservative interviewer this week that the attorney general “is probably President Trump’s most important appointment.”

Davis told the interviewer that Smith’s entire office should be fired and said, “After today, Jack Smith, you’re going to be the hunted: legally, politically and financially. So lawyer up, buddy.”

4. Trump also faced criminal charges in two states, New York and Georgia. How will the election reshape those cases?

A jury in New York this year convicted Trump on 34 criminal charges related to bookkeeping for an alleged hush money payment to an adult film actress shortly before the 2016 election.

Justice Juan Merchan scheduled a hearing for Nov. 12 to assess how the Supreme Court’s immunity decision might affect that case. It’s not clear whether the criminal sentencing for Trump set for Thanksgiving week will occur. Trump’s lawyers may seek to stop it given the election results.

The case against Trump in Fulton County, Ga., over alleged election interference, has been on pause for months while a higher court considers possible conflicts of interest involving District Attorney Fani Willis. There’s a hearing scheduled in that appeal Dec. 5.

It, too, could be overtaken by events — and a strategy of delay and deflection by Trump’s lawyers that appears to have succeeded beyond imagination.

Anyone feel like more memes

A comment I saw elsewhere:

“As an American, I’m out of fucks to give for my fellow Americans. It’s been almost 10 years to see who he really is, and 3/4 of us either LIKE that or are too ignorant to care.

Don’t come crying when your loved one gets beaten by a police officer and they face no charges.

Don’t come crying when a friend/family member gets raped and the baby can’t be aborted, nor if they suffer a miscarriage from a pregnancy and bleed out because they can’t get medical help.

Don’t come crying when the Supreme Court is packed with 2 more far right corrupt justices and more lifelong rights start to vanish.

Don’t come crying when Ukraine aid stops and, if the rest of the world doesn’t pick up the slack, Russia takes even more land and continues killing more people.

Don’t come crying as the deficit explodes from corruption and the economy crashes as Trump lines his own pockets.

Don’t come crying when our education system bottoms out because Elon guts the government so that, combined with project 2025 ending all abortion care, poor people are forced to raise lots of stupid babies to run his factories.

Don’t come crying when worker protections are cut and overtime pay is all but eliminated.

Don’t. Complain. To. Me. I’ll ask who you voted for and then laugh in your fucking face. ‘But. But. I didn’t think. . . ‘

‘Of course you didn’t fucking think. You voted for him. Well, we tried to tell you. We tried to reason with you. We tried to compromise, but no. You just had to take your stand on whatever single fucking issue.’”

It was still something shoved up your ass while strangers watched.

LGBTQ+ people got lots of support this election

Colorado Voters Repeal Ban On Same-Sex Marriage

QAnon Nutbag Loses Bid To Run NC Public Schools

GOP candidate for NC schools chief has spread conspiracy theories, ‘groomer’ rhetoric – Michele Morrow has a track record of falsehoods – for example, saying Islam is a cult and that the plus in LGTBTQ+ stands for pedophilia. via NPR https://t.co/nItjI0LE6r
— Olav Mitchell Underdal (@omunderdal) October 21, 2024

WA Dem Becomes First LGBTQ Latina US House Rep

Texas Dem Becomes First LGBTQ US Rep From South

New York Voters Enshrine LGBTQ And Abortion Rights

California Repeals Prop 8, Enshrines Marriage Equality

DE Elects Sarah McBride As Nation’s First Trans US Rep

FWIW-here are some rays of light

WONKETTE NEWS ONE A DAY

Happy Happy Joy Joy! Sarah McBride Shows Trans Strength And Pride.

And we are feeling it! Yes we are, shut up! I SAID BE HAPPY, DAMMIT!

CRIP DYKE NOV 06, 2024

https://www.wonkette.com/p/happy-happy-joy-joy-sarah-mcbride?r=1pk2l&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

Lovable policy dork and new US Congresswoman Sarah McBride gives a hug to the kid who stole my pink unicorn dress. Yes, I will sue.

How do you do, fellow Wonks! It is I, your friendly neighborhood trans woman who is happy about a thing!

What? What is with those faces? Did something bad happen? No matter! For it is my job to give you the good news, with a spring in my step and a song in my heart and I am going to fucking do that because it is my job, melonfuckers, and I will not neglect my professional duty to be happy about a happy thing. Or three!

Yesterday, for those not in the know, the United States had an election. And during this election the transgenders worked their genderqueer asses off, not only running for election to the local sixth-grade softball team but also to at least 35 political positions around the country. And while we here at Wonkette salute every single one of those eager beavers, a couple stand out for their prominence and their victories.

No trans star shines brighter in, lo, these early morning hours as I write you this, than Sarah McBride. While McBride was not the first trans person to be elected to any ol’ thing, she was not elected to any ol’ thing. She was elected to the actual Congress of the US America. That’s right! We’re talking about the very same federal legislature made famous in Schoolhouse Rock’s song “I’m Just A Bill.”

This is not particularly surprising, as like some San Franciscans we could name, she was very well qualified for the position she sought. Before coming out or even turning 20 years old she worked as a junior staffer for Delaware Governor Jack Markell’s campaign in 2008 and Attorney General Beau Biden’s campaign in 2010. Next she lobbied for adding gender identity to Delaware’s equal protection law and interned at the White House in 2012 before graduating from college. She was on this shit young, I tell ya. And after she came out that year, her story was featured on American University Radio (later rebroadcast on NPR) including an anecdote about Beau telling her that after coming out she “was still part of the Biden family.”

After graduating she went to work as an activist with Equality Delaware and used her relationships to help pass positive bills before she became the first ever out trans speaker at a major party political convention in 2016 — something she’s sure as hell going to do again now. She then went on to write a book (foreword by some dude named “Joe Biden”), work for the Human Rights Campaign as their spokesperson, and then spend the most recent four years representing 50,000 Delawareaniteishers in the state Senate.

With her resumé and the Blue-leaning makeup of the state electorate, she had this. And it showed both during her campaign and in her 57/42 victory. (Which won me five bucks.) And now she’s going to Congress to make sure that Republican dickweasel bigots have to look a trans person in the eye as they ban driving through McDonalds while trans or whatever evil-ass bill they’re proposing next January. She lists her top two priorities as universal healthcare and reproductive rights, with other big ticket items like the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, the union-friendly PRO Act, curbing climate change, ending mass incarceration and more. She sounds too good to be true, but she’s real and she’s going to be kicking Matt Gaetz ass in just eight weeks.

Still convinced there’s a catch? Like maybe she’s great but replaced someone greater? Worry not: The woman she’s replacing is now your new US Senator from Delaware Lisa Blunt Rochester, making all kinds of demographic firsts from a state previously obsessed with sending only white men to the Senate but which has now elected a Black woman 56/39/4.

Yeah, we could use a lot more Delawares right now.

But if you’ll excuse Hawaii for not being Delaware, there’s also some good shit doing down on the islands. Over the last few decades indigenous Hawaiians have become homeless at a horrible rate — yes, this started long before Lahaina burned to the ground. The primary culprit is a tourism-first legislature full of corporate Democrats who never met a bit of housing they couldn’t rezone for rental to visiting mainlanders. Along with other forces making housing expensive even on the continent, this has made trying to find a place to live in the state a genuine crisis, especially for the people working those low-paying service jobs catering to tourists.

While Kim Coco Iwamoto isn’t the only Hawaiian to notice the problem, she made it her mission to knock off the incumbent Speaker of the Hawaiian state House in the Democratic primary. It took three tries, but this year she managed it and put the game away in the general last night. She only takes over the district of Scott Saiki, not his speakership, and the still pro-corporate Dem majority is certain to elect another tourism-pleasing Speaker, but Iwamoto becomes a trans voice against homelessness and for affordable housing. Iwamoto didn’t start off in politics going straight after Saiki. She was actually the first out trans person ever to hold statewide office anywhere in the US as she was elected to an at-large position on the Hawaii Board of Education and then later appointed to the state Civil Rights Commission. She is experienced and determined, she knows Hawaii politics, and she’s going to get things done.

Our third and final Trans Nice Times! for this morning comes to you from Los Angeles, where for the first time ever a trans-centric non-profit was designated a voting center. You may be used to voting in gymnasiums and churches, but yesterday in West Hollywood if you wanted to drop off your ballot (or fill one out if you hadn’t had a chance to vote from home as is the norm in California these days), your home precinct was The Connie Norman Transgender Empowerment Center where instead of having to to look at posters saying, “Jesus dies a little every time you touch your cooter! Don’t be chewed bubblegum!” as you walk through the lobby to cast your vote, you instead got to see signs saying, “Trans joy **is** resistance!” Won’t that just be a hoot for the two conservatives who still live in West Hollywood?

In summary and conclusion, there is still joy in this world, like trans people who kick ass and golden retrievers who know just a little too much English.

Now ain’t that some nice times?

Send this post to a friend who needs to read it! (I thought we all needed this here. -A)

Great song, better meaning

Teach Your Children …

Thanks to Ten Bears for the reminder that others faced a harder struggle and stood their ground in order to create a more perfect union. I will give myself today to absorb it, to be stunned at how we were so misled. How with all the support, money, and him being him, how did Harris lose. Misogyny comes to mind. But we fought for our rights before. We started at the ground, the grassroots and changed minds along with changing who was in charge. The other side learned our lessons and turned them against us. So tomorrow we go back to doing what we must to change the direction the country is going in, to make sure school boards are filled with people who want kids to learn science, learn to treat those different from them with respect and dynasty. We were on the way to a better world, those that did not want that fought back. Now the shoe is back on our feet. We have to make sure it starts at every level and every state. Make sure we are in the community and seen. Make sure we let people know we will not return to the 1850s or even the 1950s. We remember, let’s make sure everyone else does also. Hugs

I just can’t today

Ron and I stayed up until 4 am watching the election results. We got about an hours worth of sleep. Then we got up and sat stunned. I am sorry this is going to take me a long time to understand and bounce back from. So many people of this country are so uninformed and so many thought sending a message by not voting for Harris would somehow be better for the Palestinians. What this means for Gaza and the West bank is no more restraints on Israel, no aid for Ukraine. More right wing ideologue justices who rule not by law but by ideology and feelings. Thomas and Alito have hinted that if tRump won and had the Senate they would retire so he could fill their seats with 40 year olds to be there for generations. What this means for other countries and our relationships with them … who knows. But what this means for the LGBTQ+ community is clear. We have large targets on us now. Sad hugs

Texas hospitals must now ask patients whether they’re in the US legally. Here’s how it works

https://apnews.com/article/texas-immigration-hospital-health-care-abbott-florida-aeee92d7515a18b492c737b3657569ab

FILE – Texas Gov. Greg Abbott speaks at a news conference in Austin, Texas on June 8, 2021. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Updated 7:10 AM EST, November 1, 2024

Texas hospitals must ask patients starting Friday whether they are in the U.S. legally and track the cost of treating people without legal status following an order by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott that expands the state’s clash with the Biden administration over immigration.

Critics fear the change could scare people away from hospitals in Texas, even though patients are not required to answer the questions to receive medical care. The mandate is similar to a policy that debuted last year in Florida, where Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is also a frequent critic of the federal government’s handling of illegal crossings along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Texas hospitals have spent months preparing for the change and have sought to reassure patients that it won’t affect their level of care.

Here’s what to know:

Required to ask, not required to answer

Under the executive order announced by Abbott in August, hospitals must ask patients if they are citizens in the U.S. and whether they are lawfully present in the country.

Patients have the right to withhold the information and hospital workers must tell them their responses will not affect their care, as required by federal law.

Tracking hospital costs and patient data

Hospitals are not required to begin submitting reports to the state until March. An early draft of a spreadsheet made by state health officials to track data does not include fields to submit patient names or personal information.

Providers will fill out a breakdown of visits by inpatient and emergency care patients and document whether they are lawfully present in the country, citizens or not lawfully present in the U.S.

The reports will also add up costs for those covered by Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program, known as CHIP; and the cost for patients without it.

“Texans should not have to shoulder the burden of financially supporting medical care for illegal immigrants,” Abbott said when he announced the policy.

Texas is following Florida’s lead

Florida enacted a similar law last year. Health care advocates contend the law has made immigrants who need of emergency medical care fearful and led to fewer people seeking help, even from facilities not subject to the law.

Florida’s early data is — by the state’s own admission — limited. The data is self-reported. Anyone can decline to answer, an option chosen by nearly 8% of people admitted to the hospital and about 7% of people who went to the emergency room from June to December 2023, according to Florida’s state report. Fewer than 1% of people who went to the emergency room or were admitted to the hospital reported being in the U.S. “illegally.”

Texas hospitals have been preparing

Immigrant and health care advocates have sought to educate the Texas public about their rights. In Florida, groups used text messages, posters and emails to get the word out. But advocates there have said they didn’t see fears subside for about a year.

Health care providers received directives from the state and guidance from the Texas Hospital Association.

“The bottom line for patients is that this doesn’t change hospital care. Texas hospitals continue to be a safe place for needed care,” said Carrie Williams, spokesperson for the hospital association.

Peace & Justice History for 11/5:

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorynovember.htm#november5

Italy’s “disgusting” new law makes it virtually impossible for LGBTQ+ couples to have kids

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2024/10/italys-disgusting-new-law-makes-it-virtually-impossible-for-lgbtq-couples-to-have-kids/

The move is part of far-right Prime Minister Georgia Meloni’s quest to purge gay parents from the country.

By Greg Owen Wednesday, October 16, 2024

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni

In Italy on Wednesday, the Italian Senate pushed forward the West’s most restrictive ban on international surrogacy, making it a crime punishable by prison time for Italians to use surrogates in another country. The move closes the door on same-sex couples’ last, best option to start a family in the country.

The far-right government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni had already banned both surrogacy and domestic or international adoption by same-sex couples in Italy.

Related:

Italy orders cities to stop recognizing children of same-sex couples

People were protesting in the streets.

The legislation amending existing Italian law would classify surrogacy as a universal crime transcending borders and impose a two-year prison sentence and a million-euro fine for defying it. The law also criminalizes work by Italian doctors, nurses and technicians in foreign fertility clinics that provide surrogacy services.

Last year, Meloni’s government barred Italian cities and towns from accepting birth certificates that list same-sex parents, denying their children access to citizenship, public schooling and healthcare. That edict is tied up in court.

The Senate’s passage of the anti-surrogacy law, 84 to 58, follows approval by the government’s lower house last year, virtually assuring its enactment.

Meloni has made “traditional values” a cornerstone of her tenure leading the Brothers of Italy party, despite being a single mother who never married. The far-right populist league was founded on the ruins of Benito Mussolini’s Republican Fascist Party in the aftermath of World War II.

“It’s like a truck hitting us in the face,” Pierre Molena, a gay man pursuing surrogacy abroad with his partner, told The New York Times.

“We are worried about our future and that of our children,” he said.

“It is nature that decides this, not us,” Sen. Susanna Campione, who voted in favor of the law, told the The Washington Post.

“This is a civilized law that safeguards the child but also the woman, since we believe that surrogacy essentially reduces a woman to a reproductive machine.”

While most U.S. states and Canada allow the practice, surrogacy has become a flashpoint in Europe. Germany and France ban domestic surrogacy, while it’s legal in the United Kingdom and Greece under certain circumstances. Pope Francis has labeled the practice “womb renting,” and called for a global ban.

About 250 couples a year in Italy pursue international surrogacy, according to legal experts. Ten percent of those couples are same-sex.

“This law is disgusting,” Salvatore Scarpa told the The Post. The gay dad and his partner had a daughter with a surrogate based in California last year and plan to have a second child with the same woman. They have an implantation planned for this month.

“They cannot stop our family. How dare they judge us,” he said.

Alessandra Maiorino, a member of Italy’s anti-establishment Five Star Movement, said the new law stigmatizes children already born to gay couples as well, telling lawmakers who voted for it: “It looks like you don’t realize these people already exist.”

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New South Wales parliament passes bill to strengthen LGBTQ+ rights

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/oct/17/new-south-wales-parliament-passes-bill-to-strengthen-lgbti-rights

Equality bill will allow transgender people to have their sex changed on their birth certificates without surgery

The NSW equality bill brings the state into line with others. Photograph: Dean Lewins/AAP

Rights and protections for LGBTQ+ people in New South Wales have been strengthened with the passing of a bill in the state parliament late on Thursday, after the legislation was watered down to gain Labor support.

The equality bill will give transgender people the ability to have their sex changed on their birth certificates without undergoing invasive surgery, bringing the state in line with others, and non-binary will become a gender option for birth certificates.

There were cheers in the chamber when the bill passed about 8.40pm. The in dependent MP Alex Greenwich, who introduced the package a year ago, embraced the leader of the government in the upper house, Penny Sharpe after the vote that succeeded without the opposition’s support.

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Greenwich said the changes would “improve LGBTIQA+ dignity, safety and equality” and thanked Sharpe for her work getting the legislation through the upper house.

“We’ve got more work to do and we start that work now with new confidence from these significant wins for our community,” he said on Thursday night.

After months of stagnation, Greenwich convinced the premier, Chris Minns, to support the bill by making a number of major concessions, including dropping changes to the anti-discrimination act.

While advocates welcomed the remaining elements of the bill, many also raised concerns that protections for LGBTQ+ teachers and students at private schools had been dumped.

The Equality Australia chief executive, Anna Brown, thanked community members who shared their stories and all those who campaigned to garner support for the changes.

“These new laws will have no impact on the lives of most people in our state, but for a small number of people it will make their lives immeasurably better,” she said after the bill passed.

“It’s a journey that continues as we turn our attention to the state’s anti-discrimination laws and our ongoing efforts to protect vulnerable teachers and students in religious and private schools across the state.”

Greenwich had hoped the Coalition would allow MPs a conscience vote on the bill but earlier in the week the opposition leader, Mark Speakman, confirmed his party would stand against the reforms.

Despite that, the Liberal MP for the North Shore, Felicity Wilson, crossed the floor.

“Just because your party doesn’t have a conscience vote doesn’t mean you don’t have a conscience,” she told ABC Radio Sydney earlier in the week.

Greenwich said on Wednesday that the Coalition was moving further to the right and “using my community as a political football, as a political punching bag”.

“I am concerned that we are seeing a rightwing trend developing within the Coalition,” he said. “No other leader has denied their members a conscience vote on LBGT issues.”

The opposition attorney general, Alister Henskens, held a news conference with religious figures and community members opposed to the reforms earlier in the week.

Among the concerns he raised was about the “impact upon the privacy of women’s spaces”.

“It’s moving too far and it’s moving too quickly,” he said.

But the attorney general, Michael Daley, said the opposition was misrepresenting the package.

The bill also repealed offences for living off the earnings of a sex worker and made threatening to “out” a person’s LGBTIQA+ status an offence.