Supreme Court punts on whether Trump is immune from prosecution: Live – The Independent

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Justices choose not to hear case at this time even after Special Counsel Jack Smith urged them to urgently rule on immunity issue after he bypassed federal appeals court
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Related video: Seth Meyers mocks Donald Trump’s support for Vladmir Putin
The Supreme Court has declined to decide on Donald Trump’s claim that he’s immune from prosecution in the federal 2020 election interference case.
The justices have chosen not to hear the case for the time being even after Special Counsel Jack Smith urged them to urgently rule on the issue as he bypassed a federal appeals court in the process.
The case will now proceed to an appeals court and probably will come back to the highest US court in the next few months.
On Wednesday, Mr Trump’s attorneys had told the Supreme Court to reject the special counsel’s request and accused prosecutors of trying to “bypass” their appeal.
Meanwhile, Mr Trump personally pressured two Republican officials in Michigan not to certify the state’s 2020 election results, according to a new report.
The then-president told the officials, both members of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers, in a 17 November 2020 phone call that they would look “terrible” if they carried out their duty.
According to The Detroit News, which obtained audio of the call, Mr Trump went on to tell the pair: “We’ve got to fight for our country.”
CNN’s Abby Phillip channels Alanis Morissette as she reflects on the Republican’s habit of demanding everybody else be dismissed coming back to bite him.
Very much what you’d expect from the Georgia Republican here.
Here’s the Republican group’s latest anti-Trump attack ad, warning of a more radical administration fuelled by a desire for retribution should he win next year’s election.
Rudy Giuliani is promoting unapproved dietary supplements as he scrambles to pay $148m in damages to a pair of election workers whom he defamed.
A US federal judge on Wednesday ordered Mr Giuiliani to “immediately” produce the money before he has a chance to conceal his true assets, saying he had been an “uncooperative litigant”.
The former New York City mayor and Trump campaign lawyer was found to have defamed Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss when he groundlessly accused them of helping to rig the 2020 presidential election.
In livestreams on Tuesday and Wednesday night, Mr Giuliani showed his followers how to make Christmas tree ornaments out of bottles of Balance of Nature dietary pills, urging them to help him “fight the traitors” by buying some.
“Balance of Nature should be taken every single day to make sure you get your vegetables and your fruits,” he said. “I expect you to have these in Christmas stockings for all those that you love, okay?”
He did not mention that the supplements were temporarily taken off the market last month by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which said they had been wrongly advertised as helping to prevent or mitigate diseases such as cancer and Covid-19 without having been approved for that purpose.
President Joe Biden said there is “no question” that Donald Trump was responsible for fuelling an insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6. “It’s self-evident. You saw it all,” he told reporters on Wednesday.
“I’m not an insurrectionist,” the former president wrote on his Truth Social the next day. “Crooked Joe Biden is!!!”
He didn’t elaborate, but it’s the latest attempt from the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for president in 2024 to spin, or project, accusations against him towards those doing the accusing.
It’s a rhetorical device he has weaponised for years, and the projected accusations have only become more severe as the several criminal prosecutions and campaign-threatening lawsuits against him develop.
While the president, Democratic officials and democratic advocates warn against his increasingly fascist rhetoric and his promises of a violent agenda of retribution, Mr Trump has claimed that it’s Mr Biden, actually, who poses a “threat to democracy”.
It’s a claim spread across his marathon rallies and on his social media. It’s echoed by his allies and supporters. And it only comes after Mr Trump faces criminal charges for his own attempts to overturn the results of millions of Americans’ votes in the 2020 presidential election, and the growing list of lawsuits threatening to remove him from 2024 ballots because of it.
Florida governor Ron DeSantis has pointedly refused to join his Republican rival Vivek Ramaswamy in boycotting next year’s presidential election in Colorado.
Mr Ramaswamy, who is vying with Mr DeSantis for the GOP nomination in 2024, suggested on Wednesday that candidates should withdraw from the ballot unless Donald Trump is also allowed to run.
One day earlier, the Colorado Supreme Court had disqualified Mr Trump from seeking office because his efforts to overturn the 2020 election result had constituted an “insurrection”.
“I pledge to withdraw from the Colorado GOP primary ballot unless and until Trump’s name is restored,” Mr Ramaswamy said in a video posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. He also “demanded” that other Republicans should do the same.
Asked by the conservative broadcaster Newsmax on Wednesday whether he would follow suit, Mr DeSantis said: “No, I think that’s just playing into the Left.”
He added: “I think the case will get overturned by the [US] Supreme Court.
“I’ve qualified for all the ballots, I’m competing in all the states, and I’m going to accumulate the delegates necessary. That’s the whole name of the game in this situation.
“But I do anticipate that that decision was political and will get reversed.”
The 14th Amendment to the US constitution, adopted in 1868 in the wake of the US Civil War, forbids any candidate from holding office if they have “engaged in an insurrection”.
Adam Kinzinger, a former Republican representative, encouraged people to ‘wear a mask’ when they’re in the presence of former president Donald Trump due to his apparent odor.
Mr Kinzinger, a vocal critic of Mr Trump, took to his Twitter account this week to insinuate that the former president possesses a strong smell.
“I’m genuinely surprised how people close to Trump haven’t talked about the odor,” Mr Kinzinger wrote earlier this week.
“It’s truly something to behold. Wear a mask if you can,” he added.
The accusation garnered a lot of attention on the platform, with many mocking the former president for his alleged smell.
When reached for comment about the accusation, a spokesperson for Mr Trump returned the insult to Mr Kinzinger.
“Adam Kinzinger farted on live TV and is an unemployed fraud,” the spokesperson said in a statement provided to The Independent.
“He has disgraced his country and disrespects everyone around him because he is a sad individual who is mad about how his miserable life has turned out.”
The US Supreme Court could determine whether Donald Trump is immune from criminal prosecution for crimes connected to the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, and whether his name can be removed from ballots because of them.
Those two major constitutional questions before the nation’s highest court – where three of the nine justices were appointed by the former president – arrive in the middle of the 2024 race for the presidency, and could have resounding impacts beyond Mr Trump’s campaign.
The Supreme Court is considering whether Mr Trump has “presidential immunity” from charges connected to his attempts to subvert the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, including his failure to stop a mob of his supporters from breaking into the halls of Congress to stop the certification of the results.
His campaign also pledged to go to the Supreme Court following a Colorado ruling that bars him from appearing on 2024 ballots under the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution, which prohibits candidates who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” from holding public office.
Those questions underscore the massive role that courtrooms have played in Mr Trump’s brutal campaign for the White House in 2024, a campaign that frames the 91 criminal charges, fraud lawsuits and sexual abuse and defamation claims against him as evidence of a conspiracy to keep him away from the presidency. Mr Trump has promised vengeance against his political enemies if he wins another White House term.
Late Night host Seth Meyers delved into all the times Donald Trump has shown “admiration for dictators” in his show on Thursday night – following the former president’s recent declaration that he would be a dictator on “day one” of a possible second term and his recent anti-immigration comments echoing Adolf Hitler.
In a recent interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, Mr Trump was asked if he would ever “abuse power” if he returns to the White House in 2024.
The former president replied: “Except for day one.”
While many GOP lawmakers defended his remarks, putting them down to one of Trump’s many “Trump-isms”, Mr Meyers decided to take a closer look at the times the former president has shown his appreciation for history’s most disturbing dictators.
“He used to be pro-choice, now he’s anti-abortion. He used to be for gun control, now he’s against it. But the one thing he’s been consistent on his entire life is his support for dictators,” Mr Meyers said on his show on Thursday.
Mr Meyers showed viewers a copy of an interview in a 1990 Playboy magazine, where Mr Trump revealed his admiration for China’s massacre of pro-democracy student protestors the previous year.
“When the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it. Then they were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength,” Mr Trump said at the time.
“That shows you the power of strength. Our country is right now perceived as weak.”
Donald Trump personally pressured two Republican officials in Michigan to not certify the 2020 presidential election result in the state, according to a report.
In a 17 November 2020 phone call, the then-president told the officials Monica Palmer and William Hartmann – both members of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers – that they would look “terrible” if they certified the results.
According to The Detroit News, which obtained audio of the call, Mr Trump went on to tell the officials: “We’ve got to fight for our country.”
Mr Trump also reportedly told Ms Palmer and Mr Hartmann that his team would “take care” of them, saying that “we can’t let these people take our country away from us”.
RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, a Michigan native, was also on the call and reportedly told the officials: “If you can go home tonight, do not sign it. … We will get you attorneys.”
Mr Trump added: “We’ll take care of that.”
The paper reported that both officials left the canvassers meeting without signing Wayne County’s official statement of votes, and the following day unsuccessfully tried to rescind their votes in favour of certification.
Both officials claimed in legal affidavits that they had been pressured into voting.
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