Ny Safidinao

 Special counsel Jack Smith is urging the Supreme Court to urgently resolve Donald Trump’s claim that he’s immune from prosecution for charges related to his bid to subvert the 2020 election. Without the Supreme Court’s swift intervention, Trump’s trial could be indefinitely delayed, the special counsel warned in a petition to the high court on Monday. That’s because the trial, scheduled to begin March 4, is effectively suspended while Trump pursues his appeal of the trial judge’s ruling rejecting his immunity arguments, Smith wrote. Resolution of the novel legal question is necessary to ensure the case proceeds “promptly,” he argued. By coming directly to the Supreme Court, Smith is hoping to bypass a federal appeals court and is mounting an aggressive bid to keep the timing of the election-focused trial on track. If the March 4 trial date sticks, it would be the first trial for Trump in the four criminal cases he is facing as he mounts a bid for re-election to the White House. “T...

  WASHINGTON (AP) —   Special counsel Jack Smith   on Monday asked   the Supreme Court   to take up and rule quickly on whether former President Donald Trump can be prosecuted on charges he plotted to overturn the 2020 election results. Smith made his request for the court to act with unusual speed to prevent any delays that could push back  the trial  of the 2024 Republican presidential primary front-runner, currently set to begin March 4, until after next year’s presidential election. Later Monday, the justices indicated they would decide quickly whether to hear the case, ordering Trump’s lawyers to respond by Dec. 20. The court’s brief order did not signal what it ultimately would do. A federal judge ruled the case could go forward, but Trump said he would ask the federal appeals court in Washington to reverse that outcome. Smith is attempting to bypass the appeals court, the usual next step in the process, and have the Supreme Court take up the mat...

The No. 2 Republican had worked to win over holdouts but could not find a path to uniting his fractious party   Representative Steve Scalise, Republican of Louisiana, announcing his withdrawal as a candidate for House speaker on Thursday night. He hopes to remain as the party’s No. 2 House leader. Credit... Kenny Holston/The New York Time. Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana withdrew on Thursday from consideration for the speakership he was on the cusp of claiming after hard-line Republicans balked at rallying around their party’s chosen candidate, leaving the House leaderless and the G.O.P. in chaos. After being  narrowly nominated  for speaker during a Wednesday closed-door secret-ballot contest among House Republicans, Mr. Scalise, their No. 2 leader, found himself far from the 217 votes needed to be elected on the House floor. Many supporters of his challenger, Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the right-wing Republican endorsed by former President Donald J. Tr...

 L a Russie a discrètement envoyé au moins 300 millions de dollars à des partis politiques et des candidats dans plus de vingt pays, dont des Etats africains, depuis 2014 pour tenter d’y influencer des élections, selon des documents déclassifiés, publiés le lundi 12 septembre par le département d’Etat américain. Ces documents citent des estimations des renseignements américains, relatives aux efforts déployés par Moscou pour soutenir les hommes politiques et les partis qui lui sont favorables. Les renseignements américains n’ont pas précisé les noms des pays concernés. Une source proche du dossier au sein de l’administration Biden a cependant révélé à la presse américaine que Moscou aurait, entre autres, financé des partis ou candidats en Albanie, en Bosnie, au Monténégro, à Madagascar, en Equateur et dans certains pays d’Afrique du Nord. Cette même source a précisé que la Russie a fait acheminer des fonds à des partis et des personnalités politiques jusqu’en Amérique centrale...

WASHINGTON, Jan 13 (Reuters) - The U.S. Republican Party on Thursday said its future presidential candidates might not participate in debates run by the Commission on Presidential Debates due to concerns about fairness, upending decades of tradition. In a  letter  to the nonprofit commission known as the CPD, which has run presidential debates since 1988, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said the party was considering amending its rules to ensure its candidates do not attend the debates because of concerns about "whether the CPD credibly can provide a fair and impartial forum for presidential debates." She said the party would try to help future Republican presidential nominees participate in debates that are organized more fairly. It is unclear what format those debates would take or whether they would take place as often as in recent decades. Prior to the debate commission's founding in 1987, political parties or campaigns negotiated directly on t...

Facebook  suspended  former President  Donald Trump  for two years but ending just in time for him to possibly regain his  powerful social media megaphone  in the 2024 election cycle. After that period, Facebook said it would consult experts to determine whether "the  risk to public safety  has receded," and make a call on Trump's return.  But Facebook warned that Trump's Facebook and Instagram, if reinstated, would face a "strict set of rapidly escalating sanctions” if he violates the company's rules again after being reinstated on Jan. 7, 2023. Trump’s accounts on Facebook and Instagram were frozen the day after the attack on the U.S. Capitol for his praise of supporters who stormed it, Facebook said. "When the suspension is eventually lifted, there will be a strict set of rapidly escalating sanctions that will be triggered if Mr. Trump commits further violations in future, up to and including permanent removal of h...

  NEW YORK (Reuters) - Lawyers for Rudy Giuliani attacked federal prosecutors for their recent raids of his home and office, as they probe the former New York City mayor's business dealings in Ukraine at a time he was serving as then-U.S. President Donald Trump's lawyer. In a letter made public on Monday, Giuliani's lawyers objected to the "sweeping nature" of the April 28 searches and the legitimacy of a November 2019 search of his iCloud account, and want to see prosecutors' basis for obtaining warrants underlying those searches. They also said prosecutors claimed to secretly obtain the iCloud warrant on concern Giuliani might destroy evidence or intimidate witnesses, an accusation that "strains credulity" and was "extremely damaging" to Giuliani's reputation. Prosecutors "simply chose to treat a distinguished lawyer as if he was the head of a drug cartel or a terrorist, in order to create maximum prejudicial coverage of both Giu...