2020 US Elections

It's the latest fallout for Trump's courtroom adversaries after his election win in November

Donald Trump laid the groundwork to try to overturn the 2020 election even before he lost, knowingly pushed false claims of voter fraud and "resorted to crimes" in his failed bid to cling to power, according to a newly unsealed court filing from prosecutors that lays out fresh details from the landmark criminal case against the former president. The filing from special counsel Jack Smith's team offers the most comprehensive view to date of what prosecutors intend to prove if the case charging Trump with conspiring to overturn the election reaches trial. Though a months-long congressional investigation and the indictment itself have chronicled in stark detail Trump's efforts to undo the election, the new filing cites previously unknown accounts offered by Trump's closest aides to paint a portrait of an "increasingly desperate" president who while losing his grip on the White House "used deceit to target every stage of the electoral process". "So what?" the filing quotes Trump as ...

A federal jury in Texas on Monday cleared a group of former President Donald Trump supporters and found one driver liable in a civil trial over a so-called Trump Train that surrounded a Biden-Harris campaign bus days before the 2020 election. The two-week trial in a federal courthouse in Austin centred on whether the actions of the Trump Train participants amounted to political intimidation. Among those aboard the bus was former Democratic lawmaker Wendy Davis, who testified she feared for her life while a convoy of Trump supporters boxed in the bus along Interstate 35. The jury awarded USD 10,000 to the bus driver. No criminal charges were filed against the six Trump supporters who were sued by Davis and two others aboard the bus. Civil rights advocates hoped a guilty verdict would send a clear message about what constitutes political violence and intimidation. On October 20, 2020, a Biden-Harris campaign bus was travelling from San Antonio to Austin for an event when a group of c

A judge has rejected a bid by Mark Meadows, chief of staff to former President Donald Trump, to move his charges in Arizona's fake elector case to federal court, marking the second time he has failed in trying to get his charges out of state court. In a decision Monday, US District Judge John Tuchi said Meadows missed a deadline for asking for his charges to be moved to federal court and failed to show that the allegations against him related to his official duties as chief of staff to the president. Meadows faces charges in Arizona and Georgia in what authorities allege was an illegal scheme to overturn the 2020 election results in Trump's favour. He had unsuccessfully tried to move charges in the Georgia case last year. While not a fake elector in Arizona, prosecutors said Meadows worked with other Trump campaign members to submit names of fake electors from Arizona and other states to Congress in a bid to keep Trump in office despite his November 2020 defeat. Meadows has pleaded

A judge will hear arguments Thursday about potential next steps in the federal election subversion prosecution of Donald Trump in the first hearing since the Supreme Court narrowed the case by ruling that former presidents are entitled to broad immunity from criminal charges. Prosecutors and defense lawyers submitted dueling proposals late Friday ahead of the status conference before U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over the case charging Trump with plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Trump is not expected to be present. Special counsel Jack Smith's team, which filed a new indictment last week to strip out certain allegations against Trump and comply with the Supreme Court ruling, said it could be ready at any time to file a legal brief laying out its position on how to apply the justices' immunity opinion to the case. Defense lawyers, by contrast, said they intended to file multiple ...

Special counsel Jack Smith filed a new indictment Tuesday against Donald Trump over his efforts to undo the 2020 presidential election that keeps the same criminal charges but narrows the allegations against him following a Supreme Court opinion that conferred broad immunity on former presidents. The new indictment removes a section of the indictment that had accused Trump of trying to use the law enforcement powers of the Justice Department to overturn his election loss, an area of conduct for which the Supreme Court, in a 6-3 opinion last month, said that Trump was absolutely immune from prosecution. The stripped-down criminal case represents a first effort by prosecutors to comply with a Supreme Court opinion likely to result in a significant revision of the allegations against Trump over his efforts to block the peaceful transfer of power. It was filed three days ahead of a deadline for prosecutors and defense lawyers to tell the judge in the case how they wanted to proceed in ..

Special counsel Jack Smith's team urged the Supreme Court on Monday night to reject former President Donald Trump's claim that he is immune from prosecution in a case charging him with scheming to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. The brief from prosecutors was submitted just over two weeks before the justices take up the legally untested question of whether an ex-president is shielded from criminal charges for official actions taken in the White House. A President's alleged criminal scheme to use his official powers to overturn the presidential election and thwart the peaceful transfer of power frustrates core constitutional provisions that protect democracy, they wrote. The outcome of the April 25 arguments is expected to help determine whether Trump faces trial this year in a four-count indictment that accuses him of conspiring to block the peaceful transfer of power after losing the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden. Trump has argued that former presiden

Lawyers for Donald Trump have urged the US Supreme Court to dismiss an indictment charging the former president with conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election, renewing their arguments that he is immune from prosecution for official acts taken in the White House. Lower courts have already twice rejected the immunity claims, but Trump's lawyers will get a fresh chance to press their case before the Supreme Court when the justices hear arguments on April 25. The high court's decision to consider the matter has left the criminal case on hold pending the outcome of the appeal, making it unclear whether special counsel Jack Smith will be able to put the ex-president on trial before November's election. In a brief filed Tuesday, Trump's lawyers repeated many of the same arguments that judges have already turned aside, asserting that a president "cannot function, and the Presidency itself cannot retain its vital independence, if the President faces criminal prosecution for ...

A Supreme Court decision could come as soon as Monday in the case about whether former President Donald Trump can be kicked off the ballot over his efforts to undo his defeat in the 2020 election. Trump is challenging a groundbreaking decision by the Colorado Supreme Court that said he is disqualified from being president again and ineligible for the state's primary, which is Tuesday. The resolution of the case on Monday, a day before Super Tuesday contests in 16 states, would remove uncertainty about whether votes for Trump, the leading Republican candidate for president, will ultimately count. Both sides had requested fast work by the court, which heard arguments less than a month ago, on Feb. 8, The Colorado court was the first to invoke a post-Civil War constitutional provision aimed at preventing those who engaged in insurrection from holding office. Trump also has since been barred from primary ballot in Illinois and Maine, though both decisions, along with Colorado's, are on

The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to decide whether former President Donald Trump can be prosecuted on charges he interfered with the 2020 election, calling into question whether his case could go to trial before the November election. While the court set a course for a quick resolution, it maintained a hold on preparations for a trial focused on Trump's efforts to overturn his election loss. The court will hear arguments in late April, with a decision likely no later than the end of June. That timetable is much faster than usual, but assuming the justices deny Trump's immunity bid, it's not clear whether a trial can be scheduled and concluded before the November election. Early voting in some states will begin in September. The court's decision to intervene in a second major Trump case this term, along with the dispute over whether he is barred from being president again because of his actions following the 2020 election, underscores the direct role the justices will have in th

Chapter 11 protection will give Giuliani time to pursue an appeal of the Georgia lawsuit while providing transparency and fairness for creditors, the lawyers said

Lawyers for Donald Trump asked the full federal appeals court in Washington to review a gag order restricting the former president's speech in the case charging him with plotting to overturn the 2020 election. The request on Monday follows a decision by a three-judge panel of the appeals court that upheld but narrowed a gag order that barred Trump from verbally attacking witnesses over their participation in the case and imposed other restrictions on what he may say. In requesting that the entire court take up the matter, Trump's lawyers argued the panel's decision earlier this month contradicted Supreme Court precedent and rulings from other appeals courts. They said a fresh consideration was needed both to secure uniformity of this Court's decisions and because of the question's exceptional importance. This petition presents a question of exceptional importance: Whether a district court may gag the core political speech of the leading candidate for President of the United States

Former President Donald Trump is appealing a ruling that found he is not immune from criminal prosecution as he runs out of time to delay or even derail an upcoming trial on charges that he plotted to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Lawyers for the 2024 Republican presidential primary frontrunner filed a notice of appeal Thursday indicating that they will challenge US District Judge Tanya Chutkan's decision rejecting Trump's bid to derail the case headed to trial in Washington, DC, in March. The one-page filing was accompanied by a request from the Trump team to put the case on pause so the appeals court can take up the matter. The filing of President Trump's notice of appeal has deprived this Court of jurisdiction over this case in its entirety pending resolution of the appeal, Trump's lawyers wrote. Therefore, a stay of all further proceedings is mandatory and automatic. The appeal had been expected given that Trump's lawyers had earlier signalled their plans to pursue

Trump's "four-year service as Commander in Chief did not bestow on him the divine right of kings to evade the criminal accountability that governs his fellow citizens," the judge wrote

Prosecutors with special counsel Jack Smith's team asked a judge on Thursday to set a Jan. 2 trial date for former President Donald Trump in the case charging him with plotting to overturn his 2020 election loss. Prosecutors said in court papers that they want the case before U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to move to trial swiftly in Washington's federal court, setting up a likely battle with defense attorneys who have already suggested they will try slow things down. Smith's team says the government's case should take no longer than four to six weeks. The date is just under two weeks before the first votes are set to be cast in the Republican presidential race, with Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses scheduled for Jan. 15. The early front-runner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary faces charges including conspiracy to defraud the United States for what prosecutors say was a weekslong plot to subvert the will of voters and cling to power after he lost the 2020 election t

A grand jury being seated Tuesday in Atlanta will likely consider whether criminal charges are appropriate for former President Donald Trump or his Republican allies for their efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has been investigating since shortly after Trump called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in early 2021 and suggested the state's top elections official could help him find 11,780 votes, just enough needed to beat Democrat Joe Biden. The 2 1/2-year investigation expanded to include an examination of a slate of Republican fake electors, phone calls by Trump and others to Georgia officials in the weeks after the 2020 election and unfounded allegations of widespread election fraud made to state lawmakers. Willis, a Democrat, is expected to present her case before one of two new grand juries being seated Tuesday. She has previously suggested that any indictments would likely come in August. Here's how th

Fox News agreed Wednesday to hand over thousands of documents to voting machine company Smartmatic, which is suing the network for defamation in a case similar to Dominion Voting Machines' just-settled lawsuit. Smartmatic says Fox bears financial responsibility for airing false allegations that the company rigged the 2020 presidential election against former President Donald Trump. Last week, Fox agreed to pay Dominion nearly $800 million to avert a trial, although the ultimate cost to the media company is likely to be much lower. Smartmatic wants a $2.7 billion judgment, which far exceeds the $1.6 billion Dominion sought in its suit. No date has been set, and the case might not go to court for a couple of years. Smartmatic said in court filings that Fox slow-rolled its production of transcripts and other material that were created during the Dominion suit, and that Smartmatic had received just a small fraction of the more than 52,000 documents it requested as part of the discovery

Former US President Donald Trump has accused the FBI of stealing his passports during recent search of his Mar-a-Lago estate

Prosecutors in Atlanta told lawyers for Rudy Giuliani that he's a target of their criminal investigation into illegal attempts by Donald Trump and others to interfere in the 2020 election in Georgia

Donald Trump has hired a prominent Atlanta criminal defence attorney known for defending famous rappers to represent him in matters related to the special grand jury