Prosecutors ask judge to restrict Trump’s ‘inflammatory’ attacks surrounding election subversion case
Federal prosecutors are asking the judge overseeing a case targeting Donald Trump’s alleged efforts to subvert the outcome of the 2020 presidential election to help stop his wave of “inflammatory” attacks. Following a grand jury’s indictment in the case, the former president has “repeatedly and widely disseminated public statements” attacking Washington DC residents as well as members of the court, prosecutors and prospective witnesses, according to a filing in US District Court on 15 September. His statements threaten “to undermine the integrity of these proceedings and prejudice the jury pool,” prosecutors warned. Prosecutors with US Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith have asked US District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan to take “immediate” steps to ensure a fair trial and an impartial jury, including drafting a “narrowly tailored order” that restricts “certain prejudicial extrajudicial statements” from Mr Trump. An unsparing assessment of Mr Trump’s remarks charts the former president’s ongoing and baseless narrative casting doubt on the integrity and veracity of US elections, his remarks targeting his perceived political opponents, including family members of the judges and prosecutors overseeing the criminal cases against him, and how his bullhorn dog-whistle statements are heard among his supporters who elevate those threats. “The defendant has an established practice of issuing inflammatory public statements targeted at individuals or institutions that present an obstacle or challenge to him,” including bogus statements surrounding US elections that have “engendered widespread mistrust in the administration of the election, and the individuals whom he targeted were subject to threats and harassment,” according to prosecutors. Mr Trump knows that “when he publicly attacks individuals and institutions, he inspires others to perpetrate threats and harassment against his targets,” according to the filing, and that he continues those attacks “precisely because he knows that in doing so, he is able to roil the public and marshal and prompt his supporters.” The filing includes several posts from Mr Trump’s Truth Social account, which the former president has used as a bully pulpit to his supporters to direct the narratives surrounding the criminal cases against him while casting himself as a victim of political prosecution. Mr Trump has “posted publicly about individuals whom he has reason to believe will be witnesses in this trial,” and his “relentless public posts marshaling anger and mistrust in the justice system, the Court, and prosecutors have already influenced the public,” according to prosecutors. The special counsel’s office has also faced “multiple threats,” according to the filing. In a separate filing on Friday, prosecutors have warned a judge that people connected to the case have faced “threats and harassment” fuelled by the former president’s “inflammatory public statements.” Judge Chutkan has allowed prosecutors to seal those names, according to the nine-page order on 15 September. Prosecutors asked to court to withhold the names and other identifying information of “certain individuals” targeted by Mr Trump with “inflammatory” statements, as well as excerpts from witness interview transcripts that describe the alleged threats and harassment they received, according to the filing. “The government seeks to establish that Defendant has publicly criticized his perceived adversaries and is aware that this criticism has led to their harassment,” the judge wrote. This is a developing story Read More Trump’s Twitter DMs handed over as special counsel asks for narrow gag order in Jan 6 case – latest
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Republicans demand yet more information on Hunter Biden plea deal
A trio of Republican House committee chairs is demanding information from the Department of Justice on the pending plea and diversion agreements between prosecutors and Hunter Biden as part of their ongoing effort to inflict political damage on his father, President Joe Biden. In a letter to US Attorney General Merrick Garland, House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, and Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith said the decision by Delaware US Attorney David Weiss to allow Hunter Biden to plead guilty to two misdemeanour tax charges and enter into a deferred sentencing agreement on a single charge of lying on a gun background check form “raise serious concerns ... that the Department has provided preferential treatment toward Mr. Biden in the course of its investigation and proposed resolution of his alleged criminal conduct”. Mr Biden, who is President Biden’s youngest and only surviving son, has admitted to what have been well-documented struggles with alcohol and drugs, and during an aborted plea hearing last week said he’d been in and out of rehabilitation facilities on numerous occasions over the last few decades. During that court appearance, US District Judge Maryellen Noreika objected to a provision of the diversion agreement which stated that she — not prosecutors — would be responsible for determining whether Mr Biden might have breached the agreement’s terms, which would necessitate new criminal charges. The judge said the provision in question was “not standard” and “different from what I normally see” and suggested it violates the separation of powers in the US Constitution because it would put the judicial branch in the position of making a charging decision that is an executive branch function. Legal experts have opined that the provision at issue was an attempt by the department to protect Mr Biden from a situation in which a future Republican administration would manufacture charges against him. The current GOP frontrunner for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination, Donald Trump, has repeatedly pledged to jail Mr Biden, his father, and numerous other prominent Democrats. The GOP representatives asked Mr Garland to provide them with data on how often, if at all, the Delaware US Attorney’s office and the Justice Department have included similar provisions in diversion agreements. They also demanded information on who — prosecutors or Mr Biden’s defence attorneys — suggested that the agreement should place a final decision on new charges in a judge’s hands, and asked Mr Garland to provide a list of pretrial division agreements for other defendants who’ve been charged with the same gun-related offence as Mr Biden, as well as “all documents and communications referring or relating to each similar pretrial diversion agreement entered into by the Department in the last ten years”. Additionally, the committee chairs asked Mr Garland to provide a “generalized description of the nature of the Department’s ongoing investigation” into Mr Biden and an “explanation of why the Department originally agreed to a plea agreement” with Mr Biden if there are ongoing probes into him. It is unlikely that Mr Garland will provide any response that satisfies the GOP representatives, as the Justice Department’s policy for decades has been to not comment on ongoing investigations, even in response to congressional inquiries. Read More House Oversight chair admits GOP can’t back up Biden bribery accusations Hunter Biden’s ex-business partner testifies to Congress. Here’s what to know Biden acknowledges Hunter’s daughter Navy in public for first time
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