List of All Articles with Tag 'us politics'

The White House condemned attendees at Saturday's Pride event on the South Lawn who engaged in what President Joe Biden's press secretary described as "unacceptable" behavior.

For the second time in three months, the man who served as the 45th President of the United States stood before a judge as a defendant in a criminal case that could cost his freedom for a significant portion of his remaining lifespan. Flanked by attorneys Todd Blanche and Christopher Kise, Donald Trump entered a Miami federal courtroom as US Magistrate Judge Jonathan Goodman formally presented him with a 37-count indictment accusing the former president of illegally retaining national defense documents and other classified materials at his Florida home, and obstructing government efforts to reclaim them. Asked to enter a plea to the charges, Mr Blanche replied on behalf of the twice-impeached and now twice-indicted former president: “Not guilty”. Mr Trump was arraigned alongside his longtime personal aide and now co-defendant Walt Nauta, who served as Mr Trump’s White House valet and followed him to political exile in Florida when he left the White House in January 2021. The former president arrived at the Wilkie Ferguson Jr Federal Courthouse shortly before 2pm ET on 13 June after traveling with a motorcade and police motorcycle escort from his National Doral Hotel. He was not photographed entering the court complex as he surrendered to authorities; the armoured SUV carrying the former president entered through an underground gate typically reserved as a secure entrance for vehicles transporting defendants in law enforcement custody. Cameras, recording devices and laptops are prohibited from the courtroom. Outside the courthouse following Mr Trump’s arrest, one of his attorneys Alina Habba told reporters in brief remarks that the former president remains “defiant” while condemning what Mr Trump and his allies have characterised as a “two-tiered system of justice, where selective treatment is the norm.” “Today is not about President Donald J Trump, who is defiant,” she said. “It is about the destruction of the long-standing American principles that have set this country apart for so long.” Two of the more experienced criminal defence lawyers in his legal team, James Trusty and John Rowley, resigned from Mr Trump’s federal case last week, hours after a Florida grand jury voted to charge him with 37 separate counts stemming from alleged violations of the Espionage Act and other crimes. Another criminal defence attorney who once represented Mr Trump in the documents probe, Evan Corcoran, stepped away from that role in the wake of a court ruling ordering him to give evidence against the former president before a grand jury and turn over his notes and recordings. A judge invoked a rarely used exception to the attorney-client privilege used in cases where an attorney’s advice is found to have been used to commit crimes. Mr Corcoran’s testimony and evidence figured heavily in Mr Trump’s federal indictment, which detailed his reaction after he was served with a subpoena compelling him to return all documents with classification markings in his possession. Mr Blanche, who represented Mr Trump in his criminal case in Manhattan, and Mr Kise, a former Florida solicitor general who joined the former president’s legal team after the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago last summer, are representing him in his federal case. Mr Trump did not pose for a mugshot or be handcuffed after his surrender to authorities as US Marshals and probation officers began pretrial services. He is scheduled to immediately return to his Bedminster, New Jersey club to deliver remarks before a fundraising event. He similarly returned to his Mar-a-Lago property hours after he appeared in Manhattan criminal court in April to face 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. In his remarks from his estate that night, he lambasted District Attorney Alvin Bragg and the judge overseeing the case, as well as the judge’s family members, and continued his narrative of political persecution. This is a developing story Read More Trump arraignment – live: Trump spared handcuffs at Miami court as he rages at ‘saddest’ day in US history How Trump’s second indictment unfolded: A timeline of the investigation into Mar-a-Lago documents Handcuffs, fingerprints or a mugshot? What to expect as Trump faces arraignment in federal court

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre violated the Hatch Act for using the term "mega MAGA" from the briefing room podium, the US Office of the Special Counsel has determined, and has received a warning letter.

Former President Donald Trump and an aide have arrived at the federal courthouse in downtown Miami to be arrested and arraigned on federal charges.

An emerging defense of former President Donald Trump is that he should not be criminally charged. The federal indictment released on Friday describes him sloppily hoarding classified documents at his private clubs, after all, not selling secrets to a foreign country.

Miami Police blocked off a plaza in front of the Miami courthouse where former President Donald Trump was set to be arraigned. The authorities moved members of the public and the media across the street from the court as a suspicious package was investigated. The all-clear was given shortly after 11.30am on Tuesday. According to Nicole Ninsalata of WSVN, a bomb squad responded to a sidewalk outside the courthouse, where a flatscreen TV with yellow wires coming out of the back was spotted. Protesters and supporters of Mr Trump began clashing ahead of the arraignment with video emerging of arguments where police stepped in. As Mr Trump arrived in Florida on Monday night, footage shared on Twitter appeared to show Trump supporters confronting a man holding anti-Trump signs. Police separated a man wearing a prison costume and holding a sign saying “Lock him up” from the crowd following a confrontation with supporters of the former president. Former Trump White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon appeared worried about anti-Trump protesters during his programme on Real America’s Voice, a rightwing broadcaster. “If you’re asking for trouble, you let these two groups get together because the Never Trump, the anti-Trump and Antifa, BLM, are violent people,” he claimed. “And they’re always there to get in people’s faces. They’re always there to try to pick fights. And I’m just an observer here anchoring in Washington DC, but I gotta tell you, I’m not enthusiastic about what I’m seeing down there on the crowd control. I think that we’re just asking for problems and what we don’t want today are problems.” “This thing we want to get in and out of, and I hope the Miami authorities and others do the job that the NYPD does,” he added in reference to Mr Trump’s arraignment earlier this year in a separate case. On Monday, supporters of Mr Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis were seen outside the courthouse in a shouting match over Covid-19 vaccines and Mr Trump’s response to the pandemic. This comes after Miami officials claimed that they will have everything under control as Mr Trump appears in court. Speaking at a press conference at Miami police headquarter, Mayor Francis Suarez said the city is enacting plans to “make sure that everyone has a right to peacefully express themselves and exercise their constitutional rights” in “an obviously peaceful manner”. “In our city, we obviously believe in the Constitution and believe that people should have the right to express themselves. But we also believe in law and order. And we know that and we hope that tomorrow will be peaceful. “We encourage people to be peaceful in demonstrating how they feel. And we’re going to have the adequate forces necessary to ensure that,” he said. Mr Suarez, who is rumoured to be planning to enter the 2024 Republican presidential primary himself, declined to criticise the ex-president’s rhetoric and said he has not spoken to Mr Trump to ask him to retract his calls for protest, despite the former president’s history of inciting violence. “I have not spoken to him. I don’t have his phone number,” he said. Mr Suarez appeared to compare the events of January 6 and the potential violence that could ensue on Tuesday to the protests that followed the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in the summer of 2020. He said city and state law enforcement officials handled those protests without incident and called the response to those events “a model for how to deal with those protests in the country”. “We did things not to create unnecessary confrontations. We gave people a space to express themselves without unnecessarily creating confrontations. In that moment, in that particular case, we had a curfew that we implemented. We had a variety of different resources that we used, that I thought were different than other cities in America, and they allowed us to deescalate without creating incidents,” he said. “I have full faith and confidence that our department … will have the right action plan and will have the right resources in place. In the right place to make sure that there are no incidents,” he said. But Mr Suarez repeatedly declined to address concerns about the possibility that the same violent extremist groups that responded to Mr Trump’s call for protests in 2021 would again come to support him on Tuesday. He also told reporters there would be no effort to separate protesters and counterprotesters and said law enforcement would not be erecting any hardened barrier around the courthouse because “that’s what freedom of speech is”. Because the courthouse is a federal facility, Department of Homeland Security personnel there began to take some precautions for potential protests on Monday. Outside the building where Mr Trump will be arraigned, marked police vehicles belonging to the Federal Protective could be seen parked strategically in areas not already rendered inaccessible to cars with concrete bollards and other preexisting vehicle barriers, blocking a path from the street onto courthouse property. Groups of FPS officers, some leading explosive detection dogs, could be seen congregating in areas where shade from trees could shield them from the hot Florida sun. Around 10.30am, other officers began positioning moveable barriers and stretching police tape to cordon off a wide swath of the courthouse lawn from public access in preparation for possible demonstrations by Mr Trump’s supporters, should any heed the twice-impeached, twice-indicted ex-president’s call for protests on the day of his arraignment. One FPS officer who asked not to be identified told The Independent that he and his colleagues were hopeful that the crowd would remain peaceful, but said they were aware that things could go south quickly.“We’re prepared for anything but we’re hoping there won’t be any trouble,” he said. Read More Police monitoring online far-right threats and pro-Trump protests with federal indictment: ‘This is war’ Trump arraignment – live: Miami courthouse hit by security scare as Trump tries out wild new defence With Trump on trial, an outrageous president sets another unwelcome precedent

Trump supporters have started to gather outside the Miami courthouse where he will be arraigned later.

Donald Trump will appear in a federal courthouse in Miami Tuesday afternoon for an unprecedented and historic court appearance as the first former president to face federal charges in US history.

Republican Chris Christie is hoping the second time's the charm when it comes to White House runs. The former New Jersey governor took part in a CNN town hall Monday night, less than a week after declaring his bid for the presidency.

Twenty-two US service members have been injured to "various degrees" after a "helicopter mishap" in northeastern Syria, according to a statement released by US Central Command on Monday.

The US Army on Tuesday will officially rename Louisiana's Fort Polk military base, the latest US military installation to be redesignated as part of an effort to strip Confederate leaders of the honor.

Donald Trump will be arraigned today on 37 charges over his handling of classified documents after leaving the White House, as he becomes the first current or former US president to ever face federal criminal charges. The former president will appear for his arraignment at a federal court in the Southern District of Florida at 3pm ET, where he has vowed to plead not guilty to all charges. “I’ll just say ‘not guilty.’ I didn’t do anything wrong,” he told Boston radio show WRKO on Tuesday. Despite his confidence, The Independent exclusively revealed that Mr Trump was struggling to find attorneys willing to defend him in Florida. Miami officials meanwhile are bracing for protests outside the courthouse with Mayor Francis Suarez saying at a press conference that the city is enacting plans to “make sure that everyone has a right to peacefully express themselves and exercise their constitutional rights” in “an obviously peaceful manner”. Several supporters have voiced violent rhetoric online and MAGA loyalists Kari Lake and Laura Loomer, the Proud Boys and at least one Capitol rioter (named Baked Alaska) are expected to descend on Miami in support of the former president. Read More Trump vows to ‘go after’ Biden’s family in bitter Truth Social rant before boarding Miami arraignment jet Trump will face judge in historic court appearance over charges he mishandled secret documents Police monitoring online far-right threats and pro-Trump protests with federal indictment: ‘This is war’