Monday, Sep 30th
Last update06:05:09 AM GMT
Political Glance
According to Advance Democracy, the addresses and phone numbers of Cohen’s wife and children were posted on a website on Monday, days after the non-profit group warned of a high volume of social media posts containing violent rhetoric targeting the New York judge Juan Merchan and the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, each of whom played key roles in Trump’s conviction.
In a speech to union workers today in Philadelphia, the vice-president, Kamala Harris, said the use of the term “unified reich” in a video posted by Donald Trump was “appalling”.“In this moment, extremists are trying to divide our nation, and we see them as they encourage xenophobia and hate,” Harris said.
“This kind of rhetoric is unsurprising coming from the former president and it is appalling. And we’ve got to tell him who we are. And once again it shows that our freedom and our very democracy are at stake.”
Joe Biden was also asked about the remark as he campaigned in New Hampshire.
Voters in Colorado will have a say on abortion rights this fall after supporters collected enough valid signatures to put a measure on the ballot, part of a national push to pose abortion rights questions to voters since the US supreme court removed the nationwide right to abortion.
The Colorado measure officially made the ballot on Friday and would enshrine abortion rights into the constitution in a state which already allows abortion at all stages of pregnancy despite the supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade.
Since that 2022 decision, most Republican-controlled states have new abortion restrictions in effect, including 14 that ban it at every stage of pregnancy. Most Democratic-led states have laws or executive orders to protect access.
Democrat Angela Alsobrooks will face off against former Republican governor Larry Hogan in the Maryland Senate race this November, setting up an unexpectedly competitive election in the reliably Democratic state. Republicans have a rare opportunity to flip a Senate seat in Maryland, and the outcome of that race could determine control of the upper chamber in November.
Alsobrooks and Hogan won their parties’ Senate primaries on Tuesday, as Maryland voters cast ballots in the presidential race as well as congressional elections. Joe Biden and Donald Trump easily won the state’s primaries after already securing enough delegates to capture their parties’ nominations.
Leaders of both parties were closely watching the results of the Senate contests, as the retirement of Senator Ben Cardin has created an opening for Republicans to potentially capture the seat, thanks to Hogan’s late entry into the race. A Hogan victory would mark the first time that a Republican has won a Maryland Senate election since 1980, and it could erase Democrats’ narrow majority in the chamber.
Donald Trump insider Paul Manafort will no longer be assisting party officials ahead of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this July.
Manafort, Trump’s 2016 campaign chairman, who the former president later pardoned, announced he was going to “stick to the sidelines” in a statement on Saturday following criticism of his unofficial role with the campaign.
“As a longtime, staunch supporter of President Trump and given my nearly 50 years experience in managing presidential conventions, I was offering my advice and suggestions to the Trump campaign on the upcoming convention in a volunteer capacity,” Manafort told The New York Times in a statement provided by the Trump campaign.
“However, it is clear that the media wants to use me as a distraction to try and harm President Trump and his campaign by recycling old news. And I won’t let the media do that,” he continued. “So, I will stick to the sidelines and support President Trump every other way I can.”
Former President Donald Trump’s historic criminal trial is now in its third week of proceedings.
Trump is facing 34 criminal counts related to his alleged efforts to conceal $130,000 in hush money paid in 2016 to silence allegations of an extramarital affair with adult film actor Stormy Daniels. Daniels is expected to testify in the trial, as is Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney, who previously served jail time for his role in facilitating the payment.
Last week, the jury heard from former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, who testified about conversations he had with Cohen regarding the Daniels payment. He also detailed his publication’s efforts to “catch and kill” unflattering stories about Trump, including allegations by former Playboy model Karen McDougal that she had an affair with Trump from 2006 to 2007.
Judge Merchan found Trump in contempt of court and fined him $9,000 for nine posts that attacked people involved in the trial. He had to delete the content in question and faces jail time should he ignore the order again.
Fifteen prominent historians filed an amicus brief with the US supreme court, rejecting Donald Trump’s claim in his federal election subversion case that he is immune to criminal prosecution for acts committed as president.
Authorities cited in the document include the founders Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Adams, in addition to the historians’ own work.
Trump, the historians said, “asserts that a doctrine of permanent immunity from criminal liability for a president’s official acts, while not expressly provided by the constitution, must be inferred. To justify this radical assertion, he contends that the original meaning of the constitution demands it. But no plausible historical case supports his claim.”
Trump faces four federal election subversion charges, arising from his attempt to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden in 2020, fueled by his lie about electoral fraud and culminating in the deadly attack on Congress of 6 January 2021.
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