Tag Archives: Politics

Trump Pushes For Total Immunity — Including For Events That ‘Cross The Line’

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Former President Donald Trump, who faces federal criminal charges over his unprecedented efforts to overturn his loss in the 2020 presidential election, argued on Thursday that presidents should have complete immunity from prosecution for any crime they may commit while in office.

“EVEN EVENTS THAT ‘CROSS THE LINE’ MUST FALL UNDER TOTAL IMMUNITY, OR IT WILL BE YEARS OF TRAUMA TRYING TO DETERMINE GOOD FROM BAD,” Trump wrote in all capital letters on his social media platform, Truth Social.

He added: “SOMETIMES YOU JUST HAVE TO LIVE WITH ‘GREAT BUT SLIGHTLY IMPERFECT.’ ALL PRESIDENTS MUST HAVE COMPLETE & TOTAL PRESIDENTIAL IMMUNITY, OR THE AUTHORITY & DECISIVENESS OF A PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES WILL BE STRIPPED & GONE FOREVER. HOPEFULLY THIS WILL BE AN EASY DECISION. GOD BLESS THE SUPREME COURT!”

Trump’s lawyers argued in federal court earlier this month that his actions seeking to overturn the 2020 election, leading up to the violent January 6, 2021, attack on Congress, were official acts and that he is, therefore, immune from prosecution by the Justice Department, which has charged him with three counts of conspiracy and one count of obstructing an official proceeding.

However, the US District Court of Appeals judges seemed likely to reject that argument. Trump’s comments on Thursday signaled that he hopes the conservative 6-3 Supreme Court will take up the matter and rule in his favor.

Trump’s bid for total immunity has drawn bipartisan criticism. Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, his leading 2024 presidential primary rival, dismissed it as “ridiculous”, while Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) called it “antithetical to what we all believe in”.

Still, Trump has picked up momentum following his resounding win in the Iowa caucuses earlier this week. He currently has the support of a majority of Senate Republicans, and more are expected to hop on the bandwagon in the coming weeks.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), in his endorsement of Trump last week, said that Trump would almost certainly be the GOP nominee and that Republicans needed to get behind him to oust Democrat Joe Biden from the White House.

“I’ll take the mean tweets,” Lee added, referring to Trump’s rants online. “I choose Trump.”

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‘Hypocrite’ Rishi Sunak Called Out Over Warning To ‘Unelected’ House Of Lords Over Rwanda Bill

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Rishi Sunak has faced a backlash after urging the unelected House of Lords not to block his Rwanda plan.

In a press conference on Thursday, the prime minister pleaded with peers not to “frustrate the will of the people” as he said the UK should be “taking control of our borders”. Both phrase are an echo of Boris Johnson’s Brexit strategy at the 2019 general election.

Sunak, speaking the morning after he saw off a Tory rebellion to win the Commons’ backing for his flagship Safety of Rwanda Bill, said passing the legislation was now “an urgent national priority”.

He said: “There is now only one question: will the opposition in the appointed House of Lords try and frustrate the will of the people as expressed by the elected House or will they get on board and do the right thing? It is as simple as that.”

The draft legislation will now go to the Lords, where its opponents will try to amend it or kill it altogether.

But Sunak was labelled a “hypocrite” for his comments since the prime minister has yet to face the electorate, having become leader of the Conservative Party leader following a ballot of party members, and then only after the failure of the Liz Truss premiership.

Labour MP Jess Phillips said: “The will of the people which Mr Sunak has never actually tested being as he is unelected at the PM. Perhaps he would like to test that will?”

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Therese Coffey’s Rwanda Gaffe Has Become A Meme

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Therese Coffey’s Rwanda gaffe has already become the stuff of legend – inspiring a meme based on her “astonishment”.

The deputy PM under Liz Truss made a geographical blunder on Wednesday in the Commons when MPs were debating the Safety of Rwanda Bill.

The Tory backbencher said: “I have to say I’m somewhat astonished by the speech by the shadow home secretary, who can’t even get the name of the country right, talking about the Kigali government.

“Rwanda is a respected country that has recently been president of the Commonwealth.”

Kigali is, of course, the capital of Rwanda and the country’s largest city, and it is common practice to refer to a national government by talking about the capital of the country.

Coffey later (unconvincingly) tried to cover her tracks …

But the “keyboard snipers” had already got stuck in …

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Tory ‘Rebels’ Face Ridicule After Rwanda Bill Climbdown

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The little Conservative rebellion that couldn’t has been mocked online after failing to bruise Rishi Sunak.

There was breathless talk after 60 Tory MPs voted against the Sunak government in an effort to make the Rwanda asylum legislation tougher. It saw two party deputy chairmen quit their party positions in order to vote against the government on amendments, leading to comment the revolt could spell the end for the 15-month-old administration.

But a day later, despite zero changes to the Safety of Rwanda Bill, a decisive rebellion failed to materialise as Sunak’s troubled policy climbed a significantly parliamentary hurdle – sailing through the Commons with a protest from just 11 Tory MPs.

In the hours before the legislation’s third reading, critics of the bill indicated they would reluctantly vote for it despite many on the party’s powerful right-wing thinking it doesn’t go far enough in deterring migration to the UK.

Westminster has become obsessed with the stalled immigration scheme, often thanks to the Tory party in-fighting that has made for powerful headlines.

But the latest merry-go-round has drawn criticism of the long-running saga – particularly since the factionalism has been self-styled as the Tories split into “Five Families”, a reference to organised crime families made famous in films such as The Godfather.

European Research Group (ERG) chair Mark Francois has been among the big thorn in Sunak’s side, but now social media has had quite enough.

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Rishi Sunak Sees Off Tory Rebels As Commons Backs His Rwanda Plan

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MPs have backed Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda plan as a threatened Tory rebellion fizzled out.

The House of Commons voted 320 to 276 to support the Safety of Rwanda Bill, which the prime minister says will see deportation flights to the east African country finally get off the ground.

The result will come as a huge relief to the PM, who last night suffered his biggest rebellion since entering Downing Street.

Around 60 MPs defied the Tory whip to back amendments aimed at toughening up the legislation to allow ministers to ignore European court rulings and make it more difficult for asylum seekers to appeal against deportation.

However, just 11 of them voted against the entire bill this evening, handing the government a comfortable majority of 44.

The bill will now go to the House of Lords, where it may be amended by opponents of the Rwanda policy, before it returns to the Commons.

That could potentially set up a fresh battle after the rebel Tories said they would then table a fresh set of amendments to toughen it up again.

Sunak hopes that once it is on the statute books, the new law will allow flights to Rwanda to take off in the spring and form a key part of his pledge to “stop the boats” carrying asylum seekers across the Channel.

However, any deportations are certain to be appealed against, teeing up yet more legal wrangling which would delay the flights once again.

Lib Dem home affairs spokesman Alistair Carmichael said: Tonight is no victory for Rishi Sunak, no matter how he might try to twist it.

“Days of Conservative chaos and infighting has left the prime minister’s authority shot. He has proved again and again that he cannot lead his own party, let alone the country.”

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Tories Mocked For ‘Better Call Keir’ Attack On Starmer

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The Conservative Party has faced ridicule after likening Keir Starmer to Bob Odenkirk’s character in the hit US TV show Better Call Saul.

Highlighting the Labour leader’s time as a criminal defence barrister is gearing up to be one of the Tory election attack lines in the run-up to this year’s vote.

At prime minister’s questions on Wednesday, Rishi Sunak raised Starmer’s decision to advise the soon-to-be-banned Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir during his legal career.

Labour has said Starmer had been asked to give advice to Hizb ut-Tahri in a legal dispute between the group and the German government.

He did not formally represent them, moving on to become director of public prosecutions shortly after, they said.

But the Conservative party later doubled down on the messaging, putting out a message on social media that brought Saul Goodman – the notorious fictional criminal lawyer played by Odenkirk – into play.

It read: “Are you a terrorist in need of legal advice? Better call Keir.”

The post from the Tories on X, formerly Twitter, also said: “When Rishi Sunak sees a group chanting jihad on our streets, he bans them. Keir Starmer invoices them.”

But the attempt to undermine Starmer was soon disparaged – with many pointing out that lawyers may not withhold their services based on a client’s conduct, opinions or beliefs, and that somehow the Tories have even managed to boost Starmer’s image.

And a community note attached to the post added that Starmer “went on to prosecute terrorists with links to Hizb ut-Tahrir as director of public prosecutions”, and continued: “There’s is no evidence he invoiced them. Barristers may not withhold services based on a client’s conduct.”

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Mary Trump Flags ‘Major’ Setback For Her Uncle Despite Iowa Success

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Mary Trump noted that Monday wasn’t all good news for her uncle Donald Trump.

In her Substack newsletter, she pointed out that one of the former president’s attorneys, Joe Tacopina, had filed notices that day seeking the withdrawal of his law firm from representing Donald Trump. Tacopina withdrew from two cases in New York: a criminal trial over alleged falsification of business records, and an appeal of the verdict in a civil lawsuit brought by writer E Jean Carroll. Donald Trump has denied wrongdoing in both cases.

Tacopina told ABC News that he had withdrawn “on all matters” but did not comment on his reasons.

“On what everyone knew was supposed to be a day of victory for Donald in Iowa, this loss will still be burning in his mind,” Mary Trump wrote in the newsletter, The Good in Us.

Donald Trump swept the Iowa caucuses Monday with a commanding victory, winning 98 of 99 counties and cementing his front-runner status in the race for the GOP’s presidential nomination.

“It’s not unusual for Donald to go through lawyers at an alarming rate, but Tacopina’s high profile status shows just how dysfunctional Donald’s ‘defense’ really is,” wrote Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist, author and outspoken critic of her uncle.

Tacopina’s withdrawal was announced ahead of Tuesday morning’s jury selection in a second defamation trial tied to Carroll’s allegations that Donald Trump raped her in the 1990s. A jury found him liable for defaming and sexually abusing Carroll last year, though it didn’t find that Trump had raped her.

The former president recently told The New York Times that he wished to testify in the second trial and that Tacopina, who represented him in the first, had advised him not to last time.

Mary Trump suggested that her uncle’s decision to speak in court last week at the end of a separate civil fraud trial, in which Trump has also denied wrongdoing, might’ve played a role in Tacopina’s departure.

“After Donald’s disastrous closing argument in his New York fraud trial, it’s no wonder that Tacopina wanted to distance himself from Donald’s penchant for self-destruction behavior,” she wrote.

“Losing just one key lawyer could have a devastating impact on a case, but not only is Tacopina dumping Donald as a client — his entire firm is leaving,” she added, calling such a move a “major set back for any defense”.

In his business records case, Donald Trump faces 34 felony charges from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in connection to a hush money payment made to porn actor Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election.

He traveled to New York after the caucuses to attend the Carroll trial on Tuesday.

In a statement to Reuters about Tacopina’s departure, a spokesperson for the former president said that he “has the most experienced, qualified, disciplined, and overall strongest legal team ever assembled”.

Read more of Mary Trump’s analysis on Substack.

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Will Donald Trump Be The Republican Presidential Nominee?

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Donald Trump’s sweeping victory in the Iowa caucus underlined his grip on the race to be the Republican presidential nomination in this year’s general election. But does his dominance in the first contest mean that he’s certain to be the Grand Old Party’s pick to take on Joe Biden in November?

What happened?

On a perilously-cold day in America’s Midwest, Trump secured a roughly 30-point win over his rivals – smashing the record for a contested Iowa Republican caucus with a margin of victory exceeding Bob Dole’s nearly 13-percentage-point victory in 1988. Florida governor Ron DeSantis finished a distant second, just ahead of former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley.

According to the entrance polls conducted by major media organisations, he won every demographic group imaginable: the college-educated and those without a degree; men and women; urban, suburban and rural voters; and evangelical Christians. The only groups he didn’t win were moderates, who went with Haley, and voters ages 17 to 29, who backed DeSantis.

But it’s only the start of a months-long campaign across all 50 US states.

At stake was Iowa’s 40 delegates to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this summer, with Trump’s victory meaning he secured 20 delegates. It’s minuscule in the grand scheme of outright victory – 1,215 delegates are needed to win a simple majority and the Republican standard bearer. Primary and caucus votes continue until June, meaning there’s still a long way to go. But the win hands Trump momentum going into the next battle.q

US presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump won the Republican party's Iowa caucus, which marked the beginning of the 2024 presidential contest.
US presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump won the Republican party’s Iowa caucus, which marked the beginning of the 2024 presidential contest.

Anadolu via Getty Images

What next?

New Hampshire will hold the first-in-the-nation primary on January 23, with the Republican field likely to have thinned out by then. Conservative entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy suspended his campaign after a disappointing fourth place finish in Iowa and endorsed Trump.

Is the nomination inevitable?

There are a number of moving parts that will help determine how much to read into the Iowa result.

Trump’s main rival

The magnitude of Trump’s victory poses significant questions for both DeSantis and Haley: each took just enough of the vote to insist they were his main rival in New Hampshire, ensuring the field will remain divided against him. The picture will remain unclear until the race is whittled down to the last two.

Trump’s election track record

Questions still remain about whether Trump has enough broad appeal to beat Biden. He lost to Biden in 2020 after fuelling near-constant chaos while in the White House, culminating with his supporters carrying out a deadly attack on the US Capitol. The disappointing midterm election results in 2022 saw the majority of the candidates he endorsed defeated, and he is still broadly unpopular with the national electorate.

Court challenges

Trump is facing four separate criminal indictments The US Supreme Court is weighing whether states have the ability to block Trump from the ballot for his role in sparking the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol. And he’s facing criminal trials in Washington and Atlanta for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. In total, he faces 91 felony charges across four criminal cases.

But Trump’s legal challenges appear to have done little damage to his reputation. Heading to court voluntarily has been a strategy designed to portray him as a victim of a politicised legal system, boosting his “anti-hero” status.

The next set of voting

New Hampshire, the next state to go to the polls, will be a tougher test. Some polling there shows Haley is within striking distance, and it is filled with the moderate, college-educated voters who are Trump’s weak point.

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Lee Anderson And Brendan Clarke-Smith Quit As Tory Deputy Chairmen

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Lee Anderson and Brendan Clarke-Smith have quit as Tory deputy chairmen to rebel over Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda bill.

The move came just minutes before the pair joined around 60 Conservative MPs in backing amendments aimed at toughening up the flagship legislation.

An amendment tabled by veteran Conservative backbencher Bill Cash, which would have allowed the government to defy international law, was defeated by 529 votes to 68.

A second amendment in the name of former immigration minister Robert Jenrick, which would have made it harder for those facing deportation to appeal, was also defeated by 525 votes to 58.

If only half the Tory rebels vote with the opposition parties against the full bill when it comes back to the Commons tomorrow, it will be killed and Sunak’s premiership will be in tatters.

Anderson, the controversial MP for Ashfield, was appointed deputy chairman in February last year.

Fellow Red Wall MP Clarke-Smith only took up the post two months ago.

In a joint resignation letter to the PM, they said: “We commend your work on illegal immigration so far and your commitment to implementing the will of the British people.

“The last thing either of us wants to do is to distract from this.”

However, they suggested that despite their support for the rebel amendments aimed a strengthening the bill, they will still vote for the legislation in its entirety when it comes back to the Commons tomorrow.

Lib Dem home affairs spokesman Alistair Carmichael said: “Sunak’s Rwanda scheme just won’t work – and even the deputy chairmen of his own party know it.

“Rishi Sunak has yet again been embarrassed by his own MPs.

“If the prime minister can’t even settle squabbles in his own party, how can he be expected to run the country?”

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Rishi Sunak’s Poll Guru Tells Tory MPs To Unite Or Lose Election

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Rishi Sunak’s election guru has warned Tory MPs they need to “get serious” or face being kicked out of government.

Isaac Levido warned that voters would punish the warring party after a new poll showed Labour are on course for a landslide victory later this year.

The YouGov survey, commissioned by Tory donors calling themselves the Conservative British Alliance said Keir Starmer would enter No.10 with a 120-seat majority.

At a special meeting of the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers this evening, Levido accused those behind the poll of “throwing in the towel”.

He said: “Let me be clear. Divided parties fail. It’s time to get serious – I am fighting to win this election, and I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t believe it was possible. We all need to be be fighting to win this election.

“People do not want Starmer. They are looking for reasons to vote for us. We must not give them any more reasons not to.”

His comments came as the prime minister faces a growing Tory rebellion over his flagship Rwanda bill.

Two deputy party chairmen, Lee Anderson and Brendan Clarke-Smith, risked the sack by announcing they will support rebel amendments aimed at making the legislation tougher.

Up to 70 Tory MPs are set to back the proposed changes, which would allow ministers to ignore rulings by the European Court of Human Rights.

Earlier, former cabinet minister Simon Clarke said the bill was currently “riddled with holes” and he would vote against it unless it is changed.

The bill returns to the Commons on Tuesday and Wednesday for MPs to debate and vote on it.

Clarke, who served under Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, said: “I have been clear with the whips that if the bill goes forward unamended, I will be unable to offer it my support.

Sunak today insisted he was willing to talk to the rebels, but stopped short of saying he would accept any of their amendments.

He told GB News: “I’ve always said that I’m happy to have a dialogue with anyone who thinks they might have an idea that will improve the effectiveness of the bill whilst making sure that it’s still legally compliant and maintains Rwanda’s participation in the scheme.

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