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Pam Bondi ‘fired’ as attorney general: report
President Donald Trump has reportedly already fired Attorney General Pam Bondi.
According to Fox News correspondent Katelyn Caralle, the president met with Bondi on Wednesday night to inform her that her time was up. The meeting was said to have taken place ahead of his speech to the nation on the war in Iran.
"One of those sources said that by the time Trump took his place behind the podium for the address, Bondi had already lost her job and was on her way back to Florida," the report claimed.
Trump was reportedly considering EPA chief Lee Zeldin for Bondi's job, according to various reports.
MAGA county clerk will get new sentence in 2020 election plot
An appeals court tossed out a nine-year sentence for discredited Colorado election clerk Tina Peters.
The Donald Trump ally will be re-sentenced by a district court judge after the Colorado Court of Appeals upheld her conviction but found that Mesa County District Court Judge Matthew Barrett had wrongly based part of his sentence on Peters’ exercise of her right to free speech, reported the Denver Post.
“Notwithstanding the fact that some of the trial court’s considerations were tied to proper sentencing considerations, when the court’s comments are viewed in their totality, it is apparent that the court imposed the lengthy sentence it did because Peters continued to espouse the views that led her to commit these crimes,” the opinion states.
The "tenor" of Barrett's original sentencing order indicates that he "punished" Peters for her persistence in insisting the 2020 election had been fraudulent and that keeping her in prison was necessary to prevent her from espousing views the judge felt were "damaging," and the appeals court sent the case back to him for a resentencing.
The appellate court found there was sufficient evidence to convict Peters and that she was not immune to state prosecution, and the judges also found that a purported pardon from Trump carried no authority under Colorado law.
The court denied Peters' request that a new judge resentence her, saying that issue should be raised in a lower court, and ruled that a prosecutor’s description of her case during closing arguments had no impact on the verdict.
“The evidence of her knowledge of the illegality of her conduct is so overwhelming, we simply cannot say that the prosecutor’s statement (even if improper) had any impact on the verdict, let alone an impact so great as to cause serious doubt about the reliability of the judgment of conviction,” the panel found.
Peters, now 70, was convicted by a Mesa County jury of four felony and three misdemeanor crimes for plotting to sneak unauthorized individuals into a secure area to examine voting equipment to look for evidence of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
Trump to appear in court to face 2020 election charges
Trump’s January 6 arraignment is his biggest court date yet.
Former President Donald Trump is expected to appear in a Washington, DC, federal court Thursday for his arraignment in the case concerning his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
As the result of an investigation led by Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith, Trump was charged Tuesday with four counts: conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.
Trump is expected to plead not guilty to the charges given that his lawyers have already publicly argued that his false statements about the 2020 election constituted First Amendment-protected speech. If convicted, he could face up to five years in prison for conspiring to defraud the US, 20 years for each of the obstruction-related charges, and 10 years for the conspiracy against rights charge.
It’s the third time that Trump has had to appear in court to face the unprecedented 78 total criminal counts against him. He remains the only president to have faced any criminal charges, let alone federal charges. Unlike in the previous cases against him, however, the latest indictment has overt consequences on US democracy and the upcoming 2024 election.
Here’s what you need to know about what to expect.
Will Trump be arrested or jailed?
Trump is not expected to be jailed following his arraignment, following a pattern established by his previous arraignments in New York and Miami. Trump was previously fingerprinted in those cases but was not put in handcuffs and did not have his mugshot taken. There were cameras allowed in the courtroom in New York, but not in Miami. He was also allowed to return home following both arraignments.
How are authorities preparing for Trump’s appearance?
DC and federal authorities have been ramping up security measures ahead of Trump’s expected court appearance. They have reportedly closed streets near the courthouse and have been setting up a barrier around it. The US Marshals Service has also increased personal security measures for judges involved in Trump’s case.
Though there is no sign that Trump’s supporters are planning any major events in Washington Thursday, SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors online extremism, has reported online discussion of a “civil war” and “armed revolution” since the indictment dropped.
What are the charges against him, again?
Trump faces charges for both conspiracy and obstruction. Conspiracy, in general, refers to a plot involving at least two people (in this case, Trump and six unnamed “co-conspirators”) to do something illegal (in this case, trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election). Conspiracy of rights, the final charge, is an organized plot to deprive someone of a constitutional right; here, the right to vote. Obstruction generally refers to an illegal attempt to stop a legal process; in the indictment, that’s the certification of the 2020 electoral votes.
The indictment argues Trump and a group of allies that the document refers to as his “co-conspirators” knew their claims that the 2020 election was stolen were false, but that they spread them anyway — and even launched a “criminal scheme” to support them.
The indictment delves into the first count at length. It centers on that “criminal scheme,” which it claims involved a prolonged pressure and influence campaign that targeted state politicians in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, and Arizona. When no politician would help him overturn the election, the indictment says Trump went on to use “dishonesty, fraud, and deceit” to assemble a slate of unlawful Electoral College electors in seven states, and that he and his allies lied to many electors to get them to go along with the plan. Then, Trump tried to use the powers of the executive branch — both those given to the Department of Justice and the vice president — to stay in power. Finally, the indictment places the violence of January 6 at Trump’s feet.
The other three counts are addressed in brief. The second count accuses Trump of planning to stop the certification of the electoral vote; the third, of him actually stopping the vote, and the fourth, of conspiring with others to disenfranchise Americans.
“Each of these conspiracies—which built on the widespread mistrust [Trump] was creating through pervasive and destabilizing lies about election fraud—targeted a bedrock function of the United States federal government: the nation’s process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election,” the indictment reads.
What happens after Trump’s arraignment?
As with the cases against Trump in New York and Florida, the January 6 case could extend well into the 2024 campaign season — or even beyond the election.
Smith has sought a speedy trial in the classified documents case, which is currently scheduled for May 2024, and said in a news conference Tuesday that he also intends to do so in the January 6 case. (Trump, on the other hand, had pushed to delay the trial in the documents case later than the 2024 election to accommodate his campaign calendar.)
Kevin O’Brien, a former federal prosecutor in New York, said it’s unclear whether the January 6 case can feasibly be decided before the 2024 election. It is bigger in scope and therefore may take longer to resolve, but also carries significant public interest.
“The subject matter has had direct implications for our democratic process. And you can argue the voters should be exposed to that evidence and know [the jury verdict] in that case,” he said.
If Trump wins the 2024 election, then it “would be a brouhaha,” O’Brien said. Any unresolved federal charges would likely become moot under the longstanding DOJ policy that a sitting president cannot be indicted. But if he’s convicted before assuming office, that would create a constitutional question: whether he could later pardon himself.
Correction, August 3, 12 pm ET: A previous version of this story referred to Trump being indicted on Monday; he was indicted on Tuesday, August 1.
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Pam Bondi ‘fired’ as attorney general: report
President Donald Trump has reportedly already fired Attorney General Pam Bondi.
According to Fox News correspondent Katelyn Caralle, the president met with Bondi on Wednesday night to inform her that her time was up. The meeting was said to have taken place ahead of his speech to the nation on the war in Iran.
"One of those sources said that by the time Trump took his place behind the podium for the address, Bondi had already lost her job and was on her way back to Florida," the report claimed.
Trump was reportedly considering EPA chief Lee Zeldin for Bondi's job, according to various reports.
MAGA county clerk will get new sentence in 2020 election plot
An appeals court tossed out a nine-year sentence for discredited Colorado election clerk Tina Peters.
The Donald Trump ally will be re-sentenced by a district court judge after the Colorado Court of Appeals upheld her conviction but found that Mesa County District Court Judge Matthew Barrett had wrongly based part of his sentence on Peters’ exercise of her right to free speech, reported the Denver Post.
“Notwithstanding the fact that some of the trial court’s considerations were tied to proper sentencing considerations, when the court’s comments are viewed in their totality, it is apparent that the court imposed the lengthy sentence it did because Peters continued to espouse the views that led her to commit these crimes,” the opinion states.
The "tenor" of Barrett's original sentencing order indicates that he "punished" Peters for her persistence in insisting the 2020 election had been fraudulent and that keeping her in prison was necessary to prevent her from espousing views the judge felt were "damaging," and the appeals court sent the case back to him for a resentencing.
The appellate court found there was sufficient evidence to convict Peters and that she was not immune to state prosecution, and the judges also found that a purported pardon from Trump carried no authority under Colorado law.
The court denied Peters' request that a new judge resentence her, saying that issue should be raised in a lower court, and ruled that a prosecutor’s description of her case during closing arguments had no impact on the verdict.
“The evidence of her knowledge of the illegality of her conduct is so overwhelming, we simply cannot say that the prosecutor’s statement (even if improper) had any impact on the verdict, let alone an impact so great as to cause serious doubt about the reliability of the judgment of conviction,” the panel found.
Peters, now 70, was convicted by a Mesa County jury of four felony and three misdemeanor crimes for plotting to sneak unauthorized individuals into a secure area to examine voting equipment to look for evidence of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
