Trump acted outside his duties in pressuring Pence, officials after 2020 election loss: prosecutors
U.S. prosecutors said Donald Trump was acting outside the scope of his duties as president when he pressured state officials and then-U.S. vice-president Mike Pence to try to overturn his 2020 election defeat, in a court filing made public on Wednesday.
The 165-page filing is likely the last opportunity for prosecutors to detail their case against Trump before the Nov. 5 election given there will not be a trial before Trump faces Democratic U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris at the polls.
The filing is meant to keep the federal criminal election subversion case against the Republican presidential candidate moving forward following a July U.S. Supreme Court ruling that former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution for their official actions in office.
Prosecutors working with Special Counsel Jack Smith laid out a sweeping account of Trump’s conduct following the 2020 U.S. election, much of which has already been made public through news reports, findings from the House committee that investigated the Capitol riot or the indictment obtained by Smith in the case.
It includes an allegation that a White House staffer heard Trump tell family members that “it doesn’t matter if you won or lost the election. You still have to fight like hell.”
Trump has pleaded not guilty to four criminal charges accusing him of a conspiracy to obstruct the congressional certification of the election, defraud the U.S. out of accurate results and interfere with Americans’ voting rights.
Interactions with Pence
Much of the filing focuses on Trump’s dealings with then-vice-president and running mate Mike Pence, whom Trump tried to pressure into using his official role overseeing the U.S. Congress’s Jan. 6, 2021, certification of the election results to overturn his defeat.
Trump gave a fiery speech that day before his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, battling police, sending lawmakers running for their lives and chanting “hang Mike Pence.”
Prosecutors allege that when a White House aide told Trump, who was watching news coverage of the riot on TV, that Pence had been taken to a secure location, Trump responded “so what?”
Prosecutors said they did not plan to use that interaction at trial given the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling.
Pence was identified by name throughout the filing. The names of many other members of Trump’s administration, allies and state officials he targeted are blacked out, though details of their locations and actions make their likely identities clear.
The filing shows instances of Trump privately mocking the claims his allies were publicly making on his behalf. For instance, during a phone call with an unidentified lawyer who appears to be Sidney Powell, Trump put her on mute and called her claims “crazy,” the filing said.
Trump rejects prosecutions he faces
It also alleges that on Jan. 1, 2021, Trump warned Pence that people “are gonna hate your guts” and “think you’re stupid” if he didn’t block certification of Democratic U.S. President Joe Biden’s win.
Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung blasted the disclosures, saying, “This entire case is a partisan, Unconstitutional Witch Hunt that should be dismissed entirely, together with ALL of the remaining Democrat hoaxes.”
Trump has rejected this case and multiple other criminal prosecutions he faced this year as politically motivated attempts to prevent him from returning to power.
The filing presents a detailed narrative of the evidence prosecutors intend to use if the case goes to trial, accusing Trump of plotting even before the election to declare victory prematurely, replacing his campaign legal team when they allegedly would not support allegations of voter fraud and attempting to “manipulate” Pence into aiding his effort to hold onto power.
The filing provides details of conversations with senior officials in Trump’s administration, including Pence and White House chief-of-staff Mark Meadows, who appeared before the grand jury during the investigation.
Prosecutors submitted the court filing on Thursday, but U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan had to approve proposed redactions before it was made public.
Trump’s lawyers opposed allowing Smith to issue a sweeping court filing laying out their evidence, arguing it would be inappropriate to do so weeks before the election. They have argued the entire case should be tossed out based on the Supreme Court’s ruling.
Prosecutors included with the court filing snippets of witness interviews, grand jury testimony and evidence collected from search warrants during the investigation. Chutkan is reviewing that material and may make public redacted versions of those documents, though Trump’s lawyers have until Oct. 10 to raise objections to that.
If Trump wins the election, he is likely to direct the U.S. Justice Department to drop the charges.
Prosecutors also highlighted a Twitter post that Trump sent during the Capitol riot saying Pence “didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done” during the congressional certification of the election.
Prosecutors said that post “was not a message sent to address a matter of public concern and ease unrest; it was the message of an angry candidate upon the realization that he would lose power.”
Published at Wed, 02 Oct 2024 22:17:09 +0000
Hezbollah militants, Israeli soldiers engage in deadly fighting inside Lebanon
Israel bombed central Beirut in the early hours of Thursday, after its forces suffered their deadliest day on the Lebanese front in a year of clashes against Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah. Lebanon’s Health Ministry said at least six people were killed.
Israel said it conducted a precise airstrike on Beirut. Reuters witnesses reported hearing a massive blast, and a security source said it targeted a building in central Beirut’s Bachoura neighbourhood close to parliament, the nearest Israeli strikes have come to Lebanon’s seat of government.
At least six people were killed and seven wounded, Lebanese health officials said. A photo being circulated on Lebanese WhatsApp groups, which Reuters could not immediately verify, showed a heavily damaged building with its first floor on fire.
Israel’s aggressive assaults against Hezbollah after killing its leader Hassan Nasrallah have weakened and disoriented the militant group, but it still holds much of its previous territory and remains capable of posing a serious military threat.
Three missiles also hit the southern suburb of Dahiyeh, where Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed last week, and loud explosions were heard, Lebanese security officials said. The southern suburbs came under more than a dozen Israeli strikes on Wednesday.
A day after Iran fired more than 180 missiles into Israel, Israel said on Wednesday eight soldiers were killed in ground combat in south Lebanon as its forces thrust into its northern neighbour.
The Israeli military said regular infantry and armoured units joined its ground operations in Lebanon on Wednesday as Iran’s missile attack and Israel’s promise of retaliation raised concerns that the oil-producing Middle East could be caught up in a wider conflict.
CBC foreign correspondent Chris Brown gets an inside look at some of the damage caused by Iran’s missile strike in Israel.
Iran said on Wednesday its missile attack on Israel, its biggest military assault on the country, was over, barring further provocation, while Israel and the United States promised to hit back.
U.S. President Joe Biden said he would not support any Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear sites in response to its ballistic missile attack and urged Israel to act “proportionally” against its regional arch-foe.
After the missile attack
In the Israeli town of Hod Hasharon, northeast of Tel Aviv, Shmulik Succary walked a CBC News crew through his home.
One of the Iranian missiles launched at Israel on Tuesday landed metres away from the 83-year-old’s home, blowing the windows out and giving him and his family a scare.
Succary said he and his family rushed to the bomb shelter at the bottom of the stairs but, even there, they could hear the sound of the missile hitting the ground nearby.
“The house was trembling,” he said. “The house was under a multitude of glass, pieces of glass … No doors … No windows.”
On Wednesday, Succary was still cleaning up the mess from the missile strike. He said he was angry at many things regarding the Iranian strikes and the upcoming one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack.
“There’s a certain tension of course. It’s a very big mess,” he said.
Speaking on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the new year in Judaism, Succary said that what is supposed to be a happy holiday is now filled with mixed emotions.
“You can start a war, you know its beginning, you never know how it ends,” he said. “And that’s the problem.”
The United Nations said the violence has forced more than a million people in Lebanon out of their homes. Save The Children says that number includes around 350,000 children.
Fidel Saad, who works for Save the Children International in Beirut, says the organization has been supporting families with food security, mental health activities for children and other essential needs.
“The main message for the international community now is ceasefire … we need a ceasefire in both Lebanon and Gaza,” Saad told CBC News Network.
CBC’s Ellen Mauro breaks down why Iran fired roughly 200 ballistic missiles into Israel and the potential consequences for the Middle East.
Hezbollah said it repelled Israeli forces near several border towns and also fired rockets at military posts inside Israel.
The group’s media chief Mohammad Afif said those battles were only “the first round,” and that the group had enough fighters, weapons and ammunition to push back Israel.
Israel’s addition of infantry and armoured troops from the 36th Division, including the Golani Brigade, the 188th Armoured Brigade and 6th Infantry Brigade, suggested that the operation might expand beyond limited commando raids.
The military has said its incursion is largely aimed at destroying tunnels and other infrastructure on the border and there were no plans for a wider operation targeting the Lebanese capital Beirut to the north or major cities in the south.
Nevertheless, it issued new evacuation orders for around two dozen towns along the southern border, instructing inhabitants to head north of the Awali River, which flows east to west some 60 kilometres north of the Israeli frontier.
Diplomatic push for parties to de-escalate
On Wednesday, the UN Security Council held an emergency meeting to address the Middle East conflict, where Secretary General Antonio Guterres said the “deadly cycle of tit-for-tat violence must stop.”
Guterres told the council he strongly condemned Iran’s attack on Israel. Earlier on Wednesday, Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz said he was barring Guterres from entering the country because he had not done so.
Defence Minister Bill Blair says the uptake of commercial flights out of Lebanon by Canadians has been ‘steady.’ Ferial Elkadri, a Canadian in Lebanon who is planning to leave the country for Jordan with her family, says her husband and son are not Canadian, which may complicate her efforts to get them on the flight.
Meanwhile, Italy hosted a call of G7 leaders.
The leaders reiterated their “firm condemnation” of Iran’s attack on Israel.
“Obviously Israel has the right to defend itself against these attacks,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters in Ottawa after the call. “At the same time, we have to do everything we can to avoid a wider war and protect civilians and get humanitarian aid to affected regions.”
Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister pleaded for a ceasefire.
“We don’t need more blood. We don’t need more destruction,” Nijab Mikati said in a briefing organized by the American Task Force for Lebanon, a U.S.-based lobby group.
Displaced Syrian families who fled to Lebanon to escape ISIS are once again being forced to pick up their lives and move, as Israeli forces battle Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.
Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire almost daily for almost a year, after the Palestinian militant group Hamas led a cross-border attack in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli government tallies. The exchanges have seen thousands who live near both sides of the border flee their homes.
Nearly 1,900 people have been killed and more than 9,000 wounded in Lebanon since, most in the past two weeks, according to Lebanese government statistics.
Fears of a wider conflict have seen several countries ramp contingency plans to evacuate citizens from Lebanon, though none has launched a large-scale military evacuation yet.
Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly again urged Canadians in Lebanon to seek commercial flights out of the country.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who spoke Wednesday to G7 leaders about the situation in the Middle East, called Iran a ‘terrorist regime’ and said their actions are putting the region at risk of wider war. ‘As an international community we have to continue to do everything we can to call for peace and stability.’
Global Affairs Canada officials say the department has three more flights out of Lebanon booked for Thursday and Friday, bringing the total number of seats made available for Canadians wanting to leave to about 1,000 after two previous flights departed Beirut.
Joly said Tuesday about 4,000 have filled out an intake form on how to obtain a GAC commercial airline booking, and that about 1,700 have been contacted thus far in response.
Published at Tue, 17 Sep 2024 18:38:40 +0000