Politics

Former Donald Trump attorney Sidney Powell has pleaded guilty in the Georgia election subversion case, one day before her trial was set to start.

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Former Donald Trump attorney Sidney Powell has pleaded guilty in the Georgia election subversion case, one day before her trial was set to start.

Fulton County prosecutors are recommending a sentence of six years probation. Powell will also be required to testify at future trials and write an apology letter to the citizens of Georgia.

As part of her guilty plea, Powell is admitting her role in the January 2021 breach of election systems in rural Coffee County, Georgia. With the help of local GOP officials, a group of Trump supporters accessed and copied information from the county’s election systems in hopes of somehow proving that the election was rigged against Trump.

Her attorneys had vehemently rejected prosecutors’ claims that she orchestrated the Coffee County breach. They’ve said at pretrial hearings that prosecutors are “incorrect” and that “the evidence will show that she was not the driving force behind” the incident.

Powell is now the second person in the sprawling racketeering case to plead guilty. Bail bondsman Scott Hall last month pleaded guilty and agreed to testify at future trials. The other 17 defendants, including Trump, have pleaded not guilty.

Pro-Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro’s trial is slated to begin Friday with jury selection.

The Federal Communications Commission today voted to move ahead with a plan that would restore net neutrality rules and common-carrier regulation of Internet service providers.

In a 3-2 party-line vote, the FCC approved Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), which seeks public comment on the broadband regulation plan. The comment period will officially open after the proposal is published in the Federal Register, but the docket is already active and can be found here.

Jordan’s struggle had prompted increasing calls from both parties to expand the powers of the interim speaker to overcome the Republican’s intraparty morass.

Fifteen days after Kevin McCarthy was removed as House Speaker, the chamber remains at a standstill and will not hold another vote to find a leader on Wednesday, a source familiar with the situatio…

Jordan lost the second round of votes Wednesday when 22 Republicans voted against him -- two more votes against him than Tuesday’s first-round vote.

No international, national or local issue is more important than global warming. Voters and candidates must treat it that way.

Mississippi Sen. Kathy Chism, R-New Albany, said the Legislature should not have retired the Confederate-themed state flag.

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump’s top corporate deputies considered adding a “presidential premium” when calculating the value of his Trump Tower penthouse, Mar-a-Lago resort and other assets during his White House years, a gambit that would’ve padded his net worth by nearly $145 million, an executive at the former president’s company testified Friday.

Trump Organization Assistant Vice President Patrick Birney said at Trump’s New York civil fraud trial that they ended up scrapping the idea, but state lawyers contend that merely going through the exercise underscores how Trump and his underlings were intent on finding ways to puff up his net worth.

Trump was expected to return to court for the trial next week when fixer-turned-foe Michael Cohen was scheduled to take the witness stand, though Cohen said late Friday that he needed to attend to a medical condition that might delay the showdown. Cohen said he would testify “at the earliest opportunity.”

Birney was testifying at the end of the second week of a non-jury trial in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ fraud lawsuit. He is the third Trump Organization executive to take the witness stand, following former Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg and Senior Vice President and former Controller Jeffrey McConney.

Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) had a fiery exchange with reporters Friday about the House’s ongoing dilemma, blaming Democratic members for bringing “chaos to Congress.”

After House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) was nominated for the top position on Friday evening, lawmakers went on recess for the weekend without bringing a vote to the House floor.

CNN’s Manu Raju questioned McCarthy on whether acting Speaker Patrick Henry (R-N.C.) should take on more power since the House’s divisiveness has stalled Congress. Deflecting the question, the California Republican shifted blame to the Democrats for the Speakership drama.

“So they’ve really stymied, they brought chaos in … Congress and now they’ve tried to stymie our ability to have continuity of Congress, which I think is a real problem, what the Democrats have done,” McCarthy said.

Inside the network of sedition hunters driving the largest investigation in FBI history.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans on Wednesday nominated Rep. Steve Scalise to be the next House speaker and will now try to unite around the conservative in a floor vote to elect him after ousting Rep. Kevin McCarthy from the post.

In private balloting at the Capitol, House Republicans pushed aside Rep. Jim Jordan, the Judiciary Committee chairman, in favor of Scalise, the current majority leader, lawmakers said. The Louisiana lawmaker is seen as a hero to some after surviving a mass shooting on lawmakers at a congressional baseball game practice few years ago.

Republicans who have been stalemated after McCarthy’s removal will seek to assemble their narrow House majority around Scalise in what is certain to be a close vote of the full House. Democrats are set to oppose the Republican nominee.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Stalemated over a new House speaker, the Republican majority is meeting behind closed doors Wednesday to try to choose a new leader, but lawmakers warn it could take hours, if not days, to unite behind a nominee after Kevin McCarthy’s ouster.

The two leading contenders, Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio, appear to be splitting the vote among their Republican colleagues. McCarthy, who had openly positioned himself to reclaim the job he just lost, told fellow GOP lawmakers not to nominate him this time.

“I don’t know how the hell you get to 218,” said Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, referring to the majority vote typically needed in the 435-member House to become speaker. “It could be a long week.”

It’s an extraordinary moment of political chaos that has brought the House to a standstill at a time of uncertainty at home and crisis abroad, just 10 months after Republicans swept to power. Aspiring to operate as a team and run government more like a business, the GOP majority has drifted far from that goal with the unprecedented ouster of a speaker.

Americans are watching. One-quarter of Republicans say they approve of the decision by a small group of Republicans to remove McCarthy as speaker. Three in 10 Republicans believe it was a mistake, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

The hard-right coalition of lawmakers that ousted McCarthy, R-Calif., has shown what an oversize role a few lawmakers can have in choosing his successor.

“I am not thrilled with either choice right now,” said Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., who voted to oust McCarthy.

Both Scalise and Jordan are working furiously to shore up support. Both are easily winning over dozens of supporters and could win a majority of the 221 Republicans.

But it’s unclear whether either Scalise or Jordan can amass the votes that would be needed from almost all Republicans to overcome opposition from Democrats during a floor vote in the narrowly split House. Usually, the majority needed would be 218 votes, but there are currently two vacant seats, dropping the threshold to 217.

Many Republicans want to prevent the spectacle of a messy House floor fight like the grueling January brawl when McCarthy became speaker.

“People are not comfortable going to the floor with a simple majority and then having C-SPAN and the rest of the world watch as we have this fight,” said Rep. Kat Cammack, R-Fla. “We want to have this family fight behind closed doors.”

Some have proposed a rules change that Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., the interim speaker pro tempore, is considering to ensure a majority vote before the nominee is presented for a full floor vote.

McCarthy himself appeared to agree with a consensus approach. “They shouldn’t come out of there until they decide that they have enough votes for whoever they bring to the floor,” McCarthy said.

But short of a rules change, Republican lawmakers would be expected to agree to a majority-wins process — whichever candidate wins the internal private vote would be given the full backing of the Republicans on the floor.

It’s no guarantee. Scalise and Jordan indicated they would support the eventual nominee, lawmakers said. But many lawmakers remained undecided.

While both are conservatives from the right flank, neither Scalise nor Jordan is the heir apparent to McCarthy, who was removed in a push by the far-right flank after the speaker led Congress to approve legislation that averted a government shutdown.

Scalise, as the second-ranking Republican, would be next in line for speaker and is seen as a hero among colleagues for having survived severe injuries from a mass shooting during a congressional baseball practice in 2017. He is now battling blood cancer.

“We’re going to go get this done,” Scalise said as he left a candidate forum Tuesday night. “The House is going to get back to work.”

Jordan is a high-profile political firebrand known for his close alliance with Donald Trump, particularly when the then-president was working to overturn the results of the 2020 election, leading to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Trump has backed Jordan’s bid for the gavel.

Scalise and Jordan presented similar views at the forum about cutting spending and securing the southern border with Mexico, top Republican priorities.

Several lawmakers, including Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who engineered McCarthy’s ouster, said they would be willing to support either Scalise or Jordan.

Others though, particularly more centrist conservative Republicans from districts that are narrowly split between the parties, are holding out for another choice.

“Personally, I’m still with McCarthy,” said Rep. David Valadao, a Republican who represents a California district not far from McCarthy’s.

“We’ll see how that plays out, but I do know a large percentage of the membership wants to be there with him as well.”

“I think it’s important whoever takes that job is willing to risk the job for doing what’s right for the American public,” McCarthy said.

For now, McHenry is effectively in charge. He has shown little interest in expanding his power beyond the role he was assigned — an interim leader tasked with ensuring the election of the next speaker.

The role was created in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to ensure the continuity of government. McHenry’s name was at the top of a list submitted by McCarthy when he became speaker in January.

While some Republicans, and Democrats are open to empowering McHenry the longer he holds the temporary position, that seems unlikely as the speaker’s fight drags on.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is dropping out of the Democratic primary race against Joe Biden to launch an independent campaign for president next year, he said in a speech on Monday.

Speaking to a crowd in front of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, he cast his decision to leave the party his family has symbolized for decades as in keeping with American values of individualism -- and his own platform, which mixes liberal policy priorities with tougher rhetoric on immigration and controversial claims about public health.

"Something is stirring in us. It says, 'It doesn't have to be this way,'" Kennedy said. "People stop me everywhere, at airports and hotels and malls on the street, and they remind me that this country is ready for a history-making change. ... They are ready to reclaim their freedom, their independence. And that's why I'm here today. I'm here to declare myself an independent candidate … for president of the United States."

"I'm coming here today to declare our independence from the journey of corruption, which robs us of affordable lives, our belief in the future and our respect for each other. But to do that, I must first declare my own independence, independence from the Democratic Party," he said.

An attorney and activist, Kennedy is the scion of one of the country's most famous Democratic families: His father is slain Sen. Robert F. Kennedy Sr. and his uncle is former President John F. Kennedy.
PHOTO: Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. speaks during a campaign event at Independence Mall, Oct. 9, 2023, in Philadelphia.

Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. speaks during a campaign event at Independence Mall, Oct. 9, 2023, in Philadelphia.

Matt Rourke/AP

The younger Kennedy in April launched a long shot bid against Biden for the 2024 Democratic nomination.

Since then, however, Kennedy has attracted relatively little support from Democrats in national polling, according to 538, though he has drawn millions in donations from a base of supporters.

An independent bid is a new twist in next year's election -- at a time when surveys consistently show voters have soured on a potential rematch between Biden and former President Donald Trump -- though it's not yet clear if Kennedy can draw enough voters away from the two-party system.

Teasing his Philadelphia speech last week as one that would create a “sea change in American politics,” Kennedy’s announcement follows mounting speculation about his future in the party after repeatedly sparring with the Democratic National Committee over the rules governing its primary and complaints of an unfair process.

At Monday's event, Kennedy called out some of his relatives for attending in support. Others in the family, however, have been vocally critical. Sister Kerry Kennedy released a statement on social media from her and three of their siblings calling his candidacy "perilous for our country."

Author and speaker Marianne Williamson is now the only notable challenger to Biden in the Democratic primary, though he continues to poll far ahead of her and party officials have said they support his reelection.

Kennedy drew a sharp rebuke from Democrats over the summer after he was recorded citing a false conspiracy theory that COVID-19 was "targeted to" certain ethnicities while Chinese people and Jews of European descent were more immune. In a later appearance before a House committee, he denied that he is racist or antisemitic.

Kennedy said last month that he had not ruled out an independent run to challenge the presumptive Democratic and Republican nominees in the November 2024 election, despite having repeatedly ruled out such a possibility over the summer.

"I'm a Democrat. You know, I'm a traditional Democrat, and … part of my mission here is to summon the Democratic Party back to its traditional ideals," Kennedy told Fox News in August.

But in September, he refused to rule out the possibility of an independent run during a campaign town hall in North Charleston, South Carolina, telling a supporter he was “going to keep all my options open."

At the time, Kennedy’s campaign manager, former Rep. Dennis Kucinich, dismissed the idea of him leaving the Democratic primary.

“Regardless of what's been said, even by the candidate himself, we have not abandoned hope for the Democratic Party," he told ABC News when asked about Kennedy’s apparent openness to an independent run.

Last week, the Kennedy-aligned American Values 2024 political group said that it had been polling him as an independent candidate.

“I can tell you that I think the right move is for him to run as an independent,” Tony Lyons, American Values' co-chair, told ABC News last week.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Attorneys who’ve been defending MyPillow chief executive and election denier Mike Lindell against defamation lawsuits by voting machine companies are seeking court permission to quit, saying he owes them unspecified millions of dollars and can’t pay the millions more that he’ll owe in legal expenses going forward.

Lindell confirmed in an interview with The Associated Press on Friday that he’s out of money and said he understands his lawyers are people who need to make a living.

Attorney Andrew Parker wrote in documents filed in federal court on Thursday that his firm and a second firm representing MyPillow in lawsuits by Smartmatic and Dominion Voting Systems can’t afford what it would cost to represent Lindell and MyPillow through the rest of the litigation. Continuing to defend him would put the firms “in serious financial risk,” he wrote.

It’s the latest in a string of legal and financial setbacks for Lindell, who propagates former President Donald Trump’s lies that the 2020 election was stolen from him, in part by rigged voting machine systems. Several big-box retailers, including Walmart, have discontinued his products.

The Nobles of Iowa moved to blue Minnesota. The Huckinses of Oregon moved to red Missouri. Their separate journeys, five weeks apart, illustrate the fracturing of America.

In recent days, Democrats have tried to show our colleagues in the Republican majority a way out of the dysfunction and rancor they have allowed to engulf the House. That path to a better place is still there for the taking.

Over the past several weeks, when it appeared likely that a motion to vacate the office of speaker was forthcoming, House Democrats repeatedly raised the issue of entering into a bipartisan governing coalition with our Republican counterparts, publicly as well as privately.

It was my sincere hope that House Democrats and more traditional Republicans would be able to reach an enlightened arrangement to end the chaos in the House, allowing us to work together to make life better for everyday Americans while protecting national security.

Regrettably, at every turn, House Republicans have categorically rejected making changes to the rules designed to accomplish two objectives: encourage bipartisan governance and undermine the ability of extremists to hold Congress hostage. Indeed, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) publicly declared more than five hours before the motion to vacate was brought up for a vote that he would not work with House Democrats as a bipartisan coalition partner. That declaration mirrored the posture taken by House Republicans in the weeks leading up to the motion-to-vacate vote. It also ended the possibility of changing the House rules to facilitate a bipartisan governance structure.

Things further deteriorated from there. Less than two hours after the speakership was vacated upon a motion brought by a member of the GOP conference, House Republicans ordered Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and former majority leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) to “vacate” their hideaway offices in the Capitol. The decision to strip Speaker Emerita Pelosi and Leader Hoyer of office space was petty, partisan and petulant.

House Republicans have lashed out at historic public servants and tried to shift blame for the failed Republican strategy of appeasement. But what if they pursued a different path and confronted the extremism that has spread unchecked on the Republican side of the aisle? When that step has been taken in good faith, we can proceed together to reform the rules of the House in a manner that permits us to govern in a pragmatic fashion.

The details would be subject to negotiation, though the principles are no secret: The House should be restructured to promote governance by consensus and facilitate up-or-down votes on bills that have strong bipartisan support. Under the current procedural landscape, a small handful of extreme members on the Rules Committee or in the House Republican conference can prevent common-sense legislation from ever seeing the light of day. That must change — perhaps in a manner consistent with bipartisan recommendations from the House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress.

In short, the rules of the House should reflect the inescapable reality that Republicans are reliant on Democratic support to do the basic work of governing. A small band of extremists should not be capable of obstructing that cooperation.

The need to change course is urgent. Congress is in the midst of a Republican civil war that undermines our ability to make life more affordable for American taxpayers, to keep communities safe and to strengthen democracy. Traditional Republicans need to break with the MAGA extremism that has poisoned the House of Representatives since the violent insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, and its aftermath — when the overwhelming majority of House Republicans continued to promote the “big lie” and voted not to certify the presidential election.

House Democrats remain committed to a bipartisan path forward, as we have repeatedly demonstrated throughout this Congress by providing a majority of the votes to prevent a government shutdown this month and avoid a catastrophic default on America’s debt in June.

At this point, we simply need Republican partners willing to break with MAGA extremism, reform the highly partisan House rules that were adopted at the beginning of this Congress and join us in finding common ground for the people.

Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) is the Democratic leader of the House of Representatives.

The federal judge presiding over Donald Trump's classified documents case on Friday temporarily paused a series of significant pre-trial deadlines pertaining to prosecutors' sharing of sensitive materials that the former president is entitled to while building his defense, The Messenger reports.

U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon authorized a paperless order delaying the deadlines she'd previously set for October 2023 through May 2024, when the trial for Trump and his three co-defendants in the case is scheduled to start in Fort Pierce, Florida.

Though Cannon's order doesn't address the May 20 start date for the trial itself, it does state that all of the scheduled deadlines connected to classified information are on hold "pending consideration and resolution" of a Trump motion proposing a new timeline that was filed last month.

That Sept. 22 filing accused special counsel Jack Smith's team of making "unjust efforts...to foist rushed CIPA litigation on the Court, President Trump, and his co-defendants."

A separate motion filed Wednesday night by Trump's legal team has, however, made the trial schedule a point of contention as the GOP frontrunner has requested a delay of at least six months in the start date of the trial until "in or after mid-November 2024," pushing it past Election Day.

The motion cited ongoing legal litigation over the sensitive evidence alongside scheduling conflicts with Trump's other federal criminal case in Washington, D.C. — of which he filed a motion to dismiss late Thursday — regarding alleged election obstruction.

"The March 4, 2023 trial date in the District of Columbia, and the underlying schedule in that case, currently require President Trump and his lawyers to be in two places at once," Trump's attorneys wrote in the Wednesday filing.

Some legal experts questioned Cannon's Friday order and suggested that it could pave the way for Trump to delay the trial date.

"Judge Cannon puts CIPA deadlines on hold until she rules on Trump’s pending motions," national security lawyer Bradley Moss wrote on X, formerly Twitter. "Now the real question becomes how long it takes her to make a ruling."

"Not a good sign for those who want a trial in May. We haven’t even reached the point in CIPA where the court has truly difficult decisions to make," tweeted Brandon Van Grack, a former Justice Department official who served on special counsel Bob Mueller's team.

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"Realistically, delays can sometimes be necessary to accommodate issues involving classified discovery, but this seems over much," former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance added. "This is a judge who is happy to see the case move slowly."

"She is going to delay and delay. She has already been an embarrassment and it’s going to get much worse," predicted Georgia State Law professor Eric Segall.

Trump was first federally indicted in June over his alleged illegal retention of national security documents after leaving office. The special counsel brought a superseding indictment against him in late July, adding charges related to alleged obstruction of government efforts to retrieve the materials and bringing the total number of counts against Trump in the case to 40. The former president has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Donald Trump has dropped a last-resort lawsuit against the judge overseeing his New York fraud trial. The former president's attorneys withdrew their lawsuit against Justice Arthur Engoron, which had been seen as a long-shot attempt to stop his real estate empire from being dismantled after he f...

As Santos’ campaign treasurer pleaded guilty to a fraud conspiracy charge related to her work on his team, we got an answer.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has been voted out of the job in an extraordinary showdown, a first in U.S. history. The 216-210 vote was forced by a contingent of hard-right conservatives and throws the House and its Republican leadership into chaos.

This was the last 4 minutes of the panel guest portion of the show and it demonstrates Bill and Sam still have an acute case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Tuesday that he would not give Democrats anything in exchange for their votes to help save his Speakership, after Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) moved to force a vote on ousting him.

“They haven’t asked for anything. I’m not going to provide anything,” McCarthy said in an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz filed a resolution late Monday to oust Kevin McCarthy as speaker, setting up a likely showdown vote in the House in the days ahead.

The far-right Republican from Florida has for months threatened to use the procedural tool — called a motion to vacate — to try to strip McCarthy of his office. Those threats escalated over the weekend after McCarthy relied on Democrats to provide the necessary votes to fund the government.

In an earlier speech on the House floor, Gaetz demanded McCarthy disclose the details of a supposed deal the speaker made with the White House to bring forward legislation to help fund the war in Ukraine during funding negotiations.

“It is becoming increasingly clear who the speaker of the House already works for and it’s not the Republican Conference,” Gaetz said in his speech, hours before he filed the resolution.

John Kelly, the longest-serving White House chief of staff for Donald Trump, offered his harshest criticism yet of the former president in an exclusive statement to CNN.