Judge denies Donald Trump’s push to get him kicked off civil fraud case
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(NEW YORK) — The New York judge who oversaw former President Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial on Thursday denied an attempt to kick him off the case.
Trump had tried to get Judge Arthur Engoron kicked off the case, alleging violations of the rules governing how judges are supposed to behave.
Trump’s attorneys said Engoron “may have engaged in actions fundamentally incompatible with the responsibilities attendant to donning the black robe and sitting in judgment.”
The defense alleged Engoron spoke to a New York real estate attorney about the substance of Trump’s case in violation of New York’s Code of Judicial Conduct. The filing cited a conversation between Engoron and Adam Leitman Bailey, who alleged he spoke with Engoron three weeks before he issued his final order in the case that required Trump to pay nearly half a billion dollars.
“I saw him in the corner [at the courthouse] and I told my client, ‘I need to go.’ And I walked over and we started talking … I wanted him to know what I think and why. … I really want him to get it right,” Bailey told NBC New York, which first reported the story.
Engoron said Thursday he has overseen the case for 3 1/2 years and he said he did not need, much less welcome, a “tirade” from Bailey, who he derided as a “landlord-tenant lawyer ranting.”
Bailey could not immediately be reached for comment. There was no immediate comment from the court.
Earlier this week, Trump and his co-defendants asked New York’s Appellate Division to overturn February’s ruling from Engoron that found the former president fraudulently inflated his net worth to secure better business deals.
“It violates centuries of New York case law holding that NYAG cannot sue to vindicate alleged violations that are purely private in nature — and, in this case, do not exist at all,” defense lawyers wrote in a 95-page filing.
Engoron fired back at defense lawyers’ claims.
“I am supremely confident in my ability to continue to serve, as I always have, impartially,” Engoron wrote Thursday.
Engoron in February ordered Trump to pay $464 million in disgorgement and pre-judgment interest after he found the former president and his adult sons liable for using “numerous acts of fraud and misrepresentation” to inflate his net worth in order to get more favorable loan terms. Trump has denied all wrongdoing and has appealed the decision in the case.
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the assassination attempt on Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump at the White House, on July 14, 2024, in Washington, D.C. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — After more than three years supporting President Joe Biden’s policy agenda as his deputy, Vice President Kamala Harris must articulate her own agenda for her presidential campaign — and the first term that could follow.
Since Biden announced on Sunday that he was leaving the 2024 race, Harris has secured commitments from enough delegates to become the presumptive nominee if they all honor their commitment when voting, according to ABC News reporting.
Now Harris — who ran well to the left of Biden during her unsuccessful presidential primary campaign in 2020, but has since become a loyal advocate of the administration’s policies — is taking on the challenge of establishing her own path forward and stance on key issues that matter most to voters as the November election approaches.
Her 2020 platform and some remarks from during her vice presidency offer a glimpse of a Harris presidency that could prove more progressive than Biden’s in several key areas.
Israel-Gaza
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, with Harris — who, as vice president, customarily presides over such proceedings — noticeably absent.
While Harris’ team has said her absence is merely the result of a scheduling conflict and the vice president will meet one-on-one with Netanyahu later this week, she has in recent months signaled that she may take a more stern approach to Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza.
In the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, Harris was initially a strong supporter of Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas — knocking down a suggestion that the Biden administration might condition aid to the country in November, saying “we are not going to create any conditions on the support that we are giving Israel to defend itself.”
But by December, Harris began wading deeper into Middle Eastern diplomacy during a trip to Dubai for a United Nations climate conference where she also met with leaders from the region. During the trip, she took a more forceful tone with Israel than many other senior administration officials had done at the time, declaring “too many innocent Palestinians have been killed” and saying the administration believes “Israel must do more to protect innocent civilians.”
In a March address in Selma, Alabama, marking the anniversary of Bloody Sunday, Harris called out Israel again — saying its government “must do more to significantly increase the flow of aid — no excuses” and calling on Israel to open border crossings and ensure humanitarian workers were not targeted.
In an interview published earlier this month in The Nation, Harris said young Americans protesting the war in Gaza are “showing exactly what the human emotion should be” and that while she “absolutely rejects” some of their statements, she understands “the emotion behind it.”
And she’s been vocal in her support of an at least temporary cease-fire, saying during her March speech in Selma that “given the immense scale of suffering in Gaza, there must be an immediate cease-fire” for at least six weeks.
Harris doesn’t have a long-standing relationship with Netanyahu in the same way Biden does, but she met with Israel’s Benny Gantz at the White House while he was serving on the country’s war cabinet in March. She also met with Israel’s President Isaac Herzog earlier this year on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.
Abortion
Already the administration’s lead messenger on the central campaign issue of abortion rights, Harris has been consistently more boldly outspoken on the issue than Biden.
Before running for president in 2020, she went after crisis pregnancy centers as California attorney general and went viral for a line of questioning with then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, where she pressed him to name a single law that polices what men can do with their bodies.
Her 2020 platform included a proposal to pass a Reproductive Rights Act that would have taken affirmative steps to enforce Roe v. Wade, which the Supreme Court later overruled in 2022.
Since the Supreme Court’s decision affecting Roe, Harris has toured the country as bans went into place. She made history by being the first vice president to ever visit an abortion clinic in March — a move that demonstrated how loudly supportive of abortion rights she is — and delivered a fiery speech on then-GOP presidential candidate Ron Desantis’ home turf in Florida this spring when a six-week ban went into effect there.
She made it clear in her first rally on Tuesday that abortion rights would continue to be a central issue for her as a presidential candidate.
“We who believe in reproductive freedom will fight for a woman’s right to choose because one does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government should not be telling her what to do,” Harris said in a rally in Indiana on Wednesday, addressing the Zeta Phi Beta sorority.
That’s not to say Biden didn’t also make abortion rights a central tenet of his administration and campaign, said Mary Ziegler, a professor of law at University of California, Davis and abortion historian. However, she said, he was constrained by generational and religious differences that made Harris “the much more effective, passionate messenger on reproductive issues.”
Should Harris win in November, “I think there would be some differences in substance, really significant differences in tone, and then, maybe or maybe not, differences in outcome,” Ziegler said.
Outcomes — such as codifying Roe vs. Wade into law, going even further to also protect birth control or in-vitro fertilization, or pursuing further legal challenges to protect abortion rights — would depend primarily on how Democrats perform down the ballot in November and whether Harris has the opportunity to confirm any more justices to the Supreme Court.
Health care
In her remarks to campaign staff Monday, Harris said that her campaign will “fight to build a nation where every person has affordable health care.”
The Medicare for All plan that Harris proposed in 2020 would have covered all medically necessary services, including emergency room visits, doctor visits, vision, dental, hearing aids, mental health and substance use disorder treatment, and comprehensive reproductive health care services. The plan had a 10-year transition period.
Under Harris’ plan, Americans would have had a choice between the public Medicare for All plan and plans from private insurers that would have had to adhere to strict Medicare requirements on costs and benefits.
To pay for the program, she proposed charging an additional premium to households making above $100,000 per year, with a higher income threshold for those in higher-cost-of-living areas.
In 2020, Biden called for a less ambitious “Medicare for all who want it” public option plan. However, according to Roll Call, he hasn’t mentioned that public option since December of 2020 — before he took office.
Biden also previously suggested he would veto a Medicare for All bill, arguing that it would raise taxes for the middle class.
But the vice president’s past policy differences with Biden may not mean all that much for a Harris presidency.
“I wouldn’t expect it to change at all [from Biden’s agenda],” David Barker, a professor of government at American University, said. “Until there’s some indication that that’s politically realistic, I don’t think anybody’s going to even try.”
Barker added that smaller changes, similar to the $35 price cap on insulin for seniors on Medicare in the Inflation Reduction Act, is “the way they’ll continue” in a Harris administration.
Criminal justice
While Harris faced sharp criticism from the left during the 2020 primary for her background as a prosecutor, her platform that year contained a slate of ambitious reforms to the criminal justice system aimed at ending mass incarceration and fighting racial inequities.
Harris’ platform advocated to legalize marijuana and expunge some marijiuana-related convictions; end cash bail and mandatory minimums; eliminate the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine; and stop the use of private prisons and the death penalty.
Her criminal justice plan also sought to increase the Department of Justice’s oversight of police departments and limit them from acquiring certain kinds of military equipment. In a clip that has been circulated by Republicans, she also advocated for restoring the right of formerly-incarcerated people to vote and automatically expunging non-serious, non-violent offenses after five years.
The Biden administration’s most significant action on criminal justice came when it took action on marijuana, reducing federal criminal penalties for offenses relating to the drug and pardoning those with criminal charges for simple possession of marijuana.
While Harris’ 2020 platform went well beyond Biden’s on criminal justice, her recent remarks make no indication that it will be a major theme of her campaign. The issue went unmentioned in her speech at the campaign’s Wilmington, Delaware, headquarters on Monday.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden said on Friday that he would be returning to the campaign trail next week to continue to take on rival Donald Trump, as he contends with the fallout from his COVID-19 diagnosis and growing calls from Democrats for him to bow out, including from Ohio Sen, Sherrod Brown on Friday evening, the fourth senator to do so.
“I look forward to getting back on the campaign trail next week to continue exposing the threat of Donald Trump’s Project 2025 agenda while making the case for my own record and the vision that I have for America: one where we save our democracy, protect our rights and freedoms, and create opportunity for everyone,” Biden said in a statement.
“The stakes are high, and the choice is clear,” Biden added. “Together, we will win.”
The president also criticized Trump’s Thursday night keynote speech at the Republican National Convention, saying the former president “focused on his own grievances, with no plan to unite us and no plan to make life better for working people.”
“Last night the American people saw the same Donald Trump they rejected four years ago,” Biden wrote.
Biden has been sidelined since Wednesday when he was diagnosed with COVID-19 moments before delivering remarks in Las Vegas at the UnidosUS conference, the largest Latino civil rights group in the country. He abruptly cut his trip short and flew to his beach home in Rehoboth Beach, Del.
Boarding Air Force One Wednesday, Biden struggled to walk up the shorter stairs that pull out from under the plane. And after arriving in Dover, he again struggled deplaning, and Secret Service appeared to physically help him into the waiting SUV.
But Biden’s determination to return to the campaign trail appears to be because his team is reenergized by Trump’s speech.
“He’s playing the greatest hits from 2016 – Trump has not changed, he has not moderated, he has gotten worse,” a Biden adviser said Thursday night. “And he is making no appeal to moderates.”
The president said Trump laid out a “dark vision” for America’s future and that “Together, as a party and as a country, we can and will defeat him at the ballot box.”
But his party is not together. Democrats remain split on whether Biden can beat Trump in November and on Friday at least 10 Democrats joined the chorus calling on Biden to resign, including Texas Rep. Marc Veasey, the first member from the influential Congressional Black Caucus to do so.
“Mr. President, with great admiration for you personally, sincere respect for your decades of public service and patriotic leadership, and deep appreciation for everything we have accomplished together during your presidency, it is now time for you to pass the torch to a new generation of Democratic leaders,” Veasey co-wrote in a letter with Reps. Jared Huffman, Chuy Garcia, and Mark Pocan.
“We must defeat Donald Trump to save our democracy… At this point, however, we must face the reality that widespread public concerns about your age and fitness are jeopardizing what should be a winning campaign,” the four congressmen added.
Brown, in a close reelection fight, said in a statement that many Ohioans had contacted him.
“Over the last few weeks, I’ve heard from Ohioans on important issues, such as how to continue to grow jobs in our state, give law enforcement the resources to crack down on fentanyl, protect Social Security and Medicare from cuts, and prevent the ongoing efforts to impose a national abortion ban. These are the issues Ohioans care about and it is my job to keep fighting for them,” he said.
“I agree with the many Ohioans who have reached out to me. At this critical time, our full attention must return to these important issues. I think the President should end his campaign,” he said.
Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Democratic Rep. Greg Landsman, who represents a battleground Ohio district, both also pointed to Trump and the risk to “democracy” for reasons Biden should exit.
“There is too much on the line, and we have to be able to make that case to the American people about the change we need and the country we all deserve,” Landsman wrote in his statement. “After weeks of consideration and hundreds of conversations with constituents, I have come to the conclusion that Joe Biden is no longer the best person to make that case.”
Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California, a close ally of former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in a letter addressed to the president on Thursday, but was first reported on Friday, made a similar argument doubting Biden can effectively run a winning campaign.
“I want to be clear that should you formally become the Democratic nominee for President I will do everything I can to promote your candidacy and to work for your success,” Lofgren wrote in the letter obtained by ABC News. “Unfortunately, I greatly doubt that the outcome will be positive, and our country will pay a dreadful price for that.”
“I’m not here to say that this hasn’t been a tough several weeks for the campaign,” O’Malley Dillon said. “There’s no doubt that it has been, and we’ve definitely seen some slippage in support, but it has been a small movement, and you know this, the reason is because so much of this race is hardened already.”
In what was a bruising day for the president, with the calls from congressional Democrats urging him to drop out swelling to 34 by ABC News’s count, Biden did get critical support from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
The group’s political arm, BOLD PAC, on Friday endorsed the president, a week after his call with the group, saying he and Vice President Kamala Harris “have delivered for the Latino community.”
Amid news of more congressional Democrats on Friday joining calls for Biden to step aside, his campaign said it recognizes that the “urgency” of beating Donald Trump has led some Democrats to publicly abandon their support of the president leading the ticket — though they remain confident the party will unite by November.
“While the majority of the caucus and the diverse base of the party continues to stand with the President and his historic record of delivering for their communities, we’re clear-eyed that the urgency and stakes of beating Donald Trump means others feel differently,” Biden campaign spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg said in a statement to ABC News.
“We all share the same goal: an America where everyone gets a fair shot and freedom and democracy are protected,” Ehrenberg added. “Unlike Republicans, we’re a party that accepts – and even celebrates – differing opinions, but in the end, we will absolutely come together to beat Donald Trump this November.”
(CHICAGO) — Oprah Winfrey, making a surprise appearance, called on Americans to choose “joy” and “common sense over nonsense” during a rousing speech at the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday night.
“What we’re going to do is elect Kamala Harris as the next president of the United States,” she said after taking the stage to one of the loudest receptions of the night.
Oprah laid out the 2024 election as a series of choices voters have to make, and singled out independents and undecided voters — while noting that she herself is a registered independent.
“More than anything, you know, this is true, that decency and respect are on the ballot in 2024, and just plain common sense,” she said. “Common sense tells you that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz can give us decency and respect.”
She urged voters to further choose “optimism over cynicism,” “common sense over nonsense” and “the sweet promise of tomorrow over the bitter return to yesterday.”
“We won’t go back. We won’t be set back, pushed back, bullied back, kicked back. We’re not going back!” she said, as the crowd chanted, “We’re not going back!”
Toward the end of her fired-up remarks, Oprah told the crowd, “Let us choose truth, let us choose honor and let us choose joy!” — emphasizing the word joy, a common theme for Harris and the convention.
“Because that’s the best of America. But more than anything else, let us choose freedom. Why? Because that’s the best of America. We’re all Americans. And together, let’s all choose Kamala Harris,” she said, saying the name “Kamala Harris” in her signature bellow.
The first time Oprah put her legacy brand behind a political candidate was with Barack Obama in 2008.
“That was some epic fire,” she said of the Obamas speeches last night, taking inspiration from Michelle Obama’s call on the crowd to “do something!”
Oprah did not mention Donald Trump by name but appeared to reference the former president and his running mate JD Vance.
“America is an ongoing project,” she said. “It requires commitment. It requires being open to the hard work and the hard work of democracy, and every now and then, it requires standing up to life’s bullies.”
She then brought up Vance’s “childless cat lady” comments to cheers.
“Despite what some would have you think we are not so different from our neighbors,” she said. “When a house is on fire, we don’t ask about a homeowner’s race or religion. We don’t wonder who their partner is or how they voted. No, we just try to do the best we can to save them. And if the place happens to belong to a childless cat lady, well, we try to get that cat out too.”
Oprah gave tribute to Tessie Prevost Williams, who died earlier this year. Williams was one of four Black girls who helped integrate New Orleans public schools in 1960.
She then tied Williams to Harris, saying Williams “paved the way for another young girl who, nine years later, became part of the second class to integrate the public schools in Berkeley, California.”
Harris famously reflected on her experience as a child being bused to school each day. During a spar with President Joe Biden on the debate stage on busing, Harris told him: “That little girl was me.”
