Judge overseeing ‘fake elector’ case recuses himself after defense accuses him of anti-Trump bias
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(WASHINGTON) — The judge overseeing the Arizona “fake elector” case against several of Donald Trump’s allies has recused himself from the case after accusations of personal bias.
Last week, defense attorneys for State Senator Jacob Hoffman filed a motion to disqualify Judge Bruce Cohen, alleging that an email published by a media outlet revealed “politically charged statements” made by Cohen while overseeing the case.
“While Judge Cohen is entitled to his political opinions and speech, his rhetoric and exhortation precisely mirrors the evidence of hostile partisan political zealotry at the heart of the motions to dismiss that have been languishing before the Court for months,” the attorneys said in the filing last week.
“Judge Cohen’s impartiality can readily be questioned because of his apparent personal prejudice against President Trump and his supporters,” the attorneys added.
In an email sent in August, Cohen urged fellow members of the bench to speak out against attacks made against Vice President Kamala Harris. He also lamented the failure to speak out against Nazism, according to the attorneys.
“When we cannot or do not stand with others, the words of Martin Niemoller are no longer a historic reference to the atrocities of WWII, those words describe the present,” Cohen wrote.
“But it is time for me to state my piece or be complicit in the depravity,” he added.
In response to the filing, Cohen had initially scheduled a conference hearing to discuss the issue but on Tuesday afternoon, he sent a notice of recusal to the defense attorneys.
In the notice, Cohen defended the email that surfaced, saying it was not reflective of bias.
“As noted in the subject e-mail, the same cry for decency and respect would have been made about disparaging comments from either political sphere,” Cohen wrote. “That said, within hours after sending the August e-mail solely to other judicial officers and not in any public forum, an apology was sent out to those same judicial officers.”
“Out of a commitment to justice, even the appearance of bias cannot be allowed to undermine the fundamental fairness that is extended by the court to all who come before it,” Cohen added.
“It is for that reason alone that this court is recusing itself from all further proceedings in this matter.”
All those indicted in the case pleaded not guilty earlier this summer to charges of fraud, forgery, and conspiracy for their alleged efforts to overturn the state’s election results. Trump’s former attorney Jenna Ellis subsequently reached a cooperation agreement with prosecutors in exchange for the state dropping the charges against her.
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(WASHINGTON) — The Uncommitted movement, the pro-Palestinian group critical of the Biden administration’s handling of the war in Gaza, announced Thursday that it will not endorse Vice President Kamala Harris, but also does not recommend a third-party vote in November.
The group made the announcement as Harris campaigns Thursday in Michigan, home to sizable Arab American and Muslim populations that could hold outsized sway this year in the crucial swing state. The movement was founded to push voters to vote “uncommitted” on primary ballots rather than punch a ticket for Biden to register their discontent with his tight support for Israel amid the bloody war in Gaza.
The group said in a statement that “Harris’s unwillingness to shift on unconditional weapons policy or to even make a clear campaign statement in support of upholding existing U.S. and international human rights law has made it impossible for us to endorse her.”
Still, the group added that it “opposes a Donald Trump presidency, whose agenda includes plans to accelerate the killing in Gaza while intensifying the suppression of anti-war organizing” and “is not recommending a third-party vote in the Presidential election, especially as third party votes in key swing states could help inadvertently deliver a Trump presidency given our country’s broken electoral college system.”
“We urge Uncommitted voters to register anti-Trump votes and vote up and down the ballot. Our focus remains on building a broad anti-war coalition both inside and outside the Democratic Party,” the group said.
The statement comes before Harris campaigns in Detroit, where she’ll both rally with supporters and hold an event with Oprah Winfrey.
Uncommitted has remained a thorn in the Democratic Party’s side since the war in Gaza kicked off last year following Hamas’ brutal attack on Israel, which killed about 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials. The Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health said more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the Israel-Hamas war began.
The group repeatedly criticized Biden, and Uncommitted votes in Democratic primaries raised concerns about cracks in the president’s base of support, even before a ruinous June debate tanked his campaign. Uncommitted netted more than 100,000 votes in the primary in Michigan, where Trump won by about 11,000 votes in 2016.
The movement has demanded that Harris meet with Palestinian-American families who have lost family members in Gaza, as well as support an immediate cease-fire (which she has done) and an arms embargo on Israel (which she has said she opposes). Uncommitted activists also waged a sit-in at the Democratic National Convention after the party refused their demand to have a Palestinian speaker make an address.
The Harris campaign has said she will continue to meet with leaders from Palestinian, Muslim, Israeli and Jewish communities.
Harris, for her part, has sounded a more empathetic tone than Biden about the civilian death toll in Gaza but has insisted on Israel’s right to defend itself and refused to make the kind of policy shifts from Biden that the Uncommitted movement sought.
Harris’ campaign sounded a similar note in a statement, with a spokesperson vowing that she would “work to earn every vote, unite our country, and to be a President for all Americans” and “will continue working to bring the war in Gaza to an end in a way where Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination.”
Uncommitted organizers have also remained vociferously opposed to Trump, who has bear-hugged Israel and used “Palestinian” as a slur.
The war in Gaza has loomed large in Michigan given its electorate and tight statewide margins.
A super PAC affiliated with Republicans is running ads in Michigan ZIP codes with heavy Muslim or Arab populations highlighting Harris’ support for Israel and second gentleman Doug Emhoff’s Judaism, a seemingly back-handed attempt to hurt support for the Democratic ticket there. Harris’ campaign is also running digital ads targeted to heavily Arab neighborhoods in and around Detroit emphasizing her statement that she “will not be silent about human suffering in Gaza.”
In a sign of how contentious the war has been, critics of the administration’s approach to Gaza have been in turn critical of each other.
“Translation: We can’t endorse Kamala, even though we’d like to, because the community we claim to represent would tear us apart. So instead, we’re going to publicly state that we don’t support her while also not endorsing any alternative, effectively helping her win,” Abandon Harris, another group that wants the U.S. to take a tougher stance in its relationship with Israel, said in a statement.
Still, Michigan Democrats touted Uncommitted’s statement, particularly urging against third-party votes, as the best-case scenario for Harris given that the policy shifts they were asking for would have been difficult for the vice president to swallow.
Jim Ananich, the former Democratic state Senate leader in Michigan, dubbed the statement “close to a win.”
Josh Hovey, a Michigan communications strategist, added that “the best case would have been a full endorsement because the margin of victory will likely be very close again this year and Harris needs to win this state if she’s going to win the Electoral College.”
But “this is the second-best scenario and sends a message to Harris that they need her to do more on this issue while also recognizing that her victory is the one that is most likely to result in the U.S. taking a stronger approach to addressing the humanitarian crisis,” Hovey added.
(WASHINGTON) — After making a surprise appearance at her husband’s Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday, Melania Trump spoke out on “Fox and Friends” on Tuesday, fiercely defending him against reported comments that he had expressed admiration for Hitler.
“He is not Hitler and his supporters stand behind him because they want to see the country successful. We see what kind of support he has,” she said of the former president.
Donald Trump has falsely claimed that Vice President Kamala Harris called him Hitler (she cited reports that Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly said he had praised Hitler for doing some “good things” and wanted generals like Hitler’s).
Melania Trump called the criticism “terrible.”
The former first lady also said her husband was well aware of her position supporting abortion rights before her views were published in her new book.
Earlier this month, Melania Trump broke from the Republican Party by declaring those views in what some suggested was an eleventh hour move to court women before the election. She said on Tuesday that her husband knew about her stance long before the book came out.
“My husband knew my position, my belief, since the day we met. It was not a big surprise for him. I guess other people, the world did not know where my stances are,” she said. “He was not surprised, he knew about it.”
Discussing her Election Day plans, she indicated that she would vote on Tuesday. Donald Trump had floated voting early in a sign of unity with his party’s newer message of support on that subject — but he has continued to criticize the idea.
“We will be in Palm Beach and in the morning, we will go to vote, me and my husband, and then it will be a waiting time, period of waiting and we’ll see and I hope it is a success and a party in the evening,” Melania said, indicating that she hopes to know the results that same evening.
“I hope the election will be fair and everything will be selected as we say on Tuesday night,” she said.
“I feel good. We are feeling good. We are working hard. My husband, he’s all over the country, traveling, and as we saw, Sunday evening,” she said.
“I’m not anxious, this time is different. I have more experience and knowledge,” she said, discussing a potential Trump victory next week. “I was in the White House before. When you go in, you know what to expect. You know what kind of people you need to get, people on your team that have the same vision as me.”
Melania Trump again spoke in tandem with her husband, pointing to the economy and immigration as issues she hopes can be improved if he wins.
“Well, I would like to see country to be safe and prosperous, better economy and peace in the world. That is very important,” she said.
Commenting on her husband’s indictments, she said “it is part of it, part of the politics.”
“When he came to the White House for the first time when he was elected, I knew it would not be easy and I knew they would go after him. They did,” she said.
In her new book, Melania discussed feeling betrayed. Referring to what she called “misinformation” and “mistruths,” Melania highlighted tapes recorded by Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former friend and senior adviser who wrote in “Melania and Me” that the former first lady showed frustration over criticism on the administration’s family separation policy.
“It is betrayal. They show the world who they are and they know what they did,” Melania Trump said. “To tape the first lady of the United States on phone calls and release to the public and edit phone calls, it is disgrace and should never happen to anybody.”
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump visited Aurora, Colorado, for a campaign rally on Friday where he continued to push misleading narratives about the city’s migrant population.
“My message today is very simple,” Trump told the crowd. “No person who has inflicted the violence and terror that Kamala Harris has inflicted on this community can ever be allowed to become the president of the United States. We’re not going to let it happen.”
In the final weeks of his campaign, Trump has continued to focus on the issue of immigration, escalating his rhetoric on undocumented immigrants he often paints as violent criminals.
“I will rescue Aurora and every town that has been invaded and conquered,” Trump said. “These towns have been conquered … And we will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail or kick them out of our country. And we will be very, very effective in doing it. It’s going to happen very, very fast.”
Specifically, the former president has used Aurora and Springfield, Ohio, to emphasize his point, both examples stemming from viral online stories he’s been quick to promote, often without proper context.
His false narratives on Aurora began last month when a video of armed individuals roaming around an apartment complex in Aurora went viral among right-wing social media influencers.
Trump, who has shared that video himself, has repeatedly claimed that members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang have “taken over” apartment complexes and “overrun” the city, despite the Aurora Police Department refuting allegations of the apartment complex being run by a Venezuelan gang.
Aurora’s Police Chief Todd Chamberlain has directly refuted Trump’s claims, saying in a press conference late last month that, “This is not an immigration issue. This is a crime issue.”
“We are not, by any means, overtaken by Venezuelan gangs,” he added.
The City of Aurora also provided clarity on the situation in a post on its official X account, stating that while there was a concern about a “small” presence of the Venezuelan gang members in Aurora, the city is taking the situation seriously. The city stressed that Aurora is a “safe community” and that reports of gang members are “isolated to a handful of problem properties alone.”
Mike Coffman, the Republican mayor of Aurora, has also pushed back on Trump’s “grossly exaggerated” claims.
“Former President Trump’s visit to Aurora is an opportunity to show him and the nation that Aurora is a considerably safe city – not a city overrun by Venezuelan gangs,” Coffman said.
Still, Trump has continued to amplify these debunked stories to his supporters throughout the country as a rallying cry as he attacks the immigration policies of the Biden-Harris administration.
At his second campaign stop on Friday in Reno, Nevada, Trump continued to repeat baseless and debunked rhetoric on a Venezuelan gang taking over apartment complexes in Aurora even after the city’s Republican mayor denounced his rhetoric, saying his comments “unfairly hurt the city’s identity and sense of safety.”
In Reno, the former president again called the U.S. an “occupied country” and the situation in Aurora a “full-blown invasion.”
“It is a full blown invasion. Armed Venezuelan gang members storming an apartment complex in Aurora, Colorado,” Trump said.
In the press release announcing Friday’s event, the Trump campaign described Aurora as a “war zone,” arguing people were crossing the border and descending upon the city “bringing chaos and fear with them.”
Similarly, Trump has repeatedly amplified debunked claims that Haitian migrants are eating pets in Springfield.
Trump’s visit is one that he has been wanting to make for a while to bring more attention to the country’s immigration policies. At recent campaign rallies, Trump has become more vocal about his desire to visit Aurora and Springfield.
While the Republican mayor of Springfield, Rob Rue, discouraged visits from candidates on both sides of the aisle, Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis has presented the trip as a learning opportunity for the former president.
“The reality is, Donald Trump continues to tell economically damaging and hurtful lies about Aurora,” Polis said in a statement to ABC affiliate Denver7 amid ongoing discussions of a potential visit. “If former President Trump does visit, he will find the city of Aurora is a strong, vibrant, and diverse city of more than 400,000 hardworking Coloradans and a wonderful place to live, run a business, raise a family, and retire.”
Trump has launched attacks on the local and state officials on the campaign trail, often making baseless claims that Aurora Mayor Coffman and Gov. Polis are “petrified,” saying Coffman “doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing” — and even claiming they don’t want to raise the immigration issue because they want to be “politically correct.”
Campaigning in Uniondale, New York, last month, Trump, while declaring that he planned to visit Aurora and Springfield soon, suggested that he might not make it back out after his visiting those places due to unspecified crime.
“I’m going to go there in the next two weeks. I’m going to Springfield, and I’m going to Aurora,” Trump said in Uniondale. “You may never see me again, but that’s OK. Got to do what I got to do. Whatever happened to Trump? ‘Well, he never got out of Springfield.'”
Trump’s visit to Aurora also came as he’s pledged on the campaign trail to begin his promise of mass deportations in Springfield and Aurora.
“We’re going to have the largest deportation in the history of our country,” Trump said as he took reporter questions in Los Angeles, California, last month. “And we’re going to start with Springfield and Aurora, [Colorado].”
“We’re going to take those violent people, and we’re going to ship them back to their country, and if they come back in, they’re going to pay a hell of a price,” Trump also said.
Springfield has many Haitian residents who are either legally authorized to live and work in the U.S. or are protected from expulsion by law.
