Trump asks judge in Jan. 6 case to delay release of additional immunity filing
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump’s attorneys have asked the judge overseeing his federal election interference case to further delay the release of a redacted appendix containing evidence amassed by special counsel Jack Smith in his probe of Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, according to a Thursday morning court filing.
The release of the redacted appendix, which was an attachment to the immunity motion unsealed two weeks ago by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan that included new details about Trump and his allies’ actions leading up to the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, is currently scheduled for Thursday.
In their motion Thursday, Trump’s attorneys requested that Chutkan delay the release of the appendix until Nov. 14 — after the presidential election — when Trump’s own reply brief appendix is due. The former president is expected to argue that his actions leading up to and on Jan. 6 should be immune from prosecution.
“Here, President Trump requests only that the Court briefly continue its existing stay of the Order, such that the redacted versions of the SC Appendix and President Trump’s forthcoming appendix may be released concurrently,” the filing said. “Although this stay will not eliminate the harms President Trump identified in his prior opposition filings, certain harms will be mitigated. For example, if the Court immediately releases the Special Counsel’s cherry-picked documents, potential jurors will be left with a skewed, one-sided, and inaccurate picture of this case.”
“If the appendices are released simultaneously, at least some press outlets will attempt to report both sides of this case, reducing (although, again, not eliminating) the potential for irreversible prejudice,” the filing said.
The filing includes arguments that could draw direct a rebuke from Judge Chutkan, after she previously warned Trump’s attorneys to not level any further allegations of partisanship at Smith’s team without providing evidence.
Trump’s attorneys also argue that while Chutkan has previously said the election will play no role in her decisions in the case, she should address “the public’s interest in ensuring that this case does not unduly interfere, or appear to interfere, with the ongoing election.”
Smith did not respond to Trump’s request for a delay, the filing says.
Trump last year pleaded not guilty to federal charges of undertaking a “criminal scheme” to overturn the results of the 2020 election in order to remain in power.
Smith subsequently charged Trump in a superseding indictment that was adjusted to respect the Supreme Court’s July ruling that Trump is entitled to immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts undertaken as president.
(WASHINGTON) — After the supreme leader of Iran signaled a willingness to return to nuclear negotiations with the United States, the Biden administration cast doubt on the likelihood of resuming talks in the near future.
“We will judge Iran’s leadership by their actions, not their words,” a State Department spokesperson said Tuesday.
“If Iran wants to demonstrate seriousness or a new approach, they should stop nuclear escalations and start meaningfully cooperating with the IAEA,” they added, referencing the International Atomic Energy Agency, an intergovernmental watchdog that Tehran has often subverted.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gave Iran’s newly installed president, reformist Masoud Pezeshkian, the go-ahead to relaunch talks with the U.S. on Tuesday while warning the country’s government against putting any trust in Washington.
“This does not mean that we cannot interact with the same enemy in certain situations,” Khamenei said, according to the official transcript of his remarks. “There is no harm in that, but do not place your hopes in them.”
The State Department spokesperson said the administration still saw a negotiated solution as the best way to contain Iran’s nuclear program, but that Iran’s failure to cooperate with the IAEA and its escalatory actions made diplomacy impossible.
“We are far away from anything like that right now,” they said.
Members of the administration also largely view the prospect of returning to indirect talks with Iran as a politically unfavorable step that could prove detrimental to Vice President Kamala Harris’ and other Democrats’ chances at winning in November, several officials told ABC News.
The doubtful outlook for resuscitating negotiations in the coming months further diminishes the already low odds of securing a deal with Iran before President Joe Biden’s time in the White House comes to an end, all but pushing his promise to negotiate a “longer and stronger” agreement out of reach.
Khamenei’s comments Tuesday echo the position he took around the time Tehran signed off on the 2015 nuclear pact known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or the JCPOA — a landmark accord that granted Iran relief from economic sanctions in exchange for limiting its nuclear program.
Former President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the agreement in 2018, calling it “a horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made,” and reimposing financial restrictions on Iran.
In the years since, Khamenei’s public comments on the matter have oscillated between encouraging negotiations with the U.S. and outright dismissing the possibility of a renewed pact.
Foreign policy observers say the upcoming U.S. presidential election is injecting even more uncertainty into the prospects of reaching another nuclear agreement with Iran.
Trump has previously made unsubstantiated claims that Iran was ready to accept conditions that were highly favorable to the U.S. at the end of his term and that he was “ready to make a deal.” But on the campaign trail, Trump — a sworn enemy of the Iranian regime — has taken an increasingly hawkish stance against the country, which reportedly carried out a cyberattack targeting his campaign and has plotted against him and his former Cabinet officials.
Harris has also promised to take an aggressive approach to curbing Iran’s malign influence in the Middle East, but she supported the JCPOA, as well as the current administration’s efforts to cut a new deal. However, she has not clearly said whether she would attempt to pick up where Biden left off.
Indirect talks with Iran under the Biden administration officially kicked off in April 2021. Despite mediators’ initial optimism, talks eventually sputtered out after multiple rounds of stop-start diplomacy failed to move both sides toward an agreement.
So far, Biden has made good on another of his major promises regarding Iran: his declaration that the country would “never get a nuclear weapon on my watch.”
However, officials within his administration say Tehran has made substantial progress toward that goal in recent years.
In July, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Iran was likely only “one or two weeks away” from having breakout capacity to produce fissile material for a nuclear weapon, and that the U.S. was watching “very, very carefully” to see whether the country would move toward weaponizing its nuclear program, a step the administration says the regime has not yet taken.
The U.S. shutting down the possibility of any renewed talks with Iran right now comes amid heightened tensions in the Middle East, including Israel’s preemptive strike Saturday night on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon.
(WASHINGTON) — The special counsel’s new indictment charging former President Donald Trump for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election made changes large and small to accommodate the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling on presidential immunity.
An indictment that once offered vivid details of Trump’s effort to enlist federal officials in his scheme to overturn the election removed any mention of the Department of Justice. Detailed accounts of how advisers corrected Trump about his claims of election fraud are gone along with Trump’s statements to his inner circle as rioters stormed the Capitol.
Prosecutors also made minor changes, such as describing Trump as “a candidate for President of the United States” rather than “the forty-fifth President of the United States” in the indictment’s opening lines. Trump’s official statements from within the White House were subtly removed, while other examples were framed as unofficial or “in his capacity as a candidate for office.”
“The Defendant had no official responsibilities related to the certification proceeding, but he did have a personal interest as a candidate in being named the winner of the election,” the new indictment said.
Special Counsel Jack Smith presented evidence to a new grand jury, which returned an indictment charging Trump with the same four criminal offenses he originally faced.
The indictment removes details about Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, including refusing to call off rioters.
The superseding indictment removes once-damning allegations about Trump’s refusal to act as rioters stormed the Capitol and his overall behavior as described by advisers.
According to the original indictment, Trump refused to approve a message directing rioters to leave the Capitol despite the urging of senior officials, including the White House counsel and his chief of staff.
Later that day, Trump allegedly resisted former House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy’s plea to call off rioters.
“The Defendant told the Minority Leader that the crowd at the Capitol was more upset about the election than the Minority Leader was,” the indictment said.
According to the original indictment, Trump also remarked to advisers in the Oval Office that “this is what happens when they try to steal an election. These people are angry. These people are really angry about it. This is what happens.”
On the evening of Jan. 6, Trump also rejected the request of his White House Counsel to withdraw any objections to the certification of the election, the indictment said.
The superseding indictment appears to have streamlined its account of Trump’s behavior while omitting the statements once included in the original indictment.
“He spent much of the afternoon reviewing Twitter on his phone, while the television in the dining room showed live events at the Capitol,” the superseding indictment said.
The indictment removes allegations about Trump’s use of the Department of Justice.
Compared to the original indictment, Tuesday’s superseding indictment removed five pages of allegations detailing how Trump allegedly used the Department of Justice to further his claims of election fraud.
Prosecutors originally alleged that Trump attempted to use the Department of Justice to further false claims of election fraud in key states to give Trump’s “lies the backing of the federal government.”
When DOJ officials rebutted Trump’s claims that the Justice Department could alter the outcome of the election, Trump allegedly responded, “Just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen,” the original indictment said.
The indictment originally detailed how Trump allegedly worked with co-conspirator four — identified by ABC News as former Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark — to have the Department of Justice send a letter to key states falsely claiming that the Justice Department “identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election.” Trump allegedly planned to make Clark his acting attorney general in the final days of his presidency but was stopped when warned that such a move would result in mass resignations.
Once a core pillar of the case against Trump, all mentions of the Justice Department have been removed from the new indictment.
The indictment attempts to salvage key evidence.
The new indictment appears to make minor changes to salvage key evidence, including Trump’s call to Georgia officials about finding votes and Vice President Mike Pence’s notes.
The new indictment still describes Trump’s Jan. 2, 2021, phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, where Trump said he wanted “to find 11,780 votes” but added context to Meadows’ role in the call.
“On January 2, four days before Congress’s certification proceeding, the Defendant, his Chief of Staff – who sometimes handled private and Campaign-related logistics for the Defendant – and private attorneys involved in the lawsuit against Georgia’s Secretary of State called the Secretary of State,” the superseding indictment said.
The indictment still mentions Vice President Pence’s contemporaneous notes of a key meeting with Trump about the proposed plan to reject legitimate electors on Jan. 6.
“Did you hear that? Even your own counsel is not saying I have that authority,” Pence told Trump.
The new indictment only makes slight changes to the section referencing the notes, cutting a line that the “White House Counsel previously had pushed back on the Defendant’s false claims of election fraud.”
The new indictment also removes mention of a Dec. 29 phone call between Pence and Trump — memorialized in Pence’s notes — when the former president claimed the “Justice Dept [was] finding major infractions.”
The indictment overtly frames some of Trump’s statements as unofficial.
Prosecutors appear to have added phrases throughout the indictment to frame Trump’s statements as unofficial ones made as a candidate for office rather than official statements as president.
The indictment notably describes Trump’s statements at the Ellipse rally on Jan. 6 as a “campaign speech.”
Old Indictment: On January 6, the Defendant publicly repeated the knowingly false claim that 36,000 non-citizens had voted in Arizona.
New Indictment: In his Campaign speech on January 6, the Defendant publicly repeated the knowingly false claim that 36,000 non-citizens had voted in Arizona.
In two instances in the new indictment, prosecutors framed Trump’s actions as conduct made “in his capacity as a candidate for office.”
The indictment offers fewer details about officials correcting Trump on claims of voter fraud.
The original indictment previously went to lengths to detail how Trump’s closest advisers — including the vice president, members of the Department of Justice, the director of National Intelligence, and several White House attorneys — directly told the then-president that his claims of voter fraud were false.
The superseding indictment removes mention of federal officials notifying Trump that his claims were false, briefly mentioning Vice President Pence as Trump’s “own running mate.”
“The Defendant was on notice that his claims were untrue,” the new indictment said. “He was told so by those most invested in his re-election, including his own running mate and his campaign staff.”
The indictment originally detailed three instances in December 2020 when officials, including the acting attorney general and chief of staff, told Trump that his claims of fraud in Georgia — including at the Cobb County Civic Center and State Farm Arena — were false. The new indictment omits those details.
The indictment omits some of Trump’s statements from behind White House podiums or referencing the White House.
The superseding indictment surgically removes statements Trump made from within the White House behind official podiums.
In two instances from within the White House, Trump made remarks falsely alleging voter fraud in Michigan.
“In Detroit, there were hours of unexplained delay in delivering many of the votes for counting. The final batch did not arrive until four in the morning and—even though the polls closed at eight o’clock,” Trump said in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room on November 5, 2020.
Unlike other instances in the indictment in which prosecutors clarified were made in Trump’s capacity as a candidate for office, Trump’s remarks made within the White House were struck from the indictment.
The indictment also removed mention of a January 5, 2021, Tweet when Trump told supporters heading to Washington, “We hear you (and love you) from the Oval Office.”
Reacting to the indictment, Trump issued a statement saying, “Smith, has brought a ridiculous new Indictment against me, which has all the problems of the old Indictment, and should be dismissed IMMEDIATELY.”
He also called it “an attempt to INTERFERE WITH THE ELECTION.”
Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance, shared Trump’s sentiment, telling ABC News, “It looks like Jack Smith doing more of what he does, which is filing these absurd lawsuits in an effort to influence the election.”
(WASHINGTON) — The White House is expected to keep in place its restrictions on Ukraine’s use of American long-range weapons deep inside Russia, despite pressure from a delegation of Ukrainian officials that arrived in Washington on Thursday, a U.S. official said.
Ukrainian Defense Minister, Rustem Umerov, and Andriy Yermak, the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, arrived with a list of Russian targets that Kyiv believes it could strike using U.S. weapons if given permission, according to several officials.
According to a Ukrainian official, the officials will argue that such strikes could be effective in altering the course of the conflict, which is now in its third year.
All of the officials spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss ongoing private talks between the two countries.
The Biden administration has already eased some restrictions on the use of U.S. arms, allowing Ukraine to launch limited defensive strikes against Russian forces across its border.
Among Ukraine’s most coveted items is a long-range missile system — the Army Tactical Missile System, or “ATACMS,” which the Biden administration has delivered. And this spring, after months of pressure by the Ukrainians, the U.S. shipped a longer-range version that could strike as far as 190 miles, enabling it to hit targets inside Russian-occupied Crimea.
But while the U.S. has made its support for Ukraine clear, it’s also sought to avoid deep strikes inside the Russia homeland, seeing such a move as a major provocation with both U.S. and NATO trying to avoid direct conflict with Moscow.
According to a U.S. official familiar with the latest round of discussions, the reluctance by the White House to relax its rules on the use of ATACMs to hit far-flung targets inside Russia is due in part to the limited number of them.
The system is successfully being used in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine, including Crimea. And pulling those systems to focus on other targets wouldn’t likely be useful, the official said.
Another question for Washington would be whether loosening restrictions on the use of U.S. weapons would make much of a difference.
Recent intelligence suggests Russia is believed to have relocated more than 90 percent of its aircraft out of range of the system, according to the U.S. official.
“There’s not a silver bullet to win the war,” the official said. And a change in policy “means Ukraine would have to choose between striking in the Donbas in Crimea or inside Russia with limited resources.”
President Volodymyr Zelensky has long advocated for more weapons from the West with no restrictions. At an Aug. 24 press conference in Kyiv, he said he plans on attending the United Nations General Assembly in September where he’ll present the U.S. and other world powers a path to victory in the war.
“We need no less determination from our partners in these matters. Each of our friends who can persuade our allies to lift restrictions on Ukraine’s use of long-range weapons can truly help bring our shared victory closer,” he said.