Trump to head back to Butler — site of 1st assassination attempt — for weekend rally

(WASHINGTON) — The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s election interference case has dismissed the case, after special counsel Jack Smith asked the judge to toss the case due to a long-standing Justice Department policy that bars the prosecution of a sitting president.

Smith earlier Monday moved to dismiss Trump’s election interference case and the appeal of his classified documents case ahead of Trump’s impending inauguration, due to the DOJ’s presidential immunity policy and not because the charges lacked merit.

U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan dismissed the charges against Trump without prejudice, leaving open the highly unlikely possibility of a future prosecution.

In a two-page opinion, Judge Chutkan wrote that dismissing the case without prejudice is “appropriate” and would not harm the “public interest,” agreeing with Smith’s argument that Trump’s immunity would not cover him when he leaves office.

“Dismissal without prejudice is also consistent with the Government’s understanding that the immunity afforded to a sitting President is temporary, expiring when they leave office,” Chutkan wrote.

However, it’s extremely unlikely that any prosecutor would attempt to bring the same charges in the future, in part because the statute of limitations for the alleged crimes will have expired by the time Trump leaves office in four years.

Trump’s lawyers did not oppose the government’s motion to dismiss the case without prejudice.

Smith also asked the judge in Trump’s classified documents case that his appeal against Trump’s two co-defendants in that case, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Olivera, be allowed to continue.

Smith’s requests came nearly 16 months after a grand jury first indicted Trump over his alleged efforts to unlawfully overturn the results of the 2020 election.

“That prohibition is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the Government’s proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the Government stands fully behind,” Smith stated in his motion.

“The country have never faced the circumstance here, where a federal indictment against a private citizen has been returned by a grand jury and a criminal prosecution is already underway when the defendant is elected President,” the motion said. “After careful consideration, the Department has determined that OLC’s prior opinions concerning the Constitution’s prohibition on federal indictment and prosecution of a sitting President apply to this situation and that as a result this prosecution must be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated.”

Smith moved to dismiss his appeal of the charges against Trump in his classified documents case, in which Trump pleaded not guilty last year to 40 criminal counts related to his handling of classified materials after leaving the White House, after U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case in July over her finding that Smith was improperly appointed to his role. Smith appealed that ruling to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing that legal precedent and history confirm the attorney general’s ability to appoint special counsels.

Monday’s filing asked the court to dismiss that appeal — but it sought to keep the appeal in place for Nauta and De Olivera, two Trump employees who pleaded not guilty to obstruction charges.

“The appeal concerning the other two defendants will continue because, unlike defendant Trump, no principle of temporary immunity applies to them,” the filing said.

In a statement, John Irving, a lawyer for De Oliveira, said, “The Special Counsel’s decision to proceed in this case even after dismissing it against President Trump is an unsurprising tribute to the poor judgment that led to the indictment against Mr. De Oliveira in the first place. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. If they prefer a slow acquittal, that’s fine with us.”

Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung, in a statement, called Smith’s motions to dismiss a “major victory for the rule of law” and said, “The American People and President Trump want an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system and we look forward to uniting our country.”

In the election interference case, Trump last year pleaded not guilty to federal charges of undertaking a “criminal scheme” to overturn the results of the 2020 election by enlisting a slate of so-called “fake electors,” using the Justice Department to conduct “sham election crime investigations,” trying to enlist the vice president to “alter the election results,” and promoting false claims of a stolen election during the

Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, all in an effort to subvert democracy and 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.

Earlier this month, Judge Chutkan cancelled the remaining deadlines in the election interference case after Smith requested time to “assess this unprecedented circumstance and determine the appropriate course going forward consistent with Department of Justice policy” following Trump’s election.

Judge Chutkan had been in the process of considering how the case should proceed in light of the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling.

Smith had faced filing deadlines of Dec. 2 for both the election interference case and the classified documents case, after Smith’s team requested more time to determine how to face the unprecedented situation of pending federal cases against someone who had just been elected to the presidency.

Getting Monday’s filings in a week ahead of schedule now raises the question of whether Smith will be able to beat the clock to officially close his office down and submit his final report to Attorney General Merrick Garland — as is required of him per the DOJ’s special counsel regulations — before Inauguration Day.

The final report will have to go through a classification review by the intelligence community, a process that can sometimes take weeks before it is approved for any kind of public release.

Garland has made clear in appearances before Congress and in public statements that he is committed to making public the final reports of all special counsels during his tenure, which included reports by special counsel Robert Hur following his probe of President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents before assuming the presidency, and by special counsel John Durham following his probe of the 2016 Russia investigation.

Special counsel David Weiss is still continuing his investigation of FBI informant Alexander Smirnov, who pleaded not guilty to charges of lying about President Biden and his son Hunter Biden, and is set to take the case to trial in California next week. It’s unclear whether he will formally close his investigation down and submit a final report prior to Trump taking office.

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(WASHINGTON) — Millions of dollars from Republican groups and figures are being poured into anti-transgender ads criticizing policies that support the trans community, despite these issues being among the least important concerns motivating voters heading into the 2024 election, according to a recent Gallup poll.

LGBTQ advocates fear the intensified campaign will sow fear and hate against a group that makes up less than 1% of the U.S. adult population, per an analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data — and which already experiences high rates of discrimination and violence.

“After the election, trans Americans will have to deal with the dangerous fallout from the shameful lies and misinformation that far too many political candidates are intentionally spreading,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement.

In the ads, former President Donald Trump’s campaign has said he will end transgender care in prisons and jails, and restrict access to gender-affirming care and transgender participation in sports, and more.

In interviews, Vice President Kamala Harris — who has been touted by some LGBTQ groups as being part of the most “pro-LGBTQ” administration — has said she will follow the law when it comes to transgender care and has expressed support for the Equality Act, a bill that would protect LGBTQ Americans from discrimination.

Here’s what we know about the issues and how each candidate expects to legislate transgender policies.

Claim about ‘transgender operations’ in prisons, jails

Trump’s campaign has seized on Harris’ past comments affirming her support for transgender inmates to receive care.

In 2019, she did support “providing essential medical care to deliver transition treatment.”

The Harris campaign, however, hit back against recent criticism from Trump, noting that the Bureau of Prisons under the Trump administration had a policy in place to allow incarcerated transgender people to receive gender-affirming medical care if it’s required based on an individual assessment of needs. BOP documents confirm the policy.

“Are you still in support of using taxpayer dollars to help prison inmates or detained illegal aliens to transition to another gender?” Fox News anchor Bret Baier asked Harris during an interview in October.

“I will follow the law, a law that Donald Trump actually followed,” Harris said. “You’re probably familiar with now, it’s a public report that under Donald Trump’s administration, these surgeries were available on a medical necessity basis to people in the federal prison system.”

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, of the hundreds of incarcerated transgender people in BOP custody each year, no one had received gender-affirming surgery until the first instance in 2023.

BOP officials told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that as of early October, only two federal inmates have ever obtained surgeries.

Claims of transgender ‘operations’ for children at schools

Trump has often depicted hypothetical or unfounded scenarios about children getting an “operation” at school without parental permission while on the campaign trail. The former president has repeatedly claimed, without any proof, that schools purportedly secretly send students for surgeries, saying: “There are some places, your boy leaves for school, comes back a girl. OK? Without parental consent.”

According to Planned Parenthood, parental consent is needed for any form of gender-affirming care given to minors, including puberty blockers or hormone therapy.

A study by researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found little to no usage of gender-affirming surgeries by transgender and gender-diverse minors in the U.S., instead finding that cisgender minors and adults had substantially higher utilization of such gender-affirming surgeries than their transgender counterparts.

In trans teens ages 15 to 17, the rate of gender-affirming surgery was 2.1 per 100,000, the study found — a majority of which were chest surgeries. Physicians and researchers have told ABC News that surgeries on people under 18 happen rarely and are considered only on an individual basis.

Physicians say they work with patients and their parents to build a customized and individualized approach to gender-affirming care for trans patients, meaning not every patient will receive any or every type of care. They also said receiving this care is typically a lengthy process.

Numerous medical organizations — including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the CDC — have said access to gender-affirming care is essential to the health and wellness of gender-diverse people.

Harris, when asked in October during an NBC News interview about whether transgender Americans deserve to have access to gender-affirming care, said she would “follow the law,” later adding that such care “is a decision that doctors will make in terms of what is medically necessary.”

Additionally, vice presidential candidate Tim Walz signed an executive order as Minnesota governor protecting and supporting access to gender-affirming health care for LGBTQ people in the state in March 2023.

Claims about transgender athletes

In a podcast with former professional wrestler The Undertaker, or Mark William Calaway, Trump also pushed false claims about the controversial Olympic boxing match between Italian boxer Angela Carini and Algerian boxer Imane Khelif.

Khelif was the target of controversy after reports falsely surfaced claiming Khelif is a transgender woman; she is not and was assigned female at birth, according to the International Olympic Committee.

Carini abandoned the Olympics bout after only 46 seconds, further sparking false accusations. The Algerian Olympic and Sports Committee (COA) and the IOC spoke out about the misinformation on Khelif’s gender and sex.

“The Algerian boxer was born female, was registered female, lived her life as a female, has a female passport,” the IOC said during a press conference.

Trump then referenced a San Jose State women’s volleyball game against New Mexico, falsely claiming a trans athlete on San Jose State’s team — as he repeatedly misgendered her — injured other female players with the ball. San Jose State told the Los Angeles Times that the ball bounced off the shoulder of the student-athlete, and the athlete was uninjured and did not miss a play.

“They had the one guy on the one team, and he was so high in the air, and he smashed that ball, you know, you don’t see that, and this ball came at her at a speed that he’s, you know, she’s never seen — get really whacked her. But other volleyball players were hurt,” Trump said.

Trump has additionally vowed to “keep men out of women’s sports” in many of his stump speeches, making it a key issue in his campaign.

LGBTQ advocates say claims that trans women are “taking over” women’s sports are misleading — with sports advocacy group Athlete Ally estimating to CNN that trans women make up less than 40 athletes of the 500,000 in the NCAA.

For more insight into the candidates’ LGBTQ policy history, read here.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Pentagon and the Director of National Intelligence have released the annual report on UFO sightings and while they still haven’t found any extraterrestrial origin for the more than 700 new reports that came in last year, there are about two dozen that have them really curious.

UAP is the term the Pentagon and the intelligence community use to describe UFOs, which stands for Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena. The agency that reviews all of the new incidents being reported by military personnel and now additional federal agencies is the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO).

From May 2023 to June 2024, AARO received 757 new incident reports, 485 that occurred in that time period and another 272 reports from 2021 and 2022 that had not been previously sent to the agency. That’s a sizable increase from previous reports, for example, last year’s report cited 281 new reports during its review period, something Pentagon officials said Thursday was due to a greater awareness about reporting UAP incidents, not that they have been growing in frequency.

Overall the total number of cases that have been reviewed by AARO since its founding is now 1,652.

AARO has “discovered no evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity, or technology” according to this year’s report. A small number of this year’s reports had terrestrial explanations and a significant number will be left for further review, but one thing they haven’t found is that some of the reports are attributable to a “breakthrough” technology.

However, during a press briefing Thursday, the head of AARO acknowledged that there are 21 reports over the last year and a half that he can’t really explain.

“There are interesting cases that with my physics and engineering background and time in the I.C. I do not understand, and I don’t know anybody else understands them,” said Dr. Jon Kosloski, the new director of AARO. Kosloski said the 21 incidents occurred near national security sites and were recorded on video, had multiple eyewitnesses or were captured by other sensors.

So what do these unexplainable UAPs look like? “Orbs, cylinders, triangles, in one of the cases, it has been happening over an extended period of time, and it is possible that there’s multiple things happening” Kosloski said, adding that the incidents might include drone activity that’s being conflated with a UAP.

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