WASHINGTON: A federal appeals court is hearing arguments Monday on whether to reinstate a gag order against Donald Trump in the federal case charging him with plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Prosecutors with special counsel Jack Smith’s team will urge a three-judge panel of the Washington-based appeals court to put back in place an order barring the former president from making inflammatory statements about lawyers in the case and potential witnesses.
The prosecutors say those restrictions are necessary to prevent Trump from undermining confidence in the court system and intimidating people who may be called to testify against him. Defense lawyers have called the gag order an unconstitutional muzzling of Trump’s free speech rights and say prosecutors have presented no evidence to support the idea that his words have caused harm or made anyone feel threatened.
The gag order is one of multiple contentious issues being argued ahead of the landmark March 2024 trial. Defense lawyers are also trying to get the case dismissed by arguing that Trump, as a former president, is immune from prosecution and protected by the First Amendment from being charged. The outcome of Monday’s arguments won’t affect those constitutional claims, but it will set parameters on what Trump as both a criminal defendant and leading presidential candidate can and cannot say ahead of the trial.
The order has had a whirlwind trajectory through the courts since US District Judge Tanya Chutkan imposed it last month in response to a request from prosecutors, who cited among other comments Trump’s repeated disparagement of Smith as “deranged.”
The judge lifted it days after entering it, giving Trump’s lawyers time to prove why his words should not be restricted. But after Trump took advantage of that pause by posting on social media comments that prosecutors said were meant to sway his former chief of staff against giving unfavorable testimony, Chutkan put it back in place.
The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit later lifted it as it considered Trump’s appeal.
The judges hearing the case include Cornelia Pillard and Patricia Millett, both appointees of former President Barack Obama, and Brad Garcia, who joined the bench earlier this year after being nominated by President Joe Biden.
The panel is not expected to immediately rule on Monday. Should the judges rule against Trump, he’ll have the option of asking the entire court to take up the matter. His lawyers have also signaled that they’ll ask the Supreme Court to get involved.
The four-count indictment in Washington is one of four criminal cases Trump faces as he seeks to reclaim the White House in 2024.
He’s been charged in Florida, also by Smith’s team, with illegally hoarding dozens of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate. He’s also been charged in state court in New York in connection with hush money payments to a porn actress who alleged an extramarital affair with him, and in Georgia with scheming to subvert the 2020 presidential election in that state.
US appeals court to hear arguments on whether to reinstate gag order against Donald Trump
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US appeals court to hear arguments on whether to reinstate gag order against Donald Trump
- Defense lawyers have called the gag order an unconstitutional muzzling of former president’s free speech rights
WHO says told by Israeli military to leave southern Gaza warehouse within 24 hours
- Israel killed 15,900 people, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza
- Twelve hospitals still remain operational in the south part of the Gaza Strip, according to the WHO
GENEVA: WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Monday that the Israeli army had told the UN health agency to empty an aid warehouse in southern Gaza before ground operations in the area made it unusable.
“Today, WHO received notification from the Israel Defense Forces that we should remove our supplies from our medical warehouse in southern Gaza within 24 hours, as ground operations will put it beyond use,” Tedros wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
“We appeal to Israel to withdraw the order, and take every possible measure to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, including hospitals and humanitarian facilities,” he wrote.
Hamas militants from Gaza launched an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 240 hostages, according to Israeli officials.
In response, Israel vowed to destroy Hamas and has conducted a relentless air, artillery and naval bombardment alongside a ground offensive, killing around 15,900 people, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
Israel’s army on Monday sent dozens of tanks into southern Gaza as part of expanded action against Hamas, as communications was cut across the besieged territory.
The number of operational hospitals in Gaza has dropped from 36 to 18 in less than 60 days, according to the WHO, with three providing only basic first aid and others offering partial services.
Twelve hospitals still remain operational in the south part of the Gaza Strip, according to the WHO.
At a press conference earlier on Monday, the WHO regional director for the eastern Mediterranean, Ahmed Al-Mandhari, said the intensification of military ground operations in southern Gaza risked depriving thousands of people of health care.
“We saw what happened in the north of Gaza. This cannot serve as a model for the south,” he said.
Man who posed as agent and offered gifts to Secret Service sentenced to nearly 3 years
- Taherzadeh pleaded guilty to conspiracy, a federal offense, as well as two District of Columbia offenses: unlawful possession of a large-capacity ammunition feeding device and voyeurism
WASHINGTON: A man accused of pretending to be a federal agent and offering gifts and free apartments to Secret Service officers has been sentenced to nearly three years in prison.
Arian Taherzadeh, 41, was sentenced to 33 months in prison Friday. He and a second man, Haider Ali, were indicted in April 2022, accused of tricking actual Secret Service officers, offering expensive apartments and gifts to curry favor with law enforcement agents, including one agent assigned to protect the first lady, prosecutors said.
Ali, 36, was sentenced in August to over five years. Attorneys for the two did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment Monday.
Prosecutors alleged Taherzadeh falsely claimed, at various times, to be an agent with the Department of Homeland Security, a former US Air Marshal, and a former US Army Ranger. He used his supposed law-enforcement work to trick owners of three apartment complexes into letting him use multiple apartments and parking spaces for fake operations, the Justice Department said in a statement.
Taherzadeh pleaded guilty to conspiracy, a federal offense, as well as two District of Columbia offenses: unlawful possession of a large-capacity ammunition feeding device and voyeurism. He was also ordered to pay restitution of more than $700,000.
The case was thrust into the public spotlight when more than a dozen FBI agents raided a luxury apartment building in southwest Washington in April 2022. They found a cache of gear, including body armor, guns and surveillance equipment, as well as a binder with information about the building’s residents, prosecutors said. Taherzadeh also installed surveillance cameras in his apartment and made explicit content that he showed to others, prosecutors said.
Taherzadeh provided Secret Service officers and agents with rent-free apartments — including a penthouse worth over $40,000 a year — as well as electronics, authorities said. In one instance, Taherzadeh offered to purchase a $2,000 assault rifle for a Secret Service agent who is assigned to protect the first lady, prosecutors said.
The plot unraveled when the US Postal Inspection Service began investigating an assault involving a mail carrier at the apartment building and the men identified themselves as being part of a phony Homeland Security unit they called the US Special Police Investigation Unit.
Taherzadeh’s lawyer has previously said he provided the luxury apartments and lavish gifts because he wanted to be friends with the agents, not try to compromise them.
US is running out of money for Ukraine and that could hinder fight against Russia, White House warns
US is running out of money for Ukraine and that could hinder fight against Russia, White House warns
- President Joe Biden has sought a nearly $106 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and other needs, but it has faced a difficult reception on Capitol Hill
WASHINGTON: The Biden administration on Monday sent Congress an urgent warning about the need to approve tens of billions of dollars in military and economic assistance to Ukraine, saying Kyiv’s war effort to defend itself from Russia’s invasion may grind to a halt without it.
In a letter to House and Senate leaders and released publicly, Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young warned the US will run out of funding to send weapons and assistance to Ukraine by the end of the year, saying that would “kneecap” Ukraine on the battlefield.
She added that the US already has run out of money that it has used to prop up Ukraine’s economy, and “if Ukraine’s economy collapses, they will not be able to keep fighting, full stop.”
“We are out of money — and nearly out of time,” she wrote.
President Joe Biden has sought a nearly $106 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and other needs, but it has faced a difficult reception on Capitol Hill. There is growing skepticism about the magnitude of assistance for Ukraine and even Republicans supportive of the funding are insisting on US-Mexico border policy changes to halt the flow of migrants as a condition for the assistance.
“Congress has to decide whether to continue to support the fight for freedom in Ukraine as part of the 50-nation coalition that President Biden has built, or whether Congress will ignore the lessons we’ve learned from history and let (Russian President Vladimir) Putin prevail,” National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Monday. “It is that simple. It is that stark choice, and we hope that Congress on a bipartisan basis will make the right choice.”
But negotiations over the border security package broke down over the weekend as Republicans insisted on provisions Democrats said are draconian, aides said. Talks are expected to resume this week.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said Monday that his party is “still at the table.”
Congress already has allocated $111 billion to assist Ukraine, including $67 billion in military procurement funding, $27 billion for economic and civil assistance and $10 billion for humanitarian aid. Young wrote that all of it, other than about 3 percent of the military funding, had been depleted by mid-November.
Meanwhile, the GOP-controlled House has passed a standalone assistance package for Israel as it fights the war with Hamas in Gaza, but the White House has maintained that all of the priorities must be met.
The Biden administration has said it has slowed the pace of some military assistance to Kyiv in recent weeks to try to stretch supplies until Congress approves more funding.
“We are out of money to support Ukraine in this fight,” Young wrote. “This isn’t a next year problem. The time to help a democratic Ukraine fight against Russian aggression is right now. It is time for Congress to act.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson reiterated in a statement Monday that House Republicans will insist on border policy changes as part of a Ukraine assistance bill, and he argued Biden has “failed to substantively address any of my conference’s legitimate concerns about the lack of a clear strategy in Ukraine, a path to resolving the conflict, or a plan for adequately ensuring accountability for aid provided by American taxpayers.”
The letter followed a classified Capitol Hill briefing on Nov. 29 for the top House and Senate leaders on the need for the assistance. Defense and other national security officials briefed the “big four” congressional leaders.
“They were clear that Ukraine needs the aid soon — and so does our military need the aid soon,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told The Associated Press in an interview at the time.
Schumer said Monday that both Republicans and Democrats in his chamber agree on funding for Ukraine, as well as Israel, but that the funding has been halted for weeks by GOP demands that border security policy be included in a final package.
Schumer, a New York Democrat, said Republicans have pressed for “indefinite detention” of asylum seekers and granting the executive branch power to “shut down” the asylum system, measures that Democrats say go too far.
He is expected to push forward Biden’s supplemental funding package this week, but Republicans are threatening to block its passage with a filibuster as they insist on border security provisions.
More than $950,000 raised for Palestinian student paralyzed after being shot in Vermont
- The suspected gunman, Jason J. Eaton, 48, was arrested the following day at his Burlington apartment, where he answered the door with his hands raised and told federal agents he had been waiting for them
NEW YORK: More than $950,000 has been raised for the recovery of one of the three college students of Palestinian descent who was shot in Vermont and is currently paralyzed from the chest down, according to a GoFundMe page set up by his family.
One of the bullets that hit Hisham Awartani on Nov. 25 is lodged in his spine, his family said.
“Hisham’s first thoughts were for his friends, then for his parents who were thousands of miles away. He has demonstrated remarkable courage, resilience and fortitude — even a sense of humor — even as the reality of his paralysis sets in,” the fundraising page, which was set up on Saturday, states.
Awartani, Kinnan Abdalhamid and Tahseen Ali Ahmad are childhood friends who graduated from a private Quaker school in the West Bank and now attend colleges in the eastern US The 20-year-olds were visiting Awartani’s relatives in Burlington for the Thanksgiving break. They were walking to the house of Hisham’s grandmother for dinner when they were shot in an unprovoked attack, the family said.
The young men were speaking in a mix of English and Arabic and two of them were also wearing the black-and-white Palestinian keffiyeh scarves when they were shot, Burlington Police Chief Jon Murad said. Authorities are investigating the shooting as a possible hate crime.
“In a cruelly ironic twist, Hisham’s parents had recommended he not return home over winter break, suggesting he would be safer in the US with his grandmother,” the fundraising page states. “Burlington is a second home to Hisham, who has spent summers and happy holidays with his family there. It breaks our hearts that these young men did not find safety in his home away from home.”
All three were seriously injured. Abdalhamid was released from the hospital last week.
The suspected gunman, Jason J. Eaton, 48, was arrested the following day at his Burlington apartment, where he answered the door with his hands raised and told federal agents he had been waiting for them. Eaton has pleaded not guilty to three counts of attempted murder and is currently being held without bail.
The shooting came as threats against Jewish, Muslim and Arab communities have increased across the US in the weeks since the the Israel-Hamas war erupted in early October.
Awartani, who speaks seven languages, is pursuing a dual degree in math and archaeology at Brown University, where he is also a teaching assistant, the fundraising page said. He told his college professors that he is determined to start the next semester on time, according to the fundraiser.
“We, his family, believe that Hisham will change the world,” the fundraising page states. “He’ll change the world through his spirit, his mind and his compassion for those much more vulnerable than himself, especially the thousands of dead in Gaza and many more struggling to survive the devastating humanitarian crisis unfolding there.”
France calls at UN for ‘a truce leading to a ceasefire’ in Gaza
- The French ambassador to the UN urges council members to take more action to address the conflict because it requires more than only humanitarian pauses
- More than 700 Palestinians have been killed since Israel resumed its military operations in Gaza on Dec. 1 after a week-long temporary truce
NEW YORK CITY: France on Monday urged the UN Security Council to do more to address the conflict in Gaza, stressing that pauses in the fighting are not enough and what is needed is a truce that can pave the way for a ceasefire.
Nicolas de Riviere, France’s permanent representative to the UN, said that in the short term “we need more than a humanitarian pause. We need a truce leading to a ceasefire, full humanitarian access, full respect of international humanitarian law. Of course, we need the release of hostages.”
He also reiterated that his country respects “Israel’s right to defend itself and go after the terrorists who committed crimes on Oct. 7.”
De Riviere was speaking to reporters at the UN headquarters in New York ahead of a closed meeting of the Security Council. It was called by the UAE, which cited the “deeply concerning resumption of hostilities” at the weekend and the dire humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip.
More than 700 Palestinians have been killed since Israel resumed its military operations in Gaza on Dec. 1 after a week-long humanitarian pause in the fighting. Another 15,500 were killed before the temporary truce.
Israel this week expanded its operations into southern Gaza, forcing tens of thousands of already displaced Gazans into “increasingly compressed spaces, desperate to find food, water, shelter and safety,” according to Lynn Hastings, the UN’s resident and humanitarian coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Warning that “an even more hellish scenario is about to unfold,” she added: “Nowhere is safe in Gaza and there is nowhere left to go. The conditions required to deliver aid to the people of Gaza do not exist.”
De Riviere meanwhile, also called for the resumption of a political process to address the wider Palestinian issue, saying: “I don’t think we can continue to refuse to address the aspirations of the Palestinians to statehood. It is a necessity. It should not be under the carpet like has been the case for the past seven years.”
Council members have been discussing a draft resolution, proposed by the UAE, for the scaling up and monitoring of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.
However, speaking before the closed-doors meeting on Monday, US Ambassador Robert Wood told reporters there is no need at the moment for additional resolutions or statements from the council.
He said it already adopted an “important” resolution on Nov. 15, which calls for urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and aid corridors to be established throughout the Gaza Strip. Resolution 2712, the first one that council members have agreed on since the beginning of the conflict, also calls for the release of all hostages and for all sides to refrain from depriving Gazan civilians of access to the basic goods and services that are critical to their survival.
Wood said what is needed now is a “focus on how we can actually bring relief to the people on the ground, improve the situation, and try to get the negotiations back on again, with regard to the hostages. We’re seeing more aid getting in, although clearly not enough. So that’s where we need to focus our efforts.”
Asked to comment on the latest death toll, and whether or not Israel is doing enough to avoid civilian casualties, Wood said: “Israel is doing more and we have been saying to Israel for quite some time now, ‘You need to do more to protect civilians.’
“It’s a difficult operation when you’re trying to root out Hamas and protect civilians, because Hamas is hiding among the civilians. But they’re listening to us and I think that’s important, and they’re taking steps and we’ll continue to encourage them. Because, obviously, no one is happy with the situation on the ground and it needs to improve and they need to do it.
“The Israelis want to do a better job protecting civilians and we’re going to continue to work with them on that.”
