The Full Belmonte, 12/12/2023
Special counsel Jack Smith asked the court to give former President Donald Trump one week to respond to his motion.
PHOTO: JACQUELYN MARTIN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Special counsel Jack Smith asked the Supreme Court to take up Donald Trump’s claim that he is immune from prosecution.
“Smith wants to head off the appeals process so the former president’s federal election-interference trial can start in March. The court took similar action when President Richard Nixon’s executive privilege claims threatened to stall a Watergate trial in 1974. Trump’s lawyers say he can’t face criminal charges related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election because the Senate acquitted him in a 2021 impeachment trial over claims he incited a crowd to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Trying him again would amount to double jeopardy. The criminal case alleges Trump tried to undermine the election’s outcome by organizing slates of fraudulent electors, pressuring officials to alter the results and other methods. Trump has pleaded not guilty.” [Wall Street Journal]
A pregnant woman at the center of a legal fight over her rights to an abortion in Texas despite its bans will leave the state for the procedure.
“The decision by the woman, Kate Cox, whose fetus received a fatal diagnosis, came after the Texas Supreme Court halted a lower court order allowing the abortion.”
Read more at New York Times
Texas Supreme Court Rules Against Woman Who Sought Court-Approved Abortion
Hours before the ruling, a group representing the woman, whose fetus received a fatal diagnosis, said she was leaving Texas for an abortion.
“The Texas Supreme Court on Monday overturned a lower court order allowing an abortion for a pregnant woman whose fetus was diagnosed with a fatal condition, hours after her lawyers said she had decided to leave Texas for the procedure in the face of the state’s abortion bans.
The court ruled that the lower court made a mistake in ruling that the woman, Kate Cox, who is more than 20 weeks pregnant, was entitled to a medical exception.
In its seven-page ruling, the Supreme Court found that Ms. Cox’s doctor, Damla Karsan, ‘asked a court to pre-authorize the abortion yet she could not, or at least did not, attest to the court that Ms. Cox’s condition poses the risks the exception requires.’ Texas’ overlapping bans allow for abortions only when a pregnancy seriously threatens the health or life of the woman.
‘These laws reflect the policy choice that the Legislature has made, and the courts must respect that choice,’ the court wrote….” Read more at New York Times
In Court With the Women He Defamed, Giuliani Faces Millions in Damages
Two Georgia election workers are seeking as much as $43 million for false assertions from Rudolph Giuliani that they had sought to swing the 2020 outcome against Donald Trump.
“Rudolph W. Giuliani’s lawyer told jurors on Monday that the tens of millions of dollars in damages two Georgia election workers are seeking from him in a defamation suit ‘will be the end of Mr. Giuliani’ likening an award of that scale to a civil death penalty.
The lawyer, Joseph Sibley IV, made the assertion in his opening statement on the first day of Mr. Giuliani’s civil trial in Federal District Court in Washington.
The judge, Beryl A. Howell, has already ruled that Mr. Giuliani, who served as personal lawyer to President Donald J. Trump and helped spearhead the efforts to keep Mr. Trump in office after his loss in the 2020 election, defamed the two workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss.
Mr. Giuliani was found to have intentionally inflicted emotional distress on them and engaged in a conspiracy with others when he publicly accused them of election fraud related to their work counting absentee ballots at State Farm Arena in Atlanta for the Fulton County Board of Elections on Nov. 3, 2020.
A jury of eight will determine how much Mr. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City and a former federal prosecutor, should have to pay them for the harm he caused.
Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss are seeking compensatory damages between $15.5 million and $43 million. The trial is expected to last a week. Mr. Giuliani, Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss all plan to testify.
Michael J. Gottlieb, a lawyer for Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss, who are mother and daughter, said Mr. Giuliani’s false accusations led to a ‘campaign of defamation and emotional terror’ against them. He said the women had to move out of their homes for safety and security because of the thousands of threats that followed.
‘Their names have become synonymous with crime, cheating and fraud,’ Mr. Gottlieb said in his opening statement. ‘How much is somebody’s reputation worth?’
The women’s lawyers showed the jury social media posts, laden with expletives, racial slurs, accusations of treason and threats, some calling for them to be lynched.
Sitting across from Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss in the courtroom, Mr. Giuliani sighed, put his hand on his forehead and at times shook his head as Judge Howell described his actions after the election to the jury.
And he nodded his head as he watched footage of himself maligning the women in December 2020, when he said, ‘F.B.I. hasn’t arrested anybody,’ and ‘they just walk around free.’
Even as Georgia officials quickly debunked Mr. Giuliani’s assertions in 2020, he repeated them so often that Ms. Freeman became one of Mr. Trump’s favorite targets.
Georgia’s State Election Board conducted a yearslong investigation into Mr. Giuliani’s claims and officially cleared Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss last summer.
Mr. Giuliani’s lawyer said Monday that there is no question that Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss did not deserve what happened to them. But, he said, the harm inflicted on them was not all the fault of Mr. Giuliani.
‘You’re going to see a lot of evidence of harm, but not much evidence that Mr. Giuliani was the cause,’ he said.
The plaintiffs’ first witness was Regina Scott, a consultant who led a team hired to track the threats against the women. She described how analysts collected and cataloged thousands of screenshots that included mentions of their names. Ms. Scott’s risk-consulting firm, Jensen Hughes, found that in most cases the election workers’ names were mentioned in a negative context.
When he cross-examined Ms. Scott, Mr. Sibley was quick to point out that there was nothing in a majority of the posts clearly linking the comments to Mr. Giuliani.
Even though Judge Howell already ruled that Mr. Giuliani defamed the two women, their lawyers are presenting evidence of the attacks against them to try to convince the jury that their compensation should be significant.
But any amount is likely to throw Mr. Giuliani deeper into financial distress. He already owes money to lawyers who have represented him in other matters related to his post-election efforts to undermine President Biden’s victory in 2020. Disciplinary actions against him prevent him from working as a lawyer, and he faces disbarment….” Read more at New York Times
Most Americans back Israel in its war with Hamas, and just over a third say they are equally sympathetic to Israelis and Palestinians.
“Fifty-five percent said Israel is taking the military action needed to defend itself and prevent another attack by the U.S.-designated terror organization, compared with 25% who said Israel’s military action is disproportionate and going too far, according to a WSJ poll. Attitudes about the conflict reflect partisan and generational divides. Meanwhile, this year will likely top the prior national record for reported antisemitic incidents, said Brian Levin, founder of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, while anti-Muslim crimes are on track to hit their highest level since 2016, the second worst year behind 2001.” [Wall Street Journal]
Alleged Discord leaker Jack Teixeira got top-secret security clearance despite a history of violent threats
“Interviews with people who know Teixeira offer the most detailed account yet of how he allegedly leaked classified information and his motivations.”
Read more at Washington Post
Can Democrats overcome their deep divisions over Gaza?
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
The Democratic Party remains fractured over the Israel-Hamas war more than two months after the conflict first began.
“Biden continues to be stuck in a political quagmire over the war, with just 37 percent of Americans approving of how he’s handling it and 52 percent disapproving, according to a new Wall Street Journal poll. Republicans are fairly uniform in their outlook: They disapprove of the president’s actions, they have much more sympathy for Israelis than Palestinians, and they think Israel’s military campaign has been largely proportionate.
But Democrats are more divided. Half of the party says they sympathize with both peoples equally; 24 percent say they side more with Palestinians and 17 percent said they were more sympathetic to Israelis. Younger Democrats in particular are driving much of the party’s support for the Palestinians.
Democrats are still searching for an elusive consensus, Vox’s Nicole Narea writes, but are now a party divided on a high-profile issue going into next year’s presidential campaign.
Democratic divisions were on display in a high-profile House vote last week. Republican leadership put forward a resolution that equated any anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, not really as an ideological statement, but to put the members across the aisle on the hot seat. In that sense, it worked: 95 Democrats voted for it, 92 Democrats abstained (voting ‘present’ and refusing to take a position) and 13 voted against it.
Congressional Democrats have continually found themselves at odds over the Israel-Hamas war. Rep. Pramila Jayapal caught flak last week from colleagues for, in their view, not condemning sexual violence by Hamas forcefully enough. Meanwhile, a small group of Democratic senators are trying (but will likely fail) to get language in an aid package for Israel that requires the nation to abide by international law in its military campaign.
Some Democratic strategists don’t think the disarray will lead to an electoral penalty. ‘It’s highly unlikely that for other than a small number of people this will be a determinative voting issue for them 11 months from now,’ Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg told Nicole. ‘Based on history, where foreign policy issues often are not determinative for many voters, it’s unlikely that this is going to become something that creates a major fissure in the Democratic Party.’” [Vox]
El Nino is a preview of our climate future
Karlotta Freier for Vox
If you’re looking for signs of progress on our planet’s changing climate, they are hard to find this Monday.
“Reuters reported that the draft agreement being hashed out at the global climate conference COP28 does not include an explicit commitment to phasing out fossil fuels. Meanwhile, another extreme weather event incurred a devastating toll, with at least six people dead in Tennessee and tens of thousands without power after as many as 13 tornadoes ripped through the state over the weekend.
I don’t know about you, but when I try to visualize the irrevocably altered climate that likely awaits us in the coming years, it is tempting to imagine the flooded and uninhabitable New York City of the 2004 film The Day After Tomorrow. But in reality, there will be a less cinematic but equally potent kind of destruction that is visited upon the world.
As part of Vox’s ongoing climate change series pegged to the COP28 conference, senior correspondent Umair Irfan examined this year’s particularly devastating El Niño in South America and what it tells us about future weather worldwide.
El Niño means ‘the boy,’ as fishers of days gone by noticed that the unusual weather patterns always seemed to coincide with Christmas. Every few years, the ocean off the coast of Peru and Ecuador grows a little warmer than usual, which sets off the storms that are associated with the name. Because of its effect on water temperatures, El Niño is a natural preview of sorts for what warmer weather could yield.
The planet’s continued heating combined with this year’s El Niño have pushed global temperatures above the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold that the 2015 Paris climate agreement sought to prevent the earth from passing. The belief was that keeping temperatures below those levels would make climate change more manageable. While the Paris Agreement technically specifies a 10-year average, and we are therefore not yet in violation of those terms, it is still an ignoble milestone.
‘The impacts of El Niño look a lot like what the impacts of climate change are going to be,’ Christopher Callahan, an earth science researcher at Stanford University, told Umair:
The Southern Hemisphere saw record-breaking heat waves during its winter. Inland lakes in turn saw their water levels, always a closely watched indicator of climate change, reach record lows. That, in addition to the decades-long retreat of glaciers in the Andes Mountains, threatens the region’s water supply.
Parts of South America are experiencing both extreme drought and rainfall, devastating local ecosystems. The Amazon is in the middle of a drought that has killed dozens of river dolphins. Wetlands to the south of the rainforest have burned, and habitats that are critical for jaguars have been erased.
The economic toll of El Niño is daunting. High tides could wipe out local infrastructure, roads, and bridges. Peru’s government expects to spend $1 billion — a hefty sum for a country with a GDP of $242 billion — to recover from extreme weather this year.” [Vox]
Alarm grows over Europe’s weakened militaries and empty arsenals after two years of fighting in Ukraine.
“Budget cuts and an eroded weapons industry have hollowed out countries’ armed services. Since the Cold War ended, governments across the West tolerated the status quo because the U.S., with its vast military muscle, underpinned NATO and defense policy there. Now, Washington is increasingly isolationist, and Russia is a potential European threat.” [Wall Street Journal]
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (left) chats with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban during the inauguration of Argentine President Javier Milei in Buenos Aires on Dec. 10.Alejandro Pagni/AFP
“Ukraine’s future hangs in the balance as Western leaders meet this week to discuss Kyiv’s European Union membership bid and further aid for Ukraine’s war effort.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is warning that Budapest will veto a decision to start accession talks for Ukraine to join the 27-nation bloc, accusing Ukraine of being ‘one of the most corrupt countries in the world.’ A failure to begin these negotiations, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said, would have ‘devastating consequences’ for Ukraine, which has sought to join the group since February 2022—just a few days into its war against Russia.
Orban, who has long touted his close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, has also threatened to block additional EU economic assistance to Ukraine. On Monday, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto reiterated Orban’s stance by saying Budapest would not give into pressure, even as the EU prepares to release about $10.7 billion in funds to Hungary after it successfully argued that Budapest had made substantial democratic reforms to its judicial system. All 27 EU leaders are set to meet on Thursday and Friday in Brussels.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is set to visit Washington on Tuesday to meet with U.S. President Joe Biden and members of Congress. Talks will center on securing greater aid for Ukraine after Republicans blocked an emergency spending package last week that would have given Kyiv $61.4 billion in assistance, with high-ranking conservatives arguing that Biden must first address growing domestic border troubles before more Ukraine funding is approved.
As of mid-November, the Pentagon had spent 97 percent of previously approved aid for Ukraine, FP’s Robbie Gramer, Amy Mackinnon, and Jack Detsch reported. ‘Military experts paint a bleak picture of what could happen next if the spigot of U.S. military aid is cut off.’
Zelensky likely hopes that a closed-door session with senators on Tuesday will help break the logjam, but last week’s shouting match between Republican and Democratic lawmakers at a confidential briefing on the Russia-Ukraine war, which saw Zelensky cancel his virtual appearance at the last minute, casts doubt on the likelihood of success. All of this infighting over continued aid has left ‘a palpable sense of dread’ among Ukraine’s biggest Western supporters, Gramer, Mackinnon, and Detsch wrote.
Zelensky met with International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Kristalina Georgieva on Monday to sign off on a $900 million loan to Ukraine. The IMF also discussed Kyiv’s four-year, $15.6 billion Extended Fund Facility program, which was approved in March. Ukraine was required to raise tax revenue and boost anti-corruption efforts to qualify, and it now must ensure macroeconomic stability and continue postwar reconstruction to remain eligible.” [Foreign Policy]
“Targeting Hamas’s chief. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) took control of the area around Hamas’s former headquarters in Gaza City on Sunday, IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said. Known as Palestine Square, the area was home to the offices of Hamas leader Yehia Sinwar. Sinwar’s location remains unknown, though Hagari suggested that he is hiding in southern Gaza. His capture or death remains a top goal for the Israeli military.
In recent days, Israeli troops have focused their fighting on three alleged Hamas ‘strongholds’: Jabaliya and Shajaiye in northern Gaza and Khan Younis in southern Gaza. Extended strikes on Khan Younis are worrying international relief agencies that fighting could fuel a mass exodus of Palestinian refugees toward Egypt. The area’s humanitarian situation is deteriorating, United Nations officials warned, with locals reporting widespread food and water shortages. Egypt continues to oppose the relocation of Palestinians into its territory. More than 18,200 Palestinians have been killed since the war began, the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry estimates.” [Foreign Policy]
“Surprise rejection. French parliamentarians rejected a tougher immigration bill on Monday that would have expelled more undocumented migrants and improved integration efforts. Both far-right and far-left lawmakers had opposed the legislation, with far-right politician Marine Le Pen leading the charge against the proposal. The surprise rejection was a blow to President Emmanuel Macron’s image, who had hoped the bill would improve his law-and-order reputation.
Many French experts were surprised by the quick turnaround, with some predicting that Macron might invoke Article 49.3 of the French Constitution, allowing parliament to pass a bill without a vote. No party holds the majority in France’s lower house. The last time Macron issued Article 49.3 was to pass his unpopular pension reform bill, triggering widespread public protests and demands for his removal.
But with conservatives joining forces to veto the immigration bill, Macron now must decide whether to send the legislation back to France’s upper house, try to find compromise among French lawmakers, or scrap it entirely.” [Foreign Policy]
“Canberra curbs immigration. Australia announced on Monday that it would tighten visa rules for foreign students and low-skilled workers in a bid to decrease migrant intake numbers over the next two years. ‘The system is broken,’ Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said last Friday regarding the country’s immigration laws as homelessness rises. Albanese hopes to bring migrant numbers down to 250,000 people, in line with pre-pandemic levels, by June 2025.
Under the new rules, students must earn higher scores on their English tests to be eligible for a visa, and greater scrutiny will be issued to applications seeking an extended stay. Meanwhile, the government will establish a new specialist visa for high-skilled workers that will boost recruitment efforts to better compete with global markets.” [Foreign Policy]
“Loyal fans of K-pop boy band BTS offered a tearful goodbye to its members on Monday as the group went on hiatus so its members could complete South Korea’s mandatory 18-month military service. All seven singers will now serve in Seoul’s armed forces. Whether their conscription is dynamite or blood, sweat, and tears, though, is still to be seen. But hey, life goes on.” [Foreign Policy]
U.S. stocks, bonds, crypto and gold are surging, sparking worries.
“The question now is whether the so-called everything rally marks the arrival of a lasting bull market or a fleeting high at the end of the Fed’s tightening cycle. In a reversal from early this year—when interest rates were rising, Wall Street was bracing for a recession and most non-tech-sector stocks were languishing—bond yields are plunging, and investors sense the Fed’s fight against inflation is ending. The drop in yields has led to a broad rally; some of the market’s most beaten-down sectors, including property stocks and regional banks, are leading the way. Today, stocks edged higher ahead of inflation data and day one of the Fed meeting tomorrow.” [Wall Street Journal]