Trump news today: Georgia ‘fake electors’ take immunity deals as rape trial deposition video made public

The shift in tactics is a reflection of the group’s role as unofficial paramilitary backers of whatever the main Republican priority of the day is.

Chuck Tanner, research director of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, told the BBC that the recent attacks on LGBTQ+ people show the Proud Boys acting as “far-right muscle.”

“They’re not the movement thinkers out in front, they chase a lot of issues,” he said.

‘Is that really so much to ask?’ asks former president.

Republican Kari Lake’s lawyers were sanctioned $2,000 Thursday by the Arizona Supreme Court in their unsuccessful challenge of her defeat in the governor’s race last year to Democrat Katie Hobbs.

In an order, the state’s highest court said Lake’s attorney made “false factual statements” that more than 35,000 ballots had been improperly added to the total ballot count. The court, however, refused to order Lake to pay attorney fees to cover the costs of defending Hobbs and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes in Lake’s appeal.

Chief Justice Robert Brutinel cited Lake’s challenge over signature verification remains unresolved.

Hobbs and Fontes said Lake and her attorneys should face sanctions for baselessly claiming that over 35,000 ballots were inserted into the race at a facility where a contractor scanned mail-in ballots to prepare them for county election workers to process and count.

When the high court first confronted Lake’s challenge in late March, justices said the evidence doesn’t show that over 35,000 ballots were added to the vote count in Maricopa County, home to more than 60% of the state’s voters.

Judge Kaplan also denied a motion for a mistrial by Mr Trump’s attorneys, and frequently scolded his lead counsel Joe Tacopina for his “repetitive, argumentative and inappropriate” questioning of Ms Carroll.

He also warned Mr Trump to “refrain” from making inflammatory comments about the case that could incite violence.

Speaking in Ireland, Mr Trump described Judge Kaplan as a “rough judge”.

“He doesn’t like me very much, he was appointed by Bill Clinton,” he said.

He claimed Ms Carroll was a “Democrat” and that the lawsuit was a “political scam”.

“Because of that I have to leave Ireland and I have to leave Scotland where I have great properties, I have to leave early.

“I don’t have to but I choose to.”

But Ivanka’s sister-in-law Lara has claimed that the development hasn’t led to a family split.

Mr Trump and his three oldest children – Ivanka, Donald Jr, and Eric – were all named in a $250m civil fraud lawsuit filed last autumn by New York State Attorney General Letitia James.

The lawsuit aims to acquire the repayment of funds from alleged fraudulent operations by the Trump Organization. The suit is also seeking to have all four Trump family members removed from their positions at the enterprise and to ban them from taking on leadership roles in New York state.

On the day he took office, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis vowed to pursue an agenda that would heal the state’s political divisions.

In an op-ed, he vowed to prioritize environmental protection, the economy and education. And he highlighted the “diverse, bipartisan group of qualified individuals” he hired for his administration.

“It is time for our state to come together,” he declared in the January 2019 piece.

On Friday, more than four years later, DeSantis is set to conclude a legislative session that establishes him as perhaps the most accomplished conservative governor in the nation’s bitter culture wars just as he prepares to enter the 2024 presidential contest as a top rival to former President Donald Trump.

Intensifying a hard-right shift that began during the pandemic, the 44-year-old Republican governor in recent weeks pushed the limits of divisive cultural battles over abortion, LGBTQ rights, sex education, guns, immigration and diversity. And in most cases, backed by Republican supermajorities in Florida’s legislature, he won.

The 2005 Access Hollywood video surfaced during the 2016 presidential election.

Donald Trump’s lawyers have asked a federal court to take control of his New York City criminal case. They argued Thursday that the former president can’t be tried in the state court where his historic indictment was brought because the alleged conduct occurred while he was in office.

In court papers, Trump’s lawyers said the criminal case “involves important federal questions,” including alleged violations of federal election law. Federal officers, including former presidents, have the right to be tried in federal court for charges arising from “conduct performed while in office,” the lawyers argued.

Echoing Trump’s claims that his indictment is “politically motivated,” lawyer Susan Necheles urged the federal court to exert its “protective jurisdiction” and seize the case from the state courts where Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg routinely practices.

Such requests are rarely granted in criminal cases, although Trump’s request is unprecedented because he’s the first former president ever charged with a crime.

“This effort is extremely unlikely to succeed,” said Rebecca Roiphe, a professor at New York Law School. “It’s not even clear that this would be a particularly effective delay tactic.”

Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina denied Mr Trump would “confront” Ms Carroll when questioned about the comments by Judge Kaplan on Thursday morning.

The nine-person jury heard three days of testimony from Ms Carroll in which she described in graphic detail the alleged sexual assault after a chance encounter between the pair at the luxury Bergdorf Goodman department store in 1996.

The jury was also played the damning Access Hollywood tapes, in which Mr Trump brags about committing sexual assault.