August 10, 2023

Trump update

Where the criminal cases against Trump stand

A few hours after rioters laid siege to the Capitol, overpowering police in a violent attack on the seat of American democracy on Jan. 6, 2021, the White House’s top lawyer, Pat Cipollone, called his boss with an urgent message. It’s time to end your objections to the 2020 election, Cipollone told Donald Trump, and allow Congress to certify Joe Biden as the next president. Trump refused. Trump was no longer listening to his White House counsel, the elite team of attorneys who take an oath to serve the office of the president. But by all accounts, he hadn’t been listening to them for some time. The extraordinary moment — fully detailed for the first time in the latest federal indictment against Trump unsealed last week — vividly illustrates the extent to which the former president's final weeks in office were consumed by a struggle over the law, with two determined groups of attorneys fighting it out as the future of American democracy hung in the balance.

This week, a federal judge appointed by former president Donald Trump, Brantley Starr, ordered three attorneys who work for Southwest Airlines to undergo "religious liberty training" conducted by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a far-right extremist group that opposes abortion rights. Starr ordered that the "training shall be conducted by ADF at a time set by ADF, it shall last a minimum of 8 hours of instructional time, and it must be completed by August 28, 2023." The company "must transport ADF’s representative to Dallas and be responsible for any food, accommodation, or other travel expenses for ADF’s representative."

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