WASHINGTON: Donald Trump’s bid for criminal immunity from prosecution for trying to overturn his 2020 election loss is set to be decided on Monday by the US Supreme Court. But however it rules, the court already has helped the former president in his effort to avoid trial before the Nov. 5 election.
The ruling from the court, whose 6-3 conservative majority includes three justices appointed by Trump, will be released 20 weeks after he sought relief from the justices. The timeline of the ruling likely does not leave enough time for Special Counsel Jack Smith to try Trump on the federal four-count indictment obtained last August and for a jury to reach a verdict before voters head to the polls.
“The amount of delay that has resulted has made it almost impossible to get the case to trial before the election,” said George Washington University law professor Randall Eliason, a former federal prosecutor. “The court should have treated it with much more urgency than it did.”
Trump is the Republican candidate challenging Democratic President Joe Biden in a 2020 election rematch. He is the first former US president to be criminally prosecuted, and already has been convicted in a case in New York state court involving hush money paid to a porn star before the 2016 election. If he regains the presidency, Trump could try to force an end to the special counsel’s case or potentially pardon himself for any federal crimes.
The Supreme Court already has handed Trump important victories.
On Friday, it raised the legal bar for prosecutors pursuing obstruction charges in the federal election subversion case against Trump and defendants involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. In March, the court threw out a judicial decision that had disqualified Trump from the presidential primary ballot in Colorado.
The speed with which the court dispatched the Colorado case – quickly agreeing to decide it and ruling in Trump’s favor within a month of hearing arguments – contrasted with a sluggish pace in resolving Trump’s immunity bid that has been to his benefit.
Trump’s trial had been scheduled to start on March 4 before the delays over the immunity issue. Now no trial date is currently set. Trump has pleaded not guilty and called the case politically motivated.
“I don’t think that there is any way the case goes to trial before the election,” said Georgetown University law professor Erica Hashimoto. “Even if the Supreme Court were to affirm the lower courts and say that Trump does not have immunity, the trial court still has to decide a bunch of other legal issues.”
A SLIPPING TIMELINE
Smith, seeking to avoid trial delays, had asked the justices in December to perform a fast-track review after Trump’s immunity claim was rejected by US District Judge Tanya Chutkan. Trump opposed the bid. Rather than resolve the matter promptly, the justices denied Smith’s request and let the case proceed in a lower court, which upheld Chutkan’s ruling against Trump on Feb. 6.
After Trump sought Supreme Court relief on Feb. 12, more than 10 weeks elapsed before the justices would heard the case on April 25, their final day of arguments. And now the ruling will be issued on the final day of the term, nearly nine months after Trump first made a motion to dismiss the charges based on his claim of immunity.
If the Supreme Court rules that former presidents have some degree of criminal immunity — an approach some of the justices appeared to favor during arguments — it could delay the case further. Under one such scenario, the justices could order Chutkan to preside over a potentially time-consuming legal battle about whether certain allegations against Trump must be stricken before the case could advance to trial.
The trial judge also likely will have to decide what, if any, impact the Supreme Court’s decision to heighten the legal standard for prosecutors pursuing obstruction charges against a Jan. 6 defendant will have on Trump, who faces two charges under the same obstruction law.
Chutkan has previously indicated she would give Trump at least three months to prepare for a trial once the case returns to her courtroom. That timeline leaves only a narrow path for a trial to start in October, in the final weeks before the election. A trial so close to Election Day would almost certainly draw claims of election interference from Trump and his legal team.
“The court’s delay in deciding the immunity case has already given Donald Trump a huge win — the delay he sought to push his trial on election interference — and any verdict in the trial -until after the election,” University of Michigan law professor Leah Litman said.
US Supreme Court’s slow pace on immunity makes Trump trial before election unlikely
https://arab.news/c84a2
US Supreme Court’s slow pace on immunity makes Trump trial before election unlikely
- The ruling from the court, whose 6-3 conservative majority includes three justices appointed by Trump
Floods and landslides triggered by heavy rains in India’s northeast kill at least 16 people
GUWAHATI, India: Floods and landslides triggered by heavy rains have killed at least 16 people over the last two weeks in India’s northeast, where more than 300,000 have been displaced from their submerged homes, authorities said on Tuesday.
The Indian army and air force have been assisting with rescue efforts in Assam, one of the worst-hit states, where a military helicopter flew early Tuesday morning 13 fishermen to safety after being stranded for four days on a small island on the Brahmaputra, one of Asia’s largest rivers, officials said.
The Brahmaputra River, which flows 1,280 kilometers (800 miles) across Assam state before running through Bangladesh, overflows annually. However, this year, increased rainfall has made the river — already known for its powerful, unpredictable flow — even more dangerous to live near or on one of the more than 2,000 island villages in the middle of it.
In neighboring Arunachal Pradesh state, which borders China, landslides have wiped out several roads. Army troopers there rescued 70 students and teachers from a flooded school in Changlang district, police said. Similarly, heavy flooding in the states of Sikkim, Manipur and Meghalaya swept away roads and collapsed bridges.
So far, more than 80 people across six northeastern states have died since the end of May due to floods and mudslides brought on by the rains, according to official figures.
Back in Assam, animals at the famed Kaziranga National Park, home to some 2,500 one-horned Rhinos, are moving to higher ground to escape the floods. Park rangers are monitoring their movements to ensure their safety, the state’s chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said.
Disasters caused by landslides and floods are common in the country’s northeast region during the June-September monsoon season. India, and Assam state in particular, is seen as one of the world’s most vulnerable regions to climate change because of more intense rain and floods, according to a 2021 report by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, a New Delhi-based climate think tank.
Halving food waste can reduce hunger for 153 mn people: report
- UN nations have committed to cutting per capita food waste by 50 percent by 2030
PARIS: Halving food waste could cut climate-warming emissions and end undernourishment for 153 million people globally, the OECD and the UN’s food agency said in a joint report Tuesday.
Around a third of food produced for human consumption gets lost or wasted globally, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization — resulting in useless emissions and less available food for those who need it.
By 2033, the number of calories lost and wasted between produce leaving farms and reaching shops and households could be more than twice the number of calories currently consumed in low-income countries in a year, the report warned.
Cutting in two the amount of food lost and wasted along the journey from farm to fork “has the potential to reduce global agricultural greenhouse gas emissions by four percent and the number of undernourished people by 153 million by the year 2030,” according to the report.
“This target is a highly ambitious upper bound and would require substantial changes by both consumers and producer side,” they added.
Agriculture, forestry and other land use account for around one-fifth of global human-induced greenhouse gas emissions.
UN nations have committed to cutting per capita food waste by 50 percent by 2030 as part of sustainable development goals but there is no global target for reducing food loss along the production supply chain.
Between 2021 and 2023, fruit and vegetables accounted for more than half of the lost and wasted food given their extremely perishable nature and relatively short shelf life, according to the report.
Cereals followed, accounting for over a quarter of lost and wasted food.
The FAO estimates that approximately 600 million people will be facing hunger in 2030.
“Measures to reduce food loss and waste could significantly increase food intake worldwide as more food becomes available and prices fall, ensuring greater access to food for low-income populations,” the report said.
Halving food loss and waste by 2030 could result in increased food intake by 10 percent for low-income countries, six percent in lower middle-income nations and four percent in upper middle-income ones, it added.
Indonesian police probe arson accusation in death of reporter
- Southeast Asian nation ranks 111th among 180 countries on the 2024 press freedom index
- Journalist Rico Sempurna Pasaribu reported on illegal gambling involving local officials
JAKARTA: Indonesian police are investigating an accusation by a journalists’ group that arson was behind a fire that killed a reporter and three of his family, an official said on Tuesday, a rare incident that has prompted concern over media freedom.
The Southeast Asian nation ranks 111th among 180 countries on the 2024 press freedom index of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which has said journalists investigating corruption there are often subjected to intimidation and violence by authorities.
Indonesia’s association of independent journalists (AJI) blamed arson for a June 27 blaze in the North Sumatra home of a reporter, Rico Sempurna Pasaribu, after he reported on illegal gambling involving local officials.
The Kompas newspaper said the journalist died along with his wife, one of his children and a grandchild, citing his daughter.
District police official Oloan Siahaan told Reuters that police were investigating the cause, adding that it was still unclear whether the fire had been set intentionally.
The case drew condemnation from journalists’ groups. In a statement on Tuesday, AJI called it “a severe violation of press freedom in Indonesia” that set a dangerous precedent.
Indonesia’s presidential palace did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the statement.
In the statement, Anthony Bellanger, general secretary of the International Federation of Journalists, urged authorities to take immediate and decisive action to ensure justice for the reporter and his family.
Riot police patrol Nairobi as Kenyan activists call for more protests
- Members of the protest movement have rejected appeals from President William Ruto for dialogue
- Protests started as an online outpouring of anger over nearly $2.7 billion of tax hikes in a proposed finance bill
NAIROBI: Riot police patrolled Kenya’s capital Nairobi on Tuesday morning as young activists called for more protests following last week’s deadly clashes.
Members of the protest movement, which has no official leaders and largely organizes via social media, have rejected appeals from President William Ruto for dialogue, even after he abandoned proposed tax hikes.
Infuriated by the deaths last week — at least 39 according to the government-funded Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNHCR) — many are now demanding that Ruto step down.
“We are determined to push for the president’s resignation,” Ojango Omondi, an activist in Nairobi, said. “We hope for a peaceful protest and minimal casualties, if any.”
The protests that started as an online outpouring of anger over nearly $2.7 billion of tax hikes in a proposed finance bill have grown into a nationwide movement against corruption and misgovernance, and become the most serious crisis of Ruto’s nearly two-year-old presidency.
He has been caught between the competing demands of lenders such as the International Monetary Fund, which are urging the heavily-indebted government to cut deficits, and a hard-pressed population reeling from the soaring cost of living.
Ruto has directed the treasury to come up with ways to cut spending to fill the budget gap caused by the bill’s withdrawal, and also said more borrowing will be required.
The protests, which began in mid-June, were mostly peaceful until last Tuesday, when police clashed with demonstrators. Some protesters briefly stormed parliament and set part of it ablaze. The police opened fire, killing many, human rights group said.
The KNHCR said on Monday that 39 people have been killed and 361 people injured since the first protest on June 18.
Ruto has defended the police’s actions, saying they were doing their best under difficult circumstances. He blamed violence on “criminals” who he said had hijacked the demonstrations.
“It’s a beautiful day to choose patriotism. A beautiful day to choose peace, order and the sanctity of our nationhood,” State House communications director Gerald Bitok wrote on X on Tuesday morning, adding in Swahili: “Violence is not patriotism.”
It was not clear to what extent people would respond to the new calls for protests. There were no reports of demonstrations early in the morning.
Shops were opening as usual in downtown Nairobi, the site of the most intense protests last week. Police had erected roadblocks leading to the president’s official residence.
“I think it’s not going to be maandamano (protest) because maybe people are afraid, because some people have been shot,” said Kennedy Otwal, who was walking through downtown.
Russia says it destroys five Ukraine’s SU-27 jet fighters at Myrhorod airfield
- Russia is targeting Ukrainian airfields just as Kyiv prepares to receive the first US-designed F-16s which Moscow has vowed to destroy
MOSCOW: Russia’s defense ministry said on Tuesday that it had destroyed five Ukrainian SU-27 fighter jets and damaged two more at the Myrhorod airfield in Ukraine’s Poltava region with Iskander-M missiles.
The ministry published footage of the attack which showed smoke and flames rising from an airfield.
“As a result of the Russian strike, five active SU-27 multi-purpose fighters were destroyed and two were damaged,” the ministry said.
Russia is targeting Ukrainian airfields just as Kyiv prepares to receive the first US-designed F-16s which Moscow has vowed to destroy.
