With early voting fast approaching, the rhetoric by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has turned more ominous with a pledge to prosecute anyone who “cheats” in the election in the same way he believes they did in 2020, when he falsely claimed he won and attacked those who stood by their accurate vote tallies.
He also told a gathering of police officers last Friday that they should “watch for the voter fraud,” an apparent attempt to enlist law enforcement that would be legally dubious.
Trump has contended, without providing evidence, that he lost the 2020 election only because of cheating by Democrats, election officials and other, unspecified forces. On Saturday, Trump promised that this year those who cheat “will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law” should he win in November. He said he was referencing everyone from election officials to attorneys, political staffers and donors.
“Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country,” Trump wrote in the post on his social media network Truth Social that he later also posted on X, the site once known as Twitter.
The former President’s warning — he prefaced it with the words “CEASE & DESIST” — is the latest increase in rhetoric that mimics that used by authoritarian leaders.
To be clear, Trump lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden in both the Electoral College and in the popular vote, where Biden received 7 million more votes. Trump’s own attorney general said there was no evidence of widespread fraud, Trump lost dozens of lawsuits challenging the results and an Associated Press investigation showed there was no level of fraud that could have tipped the election. Additionally, multiple reviews, recounts and audits in the battleground states where Trump contested his loss all confirmed Biden’s win.
Trump, who has spoken warmly of authoritarians and mused recently that “sometimes you need a strongman,” has already pledged to prosecute his political adversaries if he returns to power. His allies have drawn up plans to make federal prosecutors more able to target the president’s opponents.
In one possible conservative outline for a new Trump administration known as Project 2025, a former Trump Justice Department official writes that Pennsylvania’s top election official should have been prosecuted for a policy dispute — — in deciding that voters there have a chance to fix signature errors on their mail ballots.
Trump has disavowed Project 2025, but his rhetoric matches that example, said Justin Levitt, a former Justice Department official and Biden White House staffer who now teaches law at Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles.
“He is increasingly showing us what type of president he hopes to be, and that involves using the Justice Department to punish people he disagrees with — whether they committed crimes or not,” Levitt said.
Levitt said he was skeptical that a Trump Justice Department would be able to simply file charges against people who contradicted his election lies, but he and others said the suggestion was dangerous nevertheless.
“Threatening people with punishment for cheating is deeply disturbing if ‘cheating’ simply means that you don’t like the outcome of the election,” Steve Simon, a Democrat who is Minnesota’s secretary of state and the president of the National Association of Secretaries of State, said in a post on X.
Trump’s campaign said the former president was simply talking about the importance of clean elections.
“President Trump believes anyone who breaks the law should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, including criminals who engage in election fraud. Without free and fair elections, you can’t have a country,” campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
Trump already has lodged threats against people who engaged in no apparent illegal activity during the 2020 election. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan Zuckerberg, in 2020 donated more than $400 million to local election offices to help them deal with the pandemic. In a book released earlier this month, Trump threatened that Zuckerberg will ” spend the rest of his life in prison ” if he makes any more contributions.
Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s Democratic Secretary of State, said in an interview Monday that Trump’s comments have prompted election officials, already reeling from years of threats due to Trump’s false claims of 2020 corruption, to increase their level of vigilance and security planning.
“That is a level of vitriol and threats that we have not seen before, and it is very alarming and concerning,” Benson said. “We worry that individuals will read that rhetoric and take it on themselves to exact the vengeance prior to the election — or immediately following, if their candidate doesn’t win — that their candidate has called for.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday that Trump’s rhetoric was dangerous: “This is not who we are as a country. This is a democracy.”
Stephen Richer, the Republican Recorder of Maricopa County, Arizona, who’s been repeatedly attacked by Trump and his supporters for standing by the accuracy of that county’s 2020 vote count, took to X to point to one election official who has been charged for her actions that year — Tina Peters. The former clerk of Mesa County in Colorado was convicted in August of helping activists access her county’s voting machines to try to prove Trump’s lies.
“She was on your side of this,” Richer wrote to Trump in his post. Earlier this summer, Richer was defeated in the Republican primary in his bid for reelection.
Trump’s call for police officers to watch polling stations in case of fraud in November came Friday as he addressed a gathering of the Fraternal Order of Police, an organization that has endorsed him.
“I hope you can watch and you’re all over the place. Watch for the voter fraud. Because we win. Without voter fraud, we win so easily,” he told the officers. “You can keep it down just by watching. Because believe it or not, they’re afraid of that badge. They’re afraid of you people.”
What he’s suggesting could violate several federal and state laws against voter intimidation — some of which specifically prohibit uniformed officers from being at the polls unless they are responding to an emergency or casting a ballot themselves, according to Jonathan Diaz, director of voting advocacy and partnerships at the Campaign Legal Center.
Diaz said those laws emerged from the nation’s fraught history of law enforcement officers abusing their power to stop Black people from voting.
“We have to remember that history when we think of the presence of law enforcement at the polls,” he said. “Even the best-intentioned officers who are there really just to keep people safe with no ill will, their presence might be perceived by voters in a way that is different than they intended.”
Trump’s rhetoric on elections turns ominous as voting nears in the presidential race
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Trump’s rhetoric on elections turns ominous as voting nears in the presidential race
- White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday that Trump’s rhetoric was dangerous: “This is not who we are as a country. This is a democracy”
Indian man denies hospital rape and murder of doctor
- The discovery of the doctor’s bloodied body at a government hospital in Kolkata on August 9 sparked nationwide anger
- The gruesome nature of the attack drew comparisons with the 2012 gang rape and murder of a young woman on a Delhi bus
KOLKATA: An Indian man on trial for raping and murdering a 31-year-old doctor has pleaded not guilty, his lawyer said Saturday, a crime that appalled the nation and triggered wide-scale protests.
The discovery of the doctor’s bloodied body at a government hospital in the eastern city of Kolkata on August 9 sparked nationwide anger at the chronic issue of violence against women.
Sanjoy Roy, 33, the lone accused in the case, pleaded not guilty before the judge in a closed court on Friday in Kolkata, his lawyer Sourav Bandyopadhyay told AFP.
“I am not guilty, your honor, I have been framed,” Roy told the court, Bandyopadhyay said, repeating his client’s words.
Roy, a civic volunteer in the hospital, was arrested the day after the murder and has been held in custody since.
He would potentially face the death penalty if convicted.
The court began hearings on November 11, listening to evidence from some 50 witnesses, but it was on Friday that Roy took the stand.
“Judge Anirban Das questioned him with more than 100 questions during the six-hour-long in camera deposition, that continued until late in the evening,” Bandyopadhyay said.
Roy had earlier proclaimed his innocence to the public while screaming from a prison van outside the court before a hearing in November.
Doctors in Kolkata went on strike for weeks in response to the brutal attack.
Tens of thousands of ordinary Indians joined in the protests, which focused anger on the lack of measures for female doctors to work without fear.
India’s Supreme Court has ordered a national task force to examine how to bolster security for health care workers, saying the brutality of the killing had “shocked the conscience of the nation.”
The gruesome nature of the attack drew comparisons with the 2012 gang rape and murder of a young woman on a Delhi bus, which also sparked weeks of nationwide protests.
The trial continues. The next hearing is set for January 2, 2025.
Russia’s UK embassy denounces G7 loans to Ukraine as ‘fraudulent scheme’
- Britain said in October it would lend Ukraine 2.26 billion pounds as part of a much larger loan from the Group of Seven nations backed by frozen Russian central bank assets
LONDON: The Russian embassy in London on Saturday described Britain’s planned transfer to Ukraine of more than 2 billion pounds ($2.5 billion) backed by frozen Russian assets as a “fraudulent scheme.”
Britain said in October it would lend Ukraine 2.26 billion pounds as part of a much larger loan from the Group of Seven nations backed by frozen Russian central bank assets to help buy weapons and rebuild damaged infrastructure.
The loans were agreed in July by leaders of the G7 — Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the US — along with top officials from the European Union, where most of the Russian assets frozen as a result of the war are held.
“We are closely following UK authorities’ efforts aimed at implementing a fraudulent scheme of expropriating incomes from Russian state assets ‘frozen’ in the EU,” the Russian embassy in London said on social media.
British Defense Minister John Healey said the money would be solely for Ukraine’s military and could be used to help develop drones capable of traveling further than some long-range missiles.
The embassy added: “The elaborate legislative choreography fails to conceal the illegitimate nature of this arrangement.”
Russia’s Foreign Ministry last week described the US transfer to Ukraine of its share of the G7’s $50 billion in loans as “simply robbery.”
Death toll in German Christmas market car-ramming rises to five, more than 200 injured
- Source: Saudi Arabia had warned German authorities about the attacker
- Germany’s domestic intelligence agency declined to comment on the ongoing investigation
MAGDEBURG, Germany: At least five people were killed in a car-ramming attack at a German Christmas market in the city of Magdeburg that also left more than 200 injured, officials said, and a Saudi man was arrested on suspicion of driving a car into the crowd.
The Friday evening attack on market visitors gathered to celebrate the pre-Christmas season comes amid a fierce debate over security and migration during an election campaign in Germany, where the far right is polling strongly.
“What a terrible act it is to injure and kill so many people there with such brutality,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in the central city, part of the former East Germany, where he laid a white rose at a church in honor of the victims.
“We have now learnt that over 200 people have been injured,” he added. “Almost 40 are so seriously injured that we must be very worried about them.”
German authorities are investigating a 50-year-old Saudi doctor who has lived in Germany for almost two decades in connection with the car-ramming. Police searched his home overnight.
The motive remained unclear and police have not yet named the suspect. He has been named in German media as Taleb A.
A Saudi source told Reuters that Saudi Arabia had warned German authorities about the attacker after he posted extremist views on his personal X account that threatened peace and security.
Der Spiegel reported that the suspect had sympathized with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. The magazine did not say where it got the information.
Germany’s domestic intelligence agency declined to comment on the ongoing investigation.
Germany’s FAZ newspaper said it interviewed the suspect in 2019, describing him as an anti-Islam activist.
“People like me, who have an Islamic background but are no longer believers, are met with neither understanding nor tolerance by Muslims here,” he was quoted as saying. “I am history’s most aggressive critic of Islam. If you don’t believe me, ask the Arabs.”
Andrea Reis, who had been at the market on Friday, returned on Saturday with her daughter Julia to lay a candle by the church overlooking the site. She said that had it not been for a matter of moments, they may have been in the car’s path.
“I said, ‘let’s go and get a sausage’, but my daughter said ‘no let’s keep walking around’. If we’d stayed where we were we’d have been in the car’s path,” she said.
Tears ran down her face as she described the scene. “Children screaming, crying for mama. You can’t forget that,” she said.
Scholz’s Social Democrats are trailing both the far-right AfD and the frontrunner conservative opposition in opinion polls ahead of snap elections set for Feb. 23.
The AfD, which enjoys particularly strong support in the former East, has led calls for a crackdown on migration to the country.
Its chancellor candidate Alice Weidel and co-leader Tino Chrupalla issued a statement on Saturday condemning the attack.
“The terrible attack on the Christmas market in Magdeburg in the middle of the peaceful pre-Christmas period has shaken us,” they said.
A leading Social Democrat lawmaker in the Bundestag parliament warned against jumping to conclusions and said it appeared the attacker did not have an Islamist motive.
“Now we have to wait for the investigations. It seems that things are different here than was initially assumed,” Dirk Wiese told the Rheinische Post newspaper.
Eight convicted in France over murder of teacher who showed Prophet caricature
- Eight sentenced for roles in hate campaign against teacher
- Two associates of killer sentenced to 16 years for complicity, the father of pupil sentenced to 13 years for inciting hatred
PARIS: A French court sentenced eight people to prison terms ranging from one to 16 years for their roles in a hate campaign that culminated in the murder of a teacher who had shown caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in class, local media reported.
Days after Samuel Paty, 47, showed his pupils the caricatures in October 2020, an 18-year-old Chechen assailant stabbed and beheaded him outside his school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, near Paris. The assailant was shot dead by police moments after.
Among those convicted on Friday was the father of a student whose false account of Paty’s use of the caricatures triggered a wave of social media posts targeting the middle-school teacher.
The court sentenced Brahim Chnina to 13 years in prison for criminal terrorist association, according to broadcaster Franceinfo. Chnina had published videos falsely accusing the teacher of disciplining his daughter for complaining about the class, naming Paty and identifying his school.
Abdelhakim Sefrioui, the founder of a hard-line Islamist organization, received a 15-year sentence. Both Sefrioui and Chnina were found guilty of inciting hatred against Paty.
Many Muslims consider any depiction of the Prophet Muhammad to be blasphemous. Sefrioui’s lawyer said his client would appeal the decision, according to French media.
Two associates of Paty’s killer, Abdullakh Anzorov, were also convicted. Naim Boudaoud and Azim Epsirkhanov were sentenced to 16 years in prison for complicity in a terrorist killing. Both had denied wrongdoing, according to Franceinfo.
Last year, a court found Chnina’s daughter and five other adolescents guilty of participating in a premeditated conspiracy and helping prepare an ambush.
Chnina’s daughter, who was not in Paty’s class when the caricatures were shown, was convicted of making false accusations and slanderous comments.
French media reported that the 13-year-old made the allegations after her parents questioned why she had been suspended from school for two days.
Pope Francis slams ‘cruelty’ of strike killing Gaza children
- ‘Yesterday children were bombed. This is cruelty, this is not war. I want to say it because it touches my heart’
- The Holy See has recognized the State of Palestine since 2013, with which it maintains diplomatic relations
VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis on Saturday condemned the bombing of children in Gaza as “cruelty,” a day after the territory’s rescue agency said an Israeli air strike killed seven children from one family.
Gaza’s civil defense rescue agency reported that an Israeli air strike killed 10 members of a family on Friday in the northern part of the territory, including seven children.
“Yesterday they did not allow the Patriarch (of Jerusalem) into Gaza as promised. Yesterday children were bombed. This is cruelty, this is not war,” he told members of the government of the Holy See.
“I want to say it because it touches my heart.”
Violence in the Gaza Strip continues to rock the coastal territory more than 14 months into the Israel-Hamas war, even as international mediators work to negotiate a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas Palestinian militants.
The Israeli military said it had struck “several terrorists who were operating in a military structure belonging to the Hamas terrorist organization and posed a threat to IDF troops operating in the area.”
“According to an initial examination, the reported number of casualties resulting from the strike does not align with the information held by the IDF,” it added.
Francis, 88, has called for peace since Hamas’s unprecedented attack against Israel on October 7, 2023, and the Israeli retaliatory campaign in Gaza.
In recent weeks he has hardened his remarks against the Israeli offensive.
At the end of November, he said that “the invader’s arrogance... prevails over dialogue” in “Palestine,” a rare position that contrasts with the tradition of neutrality of the Holy See.
In extracts from a forthcoming book published in November, he called for a “careful” study as to whether the situation in Gaza “corresponds to the technical definition” of genocide, an accusation firmly rejected by Israel.
The Holy See has recognized the State of Palestine since 2013, with which it maintains diplomatic relations, and it supports the two-state solution.
