Trump advisors Mark Meadows and Rudy Giuliani were among 18 people charged in Arizona yesterday over an alternate elector scheme to challenge the 2020 presidential election results.
11 alternate electors in Arizona, along with seven Trump advisers were indicted on conspiracy, fraud, and forgery charges.
The seven Trump advisors charged were: Giuliani, who was Trump’s personal lawyer at the time, Meadows, then-White House chief of staff, lawyers Boris Epshteyn, John Eastman, Jenna Ellis and Christina Bobb, and campaign operative Mike Roman.
Trump was referred to in the indictment as an “unindicted co-conspirator” though not by name.
Meadows, Guiliani, Eastman, and Roman are also fighting charges in the Georgia election case.
Read more about the new indictment here.
U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on March 22, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times
SCOTUS TACKLES PRESIDENTIAL IMMUNITY
The Supreme Court will hear oral argument today over former President Donald Trump’s claim that he’s immune from criminal prosecution for official acts he undertook while in office.
It’s a huge case that “will be the kind of thing that students will be talking about for decades to come,” criminal defense attorney Keith Johnson told The Epoch Times. Besides altering longstanding precedent, the decision could bear on the criminal prosecutions President Trump is facing before the election.
An appeals court in Washington rejected his attempt to claim immunity in the Justice Department’s prosecution of his activity on Jan. 6 and in response to the 2020 presidential election. The Supreme Court is set to review that decision and potentially establish a broader definition of presidential immunity.
Amid the options available to the justices are redefining the scope of immunity while sending the case back to the district court for reconsideration. It could also outright reject either President Trump’s claims to immunity, or Special Counsel Jack Smith’s argument that he doesn’t enjoy immunity from criminal prosecution.
Nixon v. Fitzgerald, a Supreme Court case from 1973, established that presidents enjoy absolute immunity from civil liability for actions that fell within the “outer perimeter” of their official duties. Experts speculated to The Epoch Times that the justices could extend that same framework to criminal liability.
This is the second major oral argument the justices are hearing about attempts to punish President Trump for his conduct following the 2020 presidential election. They heard oral argument in February over Colorado’s attempt to disqualify him from the state’s ballot, and issued a unanimous judgment in opposition.
A week before President Trump’s appeal is reaching the Supreme Court, the justices also heard oral argument over how the DOJ applied a financial reform law to Jan. 6 defendants. That same law forms part of DOJ’s indictment against President Trump.
Separation of Powers is a major issue that will likely loom large in both the oral argument and eventual opinion. President Trump has argued that judicial review of his official acts would be inappropriate, while Special Counsel Jack Smith said granting criminal immunity would upset the balance of power and allow presidents to get away with egregious wrongdoing.
John Malcolm, a vice president at the Heritage Foundation, told The Epoch Times that President Trump’s ask for immunity was too broad and that it likely wouldn’t succeed at the court.
Will Chamberlain, senior counsel at the Article III Project, predicted instead that the Court would adopt President Trump’s position that presidents enjoy criminal immunity for official acts—with the exception of those for which Congress has impeached and convicted them.
—Sam Dorman
SCOTUS HEARS MAJOR POST-DOBBS ABORTION CASE
The Supreme Court heard on April 24 oral argument over Idaho’s near-total abortion ban and whether it conflicts with a federal law requiring that hospitals receiving Medicare provide emergency treatment to patients.
It’s one of the most consequential abortion cases to reach oral argument since the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, which overturned the landmark precedent in Roe v. Wade. Overturning Roe gave states more leeway in how much they could restrict abortion and many states have either passed or considered significant restrictions.
The Biden administration argued that Idaho’s law, which allowed abortions if a woman’s life were in danger, ran up against the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, which required both lifesaving care and that which would stabilize the patient.
Idaho’s deputy solicitor general, Josh Turner, argued that there was no conflict between the laws and that EMTALA deferred to states for regulating their medical fields. A lower court had blocked Idaho’s law before it reached the Supreme Court.
It’s unclear how the Court will rule following oral argument. While Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito seemed especially critical of the Biden administration’s position, the other conservative justices were harder to read.
The three liberal justices—Sonia Sotomayor, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Elena Kagan—were very vocal in their criticism of Idaho’s law. They seemed concerned that the law wouldn’t allow women to receive necessary medical treatment and, at one point, Kagan told Turner that his position on federal-state power was “too humble for women’s health.”
Alito pressed Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar on the fact that EMTALA, passed under former President Ronald Reagan, explicitly mentions unborn children. “It seems that the plain meaning is that the hospital must try to eliminate any immediate threat to the child, but performing an abortion is antithetical to that duty,” he said.
Prelogar maintained that the law provided women with the right to stabilizing treatment since they were the ones with the emergency medical condition. “The duty runs to the individual with the emergency medical condition,” she said.
Federalism, or the balance of state and federal power, came up multiple times from various justices. Justice Sotomayor suggested that Idaho violated the idea that federal laws “preempt” state laws while Turner argued that EMTALA contained a provision granting states special authority.
—Sam Dorman
The City of Miami skyline, where many renters reside in the apartment buildings, in Miami on Sept. 29, 2021. Joe Raedle/Getty Images
DEMOCRATS AIMING TO WIN BACK FLORIDA
The Democratic Party is hoping to reverse a 25-year political trend and “flip” Florida in the 2024 presidential election after losing it to former president Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020.
For more than 100 years, the Democrats controlled Florida’s state legislature and won the governor’s race all but three times. But Jeb Bush changed everything for the Republican Party of Florida when he became governor in 1999.
The 1990s was the beginning of a transition in Florida politics, with Republicans taking the state Senate in 1995 and the state House in 1997. Since Bush’s victory, Democrats have lost every single gubernatorial election, have minorities in the state legislature, and lost both seats in the U.S. Senate.
Democrats hope three Florida Supreme Court rulings on April 1 will increase voter turnout enough to get them over the finish line. One ruling upheld the state’s 15-week abortion ban, allowing its 6-week ban to take effect on May 1, and the other two rulings put citizen initiatives for abortion access and recreational marijuana on the November ballot.
The Democratic Party, which has a cash advantage over Republicans, is already spending money in Florida to sway voters. The DNC told The Hill in early April that it would buy billboards in major cities around the state criticizing Trump for the repeal of Roe v. Wade and Florida’s subsequent abortion bans.
“As a consultant to many political campaigns, I don’t think I’ve ever told a campaign, ‘Hey, yes, spend money on billboards.’ You got to make a difference,” GOP pollster Neil Newhouse told The Epoch Times.
“I hope Democrats get fooled again into allocating resources to Florida. Because it’s very expensive. And now it’s ours,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) told The Epoch Times.
“I think this is kind of a Hail Mary pass, in my opinion, to try to maybe help the Trump folks spread resources and spend money where they shouldn’t have to spend money,” Jim Lee from Susquehanna Polling told The Epoch Times.
Republicans have an almost 900,000-person voter registration advantage in Florida after Democrats kept a lead every year from when data was first collected in 1972 until 2021.
Trump’s margins also increased from 1.2 percent to 3.36 percent between his 2016 and 2020 Florida victories.
“I think Trump’s margin in 2020 would be a big barrier for [Democrats’ plan to flip the state] in 2024,” pollster Mark Mitchell told The Epoch Times.
One of the April 1 ballot initiatives would amend the Florida Constitution to provide abortion access up to fetal viability, which some say is between 23 and 24 weeks. The other would legalize recreational marijuana possession and retail sales.
To amend the Florida Constitution, ballot initiatives must get at least 60 percent of the vote.
Emerson College’s April 11 Florida poll found that 27 percent of voters said the economy is the most important issue facing the state, followed by housing affordability and immigration.
Just 9.6 percent selected abortion as the issue that matters the most. Marijuana wasn’t included in the poll.
—Jacob Burg
BOOKMARKS
Trump’s attorneys are seeking the dismissal of two charges in his Georgia election case, The Epoch Times’ Jack Phillips reports. The charges, which concern the alleged filing of false documents, can only be brought by federal officials, the attorneys claim.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has opened up about how a near-death incident involving his two sons led to a spiritual conversation with President Trump, The Epoch Times’ Katabella Roberts reports. The former president has repeatedly defended Johnson from critics within the GOP.
Groups bankrolled by George Soros and other liberal megadonors sent millions to Democrat-aligned political action committees in the first quarter of 2024, The Epoch Times’ Austin Alonzo reports. Although not officially tied to the Democratic Party, the committees are working hard to get Democratic Congressional candidates elected.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has pledged to put the entire U.S. budget on blockchain, The Epoch Times’ Jeff Louderback reports. The presidential candidate says the move would increase transparency of federal spending.
Former Trump lawyer John Eastman remains unfazed by others’ attempts to get him disbarred over his challenges of the 2020 election results, The Epoch Times’ Brad Jones reports. The attorney’s comments follow a judge’s recent recommendation that his law license be revoked.
