Trump ballot eligibility in question as Illinois weighs disqualification: Latest

Alina Habba, Donald Trump’s lawyer, has filed a letter to Judge Lewis Kaplan reprimanding him for having a previous “mentor” relationship with E Jean Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan (no relation).

Just days after a jury ordered the former president to pay Ms Carroll $83.3m in defamation damages, Mr Trump’s attorney wrote in the letter sent to Judge Kaplan: “We believe, and will argue on appeal, that the Court was overtly hostile towards defense counsel and President Trump, and displayed preferential treatment towards Plaintiff’s counsel. Indeed, the rulings, tone, and demeanor of the bench raised significant concerns even before the New York Post’s investigative journalism unearthed these new facts.”

Ms Habba was reprimanded by Judge Kaplan throughout the trial for an apparent lack of awareness of court procedures and rules.

The president of far-right media outlet One America News Network allegedly sent a Donald Trump-linked lawyer a spreadsheet that claimed to contain passwords belonging to employees of a voting technology company that is now suing the network for defamation.

In the volatile aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, OAN president Charles Herring appeared to send the document to Trump-connected attorney and election conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell, who promoted baseless claims about the electoral process and voting machine companies on-air while pursuing spurious legal efforts to reverse Mr Trump’s loss.

OAN executives “may have engaged in criminal activities” by violating state and federal data privacy laws, according to lawyers from voting technology company Smartmatic, which is suing the network, Fox News, Ms Powell and other Trump allies for billions of dollars in damages for promoting bogus claims that the company’s software flipped votes to rig President Joe Biden’s victory.

Alex Woodward has the story:

Republicans might have gotten high on their own supply when it comes to immigration. As Inside Washington explained last week, Republicans delaying passing an immigration bill to allow Trump to benefit makes it hard for them to argue that the influx of migrants is a crisis that requires immediate addressing. If passing a bill can wait 12 months, then it’s hardly urgent.

Right-wing opposition to the immigration legislation also means that Republicans are turning against each other.

Ha! Well, at least that’s a new one.

Former president Donald Trump is falsely claiming to have stopped all movement between the US and Mexico in a bid to push lawmakers to scuttle a bipartisan proposal to increase President Joe Biden’s power to curb illegal crossings.

Mr Trump took to his Truth Social platform on Monday to claim that he had not needed what he described as a “big, complex Democrat-oriented Border Bill” to stop crossings between the US and Mexico during his administration.

He also said that he had “by far, the Safest Border in the History of our Country” during his time in office because he “just closed the Border” and claimed — without offering any evidence — that the people seeking asylum after surrendering to the US Border Patrol are “pouring” into the US “from jails and mental institutions located all over the World”.

Andrew Feinberg digs into the former president’s latest remarks:

“The courtroom is not a courtroom to him. It was a campaign stop,” Ms Carroll told CNN on Monday of the 2024 GOP frontrunner.

She said the former president’s legal team and her lawyers had two separate objectives: “Ours was to win a case. His was to win voters.”

“He’s using me to win voters,” Ms Carroll said. “The man found liable for sexual assault is using the woman he sexually assaulted to get votes.”

The three service members were killed and another 25 injured by the attack on the Tower 22 facility near Jordan’s border with Syria over the weekend and marked a further escalation of the simmering tensions in the Middle East.

Republicans demanded provisions for the border be attached to funding for Ukraine and Israel… but now apparently that’s now not necessary… 🤔

Here’s what the former president wrote in full on Truth Social this lunchtime:

A Border Bill is not necessary to stop the millions of people, many from jails and mental institutions located all over the World, that are POURING INTO OUR COUNTRY. It is an INVASION the likes of which no Country has ever had to endure. It is not sustainable or affordable, and will, under Crooked Joe Biden, ONLY GET WORSE. I had the safest and most secure Border in U.S. History. I didn’t need a “Bill!” They are using this horrific Senate Bill as a way of being able to put the BORDER DISASTER onto the shoulders of the Republicans. The Democrats BROKE THE BORDER, they should fix it. NO LEGISLATION IS NEEDED, IT’S ALREADY THERE!!!

I didn’t need a big, complex Democrat-oriented Border Bill, which will make Republicans look bad, I just closed the Border, and had, by far, the Safest Border in the History of our Country!

In early January, four Illinois registered voters, backed by Free Speech For People, challenged Mr Trump’s ballot eligibility, claiming his involvement in the January 6 attack on the Capitol was a form of engaging in an insurrection.

Under Section Three of the 14th Amendment, those who take part in insurrections or aid enemies of the United States government are prohibited from taking office. The little-known provision has been used in countless other lawsuits across the country.

Ariana Baio reports for The Independent: