2023

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley finally got her wish to see Iowa basketball star Caitlin Clark, catching the fourth-ranked Hawkeyes in between campaign stops Saturday.

Haley walked into Carver-Hawkeye Arena alongside her son, Nalin, wearing an Iowa button on her jacket. The former South Carolina governor called Iowa coach Lisa Bluder a “rock star” and made a reference to her home-state Gamecocks, the current No. 1 women’s basketball team.

“We are used to women’s basketball in South Carolina,” Haley said. “We’re excited, so glad to be here. Go Lady Hawkeyes.” Last March, in an NCAA tournament semifinal, Clark scored 41 points as Iowa ended the perfect season of defending champion South Carolina.

At the game, Haley chatted with former Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad and David Bluder, the coach’s husband.

Even as some fans approached Haley as she took her seat, all eyes were on Clark, the reigning Associated Press national player of the year.

Clark, who has earned fame and fortune with her once-in-a-generation game, has about 20,000 more followers on Instagram than does Haley, a former U.N. ambassador.

Earlier Saturday, at an appearance in Coralville, Haley flubbed the Iowa star’s name, calling her “Caitlin Collins,” perhaps with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins in mind.

But there’s no doubt Haley knows all about Clark. During a stop in Ankeny in November, Haley said that if there was a way to get to a game and meet Clark, she would be there.

Campaigning in Iowa Friday and Saturday, Haley attempted to pivot from an awkward moment in New Hampshire, when she was asked at a town hall event about the reason for the Civil War and didn’t include slavery in her response. During four similar events in eastern Iowa, addressing more than 500 people in total, Haley didn’t mentioned the episode and was never asked about it during the Q&A.

Haley is hoping to build on momentum as the Jan. 15 Iowa caucuses approach battling Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for what may amount to a second-place finish. Former President Donald Trump continues to be a commanding force in the party, frustrating some Iowa voters who want a more competitive race.

source

By Andrew Goudsward

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. prosecutors on Saturday urged a federal appeals court to reject former President Donald Trump’s claim that he cannot face criminal charges for seeking to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election.

Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is overseeing the prosecution, argued in a court filing that nothing in the U.S. Constitution or American legal tradition supports giving former presidents “absolute immunity” from criminal charges for action taken while in office.

Smith said creating such a legal shield would place presidents above the law.

Trump has claimed that the presidency is “cloaked with absolute immunity” from prosecution, Smith said. “He is wrong.”

Smith argued that the separation of powers mandated by the constitution and legal precedent make clear that a former president can be charged for crimes he committed while in the White House “including, most critically here, illegal acts to remain in power despite losing an election.”

Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, is appealing a lower court ruling denying his bid to dismiss the election charges based on his claim of immunity. His lawyers argued in a Dec. 23 filing that allowing Trump to be charged for conduct related to his official responsibilities would undermine the presidency.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is scheduled to hold arguments on the matter on Jan. 9.

Trump, president from 2017-2021, has pleaded not guilty to charges that he defrauded the United States, obstructed Congress and violated the civil rights of voters through schemes to overturn his loss to Democrat Joe Biden. The case is one of four criminal prosecutions Trump faces and one of two that relate to his alleged efforts to subvert the 2020 election.

Trump, frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, has accused prosecutors of a politically motivated effort to damage his campaign for the Nov. 5, 2024 election. State-by-state contests to select a nominee begin on Jan. 15.

The timing of the court’s decision is seen as crucial to whether Trump will stand trial beginning in March as scheduled. Progress in the case has been halted while the immunity appeal remains pending.

Smith earlier this month asked the U.S. Supreme Court to bypass the lower appeals court and immediately decide the issue, in an attempt to stave off Trump’s attempt at delay.

The Supreme Court denied the request, leaving the issue for now with the D.C. Circuit court.

(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward; Editing by Howard Goller and Diane Craft)

source

WASHINGTON (AP) — Special counsel Jack Smith urged a federal appeals court Saturday to reject former President Donald Trump’s claims that he is immune from prosecution, saying the suggestion that he cannot be held to account for crimes in office “threatens the democratic and constitutional foundation” of the country.

The filing from Smith’s team was submitted ahead of arguments next month on the legally untested question of whether a former president can be prosecuted for acts taken while in the White House.

Though the matter is now being considered by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, it’s likely to come again before the Supreme Court, which earlier this month rejected prosecutors’ request for a speedy ruling in their favor holding that Trump can be forced to stand trial on charges that he plotted to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

The outcome of the dispute is critical for both sides especially since the case has been effectively paused while Trump advances his immunity claims in the appeals court.

Prosecutors are hoping a swift judgment rejecting those arguments will restart the case and keep it on track for trial, currently scheduled for March 4 in federal court in Washington. But Trump’s lawyers stand to benefit from a protracted appeals process that could significantly delay the case and potentially push it beyond the November election.

Trump’s lawyers maintain that the appeals court should order the dismissal of the case, arguing that as a former president he is exempt from prosecution for acts that fell within his official duties as president.

Smith’s team has said no such immunity exists in the Constitution or in case law and that, in any event, the actions that Trump took in his failed effort to cling to power aren’t part of a president’s official responsibilities.

The four-count indictment charges Trump with conspiring to disrupt the certification in Congress of electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021, when rioters motivated by his falsehoods about the election results stormed the U.S. Capitol in a violent clash with police. It alleges that he participated in a scheme to enlist slates of fake electors in battleground states who would falsely attest that Trump had won those states and encouraged then-Vice President Mike Pence to thwart the counting of votes.

Those actions, prosecutors wrote, fall well outside a president’s official duties and were intended solely to help him win reelection.

“A President who unlawfully seeks to retain power through criminal means unchecked by potential criminal prosecution could jeopardize both the Presidency itself and the very foundations of our democratic system of government officials to use fraudulent means to thwart the transfer of power and remain in office,” Smith’s team wrote.

In their brief, prosecutors also said that though the presidency plays a “vital role in our constitutional system,” so, too, does the principle of accountability in the event of wrongdoing.

“Rather than vindicating our constitutional framework, the defendant’s sweeping immunity claim threatens to license Presidents to commit crimes to remain in office,” they wrote. “The Founders did not intend and would never have countenanced such a result.”

While Trump’s lawyers have argued that the indictment threatens “the very bedrock of our Republic,” prosecutors say the defense has it backwards.

“It is the defendant’s claim that he cannot be held to answer for the charges that he engaged in an unprecedented effort to retain power through criminal means, despite having lost the election, that threatens the democratic and constitutional foundation of our Republic,” they said.

A three-judge panel is set to hear arguments on Jan. 9. Two of the judges, J. Michelle Childs and Florence Pan, were appointed by President Joe Biden. The third, Karen LeCraft Henderson, was assigned to the bench by former President George H.W. Bush.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan earlier rejected the immunity arguments, asserting that the office of the presidency does not confer a “’get-out-of-jail free card.” Trump’s lawyers then appealed that decision, prompting Smith to seek to bypass the court and request an expedited decision from the Supreme Court.

The justices last week denied that request without explanation, leaving the matter with the appeals court.

Trump faces three other criminal prosecutions. He is charged in Florida with illegally retaining classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate and faces a state prosecution in Georgia that accuses him of trying to subvert that state’s 2020 presidential election and a New York case that accuses him of falsifying business records in connection with a hush money payment to a porn actress.

___

Associated Press writer Alanna Durkin Richer in Boston contributed to this report.

source