Politics

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former U.S. President Donald Trump has become the most high-profile person to ever face criminal charges under the Espionage Act for the unlawful retention of sensitive national defense records.

In all, Trump faces 37 criminal counts, 31 of which relate to secret or top secret classified documents. He is also charged with obstructing justice, conspiracy, concealment and false statements.

WHAT IS THE ESPIONAGE ACT?

The Espionage Act is an anti-spy law enacted by Congress shortly after the start of World War One.

The statute criminalizes a broad array of conduct related to the mishandling of sensitive government records connected to the “national defense,” a term generally referring to military records that if disclosed could damage U.S. national security.

Over the years, the law has been used as a legal tool by the Justice Department to prosecute people ranging from suspected Soviet spies to famous whistleblowers like Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers, and Edward Snowden, a former intelligence consultant who leaked classified National Security Agency records to reveal the existence of a domestic surveillance program.

During the Obama and Trump administrations, some of the Justice Department’s most high-profile Espionage Act prosecutions targeted government employees who leaked classified information to the press or to the website Wikileaks, such as former Army Private First Class intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning and former intelligence contractor Reality Winner.

Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison, though President Barack Obama later commuted her sentence, while Winner was sentenced to more than five years after she admitted to leaking a top secret report on Russian interference in U.S. elections to the media outlet The Intercept.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has also been charged under the Espionage Act, and is fighting extradition to the United States.

HOW DOES THE ESPIONAGE ACT APPLY TO TRUMP?

Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office filed charges against Trump after the FBI searched the Florida resort where he lives in August 2022 and located about 13,000 government records, about 100 of which were marked as secret or top secret — the highest classification level, reserved for the government’s most closely-held secrets. Altogether, prosecutors say he improperly retained 337 classified records.

Trump has previously denied breaking the law, arguing that he declassified the records in question and that his broad presidential powers gave him the authority to disclose or declassify materials.

However, the Espionage Act itself does not explicitly require prosecutors to prove that the records themselves were classified, and neither Trump nor his attorneys have provided any evidence to suggest they were ever declassified.

Prosecutors have charged Trump with violating a section in the Espionage Act which applies to someone who has “unauthorized possession” of national defense information — the same crime to which Winner pleaded guilty.

This section of the law makes it a crime to willfully retain the information and fail to deliver it back to the proper U.S. government official.

WHAT WILL PROSECUTORS HAVE TO PROVE TO A JURY?

To obtain a conviction against Trump, the government will need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he willfully retained the material and failed to turn it over to the government.

Prosecutors do not need to show that Trump knew it was national defense information, but rather that a reasonable person should have known it was.

Part of the government’s evidence will likely entail laying out all the steps it took to get the records returned.

This includes a year-long effort by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, which repeatedly reached out to Trump through his attorneys to request that he return missing records.

While Trump finally agreed to send the Archives 15 boxes of material a year after leaving the White House, some of those records were marked as classified, and the boxes did not include all of the records in his possession.

Even after the Justice Department tried to retrieve the remaining records with a subpoena, Trump only handed over an additional 38 pages marked as classified.

It took a court-approved search warrant before the FBI was able to retrieve the bulk of the records that remained.

The government will also present evidence from Trump’s own attorney, who was compelled to testify to a grand jury about his communications with Trump. The indictment alleges Trump tried to get his own attorney to lie to the government about the existence of the records, even going so far as to ask the attorney to destroy or hide them.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Scott Malone and Rosalba O’Brien)

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By Nathan Layne

(Reuters) – Republicans in Michigan approved a proposal on Saturday to select more than two-thirds of their state delegates for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination via caucus meetings, a change that could help party front-runner Donald Trump.

The plan, which Michigan’s Republican state committee approved during a meeting in Grand Rapids, would mark a departure from the battleground state party’s traditional process of allocating all presidential delegates based on a primary open to the public.

The change would be significant because 70% of delegates would be decided at caucus meetings, where the party’s most active members will likely exert the most sway. That could serve as an advantage for Trump given his popularity among local party officials, some Republicans and political experts said.

Under the plan, caucuses on March 2 in Michigan’s 13 congressional districts would be used to appoint three delegates each, accounting for 39 of the state’s 55 delegates to next year’s Republican national convention. The other 16 will be based on the state’s primary on Feb. 27, according to an amended plan reviewed by the state committee on Saturday.

It remains unclear if the plan will be approved by the Republican National Committee (RNC), as is required. A spokeswoman for the committee could not be reached for comment.

Michael Schostak, a former vice chair of the state party, said the selection of delegates by district caucus would give Trump a “big advantage” because only previously elected precinct delegates will be among those chosen to participate.

“These are not like other states’ caucuses which are more open to a broader swath of the Republican electorate,” he said. “Those Republicans supporting someone other than Trump are not well represented among the current precinct delegates and state committee.”

Running a distant second to former President Trump in national opinion polls is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Other candidates polling in single digits include former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, former Vice President Mike Pence and U.S. Senator Tim Scott.

Chris LaCivita, a top adviser to Trump’s campaign, said a rule change would play to his strengths. A spokesman for DeSantis did not reply to a request for comment.

“The president enjoys a really solid level of support among the party faithful in Michigan,” LaCivita said. “We are very bullish on the caucus system.”

Michigan Republicans have been weighing changes to its delegate-selection process after the Democratic Party, which controls the state legislature, moved forward its primary to Feb. 27. Holding it that early would have run afoul of RNC rules, prompting Republicans to propose a compromise plan to avoid having most of its delegates nullified.

Kristina Karamo, chairwoman of the Michigan Republican party, said on Saturday that the hybrid primary and caucus plan was aimed at avoiding a penalty from the RNC.

“Republicans in Michigan deserve FULL representation at the RNC convention. We will honor the voice of those who vote in the state-wide presidential primary, and those voting in the caucus,” Karamo wrote on Twitter.

Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of a book on nominating contests, said the proposed changes by Michigan Republicans were also significant due to timing, with the caucuses set for three days before “Super Tuesday” on March 5, when a large number of states choose their delegates.

“It’s a launch pad to Super Tuesday,” she said. “If Trump is really strong in Michigan he may sail to the nomination.”

(Reporting by Nathan Layne; Editing by William Mallard)

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By Nathan Layne

(Reuters) -Former President Donald Trump used the first public appearance since his federal indictment to ratchet up attacks on the Justice Department, accusing prosecutors, without evidence, of a politically motivated campaign to keep him from the White House.

Speaking on Saturday at Georgia’s state Republican convention, Trump alleged that President Joe Biden, a Democrat, orchestrated the criminal charges in order to undermine his main political rival’s presidential campaign, as well as to distract from federal and congressional investigations into Biden’s son.

There is no evidence to support Trump’s allegations. The Justice Department maintains that all its investigative decisions are made without regard to partisan politics, and Biden has said he would not get involved in the Trump probe.

“The ridiculous and baseless indictment of me by the Biden administration’s weaponized department of injustice will go down as among the most horrific abuses of power in the history of our country,” Trump told the crowd of local party officials.

“This vicious persecution is a travesty of justice.”

His remarks came one day after prosecutors unsealed a 37-count indictment against him, alleging he mishandled classified documents that included some of the country’s most sensitive security secrets after leaving the White House in 2021.

Prosecutors allege the former president held on to materials, including documents about the U.S. nuclear program and domestic vulnerabilities to a potential attack, that he knew he should not have retained.

The 49-page indictment also detailed two instances in which Trump allegedly shared classified information with people not authorized to receive it, as well as efforts to obstruct government investigators seeking to retrieve the materials.

The indictment of a former U.S. president on federal charges is unprecedented in American history and came as Trump is the clear front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination next year.

The charges ensure the case will be a focal point of the party’s nomination contest. Most of Trump’s rivals responded by accusing the Justice Department of political bias, reflecting their fears of upsetting Trump’s core supporters, a group thought to be 30% of the Republican electorate.

He is due to make a first appearance in the case in a Miami court on Tuesday, a day before his 77th birthday.

In a wide-ranging and at times dark and conspiratorial speech, Trump portrayed his campaign to return to the White House as part of an “epic struggle” to defeat the “sinister forces” that he said were a bigger threat to the country than foreign adversaries like Russia, North Korea and Iran.

“Think of that: from within is worse than without,” he said.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed two different special counsels to independently investigate the handling of classified records by Trump and Biden, who discovered documents at his home and one-time office at a think tank.

Trump sought to equate the investigation into his conduct with that of Biden, even as legal experts say there are stark differences. For more than a year, Trump rebuffed efforts by the National Archives to retrieve all of the records he retained and, according to the indictment, worked to hide documents from his laywers and investigators. In Biden’s case, his attorneys informed the National Archives and the Justice Department of the discovery of classified files, according to Garland. The Justice Department has not said whether it would indict Biden.

“Biden was not indicted. And what he did is terrible,” Trump said. He referred to Jack Smith, the special counsel who indicted him, as a “thug” and called for the removal of officials investigating him. “This is a sick nest of people that needs to be cleaned out immediately. Get ’em out,” he added to applause.

Trump told the audience in Georgia that the “joke of an indictment” would further bolster his support within the party, similar to how charges in New York in March over hush-money payments to a porn star elevated his ranking in primary polls.

“The only good thing is it’s driven my poll numbers way up.”

(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

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By Jack Queen

(Reuters) – Donald Trump faces a formidable task defending against charges that he illegally kept top-secret documents upon leaving the White House in 2021, according to legal experts, who said neither the law nor the facts appear to be on his side.

The former U.S. president, who is a candidate to run again in the 2024 election, was charged in an indictment unsealed in Florida federal court on Friday. The 37 counts against him include violations of the Espionage Act, obstruction of justice conspiracy and false statements.

National security law experts were struck by the breadth of evidence in the indictment which includes documents, photos, text messages, audio and witness statements. They said this made a strong case for prosecutors’ allegation that Trump illegally took the documents and then tried to cover it up.

“The details are pretty shocking in terms of the carelessness with which these documents were handled, and the concerted effort to keep them out of the hands of the FBI,” said Elizabeth Goitein, a national security law expert at the Brennan Center for Justice.

Trump’s lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Trump has proclaimed his innocence and called the case a “witch hunt” orchestrated by political enemies.

“There was no crime, except for what the DOJ and FBI have been doing against me for years,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform on Friday.

Trump’s greatest peril could lie in the conspiracy to obstruct justice charges, which carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

Legal experts said the evidence appears to show that Trump was aware he had documents in his possession that were subject to a subpoena but refused to turn them over and encouraged his lawyers to mislead the FBI.

“That’s about as clear a case of obstruction as you could imagine,” said Clark Neily, a legal expert at the conservative Cato Institute.

Obstruction of justice is a particularly difficult charge to defend against, attorney Mark MacDougall said. “It offends people. Hiding things from a lawful legal process. Most people understand why that’s a crime,” he said.

Legal experts said Trump’s alleged years-long effort to conceal documents was likely a major factor in special counsel Jack Smith’s decision to indict him.

‘WORSE THAN THE CRIME’

During the investigation, Trump’s lawyers told the FBI that they had turned over all classified documents in their possession, which was false. They deny intentionally misleading investigators.

“This is a situation where the coverup is worse than the crime,” the Brennan Center’s Goitein said. “If he had only been negligent, no charges would have been brought.”

The conspiracy element makes the obstruction charges far more serious, and all prosecutors must prove is that Trump worked with another person to try to hinder the investigation, regardless of whether they succeeded.

Cato’s Neily said that based on his reading of the indictment, prosecutors likely have many witnesses who have given them similar accounts of Trump’s efforts.

Trump has claimed he declassified the documents before taking them. That assertion is undercut by a taped conversation cited in the indictment, which said Trump showed a secret document to several people and said that he “could have declassified it” as president but did not.

But the classification issue will likely end up being irrelevant. Prosecutors charged Trump under the Espionage Act, a World War One-era law that predates classification and criminalizes only the unauthorized retention of “national defense information.”

National defense information does not need to be classified to be covered by that law, national security law experts said. The information need only be useful to the nation’s adversaries and be closely held by the government.

“Let’s say all of the documents were declassified. The Espionage Act does not care,” said Georgetown University law professor Todd Huntley.

COULD TRUMP PARDON HIMSELF?

However, Trump does have some potentially successful strategies. His lawyers could challenge witness accounts, blame others or argue he was following the advice of his attorneys and did not intend to break the law.

If it goes to trial, a Florida jury would hear the case since that is where the special counsel sought the indictment. In the conservative-leaning state, Trump would need only one juror to oppose his conviction for there to be a mistrial.

His defense team could also file motions that would delay a trial until after the November 2024 election. Legal experts disagree over whether Trump could pardon himself if he wins.

(Reporting by Jack Queen in New York; Additional reporting by Sarah N. Lynch in Washington, D.C.; editing by Amy Stevens and Cynthia Osterman)

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By Nandita Bose and Jeff Mason

ROCKY MOUNT, N.C. (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden said on Friday he had not spoken to Attorney General Merrick Garland and had no plans to do so, as the Justice Department’s indictment of former President Donald Trump was unsealed.

“I have not spoken to him at all and I’m not going to speak with him,” Biden said, when asked by a reporter if he would speak to the attorney general.

Trump faces 37 criminal counts including charges of unauthorized retention of classified documents and conspiracy to obstruct justice after he left the White House in 2021, according to federal court documents made public on Friday.

Republican hopefuls have alleged, without evidence, that the investigation into Trump, who is running to unseat Biden from the White House in 2024, is politically motivated. Biden and top officials have repeatedly said the DOJ is acting independently.

As the charges against Trump were unsealed, Biden was in North Carolina, where he was discussing his economic agenda and had plans to meet with military members.

White House spokesperson Olivia Dalton said earlier that Biden found out about the indictment of his former rival at the same time others did and had not had advance knowledge of it. She declined further comment.

“This is a president who respects the rule of law,” she told reporters on Air Force One. “That’s precisely why we’re not commenting here.”

Garland, who last appeared publicly with Biden at a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, appointed special prosecutor Jack Smith, who is not registered with any political party, to head the investigation last year.

Trump sought to challenge the legitimacy of FBI search warrants last year related to the probe, but a conservative-leaning federal appeals court rejected his arguments.

BIDEN, TRUMP IN SWING STATE

North Carolina is a key political swing state that Republicans are courting this weekend during a state convention. Trump, who declared himself an “innocent man” in relation to the charges, is scheduled to speak there on Saturday evening.

Biden and his wife, Jill, made a stop at Nash Community College in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, to discuss workforce training programs and later will go to the newly renamed Fort Liberty military base to talk about new efforts to help veterans and families of those serving in the military.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Trump, who are competing against each other and a field of others for their party’s 2024 presidential nomination, are expected to speak there on Friday and Saturday nights, respectively.

Biden’s trip underscores his team’s political strategy as he makes an unprecedented run at the age of 80 for reelection. As Trump faces a host of lawsuits and investigations and Republican hopefuls trade barbs, Biden will be keen to be seen visibly, actively governing, especially on non-partisan issues like jobs.

The so-called bully pulpit is a key advantage that incumbent presidents of both parties have long put to effective use. Just 10 presidents running as incumbents have lost reelection bids.

Biden is slated to attend a rally with union members on June 17 in Philadelphia.

North Carolina, with 15 electoral votes, is an important political swing state that Trump won, though only with a slim margin, in 2020. Biden won overall with 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232.

Trump is ahead of his rivals in North Carolina and that lead mirrors his dominance in other states, according to a poll released Thursday by Opinion Diagnostics. He leads the North Carolina Republican field with 44% of the vote, followed by DeSantis at 22%, the poll shows.

During his trip, Biden will announce a series of executive actions to “increase the economic security of military and veteran spouses, caregivers, and survivors,” the White House said. He will do so at Fort Liberty, a U.S. Army base that was recently renamed from Fort Bragg as part of an effort to relabel bases named for Confederate officers.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose and Jeff Mason; additional reporting by Sarah Lynch and Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Heather Timmons, Alistair Bell and Daniel Wallis)

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By Nathan Layne

(Reuters) -Donald Trump’s main rivals for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination condemned the Justice Department for its move to charge him over his handling of classified documents, underscoring their fear of upsetting his core supporters.

The indictment of a former president on federal charges is unprecedented in U.S. history, a case made more extraordinary by Trump’s status as the clear front-runner in the Republican race to challenge Democratic President Joe Biden next year.

Instead of using the indictment to undermine Trump’s bid for the White House, however, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, U.S. Senator Tim Scott and Nikki Haley were among the candidates accusing the Justice Department of political bias, highlighting a stance that has become central to many of their own campaigns.

All sounded in before the indictment was unsealed on Friday afternoon, revealing detailed allegations that Trump had mishandled documents containing some of the country’s most sensitive security secrets and obstructed the probe.

“The weaponization of federal law enforcement represents a mortal threat to a free society,” DeSantis, who is running a distant second behind Trump in the polls, wrote on Twitter. “We have for years witnessed an uneven application of the law depending upon political affiliation.

Republicans have alleged, without evidence, that the Trump indictment is a politically motivated move by Biden. The Justice Department says all investigative decisions are made without regard to partisan politics, and has handed the investigation to a special counsel who was appointed in an effort to add a degree of independence to such a politically sensitive probe.

The 37-count indictment against Trump accused him of mishandling classified documents that included information about the secretive U.S. nuclear program and potential domestic vulnerabilities in the event of an attack. It also alleged that Trump discussed with his lawyers the possibility of lying to government officials seeking to recover the materials.

President Joe Biden, who is facing his own review over his handling of classified documents, reflecting the tightrope he must walk in dealing with a prosecution into his main political rival, said on Friday he had not spoken to Attorney General Merrick Garland about the case.

“I have not spoken to him at all and I’m not going to speak with him,” Biden said, distancing himself from the investigation into his political rival.

Former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, a long-shot Republican candidate, was the sole rival so far to outright criticize Trump. Hutchinson called on him to end his campaign, arguing that Trump had flouted the Constitution and shown a “disrespect for the rule of law.”

Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who this week blasted Trump as he announced his own 2024 bid, said he wanted to see the details of the indictment before weighing in.

By and large, however, the challengers came to Trump’s defense, perhaps mindful of how Trump’s March indictment in New York over an alleged hush money payment to a porn star was seen by many Republicans as politically charged and only served to rally support to his side.

Trump’s support has held steady through many other lawsuits and scandals but the serious charges laid out against him on Friday could give his Republican rivals ammunition to attack his record, especially on national security.

Chuck Coughlin, a longtime consultant for Republicans in Arizona, said the cumulative effect of criminal charges will begin to take its toll on Trump’s base, which is thought to make up 30% of the Republican electorate.

Trump is also under investigation in Georgia for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election in the state, and faces a separate federal probe into his alleged role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters.

If the indictments pile up, Coughlin predicts the other Republican candidates will start to argue that Trump cannot win the general election.

“There’s got to be a fatigue factor there,” Coughlin said.

RIVALS ECHO TRUMP’S RHETORIC

In the meantime, Trump’s rivals are adopting his rhetoric against the Justice Department, accusing federal prosecutors of singling out Republicans, even as they cheer on a federal investigation into Biden’s son, Hunter, over tax-related issues since 2018. The president’s son has denied wrong-doing.

Scott, who is polling in the single digits, criticized what he also called the “weaponization” of federal prosecutors.

“Today what we see is a justice system where the scales are weighted,” he said in an interview on Fox News late on Thursday.

Vivek Ramaswamy, a venture capitalist also considered a long shot for the Republican nomination, accused the Justice Department of unfairly targeting Trump and vowed to pardon him if elected.

Haley, U.N. ambassador under Trump, said Americans were “exhausted by the prosecutorial overreach,” but also hinted at the chaos surrounding Trump.

“It’s time to move beyond the endless drama and distractions,” Haley wrote on Twitter on Friday.

In New Hampshire on Friday Pence said he was “deeply troubled” by the indictment, believing it would further divide the country. He added, however, that the American public should review the facts of the case and make their own judgment.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne, Dan Whitcomb, Nandita Bose, Susan Heavey and Tim Reid; Editing by Colleen Jenkins, Kieran Murray, Ross Colvin, Daniel Wallis and Alistair Bell)

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By Brad Brooks

(Reuters) – Federal prosecutors on Friday leveled charges of making false statements to financial institutions against a real estate developer who is at the center of allegations that led to the impeachment of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

A grand jury indicted Nate Paul, 36, on eight counts of making false statements to lenders based in Texas, New York, Connecticut and Ireland to obtain $172 million in real estate loans in 2017 and 2018.

Paul, who was arrested by the FBI on Thursday and jailed overnight, briefly appeared before a federal judge in Austin on Friday. He did not enter a plea and was allowed to go free on bond. He is scheduled for a June 15 arraignment. His attorney, Gerry Morris, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Paxton was not mentioned in Paul’s indictment and Morris told reporters after the hearing that the case against his client did not involve Paxton.

Paxton, a supporter of former President Donald Trump whose lawsuit challenging the 2020 election results was tossed out by the Supreme Court, was impeached by state legislators on May 27 and temporarily suspended from office pending his trial in the Senate.

The articles of impeachment against him accuse Paxton of having employees of the attorney general’s office intervene in a lawsuit against Paul, of helping the developer obtain information about the FBI investigation against him, and of providing legal favors to Paul in exchange for his renovating Paxton’s home.

Paxton, 60, has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. Aside from his impeachment, he is under a separate corruption investigation by the Justice Department, according to the special prosecutors in Texas leading his state case.

The Texas Senate will try Paxton on the 20 articles of impeachment lodged against him on or before Aug. 28.

(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Lubbock, Texas; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

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By John Kruzel

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court has granted an unexpected reprieve to a landmark law barring racial discrimination in voting after rolling back its protections over the past decade, but more challenges to the Voting Rights Act seem certain based on actions by Republican legislators in numerous states.

Conservative Justices John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh joined the court’s three liberals in a 5-4 ruling on Thursday that declared that a Republican-drawn electoral map in Alabama weakened the clout of Black voters in violation of the Voting Rights Act. The court’s conservatives in two prior rulings since 2013 had rolled back protections under that 1965 law.

Election law expert Ned Foley of Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law called the ruling “a hugely important development for both the Voting Rights Act and the Supreme Court more broadly.”

“It shows that Roberts and Kavanaugh are open to moderation in some key cases, whereas the four others to their right aren’t,” Foley said, referring to conservative Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch.

The decision requires Alabama to draw a second U.S. House of Representatives district where Black voters comprise a majority or close to it. In the invalidated map, six House districts in Alabama were white-majority – and just one Black majority – despite Black people comprising 27% of the state’s population.

“It was not just a win for Alabama, it was a win for democracy itself,” Representative Terri Sewell, the lone Black House Democrat from Alabama, told reporters.

Electoral districts are redrawn each decade – a process called redistricting – to reflect population changes as measured by a national census.

Thursday’s ruling could have implications for other legal challenges to Republican-drawn electoral maps. Marc Elias, a Democratic elections lawyer, said it likely means litigation challenging a Louisiana congressional map can move forward.

The Supreme Court last year reinstated a Republican-drawn map of Louisiana’s six U.S. House districts that had been blocked by a judge who found it likely discriminated against Black voters. The Supreme Court similarly last year allowed Alabama’s map to be in effect for the November 2022 congressional elections, only to strike it down on Thursday.

The plaintiffs in Louisiana said in their lawsuit that the Republican-drawn map maximizes “political power for white citizens” by packing large numbers of Black voters into a single district and dispersing the rest into the five others where they are too few to elect their preferred candidates.

“Louisiana’s situation directly mirrors Alabama’s,” Elias said.

The Voting Rights Act was passed at a time when Southern states including Alabama enforced policies blocking Black people from casting ballots. Nearly six decades later, the Supreme Court continues to hear cases involving Black voters suing over electoral maps they argue diminish their influence.

Thursday’s ruling centered upon Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, a provision aimed at countering measures that result in racial bias in voting even absent racist intent.

Alabama officials had argued that drawing a second House district to give Black voters a better chance of electing their preferred candidate would itself be racially discriminatory by favoring them at the expense of other voters. If the Voting Rights Act required the state to consider race in such a manner, according to Alabama, the statute would violate the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection under the law.

Broader efforts to restrict voting access have been on the rise in recent years.

According to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s law school, which tracks voting legislation across the country, at least 12 states, nearly all of which were Republican-led, last year enacted 23 restrictive voting laws or measures that risk partisan interference in the election process.

“Alabama attempted to rewrite federal law by saying race had no place in redistricting. But because of the state’s sordid, well-documented and ongoing pattern of racial discrimination, Alabama must act to remedy this discrimination and ensure communities of color are not boxed out of the electoral process,” said Deuel Ross, one of the lawyers representing a group of the plaintiffs in the Alabama case.

“While the Voting Rights Act and other key protections against discriminatory voting laws have been weakened in recent years and states continue to pass provisions to disenfranchise Black voters, (Thursday’s) decision is a recognition of Section 2’s purpose to prevent voting discrimination and the very basic right to a fair shot,” Ross added.

Tish Gotell Faulks, the American Civil Liberties Union’s Alabama legal director, lauded Thursday’s decision but said “history shows us that lawmakers will erect many more hurdles before every Alabamian, irrespective of their race, can vote for representatives that reflect their beliefs, values, and priorities.”

“Efforts remain underway from Montgomery to Jackson to Baton Rouge, and elsewhere across the country to minimize, marginalize and eliminate the ability of Black and brown people to have a voice in their communities,” Faulks added.

(Reporting by John Kruzel; Additional reporting by Moira Warburton; Editing by Will Dunham)

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By Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden travels to North Carolina on Friday to tout his economic agenda and pledge support to military families, spending time in a political swing state while Republican presidential candidates woo voters there, too.

Biden and his wife, Jill, will make stops at Nash Community College in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, to discuss workforce training programs and at the newly renamed Fort Liberty to talk about new efforts to help veterans and families of those serving in the military, the White House said.

Biden’s trip comes as Republican presidential candidates are converging on North Carolina for the state’s Republican convention. Former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who are competing against each other and a field of others for their party’s 2024 presidential nomination, are expected to speak there.

Trump, who has a wide lead in polls over DeSantis, on Thursday declared himself an “innocent man” amid reports that he has been indicted by a federal grand jury for retaining classified government documents and obstruction of justice.

Biden, who is running for re-election, is likely to be asked about that development during his trip on Friday. The White House has said previously it would not comment on actions taken by the Justice Department.

The president’s trip underscores his team’s political strategy of highlighting Biden actively governing while Republican candidates compete with each other for the right to take him on in 2024. The so-called bully pulpit is a key advantage that incumbent presidents of both parties have long put to effective use.

North Carolina is an important political swing state that Trump won, though only with a slim margin in 2020, while still losing the presidency to Biden, who won with 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232.

During his trip, Biden will announce a series of executive actions to “increase the economic security of military and veteran spouses, caregivers, and survivors,” the White House said. He will do so at Fort Liberty, a U.S. Army base that was recently renamed from Fort Bragg as part of an effort to relabel bases named for Confederate officers.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Kim Coghill)

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By John Kruzel

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday handed a major victory to Black voters who challenged a Republican-drawn electoral map in Alabama, finding that the state violated a landmark federal law prohibiting racial discrimination in voting.

The 5-4 ruling affirmed a lower court’s decision that the map diluted the voting power of Black Alabamians, running afoul of a bedrock U.S. civil rights law, the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Conservative Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the ruling, which was joined by the court’s three liberals as well as conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

With the ruling in the dispute over the composition of Alabama’s U.S. House of Representatives districts, the conservative-majority court elected not to further roll back protections contained in the Voting Rights Act as it had done in two major rulings in the past decade.

At issue in the case was the map approved in 2021 by the Republican-controlled state legislature setting the boundaries of Alabama’s seven U.S. House districts. The map featured one majority-Black district, with six majority-white districts.

The Voting Rights Act was passed at a time when Southern states including Alabama enforced policies blocking Black people from casting ballots. Nearly six decades later, race remains a contentious issue in American politics and society more broadly.

Conservative states and groups have successfully prodded the Supreme Court to limit the Voting Rights Act’s scope. Its 2013 ruling in another Alabama case struck down a key part that determined which states with histories of racial discrimination needed federal approval to change voting laws. In a 2021 ruling endorsing Republican-backed Arizona voting restrictions, the justices made it harder to prove violations under Section 2.

In the ruling on Thursday, two consolidated cases before the Supreme Court involved challenges brought by Black voters and advocacy groups accusing the state of violating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, a provision aimed at countering measures that result in racial bias in voting even absent racist intent.

The challengers said Alabama’s map reduced the influence of Black voters by concentrating their voting power in one district while distributing the rest of the Black population in other districts at levels too small to form a majority.

A three-judge federal court panel in January 2022 sided with the challengers, blocking the Republican-drawn map as a “substantially likely” violation of Section 2 and ordering an additional district where Black voters make up “a voting-age majority or something quite close to it.” Alabama then appealed to the Supreme Court.

Alabama officials argued that drawing a second district to give Black voters a better chance at electing their preferred candidate would itself be racially discriminatory by favoring them at the expense of other voters. If the Voting Rights Act required the state to consider race in such a manner, according to Alabama, the statute would violate the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection under the law.

Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration and a number of voting rights groups who backed the plaintiffs had said that a ruling favoring Alabama would threaten certain electoral districts in other states – for the U.S. House and state legislatures – potentially diminishing minority representation in American politics.

Electoral districts are redrawn each decade to reflect population changes as measured by a national census, last taken in 2020. In most states, such redistricting is done by the party in power, which can lead to map manipulation for partisan gain.

In a major 2019 ruling, the Supreme Court barred federal judges from curbing the practice, known as partisan gerrymandering. That ruling did not preclude court scrutiny of racially discriminatory gerrymandering.

Democrats have accused Republicans of pursuing policies at the state level that intended to suppress the vote of racial minorities. Republicans have said they were acting to prevent voting fraud. In addition, high-profile instances of Black people killed by police have fueled America’s ongoing debate about racial justice.

(Reporting by John Kruzel in Washington; Additional reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)

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