Politics

By Jack Queen

(Reuters) – One of the most closely watched U.S. media trials in decades kicks off in a Delaware court on Tuesday as Fox Corp and Fox News face a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems over the network’s coverage of false claims that the ballot-counter company rigged the 2020 presidential election.

Here is an explanation of the case.

WHAT IS DOMINION CLAIMING?

Dominion in its lawsuit accused Fox of destroying its reputation and business by repeatedly airing false claims that its voting machines were used to rig the election against Republican then-President Donald Trump in favor of the winner, Democrat Joe Biden.

Dominion has said Fox knew the claims were false but continued broadcasting them to appeal to its largely conservative audience and keep viewers from defecting to right-wing media competitors that embraced the conspiracy theory.

The Denver-based company cited numerous internal Fox communications and deposition testimony that it has said proved that Fox personnel – show producers and hosts all the way up to the top executives – knew that guests who appeared on various programs and repeatedly made the false claims on air did not have evidence to back up their allegations.

WHAT IS FOX’S DEFENSE?

Fox has said Dominion cannot prove that the network knowingly spread falsehoods or recklessly disregarded the truth, the legal standard of “actual malice” that plaintiffs in defamation lawsuits must meet.

Fox has argued that Dominion cherry-picked evidence to mischaracterize the network’s coverage decisions, which it said were reasonable because election-rigging claims by the president’s lawyers were inherently newsworthy. Fox has said it also gave Dominion’s side of the story by airing its denials.

The network was dealt a setback in March, when Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis ruled that Fox could not invoke free speech defenses because the statements it aired were false, defamatory and not covered by legal protections for the press under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. Fox is now largely limited to arguing that Dominion cannot prove actual malice.

COULD THE TWO SIDES STILL SETTLE?

Yes. Neither side has publicly shown interesting in settling after two years of fierce litigation, but two sources told Reuters that Fox and Dominion were holding last-minute talks after Davis delayed the trial by one day on Monday without giving a reason.

Both sides they are litigating on principal. Dominion has argued that Fox’s conduct was damaging to American democracy and that the network must be held accountable for crossing the line between journalism and the heedless pursuit of ratings. Fox has called Dominion’s lawsuit an assault on the free press and framed its stance in the case as a defense of journalism and diversity of ideas in the public square.

But Fox faces a potentially enormous judgment because in addition to $1.6 billion, Dominion is also seeking punitive damages in any amount jurors see fit.

Another U.S. voting company, Smartmatic, is seeking $2.7 billion from Fox in a similar lawsuit pending in New York County Supreme Court.

WHAT ABOUT DAMAGES?

Fox has attacked the credibility of Dominion’s damages estimate, saying it is based upon unrealistic growth projections and faulty assumptions. The network has said Dominion was worth only $80 million in 2018 and has continued to grow and post strong revenues despite the untrue claims of election-rigging.

Dominion has defended its damages model, which it has said was based on industry standard accounting methods. An expert report commissioned by the company attributed scores of lost contracts to Fox’s coverage, though much of the report remains under seal. More of those details are likely to come out when Dominion’s expert testifies.

(Reporting by Jack Queen; Editing by Will Dunham and Noeleen Walder)

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By Helen Coster and Jack Queen

WILMINGTON, Delaware (Reuters) – The courtroom showdown in the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox Corp and Fox News is set to get underway on Tuesday, with jury selection due to be completed and opening statements delivered in a trial putting one of the world’s leading media properties in the crosshairs.

Anticipation has been building for this day since Denver-based Dominion sued in 2021 over Fox’s airing of false claims that the Denver-based company’s ballot-counting machines were used to rig the 2020 U.S. presidential election in favor of Democrat Joe Biden over Republican then-President Donald Trump.

After a one-day delay ordered by Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis, selection of the jury is set to resume at 9 a.m. EDT (1300 GMT) in Wilmington. That process is expected to go quickly, setting the stage for lawyers representing the two sides to make opening statements to the 12-member panel.

Adding to the drama is the fact that 92-year-old media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who serves as Fox Corp chairman, is due to testify during the trial, along with a procession of Fox executives such as CEO Suzanne Scott and on-air hosts including Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Jeanine Pirro.

The judge did not disclose the reason for the 24-hour delay, but two sources told Reuters that Fox and Dominion had been holding last-minute settlement talks. Fox and Dominion could still settle the case. Fox faces a potentially enormous judgment because Dominion is also asking for punitive damages in any amount jurors deem appropriate.

Dominion in 2021 sued Fox Corp and Fox News, contending that its business was ruined by the false vote-rigging claims that were aired by the influential American cable news outlet known for its roster of conservative commentators.

The primary question for jurors will be whether Fox knowingly spread false information or recklessly disregarded the truth, the standard of “actual malice” that Dominion must show to prevail in a defamation case. Based on a slew of internal communications, Dominion alleges that Fox staff, ranging from newsroom employees all the way up to Murdoch, knew the statements were false but continued to air them out of fear of losing viewers to media competitors on the right.

The trial is considered a test of whether Fox’s coverage crossed the line between ethical journalism and the pursuit of ratings, as Dominion alleges and Fox denies. Fox has portrayed itself in the pretrial skirmishing as a defender of press freedom.

The stakes are even higher considering that another U.S. voting technology company, Smartmatic, is pursuing its own defamation lawsuit against Fox seeking $2.7 billion in damages in a New York state court.

Fox has called Dominion’s $1.6 billion damages claim unrealistic and based on flawed economic modeling. An expert report commissioned by Dominion attributed scores of lost contracts to Fox’s coverage, though much of the report remains under seal.

Fox claimed in a filing on Sunday that Dominion had agreed to knock off more than $500 million of its damages claim. A Dominion spokesperson disputed that claim and said its damages claim remained unchanged.

Fox Corp reported nearly $14 billion in annual revenue last year.

Dominion has said defamatory statements about it aired on Fox shows including “Sunday Morning Futures,” “Lou Dobbs Tonight” and “Justice with Judge Jeanine.”

Dominion also has cited evidence that some hosts and producers thought the guests spreading the false statements, including former Trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, could not back up their allegations.

Fox had argued that coverage of the vote-rigging claims was inherently newsworthy and protected by the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment guarantee of press freedom. Davis rejected that argument in a ruling last month.

(Reporting by Helen Coster in Wilmington and Jack Queen in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Monday outlined spending cuts he said his fellow Republicans would demand in exchange for voting to raise the federal government’s $31.4 trillion debt ceiling, avoiding a potentially catastrophic default.

His proposals included cutting spending to last year’s levels, capping growth at 1% per year and reversing some of President Joe Biden’s policy goals, ideas that Republicans, who control the House, have been floating for weeks that have been rejected by Democrats, who control the Senate and White House.

McCarthy sketched out his ideas in a speech to the New York Stock Exchange as the government ticks closer to the moment sometime this summer when it will no longer be able to meet its financial obligations. Inaction by the divided Congress ultimately would trigger a historic default that would shake the U.S. and world economies.

A 2011 standoff over the debt ceiling triggered the first credit downgrade of the U.S. government, and investors are already showing signs of worry about this one. A market-based gauge of the risk of a U.S. default is the highest since 2012, and has climbed sharply this year as the debt ceiling debate has intensified in Washington.

“Congressional Republicans are ready to act and to lead,” McCarthy said, adding that the House would vote “in the coming weeks” on a bill to cut spending and raise the debt ceiling to an unspecified date next year.

McCarthy said he will seek to toughen eligibility requirements for certain federal social safety net programs.

Democrats reacted with swift opposition to McCarthy’s framework.

“Today House Republicans have made their priorities crystal clear: keep Wall Street happy and take away health care and food assistance from working Americans,” said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden in a statement.

The Treasury Department has warned that the federal government could hit the “X-date,” when it is no longer to pay all its bills as early as June 5, while the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office forecast that moment would come sometime between July and September.

LIMITED OPTIONS

The cuts McCarthy is proposing would not touch the main drivers of the debt Republicans complain about — the Social Security and Medicare retirement and healthcare programs that are projected to nearly double in cost over the next 10 years, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Republicans have also said they don’t intend to cut military spending. McCarthy said on Monday that he would not agree to raising taxes

That leaves little ways to meaningfully reduce the budget deficit, the gap between the amount of money the government takes in and spends.

McCarthy leads a fractious caucus that holds a narrow 222-213 House majority, including a sizeable contingent of hard line members who want sharp spending cuts and dismiss the risks of failure to act on the debt ceiling. So far House Republicans have not produced a proposed budget of their own, a move that Biden contends would be a necessary starting point for negotiations on spending.

The White House last month proposed its own budget, which it said would cut the nation’s deficit by nearly $3 trillion over 10 years, though it relied on increases in taxes on businesses and the wealthy, rather than spending cuts, to do so.

The White House also notes that Congress raised the budget ceiling three times without conditions under Biden’s Republican predecessor, Donald Trump. Congress needs to raise the debt ceiling to cover the costs of previously passed legislation, including Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and trillions in aid approved during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Speaker McCarthy is breaking with the bipartisan norm he followed under Trump by engaging in dangerous economic hostage taking that threatens hard-working Americans’ jobs and retirement savings,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement.

The CBO last month laid out a range of options to address the debt, which showed that higher tax collections would have significantly more impact than the spending cuts under consideration.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan and Katharine Jackson, additional reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by Scott Malone and Alistair Bell)

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By Trevor Hunnicutt

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden is running again, he and White House officials insist, he’s just not ready to announce it yet.

The expected date for Biden, 80, to make his 2024 presidential plans official has slipped from just after the State of the Union address in February to March, to potentially May or even later, according to aides and advisers.

Biden trails recent Democratic incumbent presidents on the issue: Barack Obama announced he would run for a second term in 2012 on April 4, 2011, and Bill Clinton’s 1996 re-election announcement was April 14, 1995. Jimmy Carter, however, waited until Dec. 4, 1979, to announce his 1980 re-election run.

Republican Donald Trump said on June 18, 2019, that he would run for a second term in 2020, while George W. Bush made his 2004 plans public on May 16, 2003.

The lack of a formal announcement has given jitters to supporters unsure if the Democrat president, one of the oldest world leaders, would or should commit to another four-year term. He would be 86 at the end of a prospective second term.

Several factors have been in play, allies said, including picking a campaign team and locking down fundraising plans for financing what may be the most expensive campaign in history.

In recent weeks, Biden has laid out the likely themes of a re-election bid in political speeches, secured a doctor’s note that he is “fit for duty,” told Democrats to re-order the party’s primary calendar in a manner favoring his nomination and picked Chicago as the city where he would ostensibly formally become the nominee next year. Biden is yet to face a serious challenge for his party’s nomination.

“We’ll announce it relatively soon. But the trip here just reinforced my sense of optimism about what can be done,” Biden told reporters at the tail-end of an emotional trip to Ireland last week. “I told you my plan is to run again.”

FOCUSED ON BRIDGES, NOT TRUMP

Biden started the month by kicking off a multi-week, nearly 30-state “Investing in America” tour where the president and top administration officials highlighted infrastructure, chips and inflation act money that is starting to flow into states.

It is part of broader push to send Biden administration officials from coast-to-coast talking about the over $1 trillion in federal money Biden and Democrats put through Congress to fund roads, bridges and high-tech jobs.

This week, Biden plans remarks on childcare and environmental justice, along with a visit to a labor union training facility in Maryland to talk about the economy.

While not technically campaign events, they offer a platform for the president to promote likely campaign themes on the need to lower childcare costs, seek racial justice and build an economy that benefits the working class.

Once Biden is officially running for president, his campaign will be asked daily for responses on hot-button issues as well as the latest salvos and foreign policy observations from top Republican candidate Donald Trump, and to respond to Trump’s long list of legal woes. Until then, the Biden White House seems ready to stick with a policy of near-silence on Trump.

CAMPAIGN STAFF, FUNDRAISING

Biden has still not decided who will run his campaign, and as of last month was considering at least three people to serve as his campaign manager.

Donors who financed his last campaign are standing by, planning a series of events featuring Biden that will take place right around the time he announces, raising millions of dollars to give his campaign a strong start, according to people familiar with the plans.

A formal announcement and filing with the Federal Election Commission would officially open the doors to donations to Biden’s campaign committee, but also put new ethics and spending scrutiny on Biden’s activities as president.

Incumbent presidents need to reimburse the U.S. government for travel and other expenses related to their campaign.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Heather Timmons, editing by Deepa Babington)

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By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The spending-cut proposals unveiled by U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Monday could fall hardest on people in Republican-leaning states, a Reuters analysis of federal spending data found.

McCarthy’s plan, which he presented as a condition for raising the United States’s $31.4 trillion debt ceiling, calls for cutting some agency budgets by 7% this year and capping their growth by 1% annually after that.

It also would impose stiffer work requirements on some benefit programs, which could reduce the number of people who receive them.

McCarthy only laid out broad contours on Monday, rather than unveiling finished legislation, which makes it difficult to determine the proposed cuts’ precise toll.

But a Reuters analysis of federal spending data indicates that his proposed domestic-spending caps could be felt most acutely in the states that backed Republican President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

Those 25 states received roughly $172 billion in the last fiscal year for highway construction, housing, public health and other purposes, amounting to $1,196 per person.

The 25 states plus the District of Columbia that backed Democrat Joe Biden received $205 billion, or $1,079 per person.

The amounts involved were smaller in 2019, before the federal government approved trillions of dollars in COVID-19 aid, but the pattern was the same: $411 per person in Trump states, compared to $360 per person in Biden states.

The amounts vary dramatically from state to state. In the 2022 fiscal year, heavily Democratic California received $760 per capita, while deeply Republican Alaska got $6,423 per resident.

POVERTY AND TAXES

Much of that money is distributed through formulas that take factors like poverty into account. As a result, federal aid does not play as big a role in relatively wealthy, Democratic-leaning states like New Jersey that are more able to raise their own taxes to fund safety-net programs, said Marcia Howard, executive director of Federal Funds Information for States.

“As a rule, wealthier states get fewer funds per capita,” she said.

McCarthy’s proposed increase of 1% per year would not keep up with inflation or population growth. Those caps could be felt most acutely in Trump-voting states, where the collective population grew 9.8% between 2010 and 2022, nearly twice the 5.3% growth rate in Biden states.

SOCIAL SECURITY AND DEFENSE

McCarthy’s spending cuts would not scale back Social Security retirement benefits, which are projected to double in cost over the coming 10 years.

But the agency warned last month that budget cuts could make it more difficult to administer benefits. That could have a bigger impact in Trump-voting states, where 20.1% of residents rely on the program, compared to 18.6% of residents in Biden states.

It is not clear whether McCarthy’s caps would apply just to domestic programs, as some media outlets have reported, or would cover military and veterans programs as well. His office did respond to a request for clarification.

WORK REQUIREMENTS

McCarthy also proposed stiffening work requirements for benefit programs like SNAP, which provides grocery money for low-income people.

That, likewise could hit Republican-leaning states harder: 3.1% of the population in those states could lose benefits, compared with 2.8% of residents in Biden states, according to a Reuters analysis of data compiled by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning think tank.

Republicans have tried for years to tighten these programs to lower costs and push more people into the work force.

But spending cuts could undercut that goal.

In Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, several dozen SNAP participants rely on a separate federal program to help cover child-care and transportation costs to get to work, said Terek Polite, who oversees the program for the local government. Any cuts could force those people to quit their jobs, he said, adding, “As opposed to scrapping the program, maybe they need to strengthen it.”

(Reporting by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Scott Malone and Alistair Bell)

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By Katharine Jackson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democratic U.S. Senator John Fetterman returned to work on Monday after weeks of treatment for depression, bringing a crucial vote back to a Senate narrowly controlled by Democrats.

The Pennsylvania senator, 53, waved to cameras as he entered the Capitol in his customary hoodie and shorts.

“It’s great to be back,” he told reporters.

Fetterman checked into a Washington-area hospital to be treated for clinical depression in mid-February and was discharged in late March with his depression in remission, his office said.

Known for his progressive politics — as well as his shaved head and tattooed frame — Fetterman flipped a Republican-held seat in November’s midterm elections, six months after suffering a near-fatal stroke. His win expanded Democrats’ majority by one seat to 51-49.

Fetterman’s office said he will chair a hearing on Wednesday on the federal government’s food stamp program, SNAP.

Fetterman is one of three senators who have recently been out for medical reasons.

The Senate’s top Republican, Mitch McConnell, 81, who was treated for a concussion after a fall, also returned to work on Monday.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, 89, has been sidelined since early March after suffering from shingles. She will return as soon as her doctors advise it is safe for her to travel, she said on Wednesday. She has not voted since mid-February.

Feinstein said she would temporarily step down from her spot on the Judiciary Committee while she recovers, though it is not clear Democrats will be able to appoint a temporary replacement over Republican objections.

(Reporting by Katharine Jackson and Richard Cowan; Editing by Scott Malone and Alistair Bell)

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By Richard Cowan and Katharine Jackson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Monday outlined spending cuts he said his fellow Republicans would demand in exchange for voting to raise the federal government’s $31.4 trillion debt ceiling, avoiding a potentially catastrophic default.

His proposals included cutting spending to last year’s levels, capping growth at 1% per year and reversing some of President Joe Biden’s policy goals, ideas that Republicans, who control the House, have been floating for weeks that have been rejected by Democrats, who control the Senate and White House.

McCarthy sketched out his ideas in a speech to the New York Stock Exchange as the government ticks closer to the moment sometime this summer when it will no longer be able to meet its financial obligations. Inaction by the divided Congress ultimately would trigger a historic default that would shake the U.S. and world economies.

A 2011 standoff over the debt ceiling triggered the first credit downgrade of the U.S. government, and investors are already showing signs of worry about this one. A market-based gauge of the risk of a U.S. default is the highest since 2012, and has climbed sharply this year as the debt ceiling debate has intensified in Washington.

“Congressional Republicans are ready to act and to lead,” McCarthy said, adding that the House would vote “in the coming weeks” on a bill to cut spending and raise the debt ceiling to an unspecified date next year.

McCarthy said he will seek to toughen eligibility requirements for certain federal social safety net programs.

Democrats reacted with swift opposition to McCarthy’s framework.

“Today House Republicans have made their priorities crystal clear: keep Wall Street happy and take away health care and food assistance from working Americans,” said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden in a statement.

The Treasury Department has warned that the federal government could hit the “X-date,” when it is no longer to pay all its bills as early as June 5, while the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office forecast that moment would come sometime between July and September.

LIMITED OPTIONS

The cuts McCarthy is proposing would not touch the main drivers of the debt Republicans complain about — the Social Security and Medicare retirement and healthcare programs that are projected to nearly double in cost over the next 10 years, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Republicans have also said they don’t intend to cut military spending. McCarthy said on Monday that he would not agree to raising taxes

That leaves little ways to meaningfully reduce the budget deficit, the gap between the amount of money the government takes in and spends.

McCarthy leads a fractious caucus that holds a narrow 222-213 House majority, including a sizeable contingent of hard line members who want sharp spending cuts and dismiss the risks of failure to act on the debt ceiling. So far House Republicans have not produced a proposed budget of their own, a move that Biden contends would be a necessary starting point for negotiations on spending.

The White House last month proposed its own budget, which it said would cut the nation’s deficit by nearly $3 trillion over 10 years, though it relied on increases in taxes on businesses and the wealthy, rather than spending cuts, to do so.

The White House also notes that Congress raised the budget ceiling three times without conditions under Biden’s Republican predecessor, Donald Trump. Congress needs to raise the debt ceiling to cover the costs of previously passed legislation, including Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and trillions in aid approved during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Speaker McCarthy is breaking with the bipartisan norm he followed under Trump by engaging in dangerous economic hostage taking that threatens hard-working Americans’ jobs and retirement savings,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement.

The CBO last month laid out a range of options to address the debt, which showed that higher tax collections would have significantly more impact than the spending cuts under consideration.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan and Katharine Jackson, additional reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by Scott Malone and Alistair Bell)

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By Dawn Chmielewski and Lisa Richwine

(Reuters) -Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on Monday fired another shot in his battle with Walt Disney Co, saying the state’s Republican legislature would take steps to nullify the company’s effort to circumvent state oversight of Walt Disney World.

DeSantis, a likely Republican presidential candidate who has made attacking “woke Disney” a common theme, said the legislature would revoke a development agreement Disney struck with outgoing members of an oversight board.

“They thought they could create some type of development agreement that would render everything that we did null and void,” DeSantis said. “That’s not gonna fly.”

The ongoing tussle between DeSantis, who has yet to announce a presidential bid, and one of Florida’s largest employers began in March 2022 when Disney’s then-Chief Executive Bob Chapek spoke out against a bill limiting discussion of sexuality and gender identity in Florida elementary school classrooms.

Republicans named the bill the Parental Rights in Education Act, while opponents criticized it as the “Don’t say gay” law.

DeSantis said the new bill, announced on Monday, would return control of the special district that is home to Disney World to a state oversight board run by the governor’s appointees.

Among other things, it will give the board the power to decide how to develop land adjacent to Disney’s theme parks. DeSantis said the possibilities included a state park, other amusement parks or a state prison.

Disney shares were off about 0.2% at $99.68.

DeSantis and the Florida legislature have been working to eliminate the virtual autonomy the company enjoyed over Disney World for more than 50 years, saying that constitutes an “unfair advantage.” Disney employs some 75,000 people in the state.

Florida lawmakers passed a bill in February giving DeSantis effective control over a board that oversees municipal services and development in a special district in central Florida that encompasses Walt Disney World resort.

Current Disney CEO Bob Iger called the move a retaliation, “anti-business” and “anti-Florida.” The company had no comment on DeSantis remarks on Monday.

Before the takeover by DeSantis appointees, Disney pushed through changes to the special tax district agreement that limit the board’s action for decades.

An attorney for the newly constituted Central Florida Tourism Oversight District last month described what he called the “shocking” revelation that the agreement had been reached three weeks before DeSantis signed legislation granting the state authority over the district.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said attorney Daniel Langley on March 29.

The pact cements a 10-year comprehensive plan, adopted on July 15, 2022, that serves as a blueprint to guide future development. It gives Disney the option to add a fifth major theme park, two minor parks, 1 million square feet of retail space and some 14,000 hotel rooms.

It also ensures that future boards would honor a commitment to $527 million in planned capital improvements to support Walt Disney World’s growth over the next decade.

“We are a government of laws, not a government of individual men or even a government of ‘woke’ corporations based in California,” DeSantis said.

(Reporting by Dawn Chmielewski and Lisa Richwine in Los Angeles; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

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By Luc Cohen

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Republican U.S. congressman Jim Jordan on Monday asked a judge to let a House of Representatives panel’s investigation into the criminal prosecution of former President Donald Trump proceed, saying a subpoena of a former Manhattan prosecutor was needed by lawmakers as they consider possible legislation.

Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and an ally of fellow Republican Trump, made the request to U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil two days before she is due to hold a hearing in the case in federal court in Manhattan.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought 34 felony counts of falsifying business records against Trump, last week sued Jordan to stop what Bragg called a “campaign of intimidation” against the prosecution of the former president. The suit sought to block the committee’s subpoena seeking testimony from Mark Pomerantz, who once led the Manhattan district attorney’s office Trump investigation but resigned in early 2022.

In a separate filing, Pomerantz urged Vyskocil to block the subpoena and said he played no role in Bragg’s decision to charge Trump.

Trump, the first former U.S. president charged with a crime, pleaded not guilty on April 4 after being indicted in connection to a hush money payment made before the 2016 U.S. presidential election to porn star Stormy Daniels to prevent her from discussing a sexual encounter she has said she had with him.

Trump, who is seeking the Republican nomination for the presidency in 2024, has denied the liaison took place.

Bragg has accused Jordan of impeding New York’s “sovereign authority” and interfering in an ongoing criminal case.

In his response to Bragg’s lawsuit on Monday, Jordan said his subpoena of Pomerantz was covered by protection under the U.S. Constitution for “speech or debate” in Congress. Jordan said his committee was considering legislation to allow presidents to move state criminal actions against them to federal court.

“Such legislation could help protect current and former presidents from potentially politically motivated prosecutions,” Jordan’s lawyers wrote in court papers.

(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Will Dunham and John Stonestreet)

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(Reuters) – A judge in Delaware on Sunday delayed by one day the start of trial in a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox Corp, a courthouse spokesperson said.

“The Court has decided to continue the start of the trial, including jury selection, until Tuesday, April 18, 2023 at 9:00 a.m. I will make such an announcement tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. in Courtroom 7E,” said Judge Eric Davis, according to the statement.

Davis had said on Thursday he expected to conclude jury selection on Monday and proceed to opening statements.

The trial is one of the most closely watched U.S. defamation cases in years, involving a leading cable news outlet with numerous conservative commentators.

(Reporting by Helen Coster and Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Sandra Maler)

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