Politics

By Joseph Ax

(Reuters) – When Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a 15-week abortion ban on April 14, 2022, he held a morning ceremony at a church in front of an enormous “Protect Life” sign, flanked by women and children.

On Thursday, exactly one year later, DeSantis – now a likely 2024 Republican presidential candidate – signed a six-week ban with decidedly less fanfare. The bill signing took place at 10:45 p.m., with no advance notice to the national media.

The stark difference underscored how the politics around abortion have transformed since the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated a nationwide right to abortion in June 2022, a seismic shift that has helped Democrats score a series of electoral victories.

The decision has created a political minefield for Republicans, who must try to strike a balance between appeasing the anti-abortion conservative base without turning off the majority of U.S. voters who oppose an outright ban. Republican presidential hopefuls, including former President Donald Trump, have largely sidestepped the issue.

But that has become increasingly difficult as abortion remains at the forefront of the political world. The issue featured prominently in last week’s state Supreme Court race in Wisconsin and in an ongoing court battle over the legality of a commonly used abortion drug.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted last month showed abortion remains divisive even among Republican voters, with just 54% of Republican respondents saying they would be more likely to support a presidential candidate who backs banning or severely restricting abortion. Nearly four in five Democratic voters, meanwhile, said they would look less favorably upon such a candidate.

The issue could prove especially costly for Republicans among women, who were more likely to oppose restrictions, as well as moderate voters, whose support will be crucial for the 2024 contest. Among poll respondents who identified as independent or merely leaning toward a party, 68% disliked anti-abortion candidates, while 32% favored them.

DeSantis’ backing of a six-week ban – one of the nation’s most restrictive – may help him consolidate support among conservatives but would give Democrats plenty of ammunition for the general election if he wins the Republican nomination.

“The gap between what base voters want and what swing voters will tolerate has gotten very large for Republicans, and abortion is a great example of that,” said Sarah Longwell, a Republican strategist who has conducted numerous voter focus groups.

On Friday morning, less than 12 hours after signing the bill, DeSantis traveled to Liberty University, a conservative Christian school in Virginia. The campus pastor, Jonathan Falwell, praised DeSantis as a champion for unborn babies in his introduction, mentioning the six-week ban to wide applause.

But DeSantis never mentioned the bill in his 19-minute speech, instead simply saying that he had “elevated the importance of family and promoted a culture of life.”

REPUBLICANS TREAD CAREFULLY

Other Republican presidential contenders have also treaded carefully.

South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, who announced a presidential exploratory committee this week, declined to answer directly on Thursday when asked whether he would support a national ban. On Friday, he told NBC News he would back the “most conservative pro-life legislation” that Congress passed, though he would not commit to a specific time frame.

Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, another 2024 candidate, offered little clarity at a campaign event in Iowa this week, saying the issue should be left to the states but also suggesting she might be open to a national ban if a consensus emerged.

Trump, whose appointment of three conservative justices to the Supreme Court led directly to the court’s decision to overturn Roe, has not spent much time taking credit for it.

In a social media post after November’s midterm elections, he blamed the “abortion issue” for the party’s underperformance.

By contrast, former Vice President Mike Pence, a staunch conservative who has hinted at a White House bid, offered unequivocal support for the Florida bill in a Fox News interview on Friday, adding, “I’m pro-life. I don’t apologize for it.”

Democrats have seized on the Republicans’ stances to portray them as out of step with American voters on the issue. The Democratic National Committee issued scathing statements this week attacking DeSantis and Scott on their positions, warning that a Republican administration would push for a national ban.

“Right now, abortion is emerging as a key voting issue in 2024, and that’s a voting issue that is a problem for Republicans,” said Stu Rothenberg, an analyst at the non-partisan newsletter Inside Elections.

Not everyone agrees. In a statement after DeSantis signed the six-week ban, Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a leading anti-abortion group, noted that he had overwhelmingly won re-election in November while “never flinching in the face of extremist opposition.”

In Wisconsin, abortion was a huge motivator for Democratic voters in the race for a swing seat on the state Supreme Court, said Sam Roecker, a top campaign advisor to liberal Janet Protasiewicz, who easily won the contest.

But he said abortion was only part of their effort to portray her conservative opponent as too far right for the state.

“It’s important to tie this back to an overall theme of extremism that can resonate beyond just those base voters,” he said.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Additional reporting by Jason Lange, Nathan Layne and Tim Reid; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Daniel Wallis)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Friday temporarily halted lower court rulings that set limits on access to the abortion pill mifepristone, giving the nation’s top judicial body time to weigh a bid by President Joe Biden’s administration to defend the drug amid a challenge by anti-abortion groups.

The action by the conservative justice, who handles emergency matters arising from a group of states including Texas, freezes the litigation and maintains the current availability of mifepristone pending a further order from himself or the entire court.

The U.S. Justice Department and Danco Laboratories, the pill’s manufacturer, filed emergency requests earlier on Friday asking the justices to freeze an April 7 preliminary injunction by Texas-based U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk that would greatly restrict mifepristone’s distribution while litigation contesting its federal regulatory approval proceeds.

Alito acted just hours before the restrictions were due to have taken effect. He directed the challengers to respond by Tuesday to the requests by the Justice Department and Danco, while delaying the restrictions from taking effect until 11:59 p.m. EDT (0359 GMT) on Wednesday. The court would be expected to issue another order on the issue by that time.

The administration is seeking to defend the availability of mifepristone in the face of mounting abortion bans and restrictions enacted by Republican-led states since the Supreme Court in June 2022 overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that had legalized the procedure nationwide. Alito authored that ruling for the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority.

The administration and Danco told the justices in their filings that mifepristone might not be available for months if the restrictions were allowed to take effect.

Mifepristone, approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2000, is used in combination with another drug called misoprostol to perform medication abortions, which account for more than half of all U.S. abortions. The FDA is the U.S. agency that signs off on the safety of food products, drugs and medical devices.

The Justice Department said the lower court orders issued in the past week limiting mifepristone’s availability would have “sweeping consequences” for women who need access to it and the FDA’s scientific judgment authority over drug safety.

Danco said it may be forced to halt operations in the face of regulatory uncertainty.

Current drug labels for mifepristone do not account for the new limits and would have to be adjusted, a process that could last months, the Justice Department and Danco said in their filings. The generic version of mifepristone would also lose its approval, the department said.

“The resulting disruption would deny women lawful access to a drug FDA deemed a safe and effective alternative to invasive surgical abortion,” the department told the justices.

In a case that could undercut the FDA’s authority to decide on the safety of drugs, the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday declined the administration’s request to block Kacsmaryk’s restrictions. The 5th Circuit halted another part of Kacsmaryk’s order that would have suspended the FDA’s approval of the drug, effectively pulling it off the market.

Kacsmaryk’s decision conflicted with an order also issued April 7 in a separate case from Washington state directing the FDA to keep the drug available in 17 states and the District of Columbia.

Anti-abortion groups led by the recently formed Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine and four anti-abortion doctors sued the FDA in November seeking to reverse approval of mifepristone.

‘FUNDAMENTAL ERRORS’

“To the government’s knowledge, this is the first time any court has abrogated FDA’s conditions on a drug’s approval based on a disagreement with the agency’s judgment about safety – much less done so after those conditions have been in effect for years. And the lower courts reached that unprecedented result only through a series of fundamental errors,” the Justice Department said in its filing.

The restrictions set by the lower courts would restore curbs on mifepristone that had been lifted since 2016 as the FDA steadily expanded access. These revived restrictions would include a requirement for three in-person doctor visits to obtain mifepristone and would limit its use to the first seven weeks of pregnancy, down from the current 10.

Some 61% of Americans, including 51% of Republicans, oppose efforts to restrict access to abortion pills, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll concluded on Wednesday. Just 37% of respondents said they trusted the Supreme Court to act impartially in abortion-related cases.

The Justice Department has said the anti-abortion plaintiffs have no basis for second-guessing FDA scientific judgment and that when used as directed, adverse effects of mifepristone are exceedingly rare “just as they are for many common drugs like ibuprofen.” The challengers have called the restrictions critical safeguards to a medication they consider dangerous.

Since last year’s Supreme Court decision, 12 U.S. states have put in place outright bans while many others prohibit abortion after a certain length of pregnancy. The latest Republican-led move came in Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis on Thursday signed a new law that bans most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, setting the stage for abortion access to be drastically curtailed in the state and across the U.S. South.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)

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By Tyler Clifford

(Reuters) – Former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Friday he will not enter the 2024 presidential race, which would have pitted him against his former boss Donald Trump for the Republican nomination.

Pompeo, 59, said he decided with his wife that he would not be a candidate for the office due to personal reasons.

“The time is not right for me and my family,” Pompeo said in a statement. “This is not that time or that moment for me to seek elected office again.”

A former Kansas congressman, Pompeo developed a reputation as one of Trump’s most loyal lieutenants when he served as secretary of state and director of the Central Intelligence Agency. He advanced Trump’s pugnacious foreign policy as the top U.S. diplomat and was a magnet for controversy in Washington.

Pompeo also initially backed Trump’s false claims of a stolen presidential election following his 2020 defeat to Democrat Joe Biden, though Pompeo eventually cooperated with the incoming administration. In recent months he has indirectly criticized Trump, saying Republicans need leaders who do not dwell on the past.

President Biden said on Friday he has decided to run for a second term in 2024 and would announce his campaign “relatively soon.”

With Pompeo out, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley is the lone Trump administration official to announce she will challenge the former president. She served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under Trump from 2017 to 2018.

Among other possible Republican primary candidates are Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former Vice President Mike Pence.

(Reporting by Tyler Clifford in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

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By Sheila Dang

(Reuters) -Montana lawmakers on Friday passed a bill to ban popular short-form video app TikTok from operating in the state, the latest threat to the Chinese-owned app’s existence in the U.S.

The bill, known as SB 419, would prohibit mobile app stores from offering TikTok for download to users in Montana. The Montana House voted 54-43 to approve the ban.

TikTok as well as Apple and Google, which operate mobile app stores, would face fines if they violate the ban, should the bill become law.

It is not clear how the state would enforce the ban.

The bill now heads to Montana Governor Greg Gianforte for signing.

“The governor will carefully consider any bill the legislature sends to his desk,” said a spokesperson for the Montana governor’s office.

TikTok said in a statement: “We will continue to fight for TikTok users and creators in Montana whose livelihoods and First Amendment rights are threatened by this egregious government overreach.”

TikTok, which is owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance, is facing growing calls from some U.S. lawmakers to ban the app nationwide over concerns about potential Chinese government influence over the platform.

Last month, a congressional committee grilled TikTok Chief Executive Shou Zi Chew about whether the Chinese government could access user data or influence what Americans see on the app.

TikTok has repeatedly denied that it has ever shared data with the Chinese government and has said the company would not do so if asked.

The company is working on an initiative called Project Texas, which creates a standalone entity to store American user data in the U.S. on servers operated by U.S. tech company Oracle.

(Reporting by Sheila Dang in Dallas; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)

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By Alexandra Ulmer

INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana (Reuters) – White House Republican hopefuls including Donald Trump descend on Indianapolis for the annual NRA conference on Friday, highlighting the gun lobby’s continued political potency even as the U.S. reels from the latest spate of mass shootings.

The conference of the National Rifle Association, the country’s leading gun-rights advocacy group, is taking place at a key moment in the Republican presidential campaign. A number of hopefuls, including Trump’s closest rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, are deliberating if and when to jump into the 2024 race to challenge the former president for the nomination.

Trump, whom the NRA enthusiastically backed in 2016 before he was even officially declared the Republican presidential candidate, will address gun aficionados in person on Friday.

His former vice president, Mike Pence, seen as another presidential hopeful, will also speak on Friday. DeSantis, and other White House hopefuls, Nikki Haley and Senator Tim Scott, will do so by video message.

The parade of top-tier politicians shows that the NRA event remains a rite of passage for Republican hopefuls, despite the group itself being riven by corruption accusations, legal problems and media reports of dwindling membership.

“The NRA is still the grand-daddy of the guns lobby. The NRA-endorsed candidate in a Republican primary is very important,” said Richard Feldman, a member and former NRA lobbyist.

Feldman said he expected the NRA to eventually endorse Trump because its most vocal membership base – which draws heavily from a white, rural and male population subset – remain supportive of him.

While in office Trump was broadly supportive of gun rights, but angered some activists in 2018 by banning the high-power gun attachments used in a 2017 Las Vegas shooting in which dozens of people were killed.

Trump’s campaign website says he will “always defend your Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms,” but does not provide detailed policy proposals.

Even if the NRA does endorse Trump, the group, faced with a major lawsuit in New York and falling revenue according to some reports, is unlikely to provide the same financial support as in past elections.

Spending has already decreased: the NRA spent some $54.4 million during the 2016 election, including $31.2 million for Trump’s campaign, but that fell to $29.1 million in the 2020 cycle, the bulk of it for Trump’s campaign, according to OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan research organization that tracks U.S. advocacy dollars.

SPIKE IN MASS SHOOTINGS

The gun rights lobby has also come under pressure from the at least 149 mass shootings around the country since the start of the year.

In just the last three weeks, two mass shootings killed 11 people, first at a school in Nashville and then at a bank in Louisville. In both cases, the shooters purchased their weapons legally.

“Republican primary hopefuls are descending on Indianapolis to pander to the NRA’s extreme leaders for support that will be poison in a general election,” said Shannon Watts, founder of gun control group Moms Demand Action.

The NRA did not respond to requests for comment.

DeSantis, who is expected to declare his run in coming months, will likely extol a recent Florida law allowing residents to carry a concealed firearm without a permit.

He will likely be hoping to strengthen his gun bona fides after the Washington Post in February reported that he wanted weapons banned from his victory celebration in Tampa last year, irking gun rights supporters.

For some fervent NRA members, however, neither Trump nor DeSantis are committed enough to the cause.

Alan Rice, a firearms instructor in New Hampshire and an NRA member who will be at the convention, voted for Trump in 2016 but not in 2020, and accuses the men of merely paying lip service to gun rights.

“DeSantis is a great pretender. Trump is a New Yorker. I believe people born and bred in New York are raised to hate firearms,” said Rice, who describes himself as a “single-issue voter.”

He is hoping New Hampshire’s governor, Chris Sununu – who is also addressing the NRA on Friday – will run.

(Reporting by Alexandra Ulmer, editing by Ross Colvin and Deepa Babington)

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By Omar Younis

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (Reuters) -Tennessee state Representative Justin Pearson was sworn in on Thursday after being reappointed to the legislature from which he and a Democratic colleague were expelled for leading a gun protest on the House of Representatives floor.

To applause, whoops and cheers, Pearson stood before a crowd of about 50 supporters and media as he was sworn in on the steps of the Capitol.

“We’ve just been expelled, but we’re back,” Pearson told the crowd. “You can’t expel hope. You can’t expel our voice. You can’t expel our fight.

“I am so glad to be fighting with you, because victory is ours,” he said, shaking his fist in the air, and then he and the crowd chanted: “Power to the people.”

Leaving the fanfare of cameras and well-wishers at the reinstatement ceremony behind, Pearson entered the statehouse and took his seat.

On Wednesday, Pearson was appointed to his vacated seat by the county legislature that includes his Memphis district. His swearing-in concluded a whirlwind two weeks that made Tennessee the epicenter of U.S. politics.

Tennessee Republicans on April 6 kicked out Pearson and Justin Jones, another young, Black Democrat, as punishment for breaking rules of decorum a week earlier by leading a protest inside the House chamber. The demonstration was prompted by a March 27 school shooting in Nashville in which three children, three adults and the shooter were killed.

“Gun Violence is impacting and hurting every part of our community,” Pearson said on the capitol steps, after reading a list of the recent gun victims. “They tried to expel this movement of justice, but it cannot be stopped.”

Jones was reinstated to his vacated seat by the Nashville-area county legislature on Monday and was sworn in on the steps of the capitol in Nashville that same day.

Some 200 miles (320 km) to the west, Pearson was reappointed by the Memphis-area county board on Wednesday and was sworn in around 8 a.m. Central Daylight Time (1300 GMT).

It is the third time Pearson was sworn in this year. He had been appointed to the previously vacant seat in January and won a special election in March.

“We’re going to keep fighting to end gun violence. We’re going to keep fighting to end environmental racism and injustice,” Pearson told reporters after his reappointment.

At the ceremony, he said, “If we never quit, we will see universal background checks” for guns.

Tennessee House Republicans, who have a supermajority, have said in a statement they will welcome back any expelled state lawmakers returned by county-level governments, so long as those members follow the legislature’s rules.

The state constitution gives local legislative bodies the power to appoint interim state representatives to fill vacancies until special elections can be held. Jones and Pearson have said they will run in special elections, for which no dates have yet been set.

The pair helped lead the March 30 demonstration calling for gun control, disrupting a legislative session, along with Democratic Representative Gloria Johnson of Knoxville. They were supported by citizens outraged over the Covenant School shooting.

Johnson narrowly escaped also being expelled for breaching House decorum rules. She told reporters afterward she believed she survived because she is white.

(Reporting by Omar Younis in Nashville; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Additional reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Donna Bryson, Diane Craft, Emelia Sithole-Matarise, Jonathan Oatis and Mike Harrison)

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(Reuters) – Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has signed a bill into law that bans most abortions after six weeks, setting the stage for abortion access to be drastically curtailed in the state and across the U.S. South.

DeSantis signed the legislation late on Thursday night after lawmakers in the state’s Republican-led House of Representatives approved it with a 70-40 vote. The bill passed the state Senate by a vote of 26-13 on April 3.

“We are proud to support life and family in the state of Florida,” DeSantis said in a statement.

The legislation makes exceptions for abortions in cases of rape, incest and when the mother’s life or health are at serious risk.

Backing more severe restrictions could carry political risks for DeSantis, who is expected to seek the Republican nomination for president in 2024.

Abortion has emerged as a potent political issue in the U.S. since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, with polls showing that support for abortion rights helped Democrats outperform Republicans in November’s midterm elections.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on Wednesday found that about 50% of Americans strongly or somewhat oppose a national six-week abortion ban, including 44% of Republicans. The same poll showed that 43% of Republicans said they were less likely to vote for a politician who supports limiting access to abortion.

“The ban flies in the face of fundamental freedoms and is out of step with the views of the vast majority of the people of Florida and of all the United States,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.

Debate over the Florida measure lasted several hours on Thursday. Republican supporters of the bill said the law safeguarded women’s health by making exceptions for dangerous pregnancies, and insisted doctors should not hesitate to perform life-saving abortions as the law allows.

“We have the opportunity to lead the national debate about the importance of protecting life and giving every child the opportunity to be born,” said Republican Representative Jenna Persons-Mulicka, a sponsor of the bill.

Democrats said the bill would harm women and that Republicans were prioritizing their religious beliefs and political gain over the health of their constituents.

“We are propping up a political agenda on the backs of women and birthing people,” said Democratic Representative Michele Rayner-Goolsby.

The fate of the ban will depend on the outcome of a court challenge to the state’s 15-week abortion ban, which abortion providers have argued violates the state constitutional right to privacy.

If the Florida Supreme Court rules that the 15-week ban is constitutional, the six-week ban would take effect 30 days later. 

Patients from across the U.S. Southeast have been traveling to Florida to end their pregnancies since the U.S. Supreme Court gutted federal abortion rights. Most other states in the region have already banned the procedure at early stages of pregnancy.

“It will turn Florida from one of the Southeast’s last access points for abortion to one that severely limits care,” Alexandra Mandado, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of South, East and North Florida, said of the ban.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

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By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) -A Washington, D.C., appeals court on Thursday declined to shield Donald Trump from the first of two civil defamation lawsuits by E. Jean Carroll, a writer who said the former U.S. president raped her nearly three decades ago.

The district’s highest local court, the Court of Appeals, said it did not have enough facts to decide whether Trump deserved immunity, after he accused the former Elle magazine columnist in June 2019 of lying about the alleged encounter.

A ruling that Trump was acting as president, and not in his personal capacity, would have immunized him and doomed Carroll’s first lawsuit because the government could substitute itself as the defendant, and the government cannot be sued for defamation.

The court sent the case back to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan, which had last September asked the Washington court for guidance on local law.

Lawyers for Carroll had no immediate comment.

Alina Habba, a lawyer for Trump, said in an email: “We are confident that the Second Circuit will rule in President Trump’s favor and dismiss Ms. Carroll’s case.”

Thursday’s decision does not affect Carroll’s second lawsuit, where an April 25 trial is scheduled in Manhattan federal court.

That case also includes a battery claim under a New York law that lets sexual abuse survivors sue their alleged attackers even if statutes of limitations have run out.

NO TRIAL DELAY

Trump wants to postpone the trial at least until May 23, saying “prejudicial media coverage” of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s recent criminal case against him would leave that case “top of mind” for most prospective jurors.

His lawyers said a delay was also needed after they belatedly learned from Carroll’s legal team that Reid Hoffman, the billionaire co-founder of LinkedIn and a prominent Democratic donor, was footing some of her legal bills.

They said that raised the question of whether Carroll sued Trump, a Republican, to advance a political agenda.

In an order late Thursday, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan refused to delay the trial, but said Trump could gather more information about Hoffman’s role and Carroll’s understanding of it.

The judge did not address whether Bragg’s case jeopardized Trump’s right to a fair trial in Carroll’s case.

Carroll, 79, has long accused Trump of stalling to keep jurors from ever hearing her case.

Both of Carroll’s lawsuits stem from her alleged encounter with Trump in late 1995 or early 1996 in a Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan.

Carroll has said Trump asked for her help in buying a gift for another woman, but later “maneuvered” her into and sexually assaulted her in a dressing room.

‘FACT-INTENSIVE QUESTION’

After Carroll described the incident in a June 2019 New York magazine excerpt from her memoir, Trump told a reporter at the White House that he did not know Carroll, that “she’s not my type,” and that she concocted the rape claim to sell her book.

He largely repeated his denial in October 2022, when he called the rape claim a “hoax,” “lie,” “con job” and “complete scam” on his Truth Social media platform.

The Washington appeals court said that in deciding whether people act in the scope of their employment, the district generally looks to whether they are motivated by a purpose to serve their employer around the time they acted.

Chief Judge Anna Blackburne-Rigsby said determining what was on Trump’s mind when he first talked about Carroll was a “fact-intensive question” that “cannot be resolved as a matter of law in either party’s favor on the record before us.”

At trial, Carroll is expected to introduce testimony from two women who have said Trump sexually assaulted them, and a 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape of Trump making vulgar comments about women that threatened to upend his 2016 White House run.

On April 4, Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony charges of falsifying business records in an indictment filed by Bragg, related to a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.

The case is Trump et al v. Carroll, District of Columbia Court of Appeals, No. 22-SP-0745.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Additional reporting by Luc Cohen; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Sonali Paul)

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By Helen Coster

(Reuters) -Opening statements are due on Monday in Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News over the network’s airing of false claims that the company’s machines were used to rig the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis, presiding over the case in Wilmington, conducted jury selection on Thursday behind closed doors. 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.

Davis said he has “more than enough jurors” but will make his final selections on Monday before opening statements. The court will not be in session on Friday.

Dominion sued Fox Corp and Fox News in 2021, accusing them of ruining its reputation by broadcasting false claims by Republican former President Donald Trump and his lawyers that the Denver-based company’s voting machines were used to rig the outcome of the election against him and in favor of Democrat Joe Biden.

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 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.

The primary question for jurors will be whether Fox knowingly spread false information or recklessly disregarded the truth, the standard of “actual malice” Dominion must show to prevail in a defamation case.

The jurors are being drawn from Delaware’s New Castle County, where Democrats outnumber Republicans more than two-to-one, according to the state’s Department of Elections. Biden represented Delaware in the U.S. Senate from 1973 until 2009.

Fox News and its conservative commentators often were supportive of Trump during his presidency.

Fox has argued in legal filings that Dominion’s $1.6 billion damages request is “untethered from reality” and designed to enrich the company’s investors.

Davis on Wednesday sanctioned Fox News, handing Dominion a fresh chance to gather evidence after Fox withheld records until the eve of trial. This evidence included recordings made by a former Fox employee, Abby Grossberg, who is suing the network.

Davis said he would also very likely tap an outside investigator to look into Fox’s late disclosure of the evidence and take whatever steps necessary to remedy the situation, which the judge described as troubling.

A Fox spokesperson said in a statement on Wednesday: “As counsel explained to the court, Fox produced the supplemental information from Ms. Grossberg when we first learned it.”

(Reporting by Helen Coster in New York; Additional reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware; Editing by Will Dunham, Noeleen Walder, Aurora Ellis and Cynthia Osterman)

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By Karen Freifeld

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Former U.S. President Donald Trump returned to New York to answer questions under oath on Thursday in a $250 million business fraud lawsuit brought against him by the state attorney general.

   But the questioning took place behind closed doors, and Trump’s appearance for the civil case did not draw the kind of attention that his historic surrender on separate criminal charges did last week.

A smattering of protesters stood outside New York Attorney General Letitia James’ offices in lower Manhattan when Trump arrived for the deposition shortly before 10 a.m. local time, with one group carrying a banner reading, “No One Is Above the Law.” He did not leave until shortly after 6 p.m.

    Trump, who is seeking the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential election, was asked about his business practices, a person familiar with the matter said.Unlike during questioning in August, Trump did answer questions on Thursday, the person said. The questions and answers will not be made public immediately.

In August, before the case was filed, Trump invoked his right against self-incrimination under the U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment more than 400 times. Legal experts say the attorney general was also entitled to a deposition after the filing of the lawsuit.

When the case was filed in September, James accused Trump of a “staggering” financial fraud. The lawsuit claims Trump, three of his adult children and others participated in a decade-long scheme to manipulate property values and his net worth to obtain favorable loans and tax and insurance benefits. 

    A trial is scheduled to begin Oct. 2. Thursday’s deposition could be used to try to discredit any testimony Trump may give from the witness stand, or be offered if he is unavailable.

“I will finally be able to show what a great, profitable, and valuable company I built,” Trump said in one of a series of social media posts early Thursday. He also lashed out at the attorney general, the judge presiding over the case and the district attorney who brought the separate criminal charges.

Alina Habba, one of his attorneys, said in a statement that Trump was “eager to testify” and remains “resolute in his stance that he has nothing to conceal.”

The lawsuit seeks $250 million that James says was obtained through financial fraud. It also aims to bar Trump and the three adult children from running businesses in the state and to prohibit him and his company from acquiring commercial real estate in New York for five years.

Trump’s surrender on April 4 drew worldwide media attention and a huge police presence and he returned to his home in Florida the same day after pleading not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Those charges were tied to allegations that he orchestrated a hush-money payment to a porn star before the 2016 election in exchange for her silence over an alleged sexual encounter.

    Trump has said the sexual encounter did not take place. His indictment marked the first time a U.S. president has been criminally charged while in office or after.   

    Trump also faces federal investigations stemming from his handling of government documents after leaving the White House and alleged attempts to overturn his election defeat as well as a state-level probe in Georgia into whether he unlawfully sought to reverse the 2020 election results there.

    In addition, a trial is set for April 25 in federal court in New York over whether Trump defamed former Elle magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll by denying he raped her. Trump is seeking to delay that trial. 

(Reporting by Karen Freifeld; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey, Katharine Jackson, Brendan McDermid; Editing by Doina Chiacu, Nick Zieminski and Deepa Babington)

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