Politics

By Gabriella Borter

(Reuters) – Florida’s Republican-led House of Representatives on Thursday gave final approval to a six-week abortion ban, setting the stage for abortion access to be drastically curtailed in the state and across the U.S. South.

Lawmakers in the Florida House on Thursday approved the six-week ban with a vote of 70-40. The bill passed the state Senate by a vote of 26-13 on April 3.

The legislation, which makes exceptions for abortions in cases of rape, incest and when the mother’s life or health are at serious risk, next heads to the desk of Governor Ron DeSantis for his signature.

DeSantis, who is expected to seek the Republican nomination for president in 2024, has said he supports restricting the state’s gestational abortion limit to six weeks. Florida currently allows abortions through 15 weeks.

Backing more severe restrictions could carry political risks for DeSantis should he win the Republican nomination.

While some 13 states ban abortion at six weeks and earlier, polling has consistently showed that most Americans support legal abortion in most cases. A Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on Wednesday found 43% of Republicans said they were less likely to vote for a politician who supports limiting access to abortion.

The fate of the ban may depend on the outcome of a court challenge to the state’s current 15-week abortion ban, which abortion providers have argued violates the state constitutional right to privacy. The case is pending with the Florida Supreme Court.

Patients from across the U.S. Southeast have been traveling to Florida to end their pregnancies since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, gutting federal abortion rights. Most other states in the region have already banned the procedure at early stages of pregnancy.

(Reporting by Gabriella Borter; Editing by Colleen Jenkins)

source

By Gabriella Borter

(Reuters) -Florida’s Republican-led House of Representatives on Thursday gave final approval to a six-week abortion ban, setting the stage for abortion access to be drastically curtailed in the state and across the U.S. South.

Lawmakers in the Florida House approved the ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy in a 70-40 vote. The bill passed the state Senate by a vote of 26-13 on April 3.

Governor Ron DeSantis is expected to sign the legislation, which makes exceptions for abortions in cases of rape, incest and when the mother’s life or health are at serious risk.

The Republican governor signed the state’s current 15-week ban into law last year and has said he supports further limits.

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 Gabriella Borter in Washington; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Matthew Lewis)

source

By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Thursday said Donald Trump’s defamation trial over whether he raped a writer in the mid-1990s will begin as scheduled on April 25, rejecting the former president’s bid for a delay but letting him learn more about how his accuser is paying her legal bills.

Trump’s lawyers said they needed more time after learning from the plaintiff E. Jean Carroll’s legal team that Reid Hoffman, the billionaire co-founder of LinkedIn, was helping fund her civil case.

They said the involvement of Hoffman, a prominent Democratic donor, raised the question of whether Carroll sued Trump, a Republican, to advance a political agenda.

In a two-page order, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan said Hoffman’s role had nothing directly to do with whether Trump defamed Carroll by calling her rape claim a hoax in an October 2022 post on his Truth Social platform.

But the judge said Hoffman’s involvement “might prove relevant” to Carroll’s credibility, after she testified under oath last October that no one else was paying her legal fees.

He said Trump’s lawyers could receive documents and conduct a one-hour deposition of Carroll on the issue.

Kaplan also said: “Trial shall begin as scheduled on April 25, 2023 unless otherwise ordered.”

Trump has been seeking a minimum four-week postponement, saying “prejudicial media coverage” of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s recent criminal case against him would leave that case “top of mind” for jurors.

Kaplan’s order did not address that argument.

Alina Habba, a lawyer for Trump, in a statement said she was pleased the judge allowed more discovery, and that “Ms. Carroll and her attorneys will not be permitted to benefit from their failure to comply with their discovery obligations.”

Lawyers for Carroll declined to comment.

They had called Trump’s request irrelevant to the defamation claim, and said Trump waived the argument by earlier raising and then dropping a similar request.

Carroll’s case includes a battery claim.

She also has a still-pending defamation lawsuit filed in November 2019 against Trump over his denial five months earlier that the rape took place.

Hoffman is a partner at the venture capital firm Greylock Partners.

In a statement, Dmitri Mehlhorn, who advises Hoffman on philanthropy, said Hoffman agreed in September 2020 that some money could be allocated to Carroll’s first lawsuit.

Without such support, Carroll might have joined others who have been “outgunned in court by Mr. Trump’s decades-long practice of bullying and delay to avoid accountability for his actions,” Mehlhorn said.

The case is Carroll v Trump, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 22-10016.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Chris Reese)

source

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Biden administration is unveiling on Thursday nearly $300 million in funding from its signature infrastructure law for nine bridge projects across the country, officials said.

The infrastructure law, which the U.S. Congress passed with support from Democrats and Republicans, is one of President Joe Biden’s key legislative accomplishments and one his administration is eager to highlight as he gears up for an expected re-election bid.

With Biden traveling in Ireland, Vice President Kamala Harris, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and other administration will visit some of the bridge sites to discuss the funding, which will go to projects in eight U.S. states and Washington, D.C.

“These bridges serve 230,000 vehicles combined per day, and these investments will save taxpayers time and money by reducing congestion and making long overdue improvements,” the White House said in a statement.

Biden signed the $1 trillion infrastructure measure into law in November 2021 and his administration is working to implement it through projects to fix bridges and roads and expand broadband internet access to more Americans.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)

source

By Helen Coster

(Reuters) – Jury selection in Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit against Fox Corp. is expected to begin on Thursday, as the court seeks 12 Delaware residents from a heavily-Democratic county to decide whether Fox News knowingly aired false claims about vote rigging in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

Dominion says that Fox destroyed its business by knowingly airing debunked claims that its ballot counting machines were used to flip the results of the election against former President Donald Trump, a Republican who lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

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.

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.

The trial is widely viewed as a test of whether Fox’s coverage crossed the line between ethical journalism and the pursuit of ratings, as Dominion alleges and Fox denies.

Opening arguments in the five-week trial are expected to begin Monday.

The jury pool will be drawn from New Castle County, Delaware, where Democrats outnumber members of Trump’s Republican party more than two-to-one, according to the state’s Department of Elections. Democratic President Joe Biden represented Delaware in the U.S. Senate from 1973 until 2009.

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

The county’s political composition is likely to “make the defense nervous, but left-leaning people also tend to be in favor of freedom of the press,” said Melissa Gomez, president of MMG Jury Consulting.

In Delaware, attorneys are not allowed to speak directly with potential jurors. Instead, Superior Court Judge Eric Davis — who is presiding over the case — will question them behind closed doors, using questions both sides have agreed to, including whether potential jurors have ever “worked in a newsroom” and whether “they regularly watch any Fox News programs.”

If a prospective juror responds “yes,” Davis may ask follow-up questions.

After the judge identifies 36 potential jurors, they will be brought to the court room and each side’s attorneys will have six “peremptory strikes,” in which they can dismiss a potential juror without giving a reason for doing so.

The streamlined process allows for jury selection to happen more quickly than it does in some other states: Davis has allotted two days.

But it also means both sides will have a harder time trying to identify prospective jurors’ political views, which could be relevant in this case, said Gomez.

“If you have a juror who believes that the election was stolen, it will influence their position,” said Gomez. “Will the facts of the case actually matter to them if they have that underlying belief?”

The questions are limited to prospective jurors’ experience rather than their attitudes.

Questions that capture prospective jurors’ attitudes are more likely to predict how a juror will lean in the case, according to Christina Marinakis, a jury consulting and strategy advisor at IMS Consulting and Expert Services.

“So you’re sort of shooting blind when it comes to jury selection,” Marinakis said.

Davis on Wednesday sanctioned Fox News, handing Dominion a fresh chance to gather evidence after Fox withheld records until the eve of trial, according to a source who is familiar with the case and was present during Wednesday’s court hearing.

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

(Reporting by Helen Coster in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Aurora Ellis)

source

(Reuters) -Former U.S. president Donald Trump has arrived in Manhattan for a deposition before New York’s attorney general Letitia James, he said on Thursday in a post on his social media platform, Truth Social.

James filed a civil lawsuit in New York state court in Manhattan last September against Trump and his three adult children for fraud, accusing them of mis-stating the values of real estate properties to obtain favorable loans and tax benefits. Trump also sued James after she filed that case.

In March, Trump requested the court to delay the deadline of the case by six months, adding that extending the deadlines would provide the necessary time to review the “staggering” volume of materials, including millions of pages of documents, and question dozens of witnesses.

“…I will finally be able to show what a great, profitable, and valuable company I built, actually, some of the greatest real estate assets anywhere in the world,” Trump said in another Truth Social post on Thursday.

Trump, who is seeking to regain the presidency in 2024, was also indicted by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s office earlier this month.

He was charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records over allegations that he orchestrated payments to two women before the 2016 election to suppress publication of their sexual encounters with him.

(Reporting by Jahnavi Nidumolu in Bengaluru; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

source

By Karen Freifeld

(Reuters) -Former President Donald Trump arrived in New York to be questioned Thursday in a $250 million civil fraud lawsuit against him by the state’s attorney general, he said in a series of overnight social media posts that also lashed out against the case.

   But the deposition will take place behind closed doors and is unlikely to draw the kind of attention that his surrender on separate criminal charges did last week.

    Trump, who is seeking the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential election, is expected to head to New York Attorney General Letitia James’ offices in lower Manhattan, where he will be asked about his business practices. The lawsuit accuses him and others of a decade-long scheme to manipulate property values and his net worth in order to obtain favorable loans and tax benefits. 

    The trial in the case is scheduled to begin Oct. 2. Thursday’s deposition could be used to try to discredit any testimony Trump may give at trial, or be offered as testimony if he is unavailable to appear.

    It is not the first time Trump is facing the New York attorney general. Under questioning 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 is also entitled to a deposition after the filing of the lawsuit.

“I will finally be able to show what a great, profitable, and valuable company I built,” Trump said in one post on the Truth Social platform early Thursday, after attacking the attorney general and what he called her “persecution,” as well as the judge in the case and the district attorney who brought the separate criminal charges.Trump, whose surrender on April 4 drew worldwide media attention and a huge police presence, returned to his home in Florida after the arraignment.The arraignment was over 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 pleaded not guilty to the charges. He has said the sexual encounter did not take place. It 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 2020 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; Editing by Caitlin Webber, Leslie Adler, William Maclean)

source

By Karen Freifeld

(Reuters) – Former President Donald Trump is due back in New York to be questioned Thursday in a $250 million civil fraud lawsuit against him by the state’s attorney general, according to a person familiar with the matter.

   But the deposition will take place behind closed doors and is unlikely to draw the kind of attention that his surrender on separate criminal charges did last week.

    Trump, who is seeking the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential election, is expected at New York Attorney General Letitia James’ offices in lower Manhattan, where he will be asked about his business practices. The lawsuit accuses him and others of a decade-long scheme to manipulate the values of properties and his net worth in order to obtain favorable loans and tax benefits. 

    The case is scheduled for trial beginning Oct. 2. Thursday’s deposition could be used to try to discredit any testimony Trump may give at trial, or be offered as testimony if he is unavailable to appear.

    It is not the first time Trump is facing questions from the New York attorney general. In August, before the case was filed, Trump underwent a round of questioning, but invoked his right against self-incrimination under the U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment more than 400 times. Legal experts say the attorney general is also entitled to a deposition after the filing of the lawsuit.Trump’s surrender on April 4, on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records over 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, drew worldwide media attention and a huge police presence. He returned to his home in Florida after his arraignment.

    Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges. He has said the sexual encounter did not take place. It 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 2020 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; Editing by Caitlin Webber and Leslie Adler)

source

By Luc Cohen

(Reuters) -Donald Trump sued his ex-lawyer Michael Cohen on Wednesday seeking at least $500 million in damages, as the former U.S. president steps up attacks on his onetime loyal “fixer” after Cohen testified before the Manhattan grand jury that indicted Trump.

In a complaint filed in federal court in Miami, Trump accused Cohen of failing to keep confidential attorney-client communications private and profiting by “spreading falsehoods” about him in books and podcasts.

Lanny Davis, a lawyer for Cohen, called Trump’s lawsuit “frivolous.” Trump often over the years has filed suits against various adversaries.

“Mr. Trump is once again using and abusing the judicial system as a form of harassment and intimidation against Michael Cohen,” Davis said.

The lawsuit comes as Cohen, who once said he would “do anything” to protect Trump, appears poised to become a star witness against him at a possible criminal trial in New York on the charges unsealed last week. Trump, who is running for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records. It marked the first time a former U.S. president was charged with a crime.

Prosecutors led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, have said Trump covered up his reimbursement of Cohen for $130,000 in hush money paid before the 2016 election to porn star Stormy Daniels, who has said she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006. Trump denies that any such relationship occurred.

Trump’s lawsuit said Cohen wrongfully called Trump “racist” in the disbarred lawyer’s 2020 book, entitled “Disloyal,” and fabricated conversations with Trump from when he served as his attorney.

“The timing of Disloyal’s release, just prior to the November 3, 2020 Presidential Election, suggests that (Cohen) intended to improperly disclose (Trump’s) confidences when it would be most lucrative to do so – and while Disloyal would be sure to have the most damaging reputational effect,” the lawsuit said.

Trump lost the election to Democrat Joe Biden.

‘I AM ASHAMED’

Cohen was a top executive at Trump’s real estate company and then worked as his personal lawyer when Trump became president in 2017. Once known for intense loyalty to Trump, Cohen has become a harsh critic and has assisted law enforcement agencies and lawmakers investigating his former boss.

“I am ashamed because I know what Mr. Trump is,” Cohen told a U.S. congressional committee in 2019. “He is a racist. He is a con man. He is a cheat.”

Cohen in 2018 pleaded guilty to violating federal election law through the $130,000 payment to Daniels. He was sentenced to three years in prison for that and other crimes, including cheating on his personal taxes and lying under oath to Congress about when the Trump Organization stopped working on a proposed building project in Russia.

Referring to Daniels by her real name Stephanie Clifford, Trump’s lawyers said Trump intended the payment to her “to protect his family from the malicious and false claims made by Clifford.”

The criminal case is one of several legal woes Trump faces including investigations into attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss and into his removal of government documents from the White House after leaving office.

New York State Attorney General Letitia James last year filed a civil lawsuit against Trump and his three adult children for fraud, accusing them of misstating the values of real estate properties to obtain favorable loans and tax benefits. Trump also sued James after she filed that case.

Trump last week said Cohen had failed to appear for a deposition by Trump’s legal team as part of that lawsuit, which is scheduled to go to trial on Oct. 2. Justice Arthur Engoron set a hearing for April 21 to consider whether to order Cohen to testify.

Trump filed a suit against James seeking to halt her civil case, but a judge dismissed it, writing that there was “no evidence” that the investigation was undertaken in bad faith.

In another case, a judge in January ordered Trump and his lawyers to pay nearly $1 million for filing a “completely frivolous” suit accusing Hillary Clinton and other Democrats of trying to rig the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

(Reporting by Jasper Ward in Washington and Luc Cohen in New York; Additional reporting by Karen Freifeld in New York; Editing by Will Dunham, Katharine Jackson, Jonathan Oatis and Noeleen Walder)

source

By Omar Younis and Jonathan Allen

MEMPHIS, Tennessee (Reuters) – Local government officials in Memphis, Tennessee, voted on Wednesday to return the second of two Democratic state lawmakers who were expelled last week for protesting gun violence on the chamber floor.

In a rare rebuke last week, Republicans who control the state House of Representatives voted to kick out Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, two Black men in their late 20s who had recently joined the legislature, over their rule-breaking peaceful protest on the floor on March 30.

Jones has already been sworn back in after councilors in Nashville, where his district is located, voted unanimously on Monday to restore him on an interim basis until a special election can be held for the remainder of the two-year term.

On Wednesday afternoon, the Shelby County Board of Commissioners, where Democrats hold a supermajority, voted in favor of doing the same for Pearson at a special meeting in Memphis, where Pearson’s district is located. Seven of the board’s 13 councilors were present for the meeting, and all seven voted in favor of Pearson’s return.

“You can’t expel hope,” Pearson said at the meeting after the vote. “You can’t expel justice. You can’t expel our voice.” He is expected to return to the State Capitol in Nashville on Thursday to be sworn back in.

‘UNFORTUNATE’

In announcing the meeting, Mickell Lowery, the board’s chairman and a Democrat, had called the expulsions “unfortunate.”

“I believe the expulsion of State Representative Justin Pearson was conducted in a hasty manner without consideration of other corrective action methods,” Lowery said in a statement.

Jones and Pearson helped lead the demonstration on March 30 in the well of the House floor, disrupting a legislative session, along with Representative Gloria Johnson of Knoxville, a fellow Democrat. They were supported by angry Nashville residents outraged by a mass shooting at a school in the city earlier in the week in which a former student killed three 9-year-olds and three staff members.

Johnson narrowly escaped also being expelled for breaching House decorum rules. She told reporters after the votes that she believed she survived because she is white, and all three have called the expulsions anti-democratic.

The expulsions drew national attention to Jones and Pearson, including a visit last week by Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, to show support, and animated many voters in the Democrat-leaning cities they represent in a largely Republican-favoring state.

Democrats in the U.S. Senate have asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate whether the expelled lawmakers’ constitutional rights were violated.

The Tennessee Democratic Party has already taken in more than $400,000 in political contributions since last week, more than the party received during the previous three months combined, according to the state chairman, Hendrell Remus.

Before marching with supporters to the commissioners’ meeting, Pearson, joined by Jones and Johnson, addressed a crowd of about 500 outside the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis.

“This is a democracy that they’re scared of,” Pearson said of the cheering crowd before him, “because this is a democracy that changes the status quo.”

Jones said he and Pearson would head to the House in Nashville on Thursday and call on House Speaker Cameron Sexton, a Republican, to resign, calling him an “enemy to multiracial democracy.

“Rather than pass commonsense gun laws, they passed a resolution to expel the two youngest Black members in the General Assembly,” Jones said.

Sexton did not respond to a request for comment. Earlier this week, the House Republicans, who have a supermajority, issued a statement saying they will “welcome” back any expelled state lawmakers returned by county-level governments, so long as those members follow the legislature’s rules.

(Reporting by Omar Younis in Memphis and Jonathan Allen in New York; Additional reporting by Joseph Ax; editing by Jonathan Oatis, Mark Heinrich and Aurora Ellis)

source