Donald Trump is on trial in Manhattan facing 34 counts of falsifying business records as part of another crime: conspiring to influence the 2016 election. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg argues that, to squelch negative publicity that might hurt Trump’s 2016 campaign, Trump directed the creation of fake records to hide hush-money payments to women who claimed they’d had extramarital sex with him.  That’s a complicated case to prove. And one in which it does not matter one whit, at least legally, who Trump actually had sex with. All Trump’s lawyers have to argue is that the payoffs ..read more

On Thursday, the Supreme Court held oral arguments over former President Donald Trump’s claims that he enjoys absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for engaging in what he contends were his official duties while in office. And one justice, Samuel Alito, offered a particularly wild theory about how to preserve American democracy and the rule of law. The case centers on whether special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of Trump for trying to overturn the 2020 election can proceed or whether—as Trump contends—he is above the law when it comes to his conduct leading up to the January 6 insurre ..read more

The attorney running the Republican National Committee’s “election integrity” effort has been criminally charged by the state of Arizona for her efforts to help Donald Trump steal the 2020 election. This turn of events highlights the Orwellian meaning of the phrase “election integrity,” as used by Trump and the Republican Party: An effort to win at all costs. Bobb endeared herself to the former president as a fervent supporter who worked as both a Trump associate and a journalist as part of various efforts to help Trump overturn the 2020 results. As Mother Jones reported when the RNC hire ..read more

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Campus organizers at three universities filed legal complaints on Monday arguing that their schools’ investments in planet-heating fossil fuels are illegal, the Guardian has learned. The students from Columbia University, Tulane University, and the University of Virginia each wrote to the attorneys general of their respective states calling on them to scrutinize their universities’ investments. They accuse their universities of breaching the Uniform Pru ..read more

This story was produced by Floodlight, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests stalling climate action. In 2018, the Akron, Ohio-based utility FirstEnergy donated $2.5 million to a Republican Governors Association-affiliated dark money group backing GOP nominee Mike DeWine in a competitive race for Ohio governor, according to newly released records. The records show FirstEnergy’s extensive behind-the-scenes work to get DeWine elected. “This Fall Governor race is very important to FirstEnergy from both a legislative and regulatory perspective and getting Mike across the fi ..read more

When House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) emerged onto the steps of Columbia University’s Low Memorial Library on Wednesday afternoon, he was greeted with a deafening sound: hundreds of booing students. Johnson had just emerged from meetings with Jewish students at the university to discuss what he, other Republicans, and some Democrats allege is rising antisemitism on campuses nationwide. Columbia, specifically, has become the epicenter of a politicized fight over the policing of mostly peaceful pro-Palestinian protesters, after CU President Minouche Shafik ordered the NYPD to sweep a ..read more

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that presented the grim reality of the post-Roe v. Wade world the justices have created. Without a constitutional right to abortion, states are forcing women into grave yet preventable health crises by denying them emergency abortion care. And yet, it appeared that less than half the courtroom acknowledged that reality. The case arises from Idaho’s extreme abortion ban, which does not contain an exception to preserve the health of the pregnant person. The Biden administration sued, alleging that Idaho’s ban conflicts with a federal ..read more

In a little-noticed court filing earlier this month, federal prosecutors described Steve Bannon as a “co-conspirator” in a massive criminal fraud and racketeering case against a flamboyant, far-right Chinese fugitive, compounding the legal headaches of the former Donald Trump adviser. FBI agents in March 2023 arrested Guo Wengui, a self-styled anti-Chinese government activist Bannon once advised, charging him and two associates with using a series of fraudulent investment opportunities to defraud thousands of Guo’s supporters in the Chinese diaspora of more than $1 billion. Guo used the procee ..read more

Last November, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the most powerful pro-Israel lobbying group in Washington, announced a $100 million effort to unseat members of Congress who vocally supported calls for a ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza. AIPAC and its allies have flooded the spring and summer primaries of Cori Bush, Jamaal Bowman, and Ilhan Omar, and Summer Lee with pro-Israel opponents, limitless spending, and inflammatory rhetoric. Last night, Lee, the first Black woman elected to Congress from Pennsylvania, won her reelection campaign handily, fending off a challen ..read more

It’s been said so often it’s almost become a cliché: Donald Trump poses a threat to American democracy. But his authoritarian impulses and hate-encouraging demagoguery are far from the only peril for the nation. Conservatives and Republicans for years have been striving on multiple fronts to weaken democracy by suppressing voter rights and pushing for other measures—such as gerrymandering and placing election boards under partisan control—that undermine majority rule. No journalist has been a better chronicler of this nefarious crusade than Ari Berman, the national voting rights correspondent ..read more