Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is best known for his famous family name, his anti-vaccine activism, and his unexpected third-party run for president. He’s not particularly well known for his passion for criminal justice reform. And yet, next month, he’s scheduled to deliver the keynote address at the Detroit stop on the New Dawn for Justice Criminal Reform Tour. The six-city tour’s website promises it “amplifies the collective voice calling for equitable and humane reform” and encourages “individuals from all walks of life to contribute to the reshaping of our justice system.” The tour’s lead organize ..read more

A longtime lieutenant and criminal co-defendant of far-right Chinese fugitive mogul Guo Wengui has agreed to plead guilty to fraud charges ahead of their upcoming trial. This development strengthens the position of federal prosecutors in a case in which they have called Steve Bannon, a vocal Guo ally, a “co-conspirator.” Yvette Wang, Guo’s former chief of staff and alleged co-conspirator in defrauding thousands of Guo supporters of more than $1 billion, pleaded not guilty after her arrest in March 2023. Like Guo, who was arrested the same day and also pleaded not guilty, Wang was denied bond a ..read more

Former president Donald Trump will likely face additional sanctions for violating the gag order in his criminal case in New York City after a brutal contempt hearing Thursday morning. He had already been fined $9,000 on Tuesday for nine violations. Trump is facing 34 felony counts of falsifying business records for his role in a 2016 scheme to cover up an alleged extra-marital affair with adult film star Stormy Daniels. (Trump denies any affair.) Before the trial started, Judge Juan Merchan, who is overseeing Trump’s hush-money case, issued a gag order prohibiting Trump the former president fr ..read more

Eight years ago, in his 2016 run for president, Donald Trump said that women who have abortions should be criminally charged. “There has to be some form of punishment,” Trump said at the time. The comment caused a firestorm and his campaign walked it back within hours. It marked one of the few times that Trump recanted.  But as he mounts another run for president, both Trump and the anti-abortion movement that’s supported him now feel unrestrained. In an interview Time published Tuesday, the former president said that he would not stop states from prosecuting a woman for having an abortio ..read more

On Saturday, just as Utah Republicans were gathering for their annual nominating convention, former President Donald Trump endorsed Senate candidate Trent Staggs, an upstart small-town mayor who has been carefully cultivating endorsements from national MAGA celebrities. The endorsement helped Staggs prevail over nine other candidates in the crowded convention race to replace retiring Sen. Mitt Romney, including Brent Orrin Hatch, the son of the late six-term Sen. Orrin Hatch. After three rounds of voting, Staggs won more than 50 percent of delegate votes, which allows him to advance to the Jun ..read more

Once again, there’s not much love lost between Bill Barr and the man he accused of betraying the Oval Office, Donald Trump. When the former attorney general confirmed this week that he would support the Republican presidential ticket in November, his former boss took the opportunity to mock Barr as “slow-moving” and “lazy.”  “That’s classic Trump,” Barr chuckled on Friday when CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked about the insults. “What’s the question?” He went on to express frustration that voters are faced with a rematch between Joe Biden and Trump. But given that choice, Barr explained th ..read more

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

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

The Supreme Court on Thursday will hear arguments over former President Donald Trump’s unprecedented and novel theory that former presidents are immune from criminal prosecution for anything that involved alleged “official acts” while in office. But this long-shot theory was only one component of Trump’s overall legal strategy; his main goal was to delay his criminal trial for trying to overturn the 2020 election. And in that effort, the justices have already given him what he wants. Special Counsel Jack Smith brought a four-count indictment against Trump last August for his attempt to subvert ..read more

Once again, former president Donald Trump is about to find out just how far he can push a judge. On Tuesday morning, Trump’s attorneys faced an angry barrage of questions from New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan, demanding they explain why Trump should not be fined for what prosecutors in his hush-money case say was “willfully and flagrantly” violating a gag order Merchan imposed on March 26.  The hearing kicked off the second day of testimony in the historic case that focuses on whether Trump had falsified business records to pay off adult film star Stormy Daniels, among others, to ..read more