Following Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election, the former president has suffered a string of major defeats in the legal system. These began with state and federal courts rejecting his claims of election fraud. His criminal record includes indictments in four different jurisdictions. Most recently, a New York court found Trump in “criminal contempt” for his attacks against jurors and witnesses in his Manhattan criminal proceedings. Lying About the Election: The Road to January 6th After losing the 2020 presidential election, the Trump campaign and allied plaintiffs filed 62 lawsuits chall ..read more

Signup to receive the Early Edition in your inbox here. A curated weekday guide to major news and developments over the past 24 hours. Here’s today’s news ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR A senior Hamas official told AFP news that the group’s response to the proposed truce deal brokered by Egypt and Qatar was “negative,” but that discussions were continuing. The group’s aim remains an “end to this war”, Suhail al-Hindi told AFP. Hamas is understood to be seeking a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, with the proposal that there would then be a lengthy rebuilding program for the enclave durin ..read more

With the announcement of its latest investigation of a global social media company – this time, Meta – the European Union is providing an illuminating lesson on how to regulate tech behemoths without threatening free speech. One would like to think that U.S. politicians and policymakers are taking notes. Unfortunately, that’s probably a fanciful hope. On April 30 the European Commission, the E.U.’s executive arm, said in a press release that it has “opened formal proceedings” to assess whether Meta’s Facebook and Instagram platforms have breached the Digital Services Act (DSA), a Europe-wide l ..read more

In the past four months, the United States and the United Kingdom have conducted repeated airstrikes against the Yemen-based Houthi militia, following a series of Houthi attacks on vessels in the Red Sea. While the U.S. and U.K. government have repeated assurances that they are taking “great care” to avoid civilian harm, allegations have emerged of both deaths and injuries to Yemeni civilians from the campaign. Beyond direct harm, airstrikes are also alleged to have taken place near infrastructure which is vital to sustaining civilian life, risking the safety of civilians in local communities ..read more

With the announcement of its latest investigation of a global social media company – this time, Meta – the European Union is providing an illuminating lesson on how to regulate tech behemoths without threatening free speech. One would like to think that U.S. politicians and policymakers are taking notes. Unfortunately, that’s probably a fanciful hope. On April 30 the European Commission, the E.U.’s executive arm, said in a press release that it has “opened formal proceedings” to assess whether Meta’s Facebook and Instagram platforms have breached the Digital Services Act (DSA), a Europe-wide l ..read more

As the U.N. General Assembly considers a draft resolution designating July 11 for an annual commemoration of the 1995 Srebrenica Genocide against Bosnian Muslims, the regime in Bosnia’s majority-Serb entity, with its allies in neighboring Serbia and in Russia, is intensifying its threats of violence and secession. The backlash includes protests featuring the flags of the majority-Serb entity (known as Republika Srpska or the RS), as well as those of Serbia and Russia, and images of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The images underscore the growing malign influence of Russia in Bosnia. The con ..read more

Signup to receive the Early Edition in your inbox here. A curated weekday guide to major news and developments over the past 24 hours. Here’s today’s news ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday reiterated his pledge to launch a ground invasion into Rafah. “The idea that we will halt the war before achieving all of its goals is out of the question,” Netanyahu said in a meeting with the families of hostages held in Gaza, according to a statement from his office. “We will enter Rafah and we will eliminate the Hamas battalions there — with or without a deal, in o ..read more

In 2016, with the Iowa caucuses fast approaching, presidential candidate Donald Trump famously boasted: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK? It’s, like, incredible.” We didn’t know then that Trump could have been referring not only toIowa voters but also to the justices of the Supreme Court. Last week’s Supreme Court argument concerning Trump’s January 6 prosecution considered both his claim of “absolute immunity” from prosecution for acts within the “outer perimeter” of his official responsibility and a supposed “plain statement ..read more

We are delighted to announce that Tom Joscelyn has joined Just Security as a Senior Fellow. Joscelyn has been a frequent Just Security contributor and will continue to draw on his deep expertise on democracy, the rule of law, domestic terrorism, and extremism, among other issues. Joscelyn was a senior professional staff member on the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol. He is one of the principal authors of the committee’s final, 814-page report. Prior to joining the committee, he was a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD ..read more

Yahel Vilan, the Israeli ambassador to Serbia, recently told the Russian State-owned news agency Sputnik that applying the term “genocide” to the July 1995 mass killings of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim (Bosniak) men and boys in and around the town of Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia presented a distorted picture of the events in question. Vilan declared explicitly that, in his view, “Srebrenica should not be called genocide.” In fact, the Srebrenica massacre at the hands — or perhaps better, at the guns — of Bosnian Serb ultranationalist paramilitary thugs has been recognized as a genocide by a ..read more