Trump should be disqualified from 2024 ballot over Jan. 6 riot, advocates say at trial

Republican U.S. presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during the Republican Jewish Coalition Annual Leadership Summit in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. October 28, 2023. (REUTERS)
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Updated 31 October 2023
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Trump should be disqualified from 2024 ballot over Jan. 6 riot, advocates say at trial

  • Trump faces several legal cases as he campaigns for the presidency, including a New York state civil fraud lawsuit against his family company

WASHINGTON: Donald Trump should be disqualified from Colorado’s ballot in next year’s election because he “incited a violent mob” in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, an advocacy group lawyer argued at the opening of a trial on Monday.
A lawsuit brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington is a test case for whether a rarely-used, Civil War-era provision of the US Constitution that bars people who have engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” from holding federal office, can prevent Republican Trump from being president again.
“Trump incited a violent mob to attack our Capitol, to stop the peaceful transition of power,” Eric Olson, an attorney representing voters and the advocacy group said in an opening statement of the one-week trial before a Colorado District Court judge.
Then-president Trump spent weeks before the Jan. 6 riot spreading false claims of widespread voter fraud in his November 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden and encouraging his supporters to rally in Washington. He then encouraged them to march on the US Capitol where Congress was certifying Biden’s win. Only after hours of violence did he appeal to the rioters to go home.
A lawyer for Trump, Scott Gesler, denied that Trump incited supporters to violence and said it would set a dangerous precedent to disqualify him based on “legal theories that have never been embraced by a state or federal court.”
“People should be able to run for office and shouldn’t be punished for their speech,” Gesler told the court during his opening statement.
Colorado is regarded as safely Democratic by nonpartisan election forecasters, so regardless of whether Trump is on the ballot, President Biden is expected to win the state.
Trump’s opponents are testing whether they have a viable path to keep him off ballots in individual states. Trump faces similar lawsuits brought by advocacy groups in Michigan and Minnesota. The Colorado case is the first to go to trial.
US Representative Eric Swalwel, Democrat of Colorado, testified on Monday that Trump’s attempts to decrease tensions hours after the violence began did little to assuage the fears of lawmakers as they emerged from lockdown to certify the election results.
“I feared that if Republicans were going to continue to challenge the outcome, the mob would return and the scene on the floor could become combustible,” Swalwel said.
Trump is the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, according to opinion polls, in what is expected to be a rematch next year with Biden. Trump’s campaign has said the “absurd” lawsuit and others like it are “stretching the law beyond recognition.”

LONG-SHOT LEGAL STRATEGY
Trump’s opponents hope to deny him a path to victory by disqualifying him in enough hotly-contested states, but many legal experts call the strategy a long shot.
The cases raise largely untested legal questions, and even if the plaintiffs prevail, the final say would likely rest with a US Supreme Court dominated by a 6-3 conservative majority that includes three Trump appointees.
The Colorado lawsuit seeks to bar the state’s top election official from putting Trump on the ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution, which was established in the aftermath of the Civil War to prevent former Confederate rebels from taking federal office.
Colorado District Court Judge Sarah Wallace has denied five separate bids by Trump and his allies to dismiss the case, most recently on Oct. 25, when she rejected Trump’s arguments that courts do not have the power to determine eligibility for office.
Trump faces several legal cases as he campaigns for the presidency, including a New York state civil fraud lawsuit against his family company. That trial began on Oct. 2. He has pleaded not guilty to four criminal indictments, including federal cases tied to attempts to overturn the 2020 election results and the removal and mishandling of classified government documents when he left office in January 2021.
 

 


Firefighters battle blaze near Athens for second day

Updated 15 sec ago
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Firefighters battle blaze near Athens for second day

ATHENS: Hundreds of firefighters on Saturday battled for a second day a large wildfire near Athens that left one dead, with strong winds raising fears it could spread.
A fire department spokesman said over 260 firefighters with nearly 80 fire engines and 12 aircraft were deployed in Keratea, a rural area some 43 kilometers (27 miles) southeast of Athens.
“The fire has weakened but there are still active pockets,” the spokesman told AFP.
Dozens of people were evacuated late Friday from homes and an elderly care center as the flames neared the nearby coastal resort of Palea Fokea.
Firefighters later found the remains of an elderly man in a hut near Keratea.
Gale-force winds on Friday also caused the deaths of two Vietnamese tourists who fell into the sea at Sarakiniko beach on the Cycladic island of Milos.
The 61-year-old woman and 65-year-old man were on a cruise ship group visiting the lunar-like, volcanic rock beach, the coast guard said.
A coast guard spokeswoman told AFP the woman had fallen into the water, and the man had tried to help her.
Greece’s national weather service EMY said winds of up to 74 kilometers (46 miles) an hour were forecast for Saturday.
The weather on Friday disrupted ferry travel for tens of thousands of summer holidaymakers. A sailing ban on Athens ports was lifted Saturday.


Zelensky warns against ‘decisions without Ukraine’

Updated 6 min 46 sec ago
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Zelensky warns against ‘decisions without Ukraine’

  • President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday warned that “decisions without Ukraine” would not bring peace and ruled out ceding territory to Russia

KYIV: President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday warned that “decisions without Ukraine” would not bring peace and ruled out ceding territory to Russia.
“Ukrainians will not give their land to the occupier,” he said on social media, as US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin prepare to hold a summit next week.
“Any decisions against us, any decisions without Ukraine, are also decisions against peace. They will achieve nothing,” he said.


Mexico discounts risk of ‘invasion’ after Trump order to target cartels

Updated 09 August 2025
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Mexico discounts risk of ‘invasion’ after Trump order to target cartels

  • The Mexican foreign ministry said later that Mexico ‘would not accept the participation of US military forces on our territory’

MEXICO CITY: Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Friday that there would be “no invasion of Mexico” following reports that President Donald Trump had ordered the US military to target Latin American drug cartels.

“There will be no invasion of Mexico,” Sheinbaum said after The New York Times reported that Trump had secretly signed a directive to use military force against cartels that his administration has declared terrorist organizations.

“We were informed that this executive order was coming and that it had nothing to do with the participation of any military personnel or any institution in our territory,” Sheinbaum told her regular morning conference.

The Mexican foreign ministry said later that Mexico “would not accept the participation of US military forces on our territory.”

The remarks followed a statement released by the US embassy in Mexico, which said both countries would use “every tool at our disposal to protect our peoples” from drug trafficking groups.

US ambassador to Mexico Ronald Johnson said on X that the countries “face a common enemy: the violent criminal cartels.”

The Pentagon referred questions on the issue to the White House, which did not immediately confirm the order.

The Times said Trump’s order provided an official basis for military operations at sea or on foreign soil against the cartels.

In February, his administration designated eight drug trafficking groups as terrorist organizations. Six are Mexican, one is Venezuelan and the eighth originates in El Salvador.

Two weeks ago, his administration added another Venezuelan gang, the Cartel of the Suns, which has shipped hundreds of tonnes of narcotics into the United States over two decades.

On Thursday, the US Justice Department doubled to $50 million its bounty on Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, whom it accuses of leading the Cartel of the Suns.

Venezuela has dismissed the allegations, with Foreign Minister Yvan Gil calling it “the most ridiculous smokescreen we have ever seen.”

Sheinbaum has made strenuous efforts to show Trump she is acting against her country’s cartels, whom he accuses of flooding the United States with drugs, particularly fentanyl.

“We are cooperating, we are collaborating, but there will be no invasion. That is absolutely ruled out,” she said.

She said that in “every call” with US officials, Mexico insisted that this “is not permitted.”

The 63-year-old has been dubbed the “Trump whisperer” for repeatedly securing reprieves from his threats of stiff tariffs over the smuggling of drugs and migrants across their shared border.


Trump demands $1bn from University of California over UCLA protests

Updated 09 August 2025
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Trump demands $1bn from University of California over UCLA protests

  • Trump administration pushes its claims of antisemitism in UCLA’s response to 2024 student protests related to Gaza

LOS ANGELES, United States: President Donald Trump demanded a massive $1 billion fine from the prestigious University of California system on Friday as the administration pushed its claims of antisemitism in UCLA’s response to 2024 student protests related to Gaza.

The figure, which is five times the sum Columbia University agreed to pay to settle similar federal accusations of antisemitism, would “completely devastate” the UC public university system, a senior official said.

President James Milliken, who oversees the 10 campuses that make up the University of California system, including Los Angeles-based UCLA, said managers had received the $1 billion demand on Friday and were reviewing it.

“As a public university, we are stewards of taxpayer resources and a payment of this scale would completely devastate our country’s greatest public university system as well as inflict great harm on our students and all Californians,” he said.

“Americans across this great nation rely on the vital work of UCLA and the UC system for technologies and medical therapies that save lives, grow the US economy, and protect our national security.”

Asked about Trump’s fine during a press conference on Friday, California Governor Gavin Newsom – who sits on the UC’s board – said “we’ll sue” and accused the president of trying to silence academic freedom.

“He has threatened us through extortion with a billion dollar fine unless we do his bidding,” Newsom said, crediting the UC system as “one of the reasons California is the tentpole of the US economy, one of the reasons we have more scientists, engineers, more Nobel laureates, than any other state in this nation.”

Media reports suggest the government wants the money in installments and is demanding the university also pay $172 million to a claims fund to compensate Jewish students and others affected by alleged discrimination.

The UC system, with schools that are consistently ranked among the best public universities in the United States, is already grappling with the Trump administration’s more-than half-billion dollar freeze on medical and science grants at UCLA alone.

The move appears to follow a similar playbook the White House used to extract concessions from Columbia University, and is also trying to use to get Harvard University to bend.

Columbia’s agreement includes a pledge to obey rules barring it from taking race into consideration in admissions or hiring, among other concessions, drawing criticism from Newsom.

“We will not be complicit in this kind of attack on academic freedom, or on this extraordinary public institution. We are not like some of those other institutions that have followed a different path,” Newsom said.

Pro-Palestinian protests rocked dozens of US campuses in 2024, with police crackdowns and mob violence erupting over student encampments, from Columbia to UCLA, with then-president Joe Biden saying “order must prevail.”

Universities have been in Trump’s sights since he returned to the White House in January.

His Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement views academia as elite, overly liberal and hostile to the kind of ethno-nationalism popular among Trump supporters.


Montana bar shooting suspect is captured, ending weeklong search

Updated 09 August 2025
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Montana bar shooting suspect is captured, ending weeklong search

  • Michael Paul Brown was taken into custody around 2 p.m. near the area where authorities had focused their search
  • The shooting rattled the tight-knit town of about 9,000 people and prompted the closure of a 57-square-kilometer stretch of forest

A man suspected in a shooting at a Montana bar that left four people dead was captured Friday just a few miles from where the shooting happened after hundreds of law enforcement officers spent the past week scouring nearby mountainsides, authorities said.

Michael Paul Brown, 45, was taken into custody around 2 p.m. near the area where authorities had focused their search in the days following the Aug. 1 shooting at The Owl Bar in Anaconda, about 190 kilometers) from Missoula.

Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen said during a news conference that about 130 law enforcement officers made a hard push Thursday after getting tips that helped verify they were looking in the right area.

“It’s not someplace he’d been hiding. He was flushed out,” Knudsen said.

Gov. Greg Gianforte first confirmed Brown’s capture on social media Friday afternoon, saying it was the result of what he called a “Herculean effort” from law enforcement officers across the state.

The community finally would be able to sleep tonight, Anaconda-Deer Valley County Attorney Morgan Smith said, adding that the case is just the beginning for prosecutors who will be seeking to charge Brown with the killings.

It was not immediately clear if Brown had legal representation. Email and phone messages were left Friday with the Montana public defender’s office.

State authorities have not said what sparked last week’s shooting, which left a female bartender and three male patrons dead. The victims were identified as Nancy Lauretta Kelley, 64; Daniel Edwin Baillie, 59; David Allen Leach, 70; and Tony Wayne Palm, 74.

Brown’s niece, Clare Boyle, said Kelley worked previously as an oncology nurse and was a close family friend who helped Brown’s mother when she was sick.

Bar owners from around the state have pledged to donate a portion of sales to a fund for each of the victims’ families.

The shooting rattled the tight-knit town of about 9,000 people and prompted the closure of a 57-square-kilometer stretch of forest as authorities searched for Brown. He had fled from the shooting in a white pickup that he later ditched. Authorities say he later stole another white vehicle stocked with clothes, shoes and camping gear. Earlier in the week, Knudsen had said it didn’t appear that Brown had broken into any homes in the area for food or additional supplies.

Lee Johnson, administrator of the Montana Division of Criminal Investigation, said search teams found Brown at a structure near The Ranch Bar and that he looked to be “in pretty good shape, physically.” He was communicative and able to identify himself, Johnson said. Brown was taken to a hospital for treatment and was medically cleared earlier Friday.

Eric Hempstead, who owns The Ranch Bar, about eight kilometers west of The Owl Bar, described an intense law enforcement presence in the densely wooded area over the last couple of days that involved search dogs and drones.

“The guy was never going to make it out in the open,” he said, noting that he and his neighbors were armed and ready to protect themselves.

Brown, who lived next door to The Owl Bar in Anaconda, served in the Army as an armor crewman from 2001 to 2005 and deployed to Iraq from early 2004 until March 2005. He also was in the Montana National Guard from 2006 to 2009.

Boyle said that her uncle has struggled with mental illness for years, and she and other family members repeatedly sought help for him.

Before Brown’s father died in 2015, Boyle said Brown was “a good, loving uncle.” Then, she and other family members noticed a slip in his mental state. Brown began experiencing delusions and often did not know who, when or where he was. He was an avid hunter and kept guns in his home.

Family members had requested wellness checks when they believed he was becoming a danger to himself, she said. Boyle said Brown would tell authorities he was fine.

The Anaconda-Deer Lodge County Law Enforcement Department did not respond this week to several email and phone messages requesting records of the wellness checks Boyle said they helped conduct on Brown in the years leading up to the shooting.

At the news conference, Knudsen said officials had no comment on whether police had performed wellness checks.

Montana is not among the states that have red flag laws allowing families to formally petition for guns to be removed from the homes of people who are deemed a danger to themselves or others. The state Legislature passed a bill this year banning local governments from enacting their own red flag gun laws. The governor signed it into law in May.