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‘Unprecedented Intervention’: SCOTUS Responds to Trump ‘Hush Money’ Sentencing Delay Bid

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The U.S. Supreme Court swiftly responded to President-elect Donald Trump’s formal request early Wednesday morning to delay sentencing in his 34-count felony conviction for business fraud in New York, widely known as the “hush money” case.

Trump is scheduled to be sentenced in New York Supreme Court on Friday, for what District Attorney Alvin Bragg described as “falsifying New York business records in order to conceal his illegal scheme to corrupt the 2016 election.” Trump originally was slated to be sentenced on July 11, but he twice succeeded in having those dates postponed. His attorneys in recent days filed unsuccessful motions in two New York courts to have the sentencing delayed again, before submitting their case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Describing his latest attempt as “a highly unusual request that relies in part on the court’s decision last year to grant him broad immunity from criminal prosecution,” CNN reports Trump’s attorneys told the nation’s highest court the delay, or pause, is necessary “to prevent grave injustice and harm to the institution of the presidency and the operations of the federal government.”

READ MORE: ‘If We Were to Happen to Go to War With China’: Tuberville Backs Trump on Panama Canal

Trump’s argument, in part, is based on the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling granting him and all subsequent presidents vast immunity from prosecution for what it deemed are “official acts” of the presidency. Many legal experts doubt Trump’s conviction on falsifying business records when paying “hush money” to an adult film star is an official act of the presidency.

The Supreme Court Wednesday morning responded to Trump’s request by directing New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg to reply to Trump’s motion by 10 AM ET Thursday, Lawfare senior editor Roger Parloff reported. Law360’s Katie Buehler also reported SCOTUS’s response.

“If Trump’s lawyers are successful in halting the proceedings before he is sworn-in in fewer than two weeks, the hush money case could linger for months while his attorneys pursue an appeal to toss out the conviction,” CNN adds.

ABC News’ Peter Charalambous notes, “Trump’s lawyers have asked the country’s highest court for an unprecedented intervention in the ongoing criminal case of a former president — whose appointment of three justices cemented the court’s conservative majority – that would effectively toss his criminal conviction less than two weeks ahead of his inauguration.

RELATED: ‘Bananas’: Congressman Asks How Trump’s ‘Insane’ Threats Benefit Americans Economically

 

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Canadian Prime Minister Warns World Order Has Ruptured

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Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney drew a standing ovation at the World Economic Forum in Davos after warning that the global order has ruptured.

“Let me be direct: We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition,” Carney said, as The New York Times reported.

“I will talk today about the breaking of the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a brutal reality where the geopolitics of the great powers is not subject to any constraint,” he explained.

“Every day we are reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry,” he said. “That the rules-based order is fading. That the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.”

Carney did not say President Donald Trump’s name, but he did tell his audience, “recently, great powers began using economic integration as weapons. Tariffs as leverage. Financial infrastructure as coercion. Supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited.”

READ MORE: ‘Enemy Is Within’: Trump Boosts Post Casting NATO as a ‘Threat’ in Social Media Spree

“You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration, when integration becomes the source of your subordination.”

He also said that “there is a strong tendency for countries to go along to get along. To accommodate. To avoid trouble. To hope that compliance will buy safety.”

“It won’t,” he warned.

Carney said that “intermediate powers like Canada, are not powerless. They have the capacity to build a new order that encompasses our values, such as respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the various states.”

And he warned that those powers “must act together, because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.”

The Times noted that Carney’s speech came “not long after” President Donald Trump “posted an A.I. image on social media that included a map of American flags superimposed over both Canada and the United States,” along with the U.S. flag on Greenland, Venezuela, and Cuba.

READ MORE: ‘Code Red’: Newsom Tells Europe They’ve Been Played by ‘T-Rex’ Trump

 

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US Could Slide Into Putin-Style Rule After Trump Foreign Policy Shift: Journalist

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In a stark warning on the first anniversary of President Donald Trump’s second term in office, The Bulwark’s editor, Jonathan V. Last, suggests that under Trump, America may adopt Putinism as its domestic policy, having already adopted it for its foreign policy.

“Will Putinism take over American domestic politics, too?” Last asks, in an opinion piece titled, “This Is the End.”

“America has adopted Putinism as its modus operandi for foreign affairs,” he says. “Why would America not also adopt Putinism in its domestic affairs? Why would the American regime tolerate free and fair elections or the transfer of power to an opposition party?”

Pursuing the question, Last continued: “Are there examples of expansionist, rogue regimes which ignored international law and attempted to subjugate free people abroad, but respected liberal democratic outcomes that terminated their possession of power at home?”

READ MORE: ‘Dictators’ Tea Party’: Trump’s Board of Peace Ridiculed as New Details Revealed

To those who suggest Trumpism is temporary, Last suggests he disagrees.

“Many people comfort themselves by saying some version of ‘Donald Trump is an aberration’ or ‘This isn’t who we are,'” he writes.

But, he continues, “If Trump was an aberration and his actions did not have sufficient public support, then he would be removed from office. There are two mechanisms for doing so—impeachment and the 25th Amendment.”

“Trump will not be removed from office; which allows one of two conclusions. Either: Trump’s policies are supported by a sufficient percentage of Americans to be viable; or America’s constitutional order is so ossified that it no longer functions to safeguard the will of the people.”

“Neither of these is an alibi,” Last warns, noting that, “either one supports the conclusion that the problem is not Trump. It is America and Americans. This is who we are. Like it or not.”

Last also makes several other predictions:

“The days of intelligence sharing between America and our former allies are drawing to a close.”

“The death of NATO.”

“Germany, Poland, and Canada will acquire nuclear weapons. So will Japan. Sweden, Australia, and South Korea may develop nuclear capabilities as well.”

“Europe will draw closer to China.”

“Greenland will become disputed territory.”

READ MORE: ‘Enemy Is Within’: Trump Boosts Post Casting NATO as a ‘Threat’ in Social Media Spree

 

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Treasury Chief Draws Ridicule for Wanting to Protect Americans With ‘5, 10, 12 Homes’

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Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent was met with mockery after explaining he wants to protect “mom and pop” owners who have up to a dozen homes they’ve bought as retirement investments.

Bessent and President Donald Trump have declared they want to ban large institutional investors from purchasing single-family homes as housing becomes more scarce and less affordable.

“We are going to give guidance at some point to see what is a mom and pop, that someone — maybe your parents — for their retirement, [bought] about 5, 10, 12 homes,” Bessent told Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

“So we don’t want to push the mom and pops out,” he continued. “We just want to push everyone else out.”

READ MORE: ‘Enemy Is Within’: Trump Boosts Post Casting NATO as a ‘Threat’ in Social Media Spree

Bessent, a former hedge fund manager, has an estimated net worth of $521 million, according to The Street.

Critics were quick to ridicule Bessent as out of touch.

“Good news for the forgotten man,” declared The Bulwark’s Tim Miller. “The mom and pop real estate investor who has purchased 12 homes can breathe easy, the Treasury Secretary is looking out for you.”

“These people are completely out of touch with how life is for you,” observed The Lincoln Project.

Governor Gavin Newsom’s Press Office commented, “Scott, people are trying to buy 1 house — to live in. Could the Trump Admin be any more out of touch?”


READ MORE: ‘Code Red’: Newsom Tells Europe They’ve Been Played by ‘T-Rex’ Trump

 

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