| First, a Trump indictment update. Any day now, former president Donald Trump could be indicted in the Justice Department's investigation of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and efforts to overturn the 2020 election. His lawyers met with the federal government Thursday in an apparent effort to persuade them to delay or not indict him. It's probably a last-ditch move. As my Washington Post colleagues who are deeply sourced within the Justice Department write: "Such presentations rarely change prosecutors' minds, current and former officials say." This would be Trump's third indictment — and probably his most serious. And still more could be coming. To recap what's happened in the past four months: - He's been indicted by the federal government for allegedly taking and hiding classified information when he was no longer president.
- He was indicted by a prosecutor in New York for allegedly falsifying business records to keep an alleged affair quiet.
- We're watching for charges in an investigation in Georgia looking at whether he violated the state's election laws by trying to overturn his loss there.
Read more on the latest of these investigations here. Trump could face jail time if convicted. And yes, he can still legally run for president while fighting all of these charges. Rudy Giuliani's legal woes Giuliani after the 2020 election. (Sarah Silbiger for The Washington Post) | Aside from Trump, perhaps no one is in as much legal jeopardy in the fallout from the 2020 election as Giuliani. The former mayor of New York City became the then-president's lawyer and perhaps most fervent ally in pushing election fraud claims. Let's review the lawsuits and investigations he's wrapped up in. - Two Georgia election workers are suing him for making false claims about how they did their jobs, saying they were threatened and harassed because of it. This week, Giuliani stopped defending the accusation that he made defamatory statements against them. (He argued the claims were constitutionally protected speech.)
- He might be disbarred in D.C. and lose his ability to practice law after filing frivolous lawsuits in several states alleging election fraud — suits even some Trump-appointed judges threw out.
- His New York law license has been temporarily suspended.
- He's a target in the Georgia investigation of efforts to overturn election results there. Legal experts say the prosecutor is looking at the serious crime of racketeering for a wide group of defendants, including Trump.
- And the really big one: The federal investigation of the attempts to overturn election results and the events leading up to the attack on the Capitol, for which special counsel Jack Smith interviewed Giuliani last month. The Post has reported that Giuliani coordinated the plan to set up illegitimate electors in swing states Trump lost.
A name you should know: Vivek Ramaswamy Ramaswamy in Philadelphia this month. (Hannah Beier for The Washington Post.) | Who he is: A wealthy businessman who is running for president and is sparking some grass-roots energy on the right. Republican strategists I've talked to name him (alongside Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina) as a candidate who is resonating with voters looking beyond Trump. Why he's getting buzz in the 2024 race: Ramaswamy is running on the idea that Trump didn't go far enough in using the presidency to implement a conservative agenda. As such, his proposals are considered extreme. The Post's Dylan Wells says he's running as "Trump 2.0": "You only get to be an outsider once," Ramaswamy said. He wants to: - Shut down the FBI
- Decimate the rest of the government's executive branch to about 25 percent of its current workforce
- Raise the voting age from 18 to 25
- Pull support for Ukraine
- Pardon Trump
What else to know: Ramaswamy has been rising in the polls, to the point where he's polling ahead of former vice president Mike Pence — though he's still in single digits and he's still significantly trailing Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. |
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