Trump scores major legal victory as election interference and classified docs cases are abandoned: Live updates

Federal prosecutor Jack Smith asked a judge in Washington D.C. to dismiss the government’s federal election interference case against Donald Trump on Monday, citing a precedent that prevents a sitting president from indictments or proceedings.

Smith said they were following precedent that states a sitting president cannot be charged with a crime. Since Trump is expected to take office before proceedings in the case have unfolded, it applies to Trump.

Smith said his team consulted with legal experts to make the determination.

The indictment accused Trump of trying to overturn the 2020 election results, in part by installing “fake electors”, and then inciting an attack on the Capitol on January 6 for spreading lies about mass voter fraud.

Smith stressed while they were asking Judge Tanya Chutkan to dismiss the indictment, it was not due to the strength of the case but rather based on Constitutional precedent.

“That prohibition is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the Government’s proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the Government stands fully behind,” Smith wrote.

Remember her?

The world’s richest man posts laughing emojis on the social media platform he owns over the prospect of being allowed to carve up the US government thanks to a new department founded especially for him with a joke name of his own choosing.

What a world.

Rhian Lubin has more.

Dr Mehmet Oz, the television personality turned politician, held multiple investments in companies regulated by or closely tied to the federal agency that Donald Trump has tapped him to head – opening the door for questions and concerns about a conflict of interest.

Last week, Dr Oz was nominated to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency that provides health insurance coverage to more than 160 million people in the United States through Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program and the Health Insurance Marketplace.

Yet on his 2022 Senate financial disclosure form, Dr Oz indicated he had at least $280,000 worth of stakes in health insurance companies, such as UnitedHealth Group and Cigna, that work with the government to provide insurance under Medicaid or Medicare.

Ariana Baio reports.

Peach and Blossom were the names of the lucky fowls given a late November reprieve.

Speaking of Trump’s preferred defense secretary, here’s Katie Hawkinson with some rather odd criticism of him in the process of trying to brush aside the sexual assault allegation raised against him by woman he met at a conservative conference in Monterey, California, in 2017.

Hegseth has denied wrongdoing in the case.

Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, is facing questions about his suitability about the role given his past comments about America’s international allies, The Guardian reports, citing quotes from a book by the former Fox weekend man criticising Nato and the UN and expressing his belief contention that US troops should not be bound by the Geneva conventions.

“Why do we fund the anti-American UN?” Hegseth asks in his 2020 book American Crusade.

“Why is Islamist Turkey a member of Nato?”

Of the North Atlantic military alliance, he writes: “Nato is not an alliance; it’s a defense arrangement for Europe, paid for and underwritten by the United States.

He continues: “Europe has already allowed itself to be invaded. It chose not to rebuild its militaries, happily suckling off the teat of America’s willingness to actually fight and win wars.

“The defense of Europe is not our problem; been there, done that, twice.

“Nato is a relic and should be scrapped and remade in order for freedom to be truly defended. This is what Trump is fighting for.”

Meanwhile, here’s some new polling from Reuters/Ipsos revealing that 72 percent of the US public disagree with him on the question of female soldiers being deployed in combat roles.

The tech billionaire and Trump’s eldest son have been revelling in the idea of the former (seemingly now resident at Mar-a-Lago) buying up the liberal network and using it to parp out MAGA propaganda.

Gustaf Kilander reports.

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul has said he would break ranks and not support Trump’s “terrible” plans to use the military to carry out mass deportations.

Paul told CBS News’s Face the Nation on Sunday that he supports the president-elect’s plans to deport “the 15,000 murderers and 13,000 sexual assault perpetrators” but only through the “normal process of domestic policing.”

By contrast, Trump’s idea to use the military for mass deportations is “illegal” and would create a “terrible image,” he said.

“I will not support and will not vote to use the military in our cities. I think it’s a terrible image.

“I’m 100 percent supportive of going after the 15,000 murderers, the 13,000 sexual assault perpetrators, rapists, all these people,” Paul said. “But you don’t do it with the army because it’s illegal.”

Rhian Lubin has more.