A New Jersey man who had his sentence commuted by former President Trump was charged Wednesday in a “multi-million dollar Ponzi-like fraud scheme.”

Eliyahu Weinstein, who was previously convicted of defrauding investors on two separate occasions resulting in combined losses of about $230 million, had his 24-year sentence commuted by Trump on the last day of his presidency.

Weinstein and four other men were charged Wednesday with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to obstruct justice over the scheme that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey alleged began soon after Weinstein was released from prison.

Weinstein allegedly used a fake name to conceal his identity and criminal history, as he raised money for a company known as Optimus Investments that he ran with two of the others. 

Most of the investor money for Optimus Investments came from a second company, Tryon Management Group, that promised investors “lucrative” opportunities to invest in deals involving COVID-19 masks, baby formula and first-aid kits for Ukraine, according to the U.S. attorney's office.

When some the deals failed to turn a profit, Weinstein and the others allegedly used funds from investors to pay earlier investors and mischaracterized the funds as investment returns, according to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 

The SEC is also bringing charges against Weinstein and five others over the alleged scheme.

“Weinstein, along with four other individuals, has once again perpetrated a sophisticated fraud scheme causing losses of millions of dollars,” U.S. Attorney Philip Sellinger said in a statement. “He did so by using a fake name and falsely promising access to deals involving scarce medical supplies, baby formula, and first-aid kits supposedly destined for wartime Ukraine.” 

“These were brazen and sophisticated crimes that involved multiple conspirators and drew right from Weinstein’s playbook of fraud,” Sellinger added.

The suit, filed in federal court Wednesday, claims that the DeSantis administration purposely did not fulfill the requirements of the 2018 Amendment 4 to the state constitution, which restores voting rights for some convicted felons in the state.

“Florida has failed to realize the promise of Amendment 4. Since the Amendment was passed in 2018, the Defendants have created and perpetuated a bureaucratic morass that prevents people with prior felony convictions from voting or even determining whether they are eligible to vote,” the suit reads.

“This is not simply the result of administrative failures or bureaucratic ineptitude. Rather, the record reveals a years’ long campaign of acts and omissions by the Defendants that have thwarted the aspirations of the citizens of Florida who enacted Amendment 4, and the aspirations of those whose rights it restored,” it continues.

The suit also claims that Florida’s “election police” unit, formed in 2022 to investigate illegal voting and other electoral crimes, has discriminatorily targeted those impacted by Amendment 4.

“This effort, coupled with the earlier-created roadblocks to registration, has turned the simple act of voting into a complicated and risky venture in the eyes of those who were re-enfranchised by Amendment 4, as well as others who have been affected by the Defendants’ conduct,” the suit says.

The Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, a group which advocated for Amendment 4’s passage, brought the suit alongside four people who the suit says were negatively impacted by the DeSantis administration's actions.

The group called the bureaucratic process required to be reenfranchised “an embarrassment.”

One of the four additional plaintiffs, Rhoshanda Bryant-Jones, refrained from voting in 2022 after she said she saw the election police unit arrest multiple felons who voted in the 2020 election, believing they were following the law. 

Bryant-Jones was reenfranchised in 2020 and voted in that election, but said she was intimidated by the DeSantis administration’s actions.

DeSantis’s office did not respond to a request for comment by publication.

Santos was charged with 13 counts of wire fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds and lying to the U.S. House of Representatives in May. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison.

The Republican lawmaker was released from custody ahead of trial on a $500,000 bond, but was directed to notify the government if he planned to travel anywhere in the continental U.S. outside of New York City, Long Island or Washington, D.C.

To prevent "unnecessary notifications" of Santos's travels, his lawyer Joseph Murray asked the court Wednesday morning to allow Santos to travel up to 30 miles outside D.C.

"In light of the small geographical area of the District of Columbia, there is a frequent
need to travel outside the District of Columbia for usual and customary functions of someone
who lives and works in the District of Columbia, such as dining, shopping, meetings, events, and
even use of the local airports," Murray wrote.

"This has resulted in unnecessary notifications which can easily be remedied by extending the geographical area in which my client can freely move about without providing prior notice, to include a thirty-mile radius around the District of Columbia," he continued.

Neither prosecutors nor pretrial services took issue with Santos's request. Magistrate Judge Anne Shields, who is overseeing Santos's case, agreed to allow the Republican lawmaker to travel farther without notifying the court Wednesday afternoon.

New York prosecutors allege that Santos misled donors and misrepresented his finances to the public and government agencies.

“This indictment seeks to hold Santos accountable for various alleged fraudulent schemes and brazen misrepresentations,” Breon Peace, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a May statement announcing Santos's indictment. “Taken together, the allegations in the indictment charge Santos with relying on repeated dishonesty and deception to ascend to the halls of Congress and enrich himself." 

A month before his arrest, Santos announced his reelection bid for New York's 3rd congressional district despite his implication in several state and federal investigations, plus an inquiry from the House Ethics Committee.

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have called for his resignation from Congress, which Santos has rebuffed.

A judge Wednesday rejected former President Trump’s bid to move his hush money criminal case to federal court, ruling that the allegations are not connected to Trump’s role as president.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, a Clinton appointee, granted the request of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s (D) office to keep the case in New York state court in a major blow to the former president.

Trump had argued the case must be moved to federal court because he was being prosecuted for an act under the color of his office as president and that Bragg’s prosecution was politically motivated. Granting the request would’ve also broadened the jury pool beyond deep-blue Manhattan to surrounding areas in New York.

Manhattan prosecutors charged Trump with 34 counts of falsifying business records, accusing him of making a series of false entries as he reimbursed his then-fixer, Michael Cohen, in part to conceal a $130,000 hush payment that Cohen made to adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election. Trump pleaded not guilty.

A trial in the case is currently set for March 2024. Trump’s lawyers have a deadline late next month to file any motions in state court to dismiss the charges ahead of trial.

They argued that Trump hired Cohen to handle his personal affairs “solely because he was President of the United States” and that the reimbursements were truthful legal expenses made while Trump was serving in the White House.

“The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the matter was a purely a personal item of the President — a cover-up of an embarrassing event. Hush money paid to an adult film star is not related to a President's official acts. It does not reflect in any way the color of the President's official duties,” Hellerstein wrote.

The Hill has reached out to Trump’s legal team for comment.

“We are very pleased with the federal court’s decision and look forward to proceeding in New York State Supreme Court,” a Bragg spokesperson said in a statement.

Hellerstein’s 25-page ruling went on to reject the former president’s assertion of two federal defenses: that he was immune and that federal election laws preempted the charges.

Trump had argued the Constitution gave him immunity from the indictment because the allegations in question were pursued solely because he was president.

“Reimbursing Cohen for advancing hush money to Stephanie Clifford cannot be considered the performance of a constitutional duty,” Hellerstein wrote, using Daniels’s legal name.

“Falsifying business records to hide such reimbursement, and to transform the reimbursement into a business expense for Trump and income to Cohen, likewise does not relate to a presidential duty,” Hellerstein continued. “Trump is not immune from the People's prosecution in New York Supreme Court. His argument of immunity is not a colorable defense.”

Bragg’s office elevated the falsifying business records charges from a misdemeanor to a felony by connecting them to another crime. Prosecutors in part have cited state campaign finance law violations, and Trump’s attorneys have argued they are preempted by a federal law that governs campaign finance.

Hellerstein wrote the indictment “does not intrude” on the law’s domain.

“The mere fact that Trump is alleged to have engaged in fraudulent conduct with respect to a federal election is not a basis for preemption," the judge wrote. "There is no colorable basis to support a federal preemption defense."

Trump had also claimed Bragg’s prosecution was politically motivated because of Trump’s actions as president, citing it as another reason to move the case to federal court.

“But there is no reason to believe that the New York judicial system would not be fair and give Trump equal justice under the law,” Hellerstein wrote.

The former president also faces another indictment for his alleged mishandling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. That case was brought in federal court by the Justice Department.

The Justice Department is also investigating Trump for his efforts to stay in power after losing the 2020 election. Trump said he received a target letter on Sunday, a signal he could soon face charges.

In Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) is investigating Trump for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state.

—Updated at 3:38 p.m.

Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Republican Chief Deputy Whip Guy Reschenthaler (Pa.) have filed amicus briefs with the Supreme Court in support of the controversial pipeline, which was approved in the debt limit deal earlier this year.

Last week, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., granted a stay on construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a natural gas project championed by Manchin. The deal to raise the debt ceiling in June included a provision approving the pipeline and transferring jurisdiction over the matter to a Washington, D.C., appeals court.

In response, the company behind the pipeline filed an emergency request Monday asking Chief Justice John Roberts to intervene, citing the provision in the debt deal. Roberts has the option of either deciding on the matter himself or putting it to the court for a full vote.

Manchin filed the brief in support of the request Tuesday, while Reschenthaler filed his own Wednesday.

“It’s a shame when members of Congress have to ask the Supreme Court to intervene to maintain the credibility of the laws that we have passed and the President has signed, but I am confident that the Court will uphold our laws and allow construction of [the Mountain Valley Pipeline] to resume,” Manchin said in a statement.

Reschenthaler added in his own statement Wednesday that "[t]he Fourth Circuit judges are not supreme rulers and lawful orders issued by the legislative and executive branches must be followed. Congress was well within its power to restart the Mountain Valley Pipeline construction and usher in a new era of energy independence for the region.”

“Instead of halting the pipeline, I urge the Supreme Court to plug up the ludicrous activism seeping out of the lower court so American families can enjoy lower energy costs, substantial land royalties, and most importantly — law and order in America,” he added.

The Richmond court ordered the halt to construction on a portion of the pipeline after the Wilderness Society sued over the provision that removed the 4th Circuit's jurisdiction.

Wesleyan University announced Wednesday it will end its legacy admissions after the Supreme Court ruled last month to curtail the use of affirmative action in the college admission process. 

“An applicant’s connection to a Wesleyan graduate indicates little about that applicant’s ability to succeed at the University, meaning that legacy status has played a negligible role in our admission process for many years,” Wesleyan President Michael Roth said in an announcement.

“Nevertheless, in the wake of the recent Supreme Court decision regarding affirmative action, we believe it important to formally end admission preference for ‘legacy applicants,’” Roth added. 

While he says multi-generational students are still highly valued at the school, they will not get a “bump” in the admissions process. 

Legacy admissions, the practice of giving preferential treatment to applicants who have had family members attend the school before, has come under fire after the Supreme Court ruled schools can not give such a bump to students based on race or ethnicity.

Advocates against legacy admissions say the practice favors applicants who are white, rich or both.

“It is important to underscore that Wesleyan has never fixated on a checked box indicating a student’s racial identification or family affiliations. We have long taken an individualized, holistic view of an applicant’s lived experience — as seen through the college essay, high school record, letters of recommendation, and interactions with our community,” Roth said. 

Moving forward, the university wants to continue to ensure a diverse student body, work toward geological diversity in the U.S., and enhance recruitment efforts for undergraduates from Africa, veterans and community colleges, according to the announcement. 

The school will also work on outreach to community-based organizations and offering degree programs to incarcerated individuals. 

Legacy admissions are often practiced at Ivy League schools and more selective colleges in the U.S. Only Colorado has a state law on the books to ban the use of legacy admissions.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) announced on his podcast Tuesday he is introducing legislation to defund investigations into former President Trump led by special counsel Jack Smith.

Gaetz made the announcement hours after Trump said he'd been notified he is a target of the Justice Department’s investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack and efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. Smith is leading the investigation.

“They are attacking our democracy and engaging in election interference right now," said Gaetz, who vowed to “defund the Jack Smith investigation.”

He also alleged the investigation lacks transparency, saying the Justice Department has been nonresponsive to his request for information about who is on Smith’s team.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) discusses the National Defense Authorization Act as a member of the House Freedom Caucus at the Capitol on Friday, July 14, 2023. (Tierney L. Cross)

Gaetz sits on the House Judiciary Committee. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the committee’s chairman, has threatened to cut funding for the Justice Department and FBI, alleging those agencies have been “weaponized” for political purposes.

After Trump was indicted in the investigation into documents found at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida — another investigation Smith is leading — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) called for defunding Smith’s office.

Gaetz said he knows President Biden would not sign his proposal into law and that Senate Majority Leader “Chuck Schumer [D-N.Y.] would never bring such a thing up.”

“But you deserve to know where your members of Congress are counted. Will they cosponsor my legislation? I certainly hope they will,” he said.

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If Trump is indicted in the Jan. 6 investigation, it would be his third indictment this year and his second on federal charges. Trump has pleaded not guilty in the other indictments. One stemmed from charges in Manhattan related to an alleged hush money scheme, and the other was in the Smith-led case related to Trump's holding of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.

Trump said in a statement Tuesday the various investigations are a “witch hunt” and “all about election interference” in all caps.

A spokesperson for Smith's office declined to comment.

This story was updated at 11:10 a.m.

A former Trump deputy attorney general defended special counsel Jack Smith after the former president revealed he was the target of the Jan. 6 federal investigation looking into efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

NewsNation’s Dan Abrams asked Richard Donoghue, who served in Trump’s Justice Department from December 2020 to January 2021, what he thought of remarks made by Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) Tuesday accusing President Biden of weaponizing the government to go after his opponent.

“I think nothing could be further from the truth,” Donoghue said. “For some people, Donald Trump will always be a man who was targeted because he stands up to corrupt elites, and for others he will always be Benedict Donald, a leader who puts his own interests above the country’s.”

“I don’t think he’s political. He’s not left-wing, he is not an agent of the deep state,” he said of Smith. “His politics would put him right of center, I believe, and look, he secured the first capital sentence in New York in more than 50 years. He’s not a bleeding-heart liberal.”

Abrams asked Donoghue if he believed it was unfair for those to describe Smith as a “tool of the left wing."

“Absolutely, I don’t believe that for a minute,” he said. “I’ve known Jack for decades. I’ve seen and worked many, many cases over the years up close. I’ve seen him work incredibly hard at doing that, and what he’s always done is follow the facts and apply the law.”

Trump revealed Tuesday that he received a letter informing him that he is a target of Smith’s investigation looking into the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the Capitol and efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Legal experts say that means the former president will likely be indicted for a third time this year.

Trump pleaded not guilty to 37 federal counts of mishandling classified documents and attempting to keep them from the government in a separate case last month. And he has pleaded not guilty to all charges in a hush money case in New York City.

Donoghue was one of several former Trump Justice Department officials who testified before the House Jan. 6 select committee last year. He is also a former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

Both NewsNation and The Hill are owned and operated by Nexstar Media Group.

A federal judge Wednesday rejected former President Trump’s request for a new trial after a jury found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, an appointee of former President Clinton, said the jury’s verdict was not seriously erroneous or a serious miscarriage of justice, rejecting Trump’s claim that the $5 million in damages he was ordered to pay was excessive and other arguments.

“There is no basis for disturbing the jury’s sexual assault damages," Kaplan wrote in the 59-page ruling. "And Mr. Trump’s arguments with respect to the defamation damages are no stronger."

The nine-member jury found Trump liable in May for sexually abusing Carroll, a longtime advice columnist, in the mid-1990s at a New York City department store. The jury also found him liable for later defaming Carroll in an October 2022 statement denying her story.

The former president, who has denied Carroll’s claims, appealed the judge’s ruling later Wednesday and is appealing the jury’s original verdict. He also faces another lawsuit from Carroll — set to go to trial in January — in which Trump is accused of defaming Carroll during his presidency when the writer initially came forward with her story.

In asking for the new trial, Trump noted that the jury found him liable for sexual abuse rather than rape, which are both forms of sexual battery but have different definitions under New York law. Carroll has long described the incident as rape, including after the verdict.

“The definition of rape in the New York Penal Law is far narrower than the meaning of ‘rape’ in common modern parlance, its definition in some dictionaries, in some federal and state criminal statutes, and elsewhere,” Kaplan ruled. “The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.’ Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”

Kaplan said the $2 million in damages the jury ordered for the sexual battery count “did not deviate materially from reasonable compensation so as to make it excessive.”

The Hill has reached out to a Trump attorney for comment.

"Now that the court has denied Trump's motion for a new trial or to decrease the amount of the verdict, E Jean Carroll looks forward to receiving the $5 million in damages that the jury awarded her in Carroll II," said Carroll's lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, who is not related to the judge. "She also looks forward to continuing to hold Trump accountable for what he did to her at the trial in Carrol I, which is scheduled to begin on January 15, 2024."

Trump’s attorneys, however, have further contended the damages he was ordered to pay for Carroll’s defamation claim was also excessive, citing an expert witness, professor Ashlee Humphreys, whom Carroll called during the trial.

“The jury considered all of Professor Humphreys’s testimony, including the purported flaws Mr. Trump’s counsel attempted to draw out on cross examination and in summation, and determined that her testimony still was worthy of sufficient weight to reach the $1.7 million it awarded for the reputation repair program,” Kaplan ruled. “None of Mr. Trump’s challenges to that testimony, considered separately or collectively, supports a determination that the jury’s compensatory damages award was seriously erroneous, egregious, or against the weight of the evidence.”

— Updated at 12:41 p.m.

Roughly 6 in 10 likely voters say the Supreme Court faces a legitimacy crisis, according to new polling from progressive firm Data for Progress.

The data, collected in partnership with the Progressive Change Institute and shared exclusively with The Hill, found that 62 percent of likely voters believe the court is increasingly corrupted  and faces a legitimacy crisis, including large majorities of Democrats and independents.

Forty-one percent of Republicans agreed with the statement, compared to 46 percent who disagreed.

The poll, which was conducted as the court was issuing its final decisions of the term late last month, comes as Senate Democrats attempt to push a Supreme Court ethics bill in the wake of the justices' recent ethics controversies. The Senate Judiciary Committee will mark up the bill on Thursday.

Justice Clarence Thomas came under scrutiny in April following a ProPublica investigation that detailed undisclosed trips he accepted from billionaire and GOP megadonor Harlan Crow, as well as a real-estate transaction between them. Thomas has denied any wrongdoing and said the trips fell under a personal hospitality exception to disclosure requirements.

ProPublica later reported on an undisclosed trip Justice Samuel Alito took to Alaska funded in part by Paul Singer, a billionaire and GOP megadonor. Alito did not recuse himself on multiple occasions when a subsidiary of Singer’s hedge fund came before the court, but the justice has said he was not aware of the connection and denied any wrongdoing.

Fifty-eight percent of respondents said the court is corrupted by big-money influences, compared to 30 percent who disagreed with the statement.

Sixty-two percent of likely voters in the poll said the court is imposing its political agenda on the American people, including 48 percent of Republicans. 

The institute said it is sending a new memo to lawmakers urging them to say: “This Court is corrupt and faces a legitimacy crisis.”

“Senate Democrats are right to advance Supreme Court ethics legislation because Americans overwhelmingly view this Court as corrupt and facing a legitimacy crisis,” Progressive Change Institute Co-Founder Adam Green said in a statement. “Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito took money from billionaires and then did their bidding – trampling on the freedoms of women, workers, and all Americans. We hope Republican leaders join Democrats in supporting Supreme Court ethics.”

Republicans have cast Democrats’ push as an attempt to tear down the Supreme Court’s conservative majority, given that Thomas and Alito are viewed as the leading conservatives on the court.

Earlier this month, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor came under scrutiny after an Associated Press investigation revealed the justice’s aide pushed colleges to purchase additional copies of her books when she traveled to their schools for speaking engagements, although the poll was conducted before the story’s release.

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Only 41 percent said the court is doing its job fairly and independently, a figure that similarly split along partisan lines.

“The current Supreme Court majority includes three justices appointed by a twice-impeached, twice-indicted insurrectionist and two other justices embroiled in scandal for accepting luxury trips and gifts from billionaires. How should the American people feel when that same court rejects decades of precedent and strips away fundamental rights? It’s no surprise that 62% of voters see this as a legitimacy crisis,” Danielle Deiseroth, executive director at Data for Progress, said in a statement.

The poll was conducted between June 29 and July 1 with 1,207 likely voters nationally. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Federal Judge Aileen Cannon declined to make a decision Tuesday on when to schedule the Mar-a-Lago case trial for former President Trump after his attorneys asked for an indefinite delay.

Trump’s legal team and Justice Department prosecutors met in the Florida courtroom for nearly two hours attempting to set a schedule in the case. 

Prosecutors have proposed that the trial begin in December, saying the case is not complex and there’s no need for a lengthy delay. Trump’s attorneys had argued they’d need ample time to sort through the classified documents while his schedule as a 2024 candidate would make the trial difficult.

Prosecutor David Harbach told the judge that Trump’s legal team has repeatedly suggested he should be treated differently because he’s running for president.

“He should be treated like everyone else,” Harbach said.

Seeking an indefinite delay was an unprecedented move by Trump’s attorneys, who during Tuesday's conference suggested as an alternative that the trial be postponed until much closer to the election.

Attorney Todd Blanche said they would prefer "mid-November or later of next year" if the court decides to nail down a date, according to reporting from ABC News. 

For her part, Cannon, a Trump appointee, seemed skeptical of both a December trial date as well as the request to set no trial date at all, pledging to issue a decision “promptly.”

Trump and his co-defendant Walt Nauta, his valet, have pleaded not guilty to a 38-count indictment that accuses them of conspiring to hide classified documents from Justice Department investigators that were taken from the White House to Mar-a-Lago at the end of Trump’s time in office in January 2021.

Cannon also presided over a lawsuit that the Trump team filed last year over the August 2022 FBI search of Mar-a-Lago. Cannon drew criticism and second-guessing from legal experts for granting Trump’s request for a special master to conduct an independent review of the classified documents removed by the FBI from Mar-a-Lago.

A three-judge federal appeals court later overruled that order and said she had lacked the authority for such a ruling.

Meanwhile, Trump on Tuesday also said he received a letter from the Justice Department on Sunday notifying him that he is a target of its Jan. 6 inquiry, noting that could mean an imminent indictment in the matter.

The Associated Press contributed reporting.

Michigan’s attorney general Tuesday charged sixteen "fake electors" for their alleged roles in a plot to overturn the 2020 presidential election. 

Each defendant faces six different charges, from conspiracy to commit forgery to conspiracy to uttering and publishing. 

Prosecutors in court filings alleged the individuals met in the basement of the Michigan Republican Party headquarters and signed documents claiming they were the electors for the state, which was won in 2020 by then-presidential candidate Biden, and later showed up to the Michigan Capitol.

“That was a lie,” Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel (D) said in a video announcing the charges.

“They weren’t the duly elected and qualified electors, and each of the defendants knew it,” she continued. “They carried out these actions with the hope and belief that the electoral votes of Michigan’s 2020 election would be awarded to the candidate of their choosing, instead of the candidate that Michigan voters actually chose.”

Nessel further alleged some of the 16 individuals showed up to the grounds of the state capitol and asserted the right to cast ballots as electors.

If convicted on all counts, the group of fake electors could face more than 60 years in prison, though such a sentence is unlikely. Nessel said she had not ruled out charges for additional defendants.

The fake electors scheme, spearheaded by Trump lawyer John Eastman, relied on former Vice President Mike Pence refusing to certify electoral votes cast for Biden and instead counting groups of Trump-supporting electors in battleground states.

Fake electors also allegedly convened in Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Nevada and Wisconsin, claiming without basis that they were “duly elected” electors from their states. 

On Jan. 6, 2021 — the day of the election certification — Pence declined to go along with the plan, writing in a letter that his “oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not.”

A pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol later that day in protest of the election results and Pence's refusal to overturn them.

J&J joins fellow pharmaceutical companies Merck & Co., Bristol Myers Squibb as well as two trade organizations in seeking to block the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program. As with the other complaints that have been filed, the company argues the program would stifle medical innovation.

"The IRA breaks the agreement at the heart of the patent and regulatory laws: when companies invest and succeed at developing innovative new treatments, they are awarded time-limited and constitutionally protected rights in their innovation," J&J said in its release.

The complaint, filed in the District Court of New Jersey, appeared to imply the pharmaceutical company did not view the process established by the IRA as being a "real" negotiation, accusing the federal government of coercion. Other plaintiffs have stated that while they are open to negotiating drug prices, they take issue with how the government plans to carry out talks.

Participation in drug price negotiations is voluntary, though there are costs to not negotiating. Companies who do not want to engage have the option of either facing excise taxes or terminating their relationships with Medicaid, which would mean giving up a highly lucrative income stream.

As with previous suits, J&J argued its constitutional rights were violated by the HHS program, arguing the negotiations would amount to compelled speech. The company asks the court to declare the program to be a violation of constitutional rights and for agreements signed under the program to be declared null and void.

HHS recently revised its guidelines on how it plans to carry out the negotiations in apparent response to the deluge of lawsuits, clarifying what steps will be taken during talks and how companies can avoid excise taxes if they don't want to discuss drug prices.

Organizations suing to stop negotiations were not reassured by the revisions. One of the plaintiffs, the Chamber of Commerce, filed a motion last week to block the drug price negotiation program from being implemented while it is being hashed out in court.

Negotiations will take place over 2023 and 2024, but the new prices won't go into effect until 2026. The first 10 drugs eligible for negotiation are set to be announced in September, in less than two months.

Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan Tuesday rejected an emergency request to block Microsoft and Activision Blizzard from merging.

In a brief order, Kagan denied a last-minute bid from a group of gamers to temporarily halt the $68.7 billion deal. The gamers’ attorney, Joseph Alioto, argued the deal would lessen competition in the video game industry, urging the high court for a pause until the gamers’ case can be heard in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. 

Kagan received their motion because she is assigned to handle emergency requests arising out of the 9th Circuit. The gamers could now renew their request to any other justice.

“The merger between Microsoft and Activision would be one of, if not the largest technology mergers in history, at a time when concentration among technology companies is already threatening the competitive balance of our economy and even our political systems,” Alioto wrote.

The 9th Circuit separately denied a bid Friday by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to stop the merger, removing one of the few remaining barriers for the deal to go through.

The deal still faces a challenge from the United Kingdom. On Monday, Microsoft and British regulators received more time from a court to resolve the dispute.

The merger has a Tuesday closing deadline, but Bloomberg reported the parties won’t walk away and will continue seeking the needed regulatory approvals.

Merging the two companies would give Microsoft, which owns the Xbox gaming console, complete control over popular video game franchises like “Call of Duty,” “World of Warcraft” and “Overwatch.”

The gamers sued over the merger in December of last year under federal antitrust law, alleging the deal might substantially lessen competition across numerous video game markets. 

A federal district court handed a victory to Microsoft in May, denying the gamers’ bid for a preliminary injunction by ruling they were not threatened with irreparable harm. The gamers then appealed last month, which remains pending.

“Failure to grant relief will allow the largest technology merger to consummate before Plaintiffs can even be heard on the merits,” Alioto wrote.

Former White House communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin asserted that former President Trump is profiting off legal woes after he announced Tuesday he was notified he is a target in the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Jan. 6 investigation.

In a Truth Social post Tuesday morning, Trump said he received a target letter Sunday. “Deranged Jack Smith, the prosecutor with Joe Biden’s DOJ, sent a letter (again it was Sunday night!) stating that I am a TARGET of the January 6th Grand Jury investigation, and giving me a very short 4 days to report to the Grand Jury, which almost always means an arrest and indictment,” he wrote.  

Speaking on ABC's “The View,” Griffin argued Trump is "kind of worshipping these lines of like, ‘I was indicted for you.’ He was not indicted for you, he was indicted because he refused to accept, or he’s likely going to be indicted, because he refused to accept, he lost the election.”

Griffin, a co-host of the show who has become a vocal critic of Trump, nodded toward a New York Times report last month that said 10 percent of money raised by the Trump campaign is now going to a political action committee that has paid the former president's personal legal fees.

“It’s all a grift. At the end of the day, this is simply a grift,” she declared.

Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed special counsel Jack Smith last year to oversee the Justice Department’s investigations into Jan. 6, 2021, covering “whether any person or entity unlawfully interfered with the transfer of power.” A large focus of the investigation has centered around Trump’s attempts to remain in office following the 2020 election.  

Griffin said Tuesday she voluntarily met with DOJ investigators and the House Jan. 6 committee, adding, "they were very interested in sort of whether he knew he lost the election.”

“[Trump] said to me directly that he acknowledged he lost, but I don’t know if he’s changed his mind since then,” Griffin said. “But that matters because it will allow them to prove that he knew he lost, and he still wanted to incite a mob to go to the Capitol and stormed the Capitol.”  

It is unclear the specific charges Trump could face if prosecutors move forward in the investigation surrounding the Capitol riot, though legal experts have offered a model prosecution memo arguing there is sufficient evidence to bring a case against Trump.

Smith and his team spoke with several witnesses on the matter over the past few weeks.