Month: September 2023

Special Counsel Jack Smith’s filing says the “narrowly tailored” order would prevent harassment of witnesses.

Mr Trump hit back online, accusing Smith’s team of misconduct, writing: “they won’t allow me to SPEAK?”

He has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election.

The request was unsealed by District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan and was filed a week earlier. It was among a slew of older court documents from the case that were released on Friday.

Prosecutors say their proposed order – which they never refer to as a “gag order” – is “a narrow, well defined restriction” that is necessary to prevent disinformation, threats and “prejudicing” the case.

If approved, it would ban Mr Trump from making statements “regarding the identity, testimony, or credibility of prospective witnesses” and “statements about any party, witness, attorney, court personnel, or potential jurors that are disparaging and inflammatory, or intimidating”.

It does not place any restrictions on Mr Trump from quoting from public record court documents or proclaiming his innocence.

Any restriction placed on the former president’s first amendment right to freedom of speech, particularly as he runs for president in 2024, would kick off a major constitutional challenge in court.

Last week, lawyers for Mr Trump wrote to Judge Chutkan, calling her biased against Mr Trump and asking her to step aside from the case.

It is unclear when she may issue a ruling on either motion.

On Truth Social, Mr Trump’s social media platform, he wrote on Friday: “So, I’m campaigning for President against an incompetent person who has WEAPONIZED the DOJ & FBI to go after his Political Opponent, & I am not allowed to COMMENT?

“They Leak, Lie, & Sue, & they won’t allow me to SPEAK?”

Shortly afterwards, speaking at a dinner for the group Concerned Women for America in Washington DC , he said prosecutors wanted to take away his right to speak freely and openly.

“These people are sick and they want to silence me because I will never let them silence you.

“But in the end they’re not after me, they’re after you, and I just happen to be standing in their way,” Mr Trump told the group of around 300 socially conservative evangelical Christian women.

The filing refers to specific statements and online posts by Mr Trump as well as people, including Judge Chutkan, who have allegedly faced intimidation after Mr Trump criticised them.

In one comment referenced by prosecutors, Mr Trump called her “a fraud dressed up as a judge” and “a radical Obama hack”. They argue that a woman who was arrested for calling the judge and making racist death threat came as a result of Mr Trump’s criticisms.

The filing also cites attacks by Mr Trump on a Georgia election worker and his former cybersecurity aide which have allegedly resulted in harassment by his supporters

On Friday it was also revealed that Twitter had secretly delivered direct messages from Mr Trump’s account to Mr Smith’s team.

Twitter had fought the ruling, but was ultimately forced to hand over 32 direct messages. No information about the messages was released, including whether they were sent or received by Mr Trump, or were undelivered drafts.

Mr Trump, the current frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, faces mounting legal troubles.

He has been criminally indicted four times, including in this federal investigation into efforts to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election.

Othman Abdul Jalil, a spokesperson for the Benghazi-based government, told the BBC that soldiers warned people in the city of Derna to flee.

He denied that people were told not to evacuate, but conceded some may have felt the threat was exaggerated.

Meanwhile, BBC teams in Derna say aid agencies are yet to arrive at the city.

While reporters witnessed a hive of activity in the centre of Derna – with rescuers, ambulance crews and forensic teams working to identify the dead – there was little sign of major international aid agencies.

A spokesperson for one organisation said that trying to coordinate aid operations in the country was “a nightmare”.

“Libya one week ago was already complicated,” said Tomasso Della Longa from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).

Making the situation even more complicated is the fact that the floods have destroyed crucial infrastructure, like roads and telecommunications systems.

Death tolls that have been provided vary from around 6,000 up to 11,000. With many more thousands still missing, Derna’s mayor has warned that the total could reach 20,000.

The BBC has been told that some victims’ bodies have washed ashore more than 100km (60 miles) from Derna, after they were swept out to sea.

A spokesperson for the United Nations’ humanitarian office, Jens Laerke, told the BBC that there were still survivors and dead bodies under the rubble, and that it would be some time before they knew the true number of casualties.

“We are trying to not to have a second disaster there. It is critical to prevent a health crisis, to provide shelter, clean water and food,” he said.

More than 1,000 people have so far been buried in mass graves, according to a UN report.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has asked disaster workers to stop doing this, because a hasty burial in mass graves can lead to long-lasting mental distress for grieving family members.

Thousands of people were killed when two dams burst in the wake of Storm Daniel on Sunday, washing whole neighbourhoods into the Mediterranean Sea.

Survivors have described terrifying escapes and people being swept away in front of their eyes.

The country’s fragmented political situation is said to be complicating the recovery. Libya is split between two rival governments – with the UN-backed administration based in the capital Tripoli and the rival Egyptian-supported one based in Benghazi.

There have been widespread allegations that the two dams that collapsed were not well-maintained, and there are growing calls for an urgent inquiry into how the flooding became so catastrophic.

There are also conflicting reports as to whether – and when – people were told to flee their homes. Residents have told the BBC that they received mixed messages from the two rival governments on whether they should stay or leave.

Guma El-Gamaty, a Libyan academic and head of the Taghyeer Party, said on Thursday that people in the flood zone should have been evacuated, but “on the contrary they were told to stay put and stay inside their houses and not go out”.

But Derna’s mayor told Arab news channel Al-Hadath that he “personally ordered evacuating the city three or four days before the disaster.” The BBC has not been able to verify Abdulmenam al-Ghaithi’s claims.

As the weather got worse, police and military were telling people to leave their homes for higher ground, survivors have told the BBC.

But it seemed many people did not take the threat seriously.

“A lot of them did but unfortunately, people sometimes, they said, ‘well you know, this is exaggerating, this might not be the case’,” an official from Libya’s unofficial, eastern administration told the BBC’s Newshour programme.

There are also allegations that officials took to Libyan television on Sunday night, and ordered people to stay in their homes because of the bad weather. But the same official, Othman Abdul Jalil, denied this.

It is too early to attribute with certainty the severity of this storm to rising global temperatures. However, climate change is thought to be increasing the frequency of the world’s strongest storms.

Prof Liz Stephens, an expert in climate risks and resilience at the UK’s University of Reading, said scientists were confident that climate change was super-charging the rainfall associated with such storms.

On Friday, a top UN official, Martin Griffiths, said the disaster was “a massive reminder” of climate change and the challenge it posed.

Unite has joined Unison and the GMB in turning down the proposal from council body Cosla. All three have warned time is running out to avert strike action.

Parent groups have raised fears school closures will have a “detrimental” effect on their children.

But on Thursday Cosla said there was no more money available for pay without cuts to jobs and services.

The latest offer from the body, which represents Scotland’s 32 councils, is a two-part plan which it said would give workers at least a £1,929 increase in annual salary by 1 January 2024.

The decision to reject this means three out of four schools could be closed by a programme of strikes beginning with a three-day walkout on 26, 27 and 28 September.

On Friday Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “It has taken Cosla five months to increase their offer by a measly 38 pence a week for the lowest paid council workers.

“Unite’s local government representatives rightly rejected this offer. The fight for better jobs, pay and conditions in local government goes on, and if needs be by strike action. Unite will back its members all the way.”

Unison has already said Cosla has until 20 September to “significantly improve” the offer and prevent walkouts.

GMB Scotland dismissed the latest offer as “far too little, far too late” to avoid the upcoming strikes.

First Minister Humza Yousaf said he had already provided Cosla with additional funding to help negotiation in the pay offer and hoped that this would be enough.

Calling on both sides to continue “meaningful discussions”, he said: “We’ll continue to do what we can to support those discussions but they are negotiations for Cosla and nobody… wants to see strike action and our schools closed.”

Scottish Labour Leader Anas Sarwar said the Scottish government needed to show leadership and get round the table with Cosla and the trade unions and strike a deal that is “fair for workers and fair for those that require council services.”

The three unions had to ballot each council area separately and this has led to a complex picture of who has the right to strike across the country.

Only six out of the 32 councils will be unaffected. These are the areas where the unions did not win a mandate.

They are Argyll and Bute, East Ayrshire, East Lothian, Midlothian, Scottish Borders and West Lothian.

No council has said what effects these strike days will have but the unions expect the actions to lead to widespread school closures.

Parents outside a school in Paisley spoke about the effects the industrial action could have on their childcare.

Paul Lumsden said: “It’s obviously disruptive to the kids. I hope the staff get looked after and the outcome is resolved as quickly as possible.

“It means we have to get more childcare arranged. We’ve got childcare arrangements in place but it’s not that convenient having to chop and change to ask parents and grandparents.”

Zornista Koleva said: “It will bring some difficulty for parents like me. I think if they need to fight for better conditions they need to go for it. I definitely need to change my working days.

“I have three kids so I will need to take some time off probably. I feel a bit frustrated as it feels last minute.”

Speaking on BBC Radio’s Good Morning Scotland programme, Leanne McGuire, of the Glasgow City Parents Group, said the latest strikes felt like “history repeating itself”.

It is the fourth year of disruption following the Covid lockdowns and teacher strikes.

She told the programme: “My concern is that we start to feel that this is the new normal in schools and it really shouldn’t be.

“Pupils should be able to get through their full school year without any disruption, regardless of what that disruption is for.”

Ms McGuire said there was a lot of sympathy for the striking workers and anger at Cosla, the councils and the Scottish government that the dispute had not been settled.

She added: “When these talks come down to the wire, that’s where families get really frustrated because we don’t know what plans to put in place.

“That’s where people start getting really frustrated about it.”

Robert Woolley, of the Highland Parent Council Partnerships, said he was worried school closures were having a detrimental effect on pupils who were forced to learn alone at home.

“I think it’s detrimental to the social aspect of life being stuck behind a screen. It’s not normal. You worry about the future of your children,” he said.