Newly released documents have confirmed that the Department of Justice under former President Joe Biden let Hunter Biden off the hook by not forcing him to register as a foreign agent.
The Oversight Project, a government watchdog, obtained the release of the files under a Freedom of Information Act request that the Trump administration was likely eager to comply with.
The Oversight Project president, Mike Howell, sat down for an exclusive interview with The Daily Mail, where he accused the DOJ of "refusing to look at the obvious, that Hunter was a foreign agent" due to his ties to a Ukrainian energy company.
Hunter Biden has been under scrutiny for years due to his position on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, despite his lack of qualifications. The former First Son has wiggled his way into multiple foreign companies, sparking suspicion that he was leveraging his family name.
These suspicions have since been confirmed as the entire Biden family made a profession out of selling access to the White House. However, we now know that the Biden DOJ was complicit in protecting the Biden family business.
The Oversight Project discovered that the Biden DOJ did not require Hunter Biden to register as a foreign agent even as they required other individuals undertaking similar ventures to register as foreign agents.
Documents show that in 2022, the DOJ determined that Burisma's former US lawyer, John Buretta of Cravath, Swaine & Moore, should have registered as a foreign agent when lobbying for Burisma in meetings with government officials in 2016.
Buretta should have registered as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which is designed to keep government officials and the American public informed about individuals acting on behalf of foreign governments or organizations.
All of this led to Howell stating, "Special Counsel David Weiss tried to basically pardon Hunter by a plea deal, refusing to look at the obvious, that Hunter was a foreign agent. The government, to include the intelligence community, federal law enforcement, prosecutors and the White House, twisted itself into pretzels over a long period of time to avoid the obvious with the Biden family."
It was obvious that Joe Biden, his brothers, and Hunter Biden were all selling access to the White House beginning when Joe Biden was former President Barack Obama's Vice President.
President Donald Trump pointed all of this out during the 2020 presidential election, but thanks to censorship by social media platforms in collusion with the intelligence community, it took years for the truth to become settled.
The corruption of the Biden family has gone unpunished despite the fact that the Bidens enriched themselves to the tune of millions by selling out the U.S. to foreign interests, most notably China.
While Hunter Biden's activities in Ukraine received the most scrutiny, there is also extensive documentation on the Biden family's ties to Chinese companies that are owned by the Chinese Communist Party.
The Trump administration is looking into the Biden family's activities, but the preemptive pardon given to Hunter Biden by Joe Biden in the last month of his term has complicated that investigation.
In a significant legal decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that South Carolina can exclude Planned Parenthood from its Medicaid funding, as Breitbart reports. The decision, split at 6-3, overturns a prior decision and supports the state's stance against Planned Parenthood's claim of federal law violations.
The ruling stems from a 2018 executive order signed by South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster to block Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid funds. This prompted legal action from Planned Parenthood South Atlantic and a Medicaid patient, who argued that the order infringed upon federal law by restricting patients' rights to select qualified healthcare providers.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the majority, dismissed Planned Parenthood's argument regarding Section 1983 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871. He asserted that this section allows private plaintiffs to sue only in "atypical" circumstances where a statutory right is "clearly" and "unambiguously" designated for individuals.
In contrast, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, dissented against the ruling. Justice Jackson argued that Section 1983 traditionally enables any citizen to seek redress for violations of constitutional or federal statutory rights.
South Carolina's efforts to sever Medicaid funds from Planned Parenthood align with the state's legislation to prohibit abortions after six weeks with certain exceptions. Proponents of the Supreme Court's decision frame it as a successful push against taxpayer funding for abortion facilities.
Planned Parenthood maintained that the conflict revolves around broader healthcare access issues, rather than exclusively targeting abortion services. The organization expressed concerns for the precedent set by the ruling, fearing similar actions by other states might harm Medicaid coverage.
The reversal of the previous ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has drawn public and organizational reactions. Conservative and pro-life organizations have praised the decision, viewing it as a triumph for unborn lives and the reduction of abortion funding.
Katie Daniel of Alliance Defending Freedom conveyed satisfaction with the ruling. She highlighted the protection of Medicaid from potential lawsuits over unqualified providers, framing the decision as beneficial for public policy.
Kelsey Reinhardt, another pro-life advocate, emphasized the ethical implications of taxpayer funds supporting what she termed as an industry founded upon the termination of innocent lives.
Beyond South Carolina, efforts persist at a national level to defund Planned Parenthood. Congress is reportedly working on legislation aimed at barring Planned Parenthood from accessing federal funding throughout the United States.
This landmark legal case, titled Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, No. 23-1275, has garnered substantial attention due to its broader implications on healthcare policy and state-federal balancing concerning Medicaid operations.
Justice Gorsuch further elucidated that permitting private individuals to enforce new statutory rights can pose significant public policy challenges. He suggested that such matters require careful legislative consideration rather than judicial determination.
The ruling signals potential shifts in the Medicaid landscape in South Carolina, where conservative groups point to the availability of 200 alternative publicly funded health clinics. They argue that these facilities can accommodate Medicaid patients needing non-abortion-related services.
Planned Parenthood's South Atlantic region has vocalized apprehension about the decision's impact on healthcare service accessibility for Medicaid recipients. The organization underscores the importance of inclusivity in healthcare provider choices under Medicaid coverage.
While the Supreme Court's decision marks a pivotal moment in Planned Parenthood's funding battles, it also highlights ongoing debates around legal interpretations of individual rights under federally supported programs.
Former first lady Jill Biden has been left exposed by her loyal White House "work husband" after he tried to avoid giving testimony to Congress.
Anthony Bernal was Jill's closest ally in the Biden administration, making him a key witness in the probe of her actual husband's cognitive decline.
Now no longer in power, Bernal is helping the family obstruct a congressional inquiry into Joe Biden's health, but Bernal's efforts have already backfired.
After he refused to sit for an interview, Republicans responded to Bernal's insolence with a subpoena requiring him to testify on July 16.
Bernal had been scheduled to talk on Thursday, but backed out after President Trump waived executive privilege, leaving the Biden confidant exposed to potentially sharing confidential secrets.
"Now that the White House has waived executive privilege, it's abundantly clear that Anthony Bernal -- Jill Biden's so-called 'work husband' -- never intended to be transparent about Joe Biden's cognitive decline and the ensuing cover-up," said House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer (R-KY)
Bernal enjoyed intimate access to the Biden family and stayed loyal during the chaotic weeks that led to Joe Biden suspending his re-election campaign last summer.
His role in the Biden administration has come into focus after a sudden awakening of journalists regarding Biden's cognitive decline, an issue that the liberal media ignored for most of his presidency.
Republicans have already heard from former White House official Neera Tanden, who voluntarily testified about her role in using an autopen to sign orders on Biden's behalf. She notably said that she had limited contact with Biden himself.
It is now widely believed that Biden was not fully in charge during his four years in power.
While Democrats have dismissed the congressional probe, Republicans have said that a complete understanding of what transpired serves the public interest, given the troubling likelihood that Americans lived under a shadow presidency that they did not elect.
"Given your close connection with both former President Biden and former First Lady Jill Biden, the Committee sought to understand if you contributed to an effort to hide former President Biden’s fitness to serve from the American people," Comer wrote to Bernal. "You have refused the Committee’s request. However, to advance the Committee’s oversight and legislative responsibilities and interests, your testimony is critical."
Bernal is not the only member of Biden's circle who has tried to avoid appearing before Congress.
Kevin O'Connor, Biden's longtime physician, was subpoenaed after he tried to weasel out of an interview, citing, in part, patient confidentiality.
Wisconsin's liberal Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge from Democrats against the state's "gerrymandered" congressional map.
The ruling preserves the current GOP-drawn lines for the 2026 midterm elections, a setback for Democrats who have long sought to redraw the lines in the swing state.
This is the second time in as many years that the Supreme Court turned away Democrats' requests to overturn the current map, which was adopted with the approval of the Supreme Court's former conservative majority.
Two years after the court struck down a GOP state legislative map, this latest ruling suggests there are limits to the favors Democrats can expect to receive from the liberal majority that has dominated the court since 2023.
Control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court flipped when liberal Janet Protasiewicz won what was then the most expensive U.S. judicial race ever. Liberals in Wisconsin won another pivotal Supreme Court race this year, preserving the 4-3 liberal majority.
The day after Protasiewicz was seated, Democrats filed a lawsuit challenging Wisconsin's state legislative map, and months later, it was struck down by the new liberal majority. Controversially, Protasiewicz declined to recuse herself despite calling Wisconsin's map "rigged" while campaigning for the court.
Democrats have had less luck overturning the current congressional map, which was approved by the Supreme Court's former conservative majority. The map was drawn by Democrat Gov. Tony Evers and largely reflects lines drawn by the GOP in 2010
The Supreme Court on Wednesday unanimously rejected two lawsuits challenging Wisconsin's current congressional lines, dealing a blow to Democrats' hopes of winning back the House of Representatives.
The decision is also a blow to Marc Elias, a notorious Clinton ally and serial election litigator who brought one of the lawsuits.
This comes after the Supreme Court rejected a similar Democratic challenge in December 2024, also without explaining why.
“It’s good that Wisconsin has fair maps at the state level, but we deserve them at the federal level as well,” Democrat U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (WI) said. “Unfortunately, gerrymandered maps for members of Congress will remain in Wisconsin.”
Republicans control six out of eight of the House districts in Wisconsin, a state that President Donald Trump won by less than a percentage point in 2024.
Democrats had hoped a new congressional map would help them win two seats, which are currently represented by Republican Reps. Derrick Van Orden and Bryan Steil.
“The bipartisan rejection of the radical Democrats’ desperate and politically motivated attempt to redraw the map in their favor offers a strong preview of how Wisconsin voters will reject the Democrats’ out of touch and radical agenda next year at the ballot box,” National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) spokesman Zach Bannon told the Daily Caller News Foundation in a statement.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
President Donald Trump announced on Friday after the Supreme Court ruled in his favor in a fight over nationwide injunctions from entry-level judges in the federal judiciary that a number of disputes now will be litigated.
Refugee resettlement, sanctuary cities, birthright citizenship, federal funding freezes, taxpayer money used for radical and injurious "trans" surgeries and more.
The actual dispute was over lower court judges who took over the decision-making for the executive branch and issued nationwide injunctions on Trump's birthright citizenship order. The ruling Friday didn't address that dispute.
But one senator, John Kennedy of Louisiana, put the legal controversy in terms for the common man: "Anybody who knows a law book from an L.L. Bean catalog knows that federal judges just made up the concept of universal injunctions. … If you disagree with a president or Congress, fill out a hurt feelings report – but you can't put their actions on hold because you don't like them."
The Supreme Court found that the nationwide injunctions at issue went far beyond the authority of the local judges, and those injunctions now are limited to the actual case participants.
Trump's contention is that "birthright citizenship" has been misused to deliver citizenship to any person born on U.S. soil, when the Constitution actually stipulates that citizenship goes to those who are "subject to the jurisdiction" of the U.S.
That raises the question whether those visiting in America, inside its borders with temporary permission, or even illegally, should be granted that exceptional right.
A report at the Gateway Pundit said, "DOJ Solicitor General John Sauer previously highlighted that federal judges have issued more than 40 nationwide injunctions since January, effectively stalling key executive actions, including the administration's controversial order to end birthright citizenship for children born to non-citizen parents."
The Trump administration confirmed that it will deport accused MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia after he faces trial for smuggling.
During a hearing Thursday, a Justice Department lawyer said he would be removed to a "third country" that is not his native El Salvador. Now, Abrego Garcia wants to stay in jail in the United States to avoid deportation.
It's the latest development in a legal saga that has featured prominently in the battle between Trump administration and Democrats over immigration.
The federal case against Abrego Garcia accuses him of trafficking illegal aliens from Texas to the U.S. interior. In 2022, Abrego Garcia was suspected of smuggling during a traffic stop in Tennessee but was not charged at the time.
The administration has also been prosecuting a case in the court of public opinion, citing evidence of Abrego Garcia's MS-13 ties and accusing Democrats who have defended him of having a soft spot for criminals.
The Trump administration returned Abrego Garcia to the U.S. this month to face criminal charges, following weeks of pressure from courts to reverse his "mistaken" deportation to his native land. The illegal alien had been living in Maryland for years when he was removed to his country of origin, sparking a furious backlash from Democrats who accused Trump of ignoring due process.
The judge in Abrego Garcia's criminal case in Tennessee, U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes, was prepared to release him from jail, finding that he wasn't a flight risk or a danger to the community. But the judge reversed course after the Trump administration told a different judge in Maryland that he is facing removal to a country other than El Salvador.
“We do plan to comply with the orders we’ve received from this court and other courts,” Justice Department attorney Jonathan Guynn told U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis. “But there’s no timeline for these specific proceedings.”
The move would conceivably allow the government to skirt a 2019 "withholding of removal" barring Abrego Garcia's deportation to his native country.
A Supreme Court ruling this week permitted Trump to deport aliens to third countries that are not their nations of origin.
Lawyers for Abrego Garcia have asked the judge in Tennessee to delay his release from jail, saying the government's intentions are unclear. The Justice Department initially gave no timeline, which led Abrego Garcia's attorneys to claim he is facing deportation "immediately," but the DOJ clarified that he would face trial first.
The Trump administration said that there is nothing shocking about his potential deportation, since Abrego Garcia was never granted asylum. He instead won a limited form of relief blocking his deportation to El Salvador specifically.
Abrego Garcia could be deported to any other country that is willing to receive him.
"Given that the Defendant was first deemed deportable back in 2019 -- and a copy of that order was made an exhibit to the detention hearing by the Defendant’s previous counsel -- this should not be a surprise to the defense and is certainly not a surprise to this Court,” prosecutors wrote.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
The Supreme Court has delivered a stunning blow to the activist judges at the district court level in the federal court system, those judges who sit at the entry level to the federal system: They likely have been exceeding the authority granted to them by Congress.
The fight is over literally dozens of universal injunctions, or nationwide injunctions, that have been delivered against the Trump administration by trial court judges who have positioned themselves to take over and make decisions for the executive branch.
The topics covered by those injunctions in just the first few months of President Donald Trump's second term include deportations, citizenship, budget cutting and many more.
The Supreme Court, considering the demands by the district judges to exceed their own authority, said, "Universal injunctions likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts. The court grants the government's applications for a partial stay of the injunctions entered below, but only to the extent that the injunctions are broader than necessary to provide complete relief to each plaintiff with standing to sue."
Justice Amy Coney Barrett delivered the majority opinion of the court's 6-3 ruling.
Justices Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh joined, and the leftists on the court collaborated on a dissent written by Sonia Sotomayor. Joining her were Justices Kagan and Jackson, the legal scholar who during her Senate confirmation hearings was incapable of defining "woman."
The ruling said, "The issue raised by these applications—whether Congress has granted federal courts authority to universally enjoin the enforcement of an executive order—plainly warrants this court's review. On multiple occasions, and across administrations, the Solicitor General has asked the court to consider the propriety of this expansive remedy."
Now, with Trump in his second term, those injunctions have "increased."
And with that has the importance of the issue.
"The government is likely to succeed on the merits of its claim that the district courts lacked authority to issue universal injunctions," the ruling said. "The issuance of a universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet Congress has granted federal courts no such power. The Judiciary Act of 1789 endowed federal courts with jurisdiction over 'all suits . . . in equity,' and still today, this statute 'is what authorizes the federal courts to issue equitable remedies.'
"This court has held that the statutory grant encompasses only those sorts of equitable remedies 'traditionally accorded by courts of equity' at our country's inception."
The wild orders by district judges – one demanded that the president turn jets already out of American airspace that were deporting illegal alien criminals around mid-flight – oblivious to the question of whether they would have enough fuel to return to their origination points – are simply "not sufficiently 'analogous' to any relief available in the court of equity in England at the time of the founding," the ruling said.
President Trump had appealed three lower court rulings preventing the executive order ending birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens or migrants on temporary visas from taking effect.
The ruling focuses on the injunctions rather than the birthright citizenship issue because the administration asked the justices in Trump v. CASA to consider limiting the scope of nationwide injunctions that block policies across the entire country.
During oral arguments, Solicitor General John Saur highlighted the dozens of injunctions lower court judges have issued blocking executive policies since January.
The ruling is expected to hit hard at the leftist and anti-Trump agenda of activists judges, and affect a multiple of cases and fights now pending. And it will hit multiple issues. Recent reports confirmed that leftist activists at the state level were scheming to fight Trump in court even before he was elected.
The decision delivered partial stays to the injunctions at issue.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
The Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision has affirmed a requirement in the state of Texas that pornography sites online verify the age of their users.
The fight was brought by organizations that objected to the new law, adopted in 2023.
That, in Texas, requires that "certain commercial websites publishing sexually explicit content that is obscene to minors to verify that visitors are 18 or older."
"The court viewed H. B. 1181 as a 'regulatio[n] of the distribution to minors of materials obscene for minors.' It therefore determined that the law is not subject to any heightened scrutiny under the First Amendment."
The ruling, delivered by Justice Clarence Thomas, who was joined by Justices Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett, affirmed.
Justice Elena Kagan disagreed, contending that porn should be readily accessed by children.
Violations can include injunctions and civil penalties.
"Petitioners—representatives of the pornography industry—sued the Texas attorney general to enjoin enforcement as facially unconstitutional under the First Amendment's Free Speech Clause. They alleged that adults have a right to access the covered speech, and that the statute impermissibly hinders them."
The 5th U.S. Court of Appeals said the plaintiffs weren't likely to succeed on that claim, so they did not deserve an injunction.
She was joined by Justices Sotomayor and Jackson, who earned a spot in America's history books during her Senate confirmation by being unable, or refusing, to define "woman."
The majority opinion said the required standard for the case is "intermediate scrutiny" and under that the law survives.
"To determine whether a law that regulates speech violates the First Amendment, the court considers both the nature of the burden imposed by the law and the nature of the speech at issue. Laws that target protected speech 'based on its communicative content' are presumptively unconstitutional and may be justified only if 'they satisfy strict scrutiny.' Laws that only incidentally burden protected speech are subject to intermediate scrutiny."
"History, tradition, and precedent establish that sexual content that is obscene to minors but not to adults is protected in part and unprotected in part. States may prevent minors from accessing such content, but may not prevent adults from doing the same. H.B. 1181 has only an incidental effect on protected speech, and is therefore subject to intermediate scrutiny. The First Amendment leaves undisturbed states' traditional power to prevent minors from accessing speech that is obscene from their perspective. That power includes the power to require proof of age before an individual can access such speech."
"It follows that no person—adult or child—has a First Amendment right to access such speech without first submitting proof of age. The power to verify age is part of the power to prevent children from accessing speech that is obscene to them. Where the Constitution reserves a power to the states, that power includes 'the ordinary and appropriate means' of exercising it," the ruling said.
Annie Chestnut Tutor, policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation's Center for Technology and the Human Person, said, "The Supreme Court's decision is a historic victory for the fight to protect children from obscenity. Texas's age verification requirement is constitutional, and states nationwide have a clear pathway forward to implement similar safeguards.
"Exposure to pornography does irrefutable harm to children, and this ruling holds online platforms accountable for willfully providing access to children. Age verification is the only technical solution to consistently and reliably keep children off adult websites. The state not only has a compelling interest to protect children from obscenity—it has a duty."
"Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative and a senior legal fellow in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation, said, "This ruling rightly places the power in the hands of the people and their elected lawmakers to protect children from sexually explicit content online. The decision is a step toward grounding free speech law in the Constitution, not in decades of judicial invention, and allowing parents and lawmakers to act in the best interests of the next generation."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
A huge thumbs up was being offered to the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday from multiple high-profile organizations that work to protect the rights and freedoms of Americans.
In the Mahmoud v. Taylor case, the justices, 6-3, said Montgomery County, Maryland, schools could not force LGBT indoctrination on young children, and the constitutional issues involve religious rights of families, parents, and children.
The decision provides an injunction that parents now can opt their children out of the ideological teachings of the leftist school district.
Liberty Counsel chairman Mat Staver said, "This U.S. Supreme Court has once again upheld that parents have the right to direct the education and provide for the welfare of their children. The First Amendment simply does not allow government schools to require families to sacrifice their religious beliefs for their children to attend school. Parents in all states should be given adequate opportunity to review any instructional material and must be given the ability to opt their children out of instruction that violates their faith."
The ruling itself warned that the materials the district was using for its indoctrination program were not merely providing information, they were making LGBT choices "normative," meaning they promoted the alternatives LGBT lifestyle choices as "normal" to the children.
"They are designed to present certain values and beliefs as things to be celebrated, and certain contrary values and beliefs as things to be rejected. Take, for example, the message sent by the books concerning same sex marriage. Many Americans 'advocate with utmost, sincere conviction that, by divine precepts, same-sex marriage should not be condoned.' That group includes each of the parents in this case. The storybooks, however, are designed to present the opposite viewpoint to young, impressionable children who are likely to accept without question any moral messages conveyed by their teacher's instruction," the ruling said.
Further, said the ruling, "The storybooks present same-sex weddings as occasions for great celebration and suggest that the only rubric for determining whether a marriage is acceptable is whether the individuals concerned 'love each other.' The storybooks similarly convey a normative message on the subjects of sex and gender. Many Americans, like the parents in this case, believe that biological sex reflects divine creation, that sex and gender are inseparable, and that children should be encouraged to accept their sex and to live accordingly. The storybooks, however, suggest that it is hurtful, and perhaps even hateful, to hold the view that gender is inextricably bound with biological sex."
In fact, Montgomery County's books "impose upon children a set of values and beliefs that are 'hostile' to their parents' religion beliefs."
ADF spokesman John Bursch said, "The U.S. Supreme Court's decision is a monumental victory for parents and their fundamental right to make decisions consistent with their religious beliefs about the upbringing and education of their children. Government officials can't force parents to give up that right or violate their religious beliefs in exchange for a public education.
"In line with American history, tradition, and judicial precedent, the court affirmed that school officials cannot act like their job is to replace parents and their beliefs. Our Constitution forbids schools from indoctrinating children with uniform views on sexuality and gender—hotly debated topics—in conflict with their families' religious beliefs. We applaud the court's protection of parents' right to choose what's best for their children's education. We also congratulate our friends at Becket Fund for Religious Liberty for their hard-fought win in this important case."
Kayla Toney, of First Liberty Institute, said, "The U.S. Supreme Court today strengthened the rights of parents by ensuring that they have a say when it comes to the education of their children, especially when families' religious beliefs are at stake. Our children do not belong to the state, and the government should not be able to hide what it's teaching in schools simply because it doesn't agree with parents' values or religious beliefs."
Becket explained, "The new 'inclusivity' books were announced in 2022 for students in pre-K through fifth grade. Instead of focusing on basic principles of respect and kindness, however, the books champion controversial ideology around gender and sexuality. For example, one book tasks three- and four-year-olds to search for images from a word list that includes 'intersex flag,' 'drag queen,' 'underwear,' 'leather,' and the name of a celebrated LGBTQ activist and sex worker. Another book advocates a child-knows-best approach to gender transitioning, telling students that a decision to transition doesn't have to 'make sense.' Teachers are instructed to say doctors only 'guess' when identifying a newborn's sex anyway. The School Board revoked notice and opt-outs for these storybooks, which violates Maryland law, the Board's policies, and the advice of its own elementary school principals. "
Attorneys for disgraced music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs agreed not to use politics or the ongoing conflict with Iran as part of his defense strategy, the UK Daily Mail reported. Combs is facing a slew of charges for sex trafficking as his trial is expected to wrap up this week.
Sources claimed that Combs's team was considering whether to "invoke the recent conflict" in closing arguments. The attorneys contend that the Homeland Security Investigators who raided his Los Angeles home in March "instigated" the case with sensational details.
The 55-year-old's legal team apparently believes HSI should have been focused on Iran instead of his long-rumored deviant behavior. This comes after the U.S. destroyed Iran's nuclear weapons program with a missile strike Saturday that resulted in a temporary escalation.
On Monday, which marked the 28th day of the Diddy trial, Iran retaliated against the U.S. by lobbing missiles at American military bases in Qatar. Judge Arun Subramanian, who is presiding over the case, made it clear that using any of this in court would not be tolerated.
Combs is in the midst of a trial for charges of sex trafficking, transportation to engage in prostitution, racketeering, and others. News of the novel strategy of including politics in the courtroom comes as Combs officially announced on Tuesday that he will not testify.
Marc Agnifilo, Combs's defense attorney, verified that he "discussed at length" the implications either way and that Combs made his decision accordingly. Combs confirmed it was his decision guided by his attorneys' legal advice, and the judge accepted it.
As for the prospect of using the Iran conflict in a last-ditch effort to defend himself, Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey threatened to "object during defense summation" if it were invoked. "I really don't want to do that," Comey said, according to Fox News.
"So I just wanted to put on the record that we think it would be objectionable and crossing a line for any summation to bring us politics or current events or the propriety of this prosecution and the use of government resources," Comey added. The prosecutor warned the defense not "to cross over those lines" and promised to speak up if they did.
"I would object in the middle of his summation and ask the Court to instruct the jury to disregard any comments like that. So I just wanted to state that in advance of summations and the hope that it's not necessary," Comey clarified.
The judge noted "an agreement by the defense not to engage in any of that type of argument" that brought in the conflict in Iran. Subramanian had asked Combs's defense attorney whether there was "anything to worry about here" with this tactic.
"Nothing to worry about, Judge," Diddy's defense lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, responded. That response has shut down the possibility of the Iran conflict being part of the defense, but it only adds to the impression that the high-stakes case is about to implode on Combs.
Attorneys for Combs have an uphill climb if they hope to get him acquitted. While some charges may not stick, there are just too many piling up that seem to be well established by the prosecution.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Christine Slavik charged that Combs believed "fame, wealth, and power put him above the law" when committing his alleged misdeeds and forcing others to do the same. "He wouldn’t take no for an answer," Slavik said, which is at the heart of this trial.
Defense attorneys for Combs have a tough road ahead if they wish to convince the jury of his innocence. It seems they're grasping at straws, and all of the fame, fortune, and excuses in the world won't be enough to get Combs out of trouble.