Jack Smith is desperate to get back on track after the judge threw out his classified documents case against President Trump.
The Biden prosecutor filed a notice of appeal on Wednesday, two days after Florida judge Aileen Cannon handed Trump a stunning victory by tossing the charges.
Cannon's ruling was a huge win for Trump, whose re-election bid has been surging as various Democrat-led prosecutions encounter obstacles.
In her bombshell ruling, Cannon found that Smith was not legally appointed. Her ruling came after Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas expressed similar doubts about Smith's authority under the Appointments Clause.
Cannon said Smith's appointment undermines the power of Congress to appoint "officers of the United States." Smith was handpicked by attorney general Merrick Garland rather than nominated by President Biden with Senate confirmation.
Smith blasted Cannon's decision, claiming it "deviates from the uniform conclusion of all previous courts to have considered the issue."
Smith, in a filing Wednesday, said he would appeal to the 11th Circuit.
“The United States of America hereby gives notice that it appeals to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit from the order of the District Court entered on July 15," Smith wrote.
While Smith goes through the motions of an appeal, his chances of bringing Trump to trial before the election are effectively zero.
Smith's other prosecution of Trump, concerning the 2020 election, is also unlikely to be resolved on Smith's political timeline after the Supreme Court's historic immunity ruling.
Without saying so directly, Smith has been desperate to prosecute Trump before the presidential election, fearing he could drop his federal charges if elected.
Trump is widely seen as the favorite to win the presidency, especially after his iconic display of courage following an assassination attempt last week.
After Cannon's ruling - and in a spirit of unity following his near death - Trump has called on Democrats to end all "lawfare" against him.
"The Democrat Justice Department coordinated ALL of these Political Attacks, which are an Election Interference conspiracy against Joe Biden's Political Opponent, ME. Let us come together to END all Weaponization of our Justice System, and Make America Great Again!" Trump wrote on Truth Social.
While Smith is clearly losing this battle, he is reportedly determined to keep prosecuting Trump until Inauguration Day.
Naomi Pomeroy, a famous chef known for appearing in cooking shows like Top Chef Masters, has died in a horrible tubing accident. She was only 49.
The self-taught, award-winning cook, who owned renowned restaurants in Portland, Oregon, drowned in the Willamette River on Saturday, July 13.
Pomeroy was with a group of tubers who got caught on an exposed snag, her family told Portland Monthly.
The Benton County Sherriff's Office said Pomeroy was one of "three floaters on tubes and a paddle board, secured together" who were "caught on an exposed snag in the water."
Pomeroy was trapped underwater by the paddle board leash. Two others made it to shore safely.
One of those people was Pomeroy's husband, Kyle Linden Webster.
Police spent days looking for Pomeroy with sonar, underwater cameras, and drones. Her body was eventually found Wednesday morning by canoers about half a mile upstream of Hyak Park.
"People canoeing on the river spotted a body and called 9-1-1," the Benton County Sheriff's Office said in an update.
"BCSO marine deputies arrived shortly after, located a deceased female on a shallow section of bedrock near the middle of the river with about one to two feet of water," the sheriff's office said.
Pomeroy first became known for her restaurant Beast in 2007. She and her husband owned a cocktail bar, Expatriate, and Pomeroy had just opened an ice cream shop in May.
Pomeroy appeared on several cooking shows like Iron Chef and Top Chef Masters, and in 2014 she won a James Beard award.
The news of Pomeroy's death has sent a shock through Portland, where she was a fixture in the food scene.
Heather Wallberg, who owns a restaurant across the street from Expatriate, told KOIN-TV that Pomeroy "made the Portland food scene what it is today."
Chef and food critic Andrew Zimmern called Pomeroy a "great chef, an icon and a friend for many years."
Naomi Pomeroy was a great chef, an icon and a friend for many years. May her memory be a blessing to all who loved her https://t.co/XEmaf00BMb
— Andrew Zimmern (@andrewzimmern) July 15, 2024
Oregon congressman Earl Blumenauer (D) also paid tribute to Pomeroy in a statement.
"What a loss. Naomi was not just a fabulous chef and entrepreneur, but an amazing human being. Her impact went far beyond Portland, helping establish our leadership and reputation for food excellence. She will be greatly missed,” Blumenauer said.
A mentally disturbed homeless man wielding a knife was shot dead just one mile from the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Tuesday.
The man was shot dead by a group of Ohio police officers providing security for the four-day convention, which started Monday. The man was threatening another man with a pair of steak knives.
Police released bodycam video of the incident, which happened about a mile from the convention in the King Park area.
A group of officers were having a conversation when they noticed the suspect having an altercation with another man in the street. "He's got a knife," one of the cops said.
The Columbus, Ohio officers ran towards the man, shouting "drop your knife!" The armed man ignored them and charged at the other man, who was unarmed. The police fired their guns, killing the suspect.
“Someone’s life was in danger,” Milwaukee Chief Jeffrey Norman said. “These officers, who were not from this area, took it upon themselves to act and save someone’s life today.”
The incident came just days after a gunman tried to assassinate President Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania. Trump was formally nominated the GOP's candidate for president on Monday.
The RNC's theme on Tuesday was crime and public safety. The roster of speakers included crime victims, who shared personal stories about their lives being torn apart by liberal soft-on-crime policies.
The 43-year-old suspect who was killed Tuesday lived in a well-known homeless encampment in the King Park area.
Local bums living in the tent city said that the encampment is familiar to local police. They said the altercation might have ended differently if local cops were involved.
“If MPD [Milwaukee police] would have been there, that man would still be alive right now,” one of the bums, David Porter, said.
At a press conference Tuesday, local police defended the out-of-town officers. The suspect had a knife in each hand, they said, and ignored commands to cooperate.
“The officers observed a subject armed with a knife in each hand, engaged in an altercation with another unarmed individual,” Norman said. "They only fired after the armed man ignored multiple commands and moved toward the unarmed man, the chief said.
“This is a situation where somebody’s life was in immediate danger,” Norman said.
TV actress Shannen Doherty, known for her roles in Beverly Hills: 90210 and Charmed, has died after a long cancer battle. She was just 53.
"It is with a heavy heart that I confirm the passing of actress Shannen Doherty. On Saturday, July 13, she lost her battle with cancer after many years of fighting the disease," her publicist said.
Doherty is most famous for playing Brenda Walsh in the iconic teen drama Beverly Hills: 90210. She appeared in the show's first four seasons, from 1990 to 1994.
The actress was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015. In 2020, the cancer became terminal, and it spread to her brain last year.
In addition to 90210, Doherty was famous for playing Prue Haliwell, one of three witch sisters in the fantasy series Charmed.
The actress had difficult relationships with her colleagues, and she became known as Hollywood's "bad girl" in the 1990s.
"I was very confused back then about what I wanted for myself, and the attention was way too much," she said. "I didn't always handle it that well."
The tragic news has led to an outpouring of sympathy from her co-stars. Jason Priestley, who played Doherty's twin brother on 90210, said he was "shocked and saddened."
"She was a force of nature and I will miss her," he said. "Sending love and light to her family in this dark time."
Alyssa Milano, who starred alongside Doherty in Charmed, expressed admiration for the actress despite their "complicated relationship."
"She was a talented actress, beloved by many, and the world is less without her. My condolences to all who loved her."
Born in Memphis, Tennessee, Doherty took up acting at a young age after her family moved to Los Angeles. Some of her first roles included a part in Little House On The Prairie.
She had a notable role as Heather Duke in the 1988 cult comedy Heathers, starring Winona Ryder.
Until the end of her life, Doherty remained optimistic, telling a podcast last month she was focused on "living the best life that I can while I'm still alive."
"What's really beautiful about it is, I think you become so incredibly sensitive that your eyes are, like, wide open to everything around you, to people, to how they react, to what you can possibly do that's better for the world, like, what your purpose here is," she said.
RIP.
Democrats have spent years spewing radical rhetoric, but even they can see that political discourse has gotten out of hand following the shocking assassination attempt on Donald Trump's life on Saturday.
Prominent Democrats including Bill and Hillary Clinton have called for a restoration of civility after years of ratcheting divisions.
While Trump and Hillary Clinton were bitter electoral rivals in 2016, President Clinton said he and his wife are both wishing Trump their best.
In a statement, Bill Clinton said, "Violence has no place in America, especially in our political process. Hillary and I are thankful that President Trump is safe, heartbroken for all those affected by the attack at today's rally in Pennsylvania, and grateful for the swift action of the U.S. Secret Service."
Trump's electoral opponent, Joe Biden, called for Americans to "lower the temperature" in a speech from the Oval Office on Sunday night.
Trump and Biden also had a cordial phone call, with Trump saying Biden "couldn't have been nicer."
It's a striking tone shift in what has been until now a bitterly divisive presidential campaign.
Many on the right. including Trump's VP pick J.D Vance, have blamed Biden's rhetoric for the shooting, pointing to his and other Democrats' claims that Trump is an existential threat to the country.
Despite his calls for unity, Biden has faced criticism for doubling down on his campaign theme that Trump is a danger to democracy.
In an interview with Lester Holt Monday night, Biden denied inflaming political tensions and faulted Trump for creating division.
"I’m not the guy that said, ‘I want to be a dictator on day one.’ I’m not the guy that refused to accept the outcome of the election. I’m not the guy who said he won’t accept the outcome of this election automatically," Biden said.
Meanwhile, President Trump has urged the country to come together. The Republican presidential candidate said he is rewriting his speech at the Republican National Convention to focus on a unifying theme.
While rhetoric has cooled somewhat in the last few days, it remains to be seen how long the detente will last. In any event, it's clear to many Americans that things have gotten out of hand.
Shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of former President Donald Trump's immunity defense, the ball started rolling on his side of the legal bench.
According to an NBC News opinion piece penned by Catherine Christian, former assistant district attorney in the New York County District Attorney’s Office, Trump's attorneys are taking "full advantage" of the immunity ruling.
She filed the high court's immunity decision as another "delay tactic" for Trump and his lawyers to push trials out to where they're held after the November election.
One example was Trump's sentencing in the New York verdict, which was supposed to happen last week, but was delayed as the court considers the immunity decision's ramifications.
Christian also noted that last week, Trump's lawyers have already moved to vacate the felony charges.
She wrote:
"This motion was not a surprise. New York Criminal Procedure Law 330.30 allows a defendant to request that the trial judge set aside the guilty verdict at 'any time after rendition of a verdict of guilty and before sentence.' The grounds for doing so are limited, but within hours of the Supreme Court decision, Trump’s lawyers told Judge Juan Merchan in a letter that Trump’s conviction should be set aside."
The high court's immunity ruling covers "official acts," and while the ruling was seemingly exclusive to the classified documents probe, Trump's lawyers argue that it also applies to the New York verdict.
Christian wrote:
However, Trump’s lawyers are arguing that evidence was shown during his trial that included White House “official acts." This evidence, Trump's legal team says, “should never have been put before the jury.”
The key debate now is the language used for the immunity ruling and determining which acts were "official acts" and subject to the ruling.
Christian added, "Merchan will need to parse through these various actions and determine which, if any, should be entitled to absolute or presumptive immunity."
Trump's lawyers have scored many legal victories in recent months, mostly in the way of delaying trials until after the November election.
Those are huge wins, as if Trump wins in November, his appointed Attorney General can quash any charges and completely kill cases against him, or Trump can use his executive powers to pardon himself and others involved.
So far, Trump has only gained in the polls and overall popularity as a result of the cases against him, as many Americans are sympathetic with Trump's plight with the justice system.
Legal experts believe that Trump's legal issues, especially if he wins, will quickly dwindle.
President Joe Biden and his campaign continues to struggle to keep above water after the elderly president's awful debate performance last month with former President Donald Trump.
Calls from within the Democratic Party for Biden to bow out are steadily increasing as the White House scrambles to calm worries and deploy gaslighting campaigns in an attempt to convince voters that Biden is still in good shape to run.
Obviously, the perpetually confused, stumbling president is not in any shape to run, and many believe he should be replaced.
However, according to the Daily Caller, a former strategist for Bill Clinton recently revealed that even if the party replaces Biden with VP Kamala Harris, it won't matter.
Former Clinton strategist Mark Penn revealed that even if Harris is bumped to the top of the ticket, it likely won't save the campaign, as their administration has nothing to go on.
Voters have low faith and confidence in the Biden-Harris administration, and no matter which one of them is at the top of the ticket, that's not going to change, Penn explained.
Former Clinton Pollster Says Dumping Biden For Kamala Won't Help Dems Because Voters Give Admin 'Low Rating' On Issues pic.twitter.com/XfihOZKiNM
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) July 12, 2024
"Will Vice President Harris do better? Her poll numbers are slightly below Joe Biden’s. Take him out, put her in — I don’t actually think it changes, to be honest," Penn said during a recent Fox News interview.
He added, "People aren’t really voting on this. They are voting because inflation is bad, immigration is bad, crime is bad and they give this administration a low rating. If he had ratings in the 50s, nobody would care what he said anywhere."
While many have called for Harris to step in and take over, other Democrats are looking at other potential replacements, such as Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D).
The Daily Caller cited a number of reasons why the Biden-Harris administration is garbage, and most Americans don't need a primer to understand what has happened since Biden took over.
The economy, at the ground level, stinks. Working-class Americans are still very much struggling with buying groceries and paying bills.
The southern U.S. border is still chaotic and a massive problem, though the administration lies and attempts to downplay the issue.
Biden and Harris have done nothing but take this great nation off the tracks on nearly every level, so Penn is exactly right -- swapping in Harris won't make a bit of difference.
Far-left House Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY.) is filing articles of impeachment against Supreme Court justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.
The charges repackage familiar talking points about the justices, whom Democrats have broadly accused of corruption. There is little chance the impeachment articles will advance in the Republican House.
The impeachment threat escalates a left-wing campaign to discredit the conservative Supreme Court, which ended its most recent term by handing President Trump a huge legal victory in its ruling on presidential immunity.
In sweeping language, AOC claims that Thomas and Alito committed "high crimes and misdemeanors" by failing to disclose certain gifts from conservative billionaires.
The charges also accuse the justices of wrongdoing by failing to recuse themselves from January 6th cases.
Liberals have sought to tie Thomas to the January 6th riot over his wife's role in the "Stop the Steal" protest movement, and Alito has faced similar backlash over flags that his wife flew - an inverted American flag and an "Appeal to Heaven" flag - that were displayed by some January 6th participants.
The impeachment articles accuse Alito of harboring "a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party in cases before the court," and Thomas is similarly accused of failing to recuse himself from cases where his wife had financial and legal "interests."
In a breathless statement, Ocasio-Cortez decried an "unchecked corruption crisis on the Supreme Court."
"Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito’s pattern of refusal to recuse from consequential matters before the court in which they hold widely documented financial and personal entanglements constitutes a grave threat to American rule of law, the integrity of our democracy, and one of the clearest cases for which the tool of impeachment was designed."
A handful of Democrats are backing AOC's longshot proposal, including New York's Jamaal Bowman, who recently lost his seat in a primary.
The Supreme Court ended its term with a historic ruling affirming that presidents have broad immunity from prosecution. The ruling was a huge blow to Democratic efforts to prosecute Trump before the 2024 presidential election.
Supreme Court justices serve for life during good behavior. Only one Supreme Court justice has been impeached before, Samuel Chase, in 1804, for "arbitrary and oppressive conduct of trials," but he was acquitted by the Senate.
A top neurologist says that Joe Biden "definitely" has Parkinson's disease, citing his stiff movements and speech difficulties as "classic" signs of the condition.
The White House confirmed this week that a specialist in movement disorders saw Joe Biden as recently as January, but the administration maintains the visit was part of a routine checkup.
Dr. Tom Pitts, who has not examined Biden, told NBC News that he would diagnose Biden with Parkinson's "from across the mall" based on the symptoms he has publicly exhibited.
Concerns about Biden's fitness have mounted since his feeble debate performance on CNN last month.
During the debate, Biden spoke in a breathy whisper and often appeared confused, blurting out at one point, "we beat Medicare."
Pitts said Biden is an "easy case," citing his rigid movement and difficulty finding words.
"You notice when he turns it's kind of end-block turning; it's not a quick turn," he said.
"He has Parkinsonisms. That is a fact. He has degeneration of the brain. Show me the MRI. Show me he doesn't. Put your money where your mouth is. He definitely has it."
While Biden and his allies have blamed his debate performance on a bad cold, Pitts said Biden's faint, "monotone" voice is a hallmark sign of brain degeneration.
Pitts also dismissed the idea that Biden's speech problems are the result of his well-known stutter.
"This is not a palatal issue or a speech discrepancy," he said, adding Biden is having trouble with "word retrieval."
The White House has struggled to explain reports that a neurologist specializing in movement disorders, Dr. Kevin Cannard, was at the White House eight times in recent months.
Biden's press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre caused a furor by stonewalling questions about the visits, only to later admit that Cannard met with Biden's doctor, Kevin O'Connor, in January. She said the visit was related to Biden's annual physical.
O'Connor gave his explanation in a letter stating that Cannard saw Biden only three times for his regular checkups.
O'Connor emphasized Cannard's broad expertise in treating "a variety of patients and problems" including members of the military.
O'Connor included a February summary of Biden's most recent physical that said Biden showed no signs of any neurological diseases, like Parkinson's.
Biden has declined to take a cognitive test, telling ABC News in a recent interview, "I have a cognitive test every day."
A prominent Republican state senator in Iowa has abruptly resigned, triggering a scramble to find a new Republican nominee for his district.
Waylon Brown had served in the Iowa state Senate starting in 2017 and was the Republican Senate majority's whip. He announced Monday that he would be resigning effective July 10.
Brown shared the news only weeks after winning a close Republican primary.
In a statement, Brown said he believes he had accomplished what he set out to do for the constituents of his district.
“When I took office, I said I wanted to leave things better than I found them, and I believe I accomplished that,” Brown said in a statement.
“Our rural and agricultural communities are stronger than they were seven years ago. This is critical — since ag and rural industries are the lifeblood of Iowa.”
Brown's 30th district covers a portion of northern Iowa including all of Worth, Mitchell and Cerro Gordo counties and part of Floyd County.
"I will forever be grateful to the people of my district who entrusted me to represent them in the Iowa State Capitol," Brown said. "I'm thankful for my wife, Julie, and our two kids, who have supported me throughout my tenure as state senator. I look forward to my next chapter. The best is yet to come!"
It was only weeks ago that Brown beat Republican Doug Campbell by about six points in a state primary.
Campbell had criticized Brown for failing to hold hearings on the use of eminent domain to seize land from landowners to build carbon capture pipelines.
Brown would have faced Democrat Richard Lorence in the race to represent Senate district 30. Lorence thanked Brown for his service.
"As we move forward, I am more committed than ever to serving North Central Iowa and making our state better for everyone," Lorence said. "This election is a pivotal moment for our district, and we have the opportunity to bring in new ideas and address the challenges we face to improve our public education, protect our landowner's rights from big corporations, and ensure Iowan's freedoms are protected from politicians in Des Moines."
The GOP will now hold a convention to nominate a new candidate for November.
The Iowa Senate has been a springboard for prominent politicians including now-governor Kim Reynolds, Senator Joni Ernst, and former House Rep. Steve King.