conviction

NEW YORK — A federal appeals court on Thursday gave new life to President Trump’s bid to erase his hush money conviction, ordering a lower court to reconsider its decision to keep the case in state court instead of moving it to federal court.

A three-judge panel in the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein erred by failing to consider “important issues relevant” to Trump’s request to move the New York case to federal court, where he can seek to have it thrown out on presidential immunity grounds.

But, the appeals court judges said, they “express no view” on how Hellerstein should rule.

Hellerstein, who was nominated by Democratic President Bill Clinton, twice denied Trump’s requests to move the case. The first time was after Trump’s March 2023 indictment; the second followed Trump’s May 2024 conviction and a subsequent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that presidents and former presidents cannot be prosecuted for official acts.

In the later ruling, at issue in Thursday’s decision, Hellerstein said Trump’s lawyers had failed to meet the high burden of proof for changing jurisdiction and that Trump’s conviction for falsifying business records involved his personal life, not official actions that the Supreme Court ruled are immune from prosecution.

Hellerstein’s ruling, which echoed his previous denial, “did not consider whether certain evidence admitted during the state court trial relates to immunized official acts or, if so, whether evidentiary immunity transformed” the hush money case into one that relates to official acts, the appeals court panel said.

The three judges said Hellerstein should closely review evidence that Trump claims relate to official acts.

If Hellerstein finds the prosecution relied on evidence of official acts, the judges said, he should weigh whether Trump can argue those actions were taken as part of his White House duties, whether Trump “diligently sought” to have the case moved to federal court and whether the case can even be moved to federal court now that Trump has been convicted and sentenced in state court.

Ruling came after oral arguments in June

Judges Susan L. Carney, Raymond J. Lohier Jr. and Myrna Pérez made their ruling after hearing arguments in June, when they spent more than an hour grilling Trump’s lawyer and the appellate chief for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, which prosecuted the case and wants it to remain in state court.

Carney and Lohier were nominated to the court by Democratic President Barack Obama. Pérez was nominated by Democratic President Joe Biden.

“President Trump continues to win in his fight against Radical Democrat Lawfare,” a spokesperson for Trump’s legal team said in a statement. “The Supreme Court’s historic decision on Immunity, the Federal and New York State Constitutions, and other established legal precedent mandate that the Witch Hunt perpetrated by the Manhattan DA be immediately overturned and dismissed.”

Bragg’s office declined to comment.

Trump was convicted in May 2024 of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal a hush money payment to adult film actor Stormy Daniels, whose allegations of an affair with Trump threatened to upend his 2016 presidential campaign. Trump denies her claim, said he did nothing wrong and has asked a state appellate court to overturn the conviction.

It was the only one of the Republican’s four criminal cases to go to trial.

Trump team cites Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity

In trying to move the hush money case to federal court, Trump’s lawyers argued that federal officers, including former presidents, have the right to be tried in federal court for charges arising from “conduct performed while in office.” Part of the criminal case involved checks that Trump wrote while he was president.

Trump’s lawyer, Jeffrey Wall, argued that prosecutors rushed to trial instead of waiting for the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision. He also said they erred by showing jurors evidence that should not have been allowed under that ruling, such as former White House staffers describing how Trump reacted to news coverage of the hush money deal and tweets he sent while president in 2018.

“The district attorney holds the keys in his hand,” Wall told the three-judge panel in June. “He doesn’t have to introduce this evidence.”

In addition to reining in prosecutions of ex-presidents for official acts, the Supreme Court’s July 2024 ruling restricted prosecutors from pointing to official acts as evidence that a president’s unofficial actions were illegal.

Wall, a former acting U.S. solicitor general, called the president “a class of one,” telling the judges that “everything about this cries out for federal court.”

Steven Wu, the appellate chief for the district attorney’s office, countered that Trump was too late in seeking to move the case to federal court. Normally, such a request must be made within 30 days of an arraignment. Exceptions can be made if “good cause” is shown.

Hellerstein concluded that Trump hadn’t shown “good cause” to request a move to federal court as such a late stage. But the three-judge panel on Thursday said it “cannot be confident” that the judge “adequately considered issues” relevant to making that decision.

Wall, addressing the delay at oral arguments, said Trump’s team did not immediately seek to move the case to federal court because the defense was trying to resolve the matter by raising the immunity argument with the trial judge, Juan Merchan.

Merchan rejected Trump’s request to throw out the conviction on immunity grounds and sentenced him Jan. 10 to an unconditional discharge, leaving his conviction intact but sparing him any punishment.

Sisak writes for the Associated Press.

Victor Conte, the architect of a scheme to provide undetectable performance-enhancing drugs to professional athletes including baseball stars Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi and Olympic track champion Marion Jones decades ago, has died. He was 75.

Conte died Monday, SNAC System, a sports nutrition company he founded, said in a social media post. It did not disclose his cause of death.

The federal government’s investigation into another company Conte founded, the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, yielded convictions of Jones, elite sprint cyclist Tammy Thomas, and former NFL defensive lineman Dana Stubblefield along with coaches, distributors, a trainer, a chemist and a lawyer.

Conte, who served four months in federal prison for dealing steroids, talked openly about his famous former clients. He went on television to say he had seen three-time Olympic medalist Jones inject herself with human growth hormone, but always stopped short of implicating Bonds, the San Francisco Giants slugger.

The investigation led to the book “Game of Shadows.” A week after the book was published in 2006, baseball Commissioner Bud Selig hired former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell to investigate steroids.

The Steroids Era

Conte said he sold steroids known as “the cream” and “the clear” and advised on their use to dozens of elite athletes, including Giambi, a five-time major league All-Star, the Mitchell report said.

“The illegal use of performance-enhancing substances poses a serious threat to the integrity of the game,” the Mitchell report said. “Widespread use by players of such substances unfairly disadvantages the honest athletes who refuse to use them and raises questions about the validity of baseball records.”

Mitchell said the problems didn’t develop overnight. Mitchell said everyone involved in baseball in the previous two decades — including commissioners, club officials, the players’ association and players — shared some responsibility for what he called “the Steroids Era.”

The federal investigation into BALCO began with a tax agent digging through the company’s trash.

Conte wound up pleading guilty to two of the 42 charges against him in 2005 before trial. Six of the 11 convicted people were ensnared for lying to grand jurors, federal investigators or the court.

Bonds’ personal trainer, Greg Anderson, pleaded guilty to steroid distribution charges stemming from his BALCO connections. Anderson was sentenced to three months in prison and three months of home confinement.

Bonds was charged with lying to a grand jury about receiving performance-enhancing drugs and went on trial in 2011. Prosecutors dropped the case four years later when the government decided not to appeal an overturned obstruction of justice conviction to the Supreme Court.

A seven-time National League MVP and 14-time All-Star outfielder, Bonds ended his career after the 2007 season with 762 homers, surpassing the record of 755 that Hank Aaron set from 1954-76. Bonds denied knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs but has never been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Bonds didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.

Conte told the Associated Press in a 2010 interview that “yes, athletes cheat to win, but the government agents and prosecutors cheat to win, too.” He also questioned whether the results in such legal cases justified the effort.

Conte’s attorney, Robert Holley, didn’t respond to an email and phone call seeking comment. SNAC System didn’t respond to a message sent through the company’s website.

Defiant about his role

After serving his sentence in a minimum security prison he described as “like a men’s retreat,” Conte got back in business in 2007 by resuscitating a nutritional supplements business he had launched two decades earlier called Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning or SNAC System. He located it in the same building that once housed BALCO in Burlingame, Calif.

Conte remained defiant about his central role in doling out designer steroids to elite athletes. He maintained he simply helped “level the playing field” in a world already rife with cheaters.

To Dr. Gary Wadler, a then-member of the World Anti-Doping Agency, Conte might as well have been pushing cocaine or heroin.

“You are talking about totally illegal drug trafficking. You are talking about using drugs in violation of federal law,” Wadler said in 2007. “This is not philanthropy and this is not some do-gooding. This is drug dealing.”

The hallway at SNAC System was lined with game jerseys of pro athletes, and signed photographs, including athletics stars Tim Montgomery, Kelli White and CJ Hunter, all punished for doping.

Conte wore a Rolex and parked a Bentley and a Mercedes in front of his building. He told the AP in 2007 he wouldn’t drive over the speed limit.

“I’m a person who doesn’t break laws anymore,” he said. “But I still do like to look fast.”

Years later, he met with the then-chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency, Dick Pound.

“As someone who was able to evade their system for so long, it was easy for me to point out the many loopholes that exist and recommend specific steps to improve the overall effectiveness of their program,” Conte said in a statement after the meeting.

He said that some of the poor decisions he made in the past made him uniquely qualified to contribute to the anti-doping effort.

SNAC System’s social media post announcing Conte’s death called him an “Anti-Doping Advocate.”

Conte was also a musician, serving as a bass player for the funk band Tower of Power for a short time in the late 1970s. He is pictured on the back of the band’s 1978 “We Came To Play” album.

“He was an excellent musician and a powerful force for clean sports and he will be missed,” band founder Emilio Castillo posted on X.

Associated Press sports writers Janie McCauley and Chris Lehourites contributed to this report.

PHILADELPHIA — After waiting more than four decades to clear his name in a friend’s 1980 killing, Subramanyam Vedam was set to walk free from a Pennsylvania prison this month.

Vedam and Thomas Kinser were the 19-year-old children of Penn State University faculty. Vedam was the last person seen with Kinser and was twice convicted of killing him, despite a lack of witnesses or motive.

In August, a judge threw out the conviction after Vedam’s lawyers found new ballistics evidence that prosecutors had never disclosed.

As his sister prepared to bring him home on Oct. 3, the thin, white-haired Vedam was instead taken into federal custody over a 1999 deportation order. The 64-year-old, who legally came to the U.S. from India when he was 9 months old, now faces another daunting legal fight.

Amid the Trump administration’s focus on mass deportations, Vedam’s lawyers must persuade an immigration court that a 1980s drug conviction should be outweighed by the years he wrongly spent in prison. For a time, immigration law allowed people who had reformed their lives to seek such waivers. Vedam never pursued it then because of the murder conviction.

“He was someone who’s suffered a profound injustice,” said immigration lawyer Ava Benach. And “those 43 years aren’t a blank slate. He lived a remarkable experience in prison.”

Vedam earned several degrees behind bars, tutored hundreds of fellow inmates and went nearly half a century with just a single infraction, involving rice brought in from the outside.

His lawyers hope immigration judges will consider the totality of his case. The administration, in a brief filed Friday, opposes the effort. So Vedam remains at an 1,800-bed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in central Pennsylvania.

“Criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in the U.S,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in an email about the case.

‘Mr. Vedam, where were you born?’

After his initial conviction was thrown out, Vedam faced an unusual set of questions at his 1988 retrial.

“Mr. Vedam, where were you born?” Centre County Dist. Atty. Ray Gricar asked. “How frequently would you go back to India?

“During your teenage years, did you ever get into meditation?”

Gopal Balachandran, the Penn State Dickinson Law professor who won the reversal, believes the questions were designed to alienate him from the all-white jury, which returned a second guilty verdict.

The Vedams were among the first Indian families in the area known as “Happy Valley,” where his father had come as a postdoctoral fellow in 1956. An older daughter was born in State College, but “Subu,” as he was known, was born when the family was back in India in 1961.

They returned to State College for good before his first birthday and became the family that welcomed new members of the Indian diaspora to town.

“They were fully engaged. My father loved the university. My mother was a librarian, and she helped start the library,” said the sister, Saraswathi Vedam, 68, a midwifery professor in Vancouver, British Columbia.

While she left for college in Massachusetts, Subu became swept up in the counterculture of the late 1970s, growing his hair long and dabbling in drugs while taking classes at Penn State.

One day in December 1980, Vedam asked Kinser for a ride to nearby Lewisburg to buy drugs. Kinser was never seen again, although his van was found outside his apartment. Nine months later, hikers found his body in a wooded area miles away.

Vedam was detained on drug charges while police investigated and was ultimately charged with murder. He was convicted in 1983 and sentenced to life without parole. To resolve the drug case, he pleaded no contest to four counts of selling LSD and a theft charge. The 1988 retrial offered no reprieve from his situation.

Although the defense long questioned the ballistics evidence in the case, the jury, which heard that Vedam had bought a .25-caliber gun from someone, never heard that an FBI report suggested the bullet wound was too small to have been fired from that gun. Balachandran only found that report as he dug into the case in 2023.

After hearings on the issue, a Centre County judge threw out the conviction and the district attorney decided this month to not retry the case.

Trump officials oppose the petition

Benach, the immigration lawyer, often represents clients trying to stay in the U.S. despite an earlier infraction. Still, she finds the Vedam case “truly extraordinary” given the constitutional violations involved.

“Forty-three years of wrongful imprisonment more than makes up for the possession with intent to distribute LSD when he was 20 years old,” she said.

Vedam could spend several more months in custody before the Board of Immigration Appeals decides whether to reopen the case. ICE officials, in a brief Friday, said the clock ran out years ago.

“He has provided no evidence nor argument to show he has been diligent in pursuing his rights as it pertains to his immigration status,” Katherine B. Frisch, an assistant chief counsel, wrote.

Saraswathi Vedam is saddened by the latest delay but said her brother remains patient.

“He, more than anybody else, knows that sometimes things don’t make sense,” she said. “You have to just stay the course and keep hoping that truth and justice and compassion and kindness will win.”

Dale writes for the Associated Press.

NEW YORK — President Trump’s lawyers have asked a New York state appeals court to toss out his hush money criminal conviction, saying federal law preempts state law and there was no intent to commit a crime.

The lawyers filed their written arguments with the state’s mid-level appeals court just before midnight Monday.

In June, the lawyers asked a federal appeals court to move the case to federal court, where the Republican president can challenge the conviction on presidential immunity grounds. The appeals court has not yet ruled.

Trump was convicted in May 2024 of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal a hush money payment to adult film actor Stormy Daniels, whose affair allegations threatened to upend his 2016 presidential campaign. Trump denies her claim and said he did nothing wrong. It was the only one of the four criminal cases against him to go to trial.

Trump was sentenced in January to what’s known as an unconditional discharge, leaving his conviction on the books but sparing him jail, probation, a fine or other punishment.

Appearing by video at his sentencing, Trump called the case a “political witch hunt,” “a weaponization of government” and “an embarrassment to New York.”

The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which prosecuted the case, will have a chance to respond to the appeals arguments in court papers. A message seeking comment was left with the office Tuesday.

At trial, prosecutors said Trump mislabeled payments to his then-lawyer Michael Cohen as legal fees to conceal that he was actually reimbursing the $130,000 that Cohen paid Daniels to keep her quiet in the final weeks of Trump’s successful 2016 presidential run.

At the time, Daniels was considering going public with a claim that she and the married Trump had a 2006 sexual encounter that Trump has consistently denied.

In their arguments to the New York state appeals court, Trump’s lawyers wrote that the prosecution of Trump was “the most politically charged prosecution in our Nation’s history.”

They said Trump was the victim of a Democratic district attorney in Manhattan who “concocted a purported felony by stacking time-barred misdemeanors under a convoluted legal theory” during a contentious presidential election in which Trump was the leading Republican candidate.

They wrote that federal law preempts the “misdemeanor-turned-felony charges” because the charges rely on an alleged violation of federal campaign regulations that states cannot enforce.

They said the trial was also spoiled when prosecutors introduced official presidential acts that the Supreme Court has made clear cannot be used as evidence against a U.S. president.

“Beyond these fatal flaws, the evidence was clearly insufficient to convict,” the lawyers wrote.

The lawyers also attacked the conviction on the grounds that “pure, evidence-free speculation” was behind the effort by prosecutors to persuade jurors that Trump was thinking about the 2020 election when he allegedly decided to reimburse Cohen.

Neumeister writes for the Associated Press.

The company behind the wildly popular Pokémon franchise says it doesn’t want its characters used for propaganda.

The Department of Homeland Security uploaded a Pokémon-themed montage of various ICE raids to social media earlier this week.

The connection to the beloved franchise was clear, as the recognizable theme song played, the original animation appeared and even its signature blue and yellow text materialized.

The video angered many fans. The Japanese gaming company said the federal agency was not authorized to use its original content.

“We are aware of a recent video posted by the Department of Homeland Security that includes imagery and language associated with our brand,” wrote the Pokémon Company International in a statement to The Times. “Our company was not involved in the creation or distribution of this content, and permission was not granted for the use of our intellectual property.”

The Pokémon-inspired video is still live on the agency’s X account.

The posted video included the anime theme song, with the lyrics “Gotta catch ‘em all,” playing over segments of federal agents handcuffing people and imagery of a Pokémon character and the Pokéballs used to capture monsters in the game.

It concluded with several mock-ups of Pokémon playing cards with photographs of detainees, which included their full names, crimes they have committed and details about their convictions and sentencing.

The DHS’ social media feeds are full of provocative imagery and videos that borrow from popular media.

It used Jay-Z’s “Public Service Announcement” last month. It reportedly received a copyright violation complaint and had to be taken down.

In July, the DHS X account posted a video montage, which used audio from 2022’s “The Batman” and displayed a Bible verse onscreen. Paintings, from artists like Thomas Kinkade, Morgan Weistling and John Gast have also been utilized by the federal agency.

Comedian Theo Von recently complained about being used in one of these videos. DHS used a video of him saying, “Heard you got deported, dude,” as he nods his head in disappointment, in one of their video edits.

On Tuesday, he posted on X, saying, “And please take this down and please keep me out of your ‘banger’ deportation videos. When it comes to immigration my thoughts and heart are a lot more nuanced than this video allows. Bye!”

The video has since been taken down.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – Last week, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was found guilty of attempting a coup and sentenced to just over 27 years in prison.

A panel of Supreme Court justices on Thursday found that the 70-year-old had sought to overthrow democracy and hang onto power despite his 2022 electoral defeat to current President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Four out of five justices voted in favour of convicting Bolsonaro and his fellow defendants. Justice Luiz Fux, in the sole dissenting vote, said there was not enough evidence to find Bolsonaro guilty of attempting a coup.

The other justices ruled that the attempted coup began in 2021 when Bolsonaro began casting unfounded doubts about the reliability of Brazil’s electronic voting system. After Bolsonaro lost to Lula, efforts to maintain himself in office illegally accelerated, they said.

Bolsonaro’s alleged multipronged plan included a draft decree to suspend the election result, a meeting with Brazil’s top military commanders to ask for their support in a coup and a plot to assassinate Lula, Vice President-elect Geraldo Alckmin and Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who spearheaded the case against Bolsonaro.

On January 8, 2023, when Bolsonaro supporters ransacked the Supreme Court, the presidential palace and Congress a week after Lula’s inauguration, it was a last-ditch effort to force an army takeover, the court said.

Relations between Brazil and the United States are likely to further deteriorate after the ruling. US President Donald Trump imposed a 50 percent tariff on Brazilian goods in July, citing what he called a “witch-hunt” against Bolsonaro. After Bolsonaro’s conviction, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Trump’s government “will respond accordingly”.

In response, Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the government will continue to defend the country’s sovereignty “from aggressions and attempts at interference, no matter where they come from”.

As Brazilians brace for economic repercussions, many are wondering about the political ones as well. Thousands of Bolsonaro supporters took to the streets this month before the high court deliberations, leading to concerns of possible violence after a guilty verdict.

But after the sentencing announcement, the streets were mostly filled with delighted Bolsonaro opponents celebrating the outcome.

Whether Bolsonaro will be granted amnesty, win some sort of appeal or be made to serve an unprecedented sentence remains to be seen. On the streets of Rio de Janeiro, Al Jazeera spoke to Brazilians about how they viewed the verdict.

Sidney Santos, 50, taxi driver, lives in Rio’s Gloria neighbourhood

“I feel very indignant and revolted because it was a set-up. The left, along with Alexandre de Moraes and the entire Supreme Court, created this whole scheme to get Bolsonaro out of politics because he was strong.

“Trump’s tariff didn’t change anything because the outcome was already planned. Trump is pressuring other countries as well, but here, the current president didn’t sit down to negotiate.

“Unfortunately, there’s no democracy. The fake democracy they’re talking about, that they claim they’re fighting for, it’s all a lie because if you say something, if you go against their actions, then you’re going against democracy. This is a dictatorship of the robe.

“The left wants to collapse Brazil and turn Brazil into the next Venezuela. Things are only going to get worse.”

Lea Aparecida Gomes, 55, cleaner, lives in Rio’s northern zone Madureira

“Bolsonaro won’t be arrested. Here in Brazil, nothing works. If he really ends up in jail, then Brazil will start working.

“When Bolsonaro ran for the first time, I voted for him because I thought he was going to make the country better. I trusted him because he was part of the military, like my son is. But I was really disappointed. The pandemic was horrible. I think a lot of people died because of him. I lost a cousin to COVID. She was 44 years old. He kept delaying the vaccine.

“I think it’s just stupidity. A person over 70 years old could be living happily with the salary he already gets, but he wanted more. Well, I hope he’s happy in prison. He brought this on himself. He had so much and still wasn’t satisfied.”

Caio Eduardo Alves de Aquino, 21, works at a kiosk in Copacabana and lives in the Rocinha favela

“I don’t care about the conviction. I don’t know whether there was an attempted coup. Whether Bolsonaro is free or in prison, for me, it doesn’t matter. They are all the same.

“The least politicians could do is think about the future of the children. They always say that children are the future, but education is terrible. My mum says school was better in her time. Everything just keeps getting worse.

“Lula talks about education, about other things, but nothing improves. Nothing changes.”

Morena, 16, student

“When I found out Bolsonaro had been convicted, it was emotional. I felt a sense of justice finally being served after so many years enduring the Bolsonaro government and its absurdity. Pure irresponsibility during the pandemic – not buying vaccines, not wearing a mask as president. This led to over 500,000 deaths. And yes, he is guilty for that.

“There was an attempted coup on January 8. I believe Bolsonaro knew about it and supported it, and I think the 27-year sentence is justified.

“It’s a very important step. He is the first former president to be arrested for attempting a coup. But there’s still a lot that needs to be done. Many arrests are still missing, and there is still much justice to be served for various things that happened during, before and after Bolsonaro’s government.

“I think a lot about remarks in small interviews or comments by Bolsonaro himself, his sons, his friends. Racist remarks, homophobic remarks, things that are criminal. He hasn’t been judged or prosecuted for those because we’re in Brazil.

“There are many others who hold the same ideology and uphold the same values as he does. Bolsonarism is still very strong. So there’s still a lot left to do. This is just the beginning.”

Altair Lima, 50, public servant who lives in Sao Paulo state

“I don’t cheer for one side. I analyse technically and coldly because I’m not on one side or the other. I want what’s best for my country. I followed the trial every day. I agree with Justice Luiz Fux’s vote: The prosecutor general didn’t prove anything.

“Bolsonaro said a lot of things during the 2022 campaign, but when politicians are campaigning, they say whatever they want to win over voters. But never once did he fail to comply with what the law required.

“Trump’s tariff is an overreaching intervention. That’s not the way to influence things, and I don’t think that’s the way things will be resolved. No country should interfere so much in another’s affairs. What’s going to resolve this is Congress itself with our laws here inside the country. I believe an amnesty law will pass. If not now, then next year.

“We currently have a sitting president who has been convicted. So everything can change.

“My father is a bus driver. My mother has been a housewife her whole life. My whole life I leaned more to the left. But after so many corruption scandals, I was disappointed.

“Brazilians are hopeful by nature, and hope is always the last thing to die. So we always hang onto the hope that one day things will get better. We work every day towards that. But it’s a very long-term thing. It’s hard.”

Brazil’s Supreme Court on Thursday found former President Jair Bolsonaro guilty of conspiracies related to his failed 2022 reelection bid. The court found that Bolsonaro tried to instigate a military coup and to poison his opponent, current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Bolsonaro, the former president of Latin America’s largest democracy and its wealthiest country, was sentenced to more than 27 years in prison and is barred from ever seeking public office again.

Bolsonaro is one among two dozen elected presidents and prime ministers in recent history around the world who used their time in office to undermine their countries’ democratic institutions. In addition to undermining confidence in elections, the Brazilian leader weakened public and scientific institutions by defunding them. Bolsonaro’s family and political associates faced repeated scandals. As a consequence, the president governed in constant fear of impeachment — a fate that had ended the careers of two prior Brazilian presidents since the country’s return to democracy in 1998. To avoid this outcome, Bolsonaro forged alliances with an array of legislative parties and strange bedfellows. Brazilian political scientists describe the implicit agreement: “The deal is simple: you protect me and I let you run the Country and extract rents from it as you wish.”

Curiously, the decision is also a setback for President Trump here in the United States. Trump views Bolsonaro as an ally who, like him, has been persecuted by leftists and subjected to retribution by courts. The American president tried hard to stop the Brazilian court from ruling against Bolsonaro. In August, Trump sent a letter to Lula, Bolsonaro’s nemesis. Trump threatened to hike most tariffs on Brazilian exports to the U.S. to 50% should his friend remain in legal peril.

Trump’s empathy reflects the two presidents’ parallel paths. Bolsonaro, like Trump, used his time in office to test democratic norms, weaken independent public institutions and vilify his opponents. Both men express a taste for political violence. Where Trump has often mused about beating up hecklers and shooting protesters in the knees, Bolsonaro was nostalgic for military rule in his country. On the campaign trail in 2018, he asserted that Brazil would only change for the better “on the day that we break out in civil war here and do the job that the military regime didn’t do: killing 30,000.”

Both Trump and Bolsonaro tried to cling to power after losing their reelection bids. Heeding their presidents’ claims of electoral fraud, Trump’s supporters rioted in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, as did Bolsonaro’s in Brasilia, the Brazilian capital, on Jan. 8, 2023. Bolsonaro’s involvement in these post-election acts was the basis of the legal peril that has consumed him.

Trump depicts the Brazilian judge most responsible for Bolsonaro’s prosecution, Chief Justice Alexandre de Moraes, with disdain. Trump describes the case against Bolsonaro as a “witch hunt” in support of a Lula government, describing the current president as a “radical leftist.”

In fact there is little love lost between Lula and De Moraes. Lula is the leader of the social-democratic Workers’ Party; De Moraes is closely associated with the center-right PSDB and is known for his tough-on-crime stances. De Moraes’ activism dates back to the Bolsonaro presidency, when Brazil’s attorney general, appointed by Bolsonaro, was less than energetic in upholding the rule of law. To transpose the Brazilian situation and De Moraes’ activism to the U.S. context, imagine that, viewing the Justice Department’s lack of vigor in prosecuting Trump, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. had roused himself to encourage legal action against the president.

Many Americans will view Brazil and the Bolsonaro story with a certain envy. Here is a president who dealt with electoral loss by claiming fraud and by instigating his military and civilian supporters to violence, and who has been held decisively to account.

Accountability of public servants is at the heart of democracy. Voters can hold incumbents accountable in elections — political scientists call this “vertical accountability” — as can coequal branches of government, which we call “horizontal accountability.” Would-be autocratic leaders such as Bolsonaro try to escape both kinds of accountability, staying in office even when they lose (the end of vertical accountability) and undermining independent courts, agencies, central banks and whistle-blowers (there goes the horizontal version). In the end, Bolsonaro was held to account both by voters and by the courts.

Trump’s self-insertion into the Bolsonaro prosecution calls attention to another form of accountability, or at least presidential constraint, which has gone missing from our own governing administration. That is the constraint that presidents experience when advisors keep them from acting on instincts that are unwise.

If such advisors were to be found in today’s White House, they might have counseled the president not to threaten Brazil with high tariffs. Doing so risks exacerbating inflation of the prices of key consumer goods (coffee, orange juice), something that is politically dangerous because controlling inflation was an issue at the heart of Trump’s 2024 reelection campaign. The use of tariff threats as a cudgel to try to save an ally from legal peril also gives lie to the purported rationale behind tariffs: protecting U.S. manufacturers or correcting trade imbalances.

Gone, then, are the days when Americans might have served as a model of democratic governance. For all of its own problems, of which there are many, the second-largest country in our hemisphere is schooling us in what democratic accountability looks like.

Susan Stokes is a professor of political science at the University of Chicago and faculty director of the Chicago Center on Democracy. She is the author, most recently, of “The Backsliders: Why Leaders Undermine Their Own Democracies.”

LeShon Johnson’s shameful career operating a dogfighting enterprise of immense magnitude is as long as it is grisly, far longer than his stint as a running back, even if his season as the leading rusher in college football is included along with his five years in the NFL.

The Department of Justice announced Monday that a federal jury in Oklahoma convicted Johnson of violating federal Animal Welfare Act prohibitions against possessing, selling, transporting and delivering animals to be used in fighting ventures.

Johnson, who operated in the open plains of east Oklahoma not far from where he grew up, faces a maximum of 30 years in prison, five years for each of the six felony counts. He also faces a fine of up to $250,000 on each count.

Authorities took 190 pit bulls and other dogs from his property, the most ever seized from an individual in a federal dogfighting case. Many were scarred and injured. Authorities also uncovered treadmills, bite sticks, steroids and records that detailed fight arrangements and wagering.

The verdict culminated a two-year investigation that included raids on Johnson’s properties in Broken Arrow and Haskell, Okla. Operating under the name Mal Kant Kennels, Johnson was found to have bred, trained and fought dogs in multiple states.

The former ballcarrier who finished sixth in Heisman Trophy voting in 1993, also had a conviction in Oklahoma state court for dogfighting in 2005, which preceded the much-publicized dogfighting conviction of star NFL quarterback Michael Vick by three years.

Twenty years ago, Johnson had a breeding operation called Krazyside Kennels, and its most famous dog, Nino, was the topic of an online narrative that chronicled the pit bull’s fights in several states, his last match approaching two hours despite having his ankle snapped in the first 30 seconds.

When Johnson was arrested in Tulsa in May 2004, agents found a calendar that detailed his breeding and fight schedules. Fights were listed so far back that investigators believed Johnson fought dogs during his NFL career, which ended in 1999.

A 2007 Sports Illustrated story that focused on Vick’s involvement in dogfighting rings included information about Johnson’s case. George Dohrmann — who was a Los Angeles Times reporter before moving to Sports Illustrated — wrote that Johnson was one of several athletes who had been charged with dogfighting or spoken openly of their links to the practice.

“[Fighting dogs] is a fun thing, a hobby, to some [athletes],” an NFL Pro Bowl running back who asked not to be named told Dohrmann. “People are crazy about pit bulls. Guys have these nice, big fancy houses, and there is always a pit bull in the back. And everyone wants to have the biggest, baddest dog on the block.”

Johnson avoided prison after his 2005 conviction, getting a deferred sentence and probation. This time he likely won’t be so fortunate.

“Dogfighting is a vicious and cruel crime that has no place in a civilized society,” U.S. Atty. Christopher J. Wilson for the Eastern District of Oklahoma said Monday. “I commend the hard work of our law enforcement partners in investigating this case and holding the defendant accountable for his crimes.”

U.S. Atty. Gen. Pamela Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel also issued statements condemning dogfighting and lauding the conviction of Johnson.

“This criminal profited off of the misery of innocent animals and he will face severe consequences for his vile crimes,” Bondi said.

Added Patel: “The FBI will not stand for those who perpetuate the despicable crime of dogfighting. Thanks to the hard work of our law enforcement partners, those who continue to engage in organized animal fighting and cruelty will face justice.”

Johnson was a Green Bay Packers third-round draft pick in 1994 after he led the nation with 1,976 yards rushing at Northern Illinois in 1993. His best day in the NFL came on Sept. 4, 1996, when he rushed for 214 yards for the Arizona Cardinals in a win over the New Orleans Saints, scoring touchdowns of 70 and 56 yards.

Nicknamed “the Cowboy” because he had been a bull rider on the junior rodeo circuit growing up in Oklahoma, Johnson’s NFL career was interrupted by lymphoma cancer in 1998. He made a comeback with New York Giants in 1999 and also played in the XFL for the Chicago Enforcers.

When Lauren Hersh, the national director of the anti-sex trafficking activist group World Without Exploitation, heard Wednesday that Sean “Diddy” Combs was convicted only on the two least serious charges against him, she felt grief for his former partner Casandra Ventura and his other accusers.

“I think this is a travesty,” Hersh said. “It shows there is culturally a deep misunderstanding of what sex trafficking is and the complexity of coercion. So often in these cases, there’s an intertwining of horrific violence and affection.”

Hersh, the former chief of the sex trafficking unit at the Kings County district attorney’s office in Brooklyn, said that Combs’ verdict — guilty on two charges of transportation to engage in prostitution but acquitted on one for racketeering and two for sex trafficking — is a mixed message about Combs’ conduct. But it will likely be felt as a step backward for the movement to hold powerful men to account for alleged sex crimes.

In a cultural moment when other music stars like Marilyn Manson and Chris Brown have mounted successful comebacks after high-profile abuse investigations and lawsuits, Hersh worries the Diddy verdict may deter prosecutors from pursuing similar cases against powerful men and chill the MeToo movement’s ability to seek justice for abuse victims.

“It’s a huge setback, especially in this moment when the powerful have continuously operated with impunity,” Hersh said. “It sends a signal to victims that despite the MeToo movement, we’re still not there in believing victims and understanding the context of exploitation. But I’m hoping it’s a teachable moment to connect the dots with what trafficking is and understanding the complexity of coercion.”

The charges against Combs were not a referendum on whether he had abused Ventura or the myriad other women and men involved in his “freak-off” parties, where group sex and drug use intertwined into an allegedly decadent and violent culture around Combs.

Combs’ defense team freely admitted that his relationship with Ventura was violent, as seen in an infamous 2016 videotape of Combs beating Ventura in an elevator lobby at the InterContinental hotel in Los Angeles. Marc Agnifilo, one of Combs’ lawyers, said in closing arguments that Combs has a drug problem but described his relationship with Ventura as a “modern love story” in which the hip-hop mogul “owns the domestic violence” that plagued it.

“The defendant embraced the fact that he was a habitual drug user who regularly engaged in domestic abuse,” federal prosecutors wrote in a hearing about Combs’ possible bail terms.

The jury decided that Combs’ conduct, however reprehensible, did not amount beyond a reasonable doubt to a criminal racketeering organization or sex trafficking. Yet the case’s impact on movements within music and other industries to hold abusers to account is uncertain.

Many civil suits against the music mogul are still moving through court and could affect his depleted finances. Combs’ reputation has been thoroughly tainted by the lurid details of the trial and strong condemnations from his many accusers.

Still, for victim advocates, the verdict was a bitter disappointment.

Reactions within the music world were swift and despairing. “This makes me physically ill,” said Aubrey O’Day of Danity Kane, the band Diddy assembled on his popular reality TV show “Making the Band,” on social media. “Cassie probably feels so horrible. Ugh, I’m gonna vomit.”

“Cassie, I believe you. I love you. Your strength is a beacon for every survivor,” wrote singer Kesha, who in 2014 sued producer Dr. Luke, accusing him of assault. Kesha has frequently altered the lyrics of her hit single “TikTok” in performances to lambast Combs.

Even longtime Diddy antagonist 50 Cent seemed to acknowledge his partial victory. “Diddy beat the feds that boy a bad man,” 50 Cent wrote on Instagram, before referencing a famous mobster notorious for evading convictions. “Beat the RICO he the gay John Gotti.”

Mitchell Epner, a former assistant U.S. attorney in New Jersey who prosecuted numerous sex trafficking and involuntary servitude cases, said that despite some recent high-profile sex trafficking cases that ended in convictions, Combs’ charges were never going to be easy to prove.

“In recent years, we’ve seen prosecutions of Ghislaine Maxwell in the Jeffrey Epstein case, Keith Raniere of NXIVM and R. Kelly, where they are trafficking in order to feed the traffickers’ sexual desire,” Epner said. “But this indictment was all about Sean Combs sharing women with people he was paying. He wasn’t receiving money, he wanted to be a voyeur. That technically fits the definition of sex trafficking, but it wasn’t the primary evil Congress was thinking about.”

The hurdles for accusers to come forward with claims against powerful men, and for juries to discern between transgressive sexual relationships and criminally liable abuse beyond a reasonable doubt, make such cases difficult to prosecute.

In the absence of convictions, some recently accused artists have already mounted successful comebacks.

Shock-rocker Marilyn Manson had been under investigation by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department since 2021, when several women accused him of rape and abuse including “Westworld” actor Evan Rachel Wood and “Game of Thrones” actor Esmé Bianco.

Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman said in January that the statute of limitations had run out on Manson’s domestic violence allegations, and that prosecutors doubted they could prove rape charges.

“While we are unable to bring charges in this matter,” Hochman said in a statement then, “we recognize that the strong advocacy of the women involved has helped bring greater awareness to the challenges faced by survivors of domestic abuse and sexual assault.”

Bianco told The Times that, “Within our toxic culture of victim blaming, a lack of understanding of coercive control, the complex nature of sexual assault within intimate partnerships, and statutes of limitations that do not support the realities of healing, prosecutions face an oftentimes insurmountable hurdle. Once again, our justice system has failed survivors.”

Manson has denied all claims against him. He has since released a new album and mounted successful tours.

Meanwhile, R&B singer Chris Brown was recently the subject of “Chris Brown: A History of Violence,” a 2024 documentary that shed new light on a 2022 lawsuit where a woman accused Brown of raping her on a yacht owned by Combs in 2020.

That lawsuit — one of many civil and criminal claims made against Brown over the years, beginning with the infamous 2009 incident in which he assaulted his then-girlfriend Rihanna — was dismissed. In 2020, Brown settled another sexual assault lawsuit regarding an alleged 2017 incident at the singer’s home. Brown currently faces criminal charges around a 2023 incident where he allegedly assaulted a music producer with a tequila bottle in a London nightclub.

Brown denied the claims in the documentary, and his attorneys called the film “defamatory.” He sued Warner Bros. Entertainment for $500 million. He is currently on a stadium tour that will stop at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood in September.

Combs, meanwhile, may still face a range of criminal and civil consequences. He could be sentenced from anywhere up to the maximum of 10 years apiece on each prostitution charge, or to a far lesser sentence. Some experts said it’s possible he may be sentenced to time served and walk away a free man soon.

Though it’s too soon to know what kind of future awaits Combs should he return to public life, it’s hard to imagine a return to the heights of influence that defined his ‘90s tenure at Bad Boy Entertainment, or his affable multimedia-mogul personality in the 2000s. A fate similar to the former hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons seems most likely — reputationally tarnished and culturally irrelevant.

Still, his supporters thronged outside the New York courtroom waving bottles of baby oil — an infamous detail of the trial — in a pseudo-ironic celebration of his acquittal on the most serious charges.

If Combs wants to ever return to music, he’ll have at least one ally in Ye, the embattled Nazi-supporting rapper who showed up in court to bolster Combs. Ye featured the incarcerated mogul on his song “Lonely Roads Still Go to Sunshine,” and released clothing featuring the logo of Combs’ old fashion label Sean John.

President Trump, another convicted felon and alleged sexual assailant who quickly returned to the heights of power, has said he is open to pardoning Combs. “It’s not a popularity contest,” he has said, regarding a Combs pardon. ”I would certainly look at the facts if I think somebody was mistreated.”

June 27 (UPI) — Kenneth Chesebro, the alleged architect behind the fake electors scheme to keep Donald Trump in the White House following his 2020 election loss, has been disbarred in New York.

A New York State appellate court issued its ruling Thursday. In support of its decision to disbar him, the court pointed to Chesebro’s guilty plea in Georgia to a single count of conspiracy to file false documents in the bogus Trump elector scheme.

“On that basis alone, respondent’s conduct brings into question his integrity and fitness to continue engaging in the practice of law in New York,” the court said in its seven-page opinion.

It continued that his conduct “undercuts the very notion of our constitutional democracy that he, as an attorney, swore an oath to uphold. Moreover, his cavalier attitude regarding his actions, particularly in the face of his extensive background in the areas of constitutional and election law, largely aggravates his conduct, notwithstanding his lack of disciplinary history.”

Chesebro was charged in an August 2023 multi-count indictment along with Donald Trump and 17 others for their involvement in a scheme to overturn the state’s 2020 election results that showed the New York real state mogul had lost to Joe Biden.

The 64-year-old is widely considered the architect of what would become known as the fake electors scheme, which was a strategy to create false slates of pro-Trump electors in seven battleground states that he lost to Biden, including Georgia.

In October 2024, Chesebro struck a plea deal with prosecutors in the case, agreeing to plead guilty to a single conspiracy count and a sentence of five years of probation, 100 hours of community service, restitution of $5,000 and a requirement to write an apology letter to the citizens of Georgia.

Chesebro was suspended from practicing law in New York State in October.

NEW YORK — As President Trump focuses on global trade deals and dispatching troops to aid his immigration crackdown, his lawyers are fighting to erase the hush money criminal conviction that punctuated his reelection campaign last year and made him the first former — and now current — U.S. president found guilty of a crime.

On Wednesday, that fight landed in a federal appeals court in Manhattan, where a three-judge panel heard arguments in Trump’s long-running bid to get the New York case moved from state court to federal court so he can then seek to have it thrown out on presidential immunity grounds.

It’s one way he’s trying to get the historic verdict overturned.

The judges in the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals spent more than an hour grilling Trump’s lawyer and the appellate chief for the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which prosecuted the case and wants it to remain in state court.

At turns skeptical and receptive to both sides’ arguments on the weighty and seldom-tested legal issues underlying the president’s request, the judges said they would take the matter under advisement and issue a ruling at a later date.

But there was at least one thing all parties agreed on: It is a highly unusual case.

Trump lawyer Jeffrey Wall called the president “a class of one” and Judge Susan L. Carney noted that it was “anomalous” for a defendant to seek to transfer a case to federal court after it has been decided in state court.

Carney was nominated to the 2nd Circuit by Democratic President Obama. The other judges who heard arguments, Raymond J. Lohier Jr. and Myrna Pérez, were nominated by Obama and Democratic President Biden, respectively.

The Republican president is asking the federal appeals court to intervene after a lower-court judge twice rejected the move. As part of the request, Trump wants the court to seize control of the criminal case and then ultimately decide his appeal of the verdict, which is now pending in a state appellate court.

Trump’s Justice Department — now partly run by his former criminal defense lawyers — backs his bid to move the case to federal court. If he loses, he could go to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Everything about this cries out for federal court,” Wall argued.

Wall, a former acting U.S. solicitor general, argued that Trump’s historic prosecution violated the U.S. Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling, which was decided last July, about a month after the hush money verdict. The ruling reined in prosecutions of ex-presidents for official acts and restricted prosecutors from pointing to official acts as evidence that a president’s unofficial actions were illegal.

Trump’s lawyers argue that prosecutors rushed to trial instead of waiting for the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision, and that they erred by showing jurors evidence that should not have been allowed under the ruling, such as former White House staffers describing how Trump reacted to news coverage of the hush money deal and tweets he sent while president in 2018.

“The district attorney holds the keys in his hand,” Wall argued. “He doesn’t have to introduce this evidence.”

Steven Wu, the appellate chief for the district attorney’s office, countered that Trump was too late in seeking to move the case to federal court. Normally, such a request must be made within 30 days of an arraignment, but a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., recently ruled that exceptions can be made if “good cause” is shown. Trump hasn’t done that, Wu argued.

While “this defendant is an unusual defendant,” Wu said, there is nothing unusual about a defendant raising subsequent court decisions, such as the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling for Trump, when they appeal their convictions. That appeal, he argued, should stay in state court.

Trump was convicted in May 2024 of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal a hush money payment to adult film actor Stormy Daniels, whose affair allegations threatened to upend his 2016 presidential campaign. Trump denies her claim and said he did nothing wrong. It was the only one of his four criminal cases to go to trial.

Trump’s lawyers first sought to move the case to federal court following his March 2023 indictment, arguing that federal officers including former presidents have the right to be tried in federal court for charges arising from “conduct performed while in office.” Part of the criminal case involved checks he wrote while he was president.

They tried again after his conviction, about two months after the Supreme Court issued its immunity ruling.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who was nominated by Democratic President Clinton, denied both requests, ruling in part that Trump’s conviction involved his personal life, not his work as president.

Wu argued Wednesday that Trump and his lawyers should’ve acted more immediately after the Supreme Court ruled, and that by waiting they waived their right to seek a transfer. Wall responded that they delayed seeking to move the case to federal court because they were trying to resolve the matter by raising the immunity argument with the trial judge, Juan Merchan.

Merchan ultimately rejected Trump’s request to throw out the conviction on immunity grounds and sentenced him on Jan. 10 to an unconditional discharge, leaving his conviction intact but sparing him any punishment.

Sisak writes for the Associated Press.

June 10 (UPI) — Former Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner must serve her six-year prison sentence for a corruption conviction, the nation’s Supreme Court of Justice ruled on Tuesday.

The three-judge court unanimously upheld Kirchner’s 2022 corruption conviction and ruled she is banned from holding public office.

The conviction arises from how awards for 51 public works projects were issued in what became the “Vialidad” trial.

Kirchner, 72, received due process, and the “rulings issued by the lower courts were based on extensive evidence assessed in accordance with the rules of sound judgment and the penal code enacted by Congress,” the judges wrote in Tuesday’s verdict.

She had argued that the trial arose from political persecution because she is an influential leader of the opposition to current Argentine President Javier Milei and his government.

Kirchner was Argentina’s president from 2007 to 2015. She also was Argentina’s vice president from 2019 to 2023.

She is a popular leftist politician and recently announced she intended to run for a seat during the Sept. 7 Buenos Aires Province legislative elections.

If she were to run and win, the victory would have given Kirchner immunity against imprisonment over the four-year term as a provincial lawmaker.

The Supreme Court’s decision against her makes it impossible for Kirchner to seek any public office.

“The republic works,” Milei said in a translated statement made during his visit to Israel.

“All the corrupt journalists, accomplices of politicians, have been exposed in their operetta about the alleged pact of impunity,” Milei said.

The Federal Oral Court 2 in December 2022 found Kirchner guilty of corruption, sentenced her to prison and imposed a lifetime disqualification from holding public office due to “fraudulent administration to the detriment of the state.”

She was allowed to stay out of prison while the Supreme Court deliberated the case.

Kirchner similarly was charged with fraud in 2016 and was convicted in February 2021, which made her Argentina’s first vice president to be convicted of a crime while still in office.

She was accused of and convicted of directing 51 public works contracts to a company owned by Kirchner’s friend and business associate, Lazaro Baez.

The scheme also directed $1 billion to Baez, who is serving a 12-year sentence for a money-laundering conviction in 2021 and was sentenced to another six years in prison for charges arising from the case that resulted inKirchner’s conviction.

The Slovak leader has repeatedly accused judges and prosecutors who probe his allies of political bias.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has criticised a judge who convicted the governor of the country’s central bank in a corruption case.

Reacting to the conviction of Petr Kazimir, his former finance minister, the combative premier suggested on Friday that the verdict was politically motivated, and that Specialised Criminal Court judge Milan Cisarik should be investigated for criminal acts.

Since returning to power in 2023, Fico has torn down police and prosecutor units set up to investigate corruption during his previous years in power between 2012 – 2020.

Kazimir was found guilty and fined 200,000 euros ($226,500) on Thursday for bribing a tax official during his tenure as finance minister in Fico’s previous government. Claiming that the longstanding charges were fabricated, he denied any wrongdoing and said that he plans to appeal.

“The judge’s decision raises the question whether it should have served political aims of the opposition to damage the ruling parties, because even a law faculty student must see fatal nonsense in the verdict,” the Slovak leader said on Thursday.

“I cannot shake off the feeling that it is justified to look at potential suspicion that the judge committed multiple criminal acts and at what the ruling was supposed to serve.”

The court did not respond to Fico’s remarks. The For Open Justice (ZOJ) NGO warned: “Questioning a specific judgment through public statements by members of the government can also be perceived as indirect political pressure on the judiciary.”

Revenge

Fico fell from power in 2020 amid the scandal over the 2018 assassination of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak. The new government set up special units to investigate a suspected network of corruption around the former PM and his inner circle.

Fico routinely complained that the measures were politically motivated. On returning to power in late 2023, he immediately began tearing up the units and amended the criminal code to lower punishments for corruption.

Critics have accused him of becoming obsessed with exacting revenge on those involved in probes against his circle.

Kazimir, was the first of Fico’s former ministers to stand trial when he first faced the court in April 2023 accused of paying a bribe of 48,000 euros ($54,360) in 2017-18 to the chief of the country’s tax office, in connection with an audit of a number of private companies.

His term at the head of the National Bank of Slovakia ends on June 1, but he will stay on until a replacement is appointed.

“Chrisley Knows Best” reality TV stars Todd Chrisley and Julie Chrisley may soon leave life in federal prison behind, thanks to President Trump.

The White House announced Tuesday that the president was set to pardon the imprisoned reality TV personalities nearly three years after they were convicted in 2022 of tax evasion and bank fraud. The Georgia couple gained popularity for their USA Network series, which showcased their luxurious lifestyle and zany family dynamic.

The White House posted a video of Trump on the phone with Todd and Julie’s 27-year-old daughter, Savannah Chrisley, who has publicly decried her parents’ conviction and the toll it has taken on their family. He called the younger Chrisley, who also starred in “Chrisley Knows Best,” “to inform her that he will be granting full pardons to her parents.”

“Trump Knows Best,” the tweet said.

A legal representative for the Chrisleys did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment on Tuesday.

A federal grand jury in Atlanta indicted the Chrisley parents on several charges including tax evasion, conspiracy and wire fraud. Prosecutors alleged the charges stemmed from a scheme, which lasted from 2007 to 2012, that involved the stars submitting fake financial statements to financial institutions to get loans worth millions of dollars. A second indictment was filed in February, and Todd, 56, and Julie Chrisley, 52, were convicted on all charges in June 2022.

In November of that year, the reality TV stars were sentenced to prison: Todd was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison and Julie received seven years. They also received 16 months probation each. In September 2024, Julie Chrisley was resentenced, but a federal judge upheld her seven-year sentence.

Since her parents’ convictions, Savannah has spoken out, strongly challenging the verdict. Over the years, she has alleged corruption in the court proceedings, described the alleged “nightmare” conditions of her parents’ prison facilities and touted plans to appeal their convictions — airing her grievances and hopes on her “Unlocked” podcast, “The Masked Singer” and even at the Republican National Convention in July, where she threw her support behind Trump. During the political event, she alleged her family “was persecuted by rogue prosecutors in Fulton County due to our public profile … and our conservative beliefs.”

“Donald J. Trump has only one conviction that matters, and that is his conviction to make America great again,” she added elsewhere in her RNC address.

On Tuesday, Savannah brought news of Trump’s intentions to pardon her parents to Instagram. Wearing a white and gold MAGA hat, Savannah shared her side of her call with President Trump.

“I have shed so many tears. The president called me personally as I was walking into Sam’s Club and notified me that he was signing … pardon paper[s] for both of my parents,” she said. “So both my parents are coming home tonight or tomorrow. I still don’t believe it’s real.

“The fact that the president called me — I will forever be grateful for President Trump, his administration and everyone along the way,” she said, adding later in her video she “vows” to stand alongside Trump and continue to expose “corruption.”

May 13 (UPI) — French actor Gerard Depardieu was found guilty Tuesday of sexually assaulting two women during a film shoot.

The 76-year-old actor was convicted in a Paris courtroom although he was not present at the time as he was working on a film set located in the Azores. He received a suspended jail term of 18 months, was ordered to compensate each victim around $1100 and was also placed on a sex offenders list.

The allegations against him came from incidents on the film production set for the movie Les Volets Verts in 2021, as two women on the shoot accused Depardieu of groping them.

Attorney Carine Durrieu-Diebolt, who represented both victims, told the press she hoped that “with this verdict, no one can say Gerard Depardieu is not a sexual predator, and that’s very important.”

Depardieu’s trial was seen as a critical juncture for the French film industry, which has been considered to be especially slow and hesitant toward taking women’s claims of abuse seriously. A parliamentary report by French politicians determined last month that sexual harassment and violence were “endemic” in France’s entertainment industry, and that both children and women were being actively victimized.

Depardieu has denied the allegations against him and his attorney said he will appeal the verdict.