Trump campaign expects to raise $43 million at Florida fundraiser

Donald Trump’s campaign is expecting to raise more than $40 million on Saturday when major donors gather for his biggest fundraiser yet. The event at the Palm Beach, Florida, home of billionaire investor John Paulson is expected to bring in $43 million for the former president’s third run at the White House, according to Paulson. The high-dollar event is expected to include about 100 guests, including more than a few billionaires, and top a new single-event fundraising record set by President Joe Biden, who raised $26 million recently at a gathering with former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. “The response to our fundraising efforts has been overwhelming, and we’ve raised over $43 million so far,” Paulson, a hedge fund manager, said in a statement. “There is massive support amongst a broad spectrum of donors.” The event, billed as the “Inaugural Leadership Dinner,” sends a signal of a resurgence of Trump and the Republican Party’s fundraising, which has struggled to catch up to Biden and the Democrats. Trump and the GOP announced earlier in the week that they raised more than $65.6 million in March and closed out the month with $93.1 million. Biden and the Democrats announced Saturday that they took in more than $90 million last month and had $192 million-plus on hand. “While Donald Trump has been busy awarding himself golf trophies at Mar-a-Lago and palling around with billionaires, Joe Biden has been crisscrossing the nation connecting with voters and outlining his vision to grow our economy from the bottom up and the middle out,” Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison said in a statement, referring to Trump’s Florida residence. Trump initially struggled to attract big donors in particular when he launched his campaign and some lined up to support the other Republicans who challenged him in the presidential primary. But as Trump racked up easy wins, leveled the field and became the party’s presumptive nominee, the GOP has solidified behind him.

Mexico breaks diplomatic ties with Ecuador after embassy raid

The Mexican president has quickly moved to break off diplomatic ties with Ecuador after police broke into the Mexican Embassy to arrest a former vice president who had sought political asylum there after being indicted on corruption charges. In an extraordinarily unusual move, Ecuadorian police forced their way into the embassy in the capital, Quito, to arrest Jorge Glas, who had been residing there since December. Police broke through the external doors of the Mexican diplomatic headquarters in the Ecuadorian capital and entered the main patio to get Glas. On Saturday, he was taken from the attorney general’s office to a detention facility in an armored vehicle followed by a convoy of military and police vehicles. People who had gathered outside the prosecutor’s office yelled “strength” as the vehicles began to move. The raid prompted Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to announce the break of diplomatic relations with Ecuador Friday evening. Glas has been convicted on bribery and corruption charges. Ecuadorian authorities are still investigating more allegations against him. “This is not possible. It cannot be. This is crazy,” Roberto Canseco, head of the Mexican consular section in Quito, told local press while standing outside the embassy. “I am very worried because they could kill him. There is no basis to do this. This is totally outside the norm.” Defending its decision, Ecuador’s presidency said in a statement: “Ecuador is a sovereign nation and we are not going to allow any criminal to stay free.” López Obrador fired back, calling Glas’ detention an “authoritarian act” and “a flagrant violation of international law and the sovereignty of Mexico.” Alicia Bárcena, Mexico’s secretary of foreign relations, posted on the social platform X that a number of diplomats suffered injuries during the break-in, adding that it violated the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Diplomatic premises are considered “inviolable” under the Vienna treaties and local law enforcement agencies are not allowed to enter without the permission of the ambassador. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange lived inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for seven years because British police could not enter to arrest him. Bárcena said that Mexico would take the case to the International Court of Justice “to denounce Ecuador’s responsibility for violations of international law.” She also said Mexican diplomats were only waiting for the Ecuadorian government to offer the necessary guarantees for their return home. Ecuador’s Foreign Ministry and Ecuador’s Ministry of the Interior did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A Supreme Court ruling in a social media case could set standards

In a busy term that could set standards for free speech in the digital age, the Supreme Court on Monday is taking up a dispute between Republican-led states and the Biden administration over how far the federal government can go to combat controversial social media posts on topics including COVID-19 and election security. The justices are hearing arguments in a lawsuit filed by Louisiana, Missouri and other parties accusing officials in the Democratic administration of leaning on the social media platforms to unconstitutionally squelch conservative points of view. Lower courts have sided with the states, but the Supreme Court blocked those rulings while it considers the issue. The high court is in the midst of a term heavy with social media issues. On Friday, the court laid out standards for when public officials can block their social media followers. Less than a month ago, the court heard arguments over Republican-passed laws in Florida and Texas that prohibit large social media companies from taking down posts because of the views they express. The cases over state laws and the one being argued Monday are variations on the same theme, complaints that the platforms are censoring conservative viewpoints. The states argue that White House communications staffers, the surgeon general, the FBI and the U.S. cybersecurity agency are among those who coerced changes in online content on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter) and other media platforms. “It’s a very, very threatening thing when the federal government uses the power and authority of the government to block people from exercising their freedom of speech,” Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said in a video her office posted online. The administration responds that none of the actions the states complain about come close to problematic coercion. The states “still have not identified any instance in which any government official sought to coerce a platform’s editorial decisions with a threat of adverse government action,” wrote Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, the administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer. Prelogar wrote that states also can’t “point to any evidence that the government ever imposed any sanction when the platforms declined to moderate content the government had flagged — as routinely occurred.” The companies themselves are not involved in the case. Free speech advocates say the court should use the case to draw an appropriate line between the government’s acceptable use of the bully pulpit and coercive threats to free speech.

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Hong Kong court affirms landmark sedition conviction for pro-democracy activist

Criticizing laws or chanting anti-government slogans can be enough to jail someone for sedition in Hong Kong, an appeal court ruled Thursday in a landmark case brought under a colonial-era law increasingly used to crush dissent. Tam Tak-chi, the first person tried under the city’s sedition law since Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997. Tam’s lawyers had argued his conviction should be overturned because the prosecution did not show he meant to incite violence. The prosecution is widely seen as part of Beijing’s clampdown on dissent in the former British colony, following widespread anti-government protests in 2019. Hong Kong court affirms landmark sedition conviction for pro-democracy activist Tam was convicted on 11 charges in 2022, including seven counts of “uttering seditious words.” A judge at the lower court took issue with him chanting the popular protest slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times” — words the government says imply separatism — and criticizing the Beijing-imposed National Security Law during a primary campaign. The judge said his words broke the law because they incited discontent against Hong Kong and disobedience to the law. Tam and his lawyers had drawn hope from a ruling made by a top Commonwealth court in a 2023 case about a similar law. In that case, the London-based Privy Council said that the sedition law in Trinidad and Tobago could not be used to convict people unless they intended to incite violence or disorder. The Privy Council is the court of final appeal for a number of Commonwealth countries. But the Hong Kong court rejected the argument, finding that the Privy Council ruling only applied to the law in Trinidad and Tobago. Judge Jeremy Poon said sedition in Hong Kong is a statutory offense, not a common law offense. He added that law’s legislative history made it clear that an intention to incite violence is not a necessary element of most sedition offenses. “Nothing suggests that any individual, including the applicant, a politician and activist highly critical of the government and a stern opponent of government policy, would be subject to an unacceptably harsh burden because of the restriction on seditious acts or speeches imposed by the offense,” the ruling said.

Republicans urge state Supreme Court to reject redistricting report’s findings

Wisconsin Republicans urged the state Supreme Court on Thursday to ignore a report from redistricting consultants that determined GOP-proposed legislative maps were unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders. While Republicans argue that the consultants’ findings are unsound, Democrats asked the court on Thursday to adopt one of their maps that the consultants found were “nearly indistinguishable.” The stakes are huge in battleground Wisconsin, where Republicans have held a firm grip on control of the Legislature even as Democrats have notched significant statewide wins. Four of the past six presidential elections have been decided by less than a percentage point, while Republicans have increased their majorities under the maps they first drew in 2011 to 22-10 in the Senate and 65-34 in the Assembly. The liberal-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in December that the current Republican-drawn legislative maps were unconstitutional because not all the districts were contiguous. The court ordered the parties involved in the lawsuit to submit new maps that a pair of consultants then reviewed. With the report and responses now in hand, the court is poised to rule within days or weeks on what the new maps should look like, unless the Republican-controlled Legislature passes maps that Democratic Gov. Tony Evers signs into law first. Republicans are talking about passing the maps that Evers proposed, which the governor indicated on Wednesday he would sign. Evers last week vetoed maps the Legislature passed that were based on his proposal but made changes to protect Republican incumbents. Republican Assembly Majority Leader Tyler August said Thursday there have been discussions with Senate Republicans about passing the Evers maps with no changes. While those talks continue, the Supreme Court accepted responses Thursday from Republicans and Democrats to the consultants’ report. The court and Legislature are facing a March 15 deadline to enact new lines. That is the latest that maps can be in place in order for current filing deadlines for the fall election to be met, according to the Wisconsin Elections Commission. Attorneys for the Legislature argued in their court filing Thursday that the consultants’ report was about finding a political remedy to redistricting, not addressing the continuity issue. “There is no judicial power, only political will, to impose any of the Democrats’ sweeping redraws as a judicial remedy,” the Legislature argued. The Legislature also hints at an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, saying that moving millions of voters from one legislative district to another as the Democratic map proposals would do “raises serious federal constitutional questions.” The conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty made a similar argument, saying adopting the reasoning of the consultants in rejecting it and the Legislature’s maps “would be an egregious due process violation.” Republicans have also argued that liberal Justice Janet Protasiewicz should not have heard the case, given that she called the current Republican maps “rigged” and “unfair” during the campaign and accepted about $10 million in donations from Democrats. She was part of the 4-3 majority that voted to toss the Republican maps.

Donald Trump must pay an additional $83.3 million to E. Jean Carroll

A jury awarded $83.3 million to E. Jean Carroll on Friday in a stinging and expensive rebuke to former President Donald Trump for his continued social media attacks against the longtime advice columnist over her claims that he sexually assaulted her in a Manhattan department store. The award, coupled with a $5 million sexual assault and defamation verdict last year from another jury in a case brought by Carroll, raised to $88.3 million what Trump must pay her. Protesting vigorously, he said he would appeal. Carroll, 80, clutched her lawyers’ hands and smiled as the seven-man, two-woman anonymous jury delivered its verdict. Minutes later, she shared a weepy three-way hug with her attorneys. She declined comment as she left the Manhattan federal courthouse, but issued a statement later through a publicist, saying, “This is a great victory for every woman who stands up when she’s been knocked down, and a huge defeat for every bully who has tried to keep a woman down.” Trump had attended the trial earlier in the day, but stormed out of the courtroom during closing arguments by Carroll’s attorney. He returned for his own attorney’s closing argument and for a portion of the deliberations, but left the courthouse a half hour before the verdict was read. “Absolutely ridiculous!” he said in a statement shortly afterward. “Our Legal System is out of control, and being used as a Political Weapon.” His attorney, Alina Habba, said the verdict resulted because Trump’s opponents were suing “in states where they know they will get juries like this.” “It will not deter us. We will keep fighting. And, I assure you, we didn’t win today, but we will win,” she said. The trial reached its conclusion as Trump marches toward winning the Republican presidential nomination a third consecutive time. He has sought to turn his various trials and legal vulnerabilities into an advantage, portraying them as evidence of a weaponized political system. Though there’s no evidence that President Joe Biden or anyone in the White House has influenced any of the legal cases against him, Trump’s line of argument has resonated with his most loyal supporters, who view the proceedings with skepticism. Nikki Haley, his last major rival in the Republican primaries, said on social media Friday that the verdict meant that people were “talking about $83 million in damages” rather than fixing the border or inflation. With the Carroll civil case behind him, Trump still faces 91 criminal charges in four indictments accusing him of trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election, mishandling classified documents and arranging payoffs to a porn star.