'Citizen Trump': Appeals Court Says No Immunity in Jan. 6 Case

 By Jessica Corbett 

"A president being immune to prosecution would fly in the face of our nation's core values," said one legal analyst.

A three-judge panel from the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday unanimously ruled against former U.S. President Donald Trump's claims of immunity in a criminal case stemming from his efforts to overturn his 2020 loss.

"For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant. But any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as president no longer protects him against this prosecution," states the 57-page opinion.

The panel included one judge appointed by former GOP President George H.W. Bush and two appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden, who is seeking reelection this year. Trump is the Republican front-runner despite four ongoing criminal cases and arguments he is constitutionally disqualified from holding office again after engaging in insurrection on January 6, 2021.

Welcoming the development, the watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington declared: "Donald Trump is not above prosecution. The law and the Constitution apply to him just like they apply to every other American. This is a major victory for our democracy and the rule of law."

Lisa Gilbert, executive vice president of Public Citizen, said: "Yet another court has recognized that Trump's immunity arguments are absurd and held that he can be prosecuted for actions, undertaken while president, that enabled the January 6 insurrection. This decision puts yet another period at the end of the statement, 'No one is above the law.'"

People for the American Way President Svante Myrick also praised the decision, saying that "the judges on the D.C. Circuit court got it right: No president can swear to uphold the laws of the land and then enjoy immunity if he breaks them. The idea is absurd on its face and Donald Trump's claim of immunity is a desperate attempt to avoid accountability for his actions."

"But make no mistake; this ruling is likely to make Trump even more desperate, as he tries to escape criminal prosecution by any means—including winning reelection to the presidency so he can make this prosecution go away," he warned. "Now is the time to double down on our work to make sure Trump is held accountable for his crimes, and that he never occupies the Oval Office again."

The ruling aligns with the panel's skepticism during arguments last month. When one judge had challenged the limits of immunity by asking Trump's attorney whether a president could "order SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival," the lawyer responded that "he would have to be and would speedily be impeached and convicted before the criminal prosecution."

The panel's decision comes after Judge Tayna Chutkan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia—who rejected Trump's immunity claim in December—last week postponed his election interference trial, which had been scheduled for March. Trump is expected to appeal Tuesday's decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, whose right-wing supermajority includes three justices he appointed.

The mandate from the appellate court opinion denying Trump immunity "issues in six days on February 12," notedLos Angeles Times senior legal affairs columnist Harry Litman. "That's very quick and puts him in a box having to find a stay before then," from the full D.C. Circuit or the Supreme Court, or Chutkan can proceed with the trial.

The high court in December rejected a request from Special Counsel Jack Smith—who is overseeing Trump's two federal cases rather than the U.S. Justice Department because of the November election—that the justices skip over the appeals court to swiftly settle the immunity debate.

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Amid UNRWA funding crisis, desperate Gazans scour trucks for food

Despite ongoing Israeli bombardment prompted by Hamas-led attacks on 7 October that left some 1,200 dead in Israel and more than 250 taken hostage, UNRWA, continues to provide lifesaving aid in Gaza to more than two million civilians.

The war has killed at least 26,637 Palestinians in Gaza and left 65,387 injured, according to the enclave's health authorities. The Israeli military has reported 218 soldiers killed and 1,267 injured in Gaza.

As the largest humanitarian agency in the enclave, UNRWA also operates shelters for over one million people, providing food, water and healthcare services, while also playing the key role of facilitating the work of other UN and partner agencies there.

“The shelters, the health centres and everything else is provided in Gaza through UNWRA,” said Christian Lindmeier, spokesperson for the UN World Health Organization (WHO). Repeating the words of WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Mr. Lindmeier appealed to donors not to suspend funding to UNWRA “at this critical moment. Cutting off funding will only hurt the people of Gaza who desperately need support.”

The United States said on Friday it had suspended funding in response to allegations made against 12 UNRWA staffers who Israel says took part in the 7 October attacks. A full and urgent investigation is underway and some of the staff allegedly involved have been dismissed by the agency. 

Famine threat persists

Despite the efforts of the UN agency and other humanitarian partners operating in Gaza, many people are on the verge of famine after more nearly four months of war. 

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Some have resorted to scouring aid convoys for food and supplies, including one on Tuesday morning in the southern city of Khan Younis.

“We had a convoy just this morning trying to reach Nasser Hospital with patients, healthcare staff, everybody there needing food, but the very needy population already before basically took the supplies,” Mr. Lindmeier said.

The incident – far from a rare occurrence – “shows how dire the needs are”, he told journalists in Geneva, warning that disease among Gaza’s malnourished population “can just spread like wildfire and that’s on top of the bombing and the shelling and the collapsing buildings”.

Within Nasser Hospital itself, the WHO official reported that the situation “has only gotten worse", with "the shooting, the fighting…the difficulty of access for people to reach Nasser or the difficulty of leaving”.

Uprooted again

The development came as UN aid coordination office OCHA warned that more people had been uprooted from their homes amid ongoing fighting and evacuation orders from the Israeli military.

“We're in the midst of another wave of displacement in #Gaza, following eviction orders for large residential areas and amid intense hostilities,” OCHA said in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “More people are killed or injured. The south is overcrowded and humanitarian access to the north is extremely limited.”

Originally published January 30th, 2024 in the United Nations News Centre

See below for posts related to this topic:

Groups Intensify Global Push for Gaza Cease-Fire After ICJ Ruling,

'No One Is Spared': South Africa Presents Genocide Case Against Israel at ICJ

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Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger withdraw from ECOWAS

Land area under ECOWAS, which is condemned by West Africa’s popular movements as an agent of French imperialism, has been reduced to less than half after their withdrawal

January 30, 2024 by Peoples Dispatch

In a televised statement on Sunday, January 28, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger announced their withdrawal from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Their exit has shrunk the regional bloc, condemned by West Africa’s popular movements as an agent of French imperialism, to less than half its previous size, given the relatively vast expanse of Mali and Niger in the region.

Reduced from 15 member states to 12, ECOWAS has nevertheless said that the three countries, against whom it was set to go to war last year, “remain important members,” although it had already suspended and sanctioned them.

The “illegal, illegitimate, inhumane and irresponsible sanctions in violation of its own texts… have further weakened populations already bruised by years of violence… by… remote-controlled terrorist hordes,” said the joint statement of the three countries.

First to be suspended and sanctioned was Mali, where in 2020, the government of Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, widely perceived by their populations as a puppet of their former colonizer France, was overthrown by a military coup that enjoyed mass support. 

Following another coup in 2021, Col. Assimi Goita formed a transitional military government with popular support, including from the trade unions and the mass protest movement against the domination and military presence of its former colonizer France. Its popularity was consolidated as mass celebratory demonstrations cheered in the streets of Mali’s capital Bamako when Goita’s government ordered the French troops out in February 2022.

Also Read: Withdrawal of French troops from Mali is a historic, anti-imperialist victory

A month before, in January 2022, a similar set of events had been set into motion with a military coup against the government of Roch Marc Christian Kabore in neighboring Burkina Faso, which was also in the throes of mass anti-French protests.

Following another coup in September that year, Captain Ibrahim Traore formed a popularly supported transitional military government which followed in the footsteps of Mali and ordered the French troops out in January 2023. 

Only months after the withdrawal of French troops from Burkina Faso was completed in February 2023, another popular military coup followed in neighboring Niger on July 26. Its President Mohamed Bazoum, who had invited the French troops ordered out of Mali into Niger, was ousted by General Abdourahmane Tchiani. 

The ECOWAS not only suspended Niger and imposed sanctions on the largest country in the bloc, but also threatened a military invasion if Bazoum was not restored to presidency. 

The West African Peoples’ Organization (WAPO) condemned this ultimatum by ECOWAS as “a maneuver by colonial France and Great Britain, under the hegemony of American imperialism, to resort to armed intervention under the guise of restoring democracy and human rights in Niger.” 

Also Read: People’s movements oppose West-backed military intervention by ECOWAS in Niger 

Thousands took to the streets in Niger to demonstrate in support of the transitional military government, which ended the defense agreements with France on August 3 and ordered the withdrawal of French troops.  

Initially refusing to withdraw its troops and its ambassador from Niger on the grounds that it will only deal with the ousted government of Bazoum and does not recognize the military government, France backed the military invasion threatened by the ECOWAS. However, many of its member countries were faced with domestic opposition on the streets as well as in the parliament. 

In Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country with the strongest military in the bloc, its President Bola Tinubu, chosen as the chairperson of ECOWAS just over two weeks before the coup, could not secure the approval of the Senate for the military invasion. It called on Tinubu’s government to instead focus Nigeria’s armed forces on securing its own territory from Boko Haram’s insurgency. The African Union (AU) also clarified that it does not support the planned military invasion by ECOWAS. 

In the meantime, Mali and Burkina Faso extended support to Niger, and declared that an attack on it would be regarded as an attack on their own countries. Agreeing to mobilize the militaries of all three countries if anyone were attacked, the trio went on to form the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) in mid-September.   

Later that month, France, which was also facing increasingly angry mass protests as a regular feature outside its base and embassy in Niger, retreated from its earlier position and announced the withdrawal of its troops, which was completed in December. The G-5 Sahel coalition partnering with France’s failed military campaign against insurgencies in the Sahel also came to an end that month.

Following the lead of Mali, which had already withdrawn from this coalition in May 2022, Burkina Faso and Niger announced their withdrawal from G-5 Sahel in December. “The organization is failing to achieve its objectives. Worse, the legitimate ambitions of our countries, of making the G5 Sahel a zone of security and development, are hindered,” its joint statement said, adding “independence and dignity is not compatible with G5 participation in its current form.”

With three of the five countries of the coalition having withdrawn, the remaining two countries who are not ECOWAS members, namely Chad in central Africa and Mauritania in the continent’s northwest, dissolved the coalition on December 6. 

France had up to 5,500 troops in the Sahel at the peak of Operation Barkhane, which started in 2014 and ended in 2022 in failure as the violence by Islamic insurgencies it was fighting increased multifold in this period. This deployment, anchored in the G-5 Sahel, has been reduced to about a thousand troops in Chad, which is ruled by a French-backed military junta. However, the future of its grip on power appears uncertain as an anti-French protest movement is growing here too.   

Also Read: Under French-backed military ruler Mahamat Deby, Chad is a “pressure cooker waiting to explode” 

Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have all alleged that on being forced to withdraw, France is backing the very terrorist groups it had purported to be fighting over the last decade, after spawning them across the Sahel by participating in NATO’s war destroying Libya in 2011.          

Their statement announcing exit from ECOWAS also mentioned “remote-controlled terrorist hordes,” where the adjective insinuated alleged French involvement. The statement also added that “under the influence of foreign powers”, the regional bloc of ECOWAS “has become a threat to its member states”.

ECOWAS has insisted in response that it “remains determined to find a negotiated solution to the political impasse.” Such a statement, in the given context, can also be read as a reiteration of its determination to continue pressuring the three countries, including by penalizing its citizens with sanctions, to force a compromise with the French-backed political elite within.

This article originally appeared at PeoplesDispatch.org on December 13th, 2023.  

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The long arm of Washington extends into Africa’s Sahel

Joe Biden is meeting African leaders - why free trade is a major talking point

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Groups Intensify Global Push for Gaza Cease-Fire After ICJ Ruling

By Jessica Corbett

"An immediate cease-fire by all parties remains essential and—although not ordered by the court—is the most effective condition to implement the provisional measures and end unprecedented civilian suffering."

While welcoming the International Court of Justice's initial ruling in the South African-led case accusing Israel of genocide in the Gaza Strip, rights groups around the world on Friday renewed calls for a cease-fire.

The United Nations' top judicial body ordered Israel to "take all measures within its power" to uphold its obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide but stopped short of demanding an immediate cease-fire. The ICJ proceedings that could find Israel guilty of genocide are expected to take years—time that the people of Gaza don't have.

"Today's decision is an authoritative reminder of the crucial role of international law in preventing genocide and protecting all victims of atrocity crimes," said Amnesty International secretary general Agnès Callamard. "It sends a clear message that the world will not stand by in silence as Israel pursues a ruthless military campaign to decimate the population of the Gaza Strip and unleash death, horror, and suffering against Palestinians on an unprecedented scale."

"However, the ICJ decision alone cannot put an end to the atrocities and devastation Gazans are witnessing," she continued. "Alarming signs of genocide in Gaza, and Israel's flagrant disregard for international law highlight the urgent need for effective, unified pressure on Israel to stop its onslaught against Palestinians. An immediate cease-fire by all parties remains essential and—although not ordered by the court—is the most effective condition to implement the provisional measures and end unprecedented civilian suffering."

As of Friday, Israel's retaliation for the Hamas-led attack on October 7 has killed at least 26,083 Palestinians—including 11,500 children—and wounded over 64,400 others, according to Gaza officials. The Israeli blockade and bombardment have also devastated civilian infrastructure, displaced most of the enclave's 2.3 million residents, and deprived them of much-needed commercial goods and humanitarian aid.

Stressing that "the stakes could not be higher," Callamard called on leaders from the United States—which gives Israel billions of dollars in military support—along with the United Kingdom, Germany, and other European Union members to "signal their respect for the court's legally binding decision and do everything in their power to uphold their obligation to prevent genocide."

Tens of thousands killed, over a million displaced, Israelis held hostage in the Gaza Strip, Hunger and a humanitarian catastrophe \u2013 all oblige Israel to stop the fighting.\nCeasefire - Now.

— (@)

Balkees Jarrah, associate international justice director at Human Rights Watch, also demanded that Israel and its allies immediately comply with the court's order on provisional measures, declaring that "lives hang in the balance, and governments need to urgently use their leverage to ensure that the order is enforced."

"The ICJ's speedy ruling is recognition of the dire situation in Gaza, where civilians face starvation and are being killed daily at levels unprecedented in the recent history of Israel and Palestine," Jarrah added. "The court's clear and binding order raises the stakes for Israel's allies to back up their stated commitment to a global rules-based order by helping ensure compliance with this watershed ruling."

Some governments across the world hailed the ICJ ruling as progress—even though Israeli leaders quickly made clear they have no plans to end the war. A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said in part that "we continue to believe that allegations of genocide are unfounded and note the court did not make a finding about genocide or call for a cease-fire in its ruling."

Journalists and legal experts called the response from the United States a "mischaracterization" of the ICJ ruling intended to "justify U.S. policy instead of adjusting U.S. policy" and a signal that President Joe Biden has no plans to "stand up for justice."

\u2696\ufe0fThe provisional measures issued by @CIJ_ICJ order Israel to prevent acts of genocide (incl killing of Palestinians) + to ensure its military does not commit these acts. \n\nThis is very much a challenge to the @StateDept take that has justified illegal collective punishment. (2)

— (@)

Still, in a statement Friday, the U.S.-based anti-war group CodePink praised the ruling as "a crucial step toward justice" and asserted that "the only way to ensure Israel complies with the provisional measures is through an immediate cease-fire."

"CodePink reiterates its urgent call to the Biden administration and Congress to promptly terminate all financial support to Israel, given its perpetration of genocidal actions, and to demand an immediate cease-fire," the group said. "We will follow this historic case as it proceeds and continue to advocate in Congress, email and call our representatives, push for city cease-fire resolutions, and, of course, protest, rally, and disrupt until the genocide in Gaza ends and Palestine is free."

Leaders at Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), which has spearheaded numerous protests across the United States demanding an end to U.S. support for Israel's unrelenting assault of Gaza, also took aim at Biden—who is seeking reelection this year—and vowed to keep up the fight.

"For over 100 days, the Israeli and the U.S. governments have gaslit and smeared the Palestinian people, denying what the entire world was witnessing: a genocide," noted JVP political director Beth Miller. "Now, the highest court in the world has found these claims plausible. President Biden has a choice to make: He can reject the entire system of international law and continue complicity in Israeli genocide, or he can stop arming a genocidal regime and stop attacking the people and movements struggling to build a more just and peaceful future."

As a hearing was held in U.S. court for a case accusing the Biden administration of complicity in the genocidal violence, JVP executive director Stefanie Fox said, "We don't need courts to tell us genocide is a moral catastrophe, but we do need courts to impose accountability when our own government has so shamefully worked to abet, fund, arm and secure impunity for the Israeli government's genocidal attack on Palestinians in Gaza."

"From here, the next step is clear: an immediate, permanent cease-fire," she added. "We're not stopping until Palestinians, like everyone else, live in justice, safety, and freedom."

Read the post below related to this topic
South Africa Initiates Case Against Israel at International Court of Justice, 

'Crucial Moment in History': ICJ Orders Israel to Prevent Acts of Genocide in Gaza

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'Crucial Moment in History': ICJ Orders Israel to Prevent Acts of Genocide in Gaza

By Jake Johnson

"One thing has been made clear on the world stage: There is vastly documented evidence that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians," said the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights.

The International Court of Justice ruled Friday that South Africa's genocide case is plausible and ordered Israel to "take all measures within its power" to uphold its obligations under Article II of the Genocide Convention.

The court also ordered the Israeli government to ensure its military does not commit violations of the convention in Gaza, punish those who incite genocide, immediately provide basic services and humanitarian assistance to Gazans, prevent the destruction of evidence that could show violations of international law, and submit a report to the ICJ on all steps it takes to implement the above measures.

The ICJ did not grant South Africa's request for a cease-fire.

While a final determination from the court on whether Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza could be years away, Friday's ruling from the United Nations' highest court was seen as a huge blow to the Israeli government and its top arms supplier, the United States, which called South Africa's case "meritless."

"This ruling from the ICJ is a massive legal defeat for Israel and its premiere defenders, the U.S. and Germany," The Intercept's Jeremy Scahill wrote Friday. "The question now is enforceability and whether the U.S. will openly trample international law in an effort to continue aiding Israeli crimes against Palestinians."

As she read the court's interim decision, ICJ President Joan Donoghue cited testimony from United Nations officials and others on the appalling conditions on the ground in the Gaza Strip, where most of the population is displaced, starving, and struggling to survive Israel's relentless aerial and ground assault.

Donoghue said the court deemed the threat of "irreparable harm" to Gazans real and concluded that emergency measures were necessary to protect the Palestinian population from genocide.

"This is a crucial moment in history to finally holding Israel accountable," the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights said in response to the decision. "One thing has been made clear on the world stage: There is vastly documented evidence that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians."

Read the post below related to this topic

South Africa Initiates Case Against Israel at International Court of Justice, Common Dreams

Groups Intensify Global Push for Gaza Cease-Fire After ICJ Ruling, Common Dreams

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