The Indian Panorama

Tag: George W. Bush

  • Judge vacates upcoming Eric Adams corruption trial; Appoints conservative attorney to argue against dropping the case

    Judge vacates upcoming Eric Adams corruption trial; Appoints conservative attorney to argue against dropping the case

    NEW YORK (TIP): A federal judge has vacated the upcoming trial date for New York City Mayor Eric Adams, but declined to immediately dismiss the charges all together in a case that has roiled the Justice Department. Judge Dale Ho, instead, is appointing conservative attorney Paul Clement to present arguments challenging the Justice Department’s decision to drop charges against Adams and as he explores what his options are and if a dismissal is in the public interest.

    The DOJ move to end the case against Adams has prompted an exodus of prosecutors who disagreed with the decision. Eight federal prosecutors, including the interim US attorney for the Southern District of New York, have resigned in protest. Four deputy mayors have departed City Hall as well.

    Adams, who consented in writing to the deal to drop the charges, has denied any quid pro quo with the Trump administration for dropping the charges of bribery, corruption, wire fraud and soliciting and accepting donations from foreign nationals in exchange for boosting President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda.

    The Justice Department was represented earlier this week by acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, one of Trump’s former personal attorneys, after protests from DOJ prosecutors. Bove defended the motion to drop charges against Adams, stressing that the DOJ headquarters has prosecutorial discretion and a prosecution of Adams interferes with the Trump administration’s immigration initiatives in New York City. He also pushed back against claims of a quid pro quo between Adams and the Trump administration.

    Bove added at one point, unprompted, “I want to be clear I think the only question is whether there’s any basis to believe that I made these representations to the court in bad faith, and the answer to that is absolutely not.”

    In his ruling Friday, Ho said “it is clear” that the April 21 trial date will be canceled.

    But his move to appoint Clement means the charges against Adams will not go away.

    Clement, who served as solicitor general under former President George W. Bush, is one of the nation’s leading Supreme Court advocates.

    Over the years, he’s helped push the law in the US further to the right through a range of cases he’s argued and won before the high court, including one last year in which the court’s conservative supermajority overturned a longstanding legal doctrine that gives federal agencies wide latitude to create policies and regulations in various areas of life and another one from several years ago that dramatically expanded Second Amendment rights. “Normally, courts are aided in their decision-making through our system of adversarial testing, which can be particularly helpful in cases presenting unusual fact patterns or in cases of great public importance,” Ho wrote Friday.

    “Here, the recent conference helped clarify the parties’ respective positions, but there has been no adversarial testing of the Government’s position generally or the form of its requested relief specifically,” he added, referring to this week’s hearing.

    Briefs are due by March 7 and Ho says he’ll hold a hearing March 14, if necessary.

  • Biden announces withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan by September 11

    Biden announces withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan by September 11

    WASHINGTON (TIP): President Joe Biden on Wednesday, April14, formally announced his decision to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan before September 11, the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that led the US into its longest war.

    “We cannot continue the cycle of extending or expanding our military presence in Afghanistan hoping to create the ideal conditions for our withdrawal, expecting a different result,” Biden said.

    “I am now the fourth American president to preside over an American troop presence in Afghanistan. Two Republicans. Two Democrats,” he added. “I will not pass this responsibility to a fifth.” In a sign he views his remarks as a historic bookend to the prolonged conflict, he delivered them from precisely the same spot in the White House Treaty Room that President George W. Bush announced the start of the war on October 7, 2001. Afterward he’ll visit the section of Arlington National Cemetery where many of America’s war dead from Afghanistan are buried.

    Biden will say that American diplomatic and humanitarian efforts will continue in Afghanistan and would support peace efforts between the Afghan government and the Taliban. But he’ll be unequivocal that two decades after it began, the Afghanistan war is ending.

    “It is time to end America’s longest war. It is time for American troops to come home,” he said.

    Biden said the withdrawal will begin on May 1, in line with an agreement President Donald Trump’s administration made with the Taliban. He said the complete withdrawal will be done by September 11. The deadline Biden has set is absolute, with no potential for extension based on worsening conditions on the ground. Officials said after two decades of war, it was clear to the President that throwing more time and money at Afghanistan’s problems wasn’t going to work.

    “This is not conditions-based,” a senior administration official heavily involved in the deliberations said on Tuesday. “The President has judged that a conditions-based approach, which has been the approach of the past two decades, is a recipe for staying in Afghanistan forever.”

    (Source: CNN)

  • Change of Guard in America

    Change of Guard in America

    • Joe Bidenis sworn in as the 46th President, Kamala Harris as the 49th Vice president
    • Former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton attend inauguration
    • Biden tells the nation ‘democracy has prevailed’, calls for unity
    Kamala Harris takes oath as the 49th Vice president of the USA. US Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the court’s first Latina member, administered the oath of office (CNN Screenshot)

    I.S. Saluja

    WASHINGTON (TIP): Democrat Joe Biden was sworn in as president of the United States on Wednesday, January 20, assuming the helm of a country reeling from deep political divides, a battered economy and a raging coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 400,000 Americans.

    With his hand on a five-inch-thick heirloom Bible that has been in his family for more than a century, Biden took the presidential oath of office administered by US Chief Justice John Roberts just after noon (1700 GMT), vowing to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

    “Through a crucible for the ages, America has been tested anew, and America has risen to the challenge,” Biden said as he began his inaugural address. “Today we celebrate the triumph not of a candidate but of a cause: the cause of democracy…At this hour, my friends, democracy has prevailed.” Biden, 78, became the oldest US president in history at a scaled-back ceremony in Washington that was largely stripped of its usual pomp and circumstance, due both to the coronavirus and security concerns following the Jan. 6 assault on the US Capitol by supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump. The norm-defying Trump flouted one last convention on his way out of the White House when he refused to meet with Biden or attend his successor’s inauguration, breaking with a political tradition seen as affirming the peaceful transfer of power. Trump, who never conceded the November 3 election, did not mention Biden by name in his final remarks as president on Wednesday morning, when he touted his administration’s record and promised to be back “in some form.” He boarded Air Force One for the last time and headed to his Mar-a-Lago retreat in Florida. Top Republicans, including Vice President Mike Pence and the party’s congressional leaders, attended Biden’s inauguration, along with former U.S. Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

    Biden’s running mate, Kamala Harris, the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India, became the first Black person, first woman and first Asian American to serve as vice president after she was sworn in by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the court’s first Latina member.

    Harris used two Bibles, including one owned by Thurgood Marshall, the first Black US Supreme Court Justice.

    Biden takes office at a time of deep national unease, with the country facing what his advisers have described as four compounding crises: the pandemic, the economic downtown, climate change and racial inequality. He has promised immediate action, including a raft of executive orders on his first day in office. The ceremony on Wednesday unfolded in front of a heavily fortified US Capitol, where a mob of Trump supporters stormed the building two weeks ago, enraged by his false claims that the election was stolen with millions of fraudulent votes. The violence prompted the Democratic-controlled US House of Representatives to impeach Trump last week for an unprecedented second time. Thousands of National Guard troops were called into the city after the siege, which left five people dead and briefly forced lawmakers into hiding. Instead of a throng of supporters, the National Mall on Wednesday was covered by nearly 200,000 flags and 56 pillars of light meant to represent people from US states and territories.

    (With inputs from agencies)