Biden could preemptively pardon Liz Cheney, Anthony Fauci, after Trump’s threats of revenge – US politics stay

Attorneys for Donald Trump this morning appealed to the US supreme court docket to pause proceedings within the president-elect’s prosecution on enterprise fraud expenses in New York, forward of his sentencing scheduled for Friday, Reuters reviews.

Two earlier appeals to cease the sentencing have failed, and now the president-elect’s attorneys are petitioning the nation’s highest court docket, the place conservative justices, three of whom Trump appointed, maintain a six-seat supermajority. Trump’s attorneys need the case placed on pause whereas a separate attraction they’ve filed, which cites the court docket’s determination final yr in a separate Trump-related case that grants presidents immunity for official acts, performs out.

Juan Merchan, the New York decide presiding over the case, has signaled that he won’t sentence Trump to jail after being convicted of 34 felony expenses associated to concealing a cost to an grownup movie actor made forward of his 2016 election victory. Right here’s extra:

Good morning, US politics weblog readers. Joe Biden is in his ultimate days in workplace, and nonetheless has a couple of items of unfinished enterprise to cope with earlier than he palms energy to Donald Trump on 20 January. Considered one of them is deciding whether or not to difficulty preemptive pardons to political enemies of the incoming president, akin to former congresswoman Liz Cheney or Anthony Fauci, who spearheaded the battle in opposition to Covid-19 in Trump’s first time period. In an interview with USA At this time revealed right this moment – a uncommon, ultimate sit-down interview by a president who spent a lot of his time period avoiding the press – Biden confirmed he should decide to guard Trump’s enemies from prosecution, and signaled he would determine based mostly on who the president-elect appoints to prime roles in his administration.

In the meantime, Trump is scrambling to halt the sentencing in his legal enterprise fraud case that’s scheduled to happen in a Manhattan court docket on Friday. Reuters reviews that his attorneys have requested the US supreme court docket to intervene to pause the proceedings, although the New York decide presiding over the case has signaled he’s unlikely to condemn the president-elect to jail time. We are going to allow you to if the nation’s highest court docket responds.

Right here’s what else is occurring right this moment:

• Trump will this night trek to Capitol Hill for a technique assembly with the Republican senators tasked with enacting his administration’s priorities, starting from mass deportations to extending tax cuts enacted throughout his first time period.

• Marjorie Taylor Greene, the rightwing Georgia congresswoman, says she’s going to introduce laws to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America”, as Trump proposed at a rambling press convention yesterday.

• Los Angeles continues to be battered by three separate wildfires fueled by excessive winds. Observe our stay weblog as greater than 1,400 firefighters makes an attempt to comprise the flames.