U.S. former President and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump looks on at the conclusion of the second day of the 2024 Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on July 16, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

As questions swirl over how a would-be assassin managed to get anywhere near Donald Trump, some conservatives are blaming the Secret Service for hiring the women agents who threw themselves into the line of fire to protect the former president.

Women are too short, too weak — and in some cases, too overweight — to protect someone like Trump, according to people on the U.S. political right who accused the Secret Service of “woke” hiring practices they say nearly got the former president killed.

Several women can be seen among the black-suited, sunglass-clad agents racing to shield Trump with their bodies as the gunman opened fire at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, before hustling him from the stage and into a waiting car and safety.

But they, along with their boss Kimberly Cheatle — only the second-ever woman director of the federal agency tasked with protecting presidents current, former and would-be — are now caught in the intense scrutiny over the nearly catastrophic attack.

“There should not be any women in the Secret Service. These are supposed to be the very best, and none of the very best at this job are women,” right-wing activist Matt Walsh wrote on X, in one typical post.

“I can’t imagine that a DEI hire from @pepsi would be a bad choice as the head of the Secret Service. #sarcasm,” tweeted Republican congressman Tim Burchett.

Also Read | Secret Service agrees to independent probe over Trump shooting

Mr. Burchett was referring to Ms. Cheatle’s previous job as director of global security for Pepsi — a post she held for several years before returning to the Secret Service, where she had previously spent nearly three decades.

With the phrase DEI — diversity, equity and inclusion — he was invoking one of the most popular conservative fronts in the culture wars: the so-called “wokeification” of the workplace as employers strive to diversify their hiring practices beyond white men.

The first women were sworn in as Secret Service agents in 1971. CBS News reported last year that the agency aims to have 30% women recruits by 2030.

“I’m very conscious … of making sure that we need to attract diverse candidates and ensure that we are developing and giving opportunities to everybody in our workforce, and particularly women,” Ms. Cheatle told CBS at the time.

The wildly popular conservative Libs of TikTok account cited that interview in a post also blaming hiring practices for the Trump shooting that has received more than 10 million views on X.

“The results of DEI. DEI got someone killed,” it read.

‘Secret Service A-team’

Diverse hiring practices accelerated in 2020 after the George Floyd killing forced America into a new reckoning over racism and inclusivity.

But they have seen a growing backlash from conservatives in recent months who complain they unfairly disadvantage white workers in general, and white men in particular.

None other than Ohio Senator J.D. Vance — Trump’s newly-announced running mate — has spearheaded a recent bill to do away with such efforts.

Also Read | Who is Usha Chilukuri Vance, Trump’s running mate J.D. Vance’s Indian-origin wife

“DEI is racism, plain and simple. It’s time to outlaw it nationwide, starting with the federal government,” he tweeted last month as the bill was introduced.

Such practices at the Secret Service faced scrutiny as recently as May, when Congress launched an investigation after a female agent in Vice President Kamala Harris’s detail reportedly got into an altercation with colleagues.

The incident raised concerns about this agent’s hiring, Kentucky Republican James Comer said in a letter to Ms. Cheatle — specifically, whether staff shortages “had led the agency to lower once stricter standards as a part of a diversity, equity and inclusion effort.”

The Secret Service did not immediately respond to questions from AFP.

But in response to the Comer letter, spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told U.S. media that Secret Service employees “are held to the highest professional standards… at no time has the agency lowered these standards.”

Ms. Cheatle has shrugged off calls for her resignation since the shooting, and the agency has agreed to cooperate with an independent review ordered by President Joe Biden.

Mr. Comer has also announced that Ms. Cheatle will appear before a congressional panel on July 22 for a hearing on the assassination attempt.

Mr. Biden — in whose detail Ms. Cheatle served when he was vice president — told NBC News on Monday that he feels “safe with the Secret Service,” though he agreed it was an “open question” whether they should have anticipated the shooting.

When Trump made his first public appearance after the shooting, at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Monday, he appeared to be surrounded by an all-male Secret Service detail.

“Now THIS is how you protect a President,” posted conservative commentator Rogan O’Handley on X.

“Trump gets the Secret Service A-team now.”

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump during a campaign rally.
| Photo Credit: AP

A Florida judge appointed by Donald Trump has dismissed the criminal case against the former president on charges of mishandling top secret documents, saying the way that Special Counsel Jack Smith was appointed was improper.

The decision is a huge victory for Trump, who had been accused of endangering national security by holding onto top secret documents after leaving the White House.

Also read | Prosecutors in Trump’s classified documents case sharply rebuke judge’s unusual and ‘flawed’ order

Judge Aileen Cannon made her ruling after lawyers for the 78-year-old argued for a partial stay of proceedings to allow for an assessment of a Supreme Court ruling that a former president has broad immunity from prosecution.

“Former President Trump’s Motion to Dismiss Indictment Based on the Unlawful Appointment and Funding of Special Counsel Jack Smith is GRANTED,” Judge Aileen wrote in her order.

“The Superseding Indictment is DISMISSED because Special Counsel Smith’s appointment violates the Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution.”

It comes as Trump is set to be annointed as his party’s champion at the Republican National Convention, days after surviving an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania.

In the Florida case, Trump was facing 31 counts of “willful retention of national defense information,” each punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

He also faced charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice and making false statements.

Trump allegedly kept classified documents – which included records from the Pentagon and CIA – unsecured at his Mar-a-Lago home and thwarted efforts to retrieve them.

Donald Trump. File
| Photo Credit: AP

Former President Donald Trump’s sentencing in his hush money case has been postponed until at least September after the judge agreed Tuesday to weigh the possible impact of a new Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity.

Trump had been scheduled to face sentencing July 11 on his New York conviction on felony charges of falsifying business records. He denies any wrongdoing.

The postponement sets the sentencing for Sept. 18, well after the Republican National Convention, where Trump is set formally to accept the party’s nomination for president in this year’s race. The convention runs from July 15 to 18.

A Supreme Court ruling Monday granted broad immunity protections to presidents, while also restricting prosecutors from citing any official acts as evidence in trying to prove a president’s unofficial actions violated the law.

Hours after it was issued, Trump’s attorney requested that New York Judge Juan M. Merchan set aside the jury’s guilty verdict and delay the sentencing to consider how the high court’s ruling and could affect the hush money case.

He wrote that he’ll rule Sept. 6, and the next date in the case would be Sept. 18, “if necessary.”

Manhattan prosecutors said Tuesday that they wouldn’t oppose putting off the sentencing for at least two weeks.

In their filing Monday, defense attorneys argued that Manhattan prosecutors had placed “highly prejudicial emphasis on official-acts evidence,” including Trump’s social media posts and witness testimony about Oval Office meetings.

Prosecutors said Tuesday that they believed those arguments were “without merit,” but noted they were not opposed to adjourning the sentencing as the judge considers the matter.

Trump was convicted May 30 on 34 counts of falsifying business records arising from what prosecutors said was an attempt to cover up a $130,000 hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 presidential election.

Daniels claims she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006 after meeting him at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe. Trump has repeatedly denied that claim, saying at his June 27 debate with President Joe Biden: “I didn’t have sex with a porn star.”

Prosecutors said the Daniels payment was part of a broader scheme to buy the silence of people who might have gone public during the campaign with embarrassing stories alleging he had extramarital sex. Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen paid Daniels and was later reimbursed by Trump, whose company logged the reimbursements as legal expenses.

Falsifying business records is punishable by up to four years behind bars. Other potential sentences include probation, a fine or a conditional discharge which would require Trump to stay out of trouble to avoid additional punishment. Trump is the first ex-president convicted of a crime.

Trump will be required to be present in Merchan’s Manhattan courtroom when he is sentenced.

Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Donald Trump launched into attacks on the judge in his criminal trial and continued to undermine New York’s criminal justice system on May 31 as he tried to repackage his conviction on 34 felony charges as fuel, not an impediment, to his latest White House bid.

Trump spoke to reporters at his namesake tower in Manhattan on Friday, his return to campaigning a day after he was convicted of trying to illegally influence the 2016 election by falsifying business records to hide a hush money payment to a porn actor who claimed they had sex.

Also read | Analysis: How former U.S. President Donald Trump got convicted at his hush money trial

Trump, as defiant as ever, argued the verdict was illegitimate and driven by politics and sought to downplay the allegations underlying the case.

“It’s not hush money. It’s a nondisclosure agreement, totally legal, totally common,” he said.

In a message aimed to galvanize his supporters, he declared: “If they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone.”

While the guilty verdict against him and his vow to fight appeared to motivate his base of supporters, including those who began pouring donations into his campaign, it’s unclear if any of this will help him with independent voters who will be decisive in the November election.

No former president or presumptive party nominee has ever faced a felony conviction or the prospect of prison time, and Trump is expected to keep his legal troubles central to his campaign. He has long argued without evidence that the four indictments against him were orchestrated by Democratic President Joe Biden to try to keep him out of the White House. The hush money case was filed by local prosecutors in Manhattan who do not work for the Justice Department or any White House office.

Trump chose to start Friday in the atrium of Trump Tower, the brass and rose marble lobby where he descended his golden escalator to announce his 2016 campaign nine years ago next month.

In his disjointed remarks, Trump initially started attacking Biden on immigration and tax policies before pivoting to his case, growling that he was threatened with jail time if he violated a gag order. He picked apart intricate parts of the case and trial proceedings as unfair, making false statements and misrepresentations as he did so.

Trump said he wanted to testify but said the judge wanted to go into every detail. “I would have liked to have testified,” he said. “But you would have said something out of whack like ‘it was a beautiful sunny day,’ and it was actually raining out.”

Trump, who had the right to testify but didn’t, also tested the limits of the gag order that prohibits him from publicly critiquing witnesses including Michael Cohen, calling his former fixer, the star witness in the case, “a sleazebag.”

His son Eric Trump and daughter-in-law Lara Trump joined him, but his wife, Melania Trump, who has been publicly silent since the verdict, was not seen.

Outside, on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, supporters gathered across the street were flying a giant red “TRUMP OR DEATH” sign that was flapping in front of a high-end boutique. A small group of protesters held up signs that said “Guilty” and “Justice matters.”

On Friday morning, his campaign announced it had raised $34.8 million as donations poured in after the verdict. That’s more than $1 million for each felony charge and more than his political operation raised in January and February combined.

Trump and his campaign had been preparing for a guilty verdict for days, even as they held out hope for a hung jury. On Tuesday, Trump railed that not even Mother Teresa, the nun and saint, could beat the charges, which he repeatedly labeled as “rigged.”

His top aides on Wednesday released a memo in which they insisted a verdict would have no impact on the election, whether Trump was convicted or acquitted.

The news nonetheless landed with a jolt. Trump, his team and reporters at the courthouse had been under the impression that the jury on Thursday would wrap up deliberations for the day at 4:30 p.m. Trump sat smiling and chatting with his lawyers as the proceedings seemed to be coming to a close.

Trump had spent the hours before the verdict was announced sequestered in the private courtroom where he had spent breaks throughout the trial, huddled with his attorneys and campaign aides, eating from a revolving lunch menu of McDonald’s, pizza, and subs.

As the jury was deciding his fate, he filled his time making calls, firing off social media missives and chatting with friends, including developer Steve Witkoff, who joined him in court, and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who is considered a top vice presidential contender.

In a sign that they expected deliberations to continue, Trump’s holding room was outfitted with a television Thursday, according to two people familiar with the setup who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the case.

Instead, Merchan announced that a verdict had been reached. Thirty minutes later, Trump listened as the jury delivered a guilty verdict on every count. Trump sat stone-faced while the verdict was read.

His campaign fired off a flurry of fundraising appeals, and GOP allies rallied to his side. One text message called him a “political prisoner,” even though he hasn’t yet found out if he will be sentenced to prison. The campaign also began selling black “Make America Great Again” caps to reflect a “dark day in history.”

Aides reported an immediate rush of contributions so intense that WinRed, the platform the campaign uses for fundraising, crashed. The $34.8 million raised Thursday did not include what Trump collected at his in-person fundraiser or any donations that continued to come in online Friday.

“President Trump and our campaign are immensely grateful from this outpouring of support from patriots across our country,” Trump’s senior campaign advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles said in a statement. “President Trump is fighting to save our nation and November 5th is the day Americans will deliver the real verdict.”

Trump has long complained that the trial limited his campaign appearances for several weeks. “I want to campaign,” he had told reporters Thursday morning before a verdict was reached.

It is unclear, however, how much Trump’s schedule will ramp up in the days ahead. He held only a handful of public campaign events as the trial unfolded, despite the fact that he had Wednesdays, as well as evenings and weekends, to do what he wished.

He’s set in the upcoming two months to have his first debate with Biden, announce a running mate and formally accept his party’s nomination at the Republican National Convention.

But before he goes to Milwaukee for the RNC, Trump will have to return to court on July 11 for sentencing. He could face penalties ranging from a fine or probation up to four years in prison.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Lawyers for Donald Trump on Monday asked the federal judge presiding over his election subversion case in Washington to recuse herself, saying her past public statements about the former president and his connection to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol call into question whether she can be fair.

The recusal motion from Mr. Trump’s lawyers takes aim at U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, a former assistant public defender who was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama and has stood out as one of the toughest punishers of Jan. 6 defendants. The request is a long shot given the high threshold for recusal and because the decision on whether to recuse belongs to Chutkan, who is unlikely to see cause to step aside from the case.

Even so, the request that she give up the high-stakes trial marks the latest flashpoint in already delicate relations between the defense team and the judge, who has repeatedly cautioned the lawyers against inflammatory public comments from Mr. Trump but has nonetheless been lambasted on social media by him. Special counsel Jack Smith’s team signaled its own concern about his comments, writing last week that Mr. Trump’s daily statements — he has derided her as “highly partisan” — could taint a potential jury pool.

Chutkan last month scheduled the trial for March 4, 2024, over the vigorous objections of defense lawyers who said that would not give them enough time to prepare. The case in Washington, charging Mr. Trump in a four-count indictment with plotting to overturn the results of the 2024 election, is one of four criminal cases confronting the former president as he seeks reelection to the White House.

In asking Chutkan to step aside, the Mr. Trump legal team is relying on a familiar playbook. He tried unsuccessfully to get the judge removed from the hush-money case against him in New York state court, with his lawyers claiming that New York Judge Juan Manuel Merchan is biased because he’s given cash to Democrats and his daughter is a party consultant.

But the judge last month rejected Mr. Trump’s demand that he step aside, saying he is certain of his “ability to be fair and impartial.”

Federal judges are supposed to step aside in cases where their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” Other bases for recusal include a personal bias against one of the parties. Mr. Trump’s lawyers say Chutkan’s comments in cases against Jan. 6 rioters show she has “already formed an opinion about President Mr. Trump’s guilt” and many of the allegations that underpin the indictment against him.

“Although Judge Chutkan may genuinely intend to give President Mr. Trump a fair trial — and may believe that she can do so — her public statements unavoidably taint these proceedings, regardless of outcome,” the defense team wrote. “The public will reasonably and understandably question whether Judge Chutkan arrived at all of her decisions in this matter impartially, or in fulfillment of her prior negative statements regarding President Mr. Trump.”

Chutkan has often handed down prison sentences in Jan. 6 cases that are harsher than Justice Department prosecutors recommended. The judge also previously ruled against Mr. Trump in a separate Jan. 6 case, refusing his request to block the release of documents to the U.S. House’s Jan. 6 committee by asserting executive privilege.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers quoted from remarks Chutkan made in a 2022 sentencing hearing for Christine Priola, a Jan. 6 defendant from Ohio who pleaded guilty to obstructing Congress’ certification of Joe Biden’s electoral victory — one of the same charges Mr. Trump is facing.

“The people who mobbed that Capitol were there in fealty, in loyalty, to one man — not to the Constitution, of which most of the people who come before me seem woefully ignorant; not to the ideals of this country, and not to the principles of democracy,” Chutkan said. “It’s a blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.”

The defense also cited Chutkan’s comments from the sentencing of a rioter from Florida who attacked police officers working to hold back the rioters. During the December 2021 hearing for Robert Palmer — who was sentenced to more than five years in prison — Chutkan said the defendant “made a very good point” that the “people who exhorted” and encouraged him “to go and take action and to fight” had not been charged. Chutkan added that she doesn’t “make charging decisions” and has no “influence on that.”

“I have my opinions, but they are not relevant,” Chutkan said.

,Mr. Trump’s attorneys said that comment suggests she believed at the time that Mr. Trump should be charged.

“Public statements of this sort create a perception of prejudgment incompatible with our justice system. In a case this widely watched, of such monumental significance, the public must have the utmost confidence that the Court will administer justice neutrally and dispassionately,” Trump’s attorneys wrote.