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Georgia Election Racketeering Case: Donald Trump Set To Be Arrested

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Donald Trump is to surrender on racketeering charges and likely have his mugshot taken at a Georgia jail on Thursday, setting the stage for a fourth criminal trial next year as he bids to reclaim the White House.

The 77-year-old former president will be arrested at Atlanta’s notorious Fulton County Jail, accused of conspiring with 18 codefendants to try to overturn the 2020 election result in the key southern state.

The booking of the billionaire real estate tycoon in his fourth and final indictment sets up a year of unprecedented courtroom drama as he tries to balance appearing in the dock with hitting the campaign trail.

The arrest comes just hours after Trump spurned a televised primary debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin featuring eight of his rivals for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination — all of whom lag well behind him in the polls.

He managed to steal the spotlight though as the focus of questions, with all but two of the candidates saying they would support Trump as the party’s nominee even if he were convicted in any of the cases.

During a rambling pre-recorded interview with former Fox News talk show host Tucker Carlson — which aired on X, formerly known as Twitter, at the same time as the debate — Trump dismissed the four criminal indictments filed against him as “nonsense.”

He said the Justice Department had been “weaponized” under Democratic President Joe Biden to hamstring his White House bid.

A tight security perimeter has been set up ahead of Trump’s arrival at the Fulton County Jail, an overcrowded facility that is under investigation by the Justice Department for a slew of inmate deaths and deplorable living conditions.

Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney who brought the sweeping racketeering case, set a deadline of noon (1600 GMT) on Friday for the 19 defendants to surrender.

‘Proudly Be Arrested’

An exact time has not been given for Trump’s arrival, but the former president said in a post on his Truth Social platform it would be Thursday afternoon.

“NOBODY HAS EVER FOUGHT FOR ELECTION INTEGRITY LIKE PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP,” he posted, using all uppercase letters, adding he will “PROUDLY BE ARRESTED.”

Trump was able to dodge the humiliation of having a mugshot taken during his previous arrests this year: in New York on charges of paying hush money to a porn star, in Florida for mishandling top secret government documents, and in Washington on charges of conspiring to upend his 2020 election loss.

But Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat said standard procedure in Georgia is for a defendant to have a mugshot taken before they are released on bond — already set at $200,000 in Trump’s case.

Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who served as Trump’s personal lawyer when he was in the White House and vigorously pushed the false claims that Trump had won the 2020 election, was booked in the case on Wednesday.

Also facing charges in Georgia are Mark Meadows, Trump’s White House chief of staff, and John Eastman, a conservative lawyer who is accused of drawing up a scheme to submit a false slate of Trump electors to Congress from Georgia instead of the legitimate Biden ones.

Trump is the first US president in history to face criminal charges. The four trials will come during the Republican primary season, which begins in January, and at the height of the campaign for the November 2024 presidential vote.

Special counsel Jack Smith has proposed a January 2024 start date for Trump’s trial in Washington on charges of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election, a campaign of lies that culminated in the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol by his supporters.

Trump’s attorneys have countered with an April 2026 start date — well after the 2024 election.

Georgia prosecutors want the racketeering case to begin in March 2024, the same month Trump is scheduled to go on trial in New York on charges of paying hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels on the eve of the 2016 election.

The Florida case, in which Trump is accused of taking secret government documents as he left the White House and refusing to return them, is scheduled to begin in May.

AFP

International

Trump says he thinks Putin is helping Iran

“I think he might be helping them a bit, yeah.”“I guess, and he probably thinks we’re helping Ukraine, right?”

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President Donald Trump on Friday said he believed that Russian leader Vladimir Putin is helping Iran in its war against the United States and Israel.

According to CNBC, Trump’s comment came in a radio interview with Fox News host Brian Kilmeade, and a week after the president lashed out at Fox News reporter Peter Doocy for asking him at the White House about reports that Russia was aiding Iran.

Kilmeade asked Trump on Friday: “You think Putin is helping them?”

Trump replied, “I think he might be helping them a bit, yeah.”“I guess, and he probably thinks we’re helping Ukraine, right?” Trump continued.

“Yeah, we’re helping them also,” Trump said, referring to Ukraine, which has been at war against Russia since being invaded in early 2022.

“So he [Putin] says that, and China would say the same thing, you know,” Trump told Kilmeade.

“It’s like, ‘Hey, they do it, and we do it, in all fairness,’ ” Trump said. “They do it, and we do it.”

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International

IEA agrees to release record 400 million barrels of oil to address Iran war supply disruptions

The IEA did not set out a timeline for when the stocks would hit the market

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Merchant ship on fire hits by Iran in Strait of Hormuz.

The International Energy Agency on Wednesday agreed to release 400 million barrels of oil to address the supply disruption triggered by the Iran war, the largest such action in the organization’s history.

The IEA did not set out a timeline for when the stocks would hit the market.

It said that the reserves would be released over a time frame that is appropriate to the circumstances of each of its 32 member countries.

IEA members are primarily advanced economies in Europe, North America and northeast Asia. The organization is tasked with maintaining global energy security.

It was founded in 1974 in response to the oil embargo imposed by Arab producers over U.S. support for Israel during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.

(CNBC)

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Iran tells world to get ready for oil at $200 a barrel as it fires on merchant ships

The war unleashed with joint U.S. and Israeli air strikes nearly two weeks ago has so far killed around 2,000 people, mostly Iranians and Lebanese, as it has spread into ‌Lebanon and thrown global energy markets and transport into chaos.

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(REUTERS): Iran said the world should be ready for oil at $200 a barrel as its forces hit merchant ships on Wednesday and the International Energy Agency recommended a massive release of strategic reserves to dampen one of the worst oil shocks since the 1970s.

The war unleashed with joint U.S. and Israeli air strikes nearly two weeks ago has so far killed around 2,000 people, mostly Iranians and Lebanese, as it has spread into ‌Lebanon and thrown global energy markets and transport into chaos.

Despite what the Pentagon has described as the most intense airstrikes since the start of the war, Iran also fired at Israel and targets across the Middle East on Wednesday, demonstrating it can still fight back.

On Wednesday, three vessels were reported to have been hit in Gulf waters as Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said their forces had fired on ships in the Gulf that had disobeyed their orders.

While Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz said the operation “will continue without any time limit, as long as required, until we achieve all objectives and win the campaign,” Trump suggested the campaign would not last much longer.

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