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  • Rudy Giuliani ordered to appear in court after missing deadline to turn over Mercedes, other assets

    Rudy Giuliani ordered to appear in court after missing deadline to turn over Mercedes, other assets

    A judge has ordered Rudy Giuliani to appear in a New York courtroom to explain why he missed a deadline to surrender his belongings — including a Mercedes that appeared to be the same car he was spotted in Tuesday — as part of a $148 million defamation judgment.

    U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman issued the order late Monday after lawyers for Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss — two former Georgia election workers who were awarded the massive judgement — reported to the court that they went to Giuliani’s Manhattan apartment last week to see what assets were there, but that it had been cleared out.

    Liman had set an Oct. 29 deadline for Giuliani to surrender many of his possessions to representatives for Freeman and Moss, but none of the items has been turned over yet, lawyers for the former election workers said Monday. The judge ordered Giuliani and his lawyers to appear in court on Thursday.

    Those possessions include his $5 million Upper East Side apartment, a 1980 Mercedes once owned by movie star Lauren Bacall, and a variety of other belongings — from his television to a shirt signed by New York Yankees legend Joe DiMaggio to 26 luxury watches.

    On Tuesday, media reports showed Giuliani in the passenger seat of what appeared to be a 1980 Mercedes, with another man driving, at a polling place in Palm Beach, Florida, where Donald Trump cast his ballot. It could not be immediately confirmed if it was the same car he was supposed to turn over.

    Aaron Nathan, a lawyer for Freeman and Moss, pointed out the reports of Giuliani in the Mercedes to the judge in a court filing Tuesday.

    “It is clear that Mr. Giuliani is flouting his obligations under the Court’s Turnover and Receivership Order,” Nathan wrote.

    Michael Ragusa, head of Giuliani’s security, sent a statement to The Associated Press referencing the 1980 Mercedes.

    “Mayor Giuliani, is an 80-year-old man with a bad knee and 9/11-related lung disease, he relies on this vehicle as his primary means of transportation in Florida, where there is no mass transit system like New York City’s,” Ragusa wrote. “The way he is being pushed toward poverty by those targeting him — after all he has done for this country — is appalling and it is clearly politically motivated.”

    Giuliani’s spokesperson, Ted Goodman, added that Giuliani’s lawyers have “requested documentation to transfer over the title of the vehicle, and haven’t heard back from opposing counsel.”

    The judge originally scheduled a status conference by phone for Thursday, but changed it to an in-person hearing and specifically ordered Giuliani to appear in person in response to the report by Freeman and Moss’ attorneys.

    Goodman said Giuliani has made his possessions available to Freeman and Moss. He did not directly answer questions about why no assets have been turned over so far.

    “Opposing counsel, acting either negligently or deliberately in a deceptive manner, are simply attempting to further bully and intimidate Mayor Giuliani until he is rendered penniless and homeless,” Goodman said in a statement. “This is just another way that they’ve weaponized our once-sacred justice system. It should concern each and every American.”

    Goodman added that Giuliani has put “a few items” in storage over the past year and “anything else removed was related to his two livestream programs that stream each and every weeknight across his social media platforms.”

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    Lawyers for Giuliani did not return email messages seeking comment Monday night or Tuesday morning.

    On Tuesday afternoon, Liman rejected a request made earlier in the day by Giuliani’s lawyer, Kenneth Caruso, to either postpone the in-person hearing to next week or hold it by phone Thursday as originally planned. Caruso said in a court filing that Giuliani had a “contractual commitment” to perform a live radio broadcast on Thursday and Friday evenings.

    “In order to keep this commitment, he needs to be in his condo in Palm Beach, where he has his broadcasting equipment,” Caruso wrote, referring to Giuliani’s property in Florida. “We note that broadcasts, such as those described above, currently provide Mr. Giuliani’s only source of earned income.”

    Liman turned down the request, saying in a ruling posted on the court case docket that “no good cause has been provided.”

    Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and longtime ally of Trump, was found liable for defamation for falsely accusing Freeman and Moss of ballot fraud during the 2020 election. Giuliani accused them of sneaking in ballots in suitcases, counting ballots multiple times and tampering with voting machines, as he pushed Trump’s unsubstantiated election fraud allegations.

    Freeman and Moss said the lies led to death threats against them that made them fear for their lives. A jury awarded them $148 million last year, and they have been seeking to take possession of many of Giuliani’s assets in the court case in New York.

    Nathan said in court documents that Giuliani and his lawyers have refused to answer basic questions about the location of most of the valuables subject to the court order.

    On Thursday, lawyers for the women were given access to Giuliani’s New York apartment in order to assess, along with a moving company representative, the transportation and storage needs for the property meant to be turned over.

    Nathan wrote that the residence was already “substantially empty” when the group arrived and that they were told most of the contents of the apartment had been moved out about four weeks prior.

    That, Nathan said, includes the “vast majority” of the valuables known to be stored there, including art, sports memorabilia and expensive furniture.

    Giuliani’s lawyers have argued — so far unsuccessfully — that Freeman and Moss should not be allowed to obtain and sell his belongings while his appeal is pending in a federal court in Washington.

  • Democratic-backed justices look to defend control of Michigan’s Supreme Court

    Democratic-backed justices look to defend control of Michigan’s Supreme Court

    DETROIT (AP) — Michigan Democrats and their allies were defending their majority on the state’s Supreme Court on Tuesday after a campaign marked by exorbitant spending.

    Court races are nonpartisan but candidates are nominated at party conventions. Democratic-backed justices currently hold a 4-3 edge, and Republicans have sought to flip it to regain a margin of control in a state dominated by Democrats for the past two years. They need to win both seats up for election to do so.

    The four candidates largely spent their official campaign resources on touting their career experiences and qualifications, leaving state parties and outside spending groups to define the issues.

    Republican-backed Judge Patrick O’Grady is seeking election to the seat held by Justice Kyra Harris Bolden, who unsuccessfully ran for the court before she was appointed to a vacancy in 2022 by Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

    She’s the first Black woman on the bench and would be the first to be elected justice if she wins the race. O’Grady has campaigned on his experience as a state trooper, prosecutor and longtime circuit judge in southern Michigan. The winner will serve the last four years of the eight-year term vacated in 2022 by former Justice Bridget McCormick.

    Republican nominee state Rep. Andrew Fink and Democratic nominee law professor Kimberly Anne Thomas are competing for a full-term seat being vacated by Justice David Viviano, a Republican-backed justice. Thomas and Bolden have campaigned arm and arm since they were officially nominated by the Democratic party in August.

    Fink, like O’Grady, has said his election would restore balance to a court accused of “legislating from the bench” in favor of liberal causes and Democratic policy in recent years.

    Abortion access was enshrined in the state constitution by voters in 2022. Democratic allies have framed the race through the lens of reproductive rights, saying the court has the potential to rule on abortion in the future. Republicans have rejected this idea, saying the amendment finalized abortion protections that cannot be undone.

  • Justices who split on an abortion measure ruling vie to lead Arkansas Supreme Court

    Justices who split on an abortion measure ruling vie to lead Arkansas Supreme Court

    LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Two justices who split on whether Arkansas voters should have the chance to scale back the state’s abortion ban are both vying to lead the state Supreme Court, though the election won’t affect the court’s conservative tilt.

    Justices Rhonda Wood and Karen Baker are running to replace Chief Justice Dan Kemp in Tuesday’s election, where the state’s four congressmen are fending off challenges from Democratic candidates.

    Voters will also be asked to approve a constitutional amendment that would revoke the license issued by a state panel for a casino.

    A historic race for chief justice

    No matter if Wood or Baker wins, history will be made: For the first time, Arkansas will elect a woman to chief justice of its Supreme Court.

    The two justices were on opposites sides of the debate over whether to keep a measure on the ballot that would have scaled back an Arkansas law banning nearly all abortions.

    Wood wrote the court’s 4-3 majority opinion that upheld the state’s decision to reject petitions submitted in favor of the proposal. The court ruled sponsors of the measure did not comply with paperwork requirements for paid signature gatherers.

    In a blistering dissent, Baker asked: “Why are the respondent and the majority determined to keep this particular vote from the people?”

    Though the seats are nonpartisan, Wood is running with the endorsement of the Republican Party of Arkansas’ state committee, Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and GOP Sen. Tom Cotton. Conservatives are already ensured a 5-2 majority on the court, with Sanders slated to fill two vacancies on the seven-member court after the election.

    Arkansas has had one woman serve as chief justice, but Betty Dickey was appointed to the post by former Gov. Mike Huckabee in 2003, not elected.

    Republicans look to defend U.S. House seats

    All four of Arkansas’ Republican congressmen are fending off challenges from Democrats who are trying to break the GOP’s hold on all of the state’s federal seats.

    Rep. Rick Crawford is running against Democrat Rodney Govens for the 1st District, which covers east Arkansas. Crawford was first elected in 2010 to represent the district, which includes Jonesboro and West Memphis. He is a senior member of the House Agriculture Committee and has said he’ll seek the top Republican spot on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Govens is a Cabot resident who has worked in the telecommunications industry. Libertarian nominee Steve Parsons is also running.

    Rep. French Hill faces Democrat Marcus Jones in the race for the 2nd District, which includes Little Rock and surrounding areas. Hill was first elected to the seat in 2014 and is vice chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. Jones is a retired Army colonel who served as senior Army adviser to the Arkansas Army National Guard at Camp Robinson.

    In northwest Arkansas’ 3rd District Rep. Steve Womack is running against Democrat Caitlin Draper, a clinical social worker. Womack was first elected in 2010 to the district, which includes Fayetteville and Fort Smith. Libertarian Bobby Wilson is also running. Womack, a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, fended off a challenge in the Republican primary earlier this year from a state legislator.

    And in the 4th District, which covers south Arkansas, Rep. Bruce Westerman is running against Democrat Risie Howard, an attorney from Pine Bluff. Westerman was first elected to the U.S. House in 2014 and chairs the House Committee on Natural Resources.

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    Voters decide the fate of planned casino

    A measure on the ballot in Arkansas could block the last of four casinos that voters approved in what has become a battle between the Cherokee and Choctaw nations.

    The proposed constitutional amendment would revoke a license the state issued to Cherokee Nation Entertainment to build a casino in Pope County. Choctaw Nation has spent more than $17 million on the campaign for the proposal.

    Pope County was one of four sites where casinos were allowed to be built under a constitutional amendment that voters approved in 2018. Casinos have already been set up in the other three locations. Cherokee Nation Businesses has spent more than $12 million on the campaign against the amendment.

    Other proposals that would have scaled back the state’s abortion ban and expanded its medical marijuana program were blocked from the ballot by state election officials.

    Another measure that the state Legislature voted to place on the ballot would allow proceeds from the state’s lottery to be used to fund scholarships at vocational and technical schools.

  • Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, ends federal abortion rights

    Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, ends federal abortion rights

    Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, ending decades of federal abortion rights

    The Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision on Friday overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that established the constitutional right to abortion in the U.S. in 1973.

    The court’s controversial but expected ruling gives individual states the power to set their own abortion laws without concern of running afoul of Roe, which had permitted abortions during the first two trimesters of pregnancy.

    Follow live coverage of reaction to abortion decision here

    Almost half the states are expected to outlaw or severely restrict abortion as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision, which is related to a highly restrictive new Mississippi abortion law. The laws will affect tens of millions of people around the country, who may have to cross state lines to seek reproductive health care.

    Other states plan to maintain more liberal rules governing the termination of pregnancies.

    Supporters of abortion rights immediately condemned the ruling, while abortion opponents praised a decision they had long hoped for and worked to ensure. Protesters descended on the Supreme Court on Friday to speak out both for and against a decision that will upend decades of precedent in the U.S.

    Read the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade here

    Abortion opponents celebrate outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on June 24, 2022.

    Olivier Douliery | AFP | Getty Images

    Justice Samuel Alito, as expected, wrote the majority opinion that tossed out Roe as well as a 1992 Supreme Court decision upholding abortion rights in a case known as Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

    Alito was joined in that judgment by four other conservatives on the high court. Chief Justice John Roberts voted with the majority to uphold the Mississippi abortion restrictions but did not approve of overturning Roe altogether.

    The majority also included three justices appointed by former President Donald Trump: Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

    The court’s three liberal justices filed a dissenting opinion to the ruling, which quickly drew protestors to the Supreme Court building on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.

    “We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” Alito wrote.

    “The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including the one on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now chiefly rely — the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,” Alito wrote.

    “That provision has been held to guarantee some rights that are not mentioned in the Constitution, but any such right must be ‘deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition’ and ‘implicit in the concept of ordered liberty,” he added.

    “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives,” Alito wrote.

    In their scathing joint dissent, the court’s liberal justices wrote, “The majority has overruled Roe and Casey for one and only one reason: because it has always despised them, and now it has the votes to discard them. The majority thereby substitutes a rule by judges for the rule of law.”

    “The majority would allow States to ban abortion from conception onward because it does not think forced childbirth at all implicates a woman’s rights to equality and freedom,” said the dissent by Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

    “Today’s Court, that is, does not think there is anything of constitutional significance attached to a woman’s control of her body and the path of her life,” it said. “A State can force her to bring a pregnancy to term, even at the steepest personal and familial costs.”

    In a concurring opinion with the majority ruling, the conservative Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that in light of the rationale for overturning Roe, the Supreme Court should reconsider its rulings in three other past cases which established a right to use birth control, and which said there is a constitutional right for gay people to have sex and marry one another.

    Friday’s bombshell decision came a day after the Supreme Court in another controversial ruling invalidated a century-old New York law that had made it very difficult for people to obtain a license to carry a gun outside of their homes.

    Anti-abortion protestors march in front of the U.S. Supreme Court building as the court considers overturning Roe v. Wade on June 13, 2022, in Washington, DC.

    Roberto Schmidt | AFP | Getty Images

    The case that triggered Roe’s demise, known as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, is related to a Mississippi law that banned nearly all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

    Dobbs was by far the most significant and controversial dispute of the court’s term.

    It also posed the most serious threat to abortion rights since Planned Parenthood v. Casey, in which the Supreme Court reaffirmed Roe.

    Dobbs deepened partisan divisions in a period of already intense political tribalism.

    The early May leak of a draft of the majority opinion, which completely overturned Roe, sent shockwaves across the country and galvanized activists on both sides of the debate. It also cast a pall over the nation’s highest court, which immediately opened an investigation to find the source of the leak.

    The publication of the court’s draft opinion, written by Alito, sparked protests from abortion-rights supporters, who were outraged and fearful about how the decision will impact both patients and providers as 22 states gear up to restrict abortions or ban them outright.

    The leaked opinion marked a major victory for conservatives and anti-abortion advocates who had worked for decades to undermine Roe and Casey, which the majority of Americans support keeping in place.

    But Republican lawmakers in Washington, who are hoping to win big in the November midterm elections, initially focused more on the leak itself than on what it revealed. They also decried the protests that formed outside the homes of some conservative justices, accusing activists of trying to intimidate the court.

    The unprecedented leak of Alito’s draft opinion blew a hole in the cloak of secrecy normally shrouding the court’s internal affairs. It drew harsh scrutiny from the court’s critics, many of whom were already concerned about the politicization of the country’s most powerful deliberative body, where justices are appointed for life.

    Roberts vowed that the work of the court “will not be affected in any way” by the leak, which he described as a “betrayal” intended to “undermine the integrity of our operations.”

    The leak had clearly had an impact, however. Tall fencing was set up around the court building afterward, and Attorney General Merrick Garland directed the U.S. Marshals Service to “help ensure the Justices’ safety.”

  • Supreme Court will weigh in on new mostly Black Louisiana congressional district, after election

    Supreme Court will weigh in on new mostly Black Louisiana congressional district, after election

    WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court said Monday it will take up a new redistricting case involving Louisiana’s congressional map with two mostly Black districts.

    The court won’t hear arguments until early next year and the 2024 elections are proceeding under the challenged map, which could boost Democrats’ chances of retaking the closely divided House of Representatives.

    A lower court had invalidated the map, but the justices allowed it to be used in 2024 after an emergency appeal from the state and civil rights groups.

    The issue in front of the justices is whether the state relied too heavily on race in drawing a second majority Black district.

    The court’s order Monday is the latest step in federal court battles over Louisiana congressional districts that have lasted more than two years. Louisiana has had two congressional maps blocked by lower courts and the Supreme Court has intervened twice.

    The state’s Republican-dominated legislature drew a new congressional map in 2022 to account for population shifts reflected in the 2020 Census. But the changes effectively maintained the status quo of five Republican-leaning majority white districts and one Democratic-leaning majority Black district in a state that is about one-third Black.

    Noting the size of the state’s Black population, civil rights advocates challenged the map in a Baton Rouge-based federal court and won a ruling from U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick that the districts likely discriminated against Black voters.

    The Supreme Court put Dick’s ruling on hold while it took up a similar case from Alabama. The justices allowed both states to use the maps in the 2022 elections even though both had been ruled likely discriminatory by federal judges.

    The high court eventually affirmed the ruling from Alabama, which led to a new map and a second district that could elect a Black lawmaker. The justices returned the Louisiana case to federal court, with the expectation that new maps would be in place for the 2024 elections.

    The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals gave lawmakers in Louisiana a deadline of early 2024 to draw a new map or face the possibility of a court-imposed map.

    Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican, had defended Louisiana’s congressional map as the state’s attorney general. Now, though, he urged lawmakers to pass a new map with another majority Black district at a special session in January. He backed a map that created a new majority Black district stretching across the state, linking parts of the Shreveport, Alexandria, Lafayette and Baton Rouge areas.

    A different set of plaintiffs, a group of self-described non-African Americans, filed suit in western Louisiana, claiming that the new map was also illegal because it was driven too much by race, in violation of the Constitution. A divided panel of federal judges ruled 2-1 in April in their favor and blocked use of the new map.

    The Supreme Court voted 6-3 to put that ruling on hold and allow the map to be used.

    State Attorney General Liz Murrill, whose office has defended both maps enacted by lawmakers, called on the court to “provide more clear guidance to legislators and reduce judicial second-guessing after the Legislature does its job. Based upon the Supreme Court’s most recent pronouncements, we believe the map is constitutional.”

    The state and civil rights groups were at odds over the first map, but are allies now.

    “Federal law requires Louisiana to have a fair map that reflects the power and voice of the state’s Black communities,” Stuart Naifeh of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund said in a statement. “The state recognized as much when it adopted a new map with a second majority-Black district in January. Now the Supreme Court must do the same.”

    The Supreme Court vote to use the challenged map in this year’s elections was unusual in that the dissenting votes came from the three liberal justices, who have been supportive of Black voters in redistricting cases. But, in an opinion by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, they said their votes were motivated by their view that there was time for a new map to be drawn, and their disagreement with past court orders that cited the approach of an election to block lower-court rulings.

    “There is little risk of voter confusion from a new map being imposed this far out from the November election,” Jackson wrote in May.

    In adopting the districts that are being used this year, Landry and his allies said the driving factor was politics, not race. The congressional map provides politically safe districts for House Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise, fellow Republicans. Some lawmakers have also noted that the one Republican whose district was greatly altered in the new map, Rep. Garret Graves, supported a GOP opponent of Landry in last fall’s governor’s race. Graves chose not to seek reelection under the new map.

    Among the candidates in the new district is Democratic state Sen. Cleo Fields, a former congressman who is Black.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Sara Cline contributed to this report from Baton Rouge.

  • Georgia high court says absentee ballots must be returned by Election Day

    Georgia high court says absentee ballots must be returned by Election Day

    ATLANTA (AP) — Thousands of voters in Georgia’s third-largest county who received their absentee ballots late will not get an extension to return them, the state’s highest court decided on Monday.

    Cobb County, just north of Atlanta, didn’t mail out absentee ballots to some 3,400 voters who had requested them until late last week. Georgia law says absentee ballots must be received by the close of polls on Election Day. But a judge in a lower court ruled last week that the ballots at issue could be counted if they’re received by this Friday, three days after Election Day, as long as they were postmarked by Tuesday.

    The Georgia Supreme Court ruling means the affected Cobb County residents must vote in person on Election Day, which is Tuesday, or bring their absentee ballots to the county elections office by 7 p.m. that day.

    The high court ruling instructs county election officials to notify the affected voters by email, text message and in a public message on the county election board’s website. And it orders officials to keep separate and sealed any ballots received after the Election Day deadline but before 5 p.m. Friday.

    Board of elections Chair Tori Silas said the board will comply with the Supreme Court order, but it’s still up in the air whether ballots received after Election Day will be counted. The order only addressed a motion for a stay, so election officials will have to wait for the court’s final ruling to see whether votes received after Tuesday will be counted, she said in a statement.

    To deliver the ballots on time, election officials in Cobb County were using U.S. Postal Service express mail and UPS overnight delivery, and sending the ballots with prepaid express return envelopes. The Board of Elections said that more than 1,000 of the absentee ballots being mailed late were being sent to people outside of Georgia.

    Silas last week blamed the delay in sending out the ballots on faulty equipment and a late surge in absentee ballot requests during the week before the Oct. 25 deadline.

    The original ruling extending the deadline stemmed from a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Southern Poverty Law Center on behalf of three Cobb County voters who said they had not received absentee ballots by mail as of Friday.

  • Political bettors hit the jackpot as court clears election markets for comeback

    “This week is the dawn of a new era for financial markets,” said Tarek Mansour, CEO of financial exchange startup Kalshi.