News: Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Infektionsschutzgesetz

Trump’s legal troubles upset Biden

One of the big questions in the United States in the coming months is whether Donald Trump will face indictment and conviction from the judiciary after leaving office on January 20. Some procedures are pending and further investigation is possible.

Newly elected President Joe Biden is said to have made it clear to advisers that he has little desire to have his tenure overshadowed by outlandish investigations against his predecessor. The American media report. Such procedures would only further divide the country and produce new headlines every day, which are primarily about Trump, Biden is said to have made clear. The new president wants to close the chapter on Trump and look to the future, say his advisers.

One problem, however, is that Biden may have little influence in potential criminal proceedings against Trump. Unlike Trump, he is committed to making the United States Department of Justice as independent as possible, in which decisions are made without interference from the White House. This also applies to proceedings against former presidents, their ministers or employees. The new justice minister will be free to decide on this, not himself, Biden said in an interview in August.

Another problem for Democrats: He could get rid of the Trump problem by pardoning his predecessor if convicted. But it is not so easy. Biden would have to break his own word. When asked to do so, he had ruled out a pardon for Trump in principle during the election campaign.

One thing is certain: on January 20, the former president will lose his immunity from possible criminal proceedings by federal authorities at the end of his term. Investigators could then investigate whether he could be charged, for example, with violating campaign finance laws. His former lawyer, Michael Cohen, has already been sentenced to prison. There are also potential tax problems for Trump. And his alleged attempts to thwart former FBI Chief Robert Mueller’s Russia investigations could be re-examined. As president, Trump escaped from office here. After his departure, this would now be possible.

A president out of control

Attempts by President Trump and his supporters to overturn the results of the US elections continue. You will not succeed with this in the end. But it’s almost chilling to see how unscrupulous they are.

That night, Trump tweeted a senior National Security official, Christopher Krebs. The offense of the cybersecurity expert: He dared to publicly deny Trump’s claims about the alleged manipulation of computer programs during the US elections.

Meanwhile, in the important state of Michigan, a scandal erupted because two responsible Republicans initially refused to certify the election results for the Wayne County constituency. In this important constituency, which also includes the city of Detroit, Joe Biden had won by a wide margin, earning him the overall victory in the northern state. At the certification committee meeting, two Democrats voted for certification and the two Republicans voted against. They referred to alleged disagreements in the election.

Trump and his supporters were already cheering and suddenly saw themselves as the winners of the Michigan election. But the joy came too soon. After some confusion, all four panelists voted in favor of certification as a choice. Joe Biden’s clear win at Michigan remains.

The Infection Protection Act will be passed

Exaggeration is a permitted means of politics, but in the Nazi comparison in Germany, the friendship ends correctly. You only compare the Nazis to the Nazis. Obviously, no one in history class explained this correctly to all those crown deniers and lockdown opponents who are now linking the new version of the Infection Protection Act with the Adolf Hitler Enabling Act of 1933 online.

Today the controversial law will be passed in the Bundestag and Bundesrat. In Berlin, things could get turbulent around the Reichstag building. It is true that rallies were banned directly in the Reichstag. However, several demonstrations are expected in the area, especially from opponents of the crown’s restrictions, such as the so-called lateral thinkers. According to information from SPIEGEL, the security authorities are warning members of the Bundestag against violent attacks. According to an internal email from the Bundestag, they should only enter the Reichstag through the tunnels.

The Infection Protection Law had already been amended several times in the wake of the corona pandemic.
With the new reform, more details are now regulated. Among other things, a new paragraph 28a will be inserted into the law, which lists in detail what protection measures can be prescribed by state governments and competent authorities against the coronavirus. For example, contact restrictions, distance requirements, mask requirement in public spaces, or store and event restrictions or closings.

There are quite extensive interventions in the lives of citizens, so it is expected that the Federal Constitutional Court will soon have to deal with the law. As is well known, this is the usual way of checking whether a law passed by a parliamentary majority conforms to the Constitution. By the way, this is how it works in a democratic constitutional state like Germany, where no one has to shout “Enabling Act!”

Following the US announcement that the majority of US troops will withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of the year, the Bundeswehr is preparing to end the German mission in northern Afghanistan. After a press conference by current US Defense Minister Christoph Miller in Washington at the latest, German defense department planners assume that the German training mission in Mazar-e-Sharif will hardly be closed after around half of the current 5,000 US troops have withdrawn from Afghanistan. would be responsible. This is what my colleague Matthias Gebauer reports.

US support is vital to the German Armed Forces and NATO as a whole, which is training the Afghan army with around 12,000 soldiers from member states. Without the US Air Force fighter jets, which are always on standby, for example, NATO troops would be alone in an emergency, for example, in the event of a Taliban attack on one of the NATO camps on the outskirts of Kabul.

Withdrawal planning has already begun at the Ministry of Defense. A group of logistics specialists had quietly moved to Mazar for a few months, and they have been planning the withdrawal ever since. Actually, the plan was to finish the mission in northern Afghanistan in early summer 2021. Now, following the US announcement, things will have to go faster. The rapid withdrawal of the United States should be one of the last official acts of President Donald Trump.

The losers of the day …

… sadly they are clear to everyone today. Greetings to Andalusia. You already know. But we will spread the blanket of silence on this.

The latest news of the night

• Trump fires the chief of cybersecurity of the United States: The director of the US cybersecurity agency, Christopher Krebs, described the elections as “the safest in the history of the United States”, which was not well received by Trump. Now he has to leave his post

• Labor clashes with former party leader Corbyn Former British Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn may be a member again. After controversial statements, he was expelled at the end of October. Now he is satisfied on Twitter.

• Nadal can’t stop Thiem either: It was a high-class and dramatic game, in the end Dominic Thiem was just ahead of the game. The Austrian is already classified for the ATP semifinals, rival Rafael Nadal has to worry about progress

The SPIEGEL + recommendations for today

I wish you a good start to the day.

Your Roland Nelles