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NEW YORK, March 23 (Reuters) - Manhattan prosecutors on Thursday said Donald Trump misled people to expect he would be arrested this week and prompted fellow Republicans in Congress to interfere with a probe under way into his hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.

On Saturday, the former president said he would be arrested on Tuesday in the probe by the Manhattan District Attorney's office.

On Monday, three Republican committee chairmen in the U.S. House of Representatives went on the offensive against District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, accusing him of abusing prosecutorial authority and seeking communications, documents and testimony from him.

As of Wednesday, a grand jury hearing evidence in the Stormy Daniels case had yet to issue an indictment, and on Thursday Bragg's office sent the committee chairmen a letter seen by Reuters.

The letter said the chairmen's accusations "only came after Donald Trump created a false expectation that he would be arrested the next day and his lawyers reportedly urged you to intervene."

It confirmed that Bragg's office was "investigating allegations that Donald Trump engaged in violations of New York State penal law."

If indicted, Trump would be the first U.S. president to face criminal charges. He served as president from 2017-2021 and has mounted a third campaign for the White House while facing legal woes on several fronts.

Trump also faces federal investigations stemming from his handling of government documents after leaving the White House and alleged attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat as well as a state-level probe in Georgia into whether he unlawfully sought to reverse the 2020 election results there.

Trump has said he will continue campaigning for president if charged with a crime.

The response on Thursday from Bragg's office said the three Republican House committee chairmen had sought non-public information about a pending criminal investigation, which is confidential under state law.

"The letter's requests are an unlawful incursion into New York's sovereignty," said the letter signed by the district attorney's general counsel, Leslie Dubeck. "Congress cannot have any legitimate legislative task relating to the oversight of local prosecutors enforcing state law."

The grand jury, made up of U.S. citizens residing in Manhattan, convened in January. Its proceedings are not public and prosecutors are barred from discussing them. It was not expected to meet again until next week at the earliest after media reports said it would not take up the case on Thursday.

Michael Cohen, Trump's former personal fixer and lawyer, has said he made the payment to Daniels days before the 2016 presidential election at Trump's direction.

Daniels, a well-known adult film actress and director whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, has said she received the money in exchange for keeping silent about a sexual encounter she had with Trump in 2006.

Trump has denied he ever had an affair with Daniels, and has called the payment a "simple private transaction." He has said he did not commit a crime and has called the investigation politically motivated.

Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to campaign finance law violations and other crimes related to the payment and received a prison sentence. Last week he testified before the grand jury, which is believed generally to meet on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Reporting by Karen Freifeld; Writing by Doina Chiacu and Luc Cohen; Editing by Tim Ahmann, Noeleen Walder and Howard Goller

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Thomson Reuters

Reports on the New York federal courts. Previously worked as a correspondent in Venezuela and Argentina.

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Manhattan DA: Trump created false expectation of arrest ... - Reuters

Members of the drag show community listen in during a meeting at the Texas Capitol on March 23, 2023, in Austin, Texas.

Photo: Brandon Bell/Getty Images

Given Republicans relentless legislative attempts to erase trans and gender nonconforming people, a new bill in Texas that LGBTQ+ advocates are describing as the drag bounty hunter bill may seem like a drop in the ocean. This fact alone is intolerable. There is, however, something particularly barbaric in the bills explicit encouragement of citizen harassment to drive gender variance out of public life.

The proposed legislation defines drag as any performance in which a performer exhibits a gender that is different than the performers gender recorded at birth using clothing, makeup, or other physical markers and sings, lip syncs, dances, or otherwise performs in a lascivious manner before an audience.

The inclusion of lascivious might suggest that the bill is only aimed at performances in venues that already exclude minors, like nightclubs. But given that Texas Republicans are at this very moment attempting to pass a law defining any venue that hosts a drag performance as a sexually oriented business including restaurants its clear that lascivious provides no limit to the bounty hunter bill.

If passed, the law is certain to shut down family-friendly drag events and library story hours, but it threatens all gender-nonconforming performers, and even events like Pride.

The bill is a rehash of a strategy used against abortion in the state. When Texas lawmakers passed Senate Bill 8 in 2021, effectively banning abortion in the state, they introduced a novel legislative approach for running roughshod over constitutional protections: sanctioned vigilantism.

The abortion law deputized private citizens to sue anyone suspected of helping a person obtain an abortion, with the promise of a $10,000 reward for successful cases. Since its passing, copycat laws have abounded, given the legislations ability to evade federal court challenges by relying on civil lawsuits. Now, Texas Republicans are seeking to use the same legal mechanism in their all-out assault on gender variance.

The drag bounty bill likewise encourages citizens to sue anyone who hosts or performs in a drag performance in the presence of a minor with the added allure of a monetary reward. Successful plaintiffs could receive as much as $5,000 in damages, up to 10 years after the event.

Across the country, even in New York City, far-right militias and other armed fascists have already made a habit of threatening family-friendly drag performances and story hours. The Texas bill grants the practice a vile authority and pulls from a long legacy of the government using state-sanctioned vigilantism to enforce white supremacy, gender conformity, and border rule.

The very nature of such base-catering legislation is to chill LGBTQ+ expression and embolden attacks against it. Even technically ineffectual laws have material consequences for public life, like the recently passed anti-drag law in Tennessee, which makes nothing illegal that is not already illegal.

Compulsory heterosexuality and gender conformity is so manufactured, so fragile, that it requires heavy policing and enforcement.

Like every new anti-LGBTQ+ law, the bounty hunter bill rests on the formulated far-right paranoia around drag performances and trans existence as sites of grooming and sexual predation. Underlying this anti-trans, anti-queer panic is the fact that compulsory heterosexuality and gender conformity is so manufactured, so fragile, that it requires heavy policing and enforcement both by the state and vigilante forces.

The same reliance on vigilantism has shaped most every aspect of the history of oppression in this country. Armed far-right groups on the U.S.-Mexico border have been active in brutal border enforcement for over 40 years, with a notable presence since Donald Trumps presidency. In recent years, racist vigilantes have hunted and captured hundreds of undocumented people attempting to cross the border, largely without retribution.The Texas GOP is currently seeking to codify the practice with the recent introduction of a vigilante death squads policy. The proposed legislation would create an official security force, comprised of both police and private citizens, to track down, arrest, and deport undocumented people.

The history of such violence is long, including the extreme, deadly brutality of the fabled Texas Rangers from the mid-19th century onward, who perpetrated extraordinary lethal violence against Indigenous and Mexican people to establish and maintain settler border lines. From the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, to many thousands of lynchings, to the vigilante violence on which Jim Crow rule relied, the U.S. government and law enforcement have embraced vigilantism through outright deputization or the granting of expansive impunity to uphold white supremacy. The porousness between far-right armed groups and police forces, as well as Republican elected officials, has long made this relationship all too clear.

Racist stand-your-ground laws, which permit citizens to use deadly force when they deem it necessary to defend themselves or their property, reliably uphold the white paranoia that the mere presence of Black men and boys constitutes a threat. What are such laws, then, if not the legal sanctioning of vigilantism?

And when it comes to the governments endorsement of anti-queer, anti-trans violence, consider the fact that the LGBTQ+ panic defense still remains on the books nationwide today, despite long and widespread protest. This legal strategy permits a defendant, even one accused of murder, to assert that their victims sexual orientation or gender expression is to blame for their violent response. A jury can, of course, outright reject such a defense, but the ability to deploy it in court unambiguously constitutes the legal acceptance of violence against gender nonconformity.

It is building on this legacy that the Republicans have turned to vigilante loopholes in new legislation to police bodily autonomy, when it comes to both reproductive freedoms and LGBTQ+ liberation. Such legislation continues to tell a right-wing story about for whom the U.S. exists those granted the permission to take up its violent powers, in the brutish image of the Texas Ranger.

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Texas Republicans Just Proposed a Bounty on Drag Shows - The Intercept

Opinion: Sen. Jake Hoffman has proposed a bill that would allow 1,000 Maricopa County voters overturn the will of 1.5 million voters. Sure, that makes sense.

Corrections & clarifications: A previous version of the column misstated the county where Sen. Jake Hoffman, R-Queen Creek, lives. It is Maricopa County.

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Just when you think its safe to assume that our leaders have exhausted the many creative ways in which they hope to overturn the results of future elections they dont like, they come up with a new scheme to undermine democracy.

To wit: An automatic do-over of any election in which 1,000 voters in Maricopa County (or 250 in any other county) had to wait in line for more than 90 minutes.

Doesnt matter if those voters actually got to vote. If enough of them had to wait at least 90 minutes, they can order up a new election.

Sure, what could go wrong?

Senate Bill 1695 comes courtesy of Sen. Jake Hoffman, R-Queen Creek and former fake elector who is pitching his latest brainstorm as a way to eliminate the legions of disenfranchised voters in 2022 that no one has been able to find.

The stuff that happened in Maricopa County, Hoffman told the Senate Government Committee last month. Honest to God, I could find you examples from the Jim Crow era where in the South they did exactly what was done to day-of voters, they did that to Black people in the South.

Funny, I missed the poll taxes and literacy tests in last years election. What I saw was Republicans directed by their own party to ditch their early ballots and instead vote on Election Day, resulting in long lines. Add in sloppy work by the county wherein far too many printer malfunctions lead to even longer lines at the polls and you had a mess.

What you didnt have, according to county elections officials and the conclusions of several judges was any evidence that masses of disenfranchised voters cost Kari Lake the election.

SB 1695 sets up a process where a county must redo an election if at least 1,000 Maricopa County voters (or 250 elsewhere) file sworn affidavits in Superior Court, saying I waited more than ninety minutes outside of a voting location before I could complete and submit my ballot.

In the alternative, they could swear that an election official failed to comply with any single provision of the 640-page Elections Procedures Manual, presumably either a technical or a major violation. Or they could swear that they witnessed a failure to maintain a ballots chain of custody.

A special master, appointed by the court, would have five days to verify those claims. Theres no explanation of how this supposed expert could prove when a particular voter got in line.

And theres nothing in the bill to stop a voter who actually voted in the 91st minute from demanding a new election if they didn't like the results.

Get 1,000 of those people in Maricopa (or 250 elsewhere) and you, too, can demand do-over in your county, which would have to be held within 60 days of a judge declaring a failed election."

The bill passed the Government Committee on a party-line vote but failed in the House when Sen. Ken Bennett, R-Prescott, sided with Democrats to oppose it. Hoffman already has signaled he plans to bring it back.

It is unfair to the people of this state that county elections officials can violate the law repeatedly and not be held to account, Hoffman said.

It would be, if there was actual evidence that any elections official violated the law. But I digress.

You know whats also unfair?

That 1,000 people who had to wait 91 minutes to cast a ballot could nullify the votes of 1.5 million voters.

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LaurieRoberts.

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Senate Republicans hatch a new scheme to overturn Arizona's ... - The Arizona Republic

Republicans in Tennessee have boldly demonstrated how to take on one of the biggest problems America is facing: drag shows.

While liberals and public opinion polls and people who have not lost their minds naively believe things like school shootings, the economy, crime and poverty are more pressing issues, Tennessees Republican-led state government and a number of conservative lawmakers across the country, have remained laser-focused on great-ifying America by demonizing drag performers.

On Thursday, the Volunteer (As Long As Youre Not Volunteering At A Drag Show) State became the first to restrict drag performances. Republican Gov. Bill Lee signed a bill that bans drag shows in places where minors might watch them and on public property.

The bill was, I assume, in direct response to the zero people who have been killed by drag shows and the nones of people who have witnessed a drag performance and then been emotionally or psychologically ruined.

Addressing the point of legislation that some might consider several steps beyond stupid, the governor waved to a nearby elementary school and said: I think that the concern is whats right there in that building. He was presumably referencing children and not, you know, desks and lockers and administrative staff and whatnot.

Lee, who has apparently never seen the internet or a TikTok video, continued: Children that are potentially exposed to sexualized entertainment, to obscenity, and we need to make sure that theyre not.

Indeed, the nonexistent epidemic of drag shows in this country presents a real and present danger to our children, as it is the only avenue by which they might be exposed to sexualized entertainment, aside from television, streaming services, YouTube, movies, video games, music, advertisements, casual conversations with friends and the entirety of the electronic world available to them on the powerful hand-computers they keep in their pockets.

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My son died after being cyberbullied: Congress must hold social media giants accountable

Things like school shootings apparently do not pose a threat to children, as the Tennessee governor in 2021 made it legal for people to carry handguns without a permit. So, to be clear: drag show = danger, carrying a gunwithout a permit = safe, and patriotic!

According to the Washington Post, at least 26 bills have been introduced in 14 states by Republican legislators taking aim at drag events this year. Along with the fact that the bills are just weird and puritanical, opponents fear the broad wording in them could effectively outlaw drag performances in some parts of the country.

Human Rights Campaign Legal Director Sarah Warbelow said in a statement that laws like Tennessees drag ban along with an even more pernicious bill Lee signed into law last week banning gender-affirming care are not about protecting youth, they are about spreading dangerous misinformation against the transgender community; they are about doubling down on efforts to attack drag artists and transgender youth.

Advocates who oppose a bill that would restrict where certain drag shows could take place march from a rally outside of the Tennessee Capitol in Nashville on Feb. 14, 2023 to the Cordell Hull legislative building.

Warbelow is right. Republicans are using drag performers and transgender people as a bogeyman to fire up the dwindling number of Americans who will fall for that kind of mean nonsense.

What's wrong with you?: Anti-transgender rules, rhetoric and legislation are a shameful stain on America's soul

Tennessee is ranked 36th overall for child well-being, according to the 2022 Kids Count Data Book put out by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. You know what didnt cause that? Drag shows.

Tennessee ranked 44th out of the 50 states in the 2022 Americas Health Rankings report by the United Health Foundation. Drag shows didnt hurt anyones health.

The state ranks 14th in the country for infant mortality, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And not because of drag shows.

Based on crime statistics from the FBI, Tennessee was ranked the fourth most violent state in the country in 2021. Drag shows had nothing to do with that.

One in five children in Tennessee live in poverty. But yeah, definitely go after those drag shows.

Is LEGO's toy diversity 'woke'?: There's nothing wrong with visibility for disabilities

It would be possible, I suppose, for Tennessee lawmakers and politicians in any of the states eyeing bans on drag performances or busily attacking things like gender-affirming care and transgender rights to focus on insignificant matters like the health of their constituents, crime or the conditions children experience.

TikTok star Charli D'Amelio and Mark Ballas are the new "Dancing With the Stars" champions. This would be OK for Tennessee Republicans, but not drag shows.

But then, who would tackle the scourge of drag shows? Who would protect the youth from something that isnt threatening the youth? Who would make a small subset of citizens lives miserable in order to make a point thats both incorrect and wholly unnecessary?

Kudos to Tennessee Republicans for being too dumb to realize what theyre doing is a bad idea, and too cruel to care.

You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment to letters@usatoday.com.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Tennessee drag show ban attacks LGBTQ community, doesn't protect kids

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Tennessee Republicans target America's greatest threat: Drag shows ...

The GOP's fractures were put into sharp relief at this year's Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC), with Republican strategists and activists simultaneously mourning and praising the transformation of a once-seminal event.

Party operatives who spoke to ABC News lamented the makeover of the annual conservative event from a headquarters for broad debate into a confab seemingly hostile to ideas that deviate from former President Donald Trump's "America First" populism. But conferencegoers, decked out in "Make America Great Again" hats and Trump paraphernalia, were content with the conference's narrow focus -- and, in some cases, eager to taper it more.

"It is a broad cross section, but that's kind of a bad thing, you almost don't want that," Joe Walters, a 24-year-old attendee from Westchester County, N.Y., said, claiming that the "establishment" had "turned its talking points into something that sounds more Trumpian."

"I wish it were more Trumpian in some sense."

Guests listen as former U.S. President Donald Trump addresses the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center on March 4, 2023 in National Harbor, Maryland.

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Founded in 1974, CPAC became known as "Woodstock for conservatives," drawing in a broad cross section of Republican activists and lawmakers looking to jump up the political ladder, including Ronald Reagan, who debuted his "city on a hill" vision at the inaugural conference.

And while CPAC often followed emerging attitudes among the grassroots, it regularly featured speakers from across the Republican spectrum. However, the conference in recent years began shunning those who didn't espouse the populism that has engulfed the grassroots since Trump's 2016 campaign.

That trend was laid bare at this year's meeting, with several likely presidential candidates choosing to not even come, and a hostile reception waiting for those who did.

Prospective candidates like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and more chose to spend their time elsewhere -- including, some, at a donor retreat in Florida hosted by the anti-tax Club for Growth, a powerful group embroiled in a feud with Trump.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump addresses the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center on March 4, 2023 in National Harbor, Maryland.

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

And while former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who launched her presidential campaign last month, and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is actively mulling a campaign, made the trip, they were met with only tepid applause during their red-meat-packed speeches.

After leaving the ballroom following her speech, Haley was accosted by attendees shouting Trump's name before aides escorted her away.

"Ten years ago, it was an opportunity to test your messages to conservative leaders and influencers all over the country and to have a big audience get to know you from the podium and everything else that was included. And I don't think that's where it is today. I think it's a narrow, small tent," said one aide to a possible 2024 contender. "I think last time I was there, it almost felt like a college crowd than it did a serious thinker crowd."

"As somebody that's been involved in the movement for 20-plus years, it's sad, because it was at one time the premier event for conservatives to come together."

When asked if they thought CPAC could expand its focus to the broader GOP tent rather than on one tentpole, the person was pessimistic.

"I think there's a lot of people that hope so. But there's gonna have to be a wholesale change over there, and I don't see that coming anytime soon," the source said. "Sometimes you just have to have a hard reset."

At CPAC, though, such a "reset" seemed unlikely.

Trump's imprint on the party was apparent across the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center outside of Washington, with a mockup of his Oval Office set up and clothing stalls seen in the conference's shop and allies like Steve Bannon holding court in the hallways.

And while years ago, conspiracy theorists were kept away from the event, this year, Kari Lake, the 2022 Arizona GOP gubernatorial nominee who attributes her narrow loss to widespread election fraud, was picked for the keynote address at this year's Ronald Reagan dinner.

"I had a feeling that after this week at CPAC, with all of the patriots that we've seen come on stage, we have that fire stirring in our belly. We have that DNA rising up in us -- that founding father kind of patriots stuff -- and we're ready to go out there and fight these people," she said.

When over a dozen conferencegoers were asked by ABC News who they were planning on voting for in the 2024 GOP primary, all but one said they were backing Trump, with the lone dissenter saying he's planning on voting for DeSantis.

"Trump forever. It's always Trump first before anybody else," said Adam Radogna, a 33-year-old small business owner from Cleveland, Ohio. "I'm sick of hearing all these other candidates. It's always Trump unless he's not on there."

And when asked whether they'd like to see other would-be contenders speak at CPAC, some scoffed at the prospect of people like Pence addressing the MAGA faithful.

"He will get booed. No, nobody wants Pence," said Melissa Locurto, real estate broker from Long Island, citing Pence's refusal to overturn Trump's loss in 2020. "I'm glad he's not here. I'm not a supporter."

Nikki Haley, former United States Ambassador to the United Nations and 2024 presidential election candidate, speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at Gaylord National Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland, U.S., March 3, 2023.

Sarah Silbiger/Reuters

The event represents a potent reality check as the 2024 primary gets underway.

Speculation outside of the halls of CPAC has run rampant over the power Trump's continued sway in the GOP, with strategists forecasting a competitive nominating contest while conceding that the former president remains the frontrunner.

But this year's conference underscored the fact that the former president maintains immovable support among a section of the GOP grassroots, as highlighted by the results of this year's straw poll.

"Feels like MAGA country," Donald Trump Jr. said in his speech Friday.

In CPAC's famed straw poll, 62% of respondents said they want to see Trump as the 2024 GOP nominee, while DeSantis, thought to be the former president's toughest rival, came in second with 20%.

And in his speech, Trump sounded a defiant tone, indicating he'll try to bulldoze any opponent, Democrat or Republican, and "throw off the political class that hates our country."

"We will route the fake news media, we will expose and appropriately deal with the RINOs," he said, using the slur for Republican in name only. "We will evict Joe Biden from the White House. And we will liberate America from these villains and scoundrels once and for all."

With Trump's sway at CPAC, even attendees looking for alternatives to the former president in the next election sounded doubtful.

"I haven't talked to anyone that's a DeSantis supporter. I've only really seen Trump people," said Ben Kelley, a 23-year-old DeSantis supporter. "Maybe if I ask around, more will be for DeSantis."

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Republicans torn over reduced CPAC, party divides - ABC News