A Milan criminal court on Wednesday acquitted Italian fashion influencer and businesswoman Chiara Ferragni of aggravated fraud in the so-called Pandorogate scandal. The case, one of Italy’s most high-profile celebrity trials, centered on allegations of misleading advertising linked to the promotion of the sweet pandoro Christmas bread — luxury sugar-dusted brioches — in 2022 and Easter eggs sold in 2021 and 2022. Prosecutors, who had requested a 20-month prison sentence, argued that consumers had been led to believe their purchases would support charitable causes, when donations had in fact already been made and were not tied to sales. Ferragni denied any wrongdoing throughout the proceedings. Judge Ilio Mannucci rejected the aggravating circumstance cited by prosecutors, reclassifying the charge as simple fraud, according to ANSA. Under Italian law, that requires a formal complaint to proceed. But because the consumer group Codacons had withdrawn its complaint last year after reaching a compensation agreement with Ferragni, the judge dismissed the case. The ruling also applies to her co-defendants, including her former close aide Fabio Damato, and Cerealitalia Chairman Francesco Cannillo. “We are all very moved,” Ferragni said outside the Milan courtroom after the verdict. “I thank everyone, my lawyers and my followers.” The scandal began in late 2023, when Ferragni partnered with confectioner Balocco to market a limited-edition pandoro to support cancer research. But Balocco had already donated a fixed €50,000 months earlier, while Ferragni’s companies earned more than €1 million from the campaign. The competition authorities fined Ferragni and Balocco more than €1.4 million, and last year, Milan prosecutors charged Ferragni with aggravated fraud for allegedly generating false expectations among buyers. Ferragni and her then-husband and rapper Fedez used to be Italy’s most politically influential Instagram couple, championing progressive causes, campaigning for LGBTQ+ rights and positioning themselves against the country’s traditionalist Catholic mainstream, often drawing sharp criticism from Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and the Italian right. Since the scandal erupted in December 2023, however, that cultural and political empire has unraveled: the couple divorced, Ferragni retreated from public life, and Fedez reemerged in increasingly right-leaning political circles. Wednesday’s acquittal closes a legal chapter that had sparked intense political and media scrutiny, triggered regulatory fines and fueled a broader debate in Italy over influencer marketing, charity and consumer protection.

PARIS — Marine Le Pen conceded Tuesday that she may have unwittingly broken the law on the tense first day of an appeals trial that will determine whether she can stand in France’s presidential election next year. The surprising comments from the longtime face of the French far right signal a major shift in strategy as she attempts to get a French court to overturn a five-year ban on running for office after she, her party — the National Rally — and several other codefendants were found guilty of embezzling European Parliament funds. The case has loomed large over Le Pen’s political future and its outcome will likely determine whether she or her protégé Jordan Bardella will represent the far-right party in the 2027 presidential race. Both are polling as front-runners in the contest. Le Pen had for months protested innocence and framed the case against her as politically motivated, but her comments and stoic behavior Tuesday differed markedly from the combative face she wore at the start of the initial trial in 2024. When the judge asked Le Pen why she was appealing, she insisted that any criminal act they may have committed had not been intentional — a departure from her impassioned claims of innocence throughout the initial trial. “I would like to say to the court right now that if a crime has been committed … so be it, but I want the court to know that we never felt like we had committed even the slightest offense,” she said. Le Pen dodged questions from reporters as she arrived and left court. She also declined to talk informally with the press during recesses, as became customary in the first trial. In a rare pre-trial statement, Le Pen told reporters Monday that her “only line of defense for this appeal will be the same as it was during the initial trial: telling the truth.” “The case will be reset and judged by new magistrates. I hope to be better heard and to convince them of my innocence,” she said.

A clash between Poland’s right-wing president and its centrist ruling coalition over the European Union’s flagship social media law is putting the country further at risk of multimillion euro fines from Brussels. President Karol Nawrocki is holding up a bill that would implement the EU’s Digital Services Act, a tech law that allows regulators to police how social media firms moderate content. Nawrocki, an ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, said in a statement that the law would “give control of content on the internet to officials subordinate to the government, not to independent courts.” The government coalition led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Nawrocki’s rival, warned this further exposed them to the risk of EU fines as high as €9.5 million. Deputy Digital Minister Dariusz Standerski said in a TV interview that, “since the president decided to veto this law, I’m assuming he is also willing to have these costs [of a potential fine] charged to the budget of the President’s Office.” Nawrocki’s refusal to sign the bill brings back bad memories of Warsaw’s years-long clash with Brussels over the rule of law, a conflict that began when Nawrocki’s Law and Justice party rose to power in 2015 and started reforming the country’s courts and regulators. The EU imposed €320 million in penalties on Poland from 2021-2023. Warsaw was already in a fight with the Commission over its slow implementation of the tech rulebook since 2024, when the EU executive put Poland on notice for delaying the law’s implementation and for not designating a responsible authority. In May last year Brussels took Warsaw to court over the issue. If the EU imposes new fines over the rollout of digital rules, it would “reignite debates reminiscent of the rule-of-law mechanism and frozen funds disputes,” said Jakub Szymik, founder of Warsaw-based non-profit watchdog group CEE Digital Democracy Watch. Failure to implement the tech law could in the long run even lead to fines and penalties accruing over time, as happened when Warsaw refused to reform its courts during the earlier rule of law crisis. The European Commission said in a statement that it “will not comment on national legislative procedures.” It added that “implementing the [Digital Services Act] into national law is essential to allow users in Poland to benefit from the same DSA rights.” “This is why we have an ongoing infringement procedure against Poland” for its “failure to designate and empower” a responsible authority, the statement said. Under the tech platforms law, countries were supposed to designate a national authority to oversee the rules by February 2024. Poland is the only EU country that hasn’t moved to at least formally agree on which regulator that should be. The European Commission is the chief regulator for a group of very large online platforms, including Elon Musk’s X, Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, Google’s YouTube, Chinese-owned TikTok and Shein and others. But national governments have the power to enforce the law on smaller platforms and certify third parties for dispute resolution, among other things. National laws allow users to exercise their rights to appeal to online platforms and challenge decisions. When blocking the bill last Friday, Nawrocki said a new version could be ready within two months. But that was “very unlikely … given that work on the current version has been ongoing for nearly two years and no concrete alternative has been presented” by the president, said Szymik, the NGO official. The Digital Services Act has become a flashpoint in the political fight between Brussels and Washington over how to police online platforms. The EU imposed its first-ever fine under the law on X in December, prompting the U.S. administration to sanction former EU Commissioner Thierry Breton and four other Europeans. Nawrocki last week likened the law to “the construction of the Ministry of Truth from George Orwell’s novel 1984,” a criticism that echoed claims by Trump and his top MAGA officials that the law censored conservatives and right-wingers. Bartosz Brzeziński contributed reporting.

LONDON — The BBC will attempt to have Donald Trump’s defamation lawsuit over the way it edited a 2021 speech thrown out of court. Filings in the southern district of Florida published Monday said the BBC would “move to dismiss” the case because the October 2024 documentary for the flagship Panorama program which carried the edited speech was not made, produced or broadcast in the state. The court lacks “personal jurisdiction” over the BBC, and the U.S. president “fails to state a claim on multiple independent grounds,” the filing says. In a lawsuit filed last month Trump demanded more than $5 billion after accusing the corporation of misleadingly editing his Jan. 6, 2021 speech, delivered ahead of the storming of the U.S. Capitol during the 2020 presidential election certification process. Trump’s lawsuit, filed in federal court in Miami, claims the BBC “maliciously” strung together two comments Trump made more than 54 minutes apart to convey the impression that he’d urged his supporters to engage in violence. The corporation apologized to Trump when the botched edit became public but said it did not merit a defamation case. The broadcaster said the episode of its Panorama current affairs program was not shown on the global feed of the BBC News Channel, while programs on iPlayer, the BBC’s catchup service, were only available in the U.K.  Public figures claiming defamation in the U.S. have to demonstrate “actual malice,” meaning they have to show there was an intent to spread false information or some action in reckless disregard of the truth. The BBC filing says Trump “fails to plausibly allege” this. It said the documentary included “extensive coverage of his supporters and balanced coverage of his path to reelection.” BBC Director General Tim Davie and news CEO Deborah Turness announced their resignations in November after the very public row with the U.S. president hit the headlines. A BBC spokesperson said: “As we have made clear previously, we will be defending this case. We are not going to make further comment on ongoing legal proceedings.”

Former Corsican nationalist leader and football club executive Alain Orsoni was killed while attending a family member’s funeral on Monday, France’s anti-organized crime prosecutor, who is overseeing the investigation, said in a statement. Prosecutors are investigating the incident as a possible murder, the statement read. No arrests have been made as of Tuesday. Local prosecutor Nicolas Septe told reporters little information was immediately available, apart from the fact that Orsoni had been shot from a distance at his mother’s funeral and died shortly afterward. Orsoni led several political movements in favor of Corsica’s independence in the 1980s and 1990s and was elected to regional office — before leaving the French Mediterranean island for South America in 1996. Orsoni’s brother Guy was killed in 1983 by a Corsican gang. His son, also named Guy, was sentenced to 13 years in prison last year for the attempted murder of convicted Corsican gang member Pascal Porri. Orsoni returned to Corsica in 2008 to head the then-professional local football club AC Ajaccio — the club has now fallen to the lower, amateur levels of French football — and survived a first assassination attempt shortly after taking up the role. This is the first time the anti-organized crime prosecutor’s office, which began operations last week, has taken charge of a case. The office was set up by legislation passed last year to strengthen France’s response to a surge in killings tied to drug trafficking.

BRUSSELS — Even after most member countries backed the EU’s landmark trade accord with Latin America, opponents of the deal in France, Poland and the European Parliament are still determined to derail or delay it. As a result, even after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen flies to Paraguay this Saturday to sign the accord with the Mercosur bloc after over 25 years of talks, it could still take months before we finally find out when, or even whether, it will finally take effect. The culprit is the EU’s tortuous decision-making process: After the curtain came down on Friday on deliberations in the Council, the intergovernmental branch of the bloc, a new act will now play out in the European Parliament. Ratification by lawmakers later this year is the most likely outcome — but there will be high drama along the way. “It has become irrational,” said an EU diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity. “If the European Parliament refuses, we will have a European crisis.” Proponents argue that the deal with Mercosur — which groups Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay — is the bloc’s best shot at rallying friends across the world as the EU tries to counter Donald Trump’s aggressive moves (the latest being the U.S. president’s threats to annex Greenland). But more than 140 lawmakers are already questioning the legal basis of the agreement, concerned that it breaches the EU treaties. They want it sent to the Court of Justice of the EU for a legal review, which could delay it for as long as two years. Political group leaders agreed before the Christmas break to submit this referral to a vote as soon as governments signed off on the deal. That vote is now expected at next week’s plenary, a official with the Parliament said.  Yet while the rebel MEPs have enough votes to call a floor debate, they likely lack the majority needed in the 720-seat Parliament to pass the resolution itself.  “I don’t think that the substance of the legal challenge is going anywhere. This is fabricated, it’s a lot of hot air — both in terms of environmental [and] health provisions, in terms of national parliaments. All of this has been tried and tested,” said David Kleimann, a senior trade expert at the ODI Europe think tank in Brussels. LEGAL ROADBLOCKS  The challenge in the Parliament is only one front. The deal’s biggest opponents, Poland and France, are also fighting back. Polish Agriculture Minister Stefan Krajewski said Friday he would push for the government to also submit a complaint to the Court of Justice.   “We will not let the deal go any further,” he said, adding that Poland would ask the court to assess whether the Mercosur pact is legally sound. On the same day, protesting farmers spilled manure in front of his house. “We will not let the deal go any further,” said Polish Agriculture Minister Stefan Krajewski. | Olivier Matthys/EPA Polish MEP Krzysztof Hetman, a member of the center-right European People’s Party and a political ally of Krajewski, said the referrals of the Parliament and of member states would play out separately with the same aim in mind. “If one succeeds, the other might not be necessary,” he said, adding that while the court considers the complaint, the deal would effectively be on ice. French President Emmanuel Macron, meanwhile, is under huge pressure from his political opponents to do more to stall the deal. France, Poland, Austria, Ireland and Hungary voted against the deal last week while Belgium abstained. That left the anti-Mercosur camp shy of the blocking minority needed to kill the deal. On Wednesday, the National Assembly will vote on two separate no-confidence motions submitted by the far-right National Rally and the far-left France Unbowed. Even if opposition to the Mercosur deal remains unanimous, the two motions have little to no chance of toppling the French government: The left is unlikely to back the National Rally text, while the center-left Socialists are withholding support for the France Unbowed motion. But nothing can be ruled out in France’s fragmented parliament.  REALITY CHECK Even some of the rebel MEPs admit their challenge is unlikely to succeed — and that the Parliament might still back the overall deal in a vote later this year.  “It will be very difficult now that the Council has approved it,” said Hetman, the Polish MEP. “The supporters of the agreement know this, which is why they sabotaged the vote on the referral in November and December.” Others opponents still see a chance to topple it, and are optimistic that the legal challenge can gather enough support.  “We want to delay the Mercosur adoption process as long as possible,” Manon Aubry, co-chair of The Left group, told POLITICO before the Christmas break. She also saw signs that a majority of MEPs could come out against the deal: “I bet there are even more MEPs willing to make sure that the agreement is fully in line with the treaties.” If the judicial review is rejected, the Parliament would hold a yes-no vote to ratify the trade agreement, without being able to modify its terms.  Such a vote could be scheduled in the May plenary at the earliest, Bernd Lange, the chair of the chamber’s trade committee, told POLITICO. Lange, a German Social Democrat, said he was confident of a “sufficient” majority to pass the deal.  Pedro López de Pablo, a spokesperson for the EPP — von der Leyen’s own political family and the EU’s largest party — vowed there was a majority for the agreement in the EPP and dismissed the legal maneuvering.  “It is clear that such a move is politically motivated to delay the implementation of the deal rather than the product of a legal analysis,” he said.  Giorgio Leali contributed to this report. 

PARIS — A court appeal begins on Tuesday that will determine whether Marine Le Pen or her protégé Jordan Bardella will head into next year’s presidential election as favorite from the far-right National Rally party. While Le Pen has been a decisive force in making the anti-immigration party the front-runner for the presidency in 2027, she is currently unable to succeed Emmanuel Macron herself thanks to a five-year election ban imposed over her conviction last year for embezzling European Parliament funds. She is now appealing that decision in a case that is expected to last one month, although a verdict is not due until the summer. Le Pen looks set to fight her appeal on technical legal objections and an argument that the ban is disproportionate, rather than going out all-guns blazing and insisting she is the victim of a political hit job. If she does overcome the very steep hurdles required to win her case, she will still have to deal with the political reality that the French electorate are leaning more toward Bardella. The party’s supposed Plan B is starting to have the air of a Plan A. A poll from Ipsos in December showed the 30-year-old overtaking Le Pen as the French politician with the highest share of positive opinions. And a survey from pollster Odoxa conducted in November showed Bardella would win both rounds of the presidential contest.  The National Rally continues to insist that Le Pen is their top choice, but getting her on the ballot will likely require her to win her fast-tracked appeal by setting aside her personal grievances and perhaps even showing a measure of uncustomary contrition to ensure this trial does not end the way the embezzlement case did.  Le Pen is not famous for being low-key and eating humble pie. Shortly after her conviction, she said her movement would follow the example of civil rights’ icon Martin Luther King and vowed: “We will never give in to this violation of democracy.” That’s not the playbook she intends to deploy now. Her lawyers will pursue a less politicized strategy to win round the judges, according to three far-right politicians with direct knowledge of the case, who were granted anonymity to discuss it freely.  “We’ll be heading in with a certain amount of humility, and we’ll try not to be in the mindset that this is a political trial,” said one of trio, a French elected official who is one of the codefendants appealing their conviction.  LINE BY LINE Le Pen and 24 other codefendants stood trial in late 2024 on charges they illicitly used funds from the European Parliament to pay party employees by having them hired as parliamentary assistants. But those assistants, the prosecution argued, rarely if ever worked on actual parliamentary business.  The National Rally’s apparent defense strategy back then was to paint the trial as politicized, potentially winning in the court of public opinion and living with the consequences of a guilty verdict.  The attorneys representing the defendants could did little to rebut several pieces of particularly damning evidence, including the fact that one assistant sent a message to Le Pen asking if he could be introduced to the MEP he had supposedly been working with for months.  Given how severely the defense miscalculated the first time around, lawyers for many of the 14 codefendants in court this week will pursue more traditional appeals, going through the preliminary ruling “line by line” to identify potential rebuttals or procedural hiccups, the trio with direct knowledge of the case explained.   A survey from pollster Odoxa conducted in November showed Bardella would win both rounds of the presidential contest.  | Telmo Pinto/NurPhoto via Getty Images Defense lawyers also plan to tailor their individual arguments more precisely to each client to avoid feeding the sentiment that decisions taken at the highest levels of the National Rally leadership are imposed on the whole party. The prosecution during the initial trial successfully argued that National Rally bigwigs hand-picked assistants at party headquarters to serve the leadership rather than MEPs.  Le Pen’s lawyers will also argue that her punishment — barring a front-running presidential candidate from standing in a nationwide election — was disproportionate to the crime for which she was convicted.  The appeals’ court ruling will have seismic consequences for French politics and Europe ahead of one of the continent’s most important elections. The path toward the presidency will be nearly impossible for Le Pen if her election ban is upheld. Le Pen has indicated in past interviews that she would throw in the towel if she received the same election ban, given that she wouldn’t have enough time to appeal again to a higher court.   Should Bardella replace her and win, the consequences for the French judicial system could be profound. One of the codefendants floated the possibility of a response along the lines of what U.S. President Donald Trump did to those who prosecuted him before his reelection.   “The lingering sense of injustice will remain and can eventually evolve into a quest for revenge,” the codefendant said.

Just as Cyprus’ government should be concentrating on its presidency of the Council of the EU, it has to firefight controversy at home over a video circulating online that alleges top-level corruption. The furor centers on a mysterious video posted on X with a montage of senior figures filmed apparently describing ways to bypass campaign spending caps with cash donations, and seemingly discussing a scheme allowing businesspeople to access the president and first lady. One segment made reference to helping Russians avoid EU sanctions. The government denies the allegations made in the video and calls it “hybrid activity” aimed at harming “the image of the government and the country.” The government does not say the video is a fake, but insists the comments have been spliced together misleadingly. The footage appears to have been shot using hidden cameras in private meetings. Unconvinced, opposition parties are now calling for further action. Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides hit back hard against the suggestion of illicit campaign funding in remarks to local media on Friday. “I would like to publicly call on anyone who has evidence of direct or indirect financial gains during the election campaign or during my time as President of the Republic to submit it immediately to the competent state authorities,” he said. “I will not give anyone, absolutely anyone, the right to accuse me of corruption.” In relation to the reference to payments made by businesses, he said companies “must also offer social benefits within the framework of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) for the state, I want to repeat, for the state. And they do so in the areas of health, welfare, defense, and many other areas.” The contentious video was posted on Thursday afternoon on social media platform X on an account under the name “Emily Thompson,” who is described as an “independent researcher, analyst and lecturer focused mainly on American domestic and foreign policies.” It was not immediately possible to find public and verifiable information confirming the real identity of the person behind the account. The video includes footage of former Energy Minister George Lakkotrypis and the director of the president’s office, Charalambos Charalambous. In the recordings, Lakkotrypis is presented as a point of contact for people seeking access to Christodoulides. He appears to walk his interlocutor through the process on payments above the €1 million campaign limit. In a written statement, Lakkotrypis said it is “self-evident” from the video that remarks attributed to him were edited in order to distort the context of the discussions, with the aim of harming Cyprus and himself personally. He added that he filed a complaint with the police. The police have launched an investigation into the video, after Lakkotrypis’ complaint, its spokesman Vyron Vyronos told the Cyprus News Agency. The video then shows Charalambous, Christodoulides’ brother-in-law, who explains gaining access to the presidential palace. “We are the main, the two, contacts here at the palace, next to the president,” he says, adding that interested parties could approach the president with a proposal and money that could be directed toward social contributions. There was no official statement from Charalambous. The video alleges that social contributions made by companies through a fund run by the first lady are being misused to win preferential treatment from the presidency. Concern over this fund is not new. The Cypriot parliament last year voted through legislation that called for the publication of the names of the donors to that fund. The president vetoed that move, however, and took the matter to court, arguing that publicly disclosing the list of donors would be a personal data breach. The court ruled in favor of the president and the names were not revealed. Stefanos Stefanou, leader of the main opposition AKEL party, said the video raised “serious political, ethical, and institutional issues” which compromised the president and his entourage politically and personally. He called on the president to dismiss Charalambous, abolish the social support fund and — after the donors have been made public — transfer its responsibilities to another institution. AKEL also submitted a bill on Friday to abolish the fund within the next three months and called for the first lady to resign as head of the fund. AKEL also requested that the allegations from the video be discussed in the parliament’s institutions’ committee. Another opposition party, Democratic Rally, said: “What is revealed in the video is shocking and extremely serious … Society is watching in shock and demanding clear and convincing answers from the government. Answers that have not yet been given.” Cyprus has parliamentary elections in May and the next presidential election is in 2028.

After an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis this week, firing his weapon as she attempted to drive away, protesters have amassed around the country, many wondering: Can that officer be taken to court? The Trump administration, predictably, says the agent, Jonathan Ross, is immune from prosecution. “You have a federal law enforcement official engaging in federal law enforcement action,” Vice President JD Vance told reporters on Thursday. “That guy is protected by absolute immunity. He was doing his job.” But what do independent attorneys say? After the shooting, I reached out to Robert Bennett, a veteran lawyer in Minneapolis who has worked on hundreds of federal police misconduct cases during his 50-year career. “I’ve deposed thousands of police officers,” he says. “ICE agents do not have absolute immunity.” Bennett says the state of Minnesota has the right to prosecute an ICE agent who commits misconduct. But, he adds, that might be difficult now that the FBI has essentially booted the state’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension off the case—blocking access, the BCA wrote, to “case materials, scene evidence or investigative interviews necessary to complete a thorough and independent investigation.” In the conversation below, edited for length and clarity, Bennett discusses how the shooting in Minneapolis unfolded and the legal paths forward. When you watched the videos of this shooting, what did you see? You saw what could be easily identified as four ICE officers. And they’re all experiencing, to a greater or lesser extent, the same set of operative facts, the same factual stimuli. But only one officer, seeing the set of circumstances, picked up his weapon. None of the other officers did. That’s a bad fact [for Ross]. Also, the officer walked in front of the car, which counts against him in the reasonableness analysis. If you look at the recent Supreme Court case of Barnes v. Felix, that’s problematic for the ICE agent. What happened in Barnes v. Felix? It’s a shooting case where the officer walked around the car, [lunged and jumped onto the door sill], and put himself in harm’s way. You can’t bootstrap your own bad situation [to] allow a use of force. What did the court find? They sent it back to the trial court to consider it. But there’s good language in there. You said it’s bad news for the ICE agent, Ross, that his colleagues didn’t pull their weapons. Can you talk more about that? Sure, we’ve had several other cases. There was a tactical semicircle, a bunch of officers aiming their guns at a couple fighting over a knife; one officer out of the eight or nine fired his weapon, none of the others perceived the need to. And that’s important because it suggests the officer who fired wasn’t reasonable, right? Under federal law, an officer can only use deadly force if they had a reasonable fear that they could otherwise be killed or harmed. It’s an objective reasonableness standard. So it’s not whether you were personally scared out of your wits and fired your gun. It’s: Would an objectively reasonable officer at the scene have fired his weapon, believing he was in danger of death or immediate bodily harm? In Ross’ case, there was a previous incident—Ross had shot [with a Taser] through a window before at somebody in the car, and the guy hit the gas, and Ross had stuck his arm through the broken window, and he got cut [and dragged about 100 yards]. And so he was supposedly reacting to that. He’s not an objective officer at that point. The Trump administration has suggested that Ross is immune from prosecution as a federal officer. Why do you say he’s not? There’s plenty of case law that allows for the prosecution of federal law enforcement agencies, including ICE. And it’s clear under the law that a federal officer who shoots somebody in Minnesota and kills them is subject to a Minnesota investigation and Minnesota law. Now, the feds just took that away this morning, and they’ve already decided who’s at fault. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension was going to do an investigation to find out. But I can tell you, the federal code provides that when there is a state criminal prosecution of a federal officer in Minnesota or any other state, the officer has the right to remove the case to federal court. So if Ross was charged in Hennepin County, he could remove the case to the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota, have a federal judge deal with his case. The code is explicitly predicting such a prosecution could take place. If there was immunity of an absolute nature, you wouldn’t need that section, right? The administration seems to argue that Ross is protected under the Supremacy Clause, which essentially says that states can’t charge a federal officer if the officer was acting within the scope of his duties. Do you think killing people is acting within the scope of their duties? What if they decided to kill the 435,000 people in the city of Minneapolis while they were here, would the Supremacy Clause give them a free pass? I don’t think so. Also, if there was an actual independent investigation, and you apply the actual federal case law to this, and you concluded that Ross violated her rights by using excessive deadly force, he could be indicted federally. Now, nobody believes that would ever happen now: For a guy who talked a lot about rigged things, this [investigation] is rigged. Kash Patel took over the autopsy, so who knows, maybe they’ll say she died of a heart attack when she was backing up. If the officer isn’t charged criminally, the other route is a lawsuit. What are the challenges there? My team and I think there are ways to do it. I hope that her mother, or her next of kin, calls us and we’ll figure out a Bivens action or a Federal Tort Claims Act case, or something else. If you look at this case carefully, it has all the hallmarks of cases we’ve either won or settled for amounts of money no reasonable person would pay us if we weren’t going to win. It is essentially a garden variety unjustified use of deadly force case. And that’s based on the facts we know now; I bet the case is going to get better.

PARIS — Marine Le Pen and her troops are making it clear that they’re not jumping into bed with U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration despite their shared ideology. The far-right National Rally has in recent days gone out of its way to tamp down any hint of a political romance with the White House after German news outlet Der Spiegel reported that team Trump considered sanctioning the French judges who convicted Marine Le Pen of embezzlement and handed her a five-year election ban, effectively barring her from next year’s presidential race. After the verdict was handed down, U.S. President Donald Trump likened Le Pen’s judicial woes to his own and said her conviction was an example of “using Lawfare to silence Free Speech.” Le Pen will be back in court next week to appeal the verdict. Though the State Department has since denied the Spiegel report as “stale and false,” the mere hint of a National Rally-MAGA liaison was enough to quickly put the party on the defensive — especially given that Washington sanctioned a French judge at the International Criminal Court that issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In a press release dated Wednesday, the National Rally said it condemned the sanctions against the ICC judge and watches closely for “any pressure of unacceptable nature on the judicial branch.” In the same statement, it slammed the initial Spiegel report as “fake news” and chastised the press for picking it up. Three National Rally officials contacted by POLITICO also expressed unease at the unconfirmed report. “We have always rejected foreign interference from one side or the other,” Renaud Labaye, a close adviser to Le Pen and high-ranking member of her party, the National Rally, said Thursday. “We stand by that.” Alexandre Sabatou, a member of the France-U.S. friendship group in the National Assembly who traveled across the Atlantic for Trump’s inauguration, said Tuesday that “as a staunch defender of France as a sovereign nation, it bugs me.” The National Rally has been forced to play a delicate dance when it comes to support from Trump, whose administration last month hinted that it was ready to throw its weight between “patriotic European parties” in its bombshell national security strategy. However, Trump is largely unpopular in France, even among the far-right party’s supporters, and many voters recognize that his administration is pursuing economic and geopolitical policies that aren’t in France’s interest. Overtures from the White House to intervene in French and European politics also run counter to the National Rally’s pledge to protect French geostrategic independence — especially from American hegemony — rooted in the politics of legendary Gen. Charles De Gaulle. The debate around potential foreign interference comes as the country’s judicial branch is already under intense political pressure over high-profile cases, including the trial of former President Nicolas Sarkozy and Le Pen’s appeal.