Politics
Scope for politics gets limited: GM Quader
Jatiya Party Chairman GM Quader on Wednesday bemoaned that the atmosphere for doing politics in Bangladesh has now become limited.
“There’s no politics in the country… the people’s freedom of expression has also been squeezed. It is a great threat to democratic practice,” he said.
GM Quader, also the deputy opposition leader in parliament, was speaking at a meeting with ex-leaders of Chhatra Samaj at the Jatiya Party Chairman’s Banani office.
He said their party has been working for establishing people's freedom of speech and the freedom of individuals. “We are doing politics to ensure the voting rights of the mass people.”
Read: Bangladesh can become bankrupt due to debt liability: GM Quader
Stating that people’s right to elect the representatives of their choice through elections has been snatched, the Jatiya Party chief said their party will carry out a movement to establish the rights of all people.
Former student leaders M Helal Uddin, Anwar Hossain Tomar, Humayun Khan, Delwar Hossain Khan Milon, Faisal Didar Dipu, Jatiya Party central executive committee member Shamim Ahmed Rajib, AKM Sajjad Parvez, Rezaur Razi Swapan Chowdhury and Rakib Khan, among others, were present at the meeting
BNP happy over talks with Gono Odhikar Parishad
BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on Wednesday voiced satisfaction with the outcomes of their talks with Gono Odhikar Parishad as they reached a consensus on waging a simultaneous movement for ousting the current regime and ensuring the next polls under a neutral government.
The dialogue between the two political parties was held at Gono Odhikar Parishad’s central office in the capital’s Purana Paltan.
As part of their move to unite opposition parties for launching a simultaneous movement, Mirza Fakhrul together with party standing committee member Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury and media cell convener Jahiruddin Swapan sat in talks with a seven-member delegation of Gono Odhikar Parishad, led by its Convener Reza Kibria at 11am.
Talking to reporters after the meeting, Fakhrul said, “We're very satisfied with the outcomes of our talks with Gono Odhikar Parishad. We’re glad that they agreed with us on all issues, especially on not joining any polls under the current government.”
He said they also reached a consensus that the present government cannot be allowed to remain in power as it has very conscientiously and cunningly destroyed the achievements of Bangladesh, including democracy, freedom of speech, social values and the right to justice.
“That’s why we have agreed on initiating a united and simultaneous movement together with the people to remove this government,” the BNP leader said.
He said BNP and Gono Odhikar Parishad are in the same position on issues like the resignation of the government, dissolution of the parliament, formation of an election-time neutral government and the reconstitution of the Election Commission.
"We want to establish a people's parliament and government with the genuine representatives of people through holding an acceptable election,” Fakhrul said.
After that election, he said their party will form a national government with all their movement partners to repair the state.
Read: BNP sits with Ganosanghati Andolan
Reza Kibria said they had a very positive discussion with BNP and they agreed on many issues.
“After discussing the overall situation of the country here, we have understood that we are on the same path with the same thoughts. We don't have much disagreement with BNP. It is good news for all opposition parties and for those who want a change in Bangladesh," he observed.
Reza said they have no plan to go to the elections under the current government as they think no fair election can be held under Awami League.
“Discussions are underway with many parties and more will follow as a process of building a national unity has begun. The position of our two parties is very similar and we’ll work together to topple this despotic, corrupt and fascist government. All those who want democracy in the country will work together under the same banner,” he observed.
Gono Odhikar Parishad member secretary Nurul Haque Nur said they discussed what to do to overcome the ongoing crisis in the country. “There’s not much difference between us and BNP in the perception about what we should do to overcome the crisis. We have agreed on the 10 issues that we had in today's discussion.”
He said they also agreed with BNP's demand for a simultaneous or a united movement with other political parties to oust the 'fascist' government.
Earlier on Tuesday, Nurul in a discussion meeting said BNP and Awami League have the same character and the country cannot be run by the two major parties.
As journalists drew his attention to such a dissimilar position, Nur said it is fact that Awami League and BNP were in power for 34 years and they have much in common in their governance. “Now where Bangladesh stands, new arrangements and management are needed. In that case, BNP has moved away from its old position. They announced to form of a national government after the election to bring a change in the current system (of governance).”
On May 24, BNP formally began the dialogue with other opposition parties with the first meeting with Nagorik Oikya aimed at forging unity among opposition political parties.
The party also had talks with Labour Party, Ganosanghati Andolon, Bangladesher Biplobi Workers Party, Jatiya Party (Kazi Zafar), National Democratic Party, JAGPA, Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), Nap (Bhasani), Muslim League, Islami Oikya Jote and Jamiat Ulama-e Islam, Bangladesher Samyabadi Dal and Democratic League (DL), Bangladesh People's League, Bangladesh NAP, JSD-Rob, Jatiya Dal and a faction of Gonoforum,
Sri Lanka's new cabinet of ministers sworn in
Eighteen ministers including Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena were sworn into Sri Lanka's new cabinet before President Ranil Wickremesinghe here on Friday.
The President's Office said that among those who took oaths as cabinet ministers were Ali Sabry as the minister of Foreign Affairs, Harin Fernando as the minister of Tourism and Lands, Nalin Fernando as the minister of Trade, Commerce and Food Security, Kanchana Wijesekera as the minister of Power and Energy.
Dinesh Gunawardena was sworn in as the prime minister earlier in the day, and he also held the position of the minister of Public Administration, Home Affairs, Provincial Councils, and Local Government.
The new cabinet of ministers was sworn in after Ranil Wickremesinghe won an election in parliament on July 20 to become the new president of Sri Lanka following the resignation of Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
Read: Sri Lankan Cabinet reshuffled to counter economic crisis
People desperate to get rid of AL's misrule: Gayeshwar
BNP senior leader Gayeshwar Chandra Roy on Thursday said people have got desperate to get rid of the misrule of the Awami League government through a strong street movement.
“The bare face of the government has got exposed to the country’s people despite its huge campaign (of development). People are losing their patience and they want an action to take to the streets for ensuring the fall of this regime,” he said.
Speaking at a rally, the BNP leader also said ousting Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is the only way to get rid of the current miserable situation in the country.
“But she (PM) won’t resign as long as she has breath. So, we must remove her from power. We now need direct action to take back Bangladesh by toppling Hasina. I urge all to prepare for that,”
The Dhaka south and north units of Jatiyatabadi Swechchasebak Dal arranged the rally in front of the Jatiya Press Club protesting indecent remarks by a ruling party leader against BNP acting chairman Tarique Rahman.
Read: Gayeshwar for a 'do-or-die' movement amid corona
Gayeshwar, a BNP standing committee member, said, the government gave various bizarre promises to turn Bangladesh into a developed country like Singapore. “In reality, they now turned Bangladesh into Azimpur by trying to make it Singapore.”
He said the government earlier bragged about producing 26,000MW of electricity, although the country needs 11,000MW of electricity. “Now we’re not getting 11,000MW of electricity. But lakhs of crores of taka were plundered in the name of quick rental power plants and the money was siphoned off abroad. The cost of the Padma Bridge was estimated at Tk11,000 crores, but we still don't know how much money has been spent on the construction of this bridge.”
The BNP leader criticised Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal for his comments that contestants in elections should stand with a rifle or a sword if someone comes with a sword and, said it is tantamount to inciting terrorism.
“If we can take swords and rifles in our hands, then we won’t wait till the election as we can oust you before that," he said.
Read: AL govt 'deadlier' than Covid: Gayeshwar
The BNP leader said the CEC made such a comment to terrify people and thus keep the polling stations free from voters during the next election. "Don't think he (CEC) made such a comment unwary incautiously.”
Defeated party in next JS polls may get eliminated from politics: GM Quader
Jatiya Party Chairman GM Quader on Tuesday feared that the losers in the next national elections may get wiped out because of the prevailing political reality in the country.
“The political leaders of the country are responsible for such a political reality,” he said.
Speaking at a views-exchange meeting of Dhaka south city unit Jatiya Party and its chairman’s Banani office, GM Quader said the governments change and new governments are formed peacefully in different countries of the world.
“If someone in the government resigns, it is fulfilled through peaceful voting. But the reality is different in our country,” he observed.
The Jatiya Party chief said the election is like a war in Bangladesh, where those who lose have to be annihilated. “The liberation war was not waged for such a Bangladesh. Heroic martyrs did not sacrifice their lives for this Bangladesh.”
He alleged that the ownership of the country has been snatched from the people. “The real ownership of the country belongs to people and their elected representatives will run the country based on public opinion.”
Read: CEC says sorry for his rifle for sword remarks
GM Quader, also the deputy opposition leader in parliament, bemoaned that the common people have once again become like the subjects of the colonial period losing their ownership of the country.
Stating that the reality of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka is very similar, he said Sri Lanka had not gone bankrupt even after ten years of civil war. “But Sri Lanka has now become bankrupt through undertaking economically unviable and unplanned mega projects and repaying foreign debt with interest by its imprudent and unaccountable government.”
GM Quader said there are some similarities between the current situation in Bangladesh and that of Sri Lanka.
He said there are allegations that mega projects cost too much in Bangladesh due to alleged plundering. “As a result, it may become impossible to repay the loan with the income of those projects.”
Referring to experts’ views, the Jatiya Party chief said the economic situation of the country may turn dire when it will have to pay the foreign debts with interests.
UK leader hopefuls jostle as Johnson digs in for final weeks
A field of candidates to replace departing Prime Minister Boris Johnson began to take shape Friday, even as some Conservative Party lawmakers pushed to get the scandal-tarnished leader out of office before his replacement is elected in the next couple of months.
Johnson announced his resignation on Thursday — a dizzying about-face after months spent insisting he would stay in his job amid mounting ethics scandals and growing Conservative discontent.
He quit as party leader with a statement to the nation outside 10 Downing St., but said he would stay in post as prime minister until his successor is chosen by the party. That decision didn’t sit well with some of his Conservative colleagues, who worry Johnson lacks the authority to hang on, or could do mischief even as a caretaker prime minister.
James Cleverly, appointed as education secretary on Thursday after his predecessor quit during a mass exodus of ministers, defended Johnson’s decision to stay.
“It’s right that he has stood down and it’s right that he has put a team in place to continue governing whilst the selection procedure flows for his successor,” Cleverly told Sky News. “And we should do that I think pretty quickly, pretty promptly.”
Party officials are due to set out the timetable for a leadership contest on Monday, with the aim of having a winner by the end of the summer. The two-step process involves Tory lawmakers voting to reduce the field of candidates to two, who will go to a ballot of all party members across the country.
Lawmaker Tom Tugendhat, who chairs the House of Commons’ influential Foreign Affairs Committee, became the second candidate to declare he is running, after Attorney General Suella Braverman. Former Health Secretary Sajid Javid and ex-Treasury chief Rishi Sunak — whose resignations this week helped topple Johnson — are also likely contenders, along with Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, Defense Secretary Ben Wallace and Transport Secretary Grant Shapps.
Even as contenders launch their campaigns, Johnson remains in office atop a caretaker administration formed from a dwindling band of loyalists alongside ministers who have agreed to stay in office to keep government running.
Read: Boris Johnson reached the top but was felled by his flaws
Johnson has promised not to make any major policy decisions in his remaining time, but many Conservatives say a lame-duck leader is the last thing the country needs amid Russia’s war in Ukraine and a worsening cost-of-living crisis triggered by soaring food and energy prices.
Some also are wary of Johnson’s intentions after a resignation speech in which he made clear he didn’t want to leave, but had failed “to persuade my colleagues that it would be eccentric to change governments when we’re delivering so much and when we have such a vast mandate.”
George Freeman, who quit as science minister on Thursday, said he worried about a leadership election being held in “a febrile moment of midsummer madness, where we choose the wrong person in a hurry because of the instability.”
Some had pushed for Johnson to give way and let Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab step in as temporary leader. But lawmaker Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, treasurer of the Conservative committee that runs party leadership contests, said “that ship has sailed.”
“We must now live with the fact that Boris Johnson will be prime minister until a successor can be voted on,” he said.
The main opposition Labour Party said that was unacceptable and vowed to call for a no-confidence vote in Johnson in the House of Commons next week, though prospects of its success were uncertain.
“He’s a proven liar who’s engulfed in sleaze and we can’t have another couple of months of this, you know,” Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner said. “So they do have to get rid of him, and if they don’t, we will call a no-confidence vote because it’s pretty clear — he hasn’t got the confidence of the House or the British public.”
The brash, 58-year-old politician who took Britain out of the European Union and has been at the helm through COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine, has repeatedly defied the odds during a rollercoaster political career.
Read: British PM Boris Johnson resigns
In recent months he managed to remain in power despite accusations that he was too close to party donors, that he protected supporters from bullying and corruption allegations, and that he misled Parliament about government office parties that broke COVID-19 lockdown rules.
He was fined by police for attending one of the parties — the first prime minister ever sanctioned for breaking the law in office — but went on to survive a no-confidence vote last month in Parliament, though 41% of Conservative lawmakers tried to oust him.
He was brought down by one scandal too many — this one involving his appointment of a politician who had been accused of sexual misconduct.
Johnson faced days of questions, and gave days of conflicting answers, over what he knew about past allegations against Chris Pincher, a Conservative lawmaker who resigned as party deputy chief whip last week after allegedly groping two men at a private club. Pincher acknowledged he had got drunk and “embarrassed myself.”
Johnson offered shifting explanations about what he knew and when he knew it. That just brought concerns the prime minister couldn’t be trusted to boiling point.
Javid and Sunak, key Cabinet members who were responsible, respectively, for fighting COVID-19 and inflation, resigned within minutes of each other Tuesday, setting off a wave of departures by their colleagues.
Johnson clung to power for days, defiantly telling lawmakers on Wednesday that he had a “colossal mandate” from the voters and intended to get on with the business of governing.
His resignation the next day was a humiliating defeat for a politician whose jokey bluster brought a celebrity status unmatched in British politics — but who was accused of behaving as if the rules didn’t apply to him. The party acted once it decided that a leader with a rare ability to connect with voters had turned into a liability.
Conservative supporter Ernest William Lee said he “heaved a great sigh of relief” when Johnson announced he would leave.
“I’m sorry this country has got into this state,” Lee said. “It’s a mess and it needs someone very strong — male or female, I don’t care — to run it, run it properly and get it back on its feet.
“I hate being the laughing stock of Europe.”
1/6 panel probes Trump pressure on Pence to reject election
The 1/6 committee is set to plunge into Donald Trump’s last-ditch effort to salvage the 2020 election by pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to reject the electoral count — a highly unusual and potentially illegal strategy that was set in motion in the run-up to the U.S. Capitol riot.
With two live witnesses Thursday, the House panel intends to show how Trump’s false claims of a fraudulent election left him grasping for alternatives as courts turned back dozens of lawsuits challenging the vote.
Trump latched onto conservative law professor John Eastman’s obscure plan and launched a public and private pressure campaign on Pence days before the vice president was to preside over the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress to certify Joe Biden’s election victory. A federal judge has said it is “more likely than not” Trump committed crimes over the scheme.
“The illegality of the plan was obvious,” the Jan. 6 panel said in a court filing against Eastman.
The committee will hear from Greg Jacob, the vice president’s counsel who fended off Eastman’s ideas for Pence to carry out the plan; and retired federal judge Michael Luttig, who called the plan from Eastman, his former law clerk, “incorrect at every turn.”
Thursday’s session is also expected to divulge new evidence about the danger Pence faced that day as the mob stormed the Capitol shouting “hang Mike Pence!” with a gallows on the Capitol grounds as the vice president fled with senators into hiding. Nine people died in the riot and its aftermath.
The session is expected to show how Trump’s pressure on Pence “directly contributed” to the attack on the Capitol and how the Eastman strategy posed a “grave, grave threat” to democracy, according to a committee aide who insisted on anonymity to discuss the upcoming hearing.
Ahead of the hearing, Pence’s former chief of staff, Marc Short, said his boss was determined to stay at the Capitol that night and finish the job, despite the threats.
“He knew his job was to stay at his post,” Short said on CNN on Wednesday.
Short said Pence didn’t want the world seeing the vice president leaving the Capitol when “a hallmark of democracy” was under siege.
Read: 1/6 panel: Told repeatedly he lost, Trump refused to go
“He thought it was important that he stay there and make sure the work of the American people was completed that night,” said Short, who testified under subpoena to the committee for eight hours, but has not yet appeared as a live witness.
The panel is reconvening for a third hearing this month after a blockbuster prime-time start last week, followed by logistical setbacks in recent days. Monday’s key witness, former Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien, abruptly declined to appear in person because his wife was in labor with their child. Wednesday’s scheduled hearing with witnesses from the Justice Department who tried to convince Trump that his claims of voter fraud were just not true was postponed.
Nevertheless, the panel’s yearlong investigation is portraying a publicly gripping account of Trump’s final weeks in office as the defeated president clung to “the big lie” of a rigged election even as those around him — his family, his top aides, officials at the highest levels of government — were telling him he simply lost the election.
Former Attorney General William Barr, who resigned at the end of 2020 rather than be part of Trump’s plans, testified earlier that the president was becoming “detached from reality” if he believed the lies. He said he told the president his claims of voter fraud were “bull-—.”
With 1,000 interviews and reams of 140,000 documents, the committee is connecting the dots, showing how Trump’s false claims of election fraud became a battle cry as he summoned thousands of Americans to Washington for a Jan. 6 rally and then sent them to Capitol Hill to “fight like hell” for his presidency.
More than 800 people have been arrested in the Capitol siege, and the panel is considering whether to send a referral for criminal charges against Trump to the Justice Department. No president or former president has ever been indicted by the Justice Department, and Attorney General Merrick Garland has said he and his team are following the proceedings in Congress.
For now, the panel is pressing ahead with its hearings, with more scheduled for next week.
Thursday’s will unpack the Eastman plan to have the states send alternative slates of electors from the five or seven states Trump was disputing, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. With competing slates for Trump or Biden, Pence would be forced to reject them, returning them to the states to sort it out, under the plan.
Read: Capitol riot panel blames Trump for 1/6 'attempted coup'
Pence refused the plan, believing the founding fathers would not have left it to one person, the vice president, to decide the outcome, Jacob told the panel in previous testimony. Jacob said the idea was utterly against some 130 years of precedent in American history, “entirely made up.”
The committee in hearings ahead will be delving into the roles of extremist groups and others who heeded Trump’s call to Washington. Leaders and others from the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys face rare sedition charges over their roles in the Capitol attack.
Several members of Congress are also under scrutiny, including Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., whom the committee has asked for an interview to discuss a Capitol tour he gave that included basement tunnels to a group of people the day before the attack.
The panel is also probing several candidates for elected office, including the Republican nominee for governor in Pennsylvania, who were among the rioters.
The panel, which is expected to deliver a final report on its findings later this year, intends for its work to be a record for history of the most violent attack on the Capitol since the War of 1812. Unlike other national traumas that have pulled the country together, the Jan. 6 Capitol attack appears to have left many Americans divided. Congress splintered over forming the committee, which most Republicans opposed.
The panel’s two Republicans, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, have been shunned by the GOP for their work with Democrats leading the investigation into Trump and his role in the Capitol attack.
China and Russia defend North Korea vetoes in first at UN
China and Russia defended their vetoes of a strongly backed U.S. resolution that would have imposed tough new sanctions on North Korea, speaking at a first of its kind General Assembly meeting Wednesday.
The debate was held under new rules requiring the General Assembly to examine any veto wielded in the Security Council by one of its five permanent members.
Close allies China and Russia reiterated their opposition to more sanctions, blaming the United States for rising tensions on the Korean peninsula and insisting that what’s needed now is dialogue between North Korea and the Biden administration.
Nearly 70 countries signed up to speak at the open meeting which General Assembly President Abdalla Shahid hailed as making the U.N. more efficient and accountable. “It is with good reason that it has been coined as `revolutionary’ by several world leaders I have recently met,” he said.
Denmark’s U.N. Ambassador Martin Bille Hermann told the 193-member world body as he started his address on behalf of the Nordic countries: “History is being made today.”
The Security Council is entrusted with ensuring international peace and security, he said, and the use of a veto to prevent the council from discharging its duties “is a matter of great concern.”
The General Assembly’s adoption of a resolution on April 26 requiring a debate on the issue not only gives the country or countries casting a veto to explain their reason but it gives all U.N. member nations “a welcome opportunity to share our views on the matter at hand,” Hermann said.
A united Security Council imposed sanctions after North Korea’s first nuclear test explosion in 2006 and tightened them over the years in a total of 10 resolutions seeking — so far unsuccessfully — to rein in its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and cut off funding.
The 13-2 Security Council vote on May 26 marked a first serious division among its five veto-wielding permanent members — China, Russia, United States, Britain and France — on a North Korea sanctions resolution.
Read: North Korea's Kim at critical crossroads decade into rule
On Sunday, North Korea fired eight short-range missiles in what appeared to be a single-day record for the country’s ballistic launches. It was the reclusive north Asian country’s 18th round of missile tests in 2022 that included its first launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles in nearly five years.
U.S. deputy ambassador Jeffrey DeLaurentis told the assembly the record number of launches have taken place as North Korea “is finalizing preparations for a potential seventh nuclear test.”
He called the actions by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea or DPRK — the country’s official name — “unprovoked.”
De Laurentis stressed that U.S. President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken “have repeatedly and publicly said that we seek a dialogue with Pyongyang, without preconditions,” and that message has been passed through private channels, including China.
“The United States is more than prepared to discuss easing sanctions to achieve the complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula,” he said.
Unfortunately, DeLaurentis said, the DPRK has only responded with “destabilizing launches that threaten not only the region but the world.”
Under the General Assembly resolution that required Wednesday’s meeting, the permanent member or members casting a veto are given precedence on the speakers list.
China’s U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun addressed diplomats first, accusing the United States of ignoring positive steps taken by the DPRK and returning to its “old path” of “chanting empty slogans for dialogue and increasing sanctions against the DPRK.”
This has intensified “the DPRK distrust of the U.S.” and brought talks “to a complete deadlock,” he said.
Zhang blamed “the flip-flop of U.S. policies,” its failure to implement results of the DPRK-U.S. dialogue during the Trump administration, and its disregard for the North’s “reasonable concerns” for tensions on the peninsula today.
“Where the situation goes from here will depend to a large extent on the actions of the U.S.,” he said, “and the key lies in whether the U.S. can face up to the crux of the problem, demonstrate a reasonable attitude, and take meaningful concrete actions.”
Russia’s deputy U.N. ambassador Anna Evstigneeva said new sanctions against the DPRK “would be a dead end,” stressing that current U.N. sanctions have failed to guarantee security in the region “nor moved us any further toward settling the nuclear missile non-proliferation issues.”
Read: North Korea urges South to stop mediating between North, US
“Anyone who is seriously addressing the North Korean problem has long understood that it’s futile to expect Pyongyang to unconditionally disarm under the threat of a spiral of sanctions,” she said. “The creation of new military blocs in the regions such as the formation of the U.S.-Great Britain and Australia casts serious doubt on the good intentions of these countries,” including in Pyongyang.
North Korea’s U.N. Ambassador Kim Song denounced all U.N. sanctions and the proposed U.S. resolution as “illegal,” saying they violate the U.N. Charter and his country’s right to self-defense to prepare for any potential security crisis on the Korean peninsula and in the region.
Modernizing the DPRK’s armaments is essential, he said, to safeguard North Korea’s interests “from direct threat of the United States,” which he insisted has made no move “to abandon its hostile policy.”
Trump set to undergo questioning in July in NY civil probe
Former President Donald Trump, his namesake son and his daughter Ivanka have agreed to answer questions under oath next month in the New York attorney general’s civil investigation into his business practices, unless their lawyers persuade the state’s highest court to step in.
A Manhattan judge signed off Wednesday on an agreement that calls for the Trumps to give depositions — a legal term for sworn, pretrial testimony out of court — starting July 15.
Messages seeking comment were sent to the ex-president’s attorneys. State Attorney General Letitia James’ office declined to comment, as did the younger Trumps’ attorney, Alan Futerfas.
Another Trump son, Eric Trump, gave a deposition in 2020 but declined to answer some questions.
The new agreement comes after a series of setbacks for Donald Trump’s efforts to block James’ 3-year-long investigation.
James has said the probe has uncovered evidence that Trump’s company exaggerated the value of assets such as skyscrapers, golf courses and even his Manhattan penthouse to get loans, insurance and tax breaks for land donations. A lawyer for her office told a judge last month that evidence could support legal action against the former president, his company or both, though the attorney said no decision had been made.
Trump has decried the investigation as part of a politically motivated “witch hunt” against him.
A New York state appeals court ruled May 26 that Trump had to undergo a deposition, upholding a lower court’s ruling that the attorney general had “the clear right” to question Trump and certain other principals in his company.
Read: Trump wins acquittal, but Ukraine saga far from over
Then, on May 27, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit that Trump had filed to seek a court order stopping James from investigating him.
The suit claimed that James, a Democrat, targeted the Republican ex-president because of political animus and violated his free speech and due process rights. A lawyer for Trump said at the time that the dismissal would be appealed.
James, meanwhile, said Trump had lobbed “baseless legal challenges” at her investigation and vowed it would continue.
Wednesday’s agreement acknowledges that the Trumps can appeal to New York’s top court, called the Court of Appeals, to try to overturn the decision that requires their depositions.
The former president had plenty of experience with such questioning during his business career, and he gave a deposition just this past October in a lawsuit filed by protesters who said his security team roughed them up during his first presidential campaign.
James’ office started investigating Trump in 2019, after his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen told Congress that the businessperson-turned-politician had a history of misrepresenting the value of assets to gain favorable loan terms and tax benefits.
James’ office also has been involved in a parallel, but separate, investigation by the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
BNP denounces attack on Saki as scandalous
BNP has strongly condemned the attack on Ganosanghati Andolan Coordinator Zonayed Saki reportedly by the activists of Bangladesh Chhatra League and said it will remain as a scandalous incident in history.
“This is a heinous attack and it will remain as a stigma in history,” he said.
In a statement on Tuesday night, Fakhrul said such an attack on Saki during his visit to a hospital to express sympathy to the injured people in the Sitakunda depot fire can only be possible by cowards.
“This attack is extremely against civilization and human values. This incident has proved that the government wants to run the country by letting lose the terrorists,” he said.
The BNP leader also said this attack is also a strategy to divert people’s attention from all the failures of the government.
He said the ‘’demonic Nazism’’ got exposed more intensely through the violent attack on Saki.
The BNP leader said opposition parties and people of different faiths are now not getting spared from the bloody scourge of the government-backed ‘terrorists’. “What is the sign of this? Their mischievous attempt to attack the opposition forces and destroy voting, democracy and fair elections has not stopped.”
Read: ‘BCL men’ attack Junaid Saki at CMCH
He also said the government has been making one evil plan after another with all its might.
“Zonayed Saki has been bloodied through the attack that was carried out with the intention to kill him. Now is the time to resist them,” Fakhrul observed.
He urged all the democratic forces to get united to defeat the ‘illegitimate’ government by putting up barricades in the streets against ‘fascism’.
“I strongly condemn and protest the violent attack on Zonayed Saki by the armed terrorists of Awami Chhatra League and wish his a speedy recovery,” he said.
The BNP leader also demanded immediate arrest and exemplary punishment of the attackers. "
On Tuesday evening, Saki and some other leaders and activists of his party were injured in an attack allegedly by some Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) activists at Chattogram Medical College Hospital (CMCH).