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A ex-federal prosecutor is warning that President Donald Trump is "highly likely" to use presidential pardons to protect himself and his allies from criminal charges once he leaves the White House.

Glenn Kirschner, founder of the Justice Matters podcast, told the The Daily Beast that Trump is terrified that multiple of his actions leave him open to being hammered by legal authorities as soon as he leaves the White House.

On the afternoon of Sept. 9, 2024, Cherise Doyley was in her 12th hour of contractions at University of Florida Health in downtown Jacksonville when a nurse came in with a bedsheet and told her to cover up. A supervisor brought a tablet to Doyley’s bedside. Gathered on the screen were a judge in a black robe and several lawyers, doctors and hospital staff.

“It’s a real judge in there?” Doyley asked the nurse at the beginning of what would be a three-hour hearing. “Now this is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Doyley hadn’t asked for the hearing. The hospital had sought it. Doyley had mere minutes to prepare. She had no lawyer and no advocate — no one to explain to her what, exactly, was going on.

Judge Michael Kalil informed her that the state had filed an emergency petition at the hospital’s behest — not out of concern for Doyley, per se, but in the interest of her unborn child. He described the circumstances as “extraordinary.”

The hospital and state attorney’s office wanted to force Doyley to undergo a cesarean section. Doyley, a professional birthing doula, didn’t want that and had been firm about it. She’d had three prior C-sections, one that resulted in a hemorrhage, and hoped to avoid another serious complication and lengthy recovery. She was aware that doctors were concerned about the risk of uterine rupture, a potentially deadly complication for her and her baby. She would say during the hearing that she understood the risk to be less than 2% and didn’t want to agree to a C-section unless there was an emergency.

But the choice would not be hers. The judge would decide how she would give birth.

Mentally competent patients typically have the right to choose their medical care — or refuse it. But there is one notable exception: pregnant patients. That inconsistency is particularly striking in Florida, a state that has pushed to expand medical freedom for those who wish to avoid vaccines or fluoridated water, while constricting the rights of people in various stages of pregnancy.

“There aren’t any other instances where you would invade the body of one person in order to save the life of another,” said Lois Shepherd, a bioethics expert at the University of Virginia School of Law.

In Florida and many other states, court-ordered medical procedures are just one of the ways pregnant patients’ rights are restricted. The effort to chip away at those rights is rooted in the concept of fetal personhood — that a fetus has equal and, in some cases, more rights than the woman sustaining it.

The link between fetal personhood and court-ordered C-sections dates back to the 1980s, when courts started ruling that hospitals can override patients’ decisions in favor of the health of unborn children.

In the years since, proponents of fetal personhood began to push for even broader legal protections. In 1986, Minnesota was the first state to recognize fetuses as victims in homicide cases. Some states have imprisoned pregnant women for exposing their fetuses to drugs. Nearly 30 states have passed laws that allow hospitals to invalidate pregnant patients’ advance directives, which outline the kinds of life-sustaining treatment a person wants after a catastrophic illness or accident. At least one, Alabama, extended the concept of personhood all the way to the earliest stages of fertilization and conception by giving frozen embryos the same legal status as children, though the Legislature later said the law couldn’t be enforced.

And the fetal personhood movement has accelerated in the past several years, supercharged by the U.S. Supreme Court decision to reverse the abortion rights that had been protected by Roe v. Wade.

Florida has long been at the forefront of fetal personhood policies. The state was one of the first in the country to prosecute a woman for “delivering” drugs to her fetus during pregnancy in 1989, although the Florida Supreme Court later overturned her conviction. And after advocates twice failed to get a fetal personhood amendment on the state ballot, the Legislature is now considering a bill that would enshrine the concept in state law by giving embryos and fetuses the same legal status as people in wrongful death suits.

For women in labor, the potential impact of the bill is clear: Experts anticipate their medical needs could be further diminished in favor of the fetuses’.

Several legal experts told ProPublica they are alarmed by Doyley’s case and the legislation’s potential to allow for more court interventions during childbirth. Lawyers who represent women in fetal personhood cases already have identified a higher number of forced C-sections in Florida than other states.

The state attorney’s office for the 4th Judicial Circuit declined to comment on Doyley’s case, saying a response would violate her medical privacy. But in an email, a spokesperson noted why, in general, the office would intervene: “The courts have held that the State has a compelling interest in the preservation of the life of an unborn child and the protection of innocent third parties who may be harmed by the parental refusal to allow or consent to life-saving medical treatment.”

C-sections account for nearly a third of all deliveries in the United States. They can be necessary when babies are breech, or in the wrong position for birth, as well as in cases of maternal or fetal emergency. But in other cases, such as slow laboring or prior C-sections, the need for the surgery is less clear.

Surveys have found that more than 10% of women feel pressured into C-sections and other procedures by doctors worried about injuries to the baby. Patients generally don’t challenge doctors who say they’re necessary, and it is uncommon for someone to hold out and for the hospital to turn to the courts.

It is so rare, in fact, that advocates for the rights of pregnant women were shocked to discover that the same thing that happened to Doyley had happened to another Florida woman just a year and a half earlier.

The similarities in their cases were striking. Both women had three prior C-sections. They had questioned the need for their previous surgeries and arrived prepared to fight for vaginal births. And both women are Black.

They had argued that compelling them to have C-sections violated their rights to make medical decisions. Hospital staff said their medical decisions threatened the health of the fetus. It would be up to the courts to decide which one mattered more.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche is accused of blocking the release of an unredacted report on a recently revealed drug trafficking and money laundering investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), in a letter to Blanche, called on the deputy attorney general to turn over a 69-page target profile prepared for the Drug Enforcement Administration by the Department of Justice's now-shuttered Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces as part of the congressionally mandated release of the Epstein files, reported Bloomberg.

Democratic Party strategist James Carville predicted that President Donald Trump's tenure will end prematurely, stating that Trump is not long for the presidency because "everything that he tries blows up in his face."

In a Politicon video, Carville made a bold forecast about Trump's political future. Carville stated: "I'm telling you, I think he's just going to quit next year by this time. I think he's just going to walk away because the Democrats control the House and the Senate."

President Donald Trump floated a startling plan Wednesday in the hopes of forcing the United States’ “non-responsive allies” to provide military assistance in his administration’s war against Iran.

Trump has reacted angrily at the NATO countries in recent days after his repeated calls for military assistance had been either ignored or outright rejected. After being attacked by both the United States and Israel, Iranian leadership has vowed to respond aggressively to any sea vessels aligned with either of the two countries attempting to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial shipping route through which 20% of the world’s oil trade flows.

A dramatic courtroom confrontation erupted this week when Judge Zahid N. Quraishi threw top prosecutor Mark Coyne out of his New Jersey courtroom and demanded answers about who's really running the U.S. attorney's office, according to a new report.

The scene unfolded during a child pornography sentencing hearing Monday, adding to deepening tensions between the Trump administration's Justice Department and federal judges. The judge grew increasingly frustrated with Coyne's presence and fired pointed questions at junior prosecutor Daniel Rosenblum about whether former interim U.S. attorney Alina Habba maintained hidden control over office operations, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

The U.S. Postal Service may be forced to stop deliveries next year if current trends continue, according to the postmaster general.

Postmaster General David Steiner told lawmakers this week that the Postal Service was on track to run out of cash to pay employees and vendors unless major changes were made, reported NPR.