Reinstate Trump? Musk starts Twitter poll
WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO: Just hours after saying he had not yet decided on whether to lift the Twitter ban on Donald Trump, the social network’s new owner Elon Musk asked users to vote on reinstating the former president to the platform.
“Reinstate former President Trump,” the billionaire Twitter owner posted, with a chance to vote either yes or no.
At 7:15am on Saturday, 59.6% of the nearly two million responses were in favour of a return of the former president, who was banned from Twitter for his role in last year’s attack on the US Capitol by a mob seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
There was no indication that the mercurial boss of Space-X and Tesla would adhere to the results of the ad hoc poll.
But on Friday, he also posted a Latin adage suggesting that the decision would be up to Twitter users: “Vox Populi, Vox Dei” (”The voice of the people is the voice of God”).
He has done similar polls in the past, asking followers last year if he should sell stock in his electric car company Tesla. Following that poll, he sold more than $1 billion in shares.
Trump, who revelled in using Twitter as a mouthpiece, was followed by more than 88 million users. He has said he will not return to the popular platform but would instead remain on his own network, Truth Social, launched after he was banned from Twitter.
Justice dept names spl counsel in Trump probes
The US justice department on Friday named a former war crimes investigator as a special counsel to oversee criminal probes into Donald Trump, three days after the former president announced a new White House run in 2024.
Trump -- who claims to be the target of a “witch hunt” -slammed the dramatic move as “unfair” and “the worst politicization of justice in our country.”
The White House strongly denied any political interference, but the unprecedented special counsel investigation of a former president - and current presidential candidate - sets the stage for a drawn-out legal battle.
At a press conference, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the appointment of Jack Smith, until recently a chief prosecutor in The Hague charged with probing Kosovo war crimes, to take over the two ongoing federal probes into Trump.
One is focused on the former president’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol by his supporters.
The other is an investigation into a cache of classified government documents seized in an FBI raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida in August.