Last November, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the most powerful pro-Israel lobbying group in Washington, announced a $100 million effort to unseat members of Congress who vocally supported calls for a ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza. AIPAC and its allies have flooded the spring and summer primaries of Cori Bush, Jamaal Bowman, and Ilhan Omar, and Summer Lee with pro-Israel opponents, limitless spending, and inflammatory rhetoric.

Last night, Lee, the first Black woman elected to Congress from Pennsylvania, won her reelection campaign handily, fending off a challenge from a local councilwoman who accused Lee of “stoking antisemitism” and sought to mobilize support from local Jewish leaders. As it stands, it looks like AIPAC’s war chest has run into a formidable opponent: Maurice Mitchell, national director for the Working Families Party.

Mitchell began his career in progressive New York state politics and became one of the founding leaders of the Movement for Black Lives. He mobilized many of the same groups that, under WFP’s banner, elected the majority of the Squad back in 2018, including Justice Democrats, Sunrise Movement, and the Democratic Socialists of America. Alongside groups like the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights and Jewish Voice for Peace, they formed Reject AIPAC, a coalition seeking to challenge AIPAC’s power by calling on Democrats to reject the group’s endorsements and contributions. WFP is steering this work as a third party by supporting candidates running in Democratic primaries and the general election. This year they’ve endorsed almost 300 candidates running in 24 states and will likely back hundreds more by the end of the 2024 cycle. 

It’s quite a glow up for a left-leaning coalition of labor unions and grassroots groups that united in the aftermath of Bill Clinton’s rightward shift and attacks on welfare. Twenty-five years later, the Working Families Party is one of the most powerful third parties in the country, steering the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and defending its most powerful players. And they’re not stopping at building momentum for progressive candidates. They’re taking on one of the largest and longest-standing pillars of Washington politics: the pro-Israel lobby. 

We spoke with Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party, about defending the Squad, the growing strength of the ceasefire movement, and the role of third parties in the 2024 election season. Our conversation has been edited and condensed.

What are the Working Families Party’s top priorities in this current election cycle?

We have a strategy called Block and Build. We have two priorities over the next two years: to block authoritarianism and build the independent infrastructure for our movement. Just a few days ago we made thousands of calls to voters in the Pittsburgh area on behalf of Summer Lee because the right wing is using AIPAC as a vehicle to funnel millions into Democratic primaries to defeat progressives, specifically Black progressives. When you look at the list, it’s Summer Lee, Cori Bush, Jamaal Bowman, Ilhan Omar. There’s a trend here. And, on top of their identities, they are the ones taking risks to align with where the majority of people are. Most Democrats believe aid to Israel should have strings attached to it and that we should be using everything in our power to manifest an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. That’s not a controversial position within the Democratic Party. It’s only a controversial position with elites in Capitol Hill. Why? Because so much of this right-wing money is being funneled into threatening and bribing politicians to take positions that aren’t popular.

What has been WFP’s role in organizing for a ceasefire in Gaza? Do you see the political calculus changing for Democrats?

We’ve done a number of things. Defending elected officials who came out very early for a ceasefire is one. But we’re also going on the offensive against AIPAC. We, along with Justice Democrats and a number of other organizations, launched the Reject AIPAC coalition because we need to tell the true story about what this organization is. AIPAIC masquerades as a pro-Israel organization or a group primarily concerned with foreign policy, but it’s actually a tool for the right wing and corporate interests to launder their money in order to attack progressives.

AIPAC is a perfect example of the corruption in Capitol Hill. In one breath, they claim some sort of moral high ground around challenging antisemitism and in the other they endorse dozens of ultra-right-wing insurrections who are either aligned, adjacent to, or straight up white supremacists. Any elected official that claims to be serious about democracy cannot continue to take AIPAC’s money or endorsement.

But we’re also working to build support for Cori Bush’s resolution calling for a ceasefire. The current number is up to 85 members in the House and Senate. In October, it was very risky for elected officials to even mention the word “ceasefire.” Now Nancy Pelosi, who just months ago was calling out [ceasefire] activists as potential agents of China, is on a resolution that is expressing a desire to condition aid to Israel. The Vice President has called for a ceasefire. The president in the last readout of his conversation with Netanyahu mentioned that he wanted to see an immediate ceasefire. Initially, establishment Democrats saw the ceasefire movement as a political problem to be managed or handled, but now—especially with the numbers coming out of the uncommitted effort—they’re realizing this movement is a serious constituency that they only ignore at their peril.

We’re in the middle of a presidential election season with two unpopular choices and a lot of frustration with the two-party system. There’s a lot of interest but also hostility toward third parties. What do you think third parties like WFP can contribute to this moment? 

I’m happy that the idea of third parties is being popularized this cycle. Each third party has its own strategy and I think people should be curious and serious about what that strategy is and what that party’s path to victory is. What we’re seeking to do is to build a third party from the ground up.

Historically, there have been a lot of third-party efforts to build it from the top down, meaning you start off with a charismatic presidential candidate like Ross Perot and you build your party around them. We’re doing the exact opposite. Our approach is you build it county by county, city by city, and state by state. This is a long-term project. That’s the only way we’re going to be able to actually subvert the two-party system.

What does that look like in practice?

We believe that you cook with what you have in the kitchen, so that means we tailor our strategy to the state we’re working in. In states, where there is electoral fusion like New York, Connecticut, and Oregon, we are legally and fiscally an independent party. We have our own ballot line. Electoral fusion allows third parties to cross endorse candidates of other parties. It’s the answer to the spoiler dilemma.  

In states where we don’t have fusion, we do a number of things. For example, in Philly, there are set asides for the “minority party” on the municipal level. Historically, that’s meant every election Republicans have basically gotten two seats just for signing up and filling out the paperwork. No other party challenged the Republicans to be the second party of Philly until we came along. We reasoned that there were more working families and progressive voters in a city like Philly so we ran independent Working Families Party candidates. In the at-large city council race last cycle, we won one of those seats. This cycle, we won the other. And now Philly is a two-party city: Democrats and Working Families Party.

Efforts to criminalize and restrict protest are growing alongside calls for a ceasefire in Gaza. How are you thinking about those two dynamics in the runup to the election?   

It’s not surprising that people in power seek to shrink or deny the space for grassroots movements to express themselves. We’re not too far away from the 1960s when young people at Kent State were killed by the National Guard. In the Black Power and civil rights movement many people died. This is just the latest iteration of that.

Just look at the recent Supreme Court decision that would in effect outlaw certain types of protests in Texas and other states. It’s both a threat to democracy and free speech. But it also speaks to how powerful we are. They wouldn’t seek to do these things if we were as marginal as they try to convince us we are.

What are the plans for the summer with the conventions around the corner?

It’s easy to sit and watch the news and look at the two people at the top of the ticket and feel cynical about our options. To me, that means we’re putting a bunch of DC-based political strategists and people who don’t have our interests at heart in the driver’s seat. This election and the stakes are not about individual politicians, it’s about us. It’s about our communities, our families, and the things that are sacred to us. We want to make it clear to folks that how we vote—but more importantly—how we organize before and after the election will have a huge impact on how our children are educated, whether they can access books about their history, or whether their identities are banned. Or whether we have a federal government that’s pouring more fuel on the fire of repressive policing. And really getting people to wrestle with what these choices mean for them versus “let’s give Joe another shot” or “let me tell you a story about how bad Donald Trump is!”

All those things may or may not be true, but the thing that will ultimately be true is that these decisions are going to affect the people we care about and we need to put that front and center. We need to lead with our community as the main protagonist, not elected officials.

In a little-noticed court filing earlier this month, federal prosecutors described Steve Bannon as a “co-conspirator” in a massive criminal fraud and racketeering case against a flamboyant, far-right Chinese fugitive, compounding the legal headaches of the former Donald Trump adviser.

FBI agents in March 2023 arrested Guo Wengui, a self-styled anti-Chinese government activist Bannon once advised, charging him and two associates with using a series of fraudulent investment opportunities to defraud thousands of Guo’s supporters in the Chinese diaspora of more than $1 billion.

Guo used the proceeds to fund a lavish lifestyle for himself and his family, including a $3.5 million Ferrari, a $26 million mansion, a $140,000 piano, and two $36,000 mattresses, the Justice Department alleges. Guo, who also goes by the names Miles Guo and Ho Wan Kwok, has pleaded not guilty. He has claimed his prosecution was the result of Chinese government pressure on the Justice Department. Deemed a flight risk, Guo has been denied bail and jailed since his arrest.

Bannon worked as an adviser for Guo from 2017 until at least 2020, helping Guo launch a series of media companies, nonprofits, and other ventures. In June 2020, Guo and Bannon founded a group dubbed the New Federal State of China, which they claimed was a government in waiting preparing to replace the Chinese Communist Party.

Guo paid Bannon at least $1 million and also gave Bannon use of a private plane, a Connecticut home, and a $30 million yacht, where Bannon was living when he was arrested on unrelated federal fraud charges in 2020.

This January, federal prosecutors issued a new indictment of Guo and his co-defendants, which added racketeering conspiracy, or RICO, to the list of charges. That charging document named numerous Guo businesses and organizations, including the New Federal State of China and other entities associated with Bannon, as part of the alleged scheme.

Bannon was not mentioned in the indictments of Guo and his associates and has not been charged in the case. But in an April 9 filing submitted ahead of Guo’s trial, which is scheduled to start next month, prosecutors for the first time said Bannon was part of the alleged criminal conspiracy.

In that document, federal prosecutors argued that during the trial they should be allowed to cite records from a bank in Abu Dhabi, where they allege Guo stashed more than $130 million that he “misappropriated” from investors. Prosecutors contend that in 2020 and early 2021 money in the account was steered to Guo’s family and associates. The motion said the records also include evidence of a “$1 million transfer to a company associated with Steve Bannon, a co-conspirator.”

Attorneys for Guo did not respond to inquiries this week. Nor did Bannon. An attorney representing him, Harlan Protass, declined to comment. A spokesperson for the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, which is prosecuting Guo, also declined to comment. 

The federal filing does not elaborate on Bannon’s alleged role in the conspiracy. Former federal prosecutors said that the government’s reference to Bannon as a co-conspirator is likely aimed at ensuring evidence related to the former Trump adviser can be admitted during trial. Out of court statements that would otherwise be barred as hearsay can be used as evidence if they come from an alleged co-conspirator, even if that person is not charged, these lawyers explained. 

The Justice Department probably identified Bannon as part of the alleged criminal scheme to ensure prosecutors can use evidence linked to him against Guo, said Joshua Naftalis, a former assistant United States attorney in the Southern District. “Being labeled a co-conspirator is not something anyone is looking for obviously, but it’s tough to say if Southern District will bring charges” against Bannon, Naftalis, said. “It is unlikely they will do it before the main trial.”

Still, the co-conspirator tag is the latest legal problem for Bannon, the onetime Trump 2016 campaign chief who now hosts a popular far-right podcast, War Room. Bannon was convicted in 2022 of contempt of Congress for ignoring a subpoena from the House January 6 committee. His four-month sentence is on hold pending an appeal. Bannon also faces criminal charges in New York for allegedly defrauding donors to a campaign to use private funds to build a wall on along the Mexican border. He has pleaded not guilty in that case and has argued he is a victim of political persecution.

Guo fled China in late 2015, just before he was charged there with a slew of financial crimes, and settled in a spacious apartment in Manhattan. In 2017, he began issuing allegations of corruption and other malfeasance against Chinese Communist Party leaders, winning a wide following among Chinese emigres and the embrace of China hawks like Bannon, who Trump ousted from a White House job in 2017. Bannon helped Guo launch nonprofits supposedly aimed at combating corruption in China, along with for-profit media companies that the men claimed were also part of their anti-CCP crusade.

The fraud case against Guo is based on his efforts to sell shares in some of those companies. This includes a 2020 “private placement” in which Guo offered his fans the chance to buy shares in GTV, a Chinese-language streaming site he launched with Bannon’s help. Prosecutors later charged that Guo defrauded many would-be GTV investors. And the offering was eventually blocked by the SEC, which said it was illegal.

According to prosecutors Guo then “continued to trick followers into sending money” through other supposed investment opportunities. Those included G|Clubs, which marketing materials described as offering “concierge services,” but which Guo also said would allow its members to invest in his other financial ventures at discounted rates. Prosecutors have said club members who paid tens of thousands of dollars to join received “few to no discernable membership benefits.” Instead, Guo and his codefendants “used G|Clubs as a mechanism to continue fraudulent private placement stock offerings” and pocketed the proceeds, prosecutors alleged.

Bannon regularly touted the Guo offerings cited in the prosecution’s case as sound investments, lending his prominence and voice to Guo’s efforts to draw money from his fans. “All these things you see popping off has been such successes really in such a short period of time,” Bannon said in a November 2021 video, referring to various ventures, including GTV, for which Guo was seeking investments.

In addition to public promotion, Bannon also privately advised Guo on the launch of GTV and G|Clubs, audio recordings obtained by Mother Jones show. Prosecutors have alleged that both ventures were central to Guo’s fraud scheme.  

While working as a paid consultant for Guo, Bannon in 2020 took part in meetings with Guo and others where the former Breitbart executive and Goldman Sachs banker offered advice on how to sell stock in GTV. On August 2, 2020, Bannon also counseled Guo on how to raise money for GlClubs. Bannon argued that the company could avoid having to comply with “the strictures of securities laws” by pitching itself as selling varied member services, even though, as meeting participants acknowledged, the club would give Guo fans a way to buy shares of his companies.

“All I’m trying to do is get around securities law,” Bannon said during the meeting. By offering memberships “you don’t maybe have to sell securities,” Bannon said later. “You’re selling a service.”

Bannon did not advocate violating the law in this meeting. Rather he urged ways to sidestep SEC regulations on selling stock. He also suggested that Guo advisers should consult securities lawyers before proceeding. And the recording of this meeting does not show that Bannon knew that that G|Clubs would, as prosecutors charge, offer no actual services.

Still, Bannon’s advice for G|Clubs does appear linked to the fraud scheme in which Guo is charged. According to people contacted by investigators, prosecutors, who possess the same recordings of Bannon’s meetings, questioned witnesses about his role in Guo’s financial ventures. Bannon, as prosecutors’ April 9 motion notes, was later paid at least $1 million in funds that were allegedly the product of the prosecuted fraud. The Guo trial is expected to reveal more details on Guo’s financial schemes, and likely will also shed new light on Bannon’s possible role in them.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that presented the grim reality of the post-Roe v. Wade world the justices have created. Without a constitutional right to abortion, states are forcing women into grave yet preventable health crises by denying them emergency abortion care. And yet, it appeared that less than half the courtroom acknowledged that reality.

The case arises from Idaho’s extreme abortion ban, which does not contain an exception to preserve the health of the pregnant person. The Biden administration sued, alleging that Idaho’s ban conflicts with a federal mandate to provide stabilizing care in medical emergencies under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), even when the patient isn’t expected to die. During oral arguments, Idaho’s lawyer, Joshua Turner, denied the reality of what Idaho’s ban actually does—and the Republican-appointed justices didn’t object.

There are some conditions arising in pregnancy that, if untreated, can lead to grave harm for the pregnant person, including hemorrhage, sepsis, an emergency hysterectomy, stroke, and kidney failure, as well as death. In Idaho and other states with similar bans, ending such a pregnancy is now legal only once an emergency has become imminently life-threatening. The results have been well-documented: pregnant women turned away from emergency rooms, hemorrhaging until near death, spending three days in the ICU with sepsis, uterine scarring that leads to possible infertility, emergency surgery to survive an ectopic pregnancy, patients being driven or airlifted across state lines to receive emergency care. In Idaho, faced with the possibility of criminal prosecution for providing appropriate medical care, 22 percent of obstetricians left the state in the 15 months after the Dobbs ruling overturning Roe, and labor and delivery units have closed. 

But during oral arguments, Turner refused to acknowledge that any of this could happen—much less is already happening. It was, to employ an overused term, a bold example of gaslighting, asking the justices to either ignore or disbelieve these well-established medical crises taking place around the country. Turner repeatedly insisted that there is no conflict between EMTALA and Idaho law because in every scenario of a health-threatening pregnancy complication, Idaho’s law would allow an abortion. “Idaho law does not require that doctors wait until a patient is on the verge of death,” Turner said. “There is no imminency requirement. There is no medical certainty requirement.” Yet that’s not how the law is being interpreted in Idaho. Nor is it the reality playing out on the ground.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor pressed Turner on the disconnect between that reality and his legal arguments. What about the actual case of a Florida woman who was turned away from a hospital after her water broke at 16 weeks, only to be rushed to the hospital the next day with life-threatening bleeding? In a scenario like that, could an Idaho doctor provide an abortion on the first day? The answer is clearly no, yet Turner wouldn’t answer. 

Justice Amy Coney Barrett interjected, pushing Turner to fully embrace the lie that in this hypothetical scenario, Idaho doctors could provide emergency abortions. “You’re hedging,” Barrett said. “Justice Sotomayor is asking you, would this be covered or not? And it was my understanding that the legislature’s witnesses said that these would be covered.” Then Barrett pressed on, undermining this claim by getting Turner to admit that if a doctor did perform an abortion in this scenario, he could be prosecuted. 

In a second colloquy with Sotomayor, Turner seemed to deny the existence of medical scenarios that would present a conflict between EMTALA and Idaho law. “Just answer the point,” said Sotomayor, “which is they will present with a serious medical condition that doctors in good faith can’t say will present death, but will present potential loss of an organ or serious medical complications for the woman, [Idaho doctors] can’t perform [an abortion].”

Turner responded by denying the premise of the question: “Your honor, if that hypothetical exists, and I don’t know of a condition that is so certain to result in the loss of an organ but also so certain not to transpire with death, if that condition exists, yes, Idaho law does say that abortions in that case aren’t allowed.”

But of course, Turner must be aware of such conditions. As Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar noted when arguing for the Biden administration, preeclampsia can result in kidney failure, causing a woman to need dialysis for the rest of her life. A stroke, as another example, may not result in death but in serious impairment. 

While the GOP-appointed justices largely ignored the factual problems with Turner’s version of reality, at least Justices Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh tried to pin Turner down on whether or not Idaho law actually conflicted with EMTALA. Turner danced around the question. Near the end of the argument, Kavanaugh acknowledged the two conflicting realities being presented. “You’ve touched on what’s happening on the ground and that’s an important consideration,” Kavanaugh ceded to Prelogar. On the other hand, he continued, “Idaho is representing…as I counted nine conditions that have been identified by the government where EMTALA would require that an abortion be available and abortion is available under Idaho law.” Kavanaugh is technically right—the two sides can’t both be telling the truth. 

By Idaho’s logic, the hospitals in the state that are airlifting patients across its borders can’t read the statute; the doctors fleeing the state don’t understand the law; the women being put in danger are being taken care of. And then of course, there’s the reality. But it takes a majority of the nine justices to win at the Supreme Court, and only three of them seemed to care about what is actually happening.

When House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) emerged onto the steps of Columbia University’s Low Memorial Library on Wednesday afternoon, he was greeted with a deafening sound: hundreds of booing students.

Johnson had just emerged from meetings with Jewish students at the university to discuss what he, other Republicans, and some Democrats allege is rising antisemitism on campuses nationwide. Columbia, specifically, has become the epicenter of a politicized fight over the policing of mostly peaceful pro-Palestinian protesters, after CU President Minouche Shafik ordered the NYPD to sweep a Gaza solidarity encampment students set up at the school last Thursday—the day after she testified before a Congressional committee hearing on allegations of antisemitism on campus in the wake of Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel. Police arrested more than 100 protesters, and NYPD Chief John Chell told the student newspaper, the Columbia Spectator, that “the students that were arrested were peaceful, offered no resistance whatsoever, and were saying what they wanted to say in a peaceful manner.” 

But remarks by Johnson and the other Republican politicians he brought to the campus on Wednesday—Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.), Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-N.Y.), and Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.)—painted a very different picture of events, one that an organizer at the encampment said does not represent their ethos. 

“Columbia has allowed these lawless agitators and radicals to take over,” Johnson said. He said Jewish students he met with described experiencing “heinous acts of bigotry” on campus, including allegedly being chased down, shouted, and sworn at. (Spokespeople for Columbia didn’t respond to questions from Mother Jones about how many antisemitic or anti-Palestinian incidents they’ve tracked on campus since October 7.)

“Anti-Israel encampments are popping up in universities all across this country,” Johnson continued. “The madness has to stop.” 

But as I’ve reported in my tracking of the growing number of Gaza solidarity encampments nationwide, many—including Columbia’s—appear peaceful, with student protesters calling for their universities to divest from companies that fund corporations closely connected to Israel’s military operations, and for administrators to allow pro-Palestinian protesters to peacefully demonstrate without threats of disciplinary action. At Columbia’s encampment—re-established since police cleared it last week—a sign by the entrance clearly lays out their demands: financial divestment from companies and entities that profit from Israel’s war on Gaza; an academic boycott of Israeli institutions; a public statement from the university calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire; an end to policing on campus; and an end to displacement both in Palestine and around Columbia’s Harlem campus. 

Sherif Ibrahim, a student and organizer with Columbia University Apartheid-Divest, told me inside the encampment organizers believe Republican politicians like Johnson “are getting it completely wrong because they want to get it wrong, and they want to label us as antisemitic when it couldn’t be further from the truth.” 

“If you spend time here in the camp, it will be crystal clear to you, but they did not,” he added. “They came and they spoke on the steps, and they left, because it’s a moment to gain political capital, and it’s something that they can make use of because there’s a lot of attention here toward our organizing and toward Columbia.” 

Many students who showed up to protest Johnson’s remarks also cast him as an opportunist. They interrupted him throughout his remarks, chanting “free, free Palestine,” and shouting “liar,” “get off our campus,” and “criticism of Israel is not antisemitism.” At one point, when students’ chants of “we can’t hear you” became overwhelming, Johnson paused and smirked before quipping, “enjoy your free speech.” 

Protesters chant, "We can't hear you," during Speaker Mike Johnson's news conference at Columbia University on rise of antisemitism on college campuses.

"Enjoy your free speech," Johnson says. https://t.co/8jZBbFvtRO pic.twitter.com/O6qf3I5jg9

— ABC News (@ABC) April 24, 2024

And before he wrapped up his remarks, he relayed a message to the protesters at the encampment outside Butler Library, just across campus: “Go back to class,” Johnson said, “and stop the nonsense.”  

When a reporter asked about Johnson’s “message to anti-Zionist Jews inside the camp celebrating Shabbat,” the House speaker replied, “I don’t know who’s in that camp over there, but I will tell you that this is unacceptable.” 

At Columbia, after GOP leader Mike Johnson dismisses the hundreds of students protesting, telling them to go back to class, a reporter follows up—
Question: What's your message to anti-Zionist Jews inside the camp celebrating Shabbat?
Mike Johnson: I don't know who's in that camp pic.twitter.com/iHQGz4ccpP

— Prem Thakker (@prem_thakker) April 24, 2024

Ben Gelman, a Jewish student at Columbia Law School I met outside Low Library after Johnson left, seemed to be a rarity among the students who came to hear Johnson speak: He told me he was glad the politicians showed up. Gelman said he was in an earlier meeting with Johnson, and that the Speaker told students “he’s going to work tirelessly to make sure that Jews can feel safe at Columbia again, that we aren’t intimidated.”

I asked Gelman if he experienced antisemitism firsthand at Columbia, and he referred to a video that has circulated on social media showing some protesters outside Columbia’s gates chanting, “burn Tel Aviv to the ground” and “Hamas, we love you, we support your rockets too.” 

“I actually hold Israeli citizenship, and for people telling me that a country that I’m a citizen of should get burned down—that was not comfortable at all, and quite frankly, it shocked and angered me,” Gelman told me. 

When I headed to the encampment a bit later and met Ibrahim, one of the organizers, he told me he hadn’t seen the video Gelman referred to, and said, “To all these critiques, we say there’s a definitive, declarative difference between anti-Zionism and antisemitism, and we oppose discrimination of all forms and all kinds vehemently.” 

Inside the encampment, things were peaceful and orderly: entry was tightly controlled, and students were sitting outside tents, eating and working on their laptops. Tables of food were set up in one corner of the camp, and as I milled around with a colleague, students began laying down blue tarps on the grass so Muslim students could pray. Ibrahim also mentioned that the camp hosted a Passover Seder a few nights ago.

Yesterday, Shafik emailed students saying that they had to clear the encampment by midnight or face “alternative options for clearing the West Lawn,” prompting many protesters to fear the police would return. Shortly after midnight, organizers said administrators extended the deadline to 4 a.m., and this morning, administrators said they were having “constructive dialogue” with encampment organizers and would extend the deadline to disperse by another 48 hours. 

One student I met outside the Low Library after Johnson’s speech, who only identified himself by an initial, K, summed up the dissonance between Johnson’s description of the protesters and the reality of the encampment: “It’s as if there’s some kind of armed insurrection here—there isn’t,” K told me. “There’s maybe, like, 100 students sleeping in tents on a lawn.”

This story was produced by Floodlight, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests stalling climate action.

In 2018, the Akron, Ohio-based utility FirstEnergy donated $2.5 million to a Republican Governors Association-affiliated dark money group backing GOP nominee Mike DeWine in a competitive race for Ohio governor, according to newly released records.

The records show FirstEnergy’s extensive behind-the-scenes work to get DeWine elected. “This Fall Governor race is very important to FirstEnergy from both a legislative and regulatory perspective and getting Mike across the finish line is critical,” then-CEO Chuck Jones wrote in an August 14, 2018 email invitation to a DeWine fundraiser.

The $2.5 million donation, which had never been disclosed, reveals how invested the power company was in the outcome of the Ohio governor’s race between DeWine and Democratic challenger Rich Cordray. At the time, FirstEnergy wanted to bail out two nuclear plants then owned by a subsidiary—but faced opposition from Ohio leaders including then-Gov. John Kasich.

Both DeWine and Cordray had promised to save the two northern Ohio nuclear plants if they became governor, and the company chipped in publicly disclosed money to both the Republican Governors Association and the Democratic Governors Association.

DeWine has not been implicated in the ongoing bribery scandal surrounding the nuclear bailout. Eight people, including the state’s former House Speaker Larry Householder, have been indicted. Two of those charged in the multimillion-dollar scandal stemming from the passage of the bailout bill have taken their own lives, including Sam Randazzo, the former chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, who was found dead earlier this month from suicide.  

According to the newly released records, FirstEnergy donated $2.5 million in three installments to State Solutions, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit affiliated with the Republican Governors Association that is not required to disclose its donors.

One installment of $500,000 is labeled “DeWine;” the other two are listed as “RGA,” according to records released by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio to the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, Floodlight, Ohio Capital Journal, and the Energy News Network.

The documents, including emails among high-level FirstEnergy executives, show multiple efforts by the power company to keep its support of DeWine out of the public eye by using dark money donations.

The records show that on August 14, 2018, Jones—now criminally charged in the scandal—held a fundraiser for DeWine and running mate Jon Husted, calling Husted a “good friend” to the utility.

Then DeWine met with FirstEnergy executives at an RGA fundraiser in downtown Columbus on October 10, 2018, the Dayton Daily News first reported. Shortly after, FirstEnergy Solutions donated $500,000 to RGA, according to tax records.

FirstEnergy also donated $200,000 to the Citizens Policy Institute, which blasted Cordray for being “Republican Lite,” according to released records. Cleveland restaurateur Tony George, a close FirstEnergy ally, was behind the group, as BuzzFeed News reported at the time.

In November 2018, DeWine defeated Cordray, 50.4 percent to 46.7 percent as Democrats swept elections across the country. In 2019, FirstEnergy helped Republican lawmakers craft HB 6, an energy overhaul measure that included $1 billion for the two nuclear plants. DeWine signed the bill within hours of it hitting his desk.

When asked if the donations influenced DeWine’s support of nuclear energy, DeWine spokesman Dan Tierney said: “Gov. DeWine’s support for nuclear energy is documented well prior to 2018, including during his tenure as United States senator.”

FirstEnergy spokeswoman Jennifer Young said the company was unable to comment on pending litigation; shareholders sued FirstEnergy after federal investigators revealed an extensive pay-to-play scandal bankrolled by the Ohio utility.

That federal investigation led to a 20-year prison sentence for Householder, a five-year sentence for ex-Ohio Republican Party Chairman Matt Borges, and the firing of several FirstEnergy executives. A parallel state-led criminal investigation has brought charges against two FirstEnergy executives and Ohio’s former chief energy regulator. 

Attorneys in the shareholder lawsuit have sought to subpoena records from DeWine and depose Husted, but neither faces any criminal accusations. FirstEnergy donated $1 million through a dark money group to back Husted’s campaign in 2017, according to previously released records. Husted and DeWine were competitors until they merged campaigns.

In 2018, the owner of the nuclear plants, FirstEnergy Solutions, was in bankruptcy. So creditors raised concerns about a $1 million payment earmarked to help DeWine’s campaign, according to emails exchanged on August 11, 2018. “They cited it is very large compared to DeWine’s current fundraising.”

Senior Vice President of External Affairs Michael Dowling tried to allay concerns by explaining that donors can back DeWine’s bid in several ways, including giving to DeWine’s campaign fund, the Republican Governors Association, State Solutions, and the Ohio Republican Party’s state candidate fund.

“Theoretically, DeWine/Husted could have a balance of $10M in their campaign account and the RGA could spend $40M in support of DeWine in Ohio,” Dowling explained in an email. “My point is that comparing the size of a contribution to the RGA to what the DeWine campaign has raised or what the DeWine Campaign’s current balance is can be done, but I’m not sure is logical.”

Republican fundraiser Brooke Bodney, who worked with the RGA, confirmed: “All factually accurate.”

Meanwhile, FirstEnergy Solutions’ David Griffing reassured Akin Gump partner Rick Burdick that there was no connection between State Solutions and DeWine’s campaign. Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld is a powerful law firm that represented FirstEnergy Solutions during its bankruptcy and lobbied for House Bill 6.

The issue was important because exchanging a political favor for a campaign donation would be illegal, a quid pro quo.

“Thanks,” Burdick wrote. “Just to confirm there is also no understanding with the DeWine campaign re his position on regulatory relief for nuclear plants related to this contribution.”

“Correct,” Griffing replied.

Mario Alejandro Ariza is an investigative reporter at Floodlight; Jessie Balmert reports for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau.

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Campus organizers at three universities filed legal complaints on Monday arguing that their schools’ investments in planet-heating fossil fuels are illegal, the Guardian has learned.

The students from Columbia University, Tulane University, and the University of Virginia each wrote to the attorneys general of their respective states calling on them to scrutinize their universities’ investments. They accuse their universities of breaching the Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act, a law adopted by 49 states that requires nonprofit institutions to consider their “charitable purposes” when investing, and exercise “prudence” and “loyalty.”

“[T]he privileges that Columbia enjoys as a non-profit institution come with the responsibility to ensure that its resources are put to socially beneficial ends,” the Columbia students wrote.

Investments in coal, oil, and gas violate each of the three schools’ stated missions and pledges to prioritize climate action and research, the complaints say. From a purely financial standpoint, investments in fossil fuel stocks are also volatile, the students argue.

“Despite the demonstrable financial and social benefits of institutional fossil fuel divestment, the Board has remained steadfast in its support of an industry whose business model is based on environmental destruction and social injustice,” the University of Virginia students wrote.

The investments from influential, moneyed institutions set a dangerous example, the students say.

“Universities occupy a unique position as a bastion of values and morals the best of society should strive for,” said Nicole Xiao, 19, a second–year Columbia student studying climate systems science. “When Columbia refuses to commit to divestment, it hinders those very same principles and continues a blatant disregard of the important climate work its own faculty, students, and affiliates do.”

The complaints, filed on Earth Day, come as officials at Columbia University face staunch criticism for directing New York City police to remove students protesting against Israel’s war in Gaza and calling on Columbia to divest its finances from corporations with links to Israel.

“In light of current campus events occurring at Columbia, this complaint further highlights the University’s responsibility to uphold stringent standards on socially responsible and ethical investments, with respect to fossil fuels and beyond,” said Xiao.

The filings are each signed by faculty, staff and alumni, as well as local, national and international climate organizations. They estimate that the three schools each have millions of dollars invested in coal, oil, and gas.

The students say their concerns are compounded by “conflicts of interest” on each of the three campuses. Staff and board members at each school accept payments for roles at fossil fuel companies, and polluting corporations have also funded research at each of the three institutions.

The complaints build on pre-existing fossil fuel divestment efforts at each of the three universities, and follow 19 similar initiatives at colleges around the US filed over the past four years. They come amid increasing scrutiny of the role fossil fuel money plays in the US academy. On Sunday, the Guardian revealed that Louisiana State University had not only accepted major funding from oil major Shell, but also let the company weigh in on faculty research activities.

Bill McKibben, the veteran environmental activist and author, supports the students’ efforts. He noted that Columbia University is where James Hansen, the US scientist who warned the world about the greenhouse effect in the 1980s, pioneered his study of the climate crisis. “It’s nuts that schools like these would try to profit off the climate crisis,” he wrote in an email.

Each of the filings was written with help from nonprofit environmental law organization Climate Defense Project.

State officials have not affirmed any of the legal filings yet, but students have met with state officials in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Mexico, Alex Marquardt, executive director of the Climate Defense Project, said. Several schools—including Harvard, Cornell, and Princeton—also voluntarily committed to divest from fossil fuels shortly after complaints against them were filed, he noted.

Maille Bowerman, 21, a senior at the University of Virginia who studies urban planning and environmental studies and organizes with DivestUVA, said student organizers on her campus think the filing is a “next step in getting our message through to the university and showing that the situation is urgent and requires drastic action.”

The students from each of the universities noted that the climate crisis—primarily caused by fossil fuels—had devastated each of their institutions’ home cities. These effects have been especially severe in Tulane University’s city of New Orleans, Louisiana, which is “arguably one of the cities most imperiled by the climate crisis in the United States,” said Emma De Leon, 20, a junior who is majoring in environmental studies and communication.

“The fossil fuel industry’s actions and infrastructure accelerate coastal erosion, which in combination with rising sea levels could result in New Orleans and Tulane’s campuses being inundated in the future,” said De Leon, who organizes with the sustainability and divestment committee of the Tulane Undergraduate Assembly. “During this semester alone, there have been two flooding events on campus that resulted in me either walking through water up to my calves or being stuck inside a building.”

Thomas Sherry, professor emeritus at Tulane University’s department of ecology and evolutionary biology, who signed the complaint, said the school has refused to divest from fossil fuels in its portfolio since he started his job on the campus in 1989. Even Hurricane Katrina, which struck New Orleans in 2005 and was one of the deadliest hurricanes in US history, did not prompt officials to take the leap.

“I understand that taking bold action, essentially against fossil fuels, is politically perilous in Louisiana, but I also would have expected more leadership from Tulane administration and trustees,” he said. “It’s ethically immoral at this juncture for institutions like Tulane to ignore its own contributions to, and inactivity regarding, climate change threats.”

The Guardian has contacted officials at Columbia University, Tulane University, and the University of Virginia for comment.

The attorney running the Republican National Committee’s “election integrity” effort has been criminally charged by the state of Arizona for her efforts to help Donald Trump steal the 2020 election. This turn of events highlights the Orwellian meaning of the phrase “election integrity,” as used by Trump and the Republican Party: An effort to win at all costs.

Bobb endeared herself to the former president as a fervent supporter who worked as both a Trump associate and a journalist as part of various efforts to help Trump overturn the 2020 results. As Mother Jones reported when the RNC hired her last month:

As a correspondent for OAN, Bobb promoted the Big Lie—enough that she was a named a defendant in Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation suit against the network. But Bobb was not just a purveyor of the Big Lie—she was also part of the operation. Weeks after the 2020 election, Trump brought in a new team of lawyers, including Rudy Giuliani, to help him subvert the results and remain in office. Though Bobb has not been charged with any crimes, she worked with that team to help coordinate the scheme to certify fake slates of electors in states Biden won, a plot that is part of both the criminal indictment against Trump in Georgia and the federal charges brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith.

Now Bobb has joined the list of Trumpists who have been charged with a crime. (Bobb’s name and charges have been redacted in the indictment until she is served, but multiple outlets have reported she is among the Trump allies charged.) Arizona charged each of the state’s 11 fake electors, which include sitting members of the state legislature and leaders in the state GOP. Arizona also charged Trump allies Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, Boris Epshteyn, Mike Roman, John Eastman, and Jenna Ellis with related crimes.

While the indictment does not detail attempts to overturn the election after January 6, 2021, Bobb’s work in Arizona continued after that point. As we wrote last month:

After Biden was certified the winner on January 6, Bobb remained a pro-Trump activist, raising money for bogus election audits while also touting the Big Lie in her on-air role at OAN. In Arizona, Bobb played a significant part in the GOP-controlled state senate’s audit of Maricopa County’s votes, all while covering it as a reporter. As the Arizona Republic‘s Laurie Roberts recently recounted, Bobb helped orchestrate the audit, raised money for it, and then surreptitiously advised the auditor, Cyber Ninjas, throughout the process. Ultimately, the audit confirmed that Biden had won Arizona. It’s the upside down version of journalistic ethics.

It was apparently this type of record that the RNC was looking for when staffing out its election integrity team, which tells you everything you need to know about the true motives of that effort. Indeed, Bobb’s indictment doesn’t appear to jeopardize her current role working for Trump.

“Another example of Democrats’ weaponization of the legal system,” Trump campaign communications director Steven Cheung said in response to a request for comment from Bobb or the RNC. “Christina Bobb is a former Marine Corps officer, who served our nation and the President with distinction. The Democrat platform for 2024: if you can’t beat them, try to throw them in jail.”

On Thursday, the Supreme Court held oral arguments over former President Donald Trump’s claims that he enjoys absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for engaging in what he contends were his official duties while in office. And one justice, Samuel Alito, offered a particularly wild theory about how to preserve American democracy and the rule of law.

The case centers on whether special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of Trump for trying to overturn the 2020 election can proceed or whether—as Trump contends—he is above the law when it comes to his conduct leading up to the January 6 insurrection. Much of Thursday’s hearing revolved around a debate over which of two possibilities poses a greater threat to American self-government: that defeated presidents might fear prosecution by vindictive political enemies upon leaving office, or that sitting presidents—secure in the knowledge that their legal misdeeds cannot be punished—might rein with impunity. Based on their questions, it seems possible that a majority of the justices prefer the latter. At the very least, the court appeared likely to rule in a way that would immunize at least some of Trump’s efforts to steal the presidency, an outcome that could delay his trial until after the 2024 election, if it happens all. 

During oral arguments, several Republican-appointed justices expressed concern that without immunity, former presidents might suddenly begin to face criminal prosecution with regularity. But Alito took this entirely hypothetical concern to an absurd conclusion: He worried that if presidents believed theirs successors could prosecute them, they might refuse to leave office peacefully when they lose reelection. Put another way, presidents need immunity from prosecution in order to encourage them to accept electoral defeat and preserve American democracy.

Considering that this entire case is about a president who sought to illegally remain in office—and whose supporters staged a violent insurrection to help him do just that—this was a stunning argument to make. In Alito’s own words:

I’m sure you would agree with me that a stable democratic society requires that a candidate who loses an election, even a close one, even a hotly contested one, leave office peacefully, if that candidate is an incumbent? All right. Now if an incumbent who loses a very close, hotly contested election knows that a real possibility after leaving office is not that the president is going to be able to go off into a peaceful retirement, but that the president may be criminally prosecuted by a bitter political opponent, will that not lead us into a cycle that destabilizes the functioning of our country as a democracy? And we can look around the world and find countries where we have seen this process where the loser gets thrown in jail.

Attorney Michael Dreeben, representing the special counsel, responded: “I think it’s exactly the opposite, Justice Alito.”

The next question went to Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who tried to rebut the idea that to preserve American democracy, we must exempt the president from the nation’s laws. “A stable democratic society needs the good faith of its public officials, correct?” she asked. “And that good faith assumes they follow the law?” 

Sotomayor then pushed at the logic underpinning Alito’s hypothetical and the broader concern of her GOP-appointed colleagues that despite checks meant to protect against politically motivated prosecutions, former presidents might become frequent targets of vengeful presidents and rogue prosecutors. “There is no failsafe system of government,” she said. “Justice Alito went through, step-by-step, all of the mechanisms that could potentially fail” to prevent abusive prosecutions. “In the end, if it fails completely, we’ve destroyed our democracy on our own.” If a future of politically motivated prosecutions of former presidents comes to pass, she argued, America will already have lost its democracy. 

The irony of using Trump as the vehicle for enhancing presidential immunity out of a fear of increased instances of political prosecution never came up. But it’s worth remembering that Trump was elected in 2016 on a platform of locking up his political opponent. Throughout his presidency, he tried to use the Justice Department to launch politically motivated prosecutions and was dismayed that the norm of the department making its own prosecutorial decisions did not break down. He has even complained bitterly that his attorney general and other federal prosecutors refused to help him steal the election.

However, should he become president again, Trump plans to tear down the post-Watergate norm of DOJ independence and wield the department as a prosecutorial weapon upon his opponents. “I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family,” Trump said last year. Trump is literally threatening to do what Alito, along with Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, openly fretted about on Thursday. Clearly, a president attempting to use the government to prosecute political rivals is exactly the kind of person who should not be granted more authority to break the law. 

Earlier in the arguments, Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson helped explain the moral hazard of creating an executive who is immune from prosecution. “If someone with those kinds of powers, the most powerful person in the world with the greatest amount of authority, could go into office knowing that there would be no potential penalty for committing crimes,” she said, “I’m trying to understand what the disincentive is from turning the Oval Office into the seat of criminal activity in this country.”

Alito and his judicial allies appeared open to that bargain—that in order for a president to act unimpeded, and without the fear of prosecution upon leaving office, he should be above the law. If the court ultimately combines this bizarre logic with endless legal delays to help Trump return to the Oval Office, it will usher in the very parade of horribles the conservative majority claims to fear. 

Donald Trump is on trial in Manhattan facing 34 counts of falsifying business records as part of another crime: conspiring to influence the 2016 election. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg argues that, to squelch negative publicity that might hurt Trump’s 2016 campaign, Trump directed the creation of fake records to hide hush-money payments to women who claimed they’d had extramarital sex with him. 

That’s a complicated case to prove. And one in which it does not matter one whit, at least legally, who Trump actually had sex with. All Trump’s lawyers have to argue is that the payoffs, while perhaps unseemly, were legal. And they’re doing that. Yet Trump’s lawyers are also going further, asserting that the former president didn’t have sex with any of the three woman whose possible encounters with him resulted in payoffs for silence.

In one case—a $30,000 payout to a doorman who claimed to know of Trump fathering an out-of-wedlock child—the underlying allegation in fact seems to be false. But it’s striking that Trump’s defense includes denials that he slept with porn star Stormy Daniels (who received $130,000) and Playboy model Karen McDougal ($150,000). That’s because, to exaggerate only a bit, no one believes him.

The ongoing testimony of David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer, who helped spearhead the so-called “catch and kill” scheme to buy the rights to stories about Trump’s alleged encounters in order to suppress the claims, drives home that point. Pecker on Thursday indicated that he, former Enquirer editor Dylan Howard, and Trump fixer Michael Cohen all believed McDougal’s account of a year-long sexual affair with Trump.

What’s more, according to Pecker, Trump did nothing at the time to counter that impression. Pecker recounted a June 2016 call with Trump which came while Pecker’s company was in the process of buying the rights to McDougal’s story. Trump, who Pecker said knew of McDougal’s claims and the talks about paying her to stay quiet, remarked that “she is a nice girl,” Pecker recalled. Trump then asked: “What do you think I should do?” Pecker said. Pecker said he suggested paying her. Trump, that is, did not deny McDougal’s claims. Nor, according to Pecker, did Trump dispute her claims in a January 2017 Trump Tower meeting in which he thanked Pecker for “handling” the matter.

Pecker was less involved in a payout made to suppress Daniels’ claim of a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump, during which she claims to have spanked him with a magazine with his own picture on its cover. But Pecker in his testimony has not mentioned Trump or his team seriously disputing her claims.

Contrast that with the story pushed by the former doorman. Pecker said Cohen angrily disputed the claim in a phone call and conveyed an offer by Trump to take a DNA test proving he was not the child’s father. (Nevertheless Cohen and Pecker arranged to pay the doorman for his silence.)

These exchanges came as Pecker testified that his efforts to bury stories about Trump’s alleged trysts were part of an ongoing scheme to help Trump’s campaign. “We purchased [McDougal’s] story so that it wouldn’t be published by any other organization,” Pecker testified. “We didn’t want the story to embarrass Mr. Trump or embarrass or hurt the campaign.”

Pecker said that he assumed Trump wanted sex stories silenced to help his campaign, not as Trump later claimed, to protect his family, since neither Trump nor Cohen ever mentioned a familial concern but did reference the effect on his candidacy. Pecker also said that he understood that his payouts amounted to illegal campaign contributions.

“I wanted to protect my company,” Pecker said later, explaining why he had lied to journalists in effort to dispute reporting on his payment to McDougal. “I wanted to protect myself, and I wanted also to protect Donald Trump.”

That testimony could prove damning for Trump, helping prosecutors make their case that the phony business records Trump allegedly okayed were part of a plot to influence the election.

Who Trump did or didn’t have sex with matters much less. He is not going to go to prison for adultery. But the dubious denials by Trump’s lawyers, seemingly made at his behest, might matter. While the attorneys can reasonably question the Manhattan DA’s case, they risk undermining their credibility with jurors with unnecessary and unpersuasive denials.

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

The world’s 3,000 billionaires should pay a minimum 2 percent tax on their fast-growing wealth to raise about $313 billion a year for the global fight against poverty, inequality, and global heating, ministers from four leading economies have suggested.

In a sign of growing international support for a levy on the super-rich, Brazil, Germany, South Africa, and Spain say a 2 percent tax would reduce inequality and raise much-needed public funds after the economic shocks of the pandemic, the climate crisis and military conflicts in Europe and the Middle East.

They are calling for more countries to join their campaign, saying the annual sum raised would be enough to cover the estimated cost of damage caused by all of last year’s extreme weather events.

“It is time that the international community gets serious about tackling inequality and financing global public goods,” the ministers say in a Guardian comment piece. “One of the key instruments that governments have for promoting more equality is tax policy. Not only does it have the potential to increase the fiscal space governments have to invest in social protection, education, and climate protection. Designed in a progressive way, it also ensures that everyone in society contributes to the common good in line with their ability to pay. A fair share contribution enhances social welfare.”

Brazil chairs the G20 group of leading developed and developing countries and put a billionaire tax on the agenda at a meeting of finance ministers earlier this year.

The French economist Gabriel Zucman is now fleshing out the technical details of a plan that will again be discussed by the G20 in June. France has indicated support for a wealth tax and Brazil has been encouraged that the US, while not backing a global wealth tax, did not oppose it.

Zucman said: “Billionaires have the lowest effective tax rate of any social group. Having people with the highest ability to pay tax paying the least—I don’t think anybody supports that.”

Research from Oxfam published this year found that the boom in asset prices during and after the Covid pandemic meant billionaires were $3.3 trillion—or 34 percent—wealthier at the end of 2023 than they were in 2020. Meanwhile, a study from the World Bank showed that the pandemic had brought poverty reduction to a halt.

The opinion piece, signed by ministers from two of the largest European economies—Germany and Spain—and two of the largest emerging economies—Brazil and South Africa—claims a levy on the super-rich is a necessary third pillar to complement the negotiations on the taxation of the digital economy and the introduction earlier this year of a minimum corporate tax of 15 percent for multinationals.

“The tax could be designed as a minimum levy equivalent to 2 percent of the wealth of the super-rich. It would not apply to billionaires who already contribute a fair share in income taxes. Those, however, who manage to avoid paying income tax would be obliged to contribute more towards the common good,” the ministers say.

“Persisting loopholes in the system imply that high-net-worth individuals can minimize their income taxes. Global billionaires pay only the equivalent of up to 0.5 percent of their wealth in personal income tax. It is crucial to ensure that our tax systems provide certainty, sufficient revenues, and treat all of our citizens fairly.”

The ministers say there would need to be steps to counter the use of tax havens. The levy would be designed to prevent billionaires who choose to live in Monaco or Jersey, for example, but make their money in larger economies such as the UK or France, from reducing their tax bills below a global agreed minimum. If one country did not impose the minimum tax, another country could claim the income.

“Of course, the argument that billionaires can easily shift their fortunes to low-tax jurisdictions and thus avoid the levy is a strong one. And this is why such a tax reform belongs on the agenda of the G20. International cooperation and global agreements are key to making such tax effective. What the international community managed to do with the global minimum tax on multinational companies, it can do with billionaires,” the ministers say.

Zucman said there was overwhelming public support for this proposal, with opinion polls showing up to 80 percent of voters in favor. Even so, the economist said he was prepared for stiff resistance. “I don’t want to be naive. I know the super-rich will fight,” he said. “They have a hatred of taxes on wealth. They will lobby governments. They will use the media they own.”