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See photos of stars at the mega wedding for the son of Asia’s richest man in Mumbai, India
The son of Asia’s richest man is getting married in the culmination of a monthslong, star-studded, multi-event mega wedding this weekend, with the main event kicking off Friday. Anant Ambani, the son of Resilience Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani, and longtime girlfriend Radhika Merchant have an epic guest list that includes John Cena, Kim Kardashian, Mark Zuckerberg, Bollywood stars, famous cricket players, politicians and a who’s who from around the globe.
The wedding festivities kicked off in March with events attended by Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner and Bill Gates.
Rihanna famously performed at the March party, a three-day event that included 1,200 guests, according to Reuters. The bride and groom also served dinner to 51,000 villagers in Jamnagar.
Another pre-wedding party — a cruise around the Mediterranean — featured performances by Katy Perry, Andrea Bocelli and the Backstreet Boys, BBC News reports.
Several other parties were held earlier this month – including a performance by Justin Bieber, according to BBC – but stars began pouring out of the Mumbai Airport this week for the main event. Here are some of the people who walked the red carpet – yes, they have a red carpet for photo ops – and who are expected to attend the nuptials.
Anant, Mukesh and Nita Ambani
The groom, Anant Ambani, with his parents Mukesh Ambani and Nita Ambani. The elder Ambani is Asia’s richest man, with a fortune worth $123.7 billion, according to Forbes. He is the 11th richest person in the world, thanks mostly to his company which invests in petrochemicals, oil and gas, telecom, retail and financial services.
Resilience Industries also includes a successful broadband service called Jio and the Jio World Convention Centre will serve as the venue for the main wedding ceremony on Friday, according to Reuters.
Anant is the couple’s youngest son. Their daughter, Isha, got married in 2018 in a $83.8 million wedding, according to GQ India. Her wedding to Anand Piramal, the son of another billionaire, included a performance by Beyonce and is believed to have been the most expensive wedding in India.
Their other son, Isha’s twin brother Akash, married Shloka Mehta in 2019 in a wedding that included a performance by Coldplay, GQ India reports.
John Cena
Wrestler and actor John Cena did his signature “you can’t see me” hand gesture on the red carpet.
Nick Jonas and Priyanka Chopra
Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra, who won the Miss World pageant in 2000 and has a successful acting career in the U.S., and singer Nick Jonas of the Jonas Brothers attended the main event, taking photos on the red carpet. The pair had their own wedding in India in 2018.
Kim and Khloe Kardashian
Kim and Khloe Kardashian were filmed arriving in India to much fanfare. The pair also posted selfies on social media and showed off their fashions ahead of the event.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee
Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of the Indian state of West Bengal was seen arriving in Mumbai for the wedding earlier this week. She is the first woman to hold the office of chief minister, a role she took on in 2011.
Cricketers Ishan Kishan, Hardik Pandya, Krunal Pandya
Famous cricket players – including Ishan Kishan, Hardik Pandya and Krunal Pandya – were invited to the wedding. Cricket is the most popular sport in India and one of the most popular in the world.
Actor Varun Dhawan
Varun Dhawan, one of India’s highest-paid actors with a long slate of Hindi movies, arrives at the main event.
Bollywood actress Ananya Panday
Bollywood actress Ananya Panday, the daughter of foreign film actor Chunky Panday, attended the main event. She wore a custom dress with “Anant’s Brigade” embroidered on the back to show support for the groom.
Indian film director Atlee Kumar’s wife also donned an “Anant’s Brigade” dress.
Actor Arjun Kapoor
Arjun Kapoor, an actor who is the son of two film producers and part of a famous Bollywood film family, attended the main event.
Ivanka Trump
Ivanka and her daughter Arabella attended pre-wedding festivities in March. Trump was photographed with her husband, Jared Kushner, at the event.
Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Shaheen Bhatt and Aditya Roy Kapur
Some of India’s most famous actors, Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Shaheen Bhatt and Aditya Roy Kapur, attended pre-wedding festivities earlier this month.
A moment for the details
A custom mural, strings of lights covering the Ambani residence and fun fashions on the red carpet make up some of the lavish details of the event.
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Trump argues Smith unlawfully appointed in documents and election cases
Washington — Former President Donald Trump urged two separate federal courts to toss out the criminal charges brought against him by special counsel Jack Smith, arguing in both instances that Smith was unlawfully appointed and did not have the legal backing to prosecute the cases.
Trump’s requests were made to the federal district court in Washington, D.C., which is overseeing the case stemming from the 2020 election, and the U.S. appeals court in Atlanta, which is reviewing a lower court ruling that dismissed the separate case that arose out of the former president’s alleged mishandling of documents marked classified.
In the case in Washington, Trump is seeking to file a motion to dismiss the four criminal charges brought against him based on the legality of Smith’s appointment of special counsel. A district court judge in South Florida, who is overseeing the documents case, ordered an end to that prosecution in July after she found Smith was unconstitutionally appointed and funded.
The special counsel appealed that decision earlier this year, arguing U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon ruled incorrectly. He is expected to also oppose Trump’s bid to toss out the charges stemming from what prosecutors allege was an illegal effort by the former president to hold onto power after the 2020 election.
The documents case
The federal appeals court is set to decide whether to revive Smith’s prosecution of Trump over his handling of sensitive government records and alleged attempts to obstruct the Justice Department’s investigation.
But in a filing with that court, the U.S Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, submitted Friday, Trump’s legal team argued the ruling from Cannon, who was appointed by the former president, was sound and should stand.
“There is not, and never has been, a basis for Jack Smith’s unlawful crusade against President Trump,” his lawyers wrote. “For almost two years, Smith has operated unlawfully, backed by a largely unscrutinized blank check drawn on taxpayer dollars.”
They argued the appeal involved issues that present risks to the institution of the presidency and said the district court’s decision was correct based on text, history, structure and practices.
Prosecutors allege Trump kept sensitive government documents at his South Florida property, Mar-a-Lago, after leaving the White House in January 2021 and stymied government efforts to retrieve the records. The special counsel also charged Trump and two employees with impeding the federal investigation. He and his two co-defendants, Walt Nauta and Carlos de Oliveira, pleaded not guilty. Cannon dismissed the charges against all three defendants.
The FBI recovered more than 100 documents bearing classification markings during a court-authorized search of Mar-a-Lago in August 2022 and prosecutors later revealed that boxes of records were kept on a stage in the estate’s ballroom, in a bathroom and shower, and in a storage room.
Trump has claimed that the criminal case against him is politically motivated and denied wrongdoing. He sought to dismiss the indictment on numerous grounds, including the argument that Smith didn’t have the legal authority to file the charges at all because of the way Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed him in 2022.
The former president’s legal team argued Smith’s independent position within the Justice Department violated the Constitution. But Smith’s team pushed back, arguing in court filings that the naming of a special counsel was backed by Justice Department precedent that had been validated in previous cases by other federal courts.
The most recent involved the appointment of Robert Mueller in 2017 to oversee an investigation into Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. The federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., upheld Mueller’s appointment in 2019.
Cannon held several days of arguments in June to consider the constitutionality of Smith’s appointment before issuing her decision tossing out the 40 charges the former president faced.
“The bottom line is this: The Appointments Clause is a critical constitutional restriction stemming from the separation of powers, and it gives to Congress a considered role in determining the propriety of vesting appointment power for inferior officers,” she wrote. “The special counsel’s position effectively usurps that important legislative authority, transferring it to a head of department, and in the process threatening the structural liberty inherent in the separation of powers.”
In addition to finding that Smith’s appointment violated the Appointments Clause, Cannon said the special counsel’s office has been drawing funds from the Treasury without statutory authorization in violation of the Appropriations Clause.
Cannon’s decision — and Trump’s filings — cited a concurring opinion from Justice Clarence Thomas in the 2020 election case involving Trump, which he sought to dismiss on the grounds of presidential immunity. The Supreme Court ruled former presidents are shielded from prosecution for official acts taken while in the White House, and Thomas wrote separately to question the legality of Smith’s appointment. No other justice joined Thomas’ opinion and it is not binding.
Smith asked the 11th Circuit to review Cannon’s decision and resurrect the case against Trump, arguing the special counsel was “validly appointed” by the attorney general and properly funded.
“In ruling otherwise, the district court deviated from binding Supreme Court precedent, misconstrued the statutes that authorized the special counsel’s appointment, and took inadequate account of the longstanding history of attorney general appointments of special counsels,” prosecutors said in their opening brief to the appeals court.
The question of whether Smith was lawfully appointed could end up before the Supreme Court.
The 2020 election case
Proceedings in the election case in Washington had been on hold for months while the Supreme Court weighed whether Trump was entitled to immunity from prosecution, but they resumed in September. In the wake of the high court’s decision, a federal grand jury returned a superseding indictment that charged Trump with four felony counts but narrowed the allegations against him to comply with the high court’s new framework for presidential immunity.
Trump pleaded not guilty. He is expected to again seek to have the case dismissed on immunity grounds, but in a filing Thursday, also argued that the charges should be tossed out because Smith was unlawfully appointed. The former president also wants the judge to prohibit the special and his office from spending any more public dollars.
“Everything that Smith did since Attorney General Garland’s appointment, as President Trump continued his leading campaign against President Biden and then Vice President Harris, was unlawful and unconstitutional,” Trump’s lawyers wrote.
They said their proposed motion to dismiss the indictment “establishes that this unjust case was dead on arrival — unconstitutional even before its inception.”
Trump’s team argued that Smith’s appointment is “plainly unconstitutional” because he was not nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.
As to the special counsel’s funding, the defense claimed that Smith has been operating with a “blank check.”
Smith is expected to have a turn at bolstering his appointment in the coming weeks and will likely echo the defenses he deployed in the classified documents case.
Chutkan, as a federal judge in Washington, does not have to adhere to the ruling in Trump’s other prosecution and has indicated she disagrees with Cannon’s conclusion that Smith’s appointment was outside constitutional bounds.
During a September hearing, Chutkan said she didn’t find that ruling to be “particularly persuasive” and noted she is bound by the 2019 decision from the D.C. Circuit upholding an earlier special counsel appointment.
Trump is vying for a second term in the White House and has said he would fire Smith “within two seconds” if he defeats Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential election.
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From the archives: VP Dick Cheney on potential 2003 invasion of Iraq
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From the archives: President George W. Bush on “Face the Nation” in 2006
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