Days left before Trump’s first trial

Donald Trump said that it would be a “great honor” to be jailed for violating a gag order, marking an escalation in attacks he’s made against New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan and other court officials in a case about to go to trial.

Trump’s lawyers have filed another appeal in the hush money case to challenge the order by the trial Judge Merchan denying him from arguing he has presidential immunity. Trump’s attorneys also are challenging Merchan’s “refusal” to recuse himself from the trial and a previous ruling related to how dockets are made publicly. In a brief two-page notice of petition, Trump’s lawyers alleged the judge exceeded his authority in those rulings and have asked the appeals court to hold a hearing on May 6.

Merchan issued an order denying a motion from Trump’s attorneys to delay the trial due to excessive pretrial publicity. The ruling is hardly a surprise, and the latest in a series of decisions by the court this week rejecting Trump’s 11th-hour attempts to stop his first criminal trial. “The remedy that Defendant seeks is an indefinite adjournment. This is not tenable,” Merchan wrote.

[I believe all the pretrial publicity would be minor if Trump stopped bullying and whining.]

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is pushing back on the latest attempt by Trump and his co-defendants to disqualify her entire office from prosecuting the election subversion case in Georgia. Willis asked the Georgia Court of Appeals to uphold Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee’s initial ruling that allowed her to remain on the criminal case if her top prosecutor, Nathan Wade, resigned.

A New York appeals court with Associate Justice Lizbeth González has denied Trump’s petition to change the venue of his upcoming hush money trial. Trump’s attorneys had urged the court to postpone the trial so it could consider whether to change the venue, arguing that Trump cannot get a fair jury in New York. But González quickly denied the motion to stop the trial after hearing arguments, and there is no further argument on the motion to change the venue. Jury selection cannot proceed next week in a fair manner in New York County, which is Manhattan, based on their research, Trump’s attorney claimed. The trial begins on April 15th.

Earlier this week, Trump’s legal team asked the appeals court to delay the trial so he could challenge a gag order stopping Trump from making statements about witnesses, family members of the judge and prosecutors, and jurors.

[So exactly where they suggest the trial move to? Some area of the country that is heavily Republican? The trial has publicity across the US and at least part of the world.]

Trump asked a New York appeals court for emergency relief to stop the criminal trial from going ahead so he could appeal a lower court’s ruling on presidential immunity on April 25th and have the judge recused from the case. It took Associate Justice Ellen Gesmer just minutes after hearing arguments to reject the interim motion to stay the trial.

Trump said he would testify at his New York criminal hush money trial. “Yeah, I would testify,” Trump said at a news conference at Mar-a-Lago as he continued railing against the charges against him. Trump has been charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records over the reimbursement of hush money payments made before the 2016 election. He has pleaded not guilty.

Trump signed a bill in 2019 that increases fines on criminal robocall violations and cracks down on companies making the calls, as part of a federal push against telephone scammers. Why am I mentioned this? In the first week of April 2024, the RNC co-chair and daughter-in-law to Donald Trump, Lara Trump, sent out a robocall to 145,000 people with a series of laws. “We all know the problems. No photo IDs, unsecured ballot drop boxes, mass mailing of ballots, and voter rolls chock full of deceased people and non-citizens are just a few examples of the massive fraud that took place,” the RNC call said.

[Just 15 days ago, Lara Trump, said the “stolen” election from 2020 “is in the past”. She flip flops just like her father-in-law.]

Trump’s valet, Walt Nauta, repeatedly claims that he believed Trump stored news clippings, hairspray, shampoo, picture frames and other miscellaneous materials in the boxes in the special counsel’s case into the mishandling of classified documents from the Trump White House. Nauta faces several obstruction-related charges in the case.

[Must be a lot of news clippings, hairspray, shampoo, picture frames. So if he claims he knew the contents of the boxes then he knew that he was wrong in claiming that junk.]

Trump has privately said he could end Russia’s war in Ukraine by pressuring Ukraine to give up some territory. Some foreign policy experts said Trump’s idea would reward Russian President Vladimir Putin and condone the violation of internationally recognized borders by force.

[Do you think Ukraine would even allow that to happen? I doubt it. Of course what is to stop Russia from wanting more late? Trump in the end, doesn’t care about Ukraine. He doesn’t care about the lives there. He just wants to please his master, Vlady Putain.]

Cowardly, Trump said that abortion rights should be left to the states, offering his clearest stance yet on one of the most delicate and contentious issues in American politics. He previously suggested a 15 week ban. Trump said he was “proudly the person responsible” for the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. In 1999, Trump called himself “very pro-choice”. Over the past 25 years, he has changed his stance 13 times.

[What did he do with Roe v. Wade? He stacked the Supreme Court with right wing judges.]

Trump credited his about face in 2015 to a child born to his friends who “was going to be aborted. And it wasn’t aborted. And that child today is a total superstar, a great, great child.”

[Of course, Trump has the history of making up stories. So take this story with a grain of salt….]

House conservatives revolted against GOP leadership and defeated a key vote on the floor, the latest blow to Speaker Mike Johnson that comes after Trump called on Republicans to kill a controversial surveillance law known as FISA. 19 Republicans bucked the House GOP leadership and voting with Democrats to sink the procedural vote. Does Trump want to oust Johnson?

[Those 19 Republicans probably include the usual far right Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz and the rest of the wack job squad. Greene has threatened to oust Johnson and with maybe 19 potential Republicans against Johnson, Congress would go through the same mess when Johnson was first elected speaker. If the coup d’état comes soon, it could kill the Republican’s attempt to impeach Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas before the next election.]

Trump’s campaign announced that a recent dinner in Palm Beach would raise at least $50.5 million. The money would be split between Trump’s campaign, the Republican National Committee and others. Each of the 100 guests at the dinner will shell out a minimum of $250,000 and a maximum of about $824,600 each [who got to sit at Trump’s table].

[So these wealthy 100 people don’t seem to mind on backing a narcissist womanizer who was the leader of the Trump Insurrection of January 6th.]

Immigrants arriving today “are people coming in from prisons and jails. They’re coming in from just unbelievable places and countries, countries that are a disaster,” he said, according to the attendee at that fundraiser. He would prefer “Nice countries, you know like Denmark, Switzerland? Do we have any people coming in from Denmark? How about Switzerland? How about Norway?”

During Trump’s 4 year reign, there were 14 cabinet secretary turnovers. In about 3.5 years, President Biden has had 2. In fact, if you add up the Presidents Clinton, G.W. Bush, Obama and Biden years combined, there were still less turnovers than Trump.

Unsure if it is because of Trump, but at least 21 House Republicans will vacate their seat by the next election.

Former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg, who admitted to testifying falsely in Trump’s civil fraud case, was sentenced to five months in jail on perjury charges. Weisselberg was charged with five counts of perjury, but under a deal with prosecutors, he agreed to plead guilty to two felony counts relating to testimony he gave during a 2020 deposition with the attorney general’s office. Weisselberg also admitted to testifying falsely at the civil fraud trial last fall but that is not among the charges to which he pleaded guilty.

In a recent poll, the number of Republicans who agree that there was fraud in the 2020 elections and there was no Russian interference have increased since the elections. Not surprisingly but Republicans overwhelmingly believe all the lies from Trump – anywhere between 37% and 87% – depending on the lie. Democrats are at the other side of the scale with the US funds the majority of the budget for NATO at 26%. Independents tend to be about 10-15% higher. Republicans also don’t seem to care as much if the president is ethical [perfect for Trump] and compassionate [also Trump].

Still another crazy week in Trumpland

Donald Trump posted a $175 million bond to prevent New York authorities from seizing his assets, including properties such as Trump Tower, pending appeal of a civil fraud judgment against him of nearly a half-billion dollars. Trump posting of the bond was necessary to keep New York Attorney General Letitia James from initiating legal steps to take over his properties. The bond arrangement was made with Knight Specialty Insurance Company, according to a court document. About 30 surety companies he consulted with would not accept his real estate as collateral, only liquid assets.

[The CEO of Knight Specialty Insurance Company is also a large investor in Internet bank named Axos. Axos’ CEO and top investors have strong financial ties to the GOP. Axos loan Trump $100 million previously. Not surprising with the 30 companies. Between going bankrupt 4 times and inflating the worth of those properties he owned, it’s no surprise he wasn’t popular with them.]

If he does not win his appeal, Trump will still owe more than $450 million from a civil court judgment after James won the fraud case against him, alleging he deceived lenders and insurance companies by inflating his net worth by up to $2.2 billion annually from 2011 to 2021. Trump’s tab is growing by about $100,000 per day because interest will continue to accrue until the appeal ends.

Trump attacked Judge Juan Merchan for issuing the gag order – and he went after the judge’s daughter for her liberal political work, exploiting the ambiguous language in the order that didn’t explicitly forbid discussion of Merchan’s family. It didn’t take long for Merchan pushed back, expanding the gag order to cover his family – though the judge remains fair game for Trump – and attempting to limit Trump’s vitriol two weeks before the trial is set to begin.

[It should be standard practice that when you have Trump as a defendant, a gag order should be issued to cover the judge, court personnel and their families. The Republicans and their propaganda backers are saying that since the judge’s daughter works as a Democrat “activists”, she will influence her father’s decision. She did post something a while back saying Trump should be in prison. But that could be the same thoughts of most left leaning voters. Does Trump want a right leaning judge with a right leaning family who want no prison time for Trump?]

Then Merchan denied his motion to delay its start until after the US Supreme Court rules on Trump’s presidential immunity claim, calling it untimely and noting Trump’s lawyers had months to file a motion over the issue.

The prosecutor, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, in Trump’s upcoming hush money trial has asked Judge Merchan to clarify whether a gag order issued for Trump recently bars him from publicly attacking the judge’s adult daughter — and to expand the order if it doesn’t.

Trump’s lawyers said Merchan’s gag order does not apply to comments about the judge’s family members and Trump’s recent posts had not violated the order and repeatedly argued that any limitation on his speech is a clear violation of his First Amendment rights and his rights as a presidential candidate.

[It would basically be open season any judge and his/her family if someone like Trump can constantly lie, harass and abuse the judge and his family. What judge would want to be a judge knowing him/her as well as the family could be threatened?]

A criminal case that was once viewed as the most open-and-shut prosecution against Trump has been mired in delay, unresolved logistical questions and fringe legal arguments that appear to have hijacked US District Judge Aileen Cannon’s attention. Special counsel Jack Smith said Cannon had asked for briefs that were premised on a “fundamentally flawed” understanding of the case that had “no basis in law or fact.”

In a 2022 lawsuit Trump brought attacking the FBI’s documents investigation, Cannon granted an extraordinary Trump request for a third-party review of the FBI’s 2022 search of his Mar-a-Lago resort for the classified documents. A conservative appeals court repeatedly reversed her rulings in the lawsuit, scolding her for giving Trump special treatment no other private citizen would receive, and shut down the review. Cannon’s rulings in the 2022 lawsuit were so outside the bounds that people rightly became suspicious of her motives.

[Cannon was appointed by Trump in 2020 and it shows that she is inexperienced. The probability of having the trial begin before the election is fading. On top of that, if Trump does win the election, he will shut down this and any other open cases against him.]

Observers were shocked when Cannon summoned the parties to Florida to present their theories on the validity of the charges.

[A judge generally doesn’t do that. She is judging 32 of the 91 charges against Trump.]

Judge Cannon will not dismiss the classified documents charges against Trump, who argued that he had the authority to take classified or sensitive documents with him after he left the White House. The short order from Judge Cannon leaves open the possibility that Trump could still use the argument to defend himself at trial.

[Well, at least she did something that is mostly right.]

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee upheld the criminal indictment against Trump in Georgia, rejecting the argument that Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election were protected under the First Amendment. “The defense has not presented, nor is the Court able to find, any authority that the speech and conduct alleged is protected political speech,” Judge McAfee wrote in his order.

[Unsure how Trump could ask for a dismissal when he clearly asked for an exact number of votes to be found that would declare him barely the winner.]

Lawyers for several defendants in the Georgia criminal case against Trump and others have been weighing whether to press for a gag order against Atlanta-area prosecutor Fani Willis, especially if efforts to disqualify her fail. Willis has continued to speak publicly about the case. A gag order against one of Trump’s biggest foes could score political points and help him and his co-defendants in the short term. But it could also backfire by undercutting their efforts to have Willis disqualified from the case, or by inspiring efforts to seek a gag order against Trump and other defendants who have publicly criticized Willis.

In one of Trump’s ever growing number of lies, after a 25 year old woman was killed by a migrant, Trump said “She lit up that room, and I’ve heard that from so many people…. I spoke to some of her family.” Except the family said he never spoke to them.

[Shocked? I’m not.]

“What the hell was Biden thinking when he declared Easter Sunday to be Trans Visibility Day?” Trump said, suggesting that the declaration showed “total disrespect to Christians.”

[Trans Visibility Day has always been May 31st. It just so happens that Easter was early this year. He said nothing about National Crayon Day.]

In the federal election interference case, Judge Tanya Chutkan previously also heard – and rejected – the argument that Trump’s actions should be considered protected political speech.

“Sending eight emails and texts a day that promise an artificial match, threaten to take away your GOP membership, or call you a traitor if you don’t donate doesn’t build a long-term relationship with donors,” said a Republican fundraiser.

[Spam, abuse, and threats all rolled into one.]

Trump said recently if he does not win November’s presidential election it will mean the likely end of American democracy.

[More like if he wins….]

Just a couple weeks after saying there will be a “bloodbath” if he doesn’t win the election in November, Trump repeated his call as well as repeatedly calling illegal immigrants “animals” and claiming they bring in disease and violence. After the first time he mentioned bloodbath, his campaign after claimed the word was intended for the auto industry.

[If you believe that I have a nice piece of land to sell you on Pluto.]

Some Trump cronies are thinking of pushing Nebraska to change their electoral vote. Nebraska and Maine are the only two states where their House representatives are not an all or nothing but by district. MAGA people think that they have a better change of getting the Nebraska state House of Representatives [note that they don’t have a senate] to switch to all or nothing before the elections and before the state House session ends.

The reason for the push to change? If the states won by Biden stays the same except Nevada and New Mexico, Biden would be ahead by 2 House representatives. If Nebraska went all to Trump [instead of one district that would go to Biden], it would be an even 269 representatives for each. In a tie, each state would then have one vote to cast and there are more Trump states than Biden states.

[Another dumb way to break a “tie breaker”. Just as bad as the NHL tiebreaker by having a shoot-out.]

At least six Republicans want to change the name of Washington Dulles International Airport to Donald J. Trump International Airport.

“Donald Trump is facing 91 felony charges,” Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly, whose district includes part of Dulles, said in a statement. “If Republicans want to name something after him, I’d suggest they find a federal prison.”

[Or maybe Rikers Island? Dulles is considered as one of the worst airports in the world. It is old and antiquated.]

Trump’s DJT stock on NASDAQ lost over $4 billion in worth at one point in its first week of trading. In about ten days the stock was half the price of the highest price [almost $80 on March 26].

Trump has filed a lawsuit against two of the company’s co-founders, both former contestants on “The Apprentice.” Trump Media’s lawsuit accuses them of “mismanagement,” saying they “failed spectacularly at every turn” and “made a series of reckless and wasteful decisions.”

[And why wait so long to release this lawsuit? Unlike the morons who he hires in his cabinet who later on say things he doesn’t like, he can’t sue them. But he can sue the two co-founders.]

A Florida venture capitalist and his brother moved toward potential guilty pleas in an insider trading case connected to the merger that took Donald Trump’s social media company public. A third man was also involved in the insider trading. They pleaded innocent from the 2021 case but could change their pleas. Prosecutors are seeking the forfeiture of a bank account, the yacht and three Yamaha Jet Skis that were tendered to the vessel by one of the three men.

Trump has previously called immigrants “animals” and blamed migrants for “coming into our country with contagious diseases.” He warned of “illegal alien criminals crawling through your windows and ransacking your drawers,” where they “loot the jewellery.” When migrants aren’t busy doing that, they’re fixing to “obliterate Medicare and Social Security” and fill schools with “new migrant students who don’t speak a word of English.”

Regarding Trump [and the various conspiracy nuts] regarding that immigrants are causing higher crime, homicide and violent crime, after rising during the pandemic, have dropped for two straight years and are lower than during Trump’s final year in office. There is scant evidence that immigrants — legal or undocumented — commit more than their share of crime, and a lot of evidence that migrants are more law-abiding.

Former Trump adviser Peter Navarro asked the Supreme Court to take another look at his request to avoid prison, filing a long-shot request on Tuesday that the high court rarely grants. This after serving so far 15 days of his four month vacation. He’s in prison for his contempt of Congress conviction.

[He wants out early maybe because he was a bad boy and his TV privileges were reduced. ]

Trump still takes claim for killing Roe vs Wade but all he did was load the supreme court with right wing justices unless he ordered them to kill Roe vs Wade.

Trump also takes at least partial credit from the various states who have reduced or banned abortions.

Former Republican leaning contributor, George Conway, donated over $900,000 to Biden’s campaign and will headline a fundraiser for Biden.

Pence doesn’t endorse Trump

Former Vice President Mike Pence said he “cannot in good conscience” endorse presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump, a stunning repudiation of his former running mate and the president he served with. “Donald Trump is pursuing and articulating an agenda that is at odds with the conservative agenda that we governed on during our four years. That’s why I cannot in good conscience endorse Donald Trump in this campaign,” Pence said.

[“…at odds with the conservative agenda that we governed on during our four years.” Huh? There is little to no difference between Trump’s first reign and what he is proposing. At “press time”, no response from Trump but if Trump follows his usual response, he will mention disloyalty as well as something like he did a bad job as Vice-President.]

The judge, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, overseeing the Georgia 2020 election interference case dismissed some of the charges against Trump and others, but the rest of the sweeping racketeering indictment remains intact. The judge wrote in an order that six of the counts in the indictment must be quashed, including three against Trump. But he left in place other counts — including 10 facing Trump — and said prosecutors could seek a new indictment on the charges he dismissed.

Trump suggested he was open to making cuts to Social Security and Medicare after opposing touching the entitlement programs. These two programs for senior citizens are generally consider untouchable by almost all politicians. Trump campaign spokeswoman later said that Trump was “clearly talking about cutting waste, not entitlements.” That same spokeswoman says it is Biden who won’t protect entitlement programs when Biden has already said prior “Not on my watch” about cutting them.

[Trump seems to have quite a few spokespeople. I wonder if some need time off after all the running around to clarify statements Trump have said in a day.]

When Trump was president, his administration’s budget proposals included spending cuts to Social Security, primarily by targeting disability benefits, and Medicare, largely by reducing provider payments. Trump also signalled in an interview with CNBC in 2020 that he was open to cutting federal entitlements to reduce the federal deficit.

Without any changes, Social Security’s combined trust funds are set to run dry in 2034, at which time the program’s continuing income from taxes will only be able to cover 80% of benefits owed. Medicare’s hospital insurance trust fund, known as Medicare Part A, will only be able to pay scheduled benefits in full until 2031.

Attorneys for Trump want to delay the start of his upcoming New York criminal trial until the US Supreme Court weighs in on presidential immunity, according to a new motion – a ruling that may not come until late June. The criminal trial related to hush money payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign to adult film star Stormy Daniels is scheduled to begin with jury selection on March 25.

[Unsure what has got to do with the other. Trump was never the president at any time during the trial or now. So immunity isn’t related.]

Recently, Trump met with the parents of a nursing student whose alleged killer was an undocumented immigrant. Trump has suggested hard-line immigration proposals, including a mass deportation of undocumented immigrants.

[Unsure, but would of Trump visited the parents if they were Republicans? Current statistics said that undocumented immigrant are not a large factor in the number of murders in the US. Between that and pushing Republicans in Congress to vote against the border deal, Trump and his cronies will still put the blame on the Democrats. Remember that Trump said no deal is better that the deal the Democrats put forward. Do you think Republican voters will remember this in November?]

“He [Trump] thought [Vladimir] Putin was an OK guy and Kim [Jong Un] was an OK guy — that we had pushed North Korea into a corner,” retired Gen. John Kelly, who served as Trump’s chief of staff, said. “To him, it was like we were goading these guys. ‘If we didn’t have NATO, then Putin wouldn’t be doing these things.’”

Trump said, “Well, but Hitler did some good things.” Kelly said, “Well, what?” And Trump said, “Well, [Hitler] rebuilt the economy.” But what did he do with that rebuilt economy? He turned it against his own people and against the world. Kelly said, “Sir, you can never say anything good about the guy. Nothing.”

“There’s nobody that’s better, smarter or a better leader than Viktor Orbán,” Trump said of the Hungarian president who visited Mar-A-Lago recently, adding, “He’s the boss and he’s a great leader, fantastic leader. In Europe and around the world, they respect him.”

[I don’t think many respect him. He’s another authoritarian leader like Trump.]

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, overseeing the Georgia election interference case against Trump and his allies ruled that Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis may continue with the prosecution but only if Nathan Wade, the lead prosecutor she appointed and had a romantic relationship with, exits the case. The judge wrote that the defendants “failed to meet their burden” in proving that Willis’s relationship with Wade — along with allegations that she was financially enriched through trips the two took together — was enough of a “conflict of interest” to merit her removal from the case. Wade resigned later on.

Trump asked Elon Musk last summer whether the billionaire industrialist would be interested in buying Trump’s failed social network Truth Social.

Trump, who is only a few years younger than President Biden, has said several times that he doesn’t think Biden is “too old” to be president but he did recently release a digital only add poking fun at Biden with comments Biden has said about his age.

[As you know Trump is the one to talk. Saying Mercedes instead of his wife’s name Melania. How could he mix that up? He’s also said the wrong name (maybe on purpose) for others including Nancy Pelosi. Also note that Trump doesn’t have a lot of campaign cash on hand. Some going to his legal defence. Maybe he will use his own money…. Hah!]

Trump mocked Biden’s stutter at a campaign rally in Rome, Ga., the latest in a series of insults he has hurled at his rival but one that disability advocates regard as a demeaning form of bullying.

[Do you ever see Biden knock any physical characteristics of Trump like being orange or overweight or his little hands? His mental capacity is a different story. And just what group hasn’t Trump demeaned except Christian whites?]

The Republican National Committee began laying off dozens of staffers, days after Trump’s handpicked team took the reins of the organization. The layoffs affect staffers across multiple departments. The cuts also go beyond senior staff to vendors and mid-level employees. Vendor contracts will likely be cut as well. Some staff who were asked to resign could reapply for jobs at the organization.

“If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business,” Trump said in a post on his platform, Truth Social, racistly referring to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. He called Facebook “a true enemy of the people” but didn’t explain his reasoning. While in office, Trump wanted to expel TikTok from the US [because they are owned by ByteDance of China]. Now that Biden is pushing to expel them, Trump is having second thoughts.

“The thing I don’t like is that without TikTok, you can make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people, along with a lot of the media,” Trump told CNBC before US markets opened. Meta [owner of Facebook] stock dropped 5% at one point. “I think Facebook has been very dishonest. I think Facebook has been very bad for our country, especially when it comes to elections.”

[I’m on Facebook. I really didn’t see anything on the platform that was directed more at Trump or the Republicans than the Democrats. It’s not like you will see something like huge banner saying “Vote for Biden” or “Down with Trump” on every page. Another lie.]

TikTok is one of the world’s most popular social media apps and is used by roughly 170 million Americans.

Kellyanne Conway [remember her?] is a lobbyist for TikTok. Trump also supposedly has a major donor who owns a small chunk of TikTok.

[That major donor would be a good reason why Trump did an about face and now supports TikTok.]

In the House of Representatives, Trump “lost” the vote as 352 voted for a TikTok ban and just 65 were against [50 Democrats, 15 Republicans]. It may be harder in the Senate.

Trump said last month he would consider imposing a tariff upward of 60% on all Chinese imports if he regains the presidency. As president, Trump imposed tariffs of 25% on $50 billion of Chinese goods in June 2018.

[Trump’s buddy, President Xi won’t be too happy.]

Trump says he wants to testify – should be fun

Donald Trump says that he wants to testify at the trial in Fulton County. [You think he will? He is a narcissist with this huge ego. So that part says he will. However, his lawyers will tell him not to do as he has a very good chance of perjuring himself or get out of line.]

The Fulton County district attorney’s office said it’s planned a four months-long trial with more than 150 witnesses, while defense attorneys for two of the defendants, pro-Trump lawyers Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell, argued their cases should be severed from the other defendants.

The state judge presiding over Trump’s election subversion case, Scott McAfee, denied the motion for Chesebro and Powell – who have both filed to hold a speedy trial – to sever their cases from each other, but he was skeptical of the district attorney’s desire to hold a trial for all 19 defendants beginning next month.

[To make sure they have enough room, maybe hold the trial at the Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium.]

An Atlanta-area special grand jury that spent months investigating alleged 2020 election interference in Georgia by Trump and his allies agreed Trump should be indicted in the case and also recommended charging one of Trump’s closest associates, Sen. Lindsey Graham, and 37 other people — a far larger group than a prosecutor ultimately charged. The recommendations were contained in a 26-page final report presented in January to Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis and made public by a judge.

Special counsel Jack Smith [“Saint Jack” to some] is still pursuing his investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election a month after indicting Trump for orchestrating a broad conspiracy to remain in power. Smith is focusing on how money raised off baseless claims of voter fraud was used to fund attempts to breach voting equipment in several states won by President Biden.

Prosecutors have focused their questions on the role of former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell. Powell’s non-profit, Defending the Republic, hired forensics firms that ultimately accessed voting equipment in four swing states won by Biden: Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona.

Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro has been convicted of contempt of Congress for two charges for not complying to a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. Each charges carries a range of 30 days to a year [very unlikely] plus a fine. Navarro will already said [not surprisingly] that he will appeal.

Just before his press conference after the announcement, Navarro had a slight run-in with an anti-Trump demonstrator where he tried twice to pull down her sign. [She may have been hoping that he’d grab her which could lead to an assault charge – all this on camera.]

Former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows has filed his notice of appeal to the US 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in his bid to move his Georgia criminal case to federal court. “When questioned about the scope of his authority, Meadows was unable to explain the limits of his authority, other than his inability to stump for the President or work on behalf of the campaign,” the judge wrote, saying he would give Meadows’ testimony on that topic “less weight” than the other evidence. Jones also cited Meadows’ acknowledgement that the lawyers he included in an infamous 2021 phone call with Georgia’s secretary of state were working for Trump or his campaign — not the government.

A liberal group filed a lawsuit to bar Trump from the primary ballot in Colorado, arguing he is ineligible to run for the White House again under a rarely used clause in the US Constitution aimed at candidates who have supported an “insurrection.” The lawsuit, citing the 14th Amendment, is likely the initial step in a legal challenge that seems destined for the US Supreme Court. The complaint was filed on behalf of six Republican and unaffiliated Colorado voters by the group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem endorsed Trump at a campaign rally in her home state. There are rumors going around that she is hoping that Trump pick her as his vice presidential running mate when he wins the nomination. This of course goes against the norm as the running mate tends to be from a state where it could flip to either party and where possible from the other side of the country where the presidential candidate is from. Picking Noem would be twice against the norm as Pence was from Indiana and more conservative than Trump [or Noem].

Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor and onetime attorney to Trump, owes an estimated $5 million in legal fees, a debt that Giuliani hopes to eat into at a fundraiser at Trump’s Bedminster golf club. Giuliani is expected to take in more than $1 million for his legal defense fund at a $100,000-a-plate fundraiser hosted by Trump. It is the first of two fundraisers Trump is expected to sponsor for Giuliani. There are estimates that Giuliani has lost between $10-$20 million in business because of his work for Trump.

Mar-a-Lago IT worker Yuscil Taveras has struck a cooperation agreement with the special counsel’s office in the federal case over Trump’s handling of classified documents, Taveras’ former defense attorney said in a new court filing.

Taveras struck the deal with prosecutors after he was threatened with prosecution, defense attorney Stanley Woodward wrote in the filing. Taveras is referred to in the filing and in the superseding indictment as “Trump Employee 4.”

Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled that the jury hearing E. Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit will only need to decide how much money Trump will have to pay her, after the judge found him was liable for making defamatory statements. Kaplan said that a federal jury’s verdict earlier this year against Trump will carry over to the defamation case set to go to trial in January involving statements Trump made in 2019 about Carroll’s sexual assault allegations.

Carroll, a former magazine columnist, alleged Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store in the mid-1990s and then defamed her when he denied her claim. In May 2023, after a two-week trial, a jury found Trump sexually abused Carroll and defamed her when he said in 2022 that he didn’t rape her, didn’t know her, and that she wasn’t his “type.” In that case, the jury awarded Carroll $5 million in damages.

So President Biden visited Maui and Florida and didn’t throw paper towels at anyone.

Trump’s media start-up, Truth Social, back in announced in October 2021 that it planned to merge with a Miami-based company called Digital World Acquisition and would close within 12 to 18 months. With the $300 million Digital World had already raised from investors, Trump Media & Technology Group, creator of the pro-Trump social network Truth Social, pledged then that the merger would create a tech titan worth $875 million at the start and, depending on the stock’s performance, up to $1.7 billion later.

With the merger stalled for months, Digital World is fast approaching a Sept. 8 deadline for the merger to close and has scheduled a shareholder meeting in hopes of getting enough votes to extend the deadline another year. If the vote fails, Digital World will be required by law to liquidate and return $300 million to its shareholders, leaving Trump’s company with nothing from the transaction. Digital World’s share price, which peaked in its first hours at $175, has since fallen to about $14.

Digital World’s efforts to merge with Trump Media have been troubled almost from the start:

• allegations that it began its conversations with Trump’s company before they were permitted under SPAC rules
• the company agreed to pay an $18 million settlement to resolve charges that it had misled investors and given false information to the Securities and Exchange Commission
• its chief executive was terminated by the board
• a former board member was arrested on charges of insider trading

More on Trump and Georgia

Donald Trump pleaded not guilty and said he’ll skip a hearing the following week in the case accusing him and others of illegally trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee had set arraignment hearings for Trump and the 18 others charged in the case for Sept. 6. A court filing waiving arraignment means Trump won’t have to show up for that. The decision to skip an in-person appearance averts the dramatic arraignments that have accompanied the three other criminal cases Trump faces, in which Trump has been forced amid tight security into a courtroom and entered “not guilty” pleas before crowds of spectators.

At least two defendants have filed demands for a speedy trial and have asked to be tried separately from others in the case. The judge has set an Oct. 23 trial date for one of them, Kenneth Chesebro, a lawyer who worked on the coordination and execution of a plan to have 16 Georgia Republicans sign a certificate falsely stating that Trump won the state and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors.

US District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan has scheduled Trump’s Washington trial on charges of attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election for March 4, 2024. [Schedule your time off from work then!]

John Eastman, the lawyer allegedly at the center of the unprecedented and outrageous scheme to overthrow the 2020 election, must defend a bar complaint in California that threatens to revoke his law license. At a critical hearing last week in the California bar proceedings, designated legal expert Matthew A. Seligman submitted a 91-page report that strips away any “colorable,” or legally plausible, defense that Eastman was acting in good faith in rendering advice to the now four-times-indicted Trump.

Former Trump advisor John Bolton said of Trump’s mug shot “He could of smiled, he could of been benigned. Instead he looks like a thug.” Republican candidate Nikki Haley says she doesn’t know anyone in America who “…should look at that and feel good about it” while President Joe Biden called him “a handsome guy.”

Trump said “I took a mug shot, which I never heard of the words mug shot, it’s not something they teach you at the Wharton School of Finance.” He graduated in 1968 – I guess he doesn’t remember his schooling. To this day, Trump has never allowed his academic performance there to be made public. [He’s a funny guy, isn’t he?]

“Usually mugshots, people’s faces have a neutral expression, they’re not trying to make an impression,” said an expert but not Trump.

Trump’s stare proved to be just what his campaign needed. His team wasted no time creating t-shirts, hats, mugs and bumper stickers using his mugshot over the words “NEVER SURRENDER.”

In a CBS poll among Trump voters, 71% believes what he says, compared to 63% for family and friends and just 42% for religious leaders. Most conservatives would tend to believe their religious leaders. So this is a bit odd. However, Trump may have been losing support from the Evangelists and other very staunch right wing groups.

A federal judge has determined Rudy Giuliani forfeits the defamation lawsuit from two Georgia election workers against him, a decision that could lead to significant penalties for him. Giuliani recently said he could no longer contest that he made false and defamatory statements about Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss – who are only one group of plaintiffs suing him for defamation related to his work for Trump after the 2020 election. Giuliani said he struggled to maintain his own access to his electronic records – partly because of the cost – and didn’t adequately respond to subpoenas for information from Moss and Freeman as the case moved forward.

Former Trump White House adviser Peter Navarro will not be able to argue before a jury at his contempt of Congress trial in early September that Trump asserted privilege to shield him from a House January 6 committee subpoena, US District Judge Amit P. Mehta ruled. Mehta announced the ruling after holding an evidentiary hearing recently during which Navarro testified about alleged assertions from Trump. Navarro’s criminal case was brought by the Justice Department in June 2022.

Trump has already started to work on his economic plans once he wins the election. Trump has taken to describing as the creation of a “ring around the U.S. economy,” could represent a massive escalation of global economic chaos, surpassing the international trade discord that marked much of his first administration. He is already thinking of a 10% tariff on everything coming in.

Failed Republican gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon said Trump advised her to “talk differently about abortion,” as she took a hard-line approach on the issue during her bid to unseat Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer last year.

Posted elsewhere:

• The “billionaire” who hides his tax returns
• The “genius” who hides his college grades
• The “businessman” who bankrupts casinos
• The “playboy” who pays for sex
• The “philanthropist” who defrauds a charity
• The “patriot” who dodged the draft
• The “innocent man” who wont testify
• The “father” who lusts after his own daughter
• The “US President” who follows Putin’s orders
• The “candidate” who doesn’t debate

No, Trump didn’t break the mug shot camera

So Donald Trump becomes the president to have his “mug shot” taken as part of his indictment in the state of Georgia legal mess.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has asked a judge to set a trial date of March 4, 2024, for Trump and his 18 co-defendants – a proposal that would put the candidate on trial a day before he competes in the Super Tuesday primary contests. Willis also asked to schedule arraignments for the defendants for the week of September 5, according to a court filing, and says the proposed dates “do not conflict” with Trump’s other criminal cases.

The Fulton County election subversion case marks the first time release conditions for Donald Trump have included a cash bond at $200,000 and a prohibition on intimidation through social media. He’s going to have a hard time trying not to say anything in the media about the case for 6+ months or risk a loss of $200,000 plus jail time!

Former Georgia GOP chairman David Shafer, who was charged in the Fulton County election subversion indictment and led the state’s delegation of fake electors, said in a court filing that he and the other fake electors “acted at the direction of” Trump. With the filing, Shafer is attempting to move his case from state to federal court. Good luck there David.

Former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark is seeking to move the entire Fulton County 2020 election subversion prosecution in Georgia to federal court and has asked the judge to let him avoid turning himself in to local authorities. With the submission to the US District Court of the Northern District of Georgia, Clark is raising similar arguments as Trump White House chief of staff co-defendant Mark Meadows, claiming that his status as a federal officer when he engaged in the alleged conduct that led to the charges requires the dismissal of the charges against him. [BTW, this would be similar to where Trump is being charge in New York under state charges. Trump was the so-called president at the time when that happened.] Both were rejected by the judge.

Former Trump’s ex-attorney John Eastman said that he was ethically required to advocate for Trump as a lawyer even though he and Trump were filing false information about votes in a federal court case that sought to block Georgia’s election result. As a court officer, Eastman could of refused what Trump asked knowing it was probably illegal.

Trump posted on social media that despite having won Georgia in 2016, doing a “fantastic job” as president and earning millions more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016 and more votes than a sitting president had ever received before, he had “shockingly, ‘LOST’ Georgia… All this despite winning nearby Alabama and South Carolina in Record Setting Landslides.” His claim that he won South Carolina and Alabama in record landslides is not even close to true.

Franklin D. Roosevelt won South Carolina by about 96 percentage points in 1932 and then topped it with a margin of about 97 points in 1936. Before Roosevelt, Democratic candidates won South Carolina by more than 82 points in all eight presidential elections from 1900 through 1928. Roosevelt, who earned a roughly 74-point victory in the state in 1936 and never had an Alabama margin less than 63 points between 1932 and 1944. Woodrow Wilson’s margins in the state also exceeded 50 points in both 1912 and 1916. Trump? Trump won South Carolina in 2020 by about 11.7 percentage points. Trump won Alabama in 2020 by about 25.5 percentage points. Both states were less than in 2016.

Some charges against Trump and his co-defendants require a minimum amount of time in prison. If Trump is convicted, not even Republican Gov. Brian Kemp from Georgia, with whom Trump has publicly feuded since his 2020 election loss, can pardon him of his crimes. Unlike many other states where the power of pardon rests with the governor, Georgia is also unique in that pardons are the domain of a commission appointed by the governor. According to Georgia pardon application guidelines, “a person must have completed all sentence(s) at least five years prior to applying,” and “cannot have any pending charges,” among other requirements.

Even Trump’s recorded booking weight has come under scrutiny. Trump’s booking record declared the former president’s height to be 6-foot-3 and his weight 215 pounds — nearly 30 pounds lighter than his disclosed weight at the time of his last official White House physical.

Trump skipped the first Republican presidential primary debate in Milwaukee and instead plans to post a pre-recorded interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson that will be released that night. Carlson has started a show on X, formerly called Twitter, but Trump has his Truth Social, a rival to X. It ended up on X.

In that interview, Trump suggested that the United States could see intensifying political violence, saying in a new interview that tensions in the country were reaching a boiling point. [Yes, and he has helped in adding tensions with his rhetoric.]

Trump has hit out at his once-beloved Fox News for using unflattering photos of him, including one of him looking “orange” and with his “chin pulled back”. He also accused the right-wing cable network of failing to show polling data “where I am beating [Joe] Biden, by a lot.” [A recent poll has Biden leading by 1%.]

Trump has bragged he has a “close to 100 per cent” chance of beating Biden if he faces him in the 2024 US presidential election. Trump is facing a maximum of 55 years in prison if found guilty of the four criminal charges against him related to the 6 January Capitol riot and his alleged plot to stay in power — also mocked his closest rival for the Republican nomination Ron DeSantis, who he is leading in the polls by more than 40 points.

Carlos de Oliveira, the Mar-a-Lago property manager, pleaded not guilty to multiple obstruction-related offenses tied to Trump’s alleged unlawful retention of documents after leaving office, including classified material at Trump’s Florida resort. De Oliveira asked for a trial by jury and attorneys said the discovery process should get underway in the coming weeks.

How low can you go? Rudy Giuliani can’t pay his legal bills. He made millions years ago. Trump paid a $320,000 bill already [which is surprising]. Offering $325 for a personal greeting on Cameo. Trying to sell his Manhattan joint for $6.5 million. Buying it?

[I could see Trump saying for every dollar he brings in through a PAC for a week, 10 cents would go to help poor Rudy and then give him nothing.]

Trump has also organized a dinner to help Giuliani with his lack of wealth.

Giuliani is paying some company $20,000 per month for electronic storage of his files. He is having the files stored in a readily-accessible form, so presumably in a searchable database format of some sort.

So Giuliani has claimed he is broke but still managed to come in with a private jet and a bit of an entourage.

While at hit, Trump uses his campaign jet – not a private executive jet – to fly in with his entourage. Now the campaign donors know where there money is going.

The federal grand jury in Washington that helped investigate Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents has ended, special counsel Jack Smith said in a court filing, which laid out new details about how the probe quietly expanded to look at alleged cover-up efforts. The 12-page filing by one of Smith’s deputies, David Harbach, comes as prosecutors and defense lawyers are sparring over the use of two grand juries to investigate Trump’s alleged hoarding of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, his home and private club. Trump is charged with illegally retaining national defense information after leaving the White House and obstructing government efforts to retrieve the material.

Trump indicted for a fourth time

Donald Trump and 18 allies were indicted in Georgia over their efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state, with prosecutors using a statute normally associated with mobsters to accuse Trump, lawyers and other aides of a “criminal enterprise” to keep him in power. The nearly 100-page indictment details dozens of acts by Trump or his allies to undo his defeat, including beseeching Georgia’s Republican secretary of state to find enough votes for him to win the battleground state; harassing an election worker who faced false claims of fraud; and attempting to persuade Georgia lawmakers to ignore the will of voters and appoint a new slate of electoral college electors favorable to Trump.

The indictment from Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis included 18 defendants in addition to Trump, 41 charges in total and 30 unindicted co-conspirators.

The charge, a violation of the Georgia Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, acts as an umbrella over several allegedly criminal actions the group took to advance their so-called enterprise. Willis alleged that the 19 co-defendants “engaged in a criminal racketeering enterprise to overturn Georgia’s presidential election result.” RICO was created under the Nixon administration and is generally used against the Mafia and similar organizations. Unlike federal RICO charges, state charges in Georgia just require two charges to be found guilt under RICO. In addition those found guilty via RICO don’t have to have a direct connection from the head of the enterprise. For example, defendant C got his orders from defendant B who got it from defendant A but defendant C never communicated with defendant A.

Other defendants include former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows; Trump attorney and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani; and a Trump administration Justice Department official, Jeffrey Clark, who advanced Trump’s efforts to undo his election loss in Georgia. Other lawyers who supported legally dubious ideas aimed at overturning the results, including John Eastman, Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro, were also charged.

Willis said the defendants would be permitted to voluntarily surrender by noon Aug. 25. She also said she plans to seek a trial date within six months and that she intends to try the defendants collectively.

In one particularly brazen episode, it also outlines a plot involving one of his lawyers to access voting machines in a rural Georgia county and steal data from a voting machine company.

In Jan. 2, 2021, in call in which Trump urged Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” the 11,780 votes needed to overturn his election loss. That call, prosecutors said, violated a Georgia law against soliciting a public official to violate their oath. It also charges Trump with making false statements and writings for a series of claims he made to Raffensperger and other state election officials, including that up to 300,000 ballots “were dropped mysteriously into the rolls” in the 2020 election, that more than 4,500 people voted who weren’t on registration lists and that a Fulton County election worker, Ruby Freeman, was a “professional vote scammer.”

Negotiations between Trump’s lawyers and Willis’ office over the details of his surrender are expected to continue. This means Trump’s surrender is expected before the August 25 deadline.

Trump’s attorneys slammed the indictment, saying in a statement that the grand jury presentation was “one sided” [aren’t they supposed to be?] and the events of Monday “shocking and absurd.” [Shocking? I think they knew what they did. Absurd? Up to them to prove that.]

Republican allies once again quickly rallied to Trump’s defence. “Americans see through this desperate sham,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

Of those Republicans running for the presidential nomination, Asa Hutchinson said the indictment was legitimate. Former Vice-President Mike Pence couldn’t figure out where he stood with his comments and the rest said the indictment was politically related. Surprisingly Chris Christie said indicting Trump wasn’t necessary because of the federal indictment but the other 18 co-defendants deserve it.

Willis has asked a judge to set a trial date of March 4, 2024, for Trump and his 18 co-defendants – a proposal that would put the Republican presidential candidate on trial a day before he competes in the Super Tuesday primary contests. Willis also asked to schedule arraignments for the defendants for the week of September 5, according to a court filing, and says the proposed dates “do not conflict” with Trump’s other criminal cases.

Not surprisingly, the Trump campaign came out with an ad that targets Willis with dishonesty, racist [!!!], high crime in Atlanta [it’s gone down] and other comments. [I’m wondering how the judge in this trial will handle that.]

Names, photographs, social media profiles and even the home addresses purportedly belonging to members of the Fulton County grand jury that voted to indict former Trump and 18 co-defendants are circulating on social media – with experts saying that some anonymous users are calling for violence against them. The names being circulated on these sites appear to match the names of at least 13 of the 26 grand jurors that served on the panel in Fulton County. It’s unclear if those names are the actual grand jurors or just people with the same name. Some addresses appear to be wrong. The FBI is now investigating. [I am guessing those calling for violence against the grand jury are right wing. I would take the country to court for the breach.]

There have been ongoing problems with overcrowding in the Fulton County Jail where Trump and co-defendants could reside briefly, along with violence, overflowing toilets and faulty air conditioning. The sheriff called the environment a “humanitarian crisis” last month when the Justice Department opened an investigation after an inmate was found dead, covered in bedbugs and lice. And the building is falling apart, a point the sheriff tried to illustrate to county leaders by collecting hundreds of weapons fashioned from chunks of the crumbling walls and loading them into four wheelbarrows his deputies rolled into a public meeting last year.

[Well, maybe instead of building a wall to block out migrants from coming into the US from the south, maybe he should use money to spend on fixing up the jails and prisons to hold some of America’s most dangerous better.]

Trump urged US District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington, DC, to reject special counsel Jack Smith’s criminal election subversion case proposal for a January 2024 trial, saying he “seeks a trial calendar more rapid than most no-document misdemeanors, requesting just four months from the beginning of discovery to jury selection.” “The government’s objective is clear: to deny President Trump and his counsel a fair ability to prepare for trial. The Court should deny the government’s request,” lawyers for Trump wrote.

Can this apply to Trump? Two prominent conservative scholars have added their voices — and, more important, their extensive analysis of the relevant historical record — in support of this argument. They conclude that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which was adopted after the Civil War to prohibit former federal officeholders who joined the Confederacy from holding office again, applies broadly to any “insurrection or rebellion” against the United States and not solely to the South’s secession from the Union.

Trump may not attend the first GOP debate to be held in Milwaukee on Fox News. He has been throwing out different ideas for his own counter programming during the debate, including sitting down with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and calling into the different cable news shows. Trump has publicly floated skipping either one or both of the first two Republican presidential primary debates and has repeatedly pointed to his commanding lead in the polls as one reason he is hesitant to share the stage with his GOP challengers. [More like if he doesn’t show up in a debate, he can’t really harm himself. Or he’s a coward.]

There are rumors floating around that Trump may give himself up at the same time as the GOP debate. Fox News is broadcasting the debate. Other major networks won’t be. They can all switch to Trump at the court house while Fox News is stuck with the debate.

At an Iowa fair where Florida “governor” Ron DeSantis was campaigning, Trump comes in with a group of Florida congressmen, pass out MAGA hats [surprised they didn’t charge] and left within two hours. In between, he completely ignored greeting Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds who is a Republican. Beyond criticizing Reynolds, Trump has alienated prominent Iowa conservatives such as evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats. Steve Deace, a well-known Iowa talk show host, also endorsed DeSantis just ahead of his fair visit.

A Trumpian said “Trump is the master of trolling”. That’s not a good thing.

A group of former GOP federal judges have filed a legal brief to push for Trump’s Trump Insurrection trial to begin in January. This is to get a proper speedy trial as all Americans want for their own trial. Some of the judges were quite conservative. Not surprisingly government lawyers have no comment and the Trump legal team objects. The judges are using the Speedy Trial Act and by January, Trump will be past the so-called deadline to have a speedy trial.

It wasn’t a good week for Trump

Donald Trump has been indicted for the third time on criminal charges by a federal grand jury in a case that strikes at Trump’s efforts to remain in the White House after losing the 2020 election and undermine the long-held American tradition of a peaceful transfer of presidential power.

As part of special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation, Trump was charged with:

• Conspiracy to defraud the United States
• Conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding
• Obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding
• Conspiracy against rights

“For more than two months following election day on November 3, 2020, the defendant spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won…. These claims were false, and the Defendant knew they were false… But the defendant disseminated them anyway – to make his knowingly false claims appear legitimate, create an intense atmosphere of mistrust and anger, and erode public faith in the administration of the election.”

In between the election and the Trump Insurrection, Trump urged local election officials to undo voting results in their states, pressured Pence to halt the certification of electoral votes and falsely claimed that the election had been stolen — a notion repeatedly rejected by judges. Among those lies, prosecutors say, were claims that more than 10,000 dead voters had voted in Georgia along with tens of thousands of double votes in Nevada. Each claim had been rebutted by courts or state or federal officials, the indictment says.

It didn’t take long for his backers to start complaining in the media about the counts, Smith himself, the Department of Justice, Hunter Biden [not relevant to this indictment] and others.

Florida “governor” Ron DeSantis is still strangely backing his chief rival for the Republican nominee by saying “A DC jury would indict a ham sandwich and convict a ham sandwich if it was a Republican ham sandwich”. Is DeSantis saying already that juries are already not impartial even before they are picked? Next time you have a ham sandwich, you may want to ask the sandwich which side of politics do they prefer to be eaten by.

However, former Vice President Mike Pence said “The president was surrounded by a group of crackpot lawyers”.

Former Attorney General Bill Barr undermined a key pillar of Trump’s defense in the special counsel’s probe into 2020 election interference, saying that Trump “knew well he lost the election.” He also described Trump’s alleged actions as detailed in the indictment as “nauseating” and “despicable,” and “someone who engaged in that kind of bullying about a process that is fundamental to our system and to our self-government shouldn’t be anywhere near the Oval Office.”

Florida “governor” Ron DeSantis has often tried to hedge, refusing to acknowledge that the election was fairly conducted. In his response, DeSantis did not mention Trump by name — saying merely that such theories were “unsubstantiated.” Bit “all those theories that were put out did not prove to be true.”

Smith wants a faster trial and will probably ask for a trial date in early 2024.

Six un-indicted co-conspirators were included in the filing. Among the six are four unnamed attorneys who allegedly aided Trump in his effort to subvert the 2020 election. Also included is one unnamed Justice Department official who “attempted to use the Justice Department to open sham election crime investigations and influence state legislatures with knowingly false claims of election fraud.” The indictment also mentions an unnamed “political consultant who helped implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding.”

A conviction in this case, or any other, would not prevent Trump from pursuing the White House or serving as president, though Trump as president could theoretically appoint an attorney general to dismiss the charges or potentially try to pardon himself.

When Trump was indicted and accused of trying to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election, he found himself in the unenviable company of defendants charged under a criminal statute dating to the Reconstruction era. The statute, Section 241 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code, was originally adopted as part of the Enforcement Act of 1870. It was the first in a series of measures known as the Ku Klux Klan Acts designed to protect rights guaranteed by the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments, collectively called the Reconstruction Amendments. Section 241 makes it a crime to “conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person” exercising a right protected by the Constitution or federal law.

Here’s the link to the full text of the indictment. [Unsure if the contents will make you cheer or fall asleep fast!]

Trump defense lawyer, John Lauro, said prosecutors cannot prove Trump truly “believed” he’d lost his 2020 presidential re-election, ensuring a not-guilty verdict.

A recent poll said that 35% would vote for Trump even if convicted and still 28% if in prison! Meanwhile, 70% of Republicans still think President Joe Biden lost the election.

About three dozen House Democrats, led by Rep. Adam B. Schiff, are calling for televising the federal trials of Trump on charges related to the 2020 election and the retention of classified documents.

Meanwhile, Trump pleaded not guilty to the new charges special counsel Jack Smith brought against him in the case alleging mishandling of classified documents from his time in the White House. These are related to how security camera footage was removed even after the original court order.

Prosecutors in Georgia are investigating efforts by Trump and his allies to reverse his election loss to Biden there. The district attorney of Fulton County is expected to announce charging decisions within weeks.

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit Trump filed against CNN in which Trump claimed that references in news articles or by the network’s hosts to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election as “the Big Lie” were tantamount to comparing him to Adolf Hitler. Trump had been seeking punitive damages of $475 million in the federal lawsuit filed last October in South Florida, claiming the references hurt his reputation and political career.

Trump’s campaign released a video which attacks Smith, New York Attorney General Letitia James, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and dubs the group the “Fraud Squad.”

Georgia investigation expanding

An Atlanta-area investigation of alleged election interference by Donald Trump and his allies has broadened to include activities in D.C. and several states. Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis launched an investigation more than two years ago to examine efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn his narrow 2020 defeat in Georgia. Along the way, she has signalled publicly that she may use Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) statute to allege that these efforts amounted to a far-reaching criminal scheme. Recently, Willis has sought information related to the Trump campaign hiring two firms to find voter fraud across the United States and then burying their findings when they did not find it, allegations that reach beyond Georgia’s borders.

Aiming at Trump, Ron DeSantis went after Trump saying his COVID-19 mitigation policies “destroyed millions of people’s lives”. Florida was heavily hit early on. However, DeSantis’ policies also killed many – for example – when he decided to “open up” before the virus was even contained in his state. At least 1 in 246 residents have died from the coronavirus, a total of 87,141 deaths in Florida. September 2021 was the month with the highest average deaths in Florida but this was 9 months after the vaccine first came out. On July 30, 2021, just over a month before the new school year, DeSantis issued an order prohibiting K-12 public schools from requiring that students wear masks in schools.

Trump is lashing out following a report claiming that federal prosecutors have an audio recording of him discussing his possession of a classified document after leaving office. Prosecutors obtained a July 2021 recording of Trump speaking about keeping a classified document that purportedly details a potential attack on Iran. Special Counsel Jack Smith is leading dual Department of Justice (DOJ) criminal investigations into Trump’s post-presidency handling of classified documents and his January 6 activities.

The recording reportedly features Trump saying that the Iran document was not declassified, despite Trump having repeatedly claimed that he “automatically” declassified all of the documents he kept after leaving office. It features Trump discussing the document with multiple associates who did not have required security clearances.

[I can see it now: A “declassified” document about a US invasion of Iran is seen by one of his many hookers or a cleaning lady. That would make a few headlines.]

A Mar-a-Lago employee who helped move boxes of documents in June 2022 has been questioned about his conduct weeks later related to a government demand for surveillance footage from Trump’s property. The employee’s actions in June and July have caught the attention of special counsel Jack Smith’s investigators as they try to determine whether Trump or people close to him sought to obstruct justice in the face of a grand jury subpoena to return all documents marked classified, or lied about what happened.

“As part of my plan to secure the border, on Day One… I will sign an executive order making clear to federal agencies that under the correct interpretation of the law, going forward, the future children of illegal aliens will not receive automatic U.S. citizenship,” Trump said. It is likely to face legal challenges since it is tied to the 14th Amendment which the outlet pointed out was ratified after the Civil War and gave all those born in the US citizenship. I think Trump never heard of any amendments – or those that don’t suit him.

A bit of [sort of] humor: There is a mini series from HBO called White House Plumbers. For a second I thought it was about the plumbers who were called in to remove all the paper and “crap” that Trump flushed over 4 years. [But in fact it is the true story of how Nixon’s own political saboteurs and Watergate masterminds, E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy, accidentally toppled the presidency they were trying to protect.]

More on classified documents

The National Archives has informed Donald Trump that it is set to hand over to special counsel Jack Smith 16 records which show Trump and his top advisers had knowledge of the correct declassification process while he was president. Acting Archivist Debra Steidel Wall writes to Trump that “The 16 records in question all reflect communications involving close presidential advisers, some of them directed to you personally, concerning whether, why, and how you should declassify certain classified records.”

Trump and his allies claimed that Trump had a “standing order” to declassify documents he took from the Oval Office to the White House residence. But 18 former top Trump administration officials said they never heard any such order issued during their time working for Trump, saying the claim was “ludicrous” “ridiculous,” and a “complete fiction.”

Trump is sowing doubts about the 2024 presidential election, warning about election interference nearly 18 months before votes are counted. Trump raged in a morning Truth Social post following new conservative dismay with the FBI, which special counsel John Durham concluded had no evidence of collusion when launching its probe of relations between Trump and Russia ahead of the 2016 election.

“I was being framed by the FBI and the DOJ,” Trump had typed in an all-caps post which I turned off. Annoying like him. “Now it continues with the boxes hoax, the ‘perfect’ phone call in Atlanta, the Manhattan D.A., and the New York State A.G. scam. What a group, but all report to the DOJ in Washington. It’s James Comey and the sleazebags all over again…. They are playing election interference in 2024 through illegal law enforcement against Republicans, in particular your favorite president, me. These are cheating lowlifes, but we will win. Our country is going to hell!”

Yes. Everyone is out to get him.

Timothy Parlatore, an attorney for Trump who played a key role in the Mar-a-Lago documents investigation and once testified before the grand jury, is leaving Trump’s legal team. The high-profile departure comes as special counsel Jack Smith appears to be in the final stretch of investigations into the possible mishandling of classified documents and efforts to obstruct the 2020 election.

Parlatore was the attorney who organized searches for additional classified documents last year at Trump Tower, Trump’s properties in Bedminster, Mar-a-Lago, an office in Palm Beach and a Florida storage unit.

An Atlanta-area prosecutor, Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis, investigating whether Trump and his allies broke the law when they sought to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss in Georgia asked a judge to dismiss a motion by Trump’s attorneys seeking to throw out evidence gathered by a special-purpose grand jury, claiming Trump is trying to block an investigation before “any charges are filed.” Willis notified top county officials that most of her staff will work remotely for many days in the first three weeks of August, a signal she may file indictments in the high-profile case within that period.

An obscure financial entity, ES Family Trust, with connections to a Caribbean-island bank that bills itself as a top payment service for adult entertainment sites would gain a sizable stake in Trump’s media company if its merger deal proceeds.

Just minutes after Trump was promoting how LIV Golf was doing well on the CW network, CW stations across the country cut away from the LIV Golf in favor of their regularly-scheduled broadcast which included re-runs of television shows and infomercials. Someone commented on Twitter: “I’m just impressed he spelled CW correctly.”