Week two of the first Trump trial

Because of his ongoing trial [and to be continued for a few weeks], this is a quiet week for Donald Trump. He can only complain and tell lies after hours and on the weekends – well officially. But he has a tendency to yak away for a few minutes or so with his greatest hits of lies and whining after the day in court [or maybe during a break].

In Trump’s hush money trial in New York, Trump continues to rack up the gag order violations – currently at least eleven of them. There was a hearing into the gag order violations but no solution.

Outside the court, Trump continues to ramble on how he is a victim and shouldn’t be on trial. Among his claims:

• Michael “Cohen is a lawyer… and he wasn’t very good in a lot of ways in terms of misrepresentation.” Like many of his former employees, he says the same thing about Cohen. If Cohen was so bad, why wasn’t he fired sooner? This would be called mismanagement.
• “He [Cohen] got in trouble for things that had nothing to do with me.” Cohen was charged with and pleaded guilty to eight criminal charges, including two — “causing an unlawful corporate contribution” and “making an excessive campaign contribution” — that directly relate to the hush money case now being litigated in Manhattan criminal court.
• “… another thing that wasn’t even said was, we never even deducted it as a tax deduction.” Well of course you wouldn’t deduct an illegal act from your taxes as an expense.
• “Very importantly, why didn’t the Federal Elections [Commission] do anything? Federal Elections took a total pass on it. They said essentially nothing was done wrong or they would have done something about it.” The Federal Election Commission staff, in a December 2020 report by the general counsel, said it had found “reason to believe” violations of campaign finance law were made “knowingly and wilfully” by the Trump campaign. The report said that Cohen’s $130,000 payment to Daniels was far in excess of the legal limit for individual contributions of $2,700.
• “It’s all about Election Interference. Sad! …. This is done for purposes of hurting the opponent of the worst president in the history of our country.” According to 5 different polls done over the past years, Trump comes in anywhere between a ranking of 41 to last place at 45. President Biden, in the two most recent polls [others prior came before his presidency] ranks him 14 and 19.

An Arizona grand jury indicted seven attorneys or aides affiliated with Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign as well as 11 Arizona Republicans on felony charges related to their alleged efforts to subvert President Biden’s 2020 victory in the state, according to an announcement by the state attorney general. Those indicted include former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, attorneys Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, John Eastman and Christina Bobb, top campaign adviser Boris Epshteyn and former campaign aide Mike Roman. They are accused of allegedly aiding an unsuccessful strategy to award the state’s electoral votes to Trump instead of Biden after the 2020 election. Trump was not charged, but he is described in the indictment as an unindicted co-conspirator.

[Can the bankrupt Giuliani afford a lawyer? You think Trump will do anything to help them somehow? Last I heard, he hasn’t said a word. Why? He doesn’t want to be involved with losers and anyone indicted or is in prison is a loser – except himself.]

A poll from Marist College shows Biden at 51 percent and Trump at 48 percent in a national head-to-head contest. But when you factor in third-party candidates — Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Green Party candidate Jill Stein and independent Cornel West — Biden’s lead goes to five percentage points. An NBC News poll showed a similar dynamic. While Biden trailed by two points head to head (44-46), he led by two points (39-37) when the question included the third-party candidates.

Kennedy is pulling more votes from Trump supports than Biden supporters even though Kennedy is [theoretically] from the left – well his family is. Kennedy’s image among right-leaning voters is vastly superior to his image among left-leaning ones. While Republicans like him 40 percent to 15 percent — a plus-25 split — Democrats dislike him 53-16 — a negative-37 split.

Trump’s “greatest hits” of false claims:

• He created the greatest US economy in US history (not by any metric).
• He passed the biggest tax cut in history (it ranks 8th).
• He did more for Black people than any president than Abraham Lincoln (not by any metric).
• He defeated ISIS in four weeks (it took the United States and coalition partners more than two years after he took office).
• He was the first president to impose tariffs on China (China has faced US tariffs since George Washington first enacted them in 1789).
• He increased government revenue even though he cut taxes (false).

New “hits”:

• He claims Biden was declared ‘incompetent’ to stand trial in documents case (false).
• He claims the US under Biden is a third world country where “a political person uses weaponization against his political opponent” (this from a man who already said he’d go after government employees who went against him during his various trials).
• He claims “The prison population all over the world is at the lowest point… because they’re dumping their prisoners into our country.” (false)
  He claims “They’ve let in 15 million people…” have entered the country “and they’re coming from rough places and dangerous places.” (8.5 million tried to enter the country in the 3.5 years under Biden but less than a quarter actually were allowed in).
• He claims “under Biden, we have a three-year inflation rate of almost 50 percent. Under me, you had no inflation.” (very inflated; cumulative inflation during Trump’s presidency was nearly 8 percent; cumulative inflation during Biden’s presidency was nearly 18.5 percent; of course a chunk of that was because of supply change issues and the like after the pandemic).
• He claims “In February alone, nearly 1 million jobs held by native-born Americans disappeared…” (it was more like 500,000).

[I’m shocked he didn’t say he personally invented the vaccine to cure COVID-19 and personally injected all Americans – whether they liked it or not. ]

Who’s in charge of the White House?

In recent months, Donald Trump has turned to baselessly insinuating and even outright saying President Biden isn’t really in charge at the White House. He has gone so far as to posit that Biden is actually taking his cues from former president Barack Obama.

But recent testimony from former Trump lawyer, Sidney Powell, has her saying that White House counsel Pat Cipollone “was running the show more than Trump was.” Powell claimed that Trump asked Cipollone at a Dec. 18 Oval Office meeting about getting Powell a security clearance. But she recalled Cipollone saying, “You can name her anything you want, Mr. President, and nobody’s going to pay a bit of attention to it.”

Like during his reign in 2016, Trump wants to weaponize the various government departments, in particularly the Justice Department, to go after all of his American enemies – whether Democrats or Republicans who are against him. Just like under his reign, expect many job openings in those departments affected as government employees are suppose to be unbiased.

As well, Trump would try to strip tens of thousands of career employees of their civil service protections. That way, they could be fired as he seeks to “totally obliterate the deep state.” He would try to accomplish that by reissuing a 2020 executive order known as “Schedule F.” That would allow him to reclassify masses of employees, with a particular focus, he has said, on “corrupt bureaucrats who have weaponized our justice system” and “corrupt actors in our national security and intelligence apparatus.” [i.e. more obedience to him or get fired.]

Trump denigrated his domestic opponents and critics during a Veterans Day speech, calling those on the other side of the aisle “vermin” and suggesting that they pose a greater threat to the United States than countries such as Russia, China or North Korea. That language is drawing rebuke from historians, who compared it to that of authoritarian leaders circa World War II.

Recordings of interviews have been leaked and contain footage between prosecutors and pro-Trump attorneys Kenneth Chesebro, Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell and Atlanta bail bondsman Scott Hall offered previously undisclosed details about the effort by Trump and his allies to reverse his defeat. Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis renewed the protective order over discovery materials request “on an emergency basis” citing the leak of the recordings to the media.

Wallis, who is leading the criminal racketeering case against Trump and 14 allies, asked a judge to revoke the bond of one of Trump’s co-defendants, Harrison Floyd, accusing him of trying to intimidate potential witnesses in the case. Floyd had “engaged in numerous intentional and flagrant violations” of his bond agreement, which bars him from communicating directly or indirectly with co-defendants or potential witnesses about the case. [The dummy took pictures of himself with potential witnesses.]

Floyd, a former leader of Black Voices for Trump, is facing three charges largely related to his role in a harassment campaign targeting two Atlanta election workers whom Trump allies falsely accused of election fraud in the aftermath of the 2020 campaign. He has pleaded not guilty.
Doesn’t the paragraphs below sound more like an authoritarian The Handmaid’s Tale-like America? [Note that the Trump campaign has denied these topics.]

Trump is planning a widespread expansion of his first administration’s hard-line immigration policies if he is elected to a second term in 2024, including rounding up undocumented immigrants already in the US and placing them in detention camps to await deportation. This would required quite a bit of spending to build camps, administrate them and secure them. Should Congress refuse to fund the operation, Trump could turn to a tactic used in his first term to secure more funding for a border wall — redirecting funds from the Pentagon.

• He says he would immediately direct US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to undertake the largest domestic deportation operation in American history. He would target people who are legally living in the United States but harbour “jihadist sympathies” and revoke the student visas of those who espouse anti-American and antisemitic views. [i.e. Kangaroo courts.]
• To deter migrants, he has said he would end birthright citizenship, using an executive order that would introduce a legally untested interpretation of the 14th Amendment. The order would prevent federal agencies from granting automatic citizenship to the children of people who are in the US illegally.
• Trump says he will institute a system of tariffs of perhaps 10% on most foreign goods. Penalties would increase if trade partners manipulate their currencies or engage in other unfair trading practices. He will urge that Congress pass a “Trump Reciprocal Trade Act,” giving the president authority to impose a reciprocal tariff on any country that imposes one on the US. Much of the agenda focuses on China. Trump has proposed a four-year plan to phase out Chinese imports of essential goods, including electronics, steel and pharmaceuticals. [What electronics are not made in China? Good bye to iPhones, TVs, etc.]
• Trump claims that even before he is inaugurated, he will have settled the war between Russia and Ukraine. That includes, he says, ending the “endless flow of American treasure to Ukraine” and asking European allies to reimburse the US for the cost of rebuilding stockpiles. It is unclear whether he would insist that Russia withdraw from territory in Ukraine it seized in the war that it launched in February 2022. [The chance of the European allies reimbursing the US is the same chance of Mexico reimburse the US to build the wall.]
• Trump says he will ask Congress to pass a bill establishing that “only two genders,” as determined at birth, are recognized by the US. As part of his crackdown on gender-affirming care, he will declare that hospitals and health care providers that offer transitional hormones or surgery no longer meet federal health and safety standards and will be blocked from receiving federal funds.
• Trump’s goal, he says, is for the U.S. to have the lowest-cost energy and electricity of any nation in the world, including China. Under the mantra “DRILL, BABY, DRILL,” he says he would ramp up oil drilling on public lands and offer tax breaks to oil, gas, and coal producers. He would roll back Biden administration efforts to encourage the adoption of electric cars and reverse proposed new pollution limits that would require at least 54% of new vehicles sold in the US to be electric by 2030. [A reminder that when Trump pushed for increase coal production in his reign, that never happened. Nobody wants dirty poisonous resources.]
• Trump wants to force the homeless off city streets by building tent cities on large open parcels of inexpensive land. At the same time, he says he will work with states to ban urban camping, giving violators the choice between being arrested or receiving treatment. [Treatment?]
• Trump would again push to send the National Guard to cities such as Chicago that are struggling with violence. He says he will require local law enforcement agencies that receive Justice Department grants to use controversial policing measures such as stop-and-frisk. As a deterrent, he says local police should be empowered to shoot suspected shoplifters in the act. “Very simply, if you rob a store, you can fully expect to be shot as you are leaving that store,” he said in one recent speech. Trump has called for the death penalty for drug smugglers and those who traffic women and children. He has also pledged a federal takeover of the nation’s capital, calling Washington a “dirty, crime-ridden death trap” unfitting of the country.

Trump’s legal team has formally told a federal court that he would like his election subversion trial in Washington, DC, to be televised. Court rules do not allow for broadcasting of federal proceedings, and the Justice Department is opposed to allowing cameras. Several media outlets have asked the court to consider allowing cameras at the historic trial, set for March.

The filing included several of Trump’s criticisms that his case is illegitimate and that he is being deprived of his rights, and argued to the court that a televised trial would allow him to overcome the unfairness of the justice system because the public would watch it. Judge Tanya Chutkan will need to look into this and make a ruling.

[First Trump says the charges are baseless, witch hunt, etc. and kill the court case or delay it until after the elections. And now he wants a trial?]

Attorneys for Hunter Biden are seeking court approval to issue subpoenas Trump, former Attorney General William Barr, and two ex-Justice Department officials for documents the attorneys say could shed light on whether the federal gun charges he now faces were the result of “a vindictive or selective prosecution arising from an unrelenting pressure campaign beginning in the last administration.” Hunter Biden attorney, filed a motion claiming that the subpoenas are necessary for the defense to determine whether “President Trump improperly and unrelentingly pressured DOJ to pursue an investigation and prosecution of Mr. Biden to advance President Trump’s partisan ambitions.”

Trump’s social media platform Truth Social has lost at least $73 million since its launch in early 2022, a securities filing by Digital World Acquisition Corp, the SPAC that plans to merge with the company. In 2022, Truth Social posted a loss of $50 million, with net sales of just $1.4 million. It lost $23 million in the first half of this year, with net sales of $2.3 million. {note: As Trump is supposedly worth billions, this is pocket change for him. Right?]