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].

Finally a real quite week

The US Supreme Court said it will review the Colorado Supreme Court’s unprecedented decision removing former Donald Trump from that state’s ballot. The court scheduled oral arguments for February 8. Trump remains on the ballot as the lower-court ruling disqualifying him has been put on hold pending Supreme Court action.

A group of House Democrats is demanding Justice Clarence Thomas recuse himself from a case stemming from the Colorado ruling disqualifying Trump from holding office, citing past efforts by Thomas’ wife to reverse the 2020 election results. In a letter sent by eight Democrats on Thursday to Thomas, the lawmakers argue his wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas’ role in the January 6, 2021, “Stop the Steal” rally that she attended make it “unthinkable” the conservative justice could be impartial in deciding whether the event constituted an insurrection.

Special counsel Jack Smith pushed back against Trump’s assertions that the prosecutor should be held in contempt for submitting filings while the federal election interference case is paused, calling accusations that he was intentionally violating a court order “false” and “baseless.” “The Court has held that there is a substantial public interest in the fair and prompt resolution of this case,” prosecutors wrote.

The New York attorney general, Letitia James, is seeking more than $370 million from Trump and his co-defendants and to bar Trump from doing business in the state, according to a post-trial brief filed in Trump’s civil fraud trial.

The Democrats “have weaponized the system.” Trump said at a rally in Iowa, this coming from the man who already wants to use the Department of Justice, FBI and others to go after his enemies once he is elected. He also says Democrats “are signing up” migrants to vote and these same migrants hate the US. If they hate the US, why would you want to migrate to that country? He also claims that Democratic donors are helping out Nikki Haley.

[And how come he hasn’t given Haley a nickname yet?]

Trump has only escalated his apocalyptic descriptions of America and its ostensible future under another President Biden term. “Our border has been erased. Criminals are running wild in our Democrat-run cities. And thanks to crooked Joe’s breathtaking weakness, the world is going up in flames… The whole world is up in flames.” He also told his audience that “the communists, Marxists and fascists are going hard after Catholics” and that Democrats “want people to take your children and do things with your children that are not even speakable.” Biden and “the far-left lunatics,” he said, are “willing to violate the US Constitution at levels never seen before,” adding that “we’re very close” to World War III.

[Everything in the paragraph above were just threats with no actual proof. In comparison, when Biden was talking about Trump and what Biden has said has is what Trump would say he would do or comment about – such as the dictatorship, accused migrants of “poisoning the blood” of the nation, calling enemies vermin and using the Department of Justice and other parts of the federal government to go after Trump’s opponents.]

[When Trump took over in 2016, many people who worked the various federal government departments left their jobs as they wouldn’t work for Trump. Expect a sequel to this if Trump wins in November. However, many celebrities claimed that they would move out of the US when Trump won in November of 2015, but very few did.]

Rumors floating that Nikki Haley [assuming she doesn’t get the nomination] could be pushed as Trump’s running mate in the next election by the GOP party. But Stephen Bannon and Donald Trump Jr. have stated that having Haley would be bad for the party.

“Why did American Disaster Liz Cheney … ILLEGALLY DELETE & DESTROY most of the evidence, and related items, from the January 6th Committee of Political Thugs and Misfits….” Trump and his allies have simply invented the claim that he requested 10,000 troops before the Jan. 6 Trump Insurrection attack on the Capitol, twisting an offhand comment into a supposed order to the Pentagon.

He “floated the idea of having 10,000 National Guardsmen deployed to protect him and his supporters from any supposed threats by left-wing counter protesters,” the report from the January 6 committee said. To mobilize 10,000-20,000 Guardsmen, he would have had to contact the Governors of other States and they would have had to then give orders, or he would have had to federalize the Guardsmen from those States.

Some of the documentation related Jeffrey Epstein case which had Trump as one of his clients – as well as Price Andrew and President Bill Clinton – is starting to ruffle the feathers of the right wing. Former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump Jr. and political allies such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene all posted about the release on social media, warning of a cover-up of alleged Epstein conspirators. Maybe they think most of the people on the list of clients are right wing perverts. I guess Taylor Greene may not have been clients but I wouldn’t be surprised about Giuliani, and like father like son for Donald Trump Jr. Why else would you warn of conspiracies or cover-ups?

As it was a quite week in Trumpland, here are some statistics that could shock you at least a bit – or not:

When The Washington Post and University of Maryland asked in December 2021 whether Biden was legitimately elected, 69 percent of Americans said he was. Now, that’s down to 62 percent. Slightly fewer Republicans today [31 percent] say Biden’s election was legitimate compared with 2021 [39 percent]. More than one-third of Americans, or 36 percent, do not accept Biden’s victory as legitimate.

Older Americans are slightly more likely than younger ones to say Biden was legitimately elected, as are voters with college degrees. About 3 in 10 people who get most of their information from Fox News think Biden won legitimately in 2020.

57 percent or Americans, say the Justice Department is “holding Trump accountable under the law like anyone else” by prosecuting him. A fifth of Republicans agree; the vast majority [77 percent] believe Trump is being targeted for political reasons, as he has repeatedly claimed without evidence.

Most Americans, 55 percent, believe the storming of the US Capitol on Jan. 6 was “an attack on democracy that should never be forgotten,” with majorities of Democrats and independents holding this view. But most Republicans and Trump voters reject this view.

More than 7 in 10 Republicans say that too much is being made of the attack and that it is “time to move on.” Fewer than 2 in 10 (18 percent) of Republicans say Jan. 6 protesters were “mostly violent,” dipping from 26 percent in 2021. Currently, 77 percent of Democrats and 54 percent of independents say the protesters were mostly violent, little changed from 2021.

Just over a quarter of Americans are confident that Trump will accept the results of the election if he loses the next presidential race, while 65 percent think President Biden will. A 71 percent majority of Americans are not confident Trump will accept losing in 2024, which is more than twice the share who say this of Biden. Nearly half of Republicans doubt Trump will accept the election if he loses, rising to 73 percent among independents and 93 percent of Democrats.

The Post-UMD poll finds that 55 percent of Republicans think legal punishments for the people who broke into the Capitol have been “fair” or “not harsh enough,” though that is down from 64 percent in 2021. Seven in 10 independents and about 9 in 10 Democrats say punishments have been fair or insufficient.

Two years ago, 60 percent of Americans overall said Trump bears “a great deal” or “a good amount” of responsibility for the attack; now, 53 percent do. Again, Republicans are driving that change — 14 percent assign him a great or good amount of culpability, about half as many as did in 2021 [27 percent].

A 56 percent majority of Americans say Trump is probably guilty of a criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election results through false claims of voter fraud, including 40 percent who believe he is “definitely guilty.” Republicans are less united than Democrats. Nearly 9 in 10 Democrats believe Trump is guilty, while nearly 7 in 10 Republicans think he is innocent. Among independents, nearly twice as many think Trump is guilty as think he is innocent.

Even though most Americans believe Trump is guilty, the poll finds that fewer than half, 46 percent, say his actions related to Jan. 6 Trump Insurrection should disqualify him from the presidency. An additional 17 percent say Trump’s actions cast doubt on his fitness to serve, while 33 percent say they are not relevant.

Humor time:

After his speech in Iowa on Friday, Trump could be nominated for an Emmy prime time comedy special award for next year. A laugh a minute.

Maybe the swamp should be emptied

For once, Donald Trump may be right – but it is his party.

There is almost a civil war between factions of the Republican Party.

We probably knew it could get bad when there was the Tea Party faction that eventually morphed to include some of the troublemakers/far-right members that are now holding up congress from doing its work.

Matt Gaetz really started it all by chucking Kevin McCarthy as the House Speaker and many Republican followed his misguided lead and did overthrow McCarthy’s reign.

The Democrats did not vote to keep McCarthy around, but why would they? The Republicans haven’t done anything to help the Democrats govern and then McCarthy agreed to open an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden – who could be charge with offences that do not even meet the minimum standards of how a President can be impeached. But the Republicans love revenge after their hero, Trump, was indicted twice.

Did the Democrats make a mistake in not keeping McCarthy? Now, I’m not even sure McCarthy would want the job back. I don’t blame him.

Meanwhile, McCarthy blamed the Democrats for not helping him keep his job. The Democrats are not his party.

I think quite a few Republicans are thinking about the big mistake they made.

While the Republicans decided what to do, Republican Patrick McHenry took the job as an interim speaker. But he doesn’t want the job permanently or even an extension with extra responsibilities.

So the Republicans within their party voted in Steve Scalise. But he dropped out at least because of health issues.

So the vote went to Jim Jordan.

Yes the same Jim Jordan who was one of the quite a few election deniers and didn’t think the Trump Insurrection of January 6 wasn’t much more than a peaceful gathering. He is very pro-Trump. So who will be pulling the strings?

For the first vote on October 17^th, Scalise failed to secure a win.

For the second vote on October 18^th, Scalise failed to secure a win and did worse.

He was told that if he tries a third vote, he will lose badly. An embarrassment.

So they are stuck with no idea who should be speaker.

The far right – led by Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene and others – will most likely block anyone they don’t like. They are holding the mostly [proper word?] moderate factions of the party from voting in somewhere.

Depending on the attendance in the House at the time of the vote, the nominee can only loose three or maybe four Republicans votes [assuming no “Present” or abstaining votes] since the difference between the seats for the two parties is nine [again, depends on the attendance prior to the vote].

To go really crazy, at least one Republican’s spouse received death threats in at least voice mail. Wow.

[Unsure how any politician or his/her immediate family could not keep their addresses and phone numbers public.]

Meanwhile, we are just a few weeks away from another possible shutdown – and a Speaker of the House must be installed by then.

Should be fun.

[It is bad enough that they kept George Santos with all his illegal activities. If the party had a larger majority he’d be gone and charged and maybe in prison. But this is the Republican Party.]

Trump arrested (but you knew that)!

Recently, Donald Trump had been arrested by deputy US Marshals at the federal courthouse in Miami and will be arraigned on charges related to mishandling classified documents. The hearing will operate as both an “initial appearance” and as a so-called arraignment as well, with Trump having the opportunity to enter his plea in the case.

“…a corrupt sitting president had his top political opponent arrested on fake and fabricated charges of which he and numerous other presidents would be guilty, right in the middle of a presidential election in which he’s losing very badly…” said Trump after the courthouse appearance. Let’s see: how is President Biden corrupt, other presidents were corrupt [whom?], losing very badly? The voting started already? An Reuters/Ipsos poll from mid-May 2023 gives Biden a 6 point lead. As for “middle of a presidential election”, not really. The elections don’t really start until both parties have their nominees and the US is in a perpetual campaigning with mid-term elections followed by party candidates trying to win their party nomination 18 months before the actual elections. So that’s falsehoods in one sentence. Nice and compact really.

For Trump’s legal team, his top attorneys Jim Trusty and John Rowley resigned recently, and Trump announced the addition of Todd Blanche [a white-collar criminal defense lawyer] to the classified documents case. This after having problems securing lawyers, needs lawyers who is admitted to practice law in the southern district of Florida. Some of his team have been searching for lawyers there while some lawyers have expressed interest. [But what kind of lawyers have applied? MAGA fans but otherwise inexperienced? Those searching for 15 minutes of fame?]

Trump has said that it’s more problematic for President Biden to have retained classified documents when he was vice president than it is for a president, though the laws treat the records the same. Inventing laws that suits his needs [and ego].

Trump falsely claimed no one objected to his “perfect phone call” urging Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to change the outcome, when a recording shows that Raffensperger and his lawyer repeatedly pushed back on his unsubstantiated claims.

“You’re watching Joe Biden — think of it, Biden is trying to jail his leading political opponent,” Trump said in the speech. “As far as the joke of an indictment, it’s a horrible thing. It’s a horrible thing for this country. I mean, the only good thing about it is it’s driven my poll numbers way up. Can you believe it?” As if all of the Justice Department are Democrats.

Attorneys for Trump are continuing the legal fight to move Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s criminal case against the former president from New York state court to federal court. Trump’s lawyers first filed a motion to move the case to federal court in May, arguing that the charges are related to his duties as president. Bragg’s office has argued that Trump’s alleged hush money scheme was largely perpetrated before Trump became president and wants to keep the case at the New York state Supreme Court.

Trump allies have argued that at least there’s no evidence he gave these documents to America’s enemies. They’ve also effectively suggested that, absent such a breach, it’s time to move on because the documents have been recovered. Uh huh.

Marjorie Taylor Greene was on the airplane when Trump had a rally in Georgia recently. Did she provide the entertainment? Maybe a bit of dancing around a pole. I’m sure Trump has one of those somewhere on his airplane.

“Think of it: [Biden had] 1,850 boxes. Mine is peanuts,” Trump said. Trump’s comparison is highly misleading. The approximately 1,850 boxes that Biden legally and properly donated in 2012 to the University of Delaware are a collection of records from his 36 years in the US Senate.

Trump said Biden “has so many classified documents,” but “he’s trying to prevent them from seeing it – that’s obstruction. But we didn’t do any obstruction.” There is no indication that Biden is fighting to retrieve the documents. [These are the documents while as Vice President or now President and Biden consented the FBI to search – unlike Trump.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy defends Trump by comparing putting the boxes in a garage [that would probably be locked] compared to putting the boxes in a bathroom that he says would be locked. Locked? Generally if someone is in there or is off bounds but it is in a public area.

Trump allies are going after others after the indictment:

• Adam Schiff: Censure Schiff in his role in investigations of Trump. It failed as 20 [sane] Republicans sided with the Democrats. The Republican who sponsored it, will try again with different wording.
• FBI and director: Defund the FBI and/or impeach director Christopher Wray.
• Department of Justice and attorney general: Dismantle part of Department of Justice and/or impeach AG Merrick Garland.

Seems all the Republicans care about is revenge.

Trump appointee Judge Aileen Cannon will handle the trial. Interesting in what he will say and do if he’s convicted of anything.

Another former Trump attorney, Christopher Kise, wanted to quietly approach Justice to see if he could negotiate a settlement that would preclude charges, hoping Attorney General Merrick Garland and the department would want an exit ramp to avoid prosecuting Trump. Kise would hopefully “take the temperature down,” he told others, by promising a professional approach and the return of all documents. But Trump was not interested after listening to other lawyers who urged a more pugilistic approach, so Kise never approached prosecutors.

“If you want to get to President Trump, you’re going to have to go through me and you’re going to have to go through 75 million Americans just like me,” losing Arizona Kari Lake [for governor] told the GOP convention to roaring cheers and a standing ovation. “Most of us are card-carrying members of the NRA [National Rifle Association]” ….. “That’s not a threat, that’s a public service announcement.” Only 5.5 million NRA members. So we assume Republicans as some NRA could be Democrats.]

Trump headed to Miami’s famous Cuban restaurant Versailles after his arraignment at the city’s federal courthouse and is said to have declared to a crowd of admirers “Food for everyone!” after walking inside. He stayed for 10 minutes and then left – without paying the bill. Supposedly he picked up food at a McDonald’s on the way to the airport to take him to New Jersey.

In the Capitol complex, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene and four other far-right lawmakers, held a “hearing” that honored participants in the riot, family members of Trump Insurrection rioters and organizers of the attempted overthrow of the 2020 vote. Technically, Gaetz couldn’t call such a hearing, because he isn’t a committee chairman. But House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who is trying to win back the support of extremists such as Gaetz, allowed him to do it.

Would she just be quiet!

“Becoming a member of Congress has made my life miserable. I made a lot more money before I got here. I’ve lost money since I’ve gotten here,” Marjorie Taylor Greene, who once owned a gym, said.

Yes, she made more than $174,000 a year with her gym – if she used it as a front for illegal things [drugs, prostitution, ….]

Maybe stop making idiot comments and siding with morons and your life wouldn’t be so miserable with some people harassing you.

“I have people come up to me and say crazy things to me out of the blue in public places that they believe because they read it on the internet or saw it on some news show about me,” Greene said. Oh poor her! You know what? That sounds familiar. Maybe some orange thing has said the same thing in the past. Wah wah wah.

Think of the nurses out there who actually have a difficult job and make less than a third of your cozy job.

“Decades ago, the leaders in Washington joined together with big corporations and started to make trade deals. This was what led to many of our manufacturing jobs, blue-collar jobs, being sent overseas to foreign countries where they started manufacturing goods.” Just like just the majority of what was sold at Trump’s online store was made outside of the US – including his MAGA hats made in China.

As a result, she said, “many types of great American jobs disappeared” so that now “small-town America today is suffering.” Meanwhile the unemployment rate in the US hit the lowest rate in decades with the jobless rate down to 3.4 per cent. That’s the lowest level on record since 1969.