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].

There’s is never a quiet week

Donald Trump is not immune from prosecution for alleged crimes he committed during his presidency to reverse the 2020 election results, a federal appeals court of three judges said. The ruling is a major blow to Trump’s key defense thus far in the federal election subversion case brought against him by special counsel Jack Smith. Trump had argued that the conduct Smith charged him over was part of his official duties as president and therefore shield him from criminal liability.

“For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defences of any other criminal defendant. But any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as President no longer protects him against this prosecution,” the court wrote. “Here, former President Trump’s actions allegedly violated generally applicable criminal laws, meaning those acts were not properly within the scope of his lawful discretion,” they wrote, meaning that existing case law “provide him no structural immunity from the charges in the Indictment.”

Trump suggested that he thought there would likely be changes at the Republican National Committee, which is led by Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel. Why is he doing this? Because he is spending more money to battle Nikki Haley when if he was the actual party nominee the money could be aimed at fighting President Biden. McDaniel has remained loyal to Trump during the 2024 presidential campaign, calling for Haley to drop out after her defeats in Iowa and New Hampshire.

The RNC had just $8 million in the bank at the end of December, the lowest figure since it reported about $5 million in cash on hand in 2014. The committee was outraised by the Democratic National Committee, which raised about $40 million to its GOP counterpart’s $20 million during the fourth quarter of last year.

[It just feels like you can run for the party’s nomination but don’t expect the party to back you unless you somehow with the nomination. Which is unlikely. This is why the RNC declared Trump the nominee and then pulled the announcement. Very democratic.]

Back in November, Trump and his fellow Republicans stated that they would not accept any border bill without including support for Ukraine in the bill.

Guess what? Trump is against the bill saying the bill should just be about the border – nothing else. He and his buddies can’t make up his mind. As usual.

GOP Sen. James Lankford leads a group trying to push a new bill to curtail migrants coming into the US. Trump dislikes the bill and wants to scuttle it as he wants what there currently is used as an election issue. He has therefore took aim at Lankford including claiming that he never endorsed Lankford. He did.

[The bill is supposed to be the largest sweeping bill in decades, closing loopholes and making it more difficult for migrants to stay in the US. Of course, Trump doesn’t want this and has stated previously no bill is better than this bill. Of course he does.]

Quite a few MAGA supporters in the Senate and House didn’t even bother to read the bill. They just took Trump at his word. Lankford has said that when a few did read it, they actually liked the bill while previously said they’d reject the bill.

In the mean time, the House Republicans tried to impeach DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

[It’s hard to do your job when the opposition party is stopping, for example, a bill to help ease the border “crisis”.]

Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan denied Trump’s motions for a mistrial in the defamation case brought by columnist E. Jean Carroll saying Trump’s arguments had no “merit” and are “entirely pointless.”

To show you how mixed up [I’m being nice here] the Republican Party is, the Nevada GOP will have both a primary and a caucus.

The Republicans are ignoring the outcome of Tuesday’s primary — one taking place without Trump on the ballot. Instead, the state GOP opted to award its delegates to the winner of party-run caucuses being held Thursday evening. The fractured process is the result of a 2021 state law that scrapped Nevada’s presidential caucuses in favor of government-run primaries.

The Nevada Republican Party — which is led by Trump loyalists — opted to hold caucuses this year anyway and award the state’s delegates to the Republican National Convention based on those results. It also warned candidates who participated in the primary that they would not be eligible for the caucuses or to receive any delegates.

Haley and some presidential contenders like Haley filed to run in the primary. Trump did not. So Trump is the only contender in the caucus and automatically wins.

[I am surprised, at this time, that there is no lawsuit or something filed by Haley’s campaign.]

After Haley’s loss in Nevada in the primary which had no other candidates, Trump said, “Watch, she’ll soon claim Victory!”

“We always knew Nevada was a scam,” Haley said in an interview. “Trump had it rigged from the very beginning. … We didn’t spend a day or a dollar there. We weren’t even worried about it.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson says “I am calling the shots” and not Trump. Ya. Sure. Anything you say.

Haley has requested to have the Secret Service with her after threats against her and her family.

[Raise you hand if you think the threats were coming from other right wing people. That many….]

As if they don’t get crazier, West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner claims that the CIA stole the 2020 election in support of Biden, and he accused the FBI of covering it up. Warner said the federal agencies at the table “need to clean up” their “own houses” to “restore confidence in our elections.”

[Probably with nothing but (far) right wing people. West Virginia seems to be home to fringiest of fringe people around.]

Trump said he would consider imposing a tariff upward of 60% on all Chinese imports if he regains the presidency. His remarks come at a time of high economic and other tensions between the US and China. As president, Trump slapped tariffs of 25% on $50 billion of Chinese goods in June 2018. Beijing countered with its own tariffs, and the spiral continued until the two countries arrived at an agreement in 2020.

[This may push Americans to buy non-Chinese items but can your typical American afford to pay extra. If you buy 20 items (excluding food), how many of them are made in China? Trump has already said he would raise tariffs on Canadian wood but that would be an issue because of the free trade agreement he brought in. When he tried it under his reign, there were quite a few complaints by American businesses as (for example) Canadian wood is used to build homes in the US.]

Trump is further proposing 10% across the board. The Tax Foundation claims that Trump’s latest tariff proposals would act as a $300 billion tax on most of us plus costing jobs, lowering growth and depressing American wages. He may still add another10% across the board.

Some of those getting prison terms in their part of the Trump Insurrection are betting everything on Trump starting his second reign and they would be pardoned.

George Santos expelled

So, George Santos was finally dumped in Congress. With more than the two-thirds majority [311 to 114 actually], he is out.

Over a hundred Republicans voted to kick him out even though House Speaker Mike Johnson said he wouldn’t. Johnson said he has told members to vote their conscience. Aren’t they supposed to?

He becomes just the sixth member to be expelled. Two were convicted for crimes and three were part of the Confederacy.

George Santos left Congress with no comments.

A special election will be called sometime in the near future.

Will this be an issue for Johnson as speaker as he announced he was against the expulsion. Does it show that Johnson can’t lead?

Three issues have now come up.

In the immediate future, it will be harder for the Republicans to win any votes in the House as their majority is razor thin.

The Democrats will almost surely win the special election in Santos’ district that is tight already. The voters in the district may be tired of Republicans.

It is good that the house generally is close enough in the number of seats for each part for the last few decades as Congress is a bit toxic right now. What we don’t need is one party with a two-thirds majority voting to expel members of the other party. Santos had warned this but he was forgetting a two-thirds majority is needed – not just a majority.

While Santos hasn’t been convicted of a crime [yet], with the amount of evidence, we need to wonder at what point would those 114 Republicans would vote to expel him.

Santos warned lawmakers they would regret removing a member before they have had their day in court. “This will haunt them in the future where mere allegations are sufficient to have members removed from office when duly elected by their people in their respective states and districts,” Santos said.

Bullying in chief

Donald Trump sent a Thanksgiving post at 2 AM on Thursday saying “Happy Thanksgiving to ALL, including the Racist & Incompetent Attorney General of New York State, Letitia ‘Peekaboo’ James, who has let Murder & Violence Crime FLOURISH, & Businesses FLEE; the Radical Left Trump Hating Judge, a ‘Psycho,’ Arthur Engoron, who Criminally Defrauded the State of New York, & ME, by purposely Valuing my Assets at a ‘tiny’ Fraction of what they are really worth in order to convict me of Fraud before even a Trial, or seeing any PROOF, & used his Politically Biased & Corrupt Campaign Finance Violator, Chief Clerk Alison Greenfield, to sit by his side on the ‘Bench’ & tell him what to do.”

[Let’s see what happens next as at one point there was a gag order where Trump couldn’t say anything about his case in front of Engoron. If he actually listened to his lawyers, he would know how his fraud case works.]

Trump said that Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, who broke with the general practice of Iowa governors not to support a candidate before the caucuses as she is supporting Ron DeSantis. “I was really good to her and then she said she was going to remain neutral. And I said, ‘That’s OK,’ but I didn’t really want her particularly…. I don’t think it’s made any difference.”

[Uh huh. And if he got the governor’s endorsement, he would be raving about her.]

Bob Vander Plaats, an influential Iowa evangelical leader, endorsed Ron DeSantis for president, boosting the Florida governor as he goes all in on the lead off caucus state. Unlike the 2016 and 2020 elections, Trump is losing support from the evangelical.

A federal appeals panel appears inclined to restore the limited gag order in Trump’s federal election subversion case, but may loosen some restrictions so he can more directly criticize special counsel Jack Smith. A three-judge panel of the DC US Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in the closely watched case, which stems from Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election and obstruct the lawful transfer of power. He pleaded not guilty. None of the three judges, are all Democratic appointees, embraced Trump’s claims that the gag order should be wiped away for good because it is a “categorically unprecedented” violation of his free speech rights.

Trump marked President Joe Biden ‘s 81st birthday by releasing a letter from his physician that reports Trump is in “excellent” physical and mental health. The letter contained no details to support its claims — measures like weight, blood pressure and cholesterol levels, or the results of any test. Dr. Bruce A. Aronwald, a New Jersey physician who says he has been Trump’s doctor since 2021 and most recently examined him in September, reported that Trump’s “physical exams were well within the normal range and his cognitive exams were exceptional.” The doctor concluded the 77-year old is “currently in excellent health” and “will continue to enjoy a healthy active lifestyle for years to come.”

[We are sure the doctor was told what to report from Trump or his cronies. The doctor shouldn’t make comments like how Trump will be in the future. He knows that Trump is not in perfect health. Overweight among other things. If Trump died within the next little while, it wouldn’t look good on the doctor. Knowing the Trump family, the doctor would probably get sued.]

House Speaker Mike Johnson said he plans to publicly release 40,000 hours of footage from the Jan. 6, 2021, The Trump Insurrection, making good on a promise he made to far-right members of his party when he was campaigning for the job.

[Have fun going though all that footage to find something juicy. If one person looked at it for 10 hours a day, it would take 11 years.]