Still more legal fun in Trumpland

A New York court handed Donald Trump a lifeline as time ran out for Trump to secure a bond covering the $454 million loss for his recent fraud case. A panel of appellate court judges gave Trump 10 days to secure a far smaller $175 million bond just hours before New York’s attorney general could legally begin the long, slow process of seizing his assets. The reduction in the bond amount does not reduce the total $454 million fine Trump will ultimately be expected to pay if an appeals court upholds the judgment. Rather, a bond works as assurance that Trump will pay the fine’s full amount if his appeal is unsuccessful.

Along with the fine, Trump also faces a ban from running any company based in New York and obtaining loans from any banks in the state for the next three years. The appellate judges agreed to halt both bans as the court decides on the appeal. A court-appointed monitor, who has been overseeing the Trump Organization’s financial reporting over the last few years, is expected to continue oversight of the company for another three years as part of the judgment.

[Effectively, almost no major banks can obtain a loan because just about any bank in New York are head quartered there or generally the US primary branch.]

Trump’s lawyers have said it’s impossible for him to do that for the original amount. They said underwriters wanted 120 per cent of the judgment and wouldn’t accept real estate as collateral. That would mean tying up over $557 million in cash, stocks and other liquid assets, and Trump’s company needs some left over to run the business, his attorneys have said.

New York Judge Juan M. Merchan, has scheduled an April 15 trial date for Trump in what will be the first criminal case involving an ex-president, involving allegations that he falsified business records during the 2016 presidential campaign. Merchan made the ruling, but not before scolding Trump’s lawyers as he weighed when to reschedule the trial, after a last-minute document dump caused a postponement of the original date. Merchan had bristled at what he suggested were baseless defence claims of “prosecutorial misconduct.” “Why did you wait until two months before trial? Why didn’t you do it in June or July [2023]?” Merchan asked a Trump lawyer.

Merchan has imposed a gag order on Trump, limiting him from making statements about potential witnesses in the criminal trial relating to hush money payments scheduled to begin next month. Merchan also said that Trump can’t make statements about attorneys, court staff or the family members of prosecutors or lawyers intended to interfere with the case. Trump is also barred from making statements about any potential or actual juror.

Trump attended a pre-trial hearing, where Merchan swiftly rejected the motion seeking sanctions against the district attorney’s office, setting the trial date for April 15. Afterwards, Trump went to his 40 Wall Street building nearby, speaking to reporters to attack the case against him, Merchan and one of the prosecutors on Bragg’s staff who previously worked for the Justice Department, Matthew Colangelo. Then on his social network platform, Trump continued attacking Colangelo, baselessly claiming that the prosecutor was sent to the district attorney’s office to go after Trump as Attorney General Merrick Garland’s “right hand.”

Trump complained that the gag order issued was “illegal, un-American, unConstitutional.” He said that Merchan, a veteran Manhattan jurist, was “wrongfully attempting to deprive me of my First Amendment Right to speak out against the Weaponization of Law Enforcement” by Democratic rivals.

Trump claimed that Merchan’s daughter, Loren Merchan, whose firm has worked on campaigns for President Joe Biden and other Democrats, had recently posted a photo on social media depicting her “obvious goal” of seeing him jailed. In a statement, a spokesperson for New York’s state court system said that claim was false and that the social media account Trump was referencing no longer belongs to Loren Merchan. It appears to have been taken over by someone else after she deleted it about a year ago.

Trump is officially selling a patriotic copy of the Christian Bible for $60 themed to Lee Greenwood’s famous song, “God Bless the USA.” “As we lead into Good Friday and Easter, I encourage you to get a copy of the God Bless The USA Bible,” Trump said. Inside, it has the words to “God Bless the USA” and the text of The Declaration of Independence, the Pledge of Allegiance and other historic American documents. Promotional material for the Bible shows Trump alongside Greenwood. Various clergy didn’t take long to object to the use of the Bible.

It is also quite expensive for a copy of the Bible. The FAQ section of the “God Bless America” Bible website clarifies that no proceeds from the sales of the Bible will go towards Trump’s presidential campaign. The FAQ goes on to say Trump’s name, likeness and image are under “paid license from CIC Ventures LLC which is linked to Trump.” However, there is no mention of whether any proceeds could be put toward his personal legal troubles. However, there has been no word on where the profits are going to.

[Trump is not a religious man. He rarely attended church – except maybe when someone well known died.]

Jeff Yass, the billionaire Wall Street financier and Republican mega donor who is a major investor in the parent company of TikTok, was also the biggest institutional shareholder of the shell company that recently merged with Trump’s social media company.

[Now we know why Trump wasn’t to keep TikTok around.]

The Trump campaign said they will have their own super event in Florida on April 6th where they claim they will raise $33 million. This is to out-do the star studded even on March 28th for President Biden that also included Presidents Obama and Clinton which raised an estimated $26 million.

[The campaign already know how much? Sounds like a Russian election where you know that the true leader has won before the election day.]

Trump’s presidential campaign has established titles for the various levels of donations his new joint fundraising operation with national and state Republican Party committees is seeking – as Trump races to find campaign cash for the general election. The levels are:

• “Ultra MAGA” and is designated for individuals who donate $814,600.
• “Team Trump 2024” for those who donate $250,000.
• “Team America First” for $100,000 contributions.
• “Club 47” at $50,000.
• “MAGA 24” at the $24,000 level.

It seems, Trump also has to pay money in the UK. A London appellate justice refused Trump’s request to appeal the dismissal of his case against retired British spy Christopher Steele’s company over his controversial 2016 dossier. Trump had sought permission to appeal Judge Karen Steyn’s February judgment that Trump’s data privacy case — which argued that Steele harmed his reputation by peddling “egregiously inaccurate” claims about his Russian ties — lacked merit and should be thrown out. Steyn also ordered Trump to pay £300,000 [about $513,000] in legal fees to Steele’s company, Orbis Business Intelligence, which Trump requested to be stayed.

Former Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel called the January 6, 2021 [a.k.a. The Trump Insurrection], attack on the US Capitol “unacceptable” after years of deflecting on the issue. She said that the Capitol riot “doesn’t represent our country. It certainly does not represent my party…. We should not be attacking the Capitol; we should not be having violence,”. Asked why she didn’t offer such condemnation as RNC chairwoman, McDaniel responded, “When you’re the RNC chair, you kind of take one for the whole team. Right now, I get to be a little bit more myself.”

[A coincidence that she said something after been tossed to the curbed from a coup headed by Trump?]

McDaniel, right after her ouster at the RNC, got a $300,000 a year job at NBC News but other [real] journalists and anchors started a revolt and McDaniel has lost her job.

[Part of the backlash stemmed from her supporting Trump’s 2020 denial and then taking a $300,000 a year contract when staff is being cut across various NBC divisions. As well, even though she was the head of the RNC, she wasn’t friendly with the more moderate Republicans like Mitt Romney and Nikki Haley.]

Sen. Lisa Murkowski won’t rule out bolting from the GOP. She was one of seven Republicans who voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial amid the aftermath of January 6, 2021, is done with the former president and said she “absolutely” would not vote for him. “I wish that as Republicans, we had … a nominee that I could get behind… I certainly can’t get behind Donald Trump.” Asked if she would become an independent, Murkowski said: “Oh, I think I’m very independent minded… I just regret that our party is seemingly becoming a party of Donald Trump.”

A California judge recommended that conservative attorney John Eastman be disbarred in the state over his role in developing a legal strategy to help Trump stay in power after his 2020 election loss.

Melania Trump sponsored her mother to immigrate to the United States through a family-based process that Trump aggressively sought to end, according to federal immigration records. The records detail for the first time the full path that the former first lady’s mother, Amalija Knavs, followed from Slovenia to the United States — and how the Trump administration’s policies would have made that far more difficult for others.

Melania Trump used a legal pathway that her husband and his top advisers had repeatedly disparaged as “chain migration,” the right of US citizens to bring their parents to the United States. During his presidency, Trump endorsed a bill called the Raise Act that would have limited priority sponsorship to the spouses and minor children of US citizens, taking parents off the fast-track list.

Did you know that Melania Trump arrived in the United States from Slovenia in 1996 for modelling work and obtained a green card around 2001 based on her “extraordinary ability” as a model.

[Ability?]

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.