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.

Trump needs to pay some “cheddar”

Donald Trump must pay $83.3 million to E. Jean Carroll for defamatory statements he made against her in 2019, a jury determined. The total is more than eight times what Carroll asked for in her initial lawsuit. Carroll’s lawyers have already said that they will take Trump to court again if he opens his big mouth against her. Trump went on his failed social platform and made comments about the case but did not mention Carroll by saying “I fully disagree with both verdicts, and will be appealing this whole Biden Directed Witch Hunt focused on me and the Republican Party.” His lawyers already said they’d appeal.

[There are about 2 million active Truth Social users. However X/Twitter has about 450 million monthly active users and Facebook has about 2.91 billion.]

Earlier, Trump renewed his motion for a mistrial of the defamation case after Carroll acknowledged deleting some emails. Trump’s attorney Alina Habba asked for a mistrial earlier in the middle of cross-examination of Carroll when Carroll testified that she had deleted some emails containing threats to her safety. It was promptly rejected by Judge Lewis Kaplan but Habba reiterated the request and said without the records there is no way to prove when the threats occurred. Trump has argued that Carroll immediately began receiving negative messages after an excerpt of Carroll’s book containing the assault allegations was published on New York magazine’s website – hours before Trump issued his first statement. His attorneys argued Trump shouldn’t be held responsible for what other people did.

[Trump shouldn’t be held responsible unless he encouraged the people to act on what he said – like at the Trump Insurrection – and they did.]

Meanwhile Carroll is likely face a huge tax bill for those damages — and it’s all thanks to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017, and it went into effect in January 2018. The measure gave everyone a larger standard deduction, but the law took away the ability for plaintiffs to deduct legal fees in many types of cases, including defamation cases, so the government wouldn’t lose too much in revenue. Who signed the act? Trump.

Habba also criticized the judge, saying the judge wasn’t allowed any defense in front of the jury. But this wasn’t a full jury, just the verdict of how much he should pay. He was already found guilty.

Fox News on TV didn’t even bother to report about the money verdict [from what I was told as I don’t have or want the TV “new” channel] but their web site did have the story but it was way down in the front page of the web site.

Trump said presidents of the United States should have full immunity from prosecution even if they “cross the line” while in office, pushing his claims even further as he awaits a highly anticipated ruling from a federal appeals court in Washington regarding his attempts to overturn the 2020 election. “Even events that ‘cross the line’ must fall under total immunity… A president of the United States must have full immunity, without which it would be impossible for him/her to properly function,” Trump posted.

[This goes back to Trump’s comment when he said he could walk down Fifth Avenue in New York City and kill someone and be immune while President. Some experts are saying that what he said is an admission of guilt of something he has already done in the past. Plenty to choose from! He basically says a president can do whatever every they want any no one in the government can stop the president. Immunity covers the president in office while doing his official duties but with exceptions. Telling a governor to find him 11,000+ so he can win the state isn’t one of them. At that time, he is acting as a candidate and has no immunity.]

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley questioned Trump’s mental fitness after he appeared to confuse her with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi when talking about the January 6, 2021, Trump Insurrection. “Last night, Trump is at a rally and he’s going on and on mentioning me several times as to why I didn’t take security during the Capitol riots. Why I didn’t handle January 6 better. I wasn’t even in DC on January 6. I wasn’t in office then,” Haley said. “They’re saying he got confused. That he was talking about something else. That he was talking about Nancy Pelosi. He mentioned me multiples times in that scenario.”

When Trump’s suggested that Haley was standing in the way of him earning the nomination, she responded, “I don’t do what he tells me to do. I’ve never done what he tells me to do.”

[That last sentence might not be true when she was the UN Ambassador. He is easily the front runner at this point. Is he nervous that she might actually be competition for him?]

“But as they said, we lost by a whisker,” Trump said in a speech in New Hampshire. Unsure if he meant the New Hampshire primary this week or from 2016 when he lost to Lyin’ Ted Cruz by almost 3.5% – not a whisker. Publicly, he criticized Haley speech and her outfit in a post online. Privately, Trump told his aides he was baffled that she was refusing to drop out and grant him the GOP nomination, urging his political aides to up their attacks on her.

[Is he admitting that he actually lost the 2020 election? And it wasn’t by a whisker. 74 electoral college votes. This was part of more ranting and complaining after his win in New Hampshire that featured new lies as well as the usuals.]

“My conscience won’t allow me to vote for a criminal,” said a Republican voter in New Hampshire.

Trump this week bragged about purportedly acing a widely used cognitive test that was administered to him when he was president. “I think it was 35, 30 questions,” Trump said of the test, which he said involved a few animal identification queries. “They always show you the first one, like a giraffe, a tiger, or this, or that — a whale. ‘Which one is the whale?’ Okay. And that goes on for three or four [questions] and then it gets harder and harder and harder.”

Ziad Nasreddine, the Canadian neurologist who invented the test in question said it has never included the specific combination of animals described by Trump in any of its versions over the years. The test is called The Montreal Cognitive Assessment, a test aimed at detecting dementia or cognitive decline. Experts also note that the assessment is not an I.Q. or intelligence test, though Trump has often talked about it as if it was.

Senior Senate Republicans are furious that Trump may have killed an emerging bipartisan deal over the southern border, depriving them of a key legislative achievement on a pressing national priority and offering a preview of what’s to come with Trump as their likely presidential nominee. In recent weeks, Trump has been lobbying Republicans both in private conversations and in public statements on social media to oppose the border compromise in part because he wants to campaign on the issue this November and doesn’t want President Joe Biden to score a victory in an area where he is politically vulnerable. But House Republicans want to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for not doing his job.

[How can Mayorkas be impeached when the same party is blocking him from doing his job.]

[You need to wonder whether northern states really care about what happens at the southern border. Very few migrants would make it to the northern states – except when a southern Republican governor forces the migrants to travel north by buses.]

The federal appeals court in Washington, DC, declined to rehear arguments over whether Trump can be prohibited from talking about witnesses and court staff while he awaits trial in the special counsel’s January 6 criminal case. Trump has unsuccessfully tried to challenge the gag order placed on him by Judge Tanya Chutkan late last year through appeals. The 11 judges from the DC Circuit Court of Appeals declined to touch the case after a three-judge panel previously upheld the gag order against Trump.

Maine’s top court declined to weigh in on whether Trump can stay on the state’s ballot, keeping intact a judge’s decision that the US Supreme Court must first rule on a similar case in Colorado. Democrat Shenna Bellows concluded that Trump didn’t meet ballot qualifications under the insurrection clause in the US Constitution but a judge put that decision on hold pending the Supreme Court’s decision on the similar case in Colorado.

So MSNBC decided not to show Trump’s speech after he won in Iowa. When they saw his speech was considered normal [i.e. very few or no lies], they decided to show Trump’s speech in New Hampshire but shortly after he started his speech, they pulled away. Can you guess why?

[Wouldn’t it be easier if they delayed showing his speech by about 15 seconds so they have the time to mute his lies?]

After his Iowa primary win, he said “She [Haley] didn’t, and she couldn’t even beat a very flawed Ron DeSanctimonious [DeSantis], who’s out of money, and out of hope. Nikki came in a distant THIRD!”

[Haley did come in third but right close behind DeSantis. They technically both were a distant second and third, but trump was going after Haley because there were hints that DeSantis wouldn’t stay in the race long which became true a couple of days later.]

Trump posted a comment that anyone who contributes to Haley’s campaign would be “permanently barred from the MAGA camp.” The Americans for Prosperity Action, the super PAC backed by billionaire Charles Koch, who backed Haley in November, said they will not give Trump’s campaign any money and instead focus on getting Senate wins when and if Haley drops. Others will follow. That’s a blow to Trump’s campaign.

Tim Scott, who decided to endorse Trump over fellow South Carolinian, Haley claims that the economy was great under. Does that include the double digit unemployment rate from April to July 2020 and still high after? It slid under 4% within 8 months of Biden’s election. Dow Jones was about 30,000 on December 31, 2020. It is now over 38,000. Trump seemed to always say the stock market was his indication that economy was doing well.

One of Trump’s legal battles is heading to the Supreme Court

Special counsel Jack Smith asked the Supreme Court to decide whether Donald Trump has any immunity from criminal prosecution for alleged crimes he committed while in office – the first time that the high court will weigh in on the historic prosecution of Trump. The extraordinary request is an attempt by Smith to keep the election subversion trial – currently scheduled for early March – on track. Smith is asking the Supreme Court to take the rare step of skipping a federal appeals court and quickly decide a fundamental issue of the case against Trump.

But Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan overseeing Donald Trump’s 2020 election interference case has temporarily paused all procedural deadlines while appeals over a major issue play out – which could lead to his March 2024 trial date being pushed back. The judge acknowledged that she no longer has jurisdiction over aspects of the criminal case while the DC Circuit Court of Appeals considers whether Trump is immune and can be tried.

Smith’s team has asked the court to review Judge Chutkan’s ruling that as a former president, Trump is not immune from the election subversion prosecution case brought in Washington DC. Lawyers for Trump have argued that Trump’s alleged actions over the 2020 election results were part of his official duties at the time and therefore he is protected by presidential immunity. If the court rules against Smith, it could cause problems in this case and another.

A New York appellate court rejected Trump’s challenge of the gag order in his civil fraud trial. Trump’s attorneys petitioned the court over the gag order that bars him and the attorneys from speaking publicly about Judge Arthur Engoron’s court staff. In rejecting the challenge, the appeals court said Trump didn’t use the proper legal vehicle to challenge the gag order and sanctions. The appellate court in another order also rejected a Trump request to allow his legal team to seek a review of the gag order by the Court of Appeals, New York’s highest court.

Trump said he has decided against testifying for a second time at his New York civil fraud trial claiming that he “very successfully & conclusively” testified last month and saw no need to appear again. He was expected to add more testimony this past week. When he was questioned by the state lawyers who are suing him, he often responded with lengthy diatribes. Trump’s verbose answers irked the judge, who repeatedly asked Trump to keep his answers short. “This is not a political rally,” the judge said. Had Trump returned to the stand Monday, his defence lawyers would have led the questioning, but state lawyers could have cross-examined him.

[Trump’s lawyers may try to ask the Supreme Court but I suspect they won’t even hear it (if they are really smart). If you got nothing to hide, then you would testify. If your first round of testimony didn’t go well, you wouldn’t want to testify.]

A federal appeals court rejected Trump’s use of presidential immunity in a bid to dismiss a civil defamation lawsuit brought by former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll. The judges found that Trump waived using presidential immunity as a defense by not raising it earlier in the litigation over Carroll’s claim that Trump defamed her when, as president, he denied her allegations of sexual assault. The appeals court also affirmed the lower court’s ruling by Judge Kaplan that rejected Trump’s motion for summary judgment.

[Not really surprising as well as the assault happened way before his reign (of terror).]

Trump’s ex-lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has lost his defamation to two women in Georgia. They were election workers. One was paid $16/hour and the other one was a volunteer. After Giuliani accused them of some shenanigans that he could never prove, they were harassed by him verbally and then by followers of Trump. Throughout the whole time since his accusations, Giuliani said he would show proof of what they did. [We are still waiting!]

Of course he doesn’t have the money. He can’t pay his legal bills. He probably will go bankrupt first. He probably can’t afford an appeal. He probably won’t be able to pay his alimony [3 wives].

[His buddy, Trump, claims to be a billionaire but probably won’t give Giuliani a nickel because Trump likes to throw people under a steamroller while he rolls over them a few times. Donnie was a co-conspirator.]

Trump characterized warnings that his victory in 2024 would represent a threat to democracy as a “hoax” and “Democrat misinformation.” He said in a speech hosted by the New York Young Republican Club that President Joe Biden “is the real threat to democracy.” He said “We call it now the threat-to-democracy hoax, because that’s what it is.”

[This is the man who claimed he would become a dictator on day one of his second reign. He also suggested even a third term which is against the constitution and even scrap parts of the constitution (that he doesn’t like). As well, this from a man who wants to weaponize the Department of Justice and others to go after those who went against him.]

“They think the threat-to-democracy hoax will save Biden from having created the worst inflation in our country’s history, a fragile economy that may soon end in a depression.”

[The inflation came right after his reign when the nation was at least shut down while his administration could not figure out how to handle the pandemic. The world was looking for the US for leadership. Instead the world got turmoil. And of course he knows nothing. Inflation was a whopping 20% in the late 1940s, 15% around the 1980s and about 9% in 2022. The “worst inflation”? Source.]

While on Fox, Trump made 24 false or iffy claims. A good chuckle. Some of the comments by users are quite funny.

More legal Trump mumbo jumbo

Donald Trump is appealing a ruling that found he is not immune from criminal prosecution as he runs out of time to delay or even derail an upcoming trial on charges that he plotted to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Lawyers for Trump filed a notice of appeal indicating that they will challenge US District Judge Tanya Chutkan’s decision rejecting Trump’s bid to derail the case headed to trial in Washington, DC, in March. The one-page filing was accompanied by a request from the Trump team to put the case on pause so the appeals court can take up the matter.

An appeals court has largely upheld the gag order against former President Donald Trump in the federal election subversion case, saying he can be barred from talking about witnesses as well as prosecutors, the court staff and their family members. But the court said the gag order does not apply to comments made about special counsel Jack Smith and narrows the prohibition Trump had for speaking about witnesses in the case, a change from the original gag order.

Trump attempted to turn the tables on his likely rival in November, President Joe Biden, arguing that the man whose election victory Trump tried to overturn is “the destroyer of American democracy.” But who tried to overturn the 2020 election? Trump repeated his longstanding contention that the four criminal indictments against him show Biden is misusing the federal justice system against his rival.

“He’s been weaponizing government against his political opponents like a Third World political tyrant,” Trump said to a crowd in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. This from an individual who has claimed he will weaponize the Department of Justice to investigate anyone who is not backing him and even said he would get rid of the top level military personnel [generals, admirals, etc.] who do not back him. [Of course the constitution says the military follows the Presidents orders as long as they are valid. Attacking Bermuda because the Premier of Bermuda gave him “the finger” doesn’t cut it.]

Trump’s new claim [stolen from the fringe]? The federal government staged or incited violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 [a.k.a. The Trump Insurrection], to discredit Trump and his supporters. That’s a stretch.

He has frequently claimed in campaign speeches, without evidence, that President Biden ordered Trump’s arrest to damage his candidacy, and his lawyers have likewise claimed in court that he is fighting “tyranny” and “oppression” by the Biden administration.

Trump asked for “all documents regarding” Ray Epps, a supporter of the former president who has been falsely accused of being an undercover operative, and John Nichols, a liberal journalist in Wisconsin who right-wing media have suggested encouraged violence at the Capitol on behalf of the “deep state.” He also asked for any intelligence the government had on “Antifa,” on pipe bombs found near the Capitol on Jan. 6, and on “informants, cooperators [and] undercover agents … involved in the assistance, planning, or encouragement” of the events of that day.

Epps has been repeatedly and baselessly accused of instigating violence at the Capitol on behalf of the U.S. government, a claim made popular by a former Trump speechwriter. Epps pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in September. He is suing Fox News for falsely labeling him a government plant, saying the smears forced him and his wife to leave their home and live out of an RV.

Prosecutors in the Georgia election subversion case against Trump have officially listed former Vice President Mike Pence as one of the witnesses who could be called to testify at trial.

Kenneth Chesebro, the pro-Trump lawyer who helped devise the 2020 fake electors plot and already pleaded guilty to the conspiracy in Georgia, is now cooperating with Michigan and Wisconsin state investigators in hopes of avoiding more criminal charges. Chesebro’s cooperation in Wisconsin is the first indication the state attorney general’s office has launched its own investigation into the false slates of pro-Trump electors.

Trump promoted a social media post saying “the cops should be charged and the protesters should be freed.” The attached video showed people fighting police to break into the Capitol building. All of these requests originated by the fringe right.

All four GOP candidates for the recent debate have signed an agreement to support whomever wins the GOP nomination. Trump, whom of course won’t be at the debate, hasn’t signed it.

[Shouldn’t the Republican party (let alone the Democrats) have some stipulation that they should endorse the party nominee and participate (if qualified) in all or the majority of debates?]

Recent financial information says that the Republican Party is having problems attracting donors with just $9 million on hand. The combined presidential candidates have raised $72 million. President Biden has pulled in that amount alone.

The Koch Brothers Superpac, Americans for Prosperity, and banking titan Jamie Dimon are now backing Nikki Haley. The Democratic Party has attracted $17 million on hand.

In a legal settlement, the 10 Republicans who signed official-looking paperwork falsely purporting Trump won Wisconsin in 2020 have agreed to withdraw their inaccurate filings, acknowledge President Biden won the presidency and not serve as presidential electors in 2024 or in any election where Trump is on the ballot.

In a Fox interview, Trump promised to “close” the US-Mexico border[we assume to migrants only and not the actual border crossing] and to further increase oil drilling all over [anything to help his oil buddies].

At a recent town hall in Iowa, Trump said:

• When the US left Afghanistan “they also left $85 billion of the best military equipment, because I rebuilt the military.” – $85 billion was rounded up from $83 billion but is the total amount that the US spent on the war in Afghanistan. $7.1 billion was left behind but a chunk of that was inoperable. He “rebuilt”. Hah!
• “I often say Al Capone, … he got indicted once. I got indicted four times.” – “Scarface” was indicted 6 times. Trump could still catch up!
• “I gave the farmers [of Iowa] $28 billion, and I got it from China. Who else could do that?” – First, only $23 billion was give and second, it was from US taxpayers. China never paid a cent. Why would they pay anything?

And of course the usual lies.

Trump can be sued for the insurrection

Lawsuits against Donald Trump brought by Capitol Police officers and Democratic lawmakers over the US Capitol riot [a.k.a. Trump Insurrection], can move forward, a federal appeals court ruled. A three-judge panel of the US Circuit Court of Appeals denied Trump’s request to dismiss the lawsuits that accuse him of inciting the violent mob on Jan. 6, 2021. But the court said it’s ruling was not the final word on whether presidential immunity shields the Republican from liability in the case and said the judges express “no view on the ultimate merits of the claims” against Trump.

A New York appellate court has reinstated a gag order prohibiting Trump and attorneys from making public statements about the court staff in the ongoing $250 million civil fraud trial. Judge Arthur Engoron originally issued the order barring Trump from making public statements about court staff after Trump made numerous comments about a clerk, who Trump says is biased against him.

Trump had urged a New York appeals court to continue to pause the gag order against him, saying that threats to the judge and his law clerk do not “justify” limiting Trump’s constitutional right to defend himself. Lawyers for the New York attorney general’s office and the court last week urged the appeals court to put the gag order back in place following “serious and credible” threats that have inundated Judge Arthur Engoron’s chambers since the trial began in October.

“At base, the disturbing behavior engaged in by anonymous, third-party actors towards the judge and Principal Law Clerk publicly presiding over an extremely polarizing and high-profile trial merits appropriate security measures,” Trump’s attorneys wrote.

[Ummm. Trump has followers. If he says for them to dance naked on 5th Avenue in Toronto, they would. This is incitement.]

New York court officials have knocked down Trump’s angry social media claims that the wife of Engoron, who’s presiding over his civil fraud trial, has been posting anti-Trump rhetoric on X. Engoron’s wife does not have an X – formerly Twitter – account, according to a spokesperson for the state court system.

[I guess he will do anything to say that the judge (or his wife) is biased. His followers will believe him whether or not it is true. Even if the judge’s wife said something negative, it doesn’t mean her opinion counts in how he judges. Next Trump will say the pet gets angry (bark, hiss) when the Trump name is mentioned.]

The federal judge, Judge Tanya Chutkan, overseeing Trump’s election subversion case in Washington, denied Trump’s effort to subpoena records from the House select committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. Trump’s attorneys had claimed in their motion to subpoena records from the committee, its Chairman Bennie Thompson, and others that the committee and federal officials withheld some materials related to the investigation. Thompson has defended his panel’s archival process. He said this summer that the committee wasn’t required to keep all of the records it amassed during the months long investigation.

Trump’s legal team is seeking a trove of classified documents from the Justice Department as it prepares to argue at his upcoming criminal trial that he was right to doubt the results of the 2020 election. The approach will bring Trump’s continued political broadside against his loss of the presidency into court as Trump alleges a vast government conspiracy against him, all as he seeks to retake the White House. Trump’s defense team is asking for information from several past government investigations, including around the election results and about the recent classified documents probe into his former Vice President Mike Pence. He says these records could be exculpatory, helping in his defense, if they show some agencies exploring election interference in 2020.

Trump’s renewed focus on repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, known colloquially as Obamacare, has alarmed some Republicans scarred by the GOP’s failure to deliver on promises to dismantle the law and who view the issue as a political loser with the American people.

A Nevada state-level criminal investigation into the fake electors plot intended to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election win is ramping up with prosecutors securing the cooperation of a key witness, even as some of those who served as pro-Trump electors remain politically active ahead of the 2024 election. Kenneth Chesebro, a lawyer who helped orchestrate the fake electors plot across multiple states, has agreed to sit down with Nevada investigators in hopes of avoiding prosecution there.

Americans for Prosperity, the political arm of the powerful Koch network [a.k.a. Koch brothers], formally endorsed Nikki Haley’s presidential campaign, promising to commit its nationwide coalition of activists — and virtually unlimited funds — to helping Haley defeat Trump in the GOP primary contest. AFP has roughly %75 million available. A Trump lackey responded by saying Americans for Prosperity is the “the political arm of the China-first, America-last movement.” They didn’t seem to mind when the Koch network previously endorsed them.

A former server at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster has filed a lawsuit against the club in New Jersey, alleging that she was sexually harassed by her manager and then pressured to sign an illegal non-disclosure agreement by Alina Habba, who is now an attorney for Trump. The woman, Alice Bianco, alleged in the lawsuit that she was given “very short uniform skirts” to wear by her boss Pavel Melichar. Bianco, who was 21 at the time, alleged that Melichar, who was in his mid-50s, showered her with gifts and coerced her to engage in sex in exchange for “protection” and job security.

Brian Swensen formally resigned from his role as national political director for the Vivek Ramaswamy campaign recently and has joined the Trump campaign. Not a good sign for Ramaswamy. Earlier this month, Brandon Goodyear, the Ramaswamy team’s director of content, stepped away from the campaign.

Ryan Fournier, a co-founder of the political organization Students for Trump, was arrested and charged with assault on November 21 in North Carolina after allegedly hitting a woman with a gun. Fournier was charged with misdemeanor assault on a female and assault with a deadly weapon and was released on a $2,500 bond later that day, the documents say. He is accused of grabbing a woman by her arm and hitting her in the forehead with a firearm.

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?]

The continuing legal mess

The campaign to use the US Constitution’s “insurrection” clause to bar Donald Trump from running for the White House again enters a new phase this week as hearings begin in two states on lawsuits that might end up reaching the US Supreme Court. A week-long hearing on one lawsuit to bar Trump from the ballot in Colorado, while oral arguments are scheduled before the Minnesota Supreme Court on an effort to kick the Republican former president off the ballot in that state.

[Any state that wants Trump off the ballot could make it harder for Trump to win the presidency. Of course he will complain that the election was stolen, Department of Justice out to get him, etc. Of course this could also give room for a third party candidate such as the dreadful Robert F. Kennedy Jr winning some votes.]

US District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan has reimposed a gag order on Trump’s public statements in advance of his trial on charges of conspiring to subvert the results of the 2020 election. The restrictions that the judge put back in place were ones she had lifted nine days earlier to give Trump and US prosecutors more time to argue whether the gag was unconstitutional, as attorneys for the former president had claimed. Trump can now ask a higher court for an emergency stay pending appeal, but in the meantime he is bound by Chutkan’s limits.

Trump’s legal team asked Chutkan to delay a trial scheduled to take place in March — during the heat of the GOP primary race — as the legal system works through his bid to get the case dismissed on the grounds that he’s immune from prosecution on any actions he took while president. His attorneys also this week asked a judge in Florida to delay the trial in a case over the ex-president’s handling of classified documents until after November’s election.

In his New York state fraud case, Trump is expected to testify on Monday, November 6th and probably last until at least Tuesday if not Wednesday. His adult sons testified this past week.

In 2014, Trump placed a $1 billion bid to buy the NFL’s Buffalo Bills but eventually didn’t have the winning bid. In offering to buy the Bills, Trump cited his net worth as over $8 billion in an initial offer letter but never provided his financial statements. His then-lawyer Michael Cohen told the bankers that Trump wouldn’t release his financial records until told he was “the final bidder.”

“Trump has little chance of being approved by the NFL,” given that he had owned casinos and had a role in the rival USFL’s 1980s antitrust suit against the NFL, then-Morgan Stanley executive K. Don Cornwell wrote to colleagues in April 2014. The NFL was also suspicious that Trump claimed a net worth of over $8 billion. “He probably does have the dough… but never know the real facts with him,” said an investment banker. New York Attorney General Letitia James accuses Trump of deceiving banks, insurers and others by giving them financial statements that massively inflated the values of his assets.

A banking expert, Michiel McCarty, testified that Donald Trump and his company benefited more than $168 million by obtaining favorable loan terms on transactions where Trump personally guaranteed the loans. McCarty analyzed the lending documents related to transactions at issue in this case for the following Trump Organization properties: 40 Wall Street in New York, The Doral Golf Resort & Spa in Florida [almost half the total], Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago, and the Old Post Office project in Washington DC.

Trump’s attorney Chris Kise argued repeatedly in objections that the expert should not be permitted to suggest what loan rate Trump Org. could have gotten because no trial evidence has shown the lenders would have changed the loan terms if they knew Trump’s net worth was inflated based on the asset valuation in his financial statements.

Donald Trump Jr testified that his knowledge of economics is from a post high school course. He relied on his accountants and was not involved with the preparations of financial statements for his father, even though he signed them as a trustee of his father’s trust.

A higher court denied Ivanka Trump’s request to postpone her upcoming testimony in her father’s civil fraud trial, shortly after she claimed she’d suffer “undue hardship” if forced to appear during a school week. “Ms. Trump, who resides in Florida with her three minor children, will suffer undue hardship if a stay is denied and she is required to testify at trial in New York in the middle of a school week, in a case she has already been dismissed from, before her appeal is heard,” her attorney argued in part in an appeal.

Trump said that Mike Pence should endorse his bid for the White House after his former vice president dropped out of the race for the Republican nomination earlier in the day. “Because I had a great successful presidency, and he was the vice president, he should endorse me,” said Trump. Yet almost 3 years prior, Trump tweeted that Pence “didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution.” During the GOP primary, Trump lashed out Pence, calling him “delusional” and “not a very good person.” A former aide to Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows told the House January 6 committee last year that Trump had suggested to Meadows that he approved of the “Hang Mike Pence” chants.

Regarding Pence, Trump said in a speech: “People in politics can be very disloyal. I’ve never seen anything like it.” Because he doesn’t remember. He probably has early dementia.

Meanwhile, in another sign of early dementia, remember how he’d say that he would drain the swamp if elected in 2016 and of course never did because he didn’t know what he was draining? He said in Iowa recently that he will “build the swamp” and then backtracked after that.

In a rally in Iowa, Trump is starting to rewrite history. During his 2015-2016 campaign, he said that Mexico will pay for the wall. Mexico didn’t but the US paid an estimated $16 billion. Now Trump said Mexico would pay for “a piece” of the wall. They didn’t pay a cent. Later, Trump tweaked his rhetoric at one point late in the campaign, claiming that Mexico would reimburse the US for the wall, he declared it would be a complete reimbursement. They didn’t pay a cent. In early 2020, he claimed that “redemption money” from undocumented immigrants was paying for the wall, which wasn’t true even if he was talking about remittance payments as some experts guessed. Later in 2020, he claimed that some sort of “border tax” was about to start paying for the project, though that was baseless too.

He has also confused people and locations. Such as beating President Obama in 2016 when it was Hilary Clinton or mixing up the leaders of Hungary and Turkey.

Saw on the Washington Post web site about Chutkan’s gag order on Trump:

“It is impossible to keep his orange mouth shut.

Better chances of George Santos becoming president at the 2024 election.”

Losses and issues

Another loss for Donald Trump.

No he didn’t lose another court case or get fined hundreds of millions of dollars.

Instead, he is backing far-right Jim Jordan for speaker of the House in Congress. Jordan has backed Trump including claiming that the Trump Insurrection of January 6th was nothing more than a bit of mingling and he otherwise denied that President Joe Biden won the election in 2020.

It is now three rounds and Jordan failed to get the majority needed in the House to win – primarily because there is a growing number of Republicans who don’t want Jordan but can’t figure out who they do want. Jordan initially didn’t want a third vote. The Democrats wouldn’t vote for a Republican any why would they?

Trump called Republican Jim Jordan a “fantastic young man”. He’s 59 years old.

Just one day before jury selection was to begin in her criminal trial, Sidney Powell, a former member of Trump’s legal team, pleaded guilty to illegally conspiring to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss in Georgia.

Powell, a Dallas-based lawyer who espoused baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 vote and filed a litany of failed lawsuits challenging the results, admitted guilt to six misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with the performance of election duties. She was sentenced to six years’ probation and agreed to pay a $6,000 fine and $2,700 in restitution to the state of Georgia, turn over documents and testify truthfully in her co-defendants’ trials.

Kenneth Chesebro, a Trump-aligned attorney who helped craft the 2020 fake elector plot, is pleading guilty in the Georgia election subversion case. The plea deal is another major victory for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who charged Trump and 18 others in the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

Chesebro is pleading guilty to one felony – conspiracy to commit filing false documents. Fulton County prosecutors are recommending that Chesebro serve 5 years of probation and pay $5,000 in restitution. He agreed to testify at any future trials in the sprawling election subversion case and write an apology letter.

Earlier, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee denied eight motions from co-defendants Chesebro and Powell. They were the first of the 19 defendants to go to trial, because they invoked their right to a speedy trial.

A District Judge Tanya Chutkan is considering whether to issue a gag order against Trump in a hearing in Washington, DC. Following the two federal indictments against him, Trump has lashed out against prosecutors, potential witnesses and the judge overseeing the election subversion case in Washington. Prosecutors with special counsel Jack Smith’s office say these comments are enough to warrant a narrow restriction on Trump’s speech around the case.

“Mr. Trump is a criminal defendant. He is facing four felony charges. He is under the supervision of the criminal justice system and he must follow his conditions of release,” Chutkan said. “He does not have the right to say and do exactly what he pleases. Do you agree with that?” she asked Trump attorney John Lauro, who responded: “100%.” [We’ll see for how long Lauro has a job for.]

In social media posts, Trump has attacked Chutkan as a “biased, Trump Hating Judge” and called Smith “deranged” and a “thug” as well as attacked individual members of his team.

Trump’s attorneys have attacked the proposed order as fundamentally antithetical to his First Amendment rights and suggested the order is simply a way for President Joe Biden and the Justice Department to hurt Trump’s ability to campaign. [But of course, they have no proof. Any gag order doesn’t stop him from ranting about anything else other than at least this court case.]

Recently, Judge Arthur Engoron overseeing the ongoing New York civil fraud trial against Trump issued a gag order against Trump after he attacked a member of the court’s staff. “Consider this statement an order forbidding all parties from posting, emailing or speaking publicly about any members of my staff,” Engoron said after Trump accused his clerk of being Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s girlfriend and calling for her to be dismissed on a social media post. Sahe’s not Schumer’s girlfriend.

Engoron warned Trump and others at his New York civil fraud trial to keep their voices down after Trump threw up his hands in frustration and spoke aloud to his lawyers while a witness was testifying against him.

Trump is scheduled to be interviewed under oath in New York for a lawsuit related to his time as president and the termination of a Russia investigation-era FBI official. The deposition is to be conducted by attorneys for the FBI official, Peter Strzok, and former FBI lawyer Lisa. Strzok is accusing the Justice Department of wrongfully terminating him because of Trump’s publicly stated anger toward him and the Russia investigation. He and Page are also suing over the release of their text messages to the press.

A trove of emails and documents uncovered by state investigators looking into a voting systems breach in Georgia is being turned over to the Fulton County prosecutors who brought the sweeping racketeering case against Trump and his allies. More than 15,000 emails and documents connected to Misty Hampton, the former election supervisor for Coffee County, were discovered this month by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation – after attorneys for the rural county’s board of elections claimed the information had been lost. Hampton has been charged alongside Trump and 17 other co-defendants with trying to subvert the 2020 election results in Georgia. She has been accused of facilitating the unlawful breach of Coffee County’s voting systems.

Love this web site headline: “Trump faces his biggest challenge yet: shutting up”.

A lawyer for Trump told a London judge that Trump plans to prove that a discredited report by a former British spy, Christopher Steele, that contained “shocking and scandalous claims” that he was compromised by Russians in his first bid for the presidency was wrong and harmed his reputation. Trump has sued the company founded by Steele, who created a dossier in 2016 that contained rumours and uncorroborated allegations about Trump that erupted in a political storm just before he was inaugurated. [With Trump’s track record of suing, it will either be dropped or thrown out.]

Trump found guilty of fraud

Judge Arthur Engoron ruled that Donald Trump committed fraud for years while building the real estate empire that catapulted him to fame and the White House, and he ordered some of Trump’s companies removed from his control and dissolved.

The judge, ruling in a civil lawsuit brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, found that Trump and his company deceived banks, insurers and others by massively overvaluing his assets and exaggerating his net worth on paperwork used in making deals and securing loans.

Trump, in a series of statements, railed against the decision, calling it “un-American” and part of an ongoing plot to damage his campaign to return to the White House.

One of the properties in the fraud was his 40 Wall Street building. On 9/11, Trump wasn’t concerned or upset about what happened about his building. Instead he rambled that prior to the building of the World Trade Center, 40 Wall Street was [he claimed] the tallest building in New York. When the attack occurred, he was boasting that 40 Wall Street was back on top. Who cares about what happened. A real estate company valued 40 Wall Street at $250 million, while the Trump Org. has it listed as $735 million. Why would anyone believe his company over an independent evaluation? This is just one of many properties with over evaluation.

US District Judge Tanya Chutkan said she won’t recuse herself from Trump’s 2020 election interference case in Washington, rejecting Trump’s claims that her past comments raise doubts about whether she can be fair. Chutkan, who was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama and was randomly assigned to Trump’s case, said in her written decision that she sees no reason to step aside. There’s a high bar for recusal, and legal experts had widely considered Trump’s request to be a long shot aimed at undermining the legitimacy of the case publicly that could only sour the relationship between the judge and the defense in court. Trump’s lawyers will use this issue as one reason for an appeal.

Trump’s attorneys argued in a court filing that a gag order requested by special counsel Jack Smith in the federal 2020 election interference case is unconstitutional, overly broad and an effort to censor the former president during the 2024 presidential race. “The Proposed Gag Order is nothing more than an obvious attempt by the Biden Administration to unlawfully silence its most prominent political opponent,” Trump’s attorneys said in the response. Trump is asking Chutkan to deny the prosecutor’s request for a gag order entirely, requesting a hearing on the matter.

Trump-era Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark cannot move his Georgia election subversion case from state to federal court. The ruling from US District Judge Steve Jones is the latest blow to the Georgia defendants who are trying to move their state prosecutions into the federal system, where they could get more favorable trial conditions or increase their chances of getting the criminal charges dropped altogether by invoking immunity protections for US government officials. Jones already rejected a similar request from Mark Meadows, who was Trump’s chief of staff in 2020 and was also charged in the Georgia indictment.

Bail bondsman Scott Hall is the first defendant in the case brought by the Fulton County district attorney’s office to take a plea agreement with prosecutors. The agreement, entered in Fulton County Superior Court, recommends a sentence of five years probation. Hall was accused of conspiring to unlawfully access voter data and ballot counting machines at the Coffee County election office on January 7, 2021. He spent hours inside a restricted area of the election office when voting systems were breached, which was connected to efforts by pro-Trump conspiracy theorists to find voter fraud.

In an impassioned and at times furious speech, departing Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley defiantly proclaimed that the US military does not swear an oath to a “wannabe dictator.” It was a bitter and pointed swipe that appeared unmistakably targeted at Trump, who has in recent days accused Milley of “treason” and suggested that he should be put to death for his conduct surrounding Trump’s bid in 2021 to remain in office despite losing the presidential election.

Trump has called his 2024 opponent Ron DeSantis a “wheelchair over the cliff kind of guy” for supporting then-Rep. Paul Ryan’s 2012 plans to partially privatize Medicare but enthusiastically supported the same plan, which would have partially privatized the program and critics argued turned it into a voucher system.

“In fact, it’s probably going to be better. And you’re gonna have a stronger system,” Trump said in August 2012. In dozens of appearances from Trump on Fox News and CNBC after the pick of Ryan in 2012 – Trump did not criticize Ryan’s plan and only spoke positively about the congressman.

Continuing from last weeks new about former Trump layer, Rudy Giuliani, former White House communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin has said that Giuliani was known to be a “liability” within the Trump administration – after he was accused of sexually assaulting a White House aide on the Trump Insurrection day. Griffin said that it was an open secret that Giuliani was a “wild card” who would often show up drunk to the White House and that women were warned to stay away from him.

Her comments came after Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump’s former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and a star witness before the January 6 committee, accused Giuliani of sexually assaulting her on the day of the insurrection. In an excerpt from her upcoming book called Enough, Hutchinson, 27, wrote that Giuliani, 79, put his hand “under my blazer, then my skirt” backstage at a rally before a mob of Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol.

In more Giuliani news, Hunter Biden filed a civil lawsuit against Giuliani and his former attorney, claiming they caused “total annihilation” of his digital privacy and violated federal and state computer privacy laws through their alleged efforts to hack his devices. In the lawsuit filed in federal court in California, Hunter Biden accuses Giuliani and Robert Costello of spending years “hacking into, tampering with, manipulating, copying, disseminating, and generally obsessing over data that they were given that was taken or stolen from” his devices.

With the Taylor Swift/Travis Kelce thing going on and they both have plenty of followers, it could be a bit of trouble for Trump. She is for openly standing up against Donald Trump and for abortion rights. He, for appearing in coronavirus vaccine ads and taking a knee during the national anthem, the highest-profile White NFL player to do so. Just from Swift attending that single Kansas City Chiefs game, Kelce’s merchandise sales jumped 400 percent. Swift put out one Instagram story last week urging her fans to register to vote, Vote.org reported, and participation on the site jumped 1,226 percent in the next hour. All these youngsters [of voting age] who were not expected to vote in the election may change their mind. BTW, on X/Twitter she has 450 million [!] followers worldwide.

Trump was mostly quiet this week, a rarity

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee ruled that Donald Trump and 16 of his co-defendants won’t have to go to trial in October with two defendants who have sought a speedy trial, effectively denying an Atlanta-area prosecutor’s bid to try all 19 together in the sprawling criminal case alleging interference in Georgia’s 2020 presidential election. He could move to sever additional cases but said for now that former Trump campaign attorneys Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell will stand trial beginning Oct. 23. He did not issue a trial date for Trump and 16 other associates, but he denied a bid by former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and others seeking to pause proceedings while their efforts to move their cases to federal court play out.

Justice Department prosecutors want US District Judge Tanya Chutkan to reel in Trump’s public statements in the federal 2020 election interference case, asking Chutkan to place a court order limiting what he can say. The Justice Department says the order is needed to protect the integrity of his trial in March. Trump has already been ordered not to intimidate potential witnesses or talk to them about the facts of the case. In making their argument, prosecutors pointed to false public statements Trump previously made around the 2020 vote “to erode public faith in the administration of the election and intimidate individuals who refuted his lies.”

Recently, Trump’s legal team asked Chutkan to recuse herself, citing comments that she made in cases involving January 6, 2021, rioters. Chutkan has long been outspoken about the riot at the Capitol – calling the violence an assault on American democracy and warning of future danger from political violence. But Smith’s team argued that Trump had taken the judge’s comments “out of context”.

In a speech in the hot bed of South Dakota, Trump accused his possible 2024 opponent, President Joe Biden, of ordering his indictment on 91 charges across four criminal cases as a form of election interference. “I don’t think there’s ever been a darkness around our nation like there is now,” Trump said, in a dystopian speech in which he accused Democrats of allowing an “invasion” of migrants over the southern border and of trying to restart COVID “hysteria.” His authoritarian style speeches are the darkness in the nation. Hysteria? Where?

A Republican election lawyer, Jason Torchinsky, with ties to three of Trump’s GOP primary opponents has joined a crowded field of individuals and groups exploring whether Trump can be kept off the ballot for his role in fomenting the violent attack on the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. [Trump will claim that it is a witch hunt that three leading opponents are out to get him.]

X [formerly Twitter} turned over at least 32 direct messages from Trump’s account to special counsel Jack Smith earlier this year as part of the federal election subversion investigation. In seeking the messages, prosecutors specifically argued that Trump posed a risk of tampering with evidence. Much of Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss played out publicly, including on Trump’s X account, where he promoted bogus claims of mass fraud and urged government officials to disrupt certification of the results. But investigators were also able to access private records associated with the account, though it is not clear exactly how the messages have informed the investigation.

Trump claims he doesn’t know who gave Dr. Anthony Fauci a presidential commendation that Trump awarded him. On January 19, 2021, Trump awarded Fauci and 51 other people who served on the Operation Warp Speed task force during the COVID-19 pandemic presidential commendations. Later Trump and other Republicans came after Fauci for what they claimed that Fauci caused problems.

Alyssa Farah Griffin, who was Trump’s White House communications director, said that these commendations would not have been awarded in Trump’s name without his approval. Stephanie Grisham, who served as Trump’s White House press secretary and communications director in 2019 and 2020 and then as first lady Melania Trump’s chief of staff into 2021, said the same thing.

Trump said that he discussed pardoning himself in the final days of his presidency but dismissed the option to do so. “I said, ‘The last thing I’d ever do is give myself a pardon,’” the former president said. The concept of a president pardoning himself has never been tested. Trump wasn’t charged with any crimes while in office.

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, came to criticizing Trump’s conduct said that “we need to leave the negativity of the past behind us” as she promoted herself as the exemplar of a new generation of leadership. [Haley keeps on flip flopping. Pro-Trump one week, anti-Trump the next.]

A recent poll says that only 28% of Republicans thought Biden legitimately won sufficient votes to win the 2020 election. In another poll, not surprisingly, most Republicans think Biden is involved with his son’s dealings.

Trump has hit out at Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and accused her of treating the late Queen Elizabeth with “disrespect” and admitted he “disagrees so much” with the way she and husband Prince Harry have conducted themselves since stepping down as senior royals and moving to the US three years ago. Ahead of the Trump’s election victory in 2016, Meghan branded Trump “divisive” and “misogynistic”. “I’d love to debate her. I would love it. I disagree so much with what they’re doing.” He has no issue of debating her who is not in politics but not his fellow Republican nominees? His anger never ends….