Tag: coups and attempted coups

Twitter’s own lawyers refute Elon Musk’s claim that the ‘Twitter Files’ exposed US government censorship | CNN Business

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For months, Twitter owner Elon Musk and his allies have amplified baseless claims that the US government illegally coerced Twitter into censoring a 2020 New York Post article about Hunter Biden. The foundation for those claims rests on the so-called “Twitter Files,” a series of reports by a set of handpicked journalists who, at Musk’s discretion, were given selective access to historical company archives.

Now, though, Twitter’s own lawyers are disputing those claims in a case involving former President Donald Trump — forcefully rejecting any suggestion that the Twitter Files show what Musk and many Republicans assert they contain.

In a court filing last week, Twitter’s attorneys contested one of the most central allegations to emerge from the Twitter Files: that regular communications between the FBI and Twitter ahead of the 2020 election amounted to government coercion to censor content or, worse, that Twitter had become an actual arm of the US government.

In tweets last year, Musk alleged that the communications showed a clear breach of the US constitution.

“If this isn’t a violation of the Constitution’s First Amendment, what is?” he said of a screenshot purportedly showing Joe Biden’s presidential campaign in 2020 asking Twitter to review several tweets it suggested were violations of the company’s terms. Some of the tweets in question included nonconsensual nude images that violated Twitter’s policies.

In another push to promote misleading allegations of government malfeasance stemming from the Twitter Files, Musk also claimed that the “government paid Twitter millions of dollars to censor info from the public.”

Legal experts have said the claim of a constitutional violation is weak because the First Amendment binds the government, not political campaigns, and Trump was president at the time, not Biden. The Twitter Files also show the Trump administration made its own requests for removal of Twitter content. And the payments to Twitter have also been identified as routine reimbursements for responding to subpoenas and investigations, not payments for content moderation decisions.

“Nothing in the new materials shows any governmental actor compelling or even discussing any content-moderation action with respect to Trump” and others participating in the suit, Twitter argued.

The communications unearthed as part of the Twitter Files do not show coercion, Twitter’s lawyers wrote, “because they do not contain a specific government demand to remove content—let alone one backed by the threat of government sanction.”

“Instead,” the filing continued, the communications “show that the [FBI] issued general updates about their efforts to combat foreign interference in the 2020 election.”

The evidence outlined by Twitter’s lawyers is consistent with public statements by former Twitter employees and the FBI, along with prior CNN analysis of the Twitter Files.

Altogether, the filing by Musk’s own corporate lawyers represents a step-by-step refutation of some of the most explosive claims to come out of the Twitter Files and that in some cases have been promoted by Musk himself.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Even as the filing undercuts Musk’s effort to portray the Twitter Files as a smoking gun, the filing may still work to his benefit because, if successful, it may save Twitter from a costly re-litigation of its handling of Trump’s account and others.

The communications in question, some of which also came out in a deposition of an FBI agent in a separate case, were invoked last year as part of a bid to revive litigation over Twitter’s banning of Trump following the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol. The lawsuit had been dismissed last summer, after the federal judge overseeing the case said there was no evidence of a First Amendment violation.

Musk’s release of company files has given lawyers for Trump and other plaintiffs in the case another shot. If the court decides the new evidence is enough to suspend the prior judgment, the lawyers for Trump and others said in May, then they might decide to file a fresh amended complaint.

But Twitter argued last week that the judge should not allow the case to be reopened because nothing in the Twitter Files supports the already dismissed claim of federal coercion.

Even the FBI’s flagging of specific problematic tweets were merely suggestions that they might violate Twitter’s terms of service, not a request that they be removed or an implication of retribution if Twitter failed to take the tweets down, Twitter’s lawyers said.

Citing another case, Twitter wrote: “The FBI’s ‘flags’ cannot amount to coercion because there was ‘no intimation that Twitter would suffer adverse consequences if it refused.’”

Twitter also objected to the claim, amplified by Musk, that Twitter was paid to censor conservative speech when it sought reimbursement for complying with government requests for user data.

“The reimbursements were not for responding to requests to remove any accounts or content and thus are wholly irrelevant to Plaintiffs’ joint-action theory,” Twitter wrote.

It added: “The new materials demonstrate only that Twitter exercised its statutory right—provided to all private actors—to seek reimbursement for time spent processing a government official’s legal requests for information under the Stored Communications Act. The payments therefore do not concern content moderation at all—let alone specific requests to take down content.”

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April 12, 2021
The Tennessee expulsions reveal the core divide in US politics. Here’s why. | CNN Politics

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CNN
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Rarely have the tectonic plates of American politics collided as visibly and explosively as they did earlier this month in Tennessee.

The procession of predominantly middle-aged or older White Republicans who rose almost two weeks ago in the Tennessee House of Representatives to castigate, and then expel, two young Black Democrats crystallized the overlapping generational and racial confrontation that underpins the competition between the political parties.

The Republican vote to expel those Black Democratic representatives, Justin Pearson and Justin Jones, encapsulated in a single moment the struggle for control over America’s direction between the nation’s increasingly diverse younger generations and its mostly White older cohorts. While kids of color now comprise just over half of all Americans younger than 18, Whites still constitute about three-fourths of the nation’s seniors, according to Census data analyzed by William Frey, a demographer at Brookings Metro.

That stark division – what Frey terms “the cultural generation gap” and I’ve called the competition between “the brown and the gray” – has become a central fault line in the nation’s politics. Particularly in the Donald Trump era, the Republican coalition has grown increasingly reliant on older Whites, while younger people of color are evolving into a critical component of the Democratic voting base.

The priorities and values of these two giant cohorts often clash most explosively in red states across the South and Southwest, like Tennessee, where Republicans now control state government. In those states, Republicans are moving aggressively to lock into law the policy preferences of their older, predominantly White and largely non-urban and Christian electoral coalition. That agenda often collides directly with the views of younger generations on issues including abortion, LGBTQ rights, limits on classroom discussion of race, gender and sexual orientation, book bans, and gun control.

Across the red states, the conditions are coalescing for years of escalating conflict between these divergent generations. From one direction, the Republicans controlling these states are applying increasingly hardball tactics to advance their policy agenda and entrench their electoral advantage. That strategy includes severe gerrymanders that dilute the influence of urban areas where younger voters often congregate, laws that create obstacles to registering and voting, and extreme legislative maneuvers such as the vote to expel Pearson and Jones. What Republicans in Tennessee and other red states “are trying to do is minimize the voices – minimize the sound, minimize the protest, and continue to oppress folks who do not agree,” says Antonio Arellano, vice president for communications at NextGen America, a group that organizes young people for liberal causes.

From the other direction, the youngest Millennials and first representatives of Generation Z moving into elected office are throwing themselves more forcefully against these GOP fortifications – just as Jones and Pearson have done. These young, elected officials have been shaped by the past decade of heightened public protests, many of them led by young people, particularly around gun safety, climate change, and racial equity. And more of them are bringing that ethos of direct action into the political arena – as Jones and Pearson did by leading a gun control protest on the floor of the Tennessee legislature. “This generation of politicians have been socialized through the crucible of Black Lives Matter and the [Donald] Trump era and political polarization,” says Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta who studies race and politics. “So it’s not surprising that they are usually going to be confrontational.”

In the red states, this rising wave of urgency and militancy among younger progressives is crashing headlong into the fortifications Republicans are erecting to solidify their control. Even with the ardor evident from Jones, Pearson and their supporters in Tennessee, most observers agree it will be very difficult any time soon for “the brown” to loosen the grip of “the gray” over political power in almost any of the red states. “In the short term there isn’t a risk” to the GOP’s hold on the red states, said Gillespie, “which is why you see these legislators flexing their power in the way they are.” And that could be a recipe for more tension in those places as the diverse younger generations constitute a growing share of the workforce and tax base, yet find their preferences systematically denied in the decisions of their state governments.

Like many analysts, Melissa Deckman, chief executive officer of the non-partisan Public Religion Research Institute, predicts that “what we saw in Tennessee was the first salvo” of escalating conflict as older white conservatives, especially in the red states, resist the demands for greater influence from the emerging younger generations. “An overwhelmingly White conservative legislature taking this remarkable and drastic step of expelling the two young African-Americans,” she says, “is a taste of what we are going to see in the future driven by those demographic changes.”

Those demographic changes are rooted in the generational transition rumbling through American life. Though the tipping point has drawn little attention, Frey has calculated that a majority of the nation’s population has now been born after 1980. And those younger generations are kaleidoscopically more diverse than their older counterparts.

The change is most visible on race. Because the US essentially shut off immigration between 1924 and 1965, nearly three-fourths of baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) are White, as are more than three-fourths of the remaining seniors from the older generations before them, according to Frey’s figures. By contrast, Frey has calculated, people of color comprise well over two-fifths of Millennials (born between 1981 and 1996), just under half of Generation Z (born between 1997 and 2012) and slightly more than half the youngest generation born since 2012. That youngest generation (sometimes called Generation Alpha) will be the first in American history in which racial “minorities” constitute the majority.

The transition extends to other dimensions of personal identity. The Public Religion Research Institute has calculated that while just 17% of Americans aged 65 or older and 20% of those aged 50-64 do not identify with any organized religion, the share of those “seculars” rises to 32% among those aged 30-49 and 38% among adults 18-29. In turn, while White Christians constitute about half of all adults aged 50-64 and three-fifths of seniors, they comprise only about one-third of those aged 30-49 and only one-fourth of the youngest adults.

Gender identity and sexual orientation follow the same tracks. Gallup has found that while less than 3% of baby boomers and only 4% of Generation X (born 1965-1980) identify as LGBTQ, that figure jumps to nearly 11% among Millennials and fully 21% among Generation Z. In all these ways, says Deckman, who is writing a book on Gen Z, “you have a younger group of Americans who are more diverse, less religious, care passionately about the rights of marginalized groups, and are watching rights taken away that they thought would always be there.”

Though the pace and intensity varies, these changes are affecting all corners of the country. Even in states where the GOP has consistently controlled most state offices such as Texas, Florida, Georgia, Arizona, and North Carolina, the share of adults younger than 45 who are unaffiliated with any religion now equals or exceeds the share who are White Christians, according to detailed results PRRI provided to CNN. By contrast, in those states’ over-45 population, White Christians are at least twice, and often three times, as large a share of the population as seculars.

Frey has found that in every state the youth population 18 and younger is now more racially diverse than the senior population 65 and older. From 2010 to 2020, in fact, every state except Utah and North Dakota (as well as Washington, DC) saw a decline in their total population of White kids younger than 18. Kids of color now comprise a majority of the youth population in 14 states and at least 40% in another dozen, Frey has found.

States on that list include many of the places where Republicans have been most forcefully imposing a staunchly conservative social agenda. Kids of color already represent about half or more of the youth population in Texas, Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma, Mississippi, South Carolina and Arizona and about two-fifths or more in several others, including Tennessee, Alabama and Arkansas. In many of those states the share of seniors who are White is at least 20 percentage points higher than the share of young people.

A similarly large “cultural generation gap” is also evident in many blue states, including Nevada, California, Colorado, Washington and Minnesota. The difference is that in states where Democrats are in control, the diverse younger generations are, however imperfectly, included in the political coalition setting state policy. Political analysts in both parties – from Republican pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson to Democratic strategist Terrance Woodbury – point out that Democrats have their own problems with younger voters, who have never been enthusiastic about President Joe Biden, and are expressing disappointment that the party hasn’t made more progress on issues they care about. But in blue states the direction of policy on most key social issues, such as abortion, gun control and LGBTQ rights, aligns with the dominant views among younger generations. And in most blue states, Democrats have prioritized increasing youth turnout and, in many cases, reformed state election laws to ease registration and voting.

But in the red states, younger voters, especially younger voters of color, are largely excluded from the ruling Republican coalitions, which revolve preponderantly around Whites, especially those who are older, Christian, non-college and non-urban. In 2022, for instance, 80% of younger non-white voters (aged 45 or less) voted against Republican Gov. Brian Kemp in Georgia, 65% voted against GOP Gov. Greg Abbott in Texas, and 55% opposed Gov. Ron DeSantis in Florida, according to exit poll results provided by Edison Research. Yet all three men won decisive reelections, in large part because each carried about seven-in-ten or more of Whites older than 45.

In some ways, the generational tug of war between the brown and the gray symbolized by the Tennessee expulsions represents the classic collision between an irresistible force and an immovable object. In this case, the irresistible force is the growth in the electorate of the diverse younger generations. In 2020, for the first time, Millennials and Generation Z constituted as large a share of eligible voters nationwide as did the Baby Boom and its elders – though those older generations, because they turned out at much higher rates, still represented a larger percentage of actual voters. In 2024, Frey has projected, Millennials and Gen Z will comprise a significantly larger share of eligible voters than the boomers and their elders – enough that they will likely equal them as a share of actual voters. Already in several states, kids of color comprise a majority of those who turn 18 each year and become eligible to vote; Frey projects that will be true for the nation overall by 2024.

The immovable object is the GOP control over the red states. That’s partly because of the changes in electoral rules Republicans have imposed that create obstacles to registration or voting, but also because of their dominance among older Whites and their inroads into culturally conservative Latino voters in some of these states, particularly Texas and Florida.

Another challenge for Democrats is that youth turnout is often lowest in red states. Though youth turnout also lagged in some blue states including New York and Rhode Island, in an analysis released earlier this month the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University found that red states comprised all nine states where the smallest share of eligible adults aged 18-29 cast a ballot; Tennessee ranked the lowest of the states for which CIRCLE has data. Red states also have erected many of the most overt obstacles to youth participation. Eight Republican-controlled states, including Tennessee, Texas and recently Idaho, have sent a clearly discouraging signal to young voters by declaring that student IDs cannot be used as identification under state voter ID laws. A Texas Republican state legislator this year has proposed banning polling places on college campuses.

Abby Kiesa, CIRCLE’s deputy director, says that in both blue and red states, laws and social customs act in reinforcing ways to either promote or discourage youth voting. “The infrastructure and the state laws” in states that encourage youth voting like Michigan, Oregon and Colorado “create a stronger culture of engagement,” she said. “Because more people are voting, it is more of a norm, people are talking about it more, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.” In states with pronounced barriers to voting, she notes, an opposite cycle of disengagement can take hold.

The unlikelihood of overcoming the GOP’s red state electoral defenses in the near term will probably encourage more younger progressives to emphasize public protests, like the raucous rally for gun control that began the Tennessee confrontation, predicts Nse Ufot, who formerly led the New Georgia Project launched by Stacey Abrams.

“The young people in Tennessee … went to their legislators and said enough, and they had accountable, accessible leaders who heard what their demands were and took it to their colleagues and their colleagues didn’t like it,” says Ufot, who has now founded the New South Super PAC, designed to elect progressive candidates in the 11 states of the old confederacy.

Ufot uses a striking analogy to express her expectation of how this struggle will unfold in the coming years across the red states. Her mother, she explained, ran a shelter for battered women, and even as a young girl, she came to recognize “that the most dangerous time for victims of abuse is when they are preparing to leave, when they have made up their minds that they are done and they are making their exits. That when we see their abusers escalate to crazy tactics.”

Ufot sees the Tennessee expulsions, like the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and Trump’s broader effort to overturn the 2020 result, as evidence that those “who are afraid of what a diverse, reflective, democracy looks like” will likewise turn to more extreme responses as the challenge to their position grows more acute. But she also sees the movement that erupted around Pearson and Jones as a preview of how younger generations may resist that offensive. “Instead of responding with resignation like people who have come before them, [the two expelled representatives] have chosen to do something about it,” she said. “And that’s what happens when you are forged in the fire of protest and are accountable to the people [you represent].”

As the Republicans now running the red states race to the right, and younger generations lean harder on direct protest, more forging fires across this contested terrain appear inevitable.

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April 12, 2021
Accused January 6 rioter fired shots at police during standoff ahead of arrest, court documents say | CNN Politics

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CNN
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A Texas man facing charges in connection to the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol opened fire on law enforcement officers last week when they arrived at his house in the Dallas area for a welfare check, according to an affidavit.

Nathan Donald Pelham, who is charged with misdemeanors for entering the restricted Capitol building and disorderly conduct, now faces a charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm after opening fire on authorities from Hunt County Sheriff’s Office, according to court documents.

Politico first reported the standoff with Pelham. CNN has reached out to Pelham’s attorney for comment.

Pelham’s father called law enforcement on April 12, warning that his son had a gun and was threatening suicide, the affidavit said. That same day, an FBI agent had called Pelham to notify him of a warrant for his arrest related to charges from the insurrection and Pelham had agreed to turn himself in the following week.

After arriving at Pelham’s home and speaking to a neighbor, officers saw a young girl, Pelham’s daughter, walk out of the house and she was put in a patrol car for safety, according to the affidavit.

Then authorities from the sheriff’s department heard gunshots coming from inside the house, the affidavit said.

“Deputy J.W. reported that the gunshots were spread out in time and that they were not towards the HCSO personnel,” the agent wrote. “At approximately 9:38 p.m., Pelham’s father arrived on scene. Deputy J.W. heard another gunshot and reported that ‘the bullet from this gunshot came in so close proximity to myself that I could hear the distinct whistling sound as the bullet traveled by me and then strike a metal object to my right side.’”

The standoff lasted until shortly after midnight when law enforcement left without arresting Pelham, according to the affidavit. Pelham was arrested on Tuesday, according to online court records.

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April 12, 2021
On Trump indictment, Senate GOP leaders silent while top House Republicans vow payback | CNN Politics

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CNN
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The top two Republican leaders in the Senate remain silent a day after former President Donald Trump, the current GOP 2024 presidential frontrunner, was indicted by the federal government.

While the charges have yet to be unsealed, the top two Republicans in the Senate, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Minority Whip John Thune have not put out statements, a stark contrast to the swift reaction among House GOP leaders who quickly rushed to Trump’s defense.

“Today is indeed a dark day for the United States of America. It is unconscionable for a President to indict the leading candidate opposing him. Joe Biden kept classified documents for decades,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy tweeted Thursday night. “I, and every American who believes in the rule of law, stand with President Trump against this grave injustice. House Republicans will hold this brazen weaponization of power accountable.”

The third ranking GOP senator, John Barrasso of Wyoming, put out a statement Friday, saying, “This indictment certainly looks like an unequal application of justice.”

“Nobody is above the law,” Barrasso tweeted. “Yet it seems like some are.”

House and Senate Republican leaders have diverged for years on how and whether to even respond to Donald Trump’s legal woes. During Trump’s first indictment this spring, McConnell didn’t jump in to defend Trump and when he returned in April after a fall and was asked at a news conference by CNN’s Manu Raju about the indictment, he dodged.

“I may have hit my head, but I didn’t hit it that hard,” McConnell said at the time. “Good try.”

For McConnell, who has not maintained a relationship with Trump since January 6, 2021, the former president could be viewed as a distraction from his ultimate goals of recapturing the Senate. But for McCarthy, an alliance to Trump is an important factor for assuaging those in his right flank, especially at a moment when the House speaker has come under fire for a deal he cut with President Joe Biden on the debt ceiling.

There are still a number of Senate Republicans who have come out backing Trump including Sen. Steve Daines of Montana, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee and who is backing the former president. Daines has stayed in touch with Trump, as he’s sought to recruit candidates in primaries across the country. He tweeted Friday, “The two standards of justice under Biden’s DOJ is appalling. When will Hunter Biden be charged?”

Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, was asked multiple times during an interview on Fox News on Thursday night about the lack of response from Senate leadership. Hawley’s only response was he did not know why leadership had not weighed in yet, and, “I can’t speak for anyone else.”

Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, also a member of the GOP Senate leadership team, tweeted Friday that the presumption of innocence in America should also apply to Trump and attacked Democrats who cheered the news.

“It is sad to see some Democratic politicians cheering this indictment and presuming guilt for sheer political gain, despite the fact that President Biden himself is under federal investigation for mishandling classified documents,” Tillis said in his statement.

Several Republican senators, many of whom have already endorsed Trump in the upcoming presidential election, were quick to jump to Trump’s defense and attacked the Department of Justice.

But in stark contrast to the silence from Senate Republican leadership and staunch support from House GOP members, Republican Sens. Mitt Romney and Lisa Murkowski stressed the severity of the charges Friday.

Romney of Utah, who twice voted to convict Trump on impeachment charges, said, “By all appearances, the Justice Department and special counsel have exercised due care, affording Mr. Trump the time and opportunity to avoid charges that would not generally have been afforded to others.”

In a statement, Romney added, “These allegations are serious and if proven, would be consistent with his other actions offensive to the national interest, such as withholding defensive weapons from Ukraine for political reasons and failing to defend the Capitol from violent attack and insurrection.”

Murkowski, who also voted to convict Trump in an impeachment trial after the insurrection, said Friday evening that the charges against the former president are “quite serious.”

“Mishandling classified documents is a federal crime because it can expose national secrets, as well as the sources and methods they were obtained through. The unlawful retention and obstruction of justice related to classified documents are also criminal matters,” she said on Twitter.

“Anyone found guilty – whether an analyst, a former president, or another elected or appointed official – should face the same set of consequences,” she added.

GOP Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, meanwhile, called the obstruction allegations against Trump “inexcusable.”

“As a retired brigadier general who worked with classified materials my entire career, I am shocked at the callousness of how these documents were handled,” Bacon told CNN on Friday. The congressman has long been critical of Trump and represents a swing state in Nebraska.

“The alleged obstruction to the requests of the National Archives and FBI, if true, is inexcusable,” he said in the statement, adding: “No one is above the law, and we demand due process and expect equality under the law.”

Meanwhile, top House Republicans took swift aim at the Department of Justice, special counsel Jack Smith, the FBI and Attorney General Merrick Garland in the wake of the indictment.

“We ought to defund and dismantle the DOJ,” ultra-conservative Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona tweeted shortly after Trump announced the news on Truth Social.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise immediately rushed to Trump’s defense, attacking the Justice Department over his indictment and vowing to hold the administration accountable.

“Let’s be clear about what’s happening: Joe Biden is weaponizing his Department of Justice against his own political rival. This sham indictment is the continuation of the endless political persecution of Donald Trump,” Scalise tweeted.

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer echoed that sentiment Friday morning, tweeting, “This is the ultimate abuse of power, and they will be held accountable.”

Some House Republicans, going much further than the speaker, called for the impeachment of Biden, Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray before seeing the details of the indictment.

“It is time for Congress to rein in the FBI and DOJ, and impeach President Biden, Attorney General Garland, and Director Wray,” Georgia Republican Rep. Mike Collins said in a statement.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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April 12, 2021
Beware deepfake reality as Trump dominates headlines | CNN Politics

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A version of this story appeared in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.

CNN
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After earlier and incorrectly predicting his own arrest this week, former President Donald Trump veered into the more sinister business of predicting violence and catastrophe if he’s arrested.

Whether the prediction turns into reality is another thing entirely.

Trump’s reemergence into the headlines, as both a third-time presidential candidate and a potential defendant, is threatening to pull the country back into his reality. Trump has not been formally charged with any crime and denies all wrongdoing.

Compare the lived reality where people interact, mostly in peace, and go about their lives with the Trump-centered, fake world available on social media.

In the real world, Trump hasn’t been charged with anything. On Twitter, fake photos of his arrest generated by artificial intelligence have been viewed millions of times.

In the real world, prosecutors have to form a methodical criminal case before they indict a defendant. On social media, Trump says everything is part of a plot against him.

Positing the idea of violent retribution into the echo chamber of his Truth Social platform early Friday, Trump said it is “known that potential death & destruction” that would be “catastrophic for our Country” would result if a charge is brought against him.

In a post Thursday, Trump went into all caps – the typographical equivalent of screaming – to declare his innocence and add, “OUR COUNTRY IS BEING DESTROYED, AS THEY TELL US TO BE PEACEFUL.”

The veiled threats place a new form of pressure on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who has already been threatened by Republicans in Congress with an investigation. Without naming Bragg in the Friday post, Trump said anyone who would charge him with a crime is “a degenerate psychopath that truely (sic) hates the USA!”

CNN’s Brynn Gingras and Kara Scannell reported Friday that Bragg’s office received a package containing a white powder substance and a threatening note. They added that while authorities determined there was no dangerous substance, the package capped off a week where law enforcement has seen continual threats against the court, including several bomb threats, all of which turned out to be unfounded.

Meanwhile, rather than condemn Trump’s latest post, top Republicans in Washington like House Speaker Kevin McCarthy refused to answer questions about it.

The photos of Trump being arrested were created in jest by Eliot Higgins, founder of the investigative journalism group Bellingcat, who asked an AI art generator to make a photo of “Donald Trump falling down while being arrested,” according to The Washington Post.

“I was just mucking about,” Higgins told the Post. “I thought maybe five people would retweet it.”

Bellingcat, ironically, uses social media posts and other digital data to prove facts, uncovering crimes and investigating atrocities. CNN worked with Bellingcat, for instance, to uncover the Russian operatives who apparently tried to poison the now-jailed dissident leader Alexey Navalny. The group has also used social media to track down apparent war crimes in Ukraine.

The fake photos, while requiring a double take, were clearly not real. But it is that first impression that can be misleading – and lasting. They fed Trump’s narrative of persecution, a visual manifestation of the drama he puts into his posts.

There’s more and more of this online, and it’s getting harder and harder to tell fiction from reality.

Earlier this month, CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan had an incredible video report on the power of AI-generated audio. In addition to magically mimicking Anderson Cooper, he used an AI generator to call his parents. The computer sounded like his voice, but it was not O’Sullivan talking. While his mother later said O’Sullivan’s Irish accent felt off during the conversation, she did not catch it in real time.

“When we enter this world where anything can be fake – any image, any audio, any video, any piece of text, nothing has to be real – we have what’s called the liar’s dividend, which is anybody can deny reality,” Hany Farid, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley’s School of Information, told O’Sullivan.

There are many examples of deepfake photos and videos if not tricking people, then certainly causing harm – such as women whose faces have been deepfaked, without their consent, onto pornography.

When something is repeated enough online or when a fake narrative takes hold, it can influence the real world. That’s certainly what happened on January 6, 2021, when conspiracy theories that blossomed online turned into an attack on the Capitol.

“There is no online and offline world; there’s one world, and it’s fully integrated,” Farid told O’Sullivan with regard to the potential for AI to create a false reality online that bleeds into the real world.

“When things happen on the internet, they have real implications for individuals, for communities, for societies, for democracies, and I don’t think we as a field have fully come to grips with our responsibility here,” he said.

It’s something to be very careful of as we look at what could be a historic period in which a former president, current candidate, serial conspiracy theorist and master of social media potentially faces criminal charges.

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April 12, 2021
Charged rhetoric swirls online and off as Trump’s Miami court date looms | CNN Politics

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CNN
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From the halls of Congress to the dark corners of the internet, charged and violent rhetoric is echoing among some Donald Trump sympathizers ahead of the former president’s appearance in a Miami court on Tuesday

FBI special agents across the country assigned to domestic terrorism squads are actively working to identify any possible threats, four law enforcement sources told CNN, following Trump’s second indictment.

So far, the FBI is aware of various groups like the Proud Boys discussing traveling to south Florida to publicly show support for Trump, sources said, but there is currently no indication of any specific and credible threat.

“We have now reached a war phase,” Rep. Andy Biggs, an Arizona Republican and prominent supporter of Trump’s election denialism, tweeted Friday. “Eye for an eye.” Biggs’ office later said his comment was a call for the GOP to “step up and use their procedural tools” to counter “the Left’s weaponization of our federal law enforcement apparatus.”

Speaking at a Republican event in Georgia on Friday night, Kari Lake, who unsuccessfully ran for governor of Arizona last year and is still spreading falsehoods about that election, said: “If you want to get to President Trump, you’re going to have to go through me and 75 million Americans just like me.”

“And I’m going to tell you, most of us are card-carrying members of the NRA,” she said to applause, adding, “That’s not a threat, that’s a public service announcement.”

On some pro-Trump forums, anonymous users were less circumspect. “MAGA will make Waco look like a tea party!” one user posted Friday in an apparent reference to the April 1993 Waco, Texas siege that left 76 people dead.

On Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social, one anonymous user posted Thursday, “This is a Declaration of War against the American People. It is time We The People exercise our 2nd Amendment rights and burn the corruption out of DC.”

The former president himself has been posting frequently on Truth Social throughout the weekend. “SEE YOU IN MIAMI ON TUESDAY!!!” he posted Friday.

Still, at least on public social media forums, there doesn’t appear to be a mass online mobilization effort for people to gather people in Miami this week like there was in the lead-up to the events in Washington, DC, on January 6, 2021.

However some prominent right-wing figures are calling for Trump supporters to protest in Miami on Tuesday.

One influential right-wing activist in Florida who has almost half a million followers on Twitter is promoting a flag-waving event outside Trump’s golf course in Doral on Monday and a protest the following day against the “weaponization of government” outside the Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. Courthouse, where the former president is set to appear.

Some Trump supporters online have stressed the need for protests to remain peaceful and some have said they will not demonstrate in Miami on Tuesday, fearing it could be a trap. This is an extension of the false belief held by some that the January 6 attack on the US Capitol was a set-up designed to incriminate supporters of the former president.

But at least one person who has served prison time for his role in the January 6 riot said he will be in Miami to protest on Tuesday.

Anthime Gionet, a prominent online streamer better known by his moniker “Baked Alaska,” plead guilty to unlawfully protesting after he livestreamed himself breaching the Capitol in a nearly 30-minute video that showed him encouraging others in the mob to enter the building.

Gionet served a two month sentence and was released at the end of March, according to federal records.

On Friday, he lamented Trump’s latest indictment in a livestream outside Mar-a-Lago. During the livestream, Gionet said he and another person who was with him outside Mar-a-Lago would both be in Miami on Tuesday. The other person is heard on the stream responding, “we weren’t supposed to talk about that.” Gionet replied, “I know but it leaked so f*** it.”

The exchange may be illustrative of the shifting ways people use the internet to organize – something that has proven to be a challenge for law enforcement.

While much of the planning for January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol was done on public forums that could be read by anyone, a lot of that communication has since shifted to private channels, experts say.

The secretive nature of many private forums has caused federal agents working domestic terrorism matters to place greater emphasis on recruiting informants who can report on potential threats discussed online among extremists, law enforcement sources told CNN.

But even messages posted publicly cannot be accessed by investigators without lawful investigative purposes. The FBI’s own investigative guidelines limit what material can be accessed by agents and analysts, even when it is in the public domain. These policies prevent FBI employees from trawling the internet looking for concerning material, unless a formal assessment or investigation has been authorized and opened.

The FBI’s investigative efforts to identify possible threats include querying existing confidential human informants reporting on domestic terrorism issues for any indication of potential threats, sources said.

In addition to working their informant networks, FBI agents and analysts are reviewing publicly available online platforms frequented by domestic extremists for any indication of plans for violence.

Ben Decker, CEO of Memetica, a threat intelligence company, told CNN on Sunday, “Given the robust and successful grassroots architecture of right-wing culture war campaigns and anti-Pride protests this month, there are concerns that many of these in-person rally groups could pivot directly into more Trump-themed protests around the country over the coming days.”

But, at this point, Daniel J. Jones, the president of Advance Democracy, a non-profit that conducts public interest research, told CNN that his group had not identified “what we would assess to be specific and credible plans for violence yet.”

“However,” he added ,”as we saw during the events of January 6, it’s Trump’s statements that drive the online rhetoric and real-world violence. As such, much depends on what Trump says of his perceived opponents, as well as what he asks of his supporters, in the days ahead.”

Juliette Kayyem, a CNN national security analyst and a former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, echoed this concern. “We know how incitement to violence works. It is nurtured from the top and given license to spread by leaders. They don’t have to direct it to one place or time. They can simply unleash it, knowing full well that someone may become emboldened to act,” she said.

Last month, the Department of Homeland Security issued a nationwide bulletin indicating the country “remains in a heightened threat environment,” warning that individuals “motivated by a range of ideological beliefs and personal grievances continue to pose a persistent and lethal threat to the homeland.”

DHS analysts indicated the motivating factors that could incite extremists to violence include perception about the integrity of the 2024 election cycle, and, while not specifically citing Trump’s legal woes, also pointed to “judicial decisions” in their list of grievances among extremist groups.

Ahead of Trump’s Tuesday court appearance, law enforcement will continue to remain on alert.

“We do not want a repeat of [the January 6] violence,” one senior FBI source said.

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April 12, 2021
Exclusive: McConnell details GOP efforts to not ‘screw this up’ in 2024 Senate battle | CNN Politics

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Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell should be brimming with confidence.

Republicans are in the driver’s seat to take the Senate majority: with 23 seats held by Democrats, compared to just 11 for Republicans. There are likely just two GOP incumbents whose seats Democrats may try to flip – and both are in Republican terrain – while three Democrats hail from states that former President Donald Trump easily won in 2020.

The Kentucky Republican just scored a prized recruit in West Virginia and expects two other top candidates to jump into races in Montana and Pennsylvania. And after tangling last cycle with Florida Sen. Rick Scott, his last chairman of the Senate GOP’s campaign arm, he is now in line over strategy and tactics with the committee’s new chairman, Montana Sen. Steve Daines.

But in an exclusive interview with CNN, McConnell made clear he knows full well that things can quickly go south. So he’s been working behind the scenes for months to find his preferred candidates in key races – including during his recent recovery from a concussion and a broken rib – in an attempt to prevent a repeat of 2022: When a highly favorable GOP landscape turned into a Republican collapse at the polls and a 51-49 Senate Democratic majority.

“No, no – I’m not,” McConnell said with a chuckle when asked if he were confident they’d take back the majority next year. “I just spent 10 minutes explaining to you how we could screw this up, and we’re working very hard to not let that happen. Let’s put it that way.”

In the interview, McConnell gave his most revealing assessment in months of the field forming in the battle for the Senate. He said that his main focus for now is on flipping four states: Montana, West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania. He said Republicans are still assessing two swing states with Democratic incumbents: Wisconsin, where the GOP is searching for a top-tier candidate, and Nevada, where he expects to likely wait until after next year’s primary to decide whether to invest resources there.

And in what is emerging as the most complicated state of the cycle – Arizona – McConnell said there’s a “high likelihood” that Republican leaders would wait and see first who wins the GOP primary next year before deciding whether to engage there at all. Plus he doesn’t see any chance that Sen. Kyrsten Sinema – who became an independent and left the Democratic Party last December but is still weighing a reelection bid – will join his conference.

“I think that decision was made when she ended up continuing to caucus with the Democrats,” McConnell said when asked if trying to get Sinema to flip to the GOP was a live discussion. “We would love to have had her, but we didn’t land her.”

While he knows the presidential race could scramble the map, he believes a potential Trump nomination could bolster Republican chances in three key Senate battlegrounds. But above all else, McConnell is making clear that his outside group, the Senate Leadership Fund, along with the National Republican Senatorial Committee, are prepared to take a much heavier hand in contested Republican primaries than the past cycle, a move that could escalate their intraparty feuding but one the GOP leader sees as essential to avoiding the pitfalls from 2022.

“We don’t have an ideological litmus test,” McConnell said flatly. “We want to win in November.”

“We’ll be involved in any primary where that seems to be necessary to get a high-quality candidate, and we’ll be involved in every general election where we have a legitimate shot of winning – regardless of the philosophy of the nominee,” the Kentucky Republican said.

But McConnell and Republican leaders are treading carefully in deciding which primary races to engage in, since trying to tip the scales could generate backlash from the conservative base and help far-right candidates – something GOP leaders learned in past election cycles, like the tea party wave of 2010.

In the 2022 cycle, Republicans also seemed to have the wind in their sails. With inflation running rampant and President Joe Biden’s poll numbers taking a nosedive, Republicans had several paths to the majority.

But Democratic incumbents hung onto their seats as they campaigned on issues like abortion rights and took advantage of Trump’s late emergence on the campaign trail, while several GOP candidates who won messy primaries turned out to be weak general-election candidates. McConnell’s allies worked in the Missouri and Alabama primaries to defeat GOP candidates they viewed as problematic but largely steered clear of a number of other contested primaries.

Part of the issue: Trump hand-selected candidates in key races, bolstering their chances in primaries even though they were vulnerable in general elections.

“In other places where we did not get involved in the primaries it was because we were convinced we could not prevail, and would spend a lot of money that we would need later,” McConnell said, reflecting on 2022.

Plus, in the last cycle, Scott’s NRSC made the strategic decision to steer clear of primaries, arguing they would let the voters choose their candidates without a heavy hand from Washington. (Scott and his allies later blamed McConnell for hurting their candidates by not embracing an election-year agenda.)

This time around, the Daines-led NRSC is heavily involved in candidate recruiting and vetting and has already signaled its support for certain GOP candidates in Indiana and West Virginia, aligning its efforts with McConnell’s.

“I think it’s important to go into this cycle understanding once again how hard it is to beat the incumbents, no incumbent lost last year,” McConnell told CNN on Friday. “Having said that, if you were looking for a good map, this is a good map.”

But he later added: “We do have the possibility of screwing this up and that gets back to candidate recruitment. I think that we lost Georgia, Arizona and New Hampshire because we didn’t have competitive candidates (last cycle). And Steve Daines and I are in exactly the same place – that starts with candidate quality.”

McConnell, who has faced incessant attacks from Trump after he blamed the former president for being “practically and morally responsible” for the 2021 Capitol attack, is not publicly letting on any concerns about the possibility that Trump could be on the top of the GOP ticket again.

As Daines has already backed Trump for president, McConnell didn’t answer directly when asked if he’d be comfortable with him as the party’s 2024 presidential nominee.

“Look, I’m going to support the nominee of our party for president, no matter who that may be,” he said.

McConnell believes that Trump at the top of the ticket could help in some key states with Senate races.

“Whether you are a Trump fan or a Trump opponent, I can’t imagine Trump if he’s the nominee not doing well in West Virginia, Montana and Ohio,” McConnell said.

Left unmentioned: Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, Arizona and Pennsylvania, all of which Trump lost in 2020 but are key parts of the Senate map in 2024.

“I didn’t mention Wisconsin; I think clearly you’d have to have an outstanding candidate. And I think there are some other places where with the right candidate, we might be able to compete – in Nevada, Arizona,” McConnell said. “But as of right now the day that you and I are talking, I think we know that we are going to compete in four places heavily, and that would be, Montana, West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania.”

Yet each of those have their own challenges for the GOP.

In Pennsylvania, McConnell and the NRSC have their eyes on David McCormick, the hedge fund executive who barely lost his primary last cycle to Mehmet Oz, the Trump-backed TV doctor who later fell short in the general election to Democrat John Fetterman.

While McCormick is widely expected to run for the seat occupied by Democratic Sen. Bob Casey, he could face a complicated primary if the controversial candidate, Doug Mastriano, runs as well. Mastriano, who won the Trump endorsement in the 2022 gubernatorial primary and later lost by double digits in the fall, is weighing a run for Senate. But McConnell and the NRSC are expected to go all-out for McCormick, whom the GOP leader called a “high-quality candidate.”

Asked if he were concerned about a potential Mastriano bid, McConnell said: “I think everybody is entitled to run. I’m confident the vast majority of people who met Dave McCormick are going to be fine with him.”

While the GOP field in Ohio to take on Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown is expected to be crowded and has yet to fully form, top Republicans are signaling they’d be comfortable with several of them as their nominee. But that’s not necessarily the case in Montana or West Virginia.

In Montana, Rep. Matt Rosendale, a member of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus who lost to Democratic Sen. Jon Tester in 2018, is considering another run against him in 2024, though Rosendale posted a low fundraising number last quarter. But Senate GOP leaders are looking at some other prospective candidates, including state attorney general Austin Knudsen and, in particular, businessman Tim Sheehy, whom McConnell met with in recent weeks.

Asked if he were concerned about a Rosendale candidacy, McConnell said: “Yeah, I don’t have anything further to say about Montana. We’re going to compete in Montana and win in November.”

And in West Virginia, McConnell and top Republicans landed Gov. Jim Justice in the battle for the seat occupied by Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, who has yet to decide whether to run again. But Justice is already facing a primary challenge against Rep. Alex Mooney, who is backed by the political arm of the anti-tax group, the Club for Growth.

McConnell didn’t express any concerns about Mooney’s candidacy but said that they wouldn’t hesitate to help Justice.

“What we do know about West Virginia is it’s very, very red, and we have an extremely popular incumbent governor who’s announced for the Senate. And we’re going to go all out to win it,” McConnell said.

McConnell pointedly declined to discuss any concerns about other controversial candidates who may emerge this cycle, including Kari Lake, who is weighing a US Senate run in Arizona after losing her bid for governor last year and then later claimed the election was stolen. Blake Masters, who lost his bid to unseat Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, is also among the candidates considering another run.

Asked about Lake and other prospective GOP candidates who deny the 2020 election results, McConnell wouldn’t weigh in directly.

“What I care about in November is winning and having an ‘R’ by your name, and I think it is way too early to start assessing various candidacies that may or may not materialize,” McConnell said.

McConnell also indicated they may want to until after the primary to decide if Nevada is worth pouring their money into, even as GOP sources say that national Republicans are recruiting military veteran Sam Brown, who fell short in the Senate GOP primary last cycle.

The GOP leader is signaling he has little concern about the races of two GOP incumbents – Scott in Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas, even as Cruz is facing a Democratic recruit, Rep. Colin Allred who is poised to raise big sums of money.

“Both of them are very skilled,” McConnell said of Cruz and Scott, characterizing Democratic efforts to beat them as “really long shots.” Democrats, he argued, “don’t have much hope there. I don’t think they have any opportunities for offense” in 2024, he said.

How long the 81-year-old McConnell – the longest-serving Senate party leader in history – plans to keep his job is a lingering question as well, especially in the aftermath of his recent fall that sent him to the hospital for concussion treatment. After Scott failed to knock him off from his post after the 2022 midterms, McConnell said, “I’m not going anywhere.” And he told CNN last fall that he would “certainly” complete his term, which ends in January 2027.

Asked on Friday if he still plans to serve his full term or run for leader again, McConnell let out a laugh and didn’t want to engage on it.

“I thought this was not an interview about my future,” he said. “I thought it was an interview about the 2024 Senate elections.”

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April 12, 2021
Another historic week in the investigation and prosecution of Donald Trump | CNN Politics

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Washington
CNN
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Former President Donald Trump was arrested and arraigned on federal charges this week in a never-before-seen moment in American political and legal history that captured the attention of a nation that has for years been captivated by his norm-busting episodes.

The former president’s booking at a federal courthouse in Miami on charges related to his alleged mishandling of classified government documents is just the latest twist in his post-presidency legal drama – which has now become a key issue in the GOP primary contest as Trump mounts a third White House bid.

Here’s the latest on Trump’s legal troubles:

On Tuesday, Trump pleaded not guilty to 37 charges related to his alleged mishandling of classified documents.

“We most certainly enter a plea of not guilty,” Trump attorney Todd Blanche told the judge.

Trump’s aide and co-defendant, Walt Nauta, was also arrested, fingerprinted and processed. He had an initial appearance Tuesday but will not be arraigned until June 27.

The DOJ recommended that both Trump and Nauta be released with no financial or special conditions. Prosecutor David Harbach said that “the government does not view either defendant as a flight risk.”

The federal criminal charges Trump faces were brought following an investigation by special counsel Jack Smith, who attended Tuesday’s arraignment.

In the indictment unsealed last week, the Justice Department charged Trump with 37 felony counts, alleging he illegally retained national defense information and that he concealed documents in violation of witness-tampering laws in the Justice Department’s probe into the materials.

The charges are drastically more serious than those he faces in a separate New York case and present the possibility of several years in prison if Trump is ultimately convicted.

For his part, Nauta, who serves as Trump’s personal valet, faces six counts, including several obstruction- and concealment-related charges stemming from the alleged conduct.

In her first order after the indictment,US District Judge Aileen Cannon – a Trump appointee – told DOJ and Trump attorneys’ parties to get the ball rolling to obtain security clearances for the lawyers who will need them.

Both of Trump’s attorneys – Blanche and Chris Kise – have already been in touch with the Justice Department about obtaining the necessary security clearances to try the case, a source familiar with the outreach told CNN Thursday evening.

Cannon’s order reflects how the case concerns highly sensitive, classified materials – adding another layer of complexity to the high-stakes, first-of-its-kind federal prosecution of a former president.

How long the proceedings stretch out, and whether the trial takes place before or after the 2024 election, will depend in part on how efficiently Cannon manages her docket. Thursday’s move by Cannon suggests an interest, at least for now, in moving the proceedings along without delay.

In an expected, procedural step Friday, Smith’s team asked the judge to bar Trump and his defense team from publicly disclosing some of the materials shared in the criminal case as part of the discovery process. Lawyers for Trump and Nauta do not oppose the requested protective order, according to the new filing, and Cannon has referred the matter to a magistrate judge.

Trump had already been indicted earlier this spring in a separate case, this one brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in New York state court.

Trump has been charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records over hush money payments made during the 2016 campaign to women who claimed they had extramarital affairs with Trump, which he denies. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

The case has remained relatively quiet since Trump pleaded not guilty to all of those charges in April, with the judge setting a trial date in New York County for March 2024.

Still, the former president’s legal team has been attempting to move the case to federal court, and on Thursday his attorneys asked a federal judge to deny Bragg’s motion to remand the case back to the state Supreme Court, again arguing that the charges are related to his duties as president and therefore should not be heard in state court.

A hearing on the issue is scheduled for June 27.

Trump still has other active investigations looming over him, including a probe by Smith, the special counsel, into the January 6, 2021, US Capitol riot and efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

And in Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has recently indicated that she’s likely to make charging decisions public in August as part of her probe into efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia.

In a letter obtained by CNN last month, Willis announced remote workdays for her staff in August and asked judges to refrain from in-person hearings for parts of that month.

Trump has insisted that any criminal charges will not stop his 2024 campaign, and so far he’s keeping to that commitment.

On Wednesday, his campaign said it had raised more than $7 million since the former president was indicted in the federal case.

“The donations are coming in at a really rapid pace,” campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in an email.

Meanwhile, his GOP primary opponents have been weighing in on the new charges in a number of different ways, with some casting the prosecution as political while also stressing that the charges are concerning.

Trump can still run for president after being indicted or if he is eventually convicted.

Still, the existing indictments, as well as a potential conviction ahead of the 2024 election, could make it more difficult for Trump to win back the White House.

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April 12, 2021