ReportWire

Tag: doanld trump

  • The Government Shutdown Is Hours Away: Live Updates

    NOTUS published a vibe check this morning, and it contained a lot of ugh:

    “Every day is like a dog year. It’s exhausting,” Democratic Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, a California Democrat, told NOTUS. “And I’m sure the American people are as exhausted as I am with theater and disingenuousness.”

    “I think the level of acrimony and the violence has made people more wary of this work,” she added.

    When NOTUS asked dozens of lawmakers returning to Congress on Monday how they were feeling, the most common response was a deep, weary sigh. Multiple senators, including Democrat Amy Klobuchar, laughed at the premise of the question. After all, it’s become almost a given on Capitol Hill that the vast majority of lawmakers are utterly miserable.

    Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, had a single word to describe her mood: “Crappy.”

    “I used to say that public service, when I was in the state senate, was a joy most days,” Rep. Emily Randall, a Washington state Democrat, told NOTUS. “I definitely don’t say that anymore. There are highs and lows, and the lows are really low.”

    “I’m not 40 yet, but I feel very old,” she added.

    The impending government shutdown has been a particularly trying affair. Republicans are attempting to extend current funding levels through Nov. 21. Democrats — seizing on a rare moment of leverage in the minority — are demanding that Republicans attach an extension for expiring Affordable Care Act tax subsidies, as well as language that would restrict Republicans from turning around and rescinding the congressionally approved funding. Neither side has budged for weeks. The conversations on Capitol Hill have turned from whether a government shutdown will happen to how long it might last.

    Intelligencer Staff

    Source link

  • E. Jean Carroll, Nikki Haley, and the Depths of Donald Trump’s Misogyny

    E. Jean Carroll, Nikki Haley, and the Depths of Donald Trump’s Misogyny


    To say Donald Trump is a misogynist isn’t exactly accurate. He likes women, but only a very specific type of woman. He likes the kind of woman who is malleable, who is compliant. He is absolutely allergic to outspoken women. Which is why women like E. Jean Carroll (and Nikki Haley) have really gotten under his skin by standing up to him.

    When Carroll first came public with her sexual assault allegations against Trump back in 2019—for which we was found liable last year—the former president subjected her to a smear campaign just as he did with his others who have spoken out about him (like Stormy Daniels) and with his political rivals (like Hillary Clinton). Trump accused Carroll of fabricating everything: He claimed that she was a “wack job” orchestrating a “con job”—and even insisted, as a quasi-defense, that she was “not my type.” Carroll then filed a subsequent defamation lawsuit alleging that Trump tore her reputation “to shreds.” In the end, a jury agreed: Last week, in an incredible culmination of the multiyear ordeal, Trump was ordered to pay her $83.3 million in damages. And yet, even after the dust had settled, Trump had the gall—or foolishness—to spew yet more invective at Carroll, calling her case a “hoax” and claiming it was a miscarriage of justice.

    I have a connection to this case: I introduced her to attorney George Conway, who eventually helped her find legal representation.

    If Carroll’s trial revealed anything, it was that women—and particularly outspoken women—trigger Trump. From Megyn Kelly and Rosie O’Donnell to Kamala Harris and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, women of all stripes have felt the wrath of the ex-president’s sexism. As Sophie Gilbert wrote last month in The Atlantic, “The misogyny that Trump embodies and champions is less about loathing than enforcement: underscoring his requirement that women look and behave a certain way, that we comply with his desires and submit to our required social function.” You can, in other words, be a woman in Trump’s world—but only if you’re the kind of woman Trump likes.

    Which is why former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, who is continuing a long shot presidential bid against Trump, is fast becoming his new bête noire. Trump has openly critiqued one of her dresses; has mocked her given name, Nimrata, and has taken to calling her a “birdbrain.” Trump even attacks Haley when he doesn’t mean to: Last week, during a speech in New Hampshire, Trump confused her with Nancy Pelosi while repeating a baseless conspiracy theory about the January 6 attack. “Nikki Haley…do you know they destroyed all of the information, all of the evidence, everything, deleted and destroyed all of it?” he said, suggesting that Democrats deliberately turned down security at the Capitol. “All of it, because of lots of things, like Nikki Haley is in charge of security. We offered her 10,000 people, soldiers, National Guard, whatever they want. They turned it down.”

    Despite his incessant insistence on being mentally sharper than ever, Trump has, in fact, conflated Pelosi and Haley seven—yes, seven—times. And Haley, for her part, has jumped on the opportunity to highlight this point of confusion. “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,” as she told a crowd in New Hampshire earlier this month. “Why I didn’t handle January 6 better. I wasn’t even in DC on January 6. I wasn’t in office then.”

    Though they might sit on different sides of the aisle, Pelosi and Haley do have one commonality: They are both women who have successfully gotten under Trump’s skin. They have weathered the costs of being chief Trump antagonists, and they are not alone. Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis, who is bringing a RICO case against Trump for attempting to interfere in Georgia’s 2020 election, has been subjected to death threats and racist slurs from Trump’s supporters. The same can be said for New York attorney general Letitia James, who is bringing an enormous civil fraud case against Trump. (James, like Carroll, has actually gotten Trump to appear in court—which may speak to how much he prizes his family real estate business, no doubt a cornerstone of his billionaire mythos.)



    Molly Jong-Fast

    Source link

  • “I Need Six to Eight Pardons”: Sidney Powell’s Secret Scheme to “Find” Trump’s Votes

    “I Need Six to Eight Pardons”: Sidney Powell’s Secret Scheme to “Find” Trump’s Votes

    As allies of Donald Trump schemed to seize voting machines in swing states after the 2020 election, Sidney Powell proposed issuing preemptive pardons—which the team described as “hunting licenses”—to shield them from legal liability, according to a new book by investigative reporters Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman.

    “I need six to eight pardons,” the former Trump attorney said in a Virginia planning meeting, according to Find Me the Votes, excerpts of which were reviewed by Vanity Fair ahead of its January 30 publication date. “What we need is a ‘hunting license’ that provides top cover for ops,” a member of Powell’s team wrote to Lin Wood, another Trump lawyer involved in the effort to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory, according to Isikoff and Klaidman.

    According to Isikoff and Klaidman, the team asked Michael Trimarco, an associate of Rudy Giuliani’s, to get the former New York City mayor to approve the pardon proposal. But Giuliani “dismissed the idea as over the top,” according to the book. Trimarco apparently agreed, recalling that he thought, “What the fuck?” as the group mulled the idea.

    Nevertheless, Giuliani, Powell, and other Trump allies would work to seize Dominion voting machines in an illicit effort to prove the election had been “stolen” by the Democrats. “We got a big project working in Georgia right now,” Giuliani said on Steve Bannon’s podcast on December 19. Three weeks later, on January 7—the day after a MAGA mob stormed Capitol Hill to prevent the certification of Biden’s win—Trump supporters breached the voting system in Coffee County, Georgia.

    “Trump’s operatives were so obsessed with proving their theories that they were willing to go to extreme, even extra-legal lengths to get their hands on the evidence,” Isikoff and Klaidman write.

    Powell and 18 others, including Trump and Giuliani, would eventually be charged in the racketeering case brought last year by Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis. In October, Powell pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with the performance of election duties; Trump has maintained his innocence, and Giuliani has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him. (Representatives for Powell, Giuliani, and the Trump campaign did not return Vanity Fair’s request for comment. Wood, who was named as a state’s witness in the Fulton County case in September, said in an email that he does “not recall” receiving an email about the so-called hunting licenses and that he had “no involvement” in the matter.)

    The Georgia case is one of four Trump is facing as he runs to return to power. But the proceedings have been thrown into uncertainty amid recent allegations that Willis was romantically involved with Nathan Wade, a consultant she hired to work as a special prosecutor in the election subversion case. (Vanity Fair has reached out to Wade and Willis for comment.)

    Eric Lutz

    Source link

  • Obama’s Campaign Manager Has Some Advice for Biden on America’s Youth: “Don’t Assume They’re Gonna Vote”

    Obama’s Campaign Manager Has Some Advice for Biden on America’s Youth: “Don’t Assume They’re Gonna Vote”

    It’s no secret that Joe Biden is wrestling with young voters. The 81-year-old president, who was first elected to the US Senate in 1972, has long struggled to excite Zoomers who feel the octogenarian is out of touch with their generation. Biden may have canceled a historic amount of student debt and taken bold action on climate change, but much of that is lost on young Americans, who think his policies haven’t gone far enough.

    All this was true before October 7, when Biden pledged unconditional support for Israel after it was brutally attacked by Hamas. However, a clear generational divide has opened up around the administration’s response to Israel’s devastating counteroffensive in Gaza. Poll after poll shows the president losing ground with young progressives ages 18 to 34 who are critical of him and his handling of the war in the region. Beyond all of that, young Americans loathe the idea of voting in a potential rematch between Biden and Donald Trump, as if political dynamics have not changed since 2020. Some have even expressed concerns their peers won’t turn out to vote in 2024 as a result.

    Still, there are glimmers of hope for Biden. Youth voters, who were quite skeptical of Biden in 2020, ultimately rallied behind him in high numbers. They also supported down-ballot Democrats and were credited with helping prevent a red wave in the 2022 midterm elections. But will they show up in 2024?

    Jim Messina has advice for the president on this front. Having served as the deputy chief of staff in the Obama White House and as former president Barack Obama’s reelection campaign manager in 2012, he knows a thing or two about how to win over jaded young people. In his current role as CEO of the Messina Group, he’s advised more than a dozen presidents and prime ministers around the world.

    Messina, 54, believes a lot has changed since 2012, like the advent of TikTok (which he says he’s “obsessed with”). However, in the following interview with Vanity Fair, he pointed to key campaign tactics Biden and his team can nevertheless lean on to convince skeptical young people that voting for Biden is vital in 2024. Our conversation below has been edited lightly for length and clarity.

    Vanity Fair: The world is in conflict. Given that the president is continuing to lose faith from young progressives over his support for Israel in the Israel-Hamas war, what can he do to gain it back while maintaining that allegiance to Israel? And has he been vocal enough about where he stands on the humanitarian side of the war in Gaza?

    Jim Messina: What I learned in the White House is—we went through some really tough moments like this as well—and part of the president’s job is to continue to talk through why he’s doing what he is doing. I thought his early [messaging] was very good on this. But let’s be honest, this is an incredibly important issue, and there’s probably no one issue other than maybe Roe that will sway this election either way. The people loudest on these issues aren’t a good representative of voters, and if you don’t love the way Biden’s handling the issue, you probably really hate Donald Trump’s Muslim ban. And so part of it is just the president saying, “Look,” to young voters, “This is why I’m doing what I’m doing.” And then number two is highlighting why Trump is so bad on these same issues, and having a really clear contrast. I’m a very big believer that campaigns have to have contrast.

    Why do you think that’s currently getting lost? Some of the polls have shown that the same people who are critical of the president’s support for Israel are saying that they would maybe even vote for former president Trump for how he would handle it.

    Rachel Janfaza

    Source link

  • A Trump Conviction? A Biden Health Crisis? Gaming Out Scenarios for an Up-for-Grabs Convention (or Two!) in 2024

    A Trump Conviction? A Biden Health Crisis? Gaming Out Scenarios for an Up-for-Grabs Convention (or Two!) in 2024

    “What would be the point of having a nominee,” he asks, “who, at best, could only win something like 214 Electoral College votes in November?”

    The Democrats’ rules, according to Ginsberg, are more relaxed when it comes to “bound delegates,” which means it would be easier for them to find an alternative choice if something should befall Biden.

    “It would be a free-for-all,” contends Robert Gibbs, Barack Obama’s former press secretary, who paints a picture of a convention like those of earlier generations in which delegates would gather in smoke-filled hotel rooms and convention crannies, wrangling votes for a nominee at the eleventh hour.

    In Gibbs’s view, however, the delegates would likely back someone who looked more like the coalition of their base: meaning, candidates who are younger and/or of color and/or female.

    There are a lot of talented democrats who fit that description, including Gretchen Whitmer, Amy Klobuchar, Raphael Warnock, Josh Shapiro, Gavin Newsom, Pete Buttigieg, Mitch Landrieu, Phil Murphy, Cory Booker. Kamala Harris would naturally be in the mix. But delegates in Chicago would likely feel compelled to turn the page on the Biden-Harris team for a completely fresh ticket.

    And yet, if Carville’s right, then none of these scenarios really fits the bill of being a total surprise.

    It’s not hard to imagine a situation on the Republican side where delegates would want someone as pugnacious and outrageous as Donald Trump. Not to mention someone who had been 100% loyal to Trump. So none of the candidates who ran in the primary, except perhaps Vivek Ramaswamy, would qualify. Thus, why wouldn’t they nominate someone like, say, Greg Abbott or Marco Rubio for president? Or, going further afield, why not Tucker Carlson or Sean Hannity?

    And then you can imagine the Dems might freak out and determine that a traditional pick might not cut it. And they could try to out-Tucker the GOP by nominating their own celeb: an Oprah or a Jon Stewart, a Bob Iger or a Mark Cuban. Or they could decide they need a true superhero. Paging Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

    Go ahead and laugh. Far-fetched? As far-fetched as, oh, nominating a reality-TV host?

    Mark McKinnon

    Source link

  • “I Don’t Give a F–k”: Behind the Media Revolt at the New York Young Republican Gala

    “I Don’t Give a F–k”: Behind the Media Revolt at the New York Young Republican Gala

    As the night dragged on, other reporters simply began filtering out of the designated enclosure—approaching guests, retrieving refreshments, policing bathroom breaks amongst themselves, often at the behest of chaperones too distracted by plates of filet mignon and risotto. “I’m mingling,” announced Jon Levine of the New York Post. “I’m gonna go talk to Steve Bannon, I don’t give a fuck.”

    Meanwhile, capitalizing on my newfound freedom, I set out to hear from the city’s young Republicans, dressed in sequined ball gowns and fur coats and tuxedos, who dished out $700 to $1400 to hear Trump speak over a four-course French-service meal. As it happens, many of them were not young and not from New York. “Are you French too?” an elderly woman named Nancy asked me. Nancy is not French—she is from Savannah, Georgia—and it is unclear what gave her the impression I might be. I quizzed a number of attendees on what they would want out of a second Trump term. Most of the responses were mild: austerity cuts, heightened border security, a kneecapped bureaucratic state. But one club member, Conrad Desouza, told me he wants to see members of the Biden family convicted for treason. “You know, the penalty for that is death,” he added.

    Trump finally took the stage well after 10 p.m., his fists pumping to the rhythm of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA”—his standard walk-up tune. The rabble was enthralled. They climbed atop chairs to get a peak at him, chanting his name in unison and swaying giddily as the line “from New York to LA” blared from the speakers. The whole affair, situated in a domed hall surrounded by Corinthian columns lit up in red, white, and blue, might as well have been commissioned by the Trump inaugural committee. He was introduced as “the 45th, 46th, and 47th president of the United States.” The club’s eagle crest, projected imposingly above the venue’s stage, served almost as a stand-in for the presidential seal.

    Wax was pleased with the exorbitant arrangements. “President Trump is used to these dinky places in Iowa,” he told me. “He didn’t know what he was walking into.”

    The former president was in rare form for much of his nearly 90-minute speech, perhaps because he was mostly among true believers. Remarking on his motorcade’s bulletproof glass, he said, “I have guys walking up to that thing, if they held a little [gun], I’d say, ‘go ahead, shoot.’ You know what happens? The bullet bounces back and kills them”; on Alina Habba, one of his lawyers, he said, “She happens to be a beautiful woman. But I never think about that.… I can see the most beautiful woman in the world—that doesn’t register with me at all”; on his post–Access Hollywood tape debate performance in 2016, he said, “A fantastic general, actually, said to me, ‘Sir, I’ve been on the battlefield, men have gone down on my left and on my right. I stood on hills with soldiers who were killed. But I believe the bravest thing I’ve ever seen was the night you went onto that stage with Hillary Clinton after what happened.’”

    Of disgraced former New York police commissioner Bernard Kerik, whom Trump pardoned during his final months in the White House, Trump said, “And now Bernie is cleaner—this is the expression I never quite understood—than a newborn baby’s ass.… But you are, you’re the cleanest person in the room. We’re gonna get Bannon there too. He’s pretty close.” (Trump also reiterated his promise of a one-day dictatorship in the event that he returns to office.)

    As for his supporters, they spent the evening snapping selfies with Paul Gosar and Lauren Boebert, passing around a comically thick congressional report on Hunter Biden, and flaunting various political merchandise. One aged attendee I spoke with wore a MAGA-themed scarf that he said his Guatemalan maid had crocheted. I spotted another older guest with a CIA pin fastened to his lapel; he declined to explain its origins.

    Not everyone took kindly to the added security measures that accompanied Trump’s “grand arrival,” to borrow from the program’s parlance. One club member, an attorney named John who resides in Gramercy Park, practically feared for his life after being pulled aside by the Secret Service. Eavesdropping on their interrogation, I heard a pair of agents say they were warned he was intoxicated and might approach Trump. John denied this. “No,” he replied when asked by an agent if he had notions of crashing Trump’s dinner, before adding softly, “…unless he invites me.”

    Later, I caught up with John, who did appear intoxicated and declined to provide his surname. He told me the whole thing was a misunderstanding caused by his admittedly true observation that Trump was “literally right there,” that “you could just walk up to him.” The subsequent Secret Service questioning John faced in the Cipriani cloakroom only furthered his disdain for federal law enforcement. “They’ll just kill you and make up an excuse,” he said of the agents. “And if they did,” he added, envisioning his own death, “half the club would side with them.”

    Caleb Ecarma

    Source link

  • “Get Me the F–king Tape”: How Ron DeSantis’s “Build the Wall” Ad Put Him on the Outs With Trump

    “Get Me the F–king Tape”: How Ron DeSantis’s “Build the Wall” Ad Put Him on the Outs With Trump

    Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump were, for the moment, great political allies. The two were even developing a friendship that, impressively, seemed to transcend the campaign trail. What was on the horizon, though, was not so idyllic.

    Much of that, at least early on, was driven by DeSantis’s wife.

    Casey DeSantis was born in Ohio in 1980 and met her future husband on a driving range at the University of North Florida. The two were married in 2009, less than three years before DeSantis’s congressional run. Hindsight, and anyone with even a cursory understanding of modern Florida politics, will tell you that this fact provides a snapshot of the politically ambitious mindset of the couple. And anyone who understands DeSantis’s thought processes will divulge that Casey—a former Jacksonville television personality—is the most influential adviser and powerful force in DeSantis’s universe. This force was put on display during the general gubernatorial election as DeSantis’s campaign prepared the now infamous “Build the Wall” ad.

    Few things during DeSantis’s 2018 campaign got more attention—and triggered more outrage among libs, another desired outcome—than the Trump-worshipping TV spot that featured Ron and Casey’s daughter Madison paying tribute to Trump’s southern border wall. The ad shows DeSantis using gleeful baby talk, encouraging Madison to “build the wall” as she plays with building blocks. In the same ad, he reads to his then infant son, Mason, from a book meant to evoke Trump’s former reality show, The Apprentice. “You’re fired!” DeSantis reads before noting to Mason, “That’s my favorite part.” The ad concludes with DeSantis using a Make America Great Again campaign sign to teach Madison to read.

    The ad was narrated by Casey DeSantis, who played the main role in the ad but who was anything but supportive behind the scenes. Though she was a lifelong conservative and DeSantis’s most trusted adviser by a long shot, she had never been a natural Trump supporter. She thought the TV ad was at best silly and at worst humiliating and was completely opposed to running it. And Ron DeSantis would not green-light the spot without her approval.

    “Casey was apprehensive about the wall commercial,” said a former DeSantis campaign staffer. “She did not have a great deal of comfort in [Ron’s] marrying himself to Trump. But the ad was not going to run without her approval, and they had to convince her to agree. There were direct conversations on this.”

    Despite her initial protests, Casey finally relented. She understood that Trump’s power with the Republican base was at its peak. He could make political fortunes and end them, all in a single tweet. If Ron DeSantis was to continue on the promising political trajectory he and Casey had laid out, she knew she had to swallow her pride and play the part.

    “She values winning and destiny way more than love, or hate, or however you want to say it,” the former campaign staffer said. “It was part of a winning strategy. [DeSantis] needed Trump in many ways, and Trumpism was winning Republican primaries at that point. Just look at how Adam Putnam begged to be accepted into Trump’s world even after Trump endorsed DeSantis.”

    Matt Dixon

    Source link

  • Donald Trump and Sam Bankman-Fried Pulled the Same Trial Tricks

    Donald Trump and Sam Bankman-Fried Pulled the Same Trial Tricks

    Thursday night, crypto kingpin turned con man Sam Bankman-Fried was found guilty of perpetrating “one of the biggest financial frauds in American history.” At first glance, the baby faced California wunderkind seems an odd fit for the role of archvillain. In the courthouse next door, a more conventional choice for the part offered his own performance Monday. Former fraudster-in-chief Donald J. Trump took the stand in his civil trial on allegations of financial fraud.

    On the surface, the two men appear to be polar opposites. Having spent the last month observing SBF’s trial in person, however, I was struck by the numerous ways in which they are similar. All good con men, like all good actors, understand the power of storytelling. Sam Bankman-Fried and Donald Trump are experts in the field.

    When I first saw SBF in court, it took me a second to recognize him. His usual uniform—an FTX T-shirt, cargo shorts, and sneakers—had been replaced with a drab purple tie and an ill-fitting gray suit that nearly swallowed him whole. It was more appropriate attire for a man facing life in prison, even if he looked like a kid forced to participate in the school play. But it was his new haircut that really stood out. SBF’s signature had previously been a mop of curly black hair that appeared to be left to its own devices. While sporting it, he came off as an eccentric so brilliant he had no time to focus on his appearance. In court, however, the ’do had been shorn—and without it, he had lost his power, looking like just another finance wiz kid caught playing with other people’s money.

    One of the many fictions SBF cultivated was that he was unaware of his image. As his former girlfriend (and former Alameda Research CEO) Caroline Ellison testified, the opposite was true. “He thought his hair was very valuable,” she said in court, and that it was “essential to his image.” The change in SBF’s appearance was so stark that Ellison took nearly 30 seconds to identify him from the witness stand. On the other end of the spectrum is our former president. Donald Trump sells himself as a real estate magnate, the scion of a New York dynasty. The power suit, perma-tan, and well-coiffed hair are essential for creating the character and helping us forget the reality of his origins: a kid from Queens and the son of a slumlord.

    In a similar manner, Trump prides himself on an ostentatious display of wealth. The marble and the omnipresent gold leaf of Trump Tower may seem garish, but the intention behind them is clear: to project an aura of extraordinary power and fabulous affluence. For the supposedly humble billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, the opposite was true: He needed to convey humility and disdain for material possessions in order to sell himself as an effective altruist. He drove a Toyota Corolla and encouraged Ellison to drive a Honda Civic. Although he lived in a $40 million penthouse and frequently flew on a private plane, the myth of SBF as a generous genius spread far and wide, aided and abetted by a fawning press.

    Of course, as with any performance, a certain amount of improvisation is crucial. Trump is famous for claiming his net worth is whatever he feels it should be. It’s also important to remember: practice makes perfect. According to Ellison’s testimony, SBF instructed her to prepare seven different balance sheets for him before approving one he felt comfortable sharing with stakeholders. FTX and Alameda were privately held businesses, so these shenanigans were shielded from public view. The Trump Organization is also privately held; only through the lawsuit by the New York attorney general has its skullduggery been brought to light.

    Speaking of skullduggery, there are broad similarities between the internal operations of Bankman-Fried’s empire and the Trump Organization. Trump Inc. is alleged to have inflated the value of its assets to receive loans, and then purposefully undercounted their value when it came to paying taxes. SBF’s version of this was to mark the value of illiquid cryptocurrencies he owned (and one he created himself) far beyond the price they could reasonably be expected to sell for should the need arise. Hence why tokens like FTT, created by Bankman-Fried and his colleague Gary Wang, are referred to as “shitcoins” by the crypto crowd. SBF and Ellison had been manipulating the price of FTT for years, buying back tokens whenever the price dipped. When forced to liquidate them to meet surging customer withdrawals from FTX last November, they discovered—quelle surprise—no one actually wanted to buy the damn things. FTT became virtually worthless overnight, and FTX filed for bankruptcy shortly thereafter. (Ellison and Wang pleaded guilty to fraud and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.)

    To enable this scheme, SBF kept his circle of trust tight, a crucial ingredient for running a successful con. He hired people he had known for years, such as his on-again, off-again ex-girlfriend, and a childhood friend from math camp, and allegedly consulted his parents on the company’s operations. Ten of the top employees of FTX/Alameda even lived together in a luxury penthouse in the Bahamas. The Trump Organization, meanwhile, is a family affair, and members of the inner circle are valued based on their loyalty to the man in charge. Trump is notorious for never writing emails and not trusting anyone who takes notes. According to an FBI agent called by the prosecution, SBF, who conducted essential business operations via the encrypted application Signal, participated in 288 chat groups that were set to auto-delete.

    Finally, a con man needs to hire the right legal counsel. Trump was a devotee of the notorious shark and legal fixer Roy Cohn. Cohn was an adviser to Joseph McCarthy, as well as a long list of mobsters (Fat Tony Salerno and John Gotti among others) and numerous businessmen of ill repute. From Cohn, Trump learned a simple legal strategy that has so far served him well: never give an inch, always go on the offense, and make things up if you must. The truth is immaterial; it’s the story that counts, at least in the court of public opinion. This strategy was on full display during Trump’s testimony Monday when he tried to turn his own misdeeds into an indictment of the legal process: “This is a very unfair trial, very, very unfair, and I hope the public is watching.” It was a performance Cohn himself might have attempted.

    Sam Bankman-Fried hired Daniel Friedberg as FTX’s in-house counsel, an attorney whose previous stints included working for an online poker site that folded when it was revealed insiders could access a secret “god mode” to see other players’ cards. Of course, once he gets in hot water, a con man must look after himself above all else. After his indictment, SBF hired new lawyers who attempted to blame Friedberg for FTX’s illegal activities—the exact maneuver Trump pulled with Michael Cohen. (Friedberg has reportedly cooperated with US investigators by providing information on how FTX operated.)

    Ultimately, SBF’s attempts to evade punishment for his crimes proved unsuccessful. Donald Trump faces not just the New York attorney general’s lawsuit, but indictments in four separate states. And with any luck, he may see the same fate.

    Ben McKenzie

    Source link

  • “It’s 100% Personal”: Trump Insiders Fear His Netanyahu Vendetta Could Be a Gift to Biden

    “It’s 100% Personal”: Trump Insiders Fear His Netanyahu Vendetta Could Be a Gift to Biden

    Joe Biden’s decision to make a wartime trip to Israel this week is the biggest diplomatic gamble of his presidency. The visit also carries high political stakes closer to home. By steadfastly backing Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the wake of Hamas’s October 7 attack across the Gaza border, Biden has outflanked his most likely Republican challenger: Donald Trump.

    Last week, Trump launched personal and at times bizarre attacks on the Israeli prime minister. “[Netanyahu] has been hurt very badly because of what’s happened here. He was not prepared,” Trump told Fox News host Brian Kilmeade. At a campaign rally in West Palm Beach, Trump told his supporters that Netanyahu backed out of participating in the American drone attack in 2020 that killed Iranian general Qassim Suleimani. “I’ll never forget that Bibi Netanyahu let us down. That was a very terrible thing,” Trump said, divulging highly sensitive intelligence. Trump also lavished praise on the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah, keeping with his habit of complimenting authoritarian regimes. “You know, Hezbollah is very smart,” Trump said. “They’re all very smart.”

    Trump’s comments ignited a firestorm of bipartisan criticism. According to sources, Trump advisers are worried that Trump could alienate hawkish American Jews, who have been voting increasingly Republican in recent elections. “His Israel comments were a disaster,” a former Trump White House official told me. Like virtually every political position Trump takes, his attack on Netanyahu was driven by grievance. “Trump definitely has an axe to grind with Bibi. It’s 100% personal,” a prominent Jewish Republican close to Trump told me. Sources say Trump turned against Netanyahu because Netanyahu didn’t give Trump enough credit for his pro-Israel foreign policy. But what angered Trump the most, sources said, was that Netanyahu refused to endorse Trump’s 2020 stolen election lies. During an April 2021 interview with Israeli journalist Barak Ravid, Trump unloaded on Netanyahu. “The first person that congratulated [Biden] was Bibi Netanyahu, the man that I did more for than any other person I dealt with… I haven’t spoken to [Bibi] since. F**k him.”

    Trump has also angered Jews by exploiting the hostage crisis for political gain. “This never would have happened if I were President,” Trump told a Jewish leader on the phone, according to a person briefed on the call.

    “President Trump was clearly pointing out how incompetent Biden and his administration were by telegraphing to the terrorists an area that is susceptible to an attack,” a Trump spokesperson said in a statement. “Smart does not equal good. It just proves Biden is stupid.” The campaign also pointed to a moment in the speech in which Trump promises, if elected, that the US “will fully support Israel, defeating, dismantling, and permanently destroying the terrorist group, Hamas.”

    The Biden White House, meanwhile, has seized on Trump’s “very smart” comment to portray him unfit for office. “Statements like this are dangerous and unhinged,” Andrew Bates, the deputy White House press secretary, said in a statement. “It’s completely lost on us why any American would ever praise an Iran-backed terrorist organization as ‘smart.’ Or have any objection to the United States warning terrorists not to attack Israel.” A prominent Jewish Democrat told me Biden even has an opportunity to win Evangelical support. “Evangelicals love Israel. They love Bibi,” he said.

    Trump’s GOP rivals are also seeking to capitalize on the controversy by openly criticizing Trump, something they’ve been reluctant to do. “You’re not going to find me throwing verbal grenades at Israeli leadership,” Ron DeSantis said last Thursday in New Hampshire. Also campaigning in the Granite State, Nikki Haley told supporters: “Who cares what [Trump] thinks about Netanyahu? This is not about that. This is about the people of Israel.” On Monday, a Chris Christie–aligned Super PAC released a new ad blasting Trump for denigrating Netanyahu. “Only a fool would make those kinds of comments,” Christie says in the ad. “Only a fool would give comments that could give aid and comfort to Israel’s adversary.”

    Gabriel Sherman

    Source link

  • Donald Trump Can Snarl All He Likes, But He’s Making a Star Out of Letitia James

    Donald Trump Can Snarl All He Likes, But He’s Making a Star Out of Letitia James

    Donald Trump is doing a brilliant job of promoting Letitia James. The former president had been punching at New York State’s attorney general sporadically for more than a year, calling James a “racist” and a “disgrace” as her office investigated whether Trump and his company had committed fraud by manipulating the value of his businesses. But now, as Trump is on trial, he has taken to attacking James on a daily basis, raging to reporters outside the lower Manhattan courtroom while calling her “grossly incompetent,” a “monster,” and even a “deranged lunatic” on social media.

    The publicity offensive is certainly ugly and perverse, but it is elevating James’s profile. The attorney general has already won one enormous victory against the former president: Last month, state judge Arthur Engoron ruled that James had proven that Trump and his companies committed long-running fraud in their financial statements. “This case was brought simply because it was a case where individuals have engaged in a pattern and practice of fraud,” James said on Wednesday. “And I will not sit idly by and allow anyone to subvert the law.” Upon the former president’s departure, James told reporters that “the Donald Trump show is over” and suggested his voluntary appearance in court “was nothing more than a political stunt, a fundraising stop.”

    The current legal proceedings, which could last until December, are to determine what penalty Trump will pay, from a monetary fine to being barred from doing business in New York State. Perhaps Engoron will allow Trump to walk away with an anticlimactic slap on the wrist. But the odds that James will earn a large legal triumph and accumulate a sizable stockpile of political capital look far better.

    Political capital that she will cash in to go…well, probably nowhere. The earnest, consensus view is that James will stay put because she loves her current job. “Tish is not interested in publicity or what drives most elected officials,” says Roberto Ramirez, a former New York Democratic state assemblyman who knows James well from his work as a strategist on several of her campaigns. “She is the unicorn of New York politics. She is obsessed with the substantive nature of being a lawyer for the state.”

    There is also the hard political reality that James is boxed in. New York senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand aren’t departing anytime soon. Two years ago James mounted a brief, half-hearted run for governor (“The people around her wanted it far more than she did,” a state Democratic insider says), and the incumbent, Kathy Hochul, won’t be on the ballot again until 2026. In the past, James has talked far more enthusiastically about running for mayor of New York City—but it is very hard to see her giving up a powerful statewide office for a bloody 2025 primary challenge to fellow Democrat and fellow Brooklynite Eric Adams.

    And then there’s the more intriguing constraint on James’s enhanced prestige: She would undermine a defeat of Trump by trying to capitalize on it. Joe Biden’s reelection campaign is highly worried about turning out crucial Black voters, particularly women, in battleground states. James would be an energetic, effective surrogate—except that making her a prominent part of the president’s campaign would hand Trump ammunition. “This case adds a lot of value to her political future, and it inoculates her from what a lot of women in her position have to deal with, being more credentialed and validated in ways that men don’t,” says Cornell Belcher, a Democratic strategist who worked on both of Barack Obama’s White House runs. “But the Biden campaign couldn’t and wouldn’t use her, because it would feed into the narrative that Trump wants, that this case is about politics.”

    James certainly doesn’t lack ambition. She maneuvered through the treacherous, corruption-prone ranks of the Brooklyn Democratic Party to be elected a city councilwoman, before winning one of New York’s three citywide offices, as public advocate. James had entered politics as a candidate of the left-wing Working Families Party—but ditched the WFP to make a useful alliance with its mortal enemy, former Governor Andrew Cuomo, in her successful 2018 run for AG. In 2021, after conducting an investigation requested by Cuomo, James delivered a 165-page report detailing multiple sexual harassment allegations against him. One week later the governor announced his resignation.

    One year into her second term as New York’s top prosecutor James, 64, looks as if she’s settling in for at least the medium haul. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, when too many pols are fixated on the next rung of the ladder. Yet unpredictable things have a way of happening in politics. “It’s natural for a person to feel maybe I should consider other options,” Ramirez says. “Her future is only limited by what she wishes to do.” For the moment, though, James is the rare politician whose future is paradoxically restricted by the nature of her imminent triumph.

    Chris Smith

    Source link

  • The House Speaker Might Change—But GOP Dysfunction Will Stay the Same

    The House Speaker Might Change—But GOP Dysfunction Will Stay the Same

    Behind Kevin McCarthy’s frustration, one could almost detect some measure of relief: Sure, he’d just lost his dream job—but perhaps suffering one historic humiliation would be better than dealing with the daily embarrassments and indignities that come with leading this increasingly dysfunctional GOP. “I believe I can continue to fight, maybe in a different manner,” he said after his gavel was taken away Tuesday. “I will not run for speaker again.”

    The question for the conference now: Who would?

    “It’s one thing to burn the building down,” as Oklahoma Republican Frank Lucas put it to Politico. “It’s another to put it back together again.”

    That “building,” as it were, was more of a house of cards, always on the verge of collapsing since its construction in January. McCarthy, desperate to secure the speakership that eluded him in 2016, cut a series of concessions to the far-right. That dramatically weakened his power, putting his job security in major jeopardy several times over the course of ten months. But on Tuesday, they finally did him in. “We are breaking the fever and we should elect a speaker who is better,” said Matt Gaetz, who led the motion to vacate against McCarthy.

    But it’s unclear who that will be. Not only is it hard to say who actually wants this job; it’s difficult to imagine a candidate that this Republican madhouse could actually unite around. There’s McCarthy’s deputy, Steve Scalise, who has already started working the phones but is in treatment for blood cancer. There’s Jim Jordan, the far-right firebrand-turned-McCarthy ally, who is being courted by conservatives but has previously said he is not interested in the gig. There’s even been the obligatory talk, among some House extremists, about nominating Donald Trump for the role: “President Trump, the greatest president of my lifetime, has a proven record of putting America first, and will make the House great again,” Texas Republican Troy Nehls said. That would seem a remote possibility, considering Trump has said before that he would not want to be House speaker and suggested Tuesday that he was upset at the GOP “infighting.” But Fox News’ Sean Hannity—a close ally of the former president—has started beating the drum, reporting Tuesday night that “some House Republicans” were interested in drafting Trump, and that Trump himself “might be open” to it.

    Could that actually lead to Speaker Trump? Presumably not, especially since his schedule is already jam-packed with presidential campaigning and court appearances for his various criminal and civil trials. But we’re also in uncharted waters here: No speaker until McCarthy has ever been ousted this way. Who can say with confidence where, exactly, this all goes next—for the now-former speaker, who continues to blame everyone but himself for his downfall, and for the chamber as a whole?

    The only sure thing, perhaps, is that GOP will continue to be mired in dysfunction—a conference of extremists held captive by its most attention-hungry member. McCarthy assumed the position in January after a wild fifteen rounds of voting. Ten months later, the party will have to elect another speaker—but with even less consensus, and even more disorder. “Nobody knows what’s going to happen next, including all the people that voted to vacate,” as House Rules Chairman Tom Cole told CNN. “They have no alternative at this point. So it’s just simply a vote for chaos.”

    Eric Lutz

    Source link

  • Trump’s Habit of Lying About Everything All the Time May Cost Him Trump Tower

    Trump’s Habit of Lying About Everything All the Time May Cost Him Trump Tower

    Unless you were dropped on earth just 24 hours ago, you obviously know that Donald Trump is famous for lying about everything all the time, and that he has been telling lies for basically his entire life. He lies about dumb stuff, like that he invented the phrase “prime the pump” and that he was named “Michigan’s Man of the Year.” He lies about serious stuff, like that he saw “thousands” of supposed terrorist sympathizers “cheering” from New Jersey as the World Trade Center towers collapsed on 9/11. He told lies before he was president (sometimes by pretending to be his own spokesman, John Barron), he told lies when he was president (by The Washington Post’s count, a whopping 30,573 “false or misleading claims”), and he’s continued to tell lies since becoming an ex-president (see: the business about having won the 2020 election). At this point, his inability to open his mouth without 47 lies flying out should really be studied by a team of multidisciplinary scientists who can dedicate their life’s work to figuring out what is wrong with him.

    Incredibly, the vast majority of Trump’s lies have never actually hurt him in the slightest. After all, he was elected president of the United States in 2016 and is currently the front-runner—by a landslide—for the GOP nomination. But on Tuesday, a specific set of falsehoods very much came back to bite him in the ass: the ones he told about his real estate holdings as owner of the Trump Organization. 

    We speak, of course, of the explosive ruling issued by Judge Arthur Engoron, who declared—as part of a suit brought by the New York attorney general—that Trump, his two adults sons, and the Trump Organization committed years of fraud by hugely inflating the businesses’ assets (and Trump’s net worth), which led to better loan terms and lower insurance costs. Among the most absurd examples: Engoron found that Trump repeatedly overvalued Mar-a-Lago, and in one instance did so on a financial statement by as much as, wait for it, 2,300%. While an outside appraisal put the value of the Palm Beach club at approximately $28 million, due to restrictions on how the property can be used, the Trump Organization claimed it was worth as much as $612 million.

    In another instance, Trump claimed his triplex at Trump Tower was 30,000 square feet—and valued it at $327 million based on that size—when it is actually only about 10,000. Which, y’know, is a pretty big difference. “A discrepancy of this order of magnitude, by a real estate developer sizing up his own living space of decades, can only be considered fraud,” Engoron wrote, according to The New York Times. Elsewhere, the judge responded to Team Trump’s various defenses of its business practices by writing: “In defendants’ world, rent-regulated apartments are worth the same as unregulated apartments; restricted land is worth the same as unrestricted land; restrictions can evaporate into thin air…. That is a fantasy world, not the real world.”

    As New York magazine notes, Engoron “ordered that the business certificates that allowed the family’s limited liability companies to operate in New York be rescinded and that independent receivers be put in place to manage them. This could mean that Trump will lose control over the iconic properties that bear his name such as Trump Tower, as well as make it more difficult for the former president to do business in his home state.” On top of all that, five defense lawyers were fined $7,500 a piece for making “frivolous” arguments that the judge had already rejected. As Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter David Cay Johnston notes, “A judge calling a lawyer’s argument ‘frivolous’ is the equivalent of saying it is no better than nonsense from a drunk in a bar.”

    A lawyer for Trump called the decision “outrageous” and “completely disconnected from the facts and governing law,” indicating that Trump will appeal. In the meantime, the ex-president is scheduled to face off at trial with New York attorney general Letitia James, who has accused him of inflating his assets by as much as $2.2 billion and is seeking damages of about $250 million.

    For their part, the Trump boys have responded to the ruling by doing…exactly how what you’d expect. On Truth Social, the ex-president raged that his “civil rights” had been violated, and called Engoron a “Deranged, Trump hating judge.” In one post on X, Eric Trump claimed that the ruling is “an attempt to destroy my father” and that Mar-a-Lago is actually “arguably the most valuable residential property in the country.” Later, he accused Engoron of dragging his name “through the mud,” calling the ruling “cruel.” Trump’s namesake declared the decision “nonsensical and asinine,” adding: “This is weaponized Blue State Marxist America, & another example of the sheer impossibility of a fairness & impartiality in these areas.”

    Last year, in an unrelated case, the Trump Organization and its longtime chief financial officer were found guilty of tax fraud, among other crimes. Trump, of course, has been indicted four separate times since late March, for a total of 91 felony counts related to hush money deals, his handling of classified government documents, and trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election. He has pleaded not guilty in all cases. 

    Republicans aren’t even trying to hide their bigotry anymore 

    X content

    This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.

    Bess Levin

    Source link

  • Heather Cox Richardson: Trump’s Strongman Turn “Happened Really, Really Quickly”

    Heather Cox Richardson: Trump’s Strongman Turn “Happened Really, Really Quickly”

    In September 2019, Boston College historian Heather Cox Richardson wrote a short essay on her Facebook page after news broke that Donald Trump’s acting director of National Intelligence had withheld an urgent whistleblower complaint. It was the first domino to fall in what would later become a full-fledged impeachment probe into the former president’s now infamous call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The country was entering unprecedented political territory. And Cox Richardson’s observations left readers hungry for more.

    What grew out of her pithy essay was “Letters From an American,” Cox Richardson’s daily newsletter on politics and US history that made her one of the most widely read commentary writers in the country. Now boasting over a million subscribers on Substack, Cox Richardson was named one of USA Today’s Women of the Year, and last year, was even invited to interview President Joe Biden in the White House.

    But while her public persona has changed, Cox Richardson’s intellectual goals have not. She aims to historicize America’s political absurdities with a fundamental question: Whether, as she wrote recently, “the rule of law on which the United States of America was founded will survive.” This question lies at the heart of her latest tome, Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America, which bookends the Trump years with two sweeping, methodical accounts of US history: While one traces attempts to undermine democracy, the other chronicles attempts to protect and expand it. “Once again, we are at a time of testing,” she writes. “How it comes out rests, as it always has, in our own hands.”

    This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

    Vanity Fair: The middle third of your book offers a blow-by-blow account of the Trump years. Reading it, I realized how many specific episodes or scandals I’d already forgotten. Are there any events or moments from Trump’s time in office that you wish were more widely remembered than they are?

    Heather Cox Richardson: The piece that I think shocked me most was how quickly in 2020, after the pandemic really began to sink its claws into society, Trump assumed the language of a strong man, of a dictatorship, and how quickly that escalated until the day he walked across Lafayette Square with the Bible in his hand. If you remember those few days, things were coming at us really quickly. There was that picture of the law enforcement officers at the Lincoln Memorial with their badges covered, and it took us a while to figure out who they even were. All that happened really, really quickly.

    What really jumped out to me was how crucially important it was that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley came out afterward and said it was a real mistake for him to be there at Lafayette Square, and that the military does not stand with a person; it stands with the Constitution. And then there was a whole cascade of military leaders reaffirming that. That was incredibly important. It’s important that we know how close we came. It’s important that we know that the military—all the branches of it, really—stepped forward and said they were not going to be part of this.

    What’s so important about that moment?

    People now tend to forget that after that moment, a number of figures in right-wing media—certainly people like Tucker Carlson—really started going after Mark Milley and trying to destroy him. I think that echoes in the present when you look at Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville’s refusal to allow military promotions. The unwillingness of the military to back Trump is very much in the minds of those who would like to overturn our democracy even today.

    In a similar vein, the last few years have seen many attempts to mine American and even world history for moments that can help us understand both Trump’s presidency and the small-D democratic resistance to it. Are there any historical moments you returned to for the book that you feel are underappreciated as guides to the present?

    The answer is an emphatic yes, and that is the creation and the tactics of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). What really jumped out at me in this book is no matter where I was digging after 1909, which is when the NAACP officially organizes, I found the NAACP.

    What was fascinating about the NAACP is that they were multifaith, multiracial, and multipolitical, if you will, from the very beginning. And while they certainly challenged segregation through the law, they also recognized very early on that in order to change the law, you had to change public opinion. It’s no accident that W.E.B. Du Bois, who can do anything he wants with the NAACP—what does he decide to do? He decides to run The Crisis, which is the NAACP magazine. They insisted on educating ordinary people, making clear what was really happening.

    Jack McCordick

    Source link

  • Jack Smith’s Office Requests Gag Order on Trump in Election Interference Case

    Jack Smith’s Office Requests Gag Order on Trump in Election Interference Case

    Federal prosecutors are requesting a gag order that would prevent former president Donald Trump from making “disparaging and inflammatory, or intimidating” statements about the federal criminal case relating to his attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

    The 19-page filing, made public on Friday, cites a pattern of Trump inciting harassment and death threats of election officials and workers in 2020 and throughout the various criminal cases presently unfolding against him. “The defendant knows that when he publicly attacks individuals and institutions, he inspires others to perpetrate threats and harassment against his targets,” prosecutors in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office argued. The filing reported that some of the parties in the federal case—including Smith himself—have experienced threats following attacks from Trump on social media.

    “Like his previous public disinformation campaign regarding the 2020 presidential election,” prosecutors wrote, “the defendant’s recent extrajudicial statements are intended to undermine public confidence in an institution — the judicial system — and to undermine confidence in and intimidate individuals — the court, the jury pool, witnesses and prosecutors.”

    The filing to Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the federal case, requests a “a narrow, well-defined restriction that is targeted at extrajudicial statements that present a serious and substantial danger of materially prejudicing this case.” The document refers to a number of Trump’s statements about the judge herself, including comments calling her a “a radical Obama hack” and a “biased, Trump-hating judge.”

    A Trump spokesperson told The New York Times that the DOJ was “corruptly and cynically continuing to attempt to deprive President Trump of his First Amendment rights.”

    Soon after the news of the gag order request broke, Trump was slated to speak at the Pray Vote Summit in Washington, hosted by the conservative group Concerned Women for America. He turned some of his speech into a rambling attack on Smith, whom he accused of “trying to take away our First Amendment Rights.” “We’re gonna have a little fun with that, I think,” Trump said, referring menacingly to the requested gag order.

    Trump also took to (where else?) Truth Social, where he accused President Joe Biden of having “WEAPONIZED the DOJ & FBI to go after his Political Opponent.” “They Leak, Lie, & Sue, & they won’t allow me to SPEAK?” Trump wrote. “How else would I explain that Jack Smith is DERANGED, or Crooked Joe is INCOMPETENT?”

    News of the gag order request comes after over a month of Trump flouting judicial rules. In early August, federal prosecutors asked Chutkan to impose a protective order—one step below a gag order—on Trump that would have prevented him from publicly discussing sensitive evidence in the case. The filing referred to a post Trump made on Truth Social in which he vowed that “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!” The following week, Chutkan told Trump lawyers that she would not tolerate any comments that would “intimidate witnesses or prejudice potential jurors” and vowed to “take whatever measures are necessary to protect the integrity of these proceedings.” Yet Trump has continued to unleash unhinged criticism of various parties in the case on a near-daily basis.

    Late Thursday, Smith’s office pushed back on Trump’s longshot attempt to disqualify Chutkan from overseeing his case, declaring in a court filing that there was “no valid basis” for the judge to recuse herself.

    Trump’s trial date in the case is set for next March.

    Jack McCordick

    Source link

  • Majority of Americans Want Trump Trial Before 2024 Election: Poll

    Majority of Americans Want Trump Trial Before 2024 Election: Poll

    An overwhelming majority of Americans—including, crucially, nearly two-thirds of independents—want former President Donald Trump to stand trial in the Justice Department’s 2020 election case before the 2024 election.

    A Politico Magazine/Ipsos poll surveyed 1,032 Democratic, Republican, and independent adults between August 18 and August 21, a period slightly less than three weeks after special counsel Jack Smith indicted the former president in a criminal investigation into Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election. The poll, released Friday, was conducted just days after Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis indicted Trump and 18 others for their election meddling in Georgia.

    The results show a marked uptick in seeing Trump stand trial before the 2024 election, demonstrating the severity and magnitude of the latest charges and complicating the former president’s insistent claims that criminal indictments only boost his political prospects. In June, a Politico/Ipsos poll asked a similar scheduling question after Trump’s classified documents indictment in Florida, and fewer than half of independents said they wanted to see a trial before the election.

    On Monday, US District Judge Tanya Chutkan will hold a scheduling hearing on the federal case. Smith’s office is requesting a January 2, 2024 trial date, while Trump’s lawyers are asking the trial to be scheduled in 2026. If Trump secures a post-election trial date and wins the presidential election, he’ll have the opportunity to pardon himself in the DOJ case (though not in Georgia).

    The poll also provides a window into how Trump’s response to his various indictments may—or may not—be landing with voters. Despite the former president’s cries of “corruption” in the cases against him, more poll respondents said they believed Trump had weaponized the legal system than President Joe Biden.

    More than half of respondents—including 56% of independents—said the Trump DOJ had improperly investigated political opponents. Asked about the behavior of various players in the criminal cases, respondents gave Trump the worst favorability rating of all: net negative by 31 points. The DOJ and Smith came out with net favorable ratings, while Attorney General Merrick Garland notched an even split.

    Additionally, the poll also shows a marked lack of public knowledge about the case, with between roughly one-quarter and one-third of the respondents reporting that they do not understand the charges very well. As the cases unfold and new information becomes public, Trump’s numbers might considerably worsen.

    As for what voters would like the outcome of the cases to be, half of the poll’s respondents said they thought Trump should go to prison if convicted in the DOJ’s January 6 case. That number included 51 percent of independents.

    Jack McCordick

    Source link

  • “It Will Be a Revenge Machine”: Why a Second Trump Administration Would Be Much Worse

    “It Will Be a Revenge Machine”: Why a Second Trump Administration Would Be Much Worse

    “It would be the inverse of election security. They would militarize the elections process,” Harvey said. “They would have sheriffs that agree with them, reservists, potentially even active duty soldiers standing outside of polling places. They would do anything possible to intimidate their political opponents from casting a ballot.”

    He and I spoke before the 2022 midterm elections. When the vote rolled around, reports surfaced about armed men in Kevlar vests (self-described “ballot watchers”) monitoring polling places in states like Arizona. Voters said the MAGA-aligned private citizens were trying to intimidate them, and some took the complaints to federal court.

    If the Next Trump deploys DHS forces as ballot watchers, there won’t be any such recourse. All of it will be done under the guise of preventing fraud in the elections and providing security for the voting public. In reality, the goal will be to terrify the political opposition. The playbook has been around for many, many decades—in foreign dictatorships.

    The MAGA movement learned a hard lesson in Trump’s first term: people are policy. The president appointed a vast array of public figures to key government posts, most of whom didn’t know the mercurial businessman. And they certainly weren’t willing to carry out policies that were plainly irresponsible, immoral, or illegal. In some cases, the internal resistance set Trump back years in carrying out his true intentions.

    John Bolton saw himself as one of those people. The former ambassador agreed to serve as White House national security advisor part-way through Trump’s term. For a time, Bolton thought he was shielding agencies from Trump’s disruptive mood swings and sudden changes in policy direction. But the more the ambassador objected to the president’s bad ideas, the more he got left out of the conversation.

    “There would be secret meetings at Mar-a-Lago on national security issues,” a former aide to Bolton told me, “and [John] would call me and say, ‘What the fuck is going on? Why am I not in this meeting?’ ”

    Afghanistan was the tipping point. Trump was angry about the modest Afghan War plan we’d persuaded him to adopt in 2017 and returned to demanding a sudden pullout. He wanted to host Taliban leaders—the same people who’d harbored the al Qaeda terrorists responsible for 9/11—on U.S. soil at Camp David for talks just days before the anniversary of the tragedy. Bolton objected strenuously. Trump cut him out of the decision-making process, tweeted the summit into existence, and fired his national security advisor soon after.

    Then Trump put in motion a hasty framework for exiting Afghanistan. What was the point, I wondered, of the months, the meetings, and the misery we had endured trying to get Trump to do the right thing, only to have him reverse the decision?

    I put the question to Warrick, the DHS civil servant who had helped me put together the infamous memo, “Afghanistan: How to Put America First—And Win!” Warrick was less defeatist.“We bought an extra two years of the United States staying [in Afghanistan] and killing terrorists and protecting the country,” he said.

    Bolton agreed that moments like this—when staff persuaded President Trump to take the prudent course, even if only temporarily— bought just enough time to protect the country from the worst possible outcomes.

    But a second MAGA administration “would do damage that is not reparable, especially in a White House surrounded by fifth-raters,” he predicted.

    Nearly every Trump appointee I spoke with made a similar prediction. Another MAGA president won’t hire a stable of experienced public servants. From the start, he or she will populate the administration with a “D Team” of political operatives who pledge allegiance to a cult of personality, not the Constitution.

    “[Trumpism] is like a progressive disease,” Bolton explained. “It might remit for a while, but it never gets better.” Or as a Pentagon leader under Trump told me: “In Round Two, you won’t see Jim Mattis and John Kelly. It will be the fucking enablers.”

    People I spoke with predicted widespread career resignations under another MAGA presidency. The result will be a younger civil service without the knowledge, experience, or wherewithal to run government agencies. White House appointees will be forced to fill in the gaps as a result. In a hurricane, for instance, you might have inexperienced political operatives trying to handle the crisis instead of experts.

    Miles Taylor

    Source link

  • The January 6 Case Against Trump Is “a Shark Beneath the Water”

    The January 6 Case Against Trump Is “a Shark Beneath the Water”

    On this week’s Inside the Hive, CBS News’ Robert Costa joins Brian Stelter to dig into the existing indictments against former president Donald Trump—and take a close look at the swirling waters ahead. “What has happened here with January 6,” Costa says, “remains a systemic shock to the American system.” Costa, the network’s chief election and campaign correspondent, and coauthor of Peril with Bob Woodward, says, “witnesses, lawyers to witnesses, people familiar with the investigation” into election interference have said the probe is “moving like a shark beneath the water.”

    Brian Stelter

    Source link

  • Trump is a “Consummate Narcissist”: Former Attorney General Bill Barr

    Trump is a “Consummate Narcissist”: Former Attorney General Bill Barr

    Escalating his mounting criticisms of Donald Trump, former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr called the former president “a consummate narcissist” and a “fundamentally flawed person” in a scathing interview on Sunday. Once a staunch Trump ally, Barr has been a vociferous critic in the weeks following Trump’s federal indictment on charges of illegally possessing classified information.

    “He’s like a defiant 9-year-old kid who is always pushing the glass towards the edge of the table, defying his parents from stopping him from doing it,” Barr said in an interview with CBS News’s “Face the Nation,” adding that “our country can’t be a therapy session for a troubled man like this.” Last week, Barr told Fox News that “if even half” of the 49-page indictment is true, Trump “is toast.”

    A second former Trump administration official spoke out on Sunday. In an interview with CNN’s “State of the Union,” former defense secretary Mark Esper called Trump’s alleged possession of classified documents an “irresponsible action that places our service members at risk, places our nation’s security at risk. You cannot have these documents floating around.” According to the special counsel’s indictment, Trump allegedly kept sensitive documents in a public ballroom, bathroom, and bedroom at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

    “People have described him as a hoarder when it comes to these types of documents. But clearly, it was unauthorized, illegal and dangerous,” Esper added.

    Barr and Esper’s Sunday comments add to a growing chorus of denunciations from former Trump administration officials, even as much of the current crop of Republican presidential candidates have largely avoided discussing the indictment or have actively come to the former president’s defense.

    Last week, former Trump national security advisor John Bolton called the indictment a “potentially catastrophic turn of events” for Trump, and said that if the allegations are proven to be true, “it should put Trump in jail for a long time.”

    Also last week, former Trump chief of staff John Kelly told The Washington Post that Trump was “scared s—tless” over his legal troubles, adding that “for the first time in his life, it looks like he’s being held accountable.” Trump retaliated on Friday morning in a post on Truth Social, writing that Kelly “pretended to be a ‘tough guy,’ but was actually weak and ineffective, born with a VERY small ‘brain.’”

    In addition to their recent criticisms of the former president, Barr, Esper, Bolton, and Kelly all have one thing in common: an early departure from the Trump administration. Barr resigned in December 2020, just a few weeks before January 6; Esper was fired by a Trump tweet a month prior; Bolton was fired in 2019, also by tweet; and Kelly was out less than two years into Trump’s term.

    Jack McCordick

    Source link

  • Senator Tim Scott Avoids Question on Trump Pardon, Vows to “Clean Out” DOJ

    Senator Tim Scott Avoids Question on Trump Pardon, Vows to “Clean Out” DOJ

    South Carolina senator and 2024 presidential hopeful Tim Scott avoided saying whether he would pardon Donald Trump if the former president is convicted on federal charges relating to his mishandling of classified documents. “I’m not going to deal with the hypotheticals, but I will say that every American is innocent until proven guilty,” Scott told Fox’s Shannon Bream on Sunday.

    Instead, Scott trained his ire on the Department of Justice, which he accused of trying to “hunt Republicans.” “We have to clean out the political appointments in the Department of Justice to restore competence and integrity in the DOJ today,” Scott said.

    Scott’s comments Sunday make him the latest Republican presidential candidate to weigh in on the question of a potential Trump pardon, an issue fast becoming a dividing line among 2024 Republican hopefuls.

    Among the current field, Trump’s most vociferous defender is biotech executive Vivek Ramaswamy. The longshot candidate vowed to “pardon Trump promptly on January 20, 2025 and to restore the rule of law in our country.” Last week, Ramaswamy appeared outside the Florida federal courthouse on the day of Trump’s arraignment and said he’d sent a letter to each 2024 Republican candidate, asking them to publicly commit to pardoning Trump “or else publicly explain why you will not.” Fellow entrepreneur and presidential longshot, Perry Johnson, has also committed to pardoning the former president, and conservative radio host Larry Elder has also said he’d be “very likely” as well.

    The prospect of pardoning the twice-indicted former president received a more lukewarm response from Nikki Haley. Last week, the former South Carolina governor said she was “inclined in favor of a pardon,” though she called the discussion “really premature” and made sure to call the former president “incredibly reckless with our national security.”

    So far, two candidates—former New Jersey governor Chris Christie and former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson— have come out against making a pardon pledge. “I can’t imagine if he gets a fair trial that I would pardon him,” Christie said on Wednesday, adding, “To accept a pardon, you have to admit your guilt.” Asked on Tuesday about fellow candidates floating Trump pardons, Hutchinson called the pledges “wrong,” “unjustified,” and “bad precedent.” “I want our candidates to show more courage and to speak out about this and provide leadership,” he said.

    Other candidates, like Florida governor Ron DeSantis and former vice president Mike Pence, have taken Scott’s route, avoiding directly addressing a possible Trump pardon while vowing to attack the DOJ if elected. Using similar language to Scott, DeSantis has pledged to perform a “house cleaning on day one,” while Pence has promised to “clean house at the highest levels” of the DOJ.

    Jack McCordick

    Source link

  • Trump Lashes Out in First Speeches Following Federal Indictment

    Trump Lashes Out in First Speeches Following Federal Indictment

    Following a damning 37-count federal indictment related to alleged illegal possession of classified documents, former President Donald Trump didn’t pull any punches on the campaign trail on Saturday. Speaking in front of two Republican state conventions in Columbus, Georgia and Greensboro, North Carolina, Trump called the indictment “ridiculous and baseless” and “among the most horrific abuses of power in the history of our country.” 

    “They’ve launched one witch hunt after another to try and stop our movement, to thwart the will of the American people,” Trump said in Georgia. “In the end, they’re not coming after me. They’re coming after you.”

    Addressing a raucous crowd of loyal supporters in a Columbus building that once manufactured weapons for the Confederate Army during the Civil War, Trump called for the elimination of his political enemies: “Either the Communists win and destroy America, or we destroy the Communists,” he said, seemingly referring to the Democratic Party.

    Trump also lashed out by name at the federal and state officials at the center of his legal woes. He called Jack Smith, the special counsel leading his federal prosecution, “deranged” and “openly a Trump hater,” and referred to Georgia Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis as “a lunatic Marxist.” The latter is likely to hand down a possible indictment related to Trump’s election meddling schemes sometime later this summer. 

    Despite—or rather because of—his legal issues, Trump remains the frontrunner for the GOP nomination. Trump’s poll numbers received a bump after his indictment in New York in March for hush money payments to Stormy Daniels. On Saturday, he bragged that his latest charges had further increased his support: “I mean, the only good thing about it is it’s driven my poll numbers way up,” he said in Columbus. 

    In an interview with Politico between the Georgia and North Carolina events, Trump vowed to “never leave” the presidential race, even if convicted in federal court. 

    Both Saturday speeches hammered the themes of persecution and vengeance the former president has placed at the center of his reelection efforts. “When they go after me, they go after you,” he said at the Waco, Texas rally that kicked off his campaign back in March. At that event, Trump called the 2024 election “the final battle,” a line he repeated on Saturday in Georgia.

    The martial language that has become a ubiquitous presence on the Trump campaign trail has only heightened over the past week. The New York Times reported Saturday that in the wake of the indictment, many of Trump’s close allies have cast it “as an act of war, called for retribution and highlighted the fact that much of his base carries weapons.” 

    Trump’s first appearance in federal court is scheduled for this Tuesday. 

    Jack McCordick

    Source link