Tag: Donald Trump

Trump’s baseless claim about ballot drop boxes in Fulton County, Ga.

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“Thank you and congratulations to Laura Baigert of the Georgia Star News on the incredible reporting you have done. Keep going! The scam is all unraveling fast.”

— Former president Donald Trump, in a statement, June 17

False and misleading claims that cast doubt on Georgia’s 2020 election results continue to pop up seven months after the vote, and Trump keeps promoting them.

We have a high bar for fact-checking the former president these days, but this claim about an election “scam” in the Atlanta area carries weight. The state launched an investigation based on the same reports Trump is referencing from a website called the Georgia Star News.

But there is no evidence of a scam unraveling in Georgia, only shoddy record-keeping by local election officials. Continue reading.

Trump tried to sic government lawyers on Saturday Night Live because they ridiculed him: report

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According to a report from the Daily Beast,  Donald Trump pressed aides to get government lawyers to go after late-night TV shows like Saturday Night Live for the way that they were treating him.

Trump, whose blustery style was recreated by actor Alec Baldwin, was reportedly obsessed with how he was mocked by late-night comics and reportedly asked administration officials to bring legal pressure to bear to stop it — only to be told there was no legal mechanism available.

According to the report, in 2019, Trump tweeted, “It’s truly incredible that shows like Saturday Night Live, not funny/no talent, can spend all of their time knocking the same person (me), over & over, without so much of a mention of ‘the other side. Like an advertisement without consequences. Same with Late Night Shows. Should Federal Election Commission and/or FCC look into this?” Continue reading.

Fox News and Trump are still pushing hydroxychloroquine. Here’s what the data actually shows.

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The rapid decline of the coronavirus in an increasingly vaccinated American public has allowed us all to focus on other related, but formerly less pressing, things. High on that list thus far has been whether scientists and the media were too anxious to dismiss the lab-leak theory — a valid debate with real implications.

But also pretty high on that list — and rising — for a small but passionate number of people is something else they claim President Donald Trump was right about all along: hydroxychloroquine as a coronavirus treatment.

“There was a study that came out that said that hydroxychloroquine actually helped people survive,” Fox News’s Steve Doocy said Monday morning. “And, of course, that was one of the things that Donald Trump came out and said, ‘I’ve heard good things about it.’ Next thing you know, [Anthony S.] Fauci was standing right over, blows him up, and the left wing applauds.” Continue reading.

The RNC is still using donors’ money to line Trump’s pockets: FEC filing

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The Republican National Committee is apparently not done using donors’ money to line the pockets of former President Donald Trump.

Business Insider reports that the RNC shelled out $175,000 this past spring for a donor event at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in which the twice-impeached former president told attendees that Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was a “dumb son of a b*tch.”

A Business Insider review of Federal Elections Commission filings shows that the RNC has spent roughly $2.6 million on Trump properties over the last 14 years, a trend that really picked up steam since 2016 when Trump become the party’s nominee for the presidency. Continue reading.

Federal judge tosses most claims against Trump, Barr and U.S. officials in clearing of Lafayette Square

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A U.S. judge on Monday dismissed most claims filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of D.C., Black Lives Matter and others in lawsuits that accused the Trump administration of authorizing an unprovoked attack on demonstrators in Lafayette Square last year.

The plaintiffs asserted the government used unnecessary force to enable a photo op of President Donald Trump holding a Bible outside of the historical St. John’s Church. But U.S. District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich of Washington called allegations that federal officials conspired to make way for the photo too speculative.

The judge’s decision came in a 51-page opinion after the Justice Department requested she toss four overlapping lawsuits naming dozens of federal individual and agency defendants, as well as D.C. and Arlington police, in the June 2020 incident. Continue reading.

Trump and his CFO Allen Weisselberg stay close as prosecutors advance their case

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Trump and his CFO Allen Weisselberg stay close as prosecutors advance their case

NEW YORK — If Donald Trump was looking for some good news on his 75th birthday last Monday, it arrived at 8:15 a.m. by way of a blue Mercedes slipping into Trump Tower’s private garage entrance on West 56th Street.

Behind the wheel was Allen Weisselberg, Trump’s longtime confidant and Trump Organization chief financial officer, whom the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has pressed to turn on the former president as they investigate Trump’s business dealings.

Every day that Weisselberg arrives for work at Trump Tower — as he did that day, steering in from his Upper West Side apartment across town — could be seen as a public signal that he is sticking with Trump and deflecting investigators’ advances. Continue reading.

Pelosi announces select committee to investigate Jan. 6 Capitol riot

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Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced Thursday that she will create a House select committee to investigate the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

Why it matters: The creation of a single Democratic-controlled special committee, which will consolidate several House investigations, comes after Senate Republicans blocked a bill that would have established a bipartisan 9/11-style commission.

  • While Republicans would have had equal control over the blocked 9/11-style investigative commission, it’s unlikely they will have the same leverage over the House select committee investigation. Continue reading.

Trump demolished by conservative paper after new GAO report reveals his border wall failures

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Donald Trump’s record was again torched Saturday with some new Government Accountability Office (GAO) data showing that his administration fell far short of its claims about how much border wall it built — and that it fudged the numbers as well.

But as Trump prepares to tour some of the small amount of wall he did build, perhaps just as humiliating was the rough treatment he got from the conservative Washington Times. His home team newspaper greeted its readers Monday with this large, top-of-Page-1 headline reading:

“Trump’s claims on construction of border wall system undercut by GAO audit.” Continue reading.

Pennsylvania Senate GOP edges toward Arizona-style election audit

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A top Pennsylvania Republican says he supports an audit of the state’s presidential election results similar to a review being conducted in Arizona, raising the potential for other states to spend taxpayer money investigating former President Trump’s false claims of improprieties and fraud.

Pennsylvania state Sen. David Argall (R), who heads the Senate State Government Committee that has oversight of election administration, told reporters he supports another look at the Pennsylvania results.

“It’s a very careful recount, forensic audit, so yeah, I don’t see the danger in it,” Argall said during a forum with reporters from Spotlight PA, a consortium of media companies from across the state. “I just think that it would not be a bad idea at all to proceed with an audit similar to what they’re doing in Arizona.”  Continue reading.

Garland tries to untangle the Trump legacy at the Justice Department

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Three months into his new job, judge-turned-attorney-general Merrick Garland, who inherited a demoralized and politicized Justice Department, is facing criticism from some Democrats that he is not doing enough to quickly expunge Trump-era policies and practices.

On a host of issues ranging from leak investigations to civil and criminal cases involving former president Donald Trump, Garland has been beset by a ­growing chorus of congressional ­second-guessers, even as he insists he is scrupulously adhering to the principles of equal justice under the law.

How he charts his way through the current controversies and still-unresolved politically sensitive cases is likely to determine how much of a long-term impact the Trump presidency has on the Justice Department. Continue reading.