Tag: Donald Trump

DOJ releases video of Trump insurrectionist punching federal officer in the face

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The U.S. Dept. of Justice has released another video of insurrectionist activity at the U.S. Capitol on January 6. This one appears to show a man in a camouflage jacket shoving and then punching a federal officer in the face, hitting his face-shield.

“Prosecutors say this is NJ gym owner Scott Fairlamb (in the camo jacket) shoving a cop (at 0:28), and then punching him in the face (at 0:31). Fairlamb pleaded not guilty,” CNN’s Marshall Cohen reports (tweet and video below.)

There is a DOJ Criminal Complaint for Fairlamb filed January 21 that lists offenses including “Certain Acts During Civil Disorder,” “Assaulting a Federal Officer,” “Carrying a Dangerous Weapon,” and “Violent Entry and Disorderly Conduct on Capitol Grounds.” Continue reading.

‘As Long as the Party Embraces Trump, It’s Going to Have Trouble’

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The Republican collapse in Michigan’s Oakland County, once a stronghold, was a long time coming. Is losing these suburbs a warning light for Trumpism?

In the aftermath of the 2020 election, the Republican National Committee opted not to order an autopsy into what exactly led to the party’s decline in suburban communities that were, until recently, considered deep red.

But if RNC Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel wanted to understand what happened, she could do worse than to look back at the place she was raised: Oakland County, Michigan.

“Oakland County was kind of the quintessential suburban Republican stronghold over the postwar period,” says Jeff Timmer, a longtime GOP strategist who was executive director of the state party from 2005-2009. It was (and is) a huge source of campaign donations for the party and its candidates. It had massive influence in Lansing, and an influential bipartisan delegation in Washington. It was a must-visit locale for every aspiring Republican presidential candidate. Continue reading.

Opinion: How Democrats are hoping to unmask the latest Trump-DOJ scandal

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It had long been expected that the Biden administration might be reluctant to launch a full fumigation of the epic corruption of the Trump years. The refrain that would justify this foot-dragging, many feared, would be the wretched notion that we must look forward, not back.

Yet what we’ve seen has actually defied negative expectations. The Justice Department has taken multiple active steps that are keeping the true scope of former president Donald Trump’s misdeeds buried. While the department has understandable reasons for defending its institutional prerogatives, this lack of transparency simply isn’t tenable.

This week, Democrats made a new move toward opening the books in a key area where the Justice Department has been unduly secretive: the scandal involving the department’s subpoenaing of the phone and communication records of prominent critics of Trump. Continue reading.

GOP Congressman: FBI ‘participated’ in insurrection to ‘entrap’ harmless protestors and ‘frame the MAGA movement’

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U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) is demanding the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Dept. of Justice tell Congress what they know about their own alleged “participation” in Donald Trump’s January 6 insurrection, which led to at least seven deaths. Gohmert falsely claims the attack on the U.S. Capitol – which in reality was an attempted coup designed to overturn a free and fair election – was instead a “monumental entrapment scheme used as a pretext to imprison otherwise harmless protestors” and used to “frame the entire MAGA movement as potential domestic terrorists.”

News organization The Recount calls Gohmert’s assertions “a bullshit baseless conspiracy theory.”

The Texas Republican congressman, explained on Thursday on the floor of the House that his “friend,” Fox News white supremacist host Tucker Carlson “covered this last night,” called the conspiracy theory “really disturbing… because we don’t like to see government agents stirring up trouble or find that there are criminal acts that would not likely have occurred had not the federal government been participating.” Continue reading.

Greene claims Capitol riot ‘ruined’ all the work she did to throw out Biden votes

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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene complained that the Jan. 6 riot undid her work to overturn millions of votes cast for Joe Biden.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) complained on Tuesday that the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol “ruined” her attempt to throw out millions of votes in the presidential election that were cast for Joe Biden.

Appearing on “War Room: Pandemic,” a program on the right-wing Real America’s Voice network hosted by disgraced former Donald Trump campaign manager Steve Bannon, Greene said she was “very upset” by the events of the day.

“I worked hard. I led an effort and worked very hard to object to Joe Biden’s Electoral College votes for six states. I worked my tail off and the riot at the Capitol – or, you know, whatever you want to call it – guess what? It ruined it. So it ruined my job, it ruined all of us, there was many of us involved in this, and it ruined our ability to object,” she said. Continue reading.

In first, U.S. charges Jan. 6 defendant with bringing firearms to Capitol under controversial federal rioting law

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U.S. prosecutors for the first time have charged a defendant in the Jan. 6 Capitol breach with violating a federal law that makes it a crime to transport a firearm or explosive for unlawful use in a riot.

The rare weapons charge was handed up Wednesday in a five-count superseding indictment against Guy Wesley Reffitt, 48, who prosecutors say brought a rifle and semiautomatic handgun to Washington and recruited members to a right-wing Texas Three Percenters group claiming he had created a new security business to circumvent gun laws.

“We can get ammo and weapons available to law enforcement. . . . The fight has only just begun,” Reffitt allegedly wrote, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey S. Nestler said earlier this year. Continue reading.

‘I Made Juneteenth Very Famous’: The Inside Story of Trump’s Post-George Floyd Month

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For Father’s Day in 2020, what Donald Trump mostly wanted was to avoid his son-in-law.

It was Jared Kushner who had talked the president into hiring Brad Parscale to run a campaign that was now, just months before the election, in freefall. And when most Americans rejected Trump’s unreasonably truculent response to the civil unrest that was sweeping the country, the president also blamed Kushner.

The frustration and anguish that had accrued among Black Americans after decades of debasing systemic racism had been emphatically—finally—cracked open by the death of George Floyd, who’d been murdered by police a few weeks earlier. As protesters poured into the streets of the nation’s capital and major municipalities, Trump privately told advisers that he wished he’d been quicker to support police and more aggressive in his pushback against protesters. Continue reading.

St. Louis couple who pointed guns at protesters plead guilty, will give up firearms

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A St. Louis couple who gained notoriety for waving guns at racial justice protesters last summer pleaded guilty Thursday to misdemeanor charges and agreed to give up the guns they used during the confrontation.

Video and photographs of rifle-wielding Mark McCloskey and pistol-toting Patricia McCloskey in front of their mansion on June 28 captured the attention of the country, including then-President Donald Trump, who spoke out in defense of the couple. Trump and other Republicans considered the McCloskeys law-abiding homeowners defending their property. Others saw the couple as overly aggressive toward protesters who were marching through the gated community to the home of then-Mayor Lyda Krewson amid nationwide protests after a police officer killed George Floyd in Minneapolis.

The couple, both personal injury attorneys, faced felony firearm charges after the menacing display in front of their marble-faced palazzo home but ultimately pleaded guilty to lesser charges. Continue reading.

MAGA-rioting granny now says she’s ‘horrified’ by violence at Capitol as she pleads for leniency

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A grandmother who broke into the United States Capitol building on January 6th now says she’s “horrified” by the violence that took place there as she pleads for a lenient sentence.

Via NBC 4 Washington investigative reporter Scott MacFarlane, an attorney representing 49-year-old Florida resident Anna Morgan-Lloyd says that she now regrets her decision to go into the Capitol building during the riot in a letter sent to a judge.

Additionally, Morgan-Lloyd also did something former President Donald Trump has not done and admitted that President Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 presidential election. Continue reading.

Arizona vote ‘audit’ data taken to mysterious ‘lab’ deep in the woods of Montana: CNN

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Data collected from the widely criticized pro-Trump Arizona vote “audit” has now been shipped to a mysterious “lab” in Montana to be “forensically evaluated.”

CNN reports that the data was shipped to property in Montana owned by Cipher LLC, a contractor hired by vote audit firm Cyber Ninjas to analyze data.

However, the so-called lab’s exact location in the state remains a secret. Continue reading.