Tag: Donald Trump

‘Exploited the crazies’: How the GOP used Trump’s election lies to hide the fact that they’re losing power

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According to a report from the Guardian’s Sam Levine, Republicans who have always dabbled in playing to the red meat crowd are now ramping up their efforts to use that voting bloc to remain in power by disrupting and questioning election results.

Faced with changing demographics and states — – notably Arizona and Georgia — that were once reliably Republican but are now sending Democrats to Congress, Republicans are looking for ways to stop the bleeding as their power melts away.

According to Levine, Donald Trump just gave them the roadmap by blatantly saying the election was stolen from him — which has been well-received by more than just conservative extremists. Continue reading.

‘Trump was an unabated crime wave’: ex-prosecutor lists the atrocities

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Donald Trump has legal exposure for a “crime wave” committed while serving as president of the United State, a former federal prosecutor explained on MSNBC on Friday.

Glenn Kirschner told MSNBC anchor Ali Velshi “Donald Trump was an unabated crime wave as president.”

“Even before he became president he committed campaign finance violations with Michael Cohen, for which Michael Cohen went to prison,” he reminded. “Ali, then once he took office he could tick through the felony crimes that we can prove based on the information that has been publicly reported alone, whether it’s the bribery and extortion of President Zelenskiy, the ten counts of obstruction of justice meticulously documented by Bob Mueller in volume 2 of the Trump-Russia report for which Bob Mueller famously testified Donald Trump could be prosecuted upon leaving office.” Continue reading.

Ted Cruz brings lawsuit demanding Trump be able to pay himself back millions he gave to his campaign

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Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is further attempting to prove he’s pals with Donald Trump after launching a lawsuit appealed to the Supreme Court that Trump and other candidates should be able to pay themselves back the millions of dollars they use to self-fund their campaigns.

Trump loaned his campaign $10.8 million in 2015, and by March 2016, he’d given his campaign $38 million. Trump even went so far as to claim that he was willing to spend as much as $100 million of his own money to win in 2016. He didn’t ultimately give that much officially, but it was certainly a lot, particularly given the hush-money payments uncovered. 

Cruz claims that the McCain-Feingold Law violates the First Amendment by limiting to $250,000 fundraising to repay loans a candidate makes to his or her own federal campaign. Continue reading.

QAnon’s demise is ‘well underway’ as adherents cut and run from the cult: columnist

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On Friday, writing for the Chicago Tribune, columnist Virginia Heffernan argued that the QAnon conspiracy — which holds that former President Donald Trump is fighting to take down a cabal of flesh-eating pedophile Satanists who rule the United States — is rapidly falling apart and will soon fade into the history books.

“QAnon, who made a messiah out of former President Donald Trump, was always bound to lose steam. It will follow the arc of furious, loopy-loo American conspiracy theories that have existed since before the Civil War. Cults like QAnon burn bright, and they fade fast,” wrote Heffernan. “QAnon’s demise, in fact, is well underway. Its leader, Q, a figure from the internet’s dark side, is now widely suspected to be the creation of Jim and Ron Watkins. The Watkins men are a seedy father-son duo in Asia who serve up pornography and hate speech online.”

As evidence of the decline, Heffernan noted: the mysterious anonymous poster “Q” whose cryptic messages drove the theory has vanished from the internet; many believers have now disavowed the movement; and the fallout from the January 6 Capitol riot has led many more to blame the movement for their violence. Continue reading.

Trump lost $40 million on his Scottish golf clubs by failing to implement a very basic financial practice, say experts

Donald Trump’s international courses have racked up huge losses and rely on loans from various Trump-owned vehicles in the United States just to stay afloat.

However, the scale of Trump’s losses may be even greater than it first appears, with experts pointing out that Trump appears to have lost tens of millions of dollars more by failing to implement a very basic financial practice.

First, some context: Trump has two golf resorts in Scotland. Continue reading.

Trump-inspired death threats are terrorizing election workers

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Election officials and their families are living with threats of hanging, firing squads, torture and bomb blasts, interviews and documents reveal. The campaign of fear, sparked by Trump’s voter-fraud falsehoods, threatens the U.S. electoral system.

Note: This story contains offensive language 

Late on the night of April 24, the wife of Georgia’s top election official got a chilling text message: “You and your family will be killed very slowly.”

A week earlier, Tricia Raffensperger, wife of Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, had received another anonymous text: “We plan for the death of you and your family every day.”

That followed an April 5 text warning. A family member, the texter told her, was “going to have a very unfortunate incident.” Continue reading.

Trump Pressed Official to Wield Justice Dept. to Back Election Claims

The former president began pressuring his incoming acting attorney general even before announcing that his predecessor was stepping down, emails show.

WASHINGTON — An hour before President Donald J. Trump announced in December that William P. Barr would step down as attorney general, the president began pressuring Mr. Barr’s eventual replacement to have the Justice Department take up his false claims of election fraud.

Mr. Trump sent an email via his assistant to Jeffrey A. Rosen, the incoming acting attorney general, that contained documents purporting to show evidence of election fraud in northern Michigan — the same claims that a federal judge had thrown out a week earlier in a lawsuit filed by one of Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers.

Another email from Mr. Trump to Mr. Rosen followed two weeks later, again via the president’s assistant, that included a draft of a brief that Mr. Trump wanted the Justice Department to file to the Supreme Court. It argued, among other things, that state officials had used the pandemic to weaken election security and pave the way for widespread election fraud. Continue reading.

New report reveals how Trump’s 2020 lies unleashed waves of threat and intimidation against election official

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After the New York Times’ Maggie Haberman reported, on June 1, that former President Donald Trump believes he will be “reinstated” as president by August, many Trump critics — from liberals and progressives to Never Trump conservatives — warned that his delusions could inspire more attacks like the January 6 insurrection as well as an increase in threats against officials. The death threats, harassment and intimidation that election workers have been receiving from Trump supporters is the focus of in-depth article published by Reuters this week, and reporter Linda So shows that the abuse continues months after Trump’s departure from the White House.

In her report, So emphasizes that the election workers who have suffered ongoing abuse range from high-level officials such as Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (a conservative Republican) to low-level and mid-level election workers. Raffensperger, following the 2020 presidential election, infuriated Trump and his allies — including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and far-right attorneys Sidney Powell and Lin Wood — by maintaining that now-President Joe Biden won Georgia fairly and that there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the state as Trump claimed. And Raffensperger, along with his wife Tricia Raffensperger, have been inundated with death threats ever since.

So reports that on April 5, Tricia Raffensperger received a text message saying that a family member was “going to have a very unfortunate incident” — and that message was followed by one in mid-April saying, “We plan for the death of you and your family every day.” Then, on April 24, she received a text message saying, “You and your family will be killed very slowly.” Continue reading.

Senate plans investigation of Trump DOJ seizure of House Democrats’ data

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Justice Department inspector general will also probe matter

The Senate Judiciary Committee is prepared to subpoena Trump administration Justice Department leaders if that’s what it takes to get answers about reports that the DOJ obtained metadata related to House members, including the Intelligence Committee chairman.

Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer and Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, who also chairs the Judiciary panel, said the committee would conduct a full review of the matter, which was first reported Thursday by The New York Times.

As part of a sweeping leak investigation, the DOJ used subpoenas to obtain information from Apple, including cellphone metadata for at least two House members: House Intelligence Chairman Adam B. Schiff and Eric Swalwell, both California Democrats. Swalwell and Schiff both confirmed their records had been obtained. Continue reading.

AG Garland to double enforcement staff to protect voting rights

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Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday announced the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division will double the number of enforcement staff dedicated to protecting the right to vote in the next 30 days. 

Why it matters: After an election fraught with baseless claims of fraud and a recent flurry of voter restriction bills in state legislatures, Garland underscored his dedication to protecting voting rights. He said the DOJ will “do everything in its power to prevent election fraud, and if found to vigorously prosecute” but will also scrutinize “new laws that seek to curb voter access.” 

  • “There are many things that are open to debate in America, but the right of all eligible citizens to vote is not one of them,” Garland said in his speech. “The right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy. The right from which all other rights, ultimately flow.” Continue reading.