Tag: Donald Trump

AP FACT CHECK: Trump Makes False Claims About Arizona Audit

Former President Donald Trump issued three statements in two days claiming that voting fraud and irregularities cost him Arizona’s electoral votes.

PHOENIX (AP) — Former President Donald Trump issued three statements in two days falsely claiming that voting fraud and irregularities cost him Arizona’s electoral votes.

Trump relied on comments made Thursday by contractors hired by state Senate Republicans to oversee a partisan review of the 2020 vote count in Maricopa County, which includes metro Phoenix.

The “forensic audit,” as Senate GOP leaders are calling their review, is overseen by Cyber Ninjas, a small computer security firm with no election experience before Trump began questioning the 2020 results. Its CEO, Doug Logan, spread false conspiracy theories about the election before he was hired to lead the Arizona review. Continue reading.

Trump Said He Thinks He Could Have Beaten George Washington In An Election

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Trump believes he was a shoo-in for 2020 if not for COVID-19, he told authors of “I Alone Can Fix It” — contradicting his claims of a rigged election.

Former President Donald Trump told the authors of a new book that he believes he would have had a good chance of winning a presidential election against George Washington, even with Abraham Lincoln as Washington’s running mate.

Trump made the outlandish observation as he indicated that his re-election in 2020 was inevitable had it not been for the COVID-19 pandemic — which appears to contradict his comments about a “rigged” election.

“I think it would be hard if George Washington came back from the dead and he chose Abraham Lincoln as his vice-president, I think it would have been very hard for them to beat me,” Trump told Washington Post reporters Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig, they recount in their new book “I Alone Can Fix It.” Continue reading.

Current, former police officers charged in new Proud Boys indictment in Capitol riot

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A father and son, who are current and former Florida police officers, and a North Carolina man have been charged with joining alleged Proud Boys members in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, according to a new, five-co-defendant indictment unsealed in Washington on Friday.

Kevin “Tito” Tuck, 51, and Nathaniel A. Tuck, 29, of central Florida were arrested and released on $25,000 unsecured bond Thursday by a U.S. magistrate judge in Tampa, court records show.

Edward George Jr. was also arrested Thursday and was scheduled to appear in federal court Friday in Raleigh, according to court records. Continue reading.

The Memo: Trump is diminished but hasn’t faded

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Tuesday marks six months since former President Trump left the White House.

Back then, Trump helicoptered off the South Lawn having become the only president in history to be twice impeached. The tumult of the Jan. 6 insurrection was still reverberating.

Where he stands now is a more complicated question. Continue reading.

Trump says Gen. Mark Milley should be ‘court-martialed’ if he thought the former president potentially sought a coup

Former President Donald Trump on Friday said that General Mark Milley should be “court-martialed and tried” if he believed that the former president sought to carry out a coup, referencing an excerpt from a forthcoming book by Washington Post reporters Carol D. Leonnig and Philip Rucker.

Trump has pushed back against the excerpt from “I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year,” which said that Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, discussed the possibility of a coup with friends, legislators, and colleagues.

“The writings within these third-rate books are Fake News, and ‘General’ Milley (who [former Defense Secretary James] Mattis wanted to send to Europe in order to get rid of him), if he said what was reported, perhaps should be impeached, or court-martialed and tried,” the former president said in a statement. “He tries to be a tough guy, which he is not, but he choked beyond belief as soon as a microphone was stuffed in front of his face or, at the mere sight of the Fake News Media.”

Trump lashes out at Fox News after investigation debunks his allegations of fraud in Arizona

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President Donald Trump angrily lashed out at Fox News on Friday evening.

Trump was reacting to an Associated Press investigation that discredited his conspiracy theories about massive fraud in Arizona, a state which was won by Joe Biden.

“Arizona county election officials have identified fewer than 200 cases of potential voter fraud out of more than 3 million ballots cast in last year’s presidential election, further discrediting former President Donald Trump’s claims of a stolen election as his allies continue a disputed ballot review in the state’s most populous county,” the AP reported Friday. Continue reading.

‘A propaganda tool’ for Trump: A second federal judge castigates attorneys who filed a lawsuit challenging the 2020 results

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Just before Christmas, two Colorado lawyers filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of 160 million American voters, alleging a vast conspiracy to steal the 2020 presidential election by the voting equipment manufacturer Dominion Voting Systems, Facebook, its founder Mark Zuckerberg, his wife Priscilla Chan and elected officials in four states — and asking for $160 billion in damages.

The case was dismissed in April, but now a federal judge is considering disciplining the lawyers for filing a frivolous claim — sharply questioning the duo in a Friday hearing about whether they had allowed themselves to be used as “a propaganda tool” of former president Donald Trump.

“Did that ever occur to you? That, possibly, [you’re] just repeating stuff the president is lying about?” Federal Magistrate Judge N. Reid Neureiter asked the two lawyers, Gary D. Fielder and Ernest John Walker, during a hearing to consider sanctioning them. Continue reading.

Arizona audit muddles on with no clear end in sight

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Arizona’s partisan election audit is muddling along with no end on the horizon as Republicans in the state Senate and Democratic outside groups battle over the process.

The glacial pace of the audit — which state Senate Republicans kicked off in December — was put into sharp relief this week with each side complaining that the other had not provided needed documents related to the count.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Michael Kemp shot down a motion from the GOP to dismiss a lawsuit from liberal watchdog group American Oversight seeking documents related to the state Senate’s audit. Continue reading.

John Bolton bursts out laughing after hearing that Trump hoped he’d die of COVID

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Appearing on CNN to address a wide range of topics involving former president Donald Trump’s administration, former Trump national security adviser John Bolton was asked by co-host Brianna Keilar about a report that Donald Trump had indicated he would like to see Bolton contract COVID-19 and die.

In the middle of a discussion on Republicans continuing “kissing Trump’s ring” despite his 2020 election loss, Keilar suddenly changed direction and asked about Trump’s COVID comments which were included in Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta’s book “Nightmare Scenario: Inside the Trump Administration’s Response to the Pandemic That Changed History.”

According to the book, Trump told members of his cabinet, “Hopefully COVID takes out John.” Continue reading.

Two men charged in alleged plot to firebomb California Democratic Party headquarters

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Two men have been charged in an alleged plot to firebomb the California Democratic Party’s headquarters in Sacramento, according to an indictment unsealed Thursday.

Ian Benjamin Rogers and Jarrod Copeland were “prompted by the outcome of the 2020 Presidential election” and believed their attack would spark a “movement,” according to federal prosecutors, who said the men were members of a militia group.

Law enforcement officers seized five pipe bombs, thousands of rounds of ammunition and “between 45 and 50 firearms, including at least three fully-automatic weapons” during a January search of Rogers’s home and business, according to the indictment. Continue reading.