Trump issues unhinged new statement about ‘winning’ Georgia — and gets quickly shot down by fact checker

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Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday issued yet another statement falsely claiming to have won the 2020 presidential election in Georgia — but a fact checker for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution quickly shot down his false claims.

In his statement, Trump praised Georgia officials for removing over 100,000 names from their voter rolls — but then demanded to know why those names weren’t removed before the last election, which he narrowly lost to President Joe Biden.

“WHAT ABOUT THE LAST ELECTION?” Trump demanded. “WHY WASN’T THIS DONE PRIOR TO THE NOVEMBER 3RD PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, where they had us losing by a very small number of votes, many times less than the 101,789 figure?” Continue reading.

Trump’s quest for revenge on Republicans who opposed him could soon come back to haunt the GOP: report

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History suggests that Republicans have decent odds of capturing the House, the Senate, or both in next year’s midterm elections. In every modern midterm election except 1998 and 2002, the party out of the White House has gained seats in at least one chamber, and Democrats have only four seats to spare in the House and none in the Senate to preserve their majorities.

But as POLITICO’s Huddle noted on Tuesday, one wildcard could complicate the GOP’s efforts to make gains in 2022: former President Donald Trump’s quest for “revenge” on GOP lawmakers who haven’t shown sufficient loyalty to him.

“Donald Trump is increasingly inserting himself in the primary races of his political enemies as a form of revenge against Republicans who voted to impeach the former president after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — despite warnings from congressional allies that he should be careful about wading into primary races,” reported Olivia Beavers.’ Continue reading.

In Oklahoma, the 1995 bombing offers lessons — and warnings — for today’s fight against extremism

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OKLAHOMA CITY — Most years, the flashbacks start in April, images of blood and brick that return Fran Ferrari to the morning when she was nearly killed in the Oklahoma City bombing.

 This year, however, Ferrari’s memories arrived early when she heard glass shatter during news coverage of the Jan. 6 mob attack on the U.S. Capitol. The noise instantly took her back to the rubble of her downtown office in 1995. The rioters yelling on TV sounded to Ferrari like an alarm bell, a warning that the deadly extremism that upended her life had resurged.

 “All those faces. All I think is that it’s a bunch of Timothy McVeighs and his buddies,” said Ferrari, 66. “Maybe people’s definition of domestic terrorism is after it happens, but I define it when you see the seeds.” Continue reading.

Trump Pays Legal Fees Of Two Counties In ‘Meritless’ Georgia Election Lawsuit

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ATLANTA — Former President Donald Trump has paid the attorneys’ fees of two metro Atlanta counties in a lawsuit that sought to overturn the presidential election results in Georgia.

Election officials in Cobb and DeKalb counties sought the fees in a Trump lawsuit Cobb called “meritless and legally deficient.” A hearing on those requests was set for this Friday.

But last week Trump paid the Cobb County Board of Elections $15,554 to cover its legal costs through June 1, the county’s attorney confirmed. Trump’s attorney confirmed the former president also has paid fees to DeKalb County, though the amount was not immediately available. DeKalb sought $6,105 in fees in a motion filed in February. Continue reading.

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.

Pence chief of staff made key decision that paved way for masks to be politicized: new book

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In 2020 Marc Short, the chief of staff to then-Vice President Mike Pence, made a fateful decision that paved the way for the politicization of wearing masks. Had he chosen differently there’s no question countless lives could have been saved.

Short, who once served as the executive director of the far right Young America’s Foundation, “focused on the political and economic implications of the coronavirus response and approached many public health decisions by considering how they would be perceived,” The Washington Post reveals. That report comes from a deep-dive into the Trump pandemic response detailed in the new book, “Nightmare Scenario: Inside the Trump Administration’s Response to the Pandemic That Changed History,” by Washington Post journalists Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta.

In possibly the most damaging of those decisions, Short nixed a plan, which was far along enough to have a PR campaign already created, to send face masks to every household in America. The Dept. of Health and Human Services was backing the program, while other reports have revealed the U.S. Postal Service was also working on it. Continue reading.