Category: Trump Administration

Meet the Trump Mega-Donors Who Control the GOP’s Future

National Memo logo

Wesley Barnett was just as surprised as anyone to learn from news reports that the January 6 Trump rally that turned into a violent assault on the U.S. Capitol was funded by Julia Jenkins Fancelli, an heiress to the fortune of the popular Publix supermarket chain. But Barnett had extra cause for being startled: Fancelli is his aunt.

Barnett said he was at a loss to explain how his aunt — who isn’t on social media, lives part time in Italy and keeps a low profile in their central Florida town — got mixed up with the likes of Alex Jones and Ali Alexander, the right-wing provocateurs who were VIPs at the Jan. 6 rally in front of the White House.

Over the last five years, it has become clear that former President Donald Trump has activated a new set of mega-donors who were not previously big spenders in national politics. Some of the donors appear to share the more extreme views of many Trump supporters, based on social media posts promoting falsehoods about election fraud or masks and vaccines. Whether they will deepen their involvement or step back, and whether their giving will extend to candidates beyond Trump, will have an outsized role in steering the future of the Republican Party and even American democracy. Continue reading.

Watch: A fake Trump supporter tricks Ted Cruz into bragging about his role in pushing the big lie

Raw Story Logo

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) was caught on camera bragging that he “led the objections” on January 6 to try to overturn a free and fair election. Cruz has been highlighted, along with U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO), as the top leaders who “amplified claims of election fraud” that “resulted in threats of violence against state and local officials around the country,” according to an ethics complaint filed by seven Democratic Senators.

Lauren Windsor, who describes herself as an undercover reporter for The Undercurrent and runs a site dedicated to helping victims of Project Veritas, pretended to be a far right wing voter and asked Senator Cruz why he “didn’t do more to fight for President Trump on January 6.”

Cruz on camera brags that he “led the objections but the Senate voted it down.” Continue reading.

Trump and Melania left Biden a security ‘headache’ because they didn’t want to be bothered: report

Raw Story Logo

According to a report from CNN, serious security upgrades were required at the White House before Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election, but he left them for his successor Joe Biden when he assumed the Oval Office because the former president and his wife Melania didn’t want to deal with the mess and inconvenience of construction.

Facing security threats against the White House — and prior to the invasion of the Capitol building on Jan 6th by far-right insurrectionists — the Secret Service recommended improvements on the grounds that included “substantial upgrades to its future security apparatus, updates that would include digging deeply and extensively, from the upper main driveway to the lower, across acres of pristine green grass.”

With the Secret Service working in tandem with the National Park Service to put together a plan for the multimillion-dollar overhaul, it was left to Trump to give the go-ahead with the assurance it would be done in phases to avoid a massive upheaval on the grounds. Continue reading.

Trump Justice Department secretly obtained Post reporters’ phone records

Washington Post logo

The Trump Justice Department secretly obtained Washington Post journalists’ phone records and tried to obtain their email records over reporting they did in the early months of the Trump administration on Russia’s role in the 2016 election, according to government letters and officials.

In three separate letters dated May 3 and addressed to Post reporters Ellen Nakashima and Greg Miller, and former Post reporter Adam Entous, the Justice Department wrote they were “hereby notified that pursuant to legal process the United States Department of Justice received toll records associated with the following telephone numbers for the period from April 15, 2017 to July 31, 2017.” The letters listed work, home or cellphone numbers covering that three-and-a-half-month period.

Cameron Barr, The Post’s acting executive editor, said: “We are deeply troubled by this use of government power to seek access to the communications of journalists. The Department of Justice should immediately make clear its reasons for this intrusion into the activities of reporters doing their jobs, an activity protected under the First Amendment.” Continue reading.

Trump going on tour bringing white nationalist MAGA rallies to a state near you this summer

Raw Story Logo

The one-term twice-impeached former president, Donald Trump, is going on tour, bringing the nation more white nationalist MAGA rallies just months after his last one resulted in a march on the Capitol in an attempted coup that ended in death and destruction and hundreds of arrests of rioters and insurrectionists.

The Republican Party, Axios reports, has made the decision that Trumpism has won, as it abandons its previous “conservative” identity. And Trumpism includes MAGA rallies.

Even if Trump isn’t currently running for office, he will be endorsing candidates desperate for his help. Trumpism is reportedly even stronger within state and local politics than at the national level. Continue reading.

The GOP’s fact-free world threatens the survival of democracy

AlterNet Logo

The right-wing media apparatus, which is global in scale, has lately been making a fetish of something called “critical race theory” (CRT). This has prompted academics to defend it. It’s not a radical political ideology, they say. It’s merely a form of critical inquiry. It is not the boogeyman it’s being made out to be. There’s nothing to fear.

 understand the need to defend critical race theory. Colleges and universities are beset on one hand by Republican fascists accusing scholars of indoctrinating students, on the other by anti-left liberals accusing the same of hostility toward freedom of speech. Meanwhile, administrations act more like corporations that privilege efficiency over research and teaching. It’s enough to think CRT is an appropriate hill to die on.

 understand the need to defend critical race theory. Colleges and universities are beset on one hand by Republican fascists accusing scholars of indoctrinating students, on the other by anti-left liberals accusing the same of hostility toward freedom of speech. Meanwhile, administrations act more like corporations that privilege efficiency over research and teaching. It’s enough to think CRT is an appropriate hill to die on. Continue reading.

Rick Wilson sounds dire alarm for Democrats who think Trump is going away

Raw Story Logo

Longtime Republican strategist Rick Wilson on Friday sent out a dire warning to Democrats who believe that former President Donald Trump is going away.

Writing on Twitter, Wilson argued that the GOP’s impending purge of Trump critic Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) shows that the party is now completely under his grasp.

What makes this especially terrifying, Wilson continued, is that all internal dissent over Trump within the party has now been crushed. Continue reading.

Arizona Republicans push back against Justice Department concerns, setting up possible clash over Maricopa County recount

The Hill logo

Arizona officials involved with a Republican-commissioned recount of the November presidential election in the state’s largest county on Thursday brushed off concerns raised by the Justice Department this week, raising the possibility of a clash between state and federal authorities over the audit.

Pamela S. Karlan, who heads the Justice Department’s civil rights division, wrote a letter to the president of the Arizona state Senate on Wednesday suggesting that the recount of nearly 2.1 million ballots in Maricopa County by a private contractor may not comply with federal law, which requires that ballots be securely maintained for 22 months following a federal election.

“We have a concern that Maricopa County election records, which are required by federal law to be retained and preserved, are no longer under the ultimate control of elections officials, are not being adequately safeguarded by contractors, and are at risk of damage or loss,” she wrote. Continue reading.

Justice Department: Arizona Senate Audit, Recount May Violate Federal Law

The U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday expressed concerns that a controversial audit and recount of the November election in Arizona’s Maricopa County may be out of compliance with federal laws.

Pamela Karlan, the principal deputy assistant attorney general with the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, wrote in a letter that federal officials see two issues with the election review ordered by the Republican-led state Senate. 

One issue is that ballots, voting systems and other election materials are no longer in the custody of election officials — a possible violation of federal law, which requires state and local election workers to store and safeguard federal voting records. Continue reading.

Florida’s new voting law immediately hit with lawsuits

The Hill logo

Voting rights groups on Thursday filed a pair of lawsuits targeting a restrictive GOP-crafted voting bill, just moments after it was signed into law by Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. 

The complaints, both filed in federal court in Tallahassee, claim the law, SB 90, illegally restricts access to the ballot box, with one of the suits alleging the measure will result in illegal discrimination against voters of color.

“SB 90 is a bill that purports to solve problems that do not exist,” reads one of the suits. “[It] caters to a dangerous lie about the 2020 election that threatens our most basic democratic values, and, in the end, makes it harder to vote without adequate justification for doing so.” Continue reading.