Trump’s Thanksgiving message attacks fraud trial judge and clerk: Live
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Donald Trump launched a fresh attack on the judge and court clerk in his New York civil fraud trial hours after a court filing stated his prior attacks had led to them being “inundated” with violent threats.
In what was bizarrely named a “Happy Thanksgiving” post on Truth Social, the former president unleashed once again on what he described as “the Racist & Incompetent Attorney General of New York State, Letitia ‘Peekaboo’ James”, “the Radical Left Trump Hating Judge, a ‘Psycho,’ Arthur Engoron” and “his Politically Biased & Corrupt Campaign Finance Violator, Chief Clerk Alison Greenfield”.
Hours earlier, a court security official said Mr Trump’s violation of his fraud trial gag order led to Justice Arthur Engoron and his staff facing hundreds of “serious and credible” threats.
“When Mr Trump violated the gag orders, the number of threatening, harassing and disparaging messages increased,” according to Wednesday’s filing, supporting the judge’s opposition to the gag order pause.
Many of the threats were antisemitic and came by phone, text, email, and social media, with transcriptions of voicemails delivered to Judge Engoron’s law clerk amounting to 275 pages, the filing noted.
Key Points
Trump struggles to get into holiday spirit with scathing Thanksgiving post
Trump’s fraud trial court flooded with credible death threats and antisemitic abuse
Trump lawyers dismiss death threats as ‘irrelevant’ to federal gag order
Fani Willis makes courtroom debut in Trump election interference case
Ex-Trump Organization executive breaks down during fraud trial testimony
Read some of the ‘serious and credible’ death threats against Trump’s fraud trial judge and his staff
13:00 , Alex Woodward
“You should be executed,” one message reads.
“Trust me when I say this,” reads another. “I will come for you. I don’t care. Ain’t nobody gonna stop me either.”
Those are just a few of the messages collected by a top security official with the New York court system who reviewed hundreds of threatening, antisemitic and homophobic messages targeting the judge overseeing Donald Trump’s fraud trial, as well as members of his staff.
We have the court filing that details the threats they received:
Trump’s fraud trial court flooded with credible death threats and antisemitic abuse
Will the Supreme Court stop this Voting Rights Act wrecking ball?
12:00 , Alex Woodward
A federal court ruling is teeing up another major Supreme Court case that could radically weaken the Voting Rights Act by blocking private citizens and civil rights groups from filing lawsuits to protect what has become America’s bedrock voting protections.
On Monday, a three-judge panel with the US Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit agreed that citizens and groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP cannot legally challenge discriminatory state and local election laws.
Voters instead would have to rely only on the Justice Department to step in.
But if a highly politicised Justice Department under a Republican president hostile to voting rights declines, they’re out of luck.
Legal analysts and voting rights advocates say the ruling is so extreme that even the conservative-dominated Supreme Court is likely to stop it.
Trump-appointed judges dealt a ‘body blow’ to the Voting Rights Act
ICYMI: Colorado Supreme Court will decide if Trump can stay on the state’s ballots
11:00 , Alex Woodward
Last week, a Colorado judge decided Trump can stay on the state’s ballots in 2024, following a lawsuit arguing that he is constitutionally barred from office because of his role in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.
An appeal of that decision now heads to the state’s Supreme Court, but Colorado officials have urged that a final decision must be made by 5 January, 2024, when primary ballots must be finalised.
The plaintiffs, watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, argued in an appeal filing that “there would be no reason to allow presidents who lead an insurrection to serve again while preventing low-level government workers who act as foot soldiers from doing so.”
“And it would defy logic to prohibit insurrectionists from holding every federal or state office except for the highest and most powerful in the land,” the filing added.
Trump attorneys continue to fight federal gag order
09:00 , Alex Woodward
Days after a federal appeals court panel grilled Trump’s legal team over their opposition to a gag order in his election interference case in Washington DC, his attorneys struck back in a letter to the court clerk to blast both the gag order and the case itself.
They dismissed death threats in his New York fraud case as irrelevant, while accusing special counsel Jack Smith of bringing “an inflammatory, lawless indictment” against Trump, making “false and misleading statements” about him, and leading “confidential information in order to harm” him.
“Both the indictment and the Gag Order represent an unconstitutional attempt to silence President Trump; they are clearly election interference,” they wrote.
The words echo the former president’s campaign-trail remarks and rhetoric on social media, where he posts conspiracy theories accusing prosecutors and judges of working with Democratic officials to keep him away from the White House.
Wife of Iowa GOP official found guilty on 52 counts of election fraud from 2020
08:00 , Alex Woodward
The wife of a Republican politician in Iowa has been convicted of dozens of criminal charges related to a 2020 voter fraud scheme aimed at getting her husband into office.
Kim Phuong Taylor submitted absentee ballots on behalf of voters who had not given her permission to do so.
She was convicted of 52 counts in total, including 26 counts of providing false information in registering and voting, 23 counts of voter fraud, and three counts of fraudulently registering to vote. She could face up to five years in prison for each charge.
The Independent’s John Bowden has more:
Wife of Iowa GOP official found guilty on 52 counts of election fraud from 2020
Trump lawyers dismiss death threats as ‘irrelevant’ to federal gag order
07:00 , Alex Woodward
A wave of death threats and antisemitic and homophobic messages were sent to the judge overseeing Donald Trump’s fraud trial, as well as his chief clerk, according to a state court filing this week.
A filing to support New York Justice Arthur Engoron’s opposition to a freeze on a gag order in the case includes a statement from the court’s top security official, who has collected “hundreds of threats, disparaging and harassing comments and antisemitic messages” that followed the former president’s harassment.
Federal prosecutors – who are seeking a separate gag order – shared those threats with the federal appeals court judges who will decide whether Mr Trump should be gagged in his election interference case.
But on Friday, the former president’s attorneys dismissed those threats as “irrelevant”.
Read more from The Independent:
Trump lawyers dismiss death threats as ‘irrelevant’ to federal gag order
Trump’s attorneys in his New York fraud trial are targeting the accountants
05:00 , Alex Woodward
Judge Arthur Engoron already found Donald Trump and his co-defendants liable for fraud outlined in New York Attorney General’s blockbuster lawsuit.
In the eighth week of a trial stemming from her bombshell complaint, attorneys for the former president have narrowed their defence: blame the accountants.
The latest:
Ex-Trump Organization executive breaks down during fraud trial testimony
One of Trump’s co-defendants in his Georgia case won’t be going back to jail, for now
04:00 , Alex Woodward
Harrison Floyd, the leader of Black Voices for Trump, has “engaged in a pattern of intimidation” against his co-defendants and witnesses since he was released on bond in the Trump election interferference case in Georgia in August, according to the Fulton County District Attorney’s office.
But following a three-hour hearing on Tuesday, Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee declined to send Mr Floyd back to jail and directed the parties to draft an order that reels in his public statements.
The hearing marked District Attorney Fani Willis’s courtroom debut in the case.
She delivered a fierce defence of her move to strip Mr Floyd’s bond.
“I’m threatened everyday anyway,” she told the judge. “I’m a public official, voters elected me, and I’ve put myself in that position. That does not give him the right to contact co-defendants or intimidate other witnesses. And quite frankly, it’s really in the defendant’s interest to shut his mouth about this case because it can and will be used against him.”
Read more in The Independent:
Fulton County DA Fani Willis makes Trump courtroom debut
Appeals court judges aren’t convinced with Trump’s gag order opposition
02:00 , Alex Woodward
A federal appeals court will determine whether to keep a gag order in place in Donald Trump’s federal election interference case.
In court this week, Trump’s attorney John Sauer repeatedly argued his client’s statements are “core political speech” protected under the First Amendment.
But Circuit Judge Patricia Millett cut him off at one point to ask whether those comments are merely protected political speech or “political speech aimed at derailing or corrupting the criminal justice process.”
Judges aren’t buying Trump’s gag order appeal
Read some of the ‘serious and credible’ death threats against Trump’s fraud trial judge and his staff
01:00 , Alex Woodward
“You should be executed,” one message reads.
“Trust me when I say this,” reads another. “I will come for you. I don’t care. Ain’t nobody gonna stop me either.”
Those are just a few of the messages collected by a top security official with the New York court system who reviewed hundreds of threatening, antisemitic and homophobic messages targeting the judge overseeing Donald Trump’s fraud trial, as well as members of his staff.
We have the court filing detailing the threats they received:
Trump’s fraud trial court flooded with credible death threats and antisemitic abuse
Trump-appointed judges landed a ‘body blow’ against the Voting Rights Act. Will the Supreme Court stop them?
00:00 , Alex Woodward
A federal court ruling is teeing up another major Supreme Court case that could radically weaken the Voting Rights Act by blocking private citizens and civil rights groups from filing lawsuits to protect what has become America’s bedrock voting protections.
On Monday, a three-judge panel with the US Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit upheld a lower court ruling that determined that citizens and groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP cannot legally challenge discriminatory state and local election laws.
Voters facing discriminatory laws would have to rely only on the Justice Department to take up their case.
If a highly politicised Justice Department under a Republican president hostile to voting rights declines, they’re out of luck.
Legal analysts and voting rights advocates say the ruling is so extreme that even the conservative-dominated Supreme Court is likely to cut it down.
Trump-appointed judges dealt a ‘body blow’ to the Voting Rights Act
Eric Garcia: ‘The Maga release of the Jan 6 tapes is about vengeance'
Friday 24 November 2023 23:00 , Alex Woodward
Newly elected Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson released more than 44,000 hours of raw footage from the January 6 attack on the US Capitol this week.
It’s less about transparency and more about revenge against Democratic officials who investigated the riot and the former president’s role in the first place, The Independent’s Eric Garcia writes:
Republicans know that January 6 is a huge albatross around their necks and they hope to reshape the narrative about the riot so that they can move on. The problem is that the loudest voices are giving away the game and revealing this is not only an attempt to whitewash the events but rather to run interference and defend Mr Trump.
The Maga release of the Jan 6 tapes is about vengeance
The latest: Trump lawyers dismiss death threats as ‘irrelevant’ to federal gag order
Friday 24 November 2023 22:00 , Alex Woodward
A wave of death threats and antisemitic and homophobic messages were sent to the judge overseeing Donald Trump’s fraud trial, as well as his chief clerk, according to a state court filing this week.
A filing to support New York Justice Arthur Engoron’s opposition to a freeze on a gag order in the case includes a statement from the court’s top security official, who has collected “hundreds of threats, disparaging and harassing comments and antisemitic messages” that followed the former president’s harassment.
Federal prosecutors – who are seeking a separate gag order – shared those threats with the federal appeals court judges who will decide whether Mr Trump should be gagged in his election interference case.
But on Friday, the former president’s attorneys dismissed those threats as “irrelevant”.
Read more from The Independent:
Trump lawyers dismiss death threats as ‘irrelevant’ to federal gag order
Wife of Iowa GOP official found guilty on 52 counts of election fraud from 2020
Friday 24 November 2023 21:30 , Alex Woodward
The wife of a Republican politician in Iowa has been convicted of dozens of criminal charges related to a 2020 voter fraud scheme aimed at getting her husband into office.
Kim Phuong Taylor submitted absentee ballots on behalf of voters who had not given her permission to do so.
She was convicted of 52 counts in total, including 26 counts of providing false information in registering and voting, 23 counts of voter fraud, and three counts of fraudulently registering to vote. She could face up to five years in prison for each charge.
The Independent’s John Bowden has more:
Wife of Iowa GOP official found guilty on 52 counts of election fraud from 2020
The latest: Trump attorneys continue to fight federal gag order
Friday 24 November 2023 21:00 , Alex Woodward
Days after a federal appeals court panel grilled Trump’s legal team over their opposition to a gag order in his election interference case in Washington DC, his attorneys struck back in a letter to the court clerk to blast both the gag order and the case itself.
They dismissed death threats in his New York fraud case as irrelevant, while accusing special counsel Jack Smith of bringing “an inflammatory, lawless indictment” against Trump, making “false and misleading statements” about him, and leading “confidential information in order to harm” him.
“Both the indictment and the Gag Order represent an unconstitutional attempt to silence President Trump; they are clearly election interference,” they wrote.
The words echo the former president’s campaign-trail remarks and rhetoric on social media, where he posts conspiracy theories accusing prosecutors and judges of working with Democratic officials to keep him away from the White House.
Just in: Dean Phillips won’t seek re-election to Congress
Friday 24 November 2023 20:34 , Alex Woodward
Dean Phillips, who is pursuing a long-shot challenge against President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination in 2024, announced that he won’t be seeking his re-election to Congress.
He is currently a state representative for Minnesota.
Mr Phillips already was facing several interparty challenges for his seat in Congress after he began mulling plans to challenge Mr Biden.
Representing our nation's most civically engaged community in Congress has been the most joyful experience of my life.
Now it’s time to pass the torch - with gratitude and optimism. https://t.co/j7UDPekcuI— Rep. Dean Phillips 🇺🇸 (@RepDeanPhillips) November 24, 2023
ICYMI: Fani Willis made her courtroom debut in the election interference case
Friday 24 November 2023 19:15 , Alex Woodward
Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis made her debut arguing before a judge and questioning witnesses in a case surrounding Donald Trump’s sprawling election interference case this week.
She ressed a judge to revoke a bond order for one of Trump’s co-defendants who repeatedly posted about several people involved the case despite the terms of his release prohibiting him from communication with witnesses or co-defendants “directly or indirectly”.
The appearance from Ms Willis previewed the arguments, evidence and list of witnesses expected to testify in the upcoming trial, among several criminal cases surrounding the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination for president.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee declined to send Harrison Floyd back to jail and directed the parties to draft an order that reels in his public statements.
Fulton County DA Fani Willis makes Trump courtroom debut
Georgia Supreme Court rejects GOP attempts to remove state prosecutors – including Fani Willis
Friday 24 November 2023 18:35 , Alex Woodward
Georgia’s Supreme Court rejected a commission’s authority to remove state prosecutors, which Republican officials had hoped to use against Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, whose sprawling racketeering case against Donald Trump and his co-defendants is steering towards a criminal trial in Atlanta.
A ruling from the court on Wednesday surrounding the Prosecuting Attorneys Qualifications Commission – which was established by Republican Governor Brian Kemp earlier this year – argued it does not have the constitutional authority to do so.
Mr Kemp said the committee was created to remove local prosecutors who did not fulfill their “constitutional and statutory duties” or were “driven by out-of-touch politics.”
Republican lawmakers in the state intended to wield that authority against Ms Willis and other Democratic elected prosecutors.
But the state’s highest court has “grave doubts that we have the constitutional power to take any action on the draft standards and rules,” according to the ruling.
DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston, among several Georgia prosecutors who sued to overturn the commission, said they are “pleased the justices have taken action to stop this unconstitutional attack on the state’s prosecutors.”
“While we celebrate this as a victory, we remain steadfast in our commitment to fight any future attempts to undermine the will of Georgia voters and the independence of the prosecutors who they choose to represent them,” she added.
Elise Stefanik takes credit for gag order ruling she had nothing to do with
Friday 24 November 2023 17:45 , Alex Woodward
Elise Stefanik is among congressional Republicans defending the former president in the court of public opinion as he faces a potentially crushing judgment in his civil fraud trial.
She filed an ethics complaint against the judge overseeing the trial, and then took credit for an appeals court ruling that temporarily paused a gag order in the case.
Ms Stefanik, the third-ranking House Republican, now appears to be using the gag order in her election messaging.
From her personal campaign account, she claimed that she “fought to lift President Trump’s gag order and won.” Her statements did not appear to have anything to do with the order.
“But the fight doesn’t end here. We must work to re-elect Trump on November 5, 2024,” she added. “Together, we can protect ALL Americans’ First Amendment and due process rights.”
I fought to lift President Trump's gag order and won.
But the fight doesn't end here. We must work to re-elect Trump on November 5, 2024.
Together, we can protect ALL Americans' First Amendment and due process rights.— Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) November 24, 2023
Rudy Giuliani sued for allegedly skipping out on $10k payment to accounting firm
Friday 24 November 2023 17:20 , Alex Woodward
Rudy Giuliani is facing yet another lawsuit.
A former associate is suing him for $10,000, adding to the mountain of debt the former New York City mayor and Trump attorney is facing.
BST & Co. CPAs, LLP, an accounting firm based in Latham, New York, claims he had the company conduct an appraisal of his business interests while he separated from his wife, Judith Nathan, without paying them.
Including interest, the firm now seeks to recover about $25,000.
Michelle Del Rey reports:
Giuliani sued for allegedly skipping out on $10k payment to accounting firm
Michael Cohen: Trump is watching himself lose in court ‘every single day'
Friday 24 November 2023 16:45 , Alex Woodward
Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen, who testified against him in the civil fraud trial in New York, said his former boss is “seeing himself lose every single day” he is in court.
“That case is going to financially put Trump on his a**, not to mention it is going to unwind the Trump corporation, at least here in the state,” he said on his podcast on Thursday.
“It becomes what’s known as the death spiral where you’re no longer able to operate,” he added.
Judge Arthur Engoron, who is overseeing the case, already found Trump liable for fraud, in a pretrial judgment that effectively dissolved his ability to do business in the state. That part of the order has been temporarily frozen on appeal.
Trump has called the judgment “the corporate death penalty” against him, as he continues to base his campaign a conspiracy theory that the multiple criminal and civil cases against him are intended to keep him away from the White House.
In his two-day testimony in the fraud trial, Cohen claimed he was “tasked by Mr Trump to increase the total assets based upon a number that he arbitrarily elected” for his statement of financial condition, the documents at the centre of the case.
Cohen and convicted former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg were instructed to “reverse engineer the various different asset classes – increase those assets – in order to achieve the number that Mr Trump had tasked us with,” Cohen said.
Asked by counsel for the attorney general’s office what that number was, Cohen replied: “Whatever number Mr Trump told us to.”
Under questioning from Trump’s attorneys, Cohen agreed that his former boss never explicitly asked him to “inflate” the figures at the centre of the case.
“Donald Trump speaks like a mob boss,” Cohen testified. “He tells you what he wants without specifically telling you … That’s what I was referring to.”
Trump plans to visit Javier Milei, according to Argentina’s new president-elect
Friday 24 November 2023 16:10 , Alex Woodward
Trump reportedly told Argentina’s far-right president-elect Javier Milei that he plans to travel to meet him, Mr Milei’s office said on Thursday.
The office did not provide a date. Mr Milei is scheduled to be inaugurated on 10 December.
“The president-elect received a call last night from the former president of the United States, Donald Trump, who congratulated him and pointed out his triumph by a wide margin in last Sunday’s election had a great impact on a global scale,” according to a statement from Mr Milei’s office.
In a video on Tuesday, Trump said: “I am very proud of you. You will turn your country around and truly make Argentina great again.”
President Joe Biden, meanwhile, also has called Mr Milei following his election victory to discuss “the strong relationship between the United States and Argentina on economic issues, on regional and multilateral cooperation, and on shared priorities, including advocating for the protection of human rights, addressing food insecurity and investing in clean energy.”
Meet South America’s incoming new MAGA-like leader:
South America’s Trump wins election: Meet Argentina’s new MAGA-like leader
Trump’s lawyers dismiss death threats as ‘irrelevant’ to federal gag order case
Friday 24 November 2023 15:20 , Alex Woodward
That was fast.
Hours after Jack Smith’s team directed a federal appeals court judge to the mountain of threats to court staff surrounding Trump’s fraud case, the former president’s attorneys dismissed it as “irrelevant”.
A federal appeals court is considering whether to keep a gag order in place in Trump’s federal election interference case.
On Wednesday, attorneys for the judge overseeing Trump’s fraud trial in New York told a separate appeals court – also considering a gag order – about the wave of threatening messages his staff has received after Trump’s comments.
Mr Smith’s team included that statement in a Thanksgiving Day filing to support its push for a gag order in the federal case, but on Friday, Trump’s attorney’s called it “an impermissible attempt to supplement the record on appeal with irrelevant information that could have been, but was not, submitted to the district court below.”
“To date, the prosecution has never submitted any evidence of alleged ‘threats’ or ‘harassment’ to any prosecutor, court staffer, or potential witness in this case,” the letter from Trump’s attorney states.
“This falls short of the ‘solidity of evidence’ required to justify a prior restraint,” they argue.
Jack Smith’s team points to fraud trial death threats in latest gag order filing
Friday 24 November 2023 15:00 , Alex Woodward
Good morning from New York.
Donald Trump’s supporters unleashed a wave of death threats and antisemitic and homophobic messages to the judge overseeing his fraud trial, as well as his chief clerk, according to a court filing this week.
A gag order prohibited all parties in the case from making disparaging remarks towards the judge’s staff, including his principal law clerk, but a state appeals court judge paused the order earlier this month.
A filing this week to support Justice Arthur Engoron’s opposition to the pause includes an affidavit from a court security official who has collected “hundreds of threats, disparaging and harassing comments and antisemitic messages” that followed the former president’s harassment.
Now, Jack Smith’s team – which is seeking a separate gag order in Trump’s federal election interference case – is including those statements in a filing to another appeals court judge taking up the issue.
Federal prosecutors referred the appeals court judge to reffered to the filing, as well as “harassing voicemail messages that have been transcribed into over 275 single spaced pages.”
Read more about the threats in The Independent:
Trump’s fraud trial court flooded with credible death threats and antisemitic abuse
Analysis: Trump un-gagged could prime his fraud trial for more chaos
Friday 24 November 2023 13:00 , Mike Bedigan
For six weeks, lawyers with New York Attorney General Letitia James put more than two dozen witnesses on the stand and introduced dozens of documents to connect Donald Trump and his business empire to a decade of fraud allegations.
When the attorney general handed the case to his team of lawyers on 13 November, their first witness was Donald Trump Jr, who spent several hours testifying to his father’s “artistry” and “sexy” properties.
Two days later, Mr Trump’s attorneys demanded a mistrial. They lost. His attorneys also sued the judge overseeing the case, hoping to strike down a gag order that has blocked the former president from attacking court staff. They won.
Meanwhile, other members of Mr Trump’s legal team – a stable of attorneys defending him in four criminal cases and lawsuits across the country – are preparing for a separate courtroom battle to revoke a different gag order that prevents him from attacking witnesses and others in case accusing him of a conspiracy to overturn 2020 presidential election results.
In a filing to a federal judge, Mr Trump’s attorneys argued that the gag order blocks his “core political speech” – including his abilities to spread false claims about the chief court clerk in his fraud trial, in a courthouse that has been inundated with threatening messages.
Trump un-gagged could prime his fraud trial for more chaos
Tim Ryan: Democrats must fix their ‘brand’ – and ditch Biden – to win in 2024
Friday 24 November 2023 11:00 , Mike Bedigan
Democrats saw a series of welcome victories across Ohio, Virginia, and Kentucky last week as voters in statewide elections delivered the GOP key defeats chiefly tied to the issue of abortion rights.
Left-leaning activists in Virginia and Ohio in particular appeared energised by their victories, a much-needed boost to their confidence and optimism after heartbreaking defeats for the party in 2022 and 2021. Ohioans saw the election of author and Trump convert JD Vance to the US Senate, while Virginians witnessed the downfall of Terry McAuliffe, their state’s former governor, as he sought to defeat Republican Glenn Youngkin. Both were considered blows to Joe Biden for different reasons — in Virginia, Mr McAuliffe ran aligned with Mr Biden and was beaten soundly just months into the latter’s presidency, and in Ohio the president lost a much-needed opportunity to pick up a vote for his agenda in the US Senate.
But 2024 is on the horizon, and Democrats are looking ahead to the future — though not without some considerable sense of unease.
John Bowden spoke with Mr Tim Ryan.
Tim Ryan warns Democrats must fix ‘brand’ – and ditch Biden – to win in 2024
Cassidy Hutchinson gives dire warning about another Trump presidency
Friday 24 November 2023 09:09 , Mike Bedigan
Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide under the Trump administration, issued a grim warning about the state of democracy in the US should Donald Trump win the presidential election in 2024.
“If Donald Trump is elected president again in 2024, I do fear that it will be the last election where we’re voting for democracy because if he is elected again, I don’t think we’ll be voting under the same Constitution,” Ms Hutchinson told Jen Psaki onInside with Jen Psaki.
Ms Hutchinson worked in close proximity to Mr Trump, especially toward the end of his presidency when the events on January 6 unfolded. She testified to Congress that Mr Trump knowingly said and did things leading up to the attack on the Capitol that encouraged the mob.
Now she’s warning voters to choose wisely next year, should the election be another matchup between President Joe Biden and Mr Trump.
Trump rants about delay in Hamas hostage release
Friday 24 November 2023 07:00 , Mike Bedigan
In an angry Truth Social post on Wednesday night, Donald Trump hit out at the delay in the release of hostages being held captive by Hamas militants in Gaza – and unsurprisingly sought to blame President Joe Biden.
“Hostage deal substantially delayed. Too much talk, no action!!! Some hostages held by criminal syndicates of which Hamas has no control,” Mr Trump wrote.
“ZERO RESPECT FOR THE UNITED STATES, & OUR INCOMPETENT LEADERSHIP!”
On Wednesday, the Israeli government approved a truce agreement – brokered by the US, Qatar and Egypt – to secure the release of hostages kidnapped by Hamas in the 7 October attacks on Israel which left 1,400 Israelis dead.
Under the terms of the deal, 50 hostages – many of them women and children – would be freed by Hamas in exchange for a four-day pause in Israel’s air and ground campaign in Gaza. An unknown number of Palestinian women and children held in Israeli prisons will also be released as part of the agreement,The Independent learned.
The hostage release had been expected to begin on Thursday morning but is now expected to commence on Friday morning local time.
While Mr Trump seeks to blame Mr Biden for the delay, the Biden administration actually played a key role in getting the deal over the line.
The negotiations are said to have begun when the president travelled to Israel last month and met face to face with Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu.
Trump’s former White House counsel delivers withering takedown of ex-president
Friday 24 November 2023 05:01 , Mike Bedigan
There are a significant number of former Trump administration officials, staffers, and aides who have become vocal critics of former president Donald Trump, his 2024 campaign, and the prospect of him returning to the White House.
They are running against him (Chris Christie, Nikki Haley, Mike Pence), are testifying against him (Cassidy Hutchinson, Bill Barr), or are more than willing to eviscerate him on cable news (John Bolton, Chris Christie, Bill Bar, Cassidy Hutchinson, Olivia Troya, Stephanie Grisham, etc...).
The Washington Post asked in an article earlier this week whether their declarations that he shouldn’t be president would make a difference, and tapped former White House counsel Ty Cobb, who defended Mr Trump during the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Once a loyal soldier for the former president, he gave this withering quote in the Post article saying it was imperative that people vote against him:
“He has never cared about America, its citizens, its future or anything but himself. In fact, as history well shows from his divisive lies, as well as from his unrestrained contempt for the rule of law and his related crimes, his conduct and mere existence have hastened the demise of democracy and of the nation,” Cobb wrote in an email. “Our adversaries and our allies both recognize that even his potential reelection diminishes America on the world stage and ensures continued acceleration of the domestic decline we are currently enduring. If that reelection actually happens, the consequences will extinguish what, if anything, remains of the American Dream.”
Ouch.
Voting Rights Act dealt ‘body blow’ by Trump-appointed judges
Friday 24 November 2023 03:00 , Mike Bedigan
Over the last decade, the US Supreme Court has gradually chipped away at a landmark voting rights law adopted at the height of the civil rights movement.
A federal court ruling is teeing up another major Supreme Court case that could radically weaken the Voting Rights Act by blocking private citizens and civil rights groups from filing lawsuits to protect what has become America’s bedrock voting protections.
On Monday, a three-judge panel with the US Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit upheld a lower court ruling that determined that citizens and groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP cannot legally challenge discriminatory state and local election laws.
According to two of the judges on the panel, only the US Department of Justice can do so.
Trump-appointed judges dealt a ‘body blow’ to the Voting Rights Act
Blow for Ron DeSantis’ campaign as super PAC CEO quits
Thursday 23 November 2023 22:15 , Rachel Sharp
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign was dealt a blow this week when the chief executive of the super PAC supporting him resigned, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.
Chris Jankowski sent a resignation note to the board of Never Back Down, a super PAC dedicated to electing Mr DeSantis as president.
“Never Back Down’s main goal and sole focus has been to elect Gov. Ron DeSantis as president,” Mr Jankowski said in a statement.
“Given the current environment it has become untenable for me to deliver on the shared goal and that goes well beyond a difference of strategic opinion. For the future of our country I support and pray Ron DeSantis is our 47th president.
Read the full story:
Blow for Ron DeSantis’ campaign as super PAC CEO quits
Trump struggles to get into holiday spirit with scathing Thanksgiving post
Thursday 23 November 2023 21:30 , Rachel Sharp
Donald Trump appears to be struggling to get into the holiday spirit and is far from feeling thankful – that’s if his latest Truth Social rants are anything to go by.
In the early hours of Thanksgiving morning, the former president took to his social media platform to launch the latest in a growing number of attacks on the judge and court clerk in his New York civil fraud trial.
Bizarrely beginning with the phrase “Happy Thanksgiving”, Mr Trump unleashed on who he described as “the Racist & Incompetent” New York Attorney General Letitia James, “the Radical Left Trump Hating Judge, a “Psycho”” Justice Arthur Engoron and “his Politically Biased & Corrupt Campaign Finance Violator” court clerk Alison Greenfield.
Read the full story:
Trump struggles to get into holiday spirit with scathing Thanksgiving post
WATCH: Trump moans that he didn't get any Thanksgiving food
Thursday 23 November 2023 20:45 , Rachel Sharp
Trump’s fraud trial court flooded with credible death threats and antisemitic abuse
Thursday 23 November 2023 20:00 , Rachel Sharp
A flood of credible death threats and antisemitic messages have inundated the judge and court staff overseeing Donald Trump’s fraud trial in New York, according to the court’s top public safety officer.
Judge Arthur Engoron and his clerk received “hundreds of threats, disparaging and harassing comments and antisemitic messages” that followed the former president’s harassment, according to a court filing to support a gag order that blocks Mr Trump from attacking the court’s staff.
Transcriptions of threatening voicemails after Mr Trump first targeted Judge Engoron’s chief clerk fill more than 275 single-spaced pages, according to Wednesday’s filing.
The threats against them are “serious and credible and not hypothetical or speculative,” according to the filing from Charles Hollon, an officer-captain with the court’s Department of Public Safety assigned to a judicial threats unit.
Read the full story here:
Trump’s fraud trial court flooded with credible death threats and antisemitic abuse
Trump attorneys push for federal election interference indictment to be dismissed
Thursday 23 November 2023 19:15 , Rachel Sharp
On Wednesday, Donald Trump’s legal team filed three briefs in support of the motion to dismiss the indictment against him in the federal election interference case.
The three filings argue that the charges should be dismissed with prejudice on three grounds: constitutional grounds, statutory grounds, and for vindictive/selective prosecution.
In the first filing, Mr Trump’s attorneys argue that prosecutors have failed to show that the former president deceived or tricked anyone when he claimed that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
Here’s a passage from the document: “According to the prosecution, robotically incanting the claim that President Donald J. Trump’s statements about the 2020 Presidential Election “were false” and that he “knew that they were false” is sufficient to support its charges. The prosecution is wrong. Even taking the prosecution’s preposterous allegations as true, President Trump’s statements were not capable of “tricking” or “deceiving” anyone. Just the opposite, they were pure advocacy, reflecting only one of countless millions of opinions on the integrity of that election. President’s Trump’s listeners—including the sophisticated elected officials described in the indictment—were free to agree or disagree with President Trump’s views, and the prosecution does not allege otherwise.”
Voting Rights Act dealt ‘body blow’ by Trump-appointed judges
Thursday 23 November 2023 17:45 , Oliver O'Connell
Over the last decade, the US Supreme Court has gradually chipped away at a landmark voting rights law adopted at the height of the civil rights movement.
A federal court ruling is teeing up another major Supreme Court case that could radically weaken the Voting Rights Act by blocking private citizens and civil rights groups from filing lawsuits to protect what has become America’s bedrock voting protections.
On Monday, a three-judge panel with the US Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit upheld a lower court ruling that determined that citizens and groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP cannot legally challenge discriminatory state and local election laws.
According to two of the judges on the panel, only the US Department of Justice can do so.
Trump-appointed judges dealt a ‘body blow’ to the Voting Rights Act
ICYMI: Trump can remain on 2024 primary ballot, Colorado judge says
Thursday 23 November 2023 16:15 , Oliver O'Connell
Donald Trump may still appear on the 2024 primary presidential ballot in Colorado, a state has judge ruled – shutting down efforts to remove the former president by invoking the 14th Amendment.
The attempt to remove Mr Trump from the ballot was based on the claim that he is constitutionally barred from office because of the January 6 insurrection.
The decision, issued on Friday afternoon by Colorado District Judge Sarah Wallace, comes after judges in Minnesota and Michigan also refused to remove Mr Trump from those states’ Republican primary ballots.
It comes following a weeklong hearing in Denver. A lawsuit filed by a group of Republican voters and unaffiliated Colorado voters by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), argued that Mr Trump had “failed” that test and rendered him “constitutionally ineligible to appear on any Colorado ballot as a candidate for federal or state office”.
The 14 Amendment, adopted in the aftermath of the US Civil War, prohibits anyone who has sworn an oath to uphold the constitution — including elected officials — and who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof”, from holding office in the future.
Full story: Trump’s fraud trial court flooded with credible death threats and antisemitic abuse
Thursday 23 November 2023 15:30 , Oliver O'Connell
A flood of credible death threats and antisemitic messages have inundated the judge and court staff overseeing Donald Trump’s fraud trial in New York, according to the court’s top public safety officer.
Judge Arthur Engoron and his clerk received “hundreds of threats, disparaging and harassing comments and antisemitic messages” that followed the former president’s harassment, according to a court filing to support a gag order that blocks Mr Trump from attacking the court’s staff.
Transcriptions of threatening voicemails after Mr Trump first targeted Judge Engoron’s chief clerk fill more than 275 single-spaced pages, according to Wednesday’s filing.
The threats against them are “serious and credible and not hypothetical or speculative,” according to the filing from Charles Hollon, an officer-captain with the court’s Department of Public Safety assigned to a judicial threats unit.
“You should be executed,” one message reads.
Alex Woodward has been following the trial for The Independent and filed this report.
Trump’s fraud trial court flooded with credible death threats and antisemitic abuse
ICYMI: Fani Willis makes Trump courtroom debut
Thursday 23 November 2023 14:45 , Oliver O'Connell
Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis made her debut arguing before a judge and questioning witnesses in a case surrounding Donald Trump’s sprawling election interference case as she pressed a judge to revoke a bond order for one of the former president’s co-defendants.
Her appearance previewed the arguments, evidence and list of witnesses expected to testify in the upcoming trial, among several criminal cases surrounding the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination for president.
Harrison Floyd, the leader of Black Voices for Trump, has “engaged in a pattern of intimidation” against his co-defendants and witnesses since he was released on bond in August, according to the Fulton County District Attorney’s office.
But following a three-hour hearing on Tuesday, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee declined to send Mr Floyd back to jail and directed the parties to draft an order that reels in his public statements.
Fulton County DA Fani Willis makes Trump courtroom debut
Former Trump Organization executive breaks down during fraud trial testimony
Thursday 23 November 2023 14:00 , Oliver O'Connell
After spending two days on the witness stand for a second time, Jeffrey McConney had enough.
Through tears, he told a defence attorney for his former boss Donald Trump and his co-defendants that he “gave up” his longtime accounting role with the Trump Organization following a crushing wave of legal threats against it.
“I just wanted to relax and stop being accused of misrepresenting assets for the company that I loved working for,” he testified in a lower Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday. “I’m sorry.”
Mr McConney is among more than a dozen defendants charged in a sprawling fraud lawsuit from New York Attorney General Letitia James, who has accused the former president, his two adult sons and chief associates of grossly inflating his net worth and assets to fraudulently obtain favourable financial terms over a decade in an effort to boost the family’s brand-building properties in its vast real estate empire.
Judge Arthur Engoron already found the defendants liable for fraud.
Much has been made of Biden’s age, but Trump is only four years younger...
Thursday 23 November 2023 13:00 , Oliver O'Connell
When Donald Trump was inaugurated in January 2017, he became the oldest commander-in-chief sworn in at the age of 70 years and 220 days old.
That was surpassed by his successor Joe Biden, who was 78 years and 61 days when he became the country’s 46th president in January 2021.
Before Mr Trump, Ronald Reagan was the oldest person to assume the presidency at 69 years and 349 years old at his first inauguration in 1981.
Reagan was the oldest president when he left office at the age of 77 in 1989, just 22 days away from turning 78.
But depending on who wins the 2024 presidential election, a new record could be set as both Mr Biden and Mr Trump are running for reelection.
Graeme Massie reports.
How Donald Trump’s age compares to other presidents
Trump struggles to get into holiday spirit with scathing Thanksgiving post
Thursday 23 November 2023 12:19 , Rachel Sharp
Donald Trump appears to be struggling to get into the holiday spirit and is far from feeling thankful – that’s if his latest Truth Social rants are anything to go by.
In the early hours of Thanksgiving morning, the former president took to his social media platform to launch the latest in a growing number of attacks on the judge and court clerk in his New York civil fraud trial.
Bizarrely beginning with the phrase “Happy Thanksgiving”, Mr Trump unleashed on who he described as “the Racist & Incompetent” New York Attorney General Letitia James, “the Radical Left Trump Hating Judge, a “Psycho”” Justice Arthur Engoron and “his Politically Biased & Corrupt Campaign Finance Violator” court clerk Alison Greenfield.
“Happy Thanksgiving to ALL, including the Racist & Incompetent Attorney General of New York State, Letitia “Peekaboo” James, who has let Murder & Violent Crime FLOURISH, & Businesses FLEE; the Radical Left Trump Hating Judge, a “Psycho,” Arthur Engoron, who Criminally Defrauded the State of New York, & ME, by purposely Valuing my Assets at a “tiny” Fraction of what they are really worth in order to convict me of Fraud before even a Trial, or seeing any PROOF, & used his Politically Biased & Corrupt Campaign Finance Violator, Chief Clerk Alison Greenfield, to sit by his side on the “Bench” & tell him what to do; & Crooked Joe Biden, who has WEAPONIZED his Department of Injustice against his Political Opponent, & allowed our Country to go to HELL; & all of the other Radical Left Lunatics, Communists, Fascists, Marxists, Democrats, & RINOS, who are seriously looking to DESTROY OUR COUNTRY,” he ranted.
“Have no fear, however, we will WIN the Presidential Election of 2024, & MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”
Read the full story:
Trump struggles to get into holiday spirit with scathing Thanksgiving post
Jimmy Kimmel rips Marjorie Taylor Greene for her ‘dumbest idea yet’ in new book
Thursday 23 November 2023 10:00 , Oliver O'Connell
Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel mocked far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene for what he described as her “dumbest idea yet” following the release of her new book.
The Republican congresswoman released her memoir – titled “MTG” – on Tuesday, with Donald Trump promoting it on his Truth Social platform.
On Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Tuesday night, Mr Kimmel gave viewers a hilarious run-down of its contents as he mocked the lawmaker saying “it’s the first book she’s ever written or read”.
“Speaking of Christmas in hell, Marjorie Taylor Greene released a book today. It’s the first book she’s ever written or read, and it’s called MTG, it’s got a little bit of everything,” he said.
Martha McHardy has the story.
Jimmy Kimmel mocks Marjorie Taylor Greene’s ‘dumbest idea yet’
Full story: Trump’s fraud trial court flooded with credible death threats and antisemitic abuse
Thursday 23 November 2023 09:15 , Oliver O'Connell
A flood of credible death threats and antisemitic messages have inundated the judge and court staff overseeing Donald Trump’s fraud trial in New York, according to the court’s top public safety officer.
Judge Arthur Engoron and his clerk received “hundreds of threats, disparaging and harassing comments and antisemitic messages” that followed the former president’s harassment, according to a court filing to support a gag order that blocks Mr Trump from attacking the court’s staff.
Transcriptions of threatening voicemails after Mr Trump first targeted Judge Engoron’s chief clerk fill more than 275 single-spaced pages, according to Wednesday’s filing.
The threats against them are “serious and credible and not hypothetical or speculative,” according to the filing from Charles Hollon, an officer-captain with the court’s Department of Public Safety assigned to a judicial threats unit.
“You should be executed,” one message reads.
Alex Woodward has been following the trial for The Independent and filed this report.
Trump’s fraud trial court flooded with credible death threats and antisemitic abuse
Speaker Johnson calls abortion ‘an American Holocaust’ in resurfaced video
Thursday 23 November 2023 08:30 , Oliver O'Connell
Don’t expect a GOP heel-turn on the issue of abortion any time soon – at least not while Mike Johnson is one of the highest-ranking Republicans in Washington.
While the party has suffered repeated defeats on the issue of reproductive rights in the past two years, the right has shown no signs of abandoning its support for sharp restrictions on the availability of abortion procedures in the US. In some cases, many still support a total ban on the practice.
That radical belief is shared by only a fraction of the US population — 37 per cent, according to a Pew poll last year — but one of the most radical opponents of abortion rights in the Republican Party is now the head of its caucus in the lower chamber of Congress. A new deep dive into his political past from CNN’s KFile has revealed that Mr Johnson recently referred to the practice as an “American holocaust”.
The comments reported by CNN were made last year on a DC-based radio show. In the same interview, he accused Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest provider of reproductive health services, of viewing Black Americans as “prey”.
House Speaker Mike Johnson calls abortion ‘an American Holocaust’ in resurfaced video
Cohen says Trump’s latest subpoena is effort to ‘harass, intimidate, and retaliate’ against him
Thursday 23 November 2023 06:30 , Oliver O'Connell
Donald Trump’s former fixer and lawyer Michael Cohen has asked a Manhattan judge to quash an “wildly overbroad” subpoena issued as part of the former president’s criminal hush money trial, The Messenger reports.
Mr Cohen’s request is also backed by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who has also asked New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan to reject the subpoena on similar grounds.
“The subpoena issued to Mr Cohen is an obvious and blatant act of witness intimidation, and merely the latest incident in a years-long pattern of harassment and retaliation by defendant Trump,” the 33-page motion from Mr Cohen’s lawyers states.
Both Mr Cohen and the DA’s office note that the former president sued Mr Cohen for $500m before backing down and withdrawing the lawsuit.
The DA says the Trump camp’s aim is to gather evidence for if he ever were to refile the suit.
“Ever since Mr Cohen accepted criminal responsibility for his actions including actions taken on behalf of, at the direction of, and in coordination with Defendant Trump — and began providing information to authorities in numerous investigations of Defendant Trump and his various business entities, Defendant Trump has repeatedly abused the judicial system in an effort to silence Mr Cohen,” attorney Danya Perry wrote on behalf of her client, Mr Cohen.
Here’s the latest on the hush-money case regarding the creation of falsified business records for reimbursing Mr Cohen for payments to silence porn star Stormy Daniels concerning her alleged affair with Mr Trump.
Trump doctor touts former president’s ‘excellent’ health following ‘weight reduction’
Thursday 23 November 2023 04:30 , Oliver O'Connell
Donald Trump is in “excellent” health, according to a note he shared on Monday on social media, as both he and his potential 2024 opponent Joe Biden face continued questions about their age and mental fitness for the White House.
“I am pleased to report that President Trump’s overall health is excellent,” the former president’s physician, Bruce Aronwald, wrote in a letter Mr Trump shared on Truth Social. “His physical exams were well within the normal range and his cognitive exams were exceptional.”
The letter added that Mr Trump was showing improved results on certain tests, likely because of “weight reduction.”
Josh Marcus reports.
Trump posts doctor note claiming he’s lost weight as Biden marks 81st birthday
You may recall this news item from Mr Trump’s surrender to the Fulton County Jail earlier this year:
These celebrities are the same height and weight as Trump, per jail records
2024 presidential debate dates and venues announced
Thursday 23 November 2023 03:30 , Oliver O'Connell
The dates and venues for the three 2024 presidential debates have been announced.
The debates, which will take place in September and October will be staged at US university campuses in the states of Texas, Virginia and Utah.
The news was announced by the nonpartisan, nonprofit Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) on Monday.
The first debate will take place on 16 September at Texas State University in San Marcos. It will be followed by the second at Virginia State University in Petersburg on 1 October.
The final debate will take place just over a week later at The University of Utah, in Salt Lake City, on 9 October.
Mike Bedigan has further details.
Dates and venues for three 2024 presidential debates announced
Fani Willis makes Trump courtroom debut
Thursday 23 November 2023 01:30 , Oliver O'Connell
Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis made her debut arguing before a judge and questioning witnesses in a case surrounding Donald Trump’s sprawling election interference case as she pressed a judge to revoke a bond order for one of the former president’s co-defendants.
Her appearance previewed the arguments, evidence and list of witnesses expected to testify in the upcoming trial, among several criminal cases surrounding the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination for president.
Harrison Floyd, the leader of Black Voices for Trump, has “engaged in a pattern of intimidation” against his co-defendants and witnesses since he was released on bond in August, according to the Fulton County District Attorney’s office.
But following a three-hour hearing on Tuesday, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee declined to send Mr Floyd back to jail and directed the parties to draft an order that reels in his public statements.
Read more:
Fulton County DA Fani Willis makes Trump courtroom debut
ICYMI: Trump’s Truth Social sues 20 media outlets over financial loss reports
Thursday 23 November 2023 00:30 , Oliver O'Connell
Donald Trump’s Truth Social platform has filed a lawsuit against 20 media organisations for making what it claims to be defamatory statements about the company’s financial losses.
In the lawsuit, filed in the 12th Judicial Court of Sarasota County, Florida, on Monday, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) accuses the “reckless and malicious” outlets of falsely reporting that the company had lost $73m since its launch.
The company claims that the “false reporting” was part of a “seemingly coordinated effort to destroy TMTG and Truth Social”.
“This case is about an unprecedented and seemingly coordinated media campaign, by no less than 20 major media outlets, to attack Trump Media & Technology Group (“TMTG”) and its social media platform, Truth Social, by falsely reporting that TMTG had lost $73 million,” the lawsuit reads.
“This number was an utter fabrication. Each defendant, in apparent coordination, reported the exact same false number within approximately 24 hours of one another, each citing to a public Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) filing, in which the mystery $73 million loss appears nowhere.”
Full story: Trump’s fraud trial court flooded with credible death threats and antisemitic abuse
Wednesday 22 November 2023 23:00 , Oliver O'Connell
A flood of credible death threats and antisemitic messages have inundated the judge and court staff overseeing Donald Trump’s fraud trial in New York, according to the court’s top public safety officer.
Judge Arthur Engoron and his clerk received “hundreds of threats, disparaging and harassing comments and antisemitic messages” that followed the former president’s harassment, according to a court filing to support a gag order that blocks Mr Trump from attacking the court’s staff.
Transcriptions of threatening voicemails after Mr Trump first targeted Judge Engoron’s chief clerk fill more than 275 single-spaced pages, according to Wednesday’s filing.
The threats against them are “serious and credible and not hypothetical or speculative,” according to the filing from Charles Hollon, an officer-captain with the court’s Department of Public Safety assigned to a judicial threats unit.
“You should be executed,” one message reads.
Alex Woodward has been following the trial for The Independent and filed this report.
Trump’s fraud trial court flooded with credible death threats and antisemitic abuse
Former Trump Organization exec breaks down during fraud trial testimony
Wednesday 22 November 2023 22:30 , Oliver O'Connell
After spending two days on the witness stand for a second time, Jeffrey McConney had enough.
Through tears, he told a defence attorney for his former boss Donald Trump and his co-defendants that he “gave up” his longtime accounting role with the Trump Organization following a crushing wave of legal threats against it.
“I just wanted to relax and stop being accused of misrepresenting assets for the company that I loved working for,” he testified in a lower Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday. “I’m sorry.”
Mr McConney is among more than a dozen defendants charged in a sprawling fraud lawsuit from New York Attorney General Letitia James, who has accused the former president, his two adult sons and chief associates of grossly inflating his net worth and assets to fraudulently obtain favourable financial terms over a decade in an effort to boost the family’s brand-building properties in its vast real estate empire.
Judge Arthur Engoron already found the defendants liable for fraud.
Alex Woodward reports.
Ex-Trump Organization executive breaks down during fraud trial testimony
Analysis: Trump un-gagged could prime his fraud trial for more chaos
Wednesday 22 November 2023 22:00 , Oliver O'Connell
For six weeks, lawyers with New York Attorney General Letitia James put more than two dozen witnesses on the stand and introduced dozens of documents to connect Donald Trump and his business empire to a decade of fraud allegations.
When the attorney general handed the case to his team of lawyers on 13 November, their first witness was Donald Trump Jr, who spent several hours testifying to his father’s “artistry” and “sexy” properties.
Two days later, Mr Trump’s attorneys demanded a mistrial. They lost. His attorneys also sued the judge overseeing the case, hoping to strike down a gag order that has blocked the former president from attacking court staff. They won.
Meanwhile, other members of Mr Trump’s legal team – a stable of attorneys defending him in four criminal cases and lawsuits across the country – are preparing for a separate courtroom battle to revoke a different gag order that prevents him from attacking witnesses and others in case accusing him of a conspiracy to overturn 2020 presidential election results.
In a filing to a federal judge, Mr Trump’s attorneys argued that the gag order blocks his “core political speech” – including his abilities to spread false claims about the chief court clerk in his fraud trial, in a courthouse that has been inundated with threatening messages.
Much has been made of Biden’s age, but Trump is only four years younger...
Wednesday 22 November 2023 21:30 , Oliver O'Connell
When Donald Trump was inaugurated in January 2017, he became the oldest commander-in-chief sworn in at the age of 70 years and 220 days old.
That was surpassed by his successor Joe Biden, who was 78 years and 61 days when he became the country’s 46th president in January 2021.
Before Mr Trump, Ronald Reagan was the oldest person to assume the presidency at 69 years and 349 years old at his first inauguration in 1981.
Reagan was the oldest president when he left office at the age of 77 in 1989, just 22 days away from turning 78.
But depending on who wins the 2024 presidential election, a new record could be set as both Mr Biden and Mr Trump are running for reelection.
Graeme Massie reports.
How old is Donald Trump and how does his age compare to other presidents?
Speaker Johnson calls abortion ‘an American Holocaust’ in resurfaced video
Wednesday 22 November 2023 21:00 , Oliver O'Connell
Don’t expect a GOP heel-turn on the issue of abortion any time soon – at least not while Mike Johnson is one of the highest-ranking Republicans in Washington.
While the party has suffered repeated defeats on the issue of reproductive rights in the past two years, the right has shown no signs of abandoning its support for sharp restrictions on the availability of abortion procedures in the US. In some cases, many still support a total ban on the practice.
That radical belief is shared by only a fraction of the US population — 37 per cent, according to a Pew poll last year — but one of the most radical opponents of abortion rights in the Republican Party is now the head of its caucus in the lower chamber of Congress. A new deep dive into his political past from CNN’s KFile has revealed that Mr Johnson recently referred to the practice as an “American holocaust”.
The comments reported by CNN were made last year on a DC-based radio show. In the same interview, he accused Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest provider of reproductive health services, of viewing Black Americans as “prey”.
House Speaker Mike Johnson calls abortion ‘an American Holocaust’ in resurfaced video
Read the threatening voicemails targeting Trump’s fraud trial judge and clerk
Wednesday 22 November 2023 20:29 , Oliver O'Connell
Court Officer-Captain Charles Hollon in the Department of Public Safety of the New York State Unified Court System submitted the following affidavit concerning the threats made against Justice Arthur Engoron and his staff.
Cohen says Trump’s latest subpoena is effort to ‘harass, intimidate, and retaliate’ against him
Wednesday 22 November 2023 20:00 , Oliver O'Connell
Donald Trump’s former fixer and lawyer Michael Cohen has asked a Manhattan judge to quash an “wildly overbroad” subpoena issued as part of the former president’s criminal hush money trial, The Messenger reports.
Mr Cohen’s request is also backed by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who has also asked New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan to reject the subpoena on similar grounds.
“The subpoena issued to Mr Cohen is an obvious and blatant act of witness intimidation, and merely the latest incident in a years-long pattern of harassment and retaliation by defendant Trump,” the 33-page motion from Mr Cohen’s lawyers states.
Both Mr Cohen and the DA’s office note that the former president sued Mr Cohen for $500m before backing down and withdrawing the lawsuit.
The DA says the Trump camp’s aim is to gather evidence for if he ever were to refile the suit.
“Ever since Mr Cohen accepted criminal responsibility for his actions including actions taken on behalf of, at the direction of, and in coordination with Defendant Trump — and began providing information to authorities in numerous investigations of Defendant Trump and his various business entities, Defendant Trump has repeatedly abused the judicial system in an effort to silence Mr Cohen,” attorney Danya Perry wrote on behalf of her client, Mr Cohen.
Here’s the latest on the hush-money case regarding the creation of falsified business records for reimbursing Mr Cohen for payments to silence porn star Stormy Daniels concerning her alleged affair with Mr Trump.
