Donald Trump, who has been impeached twice and expects to be impeached for a third time overnight, is already in the barrel of his fourth indictment. And the most recent may come with extortion charges.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has been investigating Trump for nearly two years for his role in efforts to cancel the 2020 election. He is expected to begin filing charges in a few weeks.
And one of the allegations may simply be an “extensive” extortion allegation, The Guardian reported Friday, bringing up two anonymous resources that have been briefed on the pending charges. Willis has enough evidence to show that Trump created a “company,” according to state law.
Georgia’s extortion law requires a style of activity in at least two “qualified” crimes. Willis’ indictment is reportedly based on witness influence fees and computer intrusion.
It’s unclear exactly what those allegations relate to, but it’s possible that influential witnesses are simply referring to Trump’s phone calls begging Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” 11,780 votes, the precise amount needed to return the state’s election effects to Trump.
It’s possible the computer intrusion was due to the breach of voting machines in Coffee County, which is located a few hours south of Fulton. A pro-Trump organization of people, paid through Sidney Powell, then Trump’s lawyer, edited the voting machines at the county elections office. They copied sensitive data and uploaded it to a site so that election deniers can simply use it to discover that the election had been rigged.
Coffee County falls under Fulton’s jurisdiction, but the extortion rate would allow prosecutors to report the data breach as part of a habit meant to keep Trump in force through corruption.
Trump is struggling to fend off the growing pile of accusations. Last week, he sought a new injunction to dismiss Georgia’s case. His legal team also advocated postponing the trial over the classified documents he dealt with until after the election. The trial date has just been set for May 2024.
Donald Trump is going to be tried. All in May 2024.
The two-time accused, twice-accused and sexually abused presidential candidate faces 37 counts of thief for allegedly seizing and mishandling top-secret documents. The charges make him the first former president to also be indicted through the federalArray.
And on Friday, Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, announced that Trump would go to trial on May 20, 2024, in the case of classified documents.
The trial will most likely last two weeks, meaning it will encompass the Kentucky and Oregon primaries. Several post-trial primaries will also be held in Washington, D. C. , Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota. The Republican National Convention is scheduled for July 15 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Trump is reportedly already preparing for the convention, should his nomination be blocked. )
While Trump had worked to postpone his trial until after the election, the date set through Cannon came at a time when Trump may well have won the Republican nomination.
While its warring parties could use the closed trial as fuel for the crusade, most of its warring parties have been reluctant to directly attack the former president for several weak points: being indicted twice, wasting the popular vote twice, potentially accumulating up to 4 accusations, being held responsible for sexual abuse and defamation, or any of his past crimes, such as defrauding Trump University participants or escaping. Tax.
This story has been updated.
Sen. Chuck Grassley released the FBI report Thursday that Republicans say proves the Bidens accepted bribes from Ukraine. But there’s just one problem: there’s no proof yet.
House Republicans have accused Biden’s circle of relatives of corruption for months, but have been unable to provide any genuine evidence linking President Joe Biden or his son Hunter to wrongdoing. The GOP has continually insisted that the newly released FBI document, which House members were first able to see in June, proves that either man accepted bribes.
But it’s an unverified way and it’s based on a conspiracy theory through Rudy Giuliani.
Donald Trump and Giuliani, his private lawyer at the time, first pushed the plot that Biden’s circle of relatives had accepted a $10 million bribe to indict former Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin in 2016 to prevent an investigation into Hunter Biden’s role in the oil company Burisma Holdings. Hunter Biden accepting the money. Anna Paulina Luna and Marjorie Taylor Greene said in June that Burisma executive owner Mykola Zlochevsky.
Grassley now has the form, which mentions that Zlochevsky made the first allegations of corruption. Republicans celebrate the decision and insist it proves the Bidens are to blame for corruption.
?BREAKING? Form FD-1023 alleging that then-Vice President JOE Biden participated in a $5,000,000 bribery scheme with a Burisma executive published through @ChuckGrassley. Read ? pic. twitter. com/Mc6dVIwdsG
But the fact is that FD 10-23 is used to record unverified information. This whole document only confirms that someone said that Zlochesvky had filed the accusation. It does not provide concrete evidence. Several State Department officials and intelligence experts on Russia and Ukraine have continuously denied this claim.
In addition, the confidential human source, or CHS, admits in the same document that the data may not be true. The source told the FBI that it is not unusual for Ukrainian businessmen to “brag or brag,” according to the document.
“As such, CHS is in a position to provide any other opinions on the veracity of Zlochevsky’s aforementioned statements,” the document concludes.
Zlochevsky himself also said he never got the help of the Bidens. When asked via Politico in 2020 whether Biden had ever helped Burisma while he was vice president, he simply replied, “No. “
But Republicans, led by Comer, have insisted that Biden is to blame for corruption, though they continually admit they have no proof, don’t know if their data is legitimate and don’t even care if the allegations are accurate. His star witness has also just been charged with acting as a foreign agent and arms trafficking.
While Grassley would likely have noted some vital problems with his party by releasing the form, he most likely found himself in trouble with the FBI. Last month, the office warned House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, who led Biden’s investigation, that he was too lax with security restrictions in FD 10-23.
“We are implicated that members did not heed the Committee’s agreement that the data contained in the document would no longer be released,” the FBI said in a letter. “Several committee members have made public the main points related to their compilation of confidential resource reports allegedly referenced in the document. “
“The conduct of some committee members in the June 8 review blatantly ignored our agreement and has the potential to cause serious harm. “
On Tuesday, Turner tweeted: “Insulin let loose. Let the medicine be loose. It is certainly not a radical call for life-saving medicines, nor more broadly in the context of 73 other countries with flexible or universal physical care. Nor remembering that the average cost of insulin in the United States is around $100; the next closest is Chile, with just over $20; The charge in the following 31 countries ranges from $2. 64 to $16. 48.
But by committing even remotely to one of those facts, the New Hampshire Libertarian Party tried something different.
“Nina Turner picking crops be free,” the state party tweeted.
It’s racist and anti-black. In no case is the promotion of loose insulin comparable to mobile slavery. Shameful and instructivo. pic. twitter. com/ad1jMJSdvw
“Insulin be free” is as offensive as asking someone to be forced to pick crops, the party later added, after facing a first wave of backlash. “They are the same ethical statement, and we respond to them with the same ethical horror,” he continued, displaying the same intellectual rigor as a 15-year-old who just discovered a list of words and Jordan Peterson’s YouTube channel for the first time.
But it’s not just a dishonest social media worker pushing the line.
“None of the things you advocate are ‘free. ‘ They want labor and fabrics that want to be compensated,” the National Libertarian Party added. “Otherwise, you are defending slavery. I hope this is helping you. “
“Being black doesn’t give you a loose pass to advocate for fashionable slavery, just with more steps. You are virtuous. You are greedy and evil under a veneer of respectability that would cause unspeakable human dystopian misery,” Libertarian National Convention Secretary Caryn Ann Harlos tweeted. “Save me your indignation. “
Was there a flirtation of a real claim to recover underneath all this?Harlos, in another tweet, gave the impression of distilling part of the argument that “coercively taking some of almost everyone’s paintings is just more respectable slavery. “
Libertarianism has a tendency toward disbelief in society’s perception, in the idea that Americans come together to help each other in their unusual, inexplicable adventure on earth. But unless it is proposed that everyone deserves to live completely separate lives, without common ties that ensure a strong community of life (access to water or electricity or transportation, for example), a moderate user deserves to be able to believe what could be part of a basic community of life. As an essential physical care.
But with such contempt not only for the truth we are a part of, but also for the truth we can only help create, libertarians were enough to make the ridiculous comparison between kidnapped slaves, raped, whipped, forced to work in the heat for hours and. . . A society that believes taxpayers’ money goes to life-saving drugs is a smart thing to do.
The Senate Judiciary Committee on Judiciary issued a resolution Thursday to combat corruption at the Supreme Court, proposing a bill that would force judges to adopt a code of ethics.
The High Court has come under fire following reports that Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito accepted lavish gifts from billionaire Republican donors. Many others have asked the court to identify a code of ethics to avoid such conditions in the future, which the judges have resisted.
The Senate’s judiciary voted 11-10, depending on the party, to pass the Supreme Court Ethics, Rejection and Transparency Act, which would require the court to identify a code of conduct. It would also create a procedure for other people to register ethics court cases opposed to judges.
The move would require judges to adhere to strict new rules for disclosing any gifts or sources of income they or their employees get — obviously a direct reaction to gifts Thomas and Alito have accepted over the years.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin called the law “a very important first step in restoring acceptance as true in court,” after a “steady stream of reports of moral failings by judges. “
But Republicans on the committee introduced 61 amendments to lengthen the committee’s hearing. Lindsey Graham, a member of the ranking, accused Democrats of doing “virtually everything that needs to be done to delegitimize this court. “
But the judges did very well on their own. For years, Thomas accepted piles of thousands of dollars in gifts from Republican megadonor Harlan Crow in the form of island-hopping yacht vacations; the Nazi collector also paid school fees for Thomas’ nephew and bought assets from the Thomas family, where Thomas’ mother still lives.
Thomas has refused to recuse himself from cases similar to the Jan. 6 riots, even though his wife, Ginni Thomas, is a prominent right-wing activist.
Alito also accepted a luxury vacation from a billionaire Republican megadonor. Right-wing activist (then head of the Federalist Society) Leonard Leo helped organize the event and also participated.
Meanwhile, Chief Justice John Roberts’ wife, Jane Roberts, allegedly paid more than $10 million through several law firms, at least one of which argued a case before her husband, after he had already paid her thousands of dollars.
And the review is rarely limited to conservative justices: Justice Sonia Sotomayor is in the spotlight after The Associated Press reported that her aides insisted on establishments where she planned to speak to buy hundreds, if not thousands, of copies of her books.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. , one of the country’s leading anti-vaccine propagators, just said under oath that he is not anti-vaxxers and that he has not told the public to get vaccinated.
The comments took place here the appearance of the presidential candidate before the Special Subcommittee on Militarization of the Federal Government of the House of Representatives in a hearing focused on the alleged censorship of social networks.
And Kennedy, who was driven by Big Tech CEO Elon Musk, sought to set the record directly on anything else while holding the platform.
“I’ve never been anti-vaxxers,” said the guy who chairs an anti-vaccine organization that has conspiracy theories about the covid-19 vaccine. “I never told the public, ‘Avoid vaccination. ‘”
RFK Jr: I’ve never been anti-vaxxers. I never told the public to get vaccinated pic. twitter. com/zFkYlBTbo0
Kennedy noted that his children are vaccinated and he is fully vaccinated, when it comes to Covid.
Earlier in the hearing, Kennedy also said, “Although I am under oath, in all my life I never uttered a racist or anti-Semitic phrase. “A few days ago, Kennedy claimed that covid “was intended to attack Caucasians and blacks,” while pardoning those who were “Ashkenazi and Chinese Jews. “
The star witness strategy that Republicans have developed in relation to the Hunter Biden case does not seem to be going as planned.
On Wednesday, at a House Oversight Committee hearing, amid deranged nude and waved photographs of Hunter Biden by Marjorie Taylor Greene (and subsequently, in all likelihood, illegally sending those nudes to a children’s organization), Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi used his line of questioning to identify a critical point. Many court cases about alleged interference in investigations deserve to be directed at Trump appointees.
The U. S. representative. U. S. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) reminds witnesses alleging political interference in Hunter Biden’s tax case that many of their court cases involve Trump appointees, adding former Attorney General Bill Barr and U. S. Attorney David Weiss, a time when Joe Biden was no presidente. pic. twitter. com/JGcQjCbRkO
Krishnamoorthi had directed his questions to Joseph Ziegler and Gary Shapley, two IRS whistleblowers who allege that the breakdown of justice slowed their investigation into Hunter Biden. The witnesses are part of Republican efforts to accuse the Bidens of corruption, though they have run out of weapons.
“You were afraid that. . . Attorney General Bill Barr will consolidate the series of instances in the Delaware U. S. Attorney’s Office,” Krishnamoorthi began. “Now, of course, Bill Barr nominated through Donald Trump, right?” he continued, eliciting an affirmative reaction from Ziegler.
Krishnamoorthi provoked the same reaction from Ziegler about U. S. Attorney David Weiss.
“You said the warrants were in a position since April 2020 to start searching records, but no action has been taken in relation to the warrants,” Krishnamoorthi asked Shapley. “Again, Joe Biden was not president in April 2020.
Shapley finally agreed, puncturing some other tire at James Comer’s chaotic clown car committee hearings.
Rep. Stacey Plaskett destroyed Republicans Thursday over their resolution to allow Robert Kennedy Jr. to testify before Congress, asking them to co-sign her “idiotic and bigoted message. “
The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the alleged militarization of the federal government, a favorite topic of discussion by President Jim Jordan. Jordan and House Oversight Chairman James Comer, close allies of each other and Donald Trump, have continually argued that Biden’s circle of relatives is the government to cover up their own misdeeds while prosecuting the former president.
Prominent vaccine advocate and conspiracy theorist Kennedy, who opposes Joe Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination, invited talk about censorship and loose speech. But Plaskett, the top member of the judiciary, didn’t have it.
“A lot of my Republican colleagues on the other side of the tier will be quick to say they have Mr. Kennedy here because they need his loose speech,” said Plaskett, a former lawyer. “That’s not the kind of loose speech I know. “
He called out Kennedy for his racist and anti-Semitic comments in the past, saying, “Freedom of speech is an absolute. The Supreme Court has said so. And the freedom of expression of others that is allowed, the abusive and hateful rhetoric, wants to be promoted in the corridors of the people’s house. “
Plaskett uses his opening to highlight some of the outrageous and bigoted things RFK Jr. said and asks why Republicans would announce it pic. twitter. com/gyTlQaaG9J
“Our right does not mean that we, as Americans, are . . . free of liability. And that’s what’s troubling about this hearing,” Plaskett continued.
In addition to peddling the long-debunked conspiracy theory that vaccines cause autism, Kennedy criticized over the weekend for claiming that covid-19 was “intended to attack Caucasians and blacks,” while pardoning those who were “Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese. “
He said black children don’t want vaccines because they have overfed immune systems. He also said Jews in Nazi Germany had more freedom of movement than other people who were not vaccinated against the covid-19 pandemic.
Even though he is running for the Democratic nomination, Kennedy has many Republican donors. He also agreed to speak at the far-right Moms for Liberty summit, and later walked out.
“These other people have a plan,” Plaskett said of Republicans. “They need to make the vilest speeches here in this committee room, because it sets the bar for their own conspiracy theories and pseudoscience. “
“And they don’t care how many other people are injured or killed as a result of their actions. . . Because nothing, nothing is more vital to them than power. “
Plaskett: “If MAGA Republicans agree with you, you have a platform to spread conspiracy theories, no matter how destructive. And if they don’t agree with you, you get death threats until you have to leave. “pic. twitter. com/K6gj1McAt2
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy still needs to endorse Donald Trump for the presidency. Instead, he promised that the House would annul the two impeachment trials against the former president before the August recess.
Recess begins in less than two weeks.
Politico’s Playbook reported on McCarthy’s engagement to the twice-accused, twice-accused and sexually abused former president, who now faces a third allegation.
So far, McCarthy has refused to endorse Trump and explicitly stated last month that Trump would not possibly be the most powerful Republican candidate for 2024. He has likely shied away from approval in an effort to provide protection to all members of his caucus, without pressuring any of them, especially the most vulnerable, to rally behind the serial thief candidate.
But McCarthy’s refusal to pass infuriated Trump, who bristled: “He has to approve me, today!” addressing a campaign event in New Hampshire, to anyone who was there to hear it.
Therefore, to remove the former president, McCarthy promised that he would vote in the House to overturn the two impeachments that opposed him, and that they would do so before the August recess. And while the deal would possibly have bought time for McCarthy, as Playbook writes, “avoiding a public war with the guy who almost single-handedly rehabilitated [McCarthy’s] entire career and made sure he won the hammer in January,” the deal puts McCarthy in a damn scenario if he does, damn it. if you don’t
There are 18 House Republicans who won in 2022 in the districts Joe Biden won. Most would be discouraged electorally from voting for any solution that overturns both, even one, of the political trials opposed to the former president. Two members of the Republican House had voted to impeach Trump. And those members, any attempt to erase political trials would fail.
McCarthy is at an impasse: Either he keeps his far-fetched promise he made to the guy who helped him win the presidency to overturn his impeachments, and increases the threat of wasting that presidency, or he opposes his promise and welcomes the wrath of the leading candidate.
In her desperation to expose Hunter Biden’s misdeeds, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene may have sent her nude photos to minors.
The House oversight committee on Wednesday heard testimony from two IRS agents who say the Justice Department delayed investigating the younger Biden for tax evasion. The hearing produced no genuine evidence, so Greene attempted to claim that Biden engaged in sex trafficking and indexed bills to sex staff as a tax deduction.
For his argument, he showed poster-sized prints of Biden’s nude photos, which were removed from his laptop. Not only were her moves incredibly misplaced: watchdog president James Comer didn’t reprimand her, but she possibly also violated DC’s Vengeance Act.
And now, Greene would likely have emailed the nudes to the minors. The Georgia congresswoman emailed her constituents Wednesday night saying she had proven Biden was to blame for sex trafficking and tax evasion (he hadn’t). The email included a video showing her nudes.
Marjorie Taylor Greene just sent this email to her constituents (yes, official taxpayer-funded resources). I clicked on the link so they don’t have to, that’s precisely what they think pic. twitter. com/5AwOqj8pFV
There’s no age to subscribe to Greene’s newsletter, so all the minors who sign up, whether for a social studies assignment or just to stay current, have now earned nudes from their congressman. If so, Greene would not only have violated his state’s revenge law, but he could also have violated federal legislation prohibiting the distribution of obscene clothing to minors.
House Republicans, led by Comer, have for months accused the Bidens of corruption and other bureaucracy of wrongdoing, even though they have yet to present any genuine evidence. Wednesday’s hearing is expected to focus on Hunter Biden’s plea deal on his taxes, which will save him a criminal sentence.
IRS agents Gary Shapley and Joe Ziegler testified before the oversight committee about Hunter Biden’s alleged wrongdoing. Jamie Raskin, the qualifying member of Oversight, warned last Wednesday that Shapley and Ziegler had already “undermined this Republican narrative” in their statements.