A trial in Washington, D. C. , on Friday issued a stark warning about the effects of the Jan. 6 attack.
U. S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan sentenced Scott Miller, a former leader of the Proud Boys who was involved in a fight with several police officers while trying to tear down the Capitol building, to 66 months in prison. This is one of the longest sentences handed down so far. Chutkan cited Miller’s movements on Capitol Hill, as well as evidence that he held Nazi ideals and believed the citizens of Washington, D. C. , would be executed.
Previously, Chutkan’s longest sentences similar to those were 63 months, passed on to two other violent offenders at the Capitol. Chutkan described the storming of the Capitol as “a crisis close to the highest severity this country has ever faced. “
“He can do it again,” Chutkan, who is expected to preside over the criminal trial of Donald Trump for trying to overturn the 2020 election, said Friday. “Extremism is alive and well in this country. Threats of violence persist unabated.
These threats have become commonplace in Republican discourse, with right-wing figures across the country invoking violence and calling on their supporters to arm themselves. The jack-of-all-trades, Donald Trump, has yet to face any consequences thanks to the Supreme Court’s blocking of his case over presidential immunity issues.
Since the Jan. 6 attack, Trump hasn’t toned down his own rhetoric, saying that 2024 could also be “the last election we’ve ever had,” and that his far-right supporters would possibly try to make that a reality. . Not to mention, many Republicans are still plotting around the Capitol riot, a sign that the right doesn’t care about inciting political violence, let alone violence itself.
In short, Miller’s phrase shows that the consequences of political violence in the United States today only come after the fact and do not confront those who incited it before. This does not bode well for the post-2024 elections, according to them.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s conspiracy theories, scathing language and xenophobia have made her a favorite of the right and a pariah of the left, and she is now the admiration of Russian state television.
Greene’s attempts to block aid to Ukraine, her denunciation of NATO and her confidence that the United States will withdraw from the alliance drew applause from Russian TV hosts, The Daily Beast reported Friday.
“She believes the Americans will help Putin win. Yes, you heard that right. To help him win in Ukraine,” presenter Evgeny Popov said in a clip.
Once again, Marjorie Taylor Greene’s comments are being used by Kremlin propagandists on Russian state television. State TV host and State Duma member Yevgeny Popov translates his remarks to mean that he needs Americans for Putin to win in Ucrania. pic. twitter. com/nYLntOYdtb
It’s news to Greene, who in the past has been mocked at home for confusing gazpacho with the Gestapo and claiming that lasers from the Jewish area were California’s wildfires. Russian television even said his comments were evidence of a “mental weakening” of Western policy. But Greene would likely be pleased to know that her echo of Russian propaganda in the House of Representatives has paid off, even though the Ukraine aid factor has divided the Republican Party. As it turns out, former Rep. Ken Buck was right when he called her “Marjorie of Moscow. “
Some experts have even warned that Russia buys off U. S. politicians, just as it does in Europe. Greene wouldn’t be the only Republican spitting arguments in the Kremlin, but she appears to be the most popular so far. As the new darling of the Russian state TV, she fills a void left by President Mike Johnson, who in recent days has spoken out in favor of aid to Ukraine after months of stalemate. Johnson was so beloved on Russian television for blocking aid to Ukraine that one TV host dubbed him “Our Johnson. “
Green also appears to have usurped former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, whose interview with Putin in February failed, ending Russian television’s love affair with him.
Russia’s praise of Greene and conservative figures before is just further proof that after Donald Trump, much of the Republican Party has pledged allegiance to Vladimir Putin.
New York State Attorney General Letitia James on Friday asked the sentencing judge presiding over the civil fraud trial against Donald Trump to reject the former president’s bail, which has been hampered by reports that the company promising it is insolvent.
Earlier this month, James gave Trump and Knight Specialty Insurance, the insurance company that underwrote his civil fraud bond, 10 days so that the $175 million bail could be justified. Those 10 days have already passed.
Trump and Knight Specialty Insurance, which is not licensed as a surety in New York state, may simply not turn out that the surety “meets the needs of reliability and competency,” according to a memo from James’ office, and failed to prove that it would be smart for the $175 million.
This is not surprising, given that the bond would represent more than one-third of Knight Specialty’s assets and more than its surplus funds. It may also be that the company has not legally agreed to pay Trump’s bail. Trump has had difficulty locating the bond’s cash to pay the various legal fees opposing him; asked the Chubb insurance company to lend him the $91 million needed to bring E. D. D. Davis. Jean Carroll.
As a result, James needs to give Trump a week to pay off some other bond, this one subsidized through more reliable funds than the “king of subprime auto loans. “If you can’t, James can start garnishing your assets to cover the judgment. opposite to it.
Judge Arthur Engoron is scheduled to hear arguments on the validity of the bond on Monday. Meanwhile, Trump probably isn’t far away: His corruption trial, which now has a full jury, is expected to be held in New York on the same day. day.
Matt Gaetz has a smart week. They just got worse.
The House Ethics Committee, which is investigating Gaetz for illegal drug use as a member of Congress, won an affidavit alleging Gaetz attended a party in Florida in 2017 where cocaine and MDMA were used, ABC News reported Friday. It also alleges that the woman, in the midst of a Justice Department investigation into Gaetz, attended the party and was seen naked.
The Justice Department began investigating Gaetz in 2020 over allegations that the Florida representative paid a convicted sex trafficker to have sex with the girl, who was 17 at the time. It concluded the investigation in 2023 and declined to rate Gaetz.
Gaetz has denied the drugs while he was a member of Congress. But, according to Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin, he bragged to his colleagues about taking erectile disorder medication and energy cocktails to “keep going through the night. “Allegedly, while on the grounds of the house, he also showed his colleagues nude photographs and videos of women with whom he had slept.
The Florida Republican made headlines this week after he and Wisconsin Rep. Derrick Van Orden traded insults amid GOP chaos in the House over foreign aid programs. He also drew the ire of his colleague, New York Rep. Mike Lawler, who on Thursday accused him and his “seven helpful idiots” of seeding apartments within the Republican caucus by proposing to oust former President Kevin McCarthy.
McCarthy, for his part, pointed to his refusal to end the ethics investigation into Gaetz as the motivation for Gaetz’s move to resign in October. Gaetz admitted as much privately.
Whatever the final results of the ethics investigation, it is clear that his colleagues in the House are fed up with him.
The CEO of Trump Media
Nunes, a former congressman who runs Trump’s social media company, wrote a letter to NASDAQ CEO Adena Friedman asking her to save him from “naked short selling,” a strategy used to profit from an asset’s falling value. Nunes asked Friedman for trading companies to disclose whether they are shorting shares of $DJT.
Truth Social’s stock price has plummeted since its IPO a few weeks ago. On Friday, the stock price hovered around $35, part of its original price.
Citadel Securities, one of the corporations named in the letter, had words of choice in reaction to Nunes’ complaint.
“Devin Nunes is the proverbial loser trying to blame ‘naked short selling’ for the drop in the value of his inventory. Nunes is precisely the kind of user Donald Trump would have shot at The Apprentice. If he worked for Citadel Securities, we would fire him because competence and integrity are at the core of everything we do,” the company said in a statement, which is not known on Wall Street.
Trump Media responded with his statement.
“Citadel Securities, a giant company that has been fined and censored for an incredibly wide variety of offences, adding similar problems to short selling, and which is world-famous for ruining retail investors at the behest of other firms, is the newest company on the market. the market lands that deserve to lecture anyone about ‘integrity,'” a spokeswoman told the Wall Street Journal.
Naked short selling, an illegal practice, differs from traditional short selling, in which investors borrow shares before selling them, hoping to profit later by buying the shares at a lower price. In simple short selling, a trader never helps keep his promise to borrow. This can severely hurt a company’s stock price, and there’s no shortage of other people who would like to see Trump’s moves fail.
But the former president’s social network probably wouldn’t need help. Although its percentage value rose today, it has fallen since its IPO a few weeks ago, penalized by the announcement of the arrest of two of its investors for insider trading, as well as the deficient earnings figures reported in its SEC filings. Trump is legally barred from selling percentages of Trump Media for six months without board approval, and who knows what the company’s value will be when he decides to sell.
Donald Trump gave a speech in capital letters on Truth Social on Friday about his presidential immunity case before the Supreme Court, despite sitting in the courtroom for his secret trial as the messages mounted.
Trump has complained bitterly about the importance of presidential immunity in protective sessions and of former presidents, one of his main arguments, insisting that he deserves to be protected from criminal prosecution.
Trump simply can’t avoid the post, even though he was warned in the ruling presiding over the trial not to use his phone, either in or out of the courtroom. And it’s starting to damage his case: On Thursday, Judge Juan Merchan refused to provide Trump’s lawyers with a list of the first three prosecution witnesses.
This isn’t the first time Trump’s account has mysteriously been published while the former president was indisposed. During his defamation trial in January, his account posted 30 messages denigrating E. Jean Carroll as he sat in court without access to his phone.
If it’s not Trump who’s behind the morning speeches on social media, then who is he?Possibly it is Dan Scavino, former White House deputy chief of staff and current Trump campaign adviser. Scavino wrote many of Trump’s tweets during his time in office. as president, and even though Trump no longer posts on X, formerly known as Twitter, the two have a close relationship that would possibly come from sharing access to Trump’s social media accounts. Recently, Trump joked that Scavino “could say, ‘Yes, I do. ‘”It’s not like you voters, I don’t like you at all. “”I’m in poor health on his part. I can’t stand you. ‘And that’s the end of my political career.
Regardless of who is actually behind the post, Trump’s Truth Social account has recently gotten him into trouble in several courts. He was charged by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg with violating a gag order against witnesses who assaulted the secret trial. any experienced poster, Trump (or anyone he shares his account with) continues to post through it. Maybe you’re just looking to blow up the broth.
Before becoming an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spent about 30 years as lead counsel for an environmental activist organization. Now, his former colleagues are urging the electorate to the presidential candidate.
Nearly 50 of Kennedy’s colleagues at the Natural Resources Defense Council have spoken out against his candidacy, running full-page classified ads in newspapers that are expected to appear this weekend in six swing states, the New York Times reported Friday.
“A vote for RFK Jr. is a vote to destroy that progress and bring Trump to the White House,” reads the ad, which will run in Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
The announcement comes as several national environmental organizations wrote an open letter criticizing Kennedy for his policy shift.
“Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is an environmentalist. He is a harmful conspiracy theorist and science denialist whose timeline would be a crisis for our communities and the planet,” the letter said.
Former colleagues and mentors were even more direct when they spoke to The Times. Gina McCarthy, who headed President Barack Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency, criticized Kennedy as a “plus” environmentalist.
“He’s opposed to science, he’s opposed to vaccines, he’s talking about weather talks. I don’t know what it represents,” he said.
John Hamilton Adams, co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council and hired Kennedy to form the group, said in a statement: “I mentored Bobby when he was a young environmentalist. I don’t recognize the user you’ve become. Their movements are a betrayal of our environment.
In response, Kennedy told the Times that the environmentalist motion “makes the mistake of settling for crumbs given to us by the Biden administration. “
In another coup, Biden supported 15 members of the Kennedy family at a rally in Philadelphia on Thursday, following a stopover at the White House in March.
“We can say today, with no less urgency, that our rights and freedoms are again in jeopardy,” said Kerry Kennedy, one of Robert Kennedy Jr. ‘s sisters. “That’s why we all want to come together in a crusade that deserves to unite not only Democrats but all Americans, bringing together Republicans and independents, who in what Lincoln called the most productive angels of our nature. “
Kennedy’s candidacy turns out to serve Donald Trump and the Republican Party more than anything else. His donors lean heavily to the right, and pro-MAGA ideologues continue to praise him publicly. While a fundraising campaign in Los Angeles earlier this month was filled with environmentalists, Kennedy political dynasty enthusiasts, and wealthy New Age hippies, the resistance of his circle of family members and fellow environmentalists may simply discourage his supporters.
Donald Trump finds that the crusade for the 2024 presidential election is more complicated than last time, and his trial for criminals in Manhattan is one of the main reasons for that.
Jury selection began this week, meaning Trump will have to appear in the courtroom. It would join the campaign to raise money, and as The Daily Beast reported on Friday, it’s starting to take its toll.
The former president, accused of a secret scheme involving porn star Stormy Daniels, has already missed a GOP primary fundraiser in Texas due to the trial schedule, and will most likely be forced to cancel events for the same reason. he gets him involved in all sorts of shady scams, and Joe Biden continues to insult him.
Trump’s crusade has attempted to fill the donation gap by scheduling fundraisers in neighboring states. Trump will use his weekend outside the courtroom to attend a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, and the crusade is planned in New Jersey on May 11.
Media attention hasn’t been a factor for Trump, even though he spends most of his day in court. He posts on Truth Social that the judge asked him to keep his phone and a campaign stunt in a bodega. But for any candidate, especially one who is cash-strapped and has a profile as high as Trump, fundraising is the lifeblood of a crusade. Now that the trial will last longer than originally planned two months, his cash disorders may not die anytime soon.
In a rare ruling, Judge Juan Merchan refused to reveal the prosecution’s first three witnesses to Donald Trump’s defense team ahead of his secret trial.
Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass filed the resolution Thursday, in reaction to a request from Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche. Steinglass pointed out how Trump publishes articles about potential witnesses and even jurors, which has already affected jury selection.
“I can’t blame them for that,” Merchan said, agreeing with Steinglass. Merchan is no stranger to Trump’s subsequent story, as Trump attacked his daughter in recent weeks, resulting in silence. Trump’s defenders have also ridiculously claimed that he has a constitutional right to attack witnesses and jurors.
Merchan’s move is unusual, according to legal analyst and former prosecutor Renato Mariotti, who noted that it may be more effective than a fine.
Trump is facing 34 felony charges after allegedly paying adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election to cover up an alleged affair. The witness list in the case allegedly includes several of his former Trump Organization employees, as well as his former White House aide, Hope Hicks. .
The witnesses who could have the most damaging testimony are Daniels herself, as well as Trump’s former fixer and lawyer Michael Cohen, who allegedly made the bills at Trump’s behest. Both Cohen and Daniels have been the target of Trump’s posts on Truth Social, especially since the trial began.
House Republicans continue to move forward despite their continued failure to unite foreign aid programs. The new goal? Matt Gaetz.
Gaetz, who clashed with Wisconsin Rep. Derrick Van Orden after the latter pushed for the resignation of President Mike Johnson over his unexpected overthrow of Ukraine, is now facing more complaints from his own party, this time from New York Rep. Mike Lawler.
Speaking to CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Thursday night, Lawler didn’t hesitate when asked about GOP infighting over relief bills.
“I see it as very simple,” Lawler said. In October, the House was thrown into chaos thanks to Matt Gaetz and seven helpful idiots who teamed up with him at the Republican convention and the 208 Democrats. And right now, when you look at what happened after the presidency defected and Israel was attacked in a terrorist attack a week later, to do it again would be negative for the country and for global security.
The United States has an obligation, as the leader of the lax world, to our allies at this critical time and to send a transparent message to our adversaries that we will not tolerate their moves or what they have done to undermine and destabilize the lax world. . pic. twitter. com/9JUmccTb8x
Lawler’s comment about “useful idiots” is even the first inter-Republican probing into a colleague’s intellect this week; Gaetz responded to Van Orden’s “beefy” comment by calling him “not a particularly intelligent individual. “Nor is it the first time Gaetz has been singled out as the Republican Party’s leading agent of chaos. Last week, former chairman Kevin McCarthy, whom Gaetz helped oust, speculated about Gaetz’s motives for the October motion to vacate.
Johnson gave the impression of having been defeated as president, unable to participate in a caucus held back by hardliners like Gaetz, who has yet to call for Johnson’s impeachment, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, who did. As a result, not only did he fail to get aid systems via Congress; allowed disputes within the party between pro-aid members like Lawler and die-hards to fester.