Trump's world....

[DBP66]

2 hours ago, I AM IRONMAN said:

Then I wonder why they haven’t gotten him yet🤔

do you have any idea all the legal problems he has?...NY state....the state of Ga....the Jan. 6th committee...the stolen top secret documents...you think this is all make believe??...."did they get him?" is all you and the cult members can say??....that's all in the works....ask all the lawyers he's paying with money donated to him by his brainwashed cult...SAD!

do you think he innocent of all these charges??....calling the state of Ga. and begging them for votes??...all tape recorded!!...an open and closed case...you really need to start looking at things a little more objectively....it will do you some good!....😉

[DBP66]

Donald Trump is back at Mar-a-Lago and raging about FBI agents not taking off their shoes while searching his bedroom

Cheryl Teh

Mon, September 19, 2022 at 3:47 AM

 

 

 

Former President Donald Trump.Sergio Flores/AFP via Getty Images

• Trump said on Truth Social that he's finally had a look around Mar-a-Lago.

• He complained that his Florida residence would "never be the same" after the FBI search.

• He said FBI agents did not take off their shoes in his bedroom.

On Sunday night, former President Donald Trump took to Truth Social to fume about the FBI's raid of Mar-a-Lago, accusing agents of not taking off their shoes when searching his bedroom.

Trump announced earlier on Sunday that he would "soon be heading" to Mar-a-Lago. He wrote that he wanted to see "the unnecessary ransacking of rooms and other areas of the house," adding that he felt "totally violated."

Several hours later, Trump said he had arrived at his Florida residence and "had a long and detailed chance" to look around the property. He claimed in his post that the FBI's lawful search of his property was a violation of his Fourth Amendment rights while lamenting that his home would "never be the same."

"It was 'ransacked,' and in far different condition than the way I left it," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "Many Agents - And they didn't even take off their shoes in my bedroom. Nice!!!"

This is not the first time Trump has expressed anger at the FBI agents who searched through his personal items. In August, Trump accused investigators of leaving former first lady Melania Trump's closet in a "mess" after the search. He also claimed the investigators searched his son Barron's room.

Earlier this month, Trump claimed the FBI made him look sloppy by purposely scattering documents on the ground to photograph them during Mar-a-Lago raid. This was after the Department of Justice shared a photo that showed classified documents strewn about on a carpet.

"They took them out of cartons and spread them around on the carpet, making it look like a big 'find' for them," he wrote on Truth Social. "They dropped them, not me — Very deceiving…" he added.

"Perhaps pretending it was me that did it!" Trump added in a separate post the same day.

During the Mar-a-Lago search, the FBI seized 11 sets of classified documents, including some marked "top secret" and some that may have concerned nuclear weapons. The DOJ is looking into whether Trump broke any of three federal laws — including the Espionage Act — by keeping the documents at his Florida residence.

Representatives for the DOJ and Trump's post-presidential press office did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

[DBP66]

The Story So Far: Where 6 Investigations Into Donald Trump Stand

 

Former President Donald Trump waves as he departs Trump Tower, Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2022, in New York, on his way to the New York attorney general's office for a deposition in a civil investigation. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

 

Peter Baker

Mon, September 19, 2022 at 8:13 AM

 

 

WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump has set up his office on the second floor of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida as part replica of the Oval Office and part homage to his time in the real White House.

On the wall during a visit last year were six favorite photographs, including ones with Queen Elizabeth II and Kim Jong Un. On display were challenge coins, a plaque commemorating his border wall and a portrait of the former president fashioned out of bullet casings, a present from Jair Bolsonaro, the so-called Trump of Brazil.

This has become Trump’s fortress in exile and his war room, the headquarters for the wide-ranging and rapidly escalating conflict with investigators that has come to consume his post-presidency. It is a multifront war, with battlefields in New York, Georgia and the nation’s capital, featuring a shifting roster of lawyers and a blizzard of allegations of wrongdoing that are hard to keep straight.

Never before has a former president faced an array of federal, state and congressional investigations as extensive as Trump has, the cumulative consequences of a career in business and eventually politics lived on the edge, or perhaps over the edge. Whether it be his misleading business practices or his efforts to overturn a democratic election or his refusal to hand over sensitive government documents that did not belong to him, Trump’s disparate legal troubles stem from the same sense that rules constraining others did not apply to him.

The story of how he got to this point is historically unique and eminently predictable. Trump has been fending off investigators and legal troubles for a half century, since the Justice Department sued his family business for racial discrimination and through the myriad inquiries that followed over the years. He has a remarkable track record of sidestepping the worst outcomes, but even he may now find so many inquiries pointing in his direction that escape is uncertain.

His view of the legal system has always been transactional; it is a weapon to be used, by him or against him, and he has rarely been intimidated by the kinds of subpoenas and affidavits that would chill a less litigious character. On the civil side, he has been involved in thousands of lawsuits with business partners, vendors and others, many of them suing him because he refused to pay his bills.

While president, he once explained his view of the legal system to some aides, saying that he would go to court to intimidate adversaries because just threatening to sue was not enough.

“When you threaten to sue, they don’t do anything,” Trump told aides. “They say, ‘Psshh!’” — he waved his hand in the air — “and keep doing what they want. But when you sue them, they go, ‘Oooh!’” — here he made a cringing face — “and they settle. It’s as easy as that.”

When he began losing legal battles as president with regularity, he lashed out. At one point when the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, a traditionally liberal bench based in California, ruled against one of his policies, he demanded that aides get rid of the court altogether. “Let’s just cancel it,” he said, as if it were a campaign event, not a court system established under law. If it required legislation, then draft a bill to “get rid” of the judges, he said, using an expletive.

But his aides ignored him and now he finds himself without the power of the presidency, staring at a host of prosecutors and lawyers who have him and his associates in their sights. Some of the issues at hand go back years, but many of the seeds for his current legal jeopardy were planted in those frenetic final days in office when he sought to overturn the will of the voters and hold onto power through a series of lies about election fraud that did not exist.

Many Americans could be forgiven if they have lost the thread of all the investigations amid the blizzard of motions and hearings and rulings of recent weeks. But they essentially break down this way.

New York State

Long before he became president, by many accounts, Trump played it fast and loose in business. The question is whether any of that violated the law. For years, according to his own associates, he inflated the value of his various properties to obtain loans.

Letitia James, the New York state attorney general, has been examining his business practices for more than three years to determine if they constituted fraud. When she summoned Trump to testify in a deposition, he invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to respond to questions on the grounds that his answers might incriminate him more than 400 times.

Trump has assailed James as a partisan Democrat who is coming after him for political reasons. As a candidate in 2018, she was an outspoken critic of Trump, calling him an “illegitimate president” and suggesting that foreign governments channeled money to his family’s real estate holdings, which she characterized as a “pattern and practice of money laundering.”

But Trump’s lawyers recently sought to settle the case, which could indicate concern about his legal risk, only to have their bid rejected by James. Because her investigation is civil, not criminal, she would have to decide whether her findings warrant a lawsuit accusing the former president of fraud.

Manhattan

The Manhattan district attorney’s office, now led by Alvin L. Bragg, has looked into some of the same issues as part of a criminal investigation and is about to bring the Trump Organization, the former president’s family business, to trial on charges of fraud and tax evasion starting Oct. 24.

Allen H. Weisselberg, the longtime chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, has pleaded guilty to 15 felonies, admitting that he conspired with the company to carry out a scheme to avoid paying taxes on lavish perks. Weisselberg is obliged as part of his plea agreement to testify at the upcoming trial. But Trump is not a defendant, and Weisselberg has refused to cooperate with the broader investigation.

But Bragg has indicated skepticism that there is sufficient evidence to convict Trump. The district attorney’s public suggestion that Trump would probably not face charges led to the resignation of two prosecutors leading the investigation, one of whom said in a resignation letter that the former president was “guilty of numerous felony violations” and that it was “a grave failure of justice” not to hold him accountable.

Georgia

Trump put himself in possible legal jeopardy in the swing state of Georgia on Jan. 2, 2021, when he called Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state, and demanded that he “find 11,780 votes,” just enough to reverse the outcome and take the state away from Joe Biden. During the call, Trump warned Raffensperger, a Republican, that he faced a “big risk” if he failed to find those votes, an implied threat the Georgian defied.

Trump’s allies likewise sought to pressure state officials to change the results and, as they did in other key states that went for his opponent, tried to orchestrate a slate of fake electors to send to Washington to cast Electoral College votes for the defeated president instead of Biden, who won Georgia’s popular vote.

Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, has cast a wide net, pressing for testimony by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and informing Rudy Giuliani, the former president’s lawyer, that he is a target of her investigation.

Willis appears to be building a possible case of conspiracy to commit election fraud or racketeering through a coordinated effort to undermine the election. In addition to Giuliani, multiple allies of the former president have been told they are targets, including the state party chair and members of the slate of fake electors.

Trump has dismissed Willis, a Democrat who was elected in the same 2020 balloting that he lost, saying her inquiry is, in the words of a spokesperson last year, “simply the Democrats’ latest attempt to score political points by continuing their witch hunt against President Trump.”

Congress

The House committee investigating the Capitol attack of Jan. 6, 2021, composed of seven Democrats and two Republicans, has done more to lay out a possible criminal case against Trump in the public space than any of the former president’s pursuers.

Its series of hearings over the summer, which could resume Sept. 28, showcased testimony by Trump’s own advisers indicating that he was repeatedly informed that the 2020 election was not stolen, that what he was telling the public was not true, that there was no basis to challenge the outcome and even that the crowd he summoned on Jan. 6 included some armed people.

The committee documented just how wide-ranging Trump’s efforts to hold onto power were — how he pressured not just Raffensperger but officials in multiple states to change the outcomes, how he contemplated declaring martial law and seizing voting machines, how he tried to force the Justice Department to intervene even though he was told there was no case, how he plotted with congressional allies to orchestrate fake electors and ultimately how he sought to strong-arm his own vice president into blocking Biden’s victory.

The committee has no power to prosecute, but it has gone to court to enforce subpoenas to testify and prompted criminal charges of contempt of Congress by the Justice Department against Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro, two former Trump aides. Bannon has been convicted and is awaiting sentencing; Navarro has asked a court to throw out his case.

But though lawmakers cannot indict Trump, they are debating whether to make a criminal referral recommending that the Justice Department do so. That has little substantive meaning, but it would raise the stakes for Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Jan. 6

Garland remains in some ways the biggest mystery as Trump seeks to thwart investigators. An even-tempered, widely respected former prosecutor and appellate judge, Garland has said little to tip his hand, but his department is clearly pursuing multiple strands in its investigation of what happened leading up to and on Jan. 6.

The department has interviewed or brought before a grand jury former White House aides like Pat A. Cipollone and Marc Short; seized the phones or electronic devices of Trump’s allies like John Eastman, Jeffrey Clark and Mike Lindell, and even a member of Congress; and blitzed out some 40 subpoenas recently to former White House aides like Stephen Miller and Dan Scavino and others close to the former president.

After spending much of the last 18 months prosecuting hundreds of Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol, Garland’s team now seems to be examining multiple angles, including the fake electors plan, Trump’s fundraising operation as he promoted false claims about election fraud and the former president’s own role in seeking to overturn the election.

What remains unclear is if Garland has a theory of the case yet. While the subpoenas indicated that investigators were looking at, among other things, efforts to “obstruct, influence, impede or delay” the certification of the presidential election, the department has yet to charge people around Trump and therefore has not laid out any legal conclusions about the actions taken by his camp.

One person who is not known to have been subpoenaed yet is Trump, but it remains a possibility. Bracing for the day the investigators show up on his own doorstep, Trump has been busy looking for lawyers to represent him because so many of his past lawyers no longer want to be involved with him or face legal trouble of their own.

Classified Documents

In case Trump did not expose himself to enough legal trouble in his final days in office, he made decisions as he left the White House that would come back to haunt him as well.

The latest threat to the former president stems from his insistence on flying home with thousands of documents owned by the government, including hundreds marked with varying classified designations, and his failure to give them all back when asked.

Garland’s team has indicated in court filings that it is looking at not only criminal charges related to mishandling classified documents but also obstruction of justice. A lawyer for Trump signed a document stating that he had returned all classified papers in his possession, which proved to be false when FBI agents searched Mar-a-Lago and found boxes of them. Investigators indicated the files were probably concealed and moved rather than turned over.

Trump’s legal strategy in the papers case mirrors the approach he has often taken over the years — find ways to delay and throw his adversaries off balance. By persuading a federal judge he got confirmed in the last days of his presidency to block investigators from using the retrieved documents while they are examined by a special master, he has hindered prosecutors for now.

But that may not last forever. He said this past week that “I can’t imagine being indicted” but conceded that it was “always possible” because prosecutors are “just sick and deranged.” He went on to assert that he declassified the papers he took, even though there is no known record of that.

But his real strategy was clear — this is a political battle as much as a legal one, and he warned darkly that there would be “big problems” if he were indicted because his supporters, “I just don’t think they’d stand for it.”

Told by radio host Hugh Hewitt that his critics would interpret that as inciting violence, Trump said: “That’s not inciting. I’m just saying what my opinion is. I don’t think the people of this country would stand for it.”

[I AM IRONMAN]

You got him THIS time….yawn.

whatever makes you feel good…but this is getting sad.

[DBP66]

6 minutes ago, I AM IRONMAN said:

You got him THIS time….yawn.

whatever makes you feel good…but this is getting sad.

AMEN!!...SIX investigations?!?!?!?....he makes Al Capone look like a Choir boy!....😪

[DBP66]

Trump defends ‘perfect’ call with Raffensperger amid threat of prison sentences from Georgia probe

 

Caroline Vakil

Mon, September 19, 2022 at 6:06 PM

 

 

Former President Trump defended the controversial call he made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger following the 2020 election, saying in a statement on Monday that it was “an absolutely PERFECT phone call.”

The latest defense of the call, which has triggered an investigation in Georgia, follows remarks last week by Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis to The Washington Post that people could face prison sentences as a result of her probe.

Willis also said her team had uncovered credible allegations of serious crimes, although she did not specify who could face a prison term.

In a statement through his Save America PAC, Trump said that Willis “is spending almost all of her waking hours, which aren’t many, on attempting to prosecute a very popular president, Donald J. Trump” and that she “is basing her potential claims on trying to find a tiny word or phrase (that isn’t there) during an absolutely PERFECT phone call, concerning widespread Election Fraud in Georgia.”

He claimed that those on the call “had no problems with the call, and didn’t voice any objections or complaints about anything that I said on the call which could be construed as inappropriate.”

Willis launched a probe last year regarding whether the former president or those close to him were involved in attempting to change the outcome of the 2020 election.

Part of the probe includes a call he made to Raffensperger, asking him to find more than 11,000 votes, which would have overturned President Biden’s victory in the state.

Raffensperger spurned Trump’s entreaties, refusing to go along with the effort to find enough votes to overturn the election.

That drew Trump’s ire, leading the former president to endorse a challenger to Raffensperger in 2021. Raffensperger ultimately prevailed in his Republican primary earlier this year.

The Georgia prosecutor has subpoenaed a number of people, including former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and others involved in a scheme to provide an alternative set or electors for Georgia that might have changed the results of the election.

 

 

[I AM IRONMAN]

2 hours ago, DBP66 said:

Trump defends ‘perfect’ call with Raffensperger amid threat of prison sentences from Georgia probe

 

Caroline Vakil

Mon, September 19, 2022 at 6:06 PM

 

 

Former President Trump defended the controversial call he made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger following the 2020 election, saying in a statement on Monday that it was “an absolutely PERFECT phone call.”

The latest defense of the call, which has triggered an investigation in Georgia, follows remarks last week by Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis to The Washington Post that people could face prison sentences as a result of her probe.

Willis also said her team had uncovered credible allegations of serious crimes, although she did not specify who could face a prison term.

In a statement through his Save America PAC, Trump said that Willis “is spending almost all of her waking hours, which aren’t many, on attempting to prosecute a very popular president, Donald J. Trump” and that she “is basing her potential claims on trying to find a tiny word or phrase (that isn’t there) during an absolutely PERFECT phone call, concerning widespread Election Fraud in Georgia.”

He claimed that those on the call “had no problems with the call, and didn’t voice any objections or complaints about anything that I said on the call which could be construed as inappropriate.”

Willis launched a probe last year regarding whether the former president or those close to him were involved in attempting to change the outcome of the 2020 election.

Part of the probe includes a call he made to Raffensperger, asking him to find more than 11,000 votes, which would have overturned President Biden’s victory in the state.

Raffensperger spurned Trump’s entreaties, refusing to go along with the effort to find enough votes to overturn the election.

That drew Trump’s ire, leading the former president to endorse a challenger to Raffensperger in 2021. Raffensperger ultimately prevailed in his Republican primary earlier this year.

The Georgia prosecutor has subpoenaed a number of people, including former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and others involved in a scheme to provide an alternative set or electors for Georgia that might have changed the results of the election.

 

 

Yawn….sheep

[DBP66]

6 hours ago, I AM IRONMAN said:

Yawn….sheep

LOL..yea.....it's all "fake" news...we know...🙄

[DBP66]

[DBP66]

Trump attorneys don't want to disclose which Mar-a-Lago documents he claims to have declassified

 

U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida, West Palm Beach Division

 

Tom Winter and Zoë Richards

Tue, September 20, 2022 at 1:32 AM

 

 

Donald Trump’s attorneys said in a filing Monday night that they don’t want to disclose to a court-appointed special master which Mar-a-Lago documents they assert the former president may or may not have declassified.

In a four-page letter to the special master, Trump's attorneys pushed back against Senior U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearie's apparent proposal that they submit “specific information regarding declassification” to him in the course of his review.

Dearie issued an order Friday summoning both parties to the federal courthouse in Brooklyn, New York, for a preliminary conference Tuesday.

Trump's attorneys have claimed that until or unless they decide to fight the FBI search warrant or if they decide to offer it as a defense following any potential indictment, they shouldn't have to disclose details about declassification that would also be shared with the Justice Department.

On his Truth Social platform last month, Trump said, “It was all declassified.” But legal experts have pointed out that it may be irrelevant whether the documents were declassified or not depending on what, if any, charges are filed.

In their own letter to Dearie on Monday, Justice Department lawyers proposed that the special master’s review of the nonclassified material begin at once by scanning all the seized documents and having Trump’s legal team review about 500 pages a day, marking them as privileged or not so prosecutors can agree or disagree and forward them to the special master for his ultimate determination.

Federal prosecutors also suggested that also among the seized materials were “[n]on-documentary items (e.g., items of clothing)" that would be made available to Trump's counsel and the special master for review at the FBI’s Washington field office.

A separate federal judge set a deadline of Nov. 30 for Dearie to conclude his review and classifications, although the two sides have different thoughts about deadlines for the review and challenges to be argued within the window.

[DBP66]

So the election was "fixed" and "stolen" huh??....by who???...........

 

Video Shows Trump Allies Handling Georgia Voting Equipment

 

 

Danny Hakim, Richard Fausset and Nick Corasaniti

Tue, September 20, 2022 at 8:14 AM

 

 

 

Poll pads in an office in Coffee County, Ga., after the 2020 election. (Coffee County Elections Office via The New York Times)

Newly released videos show allies of former President Donald Trump and contractors who were working on his behalf handling sensitive voting equipment in a rural Georgia county weeks after the 2020 election.

The footage, which was made public as part of long-running litigation over Georgia’s voting system, raises new questions about efforts by Trump affiliates in a number of swing states to gain access to and copy sensitive election software, with the help of friendly local election administrators. One such incident took place Jan. 7, 2021, the day after supporters of Trump stormed the Capitol, when a small team traveled to rural Coffee County, Georgia.

The group included members of an Atlanta-based firm called SullivanStrickler, which had been hired by Sidney Powell, a lawyer advising Trump who is also a conspiracy theorist.

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“We are on our way to Coffee County, Ga., to collect what we can from the election/voting machines and systems,” one of the company’s executives, Paul Maggio, wrote Powell on that January morning. Weeks later, Scott Hall, an Atlanta-area Trump supporter and bail bondsman who also traveled to Coffee County, said “we scanned every freaking ballot” in a recorded phone conversation.

Hall said the team had the blessing of the local elections board and “scanned all the equipment, imaged all the hard drives and scanned every single ballot.”

The new videos show members of the team inside an office handling the county’s poll pads, which contain sensitive voter data. (The cases holding the equipment in the footage are labeled with the words “POLL PAD.”) In a court hearing Sept. 9, David D. Cross, a lawyer for a nonprofit group that is suing over perceived security vulnerabilities in Georgia’s voting system — and that released the new videos after obtaining them in its litigation — told a judge that his group suspected that the “personally identifiable information” of roughly 7 million Georgia voters may have been copied.

Charles Tonnie Adams, the elections supervisor of Heard County, Georgia, said in an email that “poll pads contain every registered voter on the state list.” It was not immediately clear what specific personal information about voters was on the poll pads, or what, if anything, was done with the data.

Mike Hassinger, a spokesperson for Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, said a poll pad “does have voter information but it’s not accessible because it’s scrambled behind security protocols.” He added that there were no driver’s license numbers or Social Security numbers on poll pads at the time.

The new videos also show that some of the Trump allies who visited Coffee County were given access to a storage room, and that various people affiliated with Trump’s campaign, or his allies, had access to the building over several days.

The new footage also shows Cathy Latham, then the head of the county’s Republican Party, with members of the Trump team, standing together in an office where the county’s poll pads were laid out on a table. Latham is among the targets of a criminal investigation in Atlanta, related to her participation as one of an alternate slate of electors who tried to overturn Trump’s loss in Georgia. That investigation, which is being led by Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, has also touched on what took place in Coffee County.

In a court filing late Monday evening, the plaintiffs in the civil case assailed what they called “the persistent refusal of Latham and her counsel to be straight with this court about the facts.” They accused her of downplaying her involvement with the Trump team when “she literally directed them on what to collect in the office.”

Robert D. Cheeley, a lawyer for Latham, declined to speak on the record Monday. This month, he told CNN that his client “would not and has not knowingly been involved in any impropriety in any election.”

Investigators from Raffensperger’s office also appear in the new videos, raising questions about what they knew. Along with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Raffensperger’s office is investigating what took place in Coffee County, 200 miles southeast of Atlanta, but voting rights advocates involved in the litigation have questioned why Raffensperger, the defendant in the civil case, did not move more aggressively.

Hassinger said the secretary of state’s office had “no idea” why its investigators were at the elections office in Coffee County in early January.

“We are looking into it,” he said. “Again, we take this very seriously. This investigation is a joint effort between the secretary of state’s office and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, and if it’s determined that people have committed a crime, they’re going to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Hassinger added that at that time, the secretary of state’s office was looking at “vote-counting procedures when Coffee County was unable to certify the results of their election by the time of the deadline.”

Lawyers for SullivanStrickler did not respond to requests for comment. The company’s lawyers have previously said it was “categorically false” that it was part of an effort that “illegally ‘breached’ servers” or other voting equipment, but that “with the benefit of hindsight, and knowing everything they know now, they would not take on any further work of this kind.”

Reached by phone Monday, Rachel Ann Roberts, the current election supervisor for Coffee County, said she could not comment on the matter of the poll pads because she had started the job after the visit took place.

“I’m not certain about any of that,” she said. “I wasn’t here at the time.”

Georgia is hardly the only state where such activity occurred. In Michigan, a special prosecutor is investigating efforts by Trump allies, including the Republican candidate for attorney general, Matthew DePerno, to gain access to voting machines. And in Colorado, the secretary of state’s office estimated that taxpayers faced a bill of at least $1 million to replace voting equipment in Mesa County after a pro-Trump elections supervisor was indicted on charges that she tampered with the county’s voting equipment after the 2020 election.

[DBP66]

New evidence shows GOP’s Trump problem may be getting worse

 

 

Brett Samuels

Tue, September 20, 2022 at 6:00 AM

 

 

Republicans are growing more concerned that President Trump could be a drag — and not a help — in tight midterm races that will determine the majorities in the House and Senate.

Trump remains overwhelmingly popular among Republican voters, but he’s just as unpopular with Democrats, and there is a growing body of evidence that he is losing more support from independent swing voters as he grapples with a slew of investigations.

A new NBC News poll released Sunday found just 34 percent of registered voters said they have a positive view of Trump, compared to 54 percent who said they have a negative view of him. That’s the lowest Trump has polled in NBC’s survey since April 2021.

While Trump has defended himself since the FBI conducted a search of his Mar-a-Lago estate for classified records, the controversy appears to be hurting him.

A Quinnipiac University poll conducted in late August found half of Americans think Trump should be prosecuted over his handling of classified documents after leaving the White House, including 52 percent of independent voters.

An NPR-Marist poll released on Sept. 7 found 67 percent of independents say they don’t want him to run for president again.

And in another indictment of Trump’s standing with moderate voters, a New York Times-Siena survey conducted earlier in September found him trailing President Biden in a hypothetical rematch by 3 percentage points, despite just 39 percent of independents in that poll saying they approve of Biden’s job performance.

“These candidates have to fight kind of two-fold battles,” said John Thomas, a Republican strategist. “Can you move your base turnout margin ever so slightly? I think Trump has utility there. And can you win with independent swing voters on issues that aren’t Trump-related?”

Trump won’t be on the ballot this fall, but he’s closely associated with GOP Senate candidates Herschel Walker, Blake Masters, J.D. Vance and Mehmet Oz, all of whom got across the finish line in their respective Senate primaries with the former president’s support.

Senate candidate JD Vance, left, greets former President Donald Trump.

As a result, it’s possible those candidates could be hurt by Trump as they seek to move to the middle for the general election.

Trump, who held a rally in Ohio on Saturday for Vance, pushed back strongly at any suggestion he isn’t helping GOP candidates.

He also held a recent rally in Pennsylvania and plans to hold similar events in Michigan and North Carolina.

“Both J.D. Vance and Dr. Oz asked me to do big Rallies for them in Ohio and Pennsylvania, respectively, and I did,” Trump wrote in a post over the weekend on Truth Social, his nascent social media platform.

“The Pennsylvania Rally was a massive success, ‘packed’ with great American Patriots, and the Ohio Rally … is a likewise sold out juggernaut — Look at the massive crowds,” Trump wrote.

“Both candidates wanted this and I, as usual, delivered,” Trump continued. “ALL Republican candidates want Rallies. Without the Rallies and, even more importantly, the Endorsements, most would lose. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”

 

Pennsylvania Republican Senate candidate Mehmet Oz, left, is joined by former President Donald Trump at a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Saturday, Sept. 3, 2022. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

Pennsylvania Republican Senate candidate Mehmet Oz, left, is joined by former President Donald Trump at a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.

A former Trump campaign aide argued Trump’s value depends on the state, pointing to Ohio and Georgia as redder states where he helped earn Vance and Walker the nomination and could make a difference in a general election.

But in more purple states such as Arizona, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania, the former aide acknowledged, Trump could ultimately be more of a drag.

One GOP strategist in Arizona expressed skepticism about whether Kari Lake and Blake Masters, the Republican gubernatorial and Senate candidates, respectively, would be able to expand their appeal beyond hardcore Trump voters to win in a state that sent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D) to Washington and narrowly backed Biden in 2020.

There’s no doubt Trump is popular with the GOP base, and few Republicans will want to send any signals of criticism toward him. A USA Today-Ipsos poll in late August found Trump had an 81 percent approval rating within the Republican Party.

“J.D. is kissing my ass. He wants my support,” Trump said in Ohio on Saturday, arguing that wouldn’t be the case if he were politically toxic.

But Republican candidates will have to overcome a trend of Trump voters failing to turn out in droves when the former president is not on the ballot. Enthusiasm for Trump carried him to the White House in 2016 and earned him more than 74 million votes in 2020.

Republican turnout dipped in 2018 without Trump on the ticket, and the party lost its House majority. Trump was again not on the ticket in early 2021 when two Georgia Senate seats went to Democrats in runoff elections.

Some Republican candidates who hugged Trump closely in primary races have already tried to pivot away from the former president on certain issues, especially around the 2020 election.

Dan Bolduc, a GOP Senate candidate in New Hampshire who insisted as recently as August that Biden was illegitimately elected in 2020, made a complete reversal after winning his primary last week, telling Fox News he had concluded after talking to voters “the election was not stolen.”

Bolduc won his New Hampshire primary last week.

Oz, who with the help of Trump’s endorsement emerged from a crowded primary field in Pennsylvania’s Senate race, said earlier this month he would have voted to certify Biden’s victory. Trump and many of his supporters remain outraged that then-Vice President Mike Pence certified the Electoral College results on Jan. 6, 2021.

Biden won New Hampshire in 2020 by roughly 60,000 votes, and he won Pennsylvania by roughly 80,000 votes.

Democrats have been happy to take advantage of Trump’s prominent role in the midterm elections, believing his lack of appeal with independent voters and the cloud of investigations hanging over him make it possible to turn the vote into a referendum on the former president rather than the current one.

In a memo late last week, Nevin Nayak, president of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, wrote that so-called MAGA Republicans, or those who are part of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement, have turned off voters with extreme views on abortion, election security and other issues.

“With the primary season having concluded … the general election is officially upon us,” Nayak wrote. “The dangerous MAGA agenda is giving voters a very clear choice this November — and that’s causing major headaches for the Republican Party.”

[I AM IRONMAN]

C&P King!

[DBP66]

2 minutes ago, I AM IRONMAN said:

C&P King!

anything to help the uneducated...my pleasure!....😉

[I AM IRONMAN]

46 minutes ago, DBP66 said:

anything to help the uneducated...my pleasure!....😉

Well my thumb gets a great workout on my iPad 

[Wildcat Will]

2 hours ago, DBP66 said:

anything to help the uneducated...my pleasure!....😉

Very good.

Let them know you are here for them.

[DBP66]

Trump to Face Sexual Battery Suit Under New ‘Survivors’ Law

 

 

Jose Pagliery

Tue, September 20, 2022 at 5:53 PM

 

 

 

Photo by Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

E. Jean Carroll, the journalist who claims she was raped by Donald Trump decades ago in a New York department store, is planning to sue him for sexual battery under the state’s new “survivors” law later this year—and her attorneys now want to question Trump under oath.

In an August letter to a New York federal judge that was just made public Tuesday, Carroll’s lawyer notified the court that severe legal action was on the horizon.

The issue was brought up in court filings related to Carroll’s current lawsuit against the former president. She sued Trump while he was still at the White House, claiming she was defamed when Trump said the journalist’s revelations in her memoir were lies, adding a piggish line about how “she's not my type.”

Although the underlying accusations deal with sexual assault claims against the real estate billionaire, the nature of the legal dispute wasn't primed to go after Trump for the actual alleged assault.

That’s changed.

Roberta A. Kaplan, the journalist’s lawyer, explained in her letter to the judge that Carroll is now preparing to file a separate lawsuit under New York’s Adult Survivors Act “on the earliest possible date,” which is Nov. 24.

Kaplan also explained that Trump—as he has done in nearly every court case of late—is refusing to turn over court-mandated evidence.

Trump “remains unwilling to produce any documents in discovery,” not “a single document,” Kaplan wrote.

That's why, she said, Trump should be dragged into a room for a deposition that will question him under oath—an embarrassing exercise that could elicit damning information from the former president. And given that it's a civil case, any question Trump refuses to answer can be interpreted in the worst light possible—even as an admission.

Kaplan’s letter was written to another Kaplan: U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who is overseeing the defamation case and had previously instructed both parties to share information with each other. (There is no known relation between the two.)

 

In a pithy response on Aug. 11, Trump lawyer Alina Habba accused Carroll’s lawyer of misleading the judge in the way she “repeatedly mischaracterizes the discovery efforts that have been undertaken by the parties to date.”

“Indeed, the letter contains numerous misstatements which are seemingly intended to make it appear as if [Trump] is not complying with his discovery obligations,” Habba wrote. “This is simply not the case.”

However, Habba’s letter revealed that—once again—Trump is hiding behind the presidential seal and waiving around expired credentials to keep evidence out of the public’s hands. Habba defended Trump’s use of “executive privilege” to prevent Carroll from obtaining some documents related to the way he verbally attacked her character while he was at the White House.

Carroll’s next lawsuit could have a dramatically different—and more serious—result than the current defamation case.

In the current legal fight, Trump managed to employ the Department of Justice to defend him, leaving taxpayers on the hook for what was clearly a personal battle. However, any lawsuit under New York’s rape survivor law would target him directly while he’s no longer in office.

[DBP66]

Trump vs. DeSantis in 2024? USA TODAY/Suffolk poll shows Florida Republicans prefer their governor

 

 

Susan Page, USA TODAY

Wed, September 21, 2022 at 7:04 AM

 

 

Former President Donald Trump's support among Republican voters in Florida for another presidential bid has significantly eroded this year, a USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll finds, as Gov. Ron DeSantis has scored gains in the home state they now share.

In a hypothetical 2024 presidential primary in the Sunshine State, DeSantis now leads Trump 48%-40%. That's a reversal from a USA TODAY/Suffolk Poll of Florida in January, when Trump led DeSantis 47%-40%.

"This doesn't necessarily mean DeSantis would lead in any other GOP primary state," said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center. "But it is one data point suggesting a shift in preferences from GOP voters away from Trump and toward DeSantis from Republicans who know both potential combatants quite well."

Both men have made it clear they are considering presidential campaigns in 2024, although neither has made any official announcements. DeSantis supporters argue he offers a muscular populism similar to Trump without having the legal and other baggage that the former president carries.

Last week, the governor sparked a firestorm when he used state funds to fly about 50 Venezuelan migrants from Texas to the exclusive Massachusetts island of Martha's Vineyard.

[DBP66]

Trump's push for a special master in the Mar-a-Lago case is backfiring and exposing weaknesses in his defense

Tom Porter

Wed, September 21, 2022 at 8:46 AM

 

 

 

The legal team of former US President Donald Trump, led by M. Evan Corcoran (C), along with Lindsey Halligan (L), James Trusty (Center-R), and Chris Kise (R) at the Brooklyn Federal Courthouse. on September 20, 2022.Alex Kent/Getty Images

• Trump pushed hard for a special master to review the Mar-a-Lago documents, and got one.

• But the official, Judge Raymond Dearie, has expressed impatience with Trump's legal defense.

• A hearing Tuesday suggested that having Dearie involved may not be as useful as Trump hoped.

When a judge granted former President Donald Trump his request of a "special master" to review documents taken from Mar-a-Lago in an FBI raid, it seemed like a victory.

Trump's lawyers spent weeks pushing for the appointment, and it forced government investigators to stop their review of the records, a process some speculated could take months.

But Trump now has reasons to regret the strategy.

The special master, Judge Raymond Dearie, has not done Trump any favors in his court appearances so far, exposing holes in the legal arguments presented by Trump's attorneys in court, and confronting their attempts to evade scrutiny.

The approach is a big contrast to that taken by Aileen Cannon, the federal judge who initially handled the case. Cannon, a Trump appointee, has been accused by critics accused of appearing to favor Trump in a series of decisions that baffled legal experts.

At a court hearing Tuesday, Dearie prodded Trump's attorneys over their refusal to present evidence to support Trump's claims that he declassified dozens of sensitive government that FBI agents seized at Mar-a-Lago.

Neither Trump nor his attorneys have offered any evidence to back his claim that the documents were declassified, and have claimed that presenting it could imperil a potential defense if the case comes to court.

Dearie showed little patience with their arguments at a hearing Tuesday, saying that if Trump's lawyers didn't step up and try and prove Trump's claim he had little choice but to rule in the DOJ's favor.

"As far as I'm concerned, that's the end of it," Dearie said, adding, "You can't have your cake and eat it too."

Some analysts have speculated that in seeking a special master, Trump is trying to put as many roadblocks in place to stall the DOJ as he can.

But it seems that in Dearie he's not found an official to go along with his plans.

Dearie has until November 30 to complete his review of the documents, and the DOJ has launched an appeal against Cannon's ruling denying them access to the secret documents.

[DBP66]

They got em'....

New York A.G. sues Trump and 3 of his children for business fraud

Dylan Stableford and Christopher Wilson

Wed, September 21, 2022 at 11:46 AM

 

 

New York State Attorney General Letitia James on Wednesday announced she is suing former President Donald Trump and three of his children for fraud stemming from her long-running civil investigation into the Trump Organization’s business dealings.

“I am announcing today that we are filing a lawsuit against Donald Trump for violating the law as part of his efforts to generate profits for himself, his family and his company,” James said. “The complaint demonstrates that Donald Trump falsely inflated his net worth by billions of dollars to unjustly enrich himself and to cheat the system, thereby cheating all of us.”

The civil lawsuit seeks at least $250 million in damages.

 

New York Attorney General Letitia James announced a $250 million lawsuit against former President Donald Trump and three of his children for business fraud. (Office of New York State Attorney General Letitia James)

James said her office interviewed 65 witnesses and reviewed millions of documents as part of its investigation. In addition to Trump, the additional defendants named in the lawsuit include his three eldest children (Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric) as well as former Trump Organization executives Allen Weisselberg and Jeff McConney.

“Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization repeatedly and persistently manipulated the value of assets to induce banks to lend money to the Trump Organization on more favorable terms than otherwise would have been available to the country, to pay lower taxes, to satisfy continuing loan agreements and to induce insurance companies to provide insurance coverage at higher limits and at lower premiums,” James said during the Wednesday morning remarks.

An October 2018 report in the New York Times found that Trump had participated in a series of tax schemes related to his father’s real estate empire. James said the investigation began in 2019 after former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen discussed these business tactics during testimony under questioning from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., in front of the House Oversight Committee.

 

Former President Donald Trump is seen at a Save America Rally last weekend in Youngstown to support Republican candidates running for state and federal offices in Ohio. (Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)

James listed a series of allegations against Trump, including misstating the value and size of his own triplex apartment in Trump Tower. She alleged that in some filings, his Florida resort and home Mar-a-Lago was valued as high as $739 million when it should have been closer to $75 million. James also claimed that Trump inflated the value of other properties and unsold memberships at his golf clubs. The formal complaint includes examples from 23 assets, but James said they found more than 200 examples on his filings over the years.

The New York attorney general said she is making a criminal referral to the Internal Revenue Service and Southern District of New York.

James said that they are also asking the court to permanently bar Trump and the three Trump children from serving as an officer or director on any corporation registered or licensed in New York state, as well as banning Trump and his organization from entering into commercial real estate acquisition in the state for five years and from applying for loans with New York-based banks for that same period.

 

Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric Trump are pictured on the South Lawn of the White House in August 2020. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Trump attended a deposition with James’ office last month in Manhattan, where he declined to answer questions, using his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. In a statement, Trump said he "declined to answer the questions under the rights and privileges afforded to every citizen under the United States Constitution” and attacked James for what he called a “despicable attempt” to bring down his company.

James told a judge in January that Trump’s son Eric invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 500 times in an October 2020 deposition. The former president's other children Donald Jr. and Ivanka, however, reportedly testified in James’s probe in early August and did not invoke the Fifth Amendment.

The former president is still dealing with a federal investigation into his mishandling of classified documents, which led to the FBI raid on his Florida home last month. Trump is also still under scrutiny for his role in the violence of Jan. 6, 2021, which is being investigated by the Justice Department and a House committee. Additionally, a Georgia district attorney is investigating his attempts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state, which voted for Joe Biden.

[DBP66]

Appeals court lifts hold on records found at Trump's Mar-a-Lago home

David Knowles

·Senior Editor

Wed, September 21, 2022 at 8:47 PM

 

 

A federal appeals court on Wednesday granted a significant win to the Justice Department in its investigation of highly sensitive documents found at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, issuing a partial stay on a lower court’s ruling that froze key aspects of the case.

The three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously stayed the portion of a much-criticized prior ruling by Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, that had prevented the government from scrutinizing the material gathered at Trump’s Florida residence and country club pending review from an independent special master.

“We decide only the narrow question presented: whether the United States has established that it is entitled to a stay of the district court’s order, to the extent that it (1) requires the government to submit for the special master's review the documents with classification markings and (2) enjoins the United States from using that subset of documents in a criminal investigation. We conclude that it has.”

The ruling was a rebuke to the claims made by Trump’s legal team about the former president’s supposed right to hold on to classified documents, some of which had confidential, secret and top secret markings.

“[Trump] has not even attempted to show that he has a need to know the information contained in the classified documents,” the panel ruled. “Nor has he established that the current administration has waived that requirement for these documents.”

Two of the appeals judges who issued the ruling, Andrew Brasher and Britt Grant, were appointed by Trump. Robin Rosenbaum, the third, was an appointee of President Barack Obama.

 

A redacted FBI photograph of documents and classified cover sheets recovered from a container stored in Trump's Florida estate, and which was included in a Department of Justice filing. (Department of Justice/Handout via Reuters)

The victory for the Justice Department means that their investigation of the classified documents can now push forward without waiting for a final recommendation from Judge Raymond Dearie, the special master appointed by Cannon to adjudicate the dispute over whether some of the documents may be protected by executive privilege or attorney-client privilege.

On Tuesday, Dearie also made clear that he was unsympathetic to Trump’s frequent assertions that he had previously declassified the documents that turned up at Mar-a-Lago when the FBI executed a search warrant at the property. Saying that Trump's lawyers presented no evidence at a Tuesday hearing that Trump had actually done so, Dearie signaled that the defense had fallen flat.

“As far as I’m concerned, that’s the end of it,” he said, adding, “You can’t have your cake and eat it.”

Trump's legal troubles have continued to mount this week. In addition to the partial stay issued Wednesday, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced that she was suing Trump and three of his adult children for $250 million as the result of a civil investigation into the Trump Organization’s business dealings prior to his ascendency to the presidency.

“I am announcing today that we are filing a lawsuit against Donald Trump for violating the law as part of his efforts to generate profits for himself, his family and his company,” James said. “The complaint demonstrates that Donald Trump falsely inflated his net worth by billions of dollars to unjustly enrich himself and to cheat the system, thereby cheating all of us.”

[DBP66]

[Slotback Right]

5 hours ago, DBP66 said:

The bitch is behind in her race, so she had to do something. She promised she'd find something to get him.

Yet, if there's been a crime committed, why didn't she charge him with one?

Instead, all she has is a civil suit which has no victims. What a joke!

Oh but wait! Maybe she's finally got him this time. HAHAHAHA. 

[GoBigBlack]

The crimes were detailed extensively in a NY Times article in 2018. And Michael Cohen, testifying before Congress just four months later, corroborated those crimes. I watched the testimony, and congressmen asked question straight from the article. It’s because of those two that the investigation even happened. I guess since the “bitch” has an election coming up she should have ignored the crimes. You know, to be fair.

This is so cut and dry that the work of a journalist provided enough proof. I can’t imagine what she found going through over a million documents and 65 interviews.

The NYT article was dismissed just like you’re doing above. You literally think everything is a completely made up hit job to take out the world’s most fantastic special good man. You never address the accusations, you only try to discredit them by discrediting the source. There’s a reason for that.

[DBP66]

2 hours ago, Slotback Right said:

The bitch is behind in her race, so she had to do something. She promised she'd find something to get him.

Yet, if there's been a crime committed, why didn't she charge him with one?

Instead, all she has is a civil suit which has no victims. What a joke!

Oh but wait! Maybe she's finally got him this time. HAHAHAHA. 

she didn't have to look hard to "find something"...he was ripping the state of NY and the Gov't off for years...like all rich people do...he got caught...you do the crime you do the time...you feel bad for a Millionaire who paid $700.00 if Federal taxes?!?..you're not too bright. $250 MILLION is a joke to you??..I wonder how funny Trump thinks it is....😉