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Billionaire Makes Massive Political Contribution To Trump

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Image via Pixabay free images

One of the largest single disclosed gifts ever…

A reclusive billionaire from a storied American family with a legacy dating back to the Gilded Age has made one of the largest political contributions in the history of American politics.

Timothy Mellon, heir to the Mellon banking fortune, made a $50 million contribution to the pro-Trump super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc.

At the end of April, the organization had only $34.5 million.

In a memo following Mellon’s donation, the PAC announced it had reserved $100 million in advertising through Labor Day.

The New York Times continues:

Mr. Mellon is now the first donor to give $100 million in disclosed federal contributions in this year’s election. He was already the single largest contributor to super PACs supporting both Mr. Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running as an independent. Mr. Mellon has previously given $25 million to both.

Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Democrats have sought to portray Mr. Kennedy as a spoiler supported by Republicans, in part by emphasizing Mr. Mellon’s dual contributions and seemingly split loyalties. The pro-Kennedy super PAC has distributed quotations from the hard-to-reach Mr. Mellon, and for a blurb that appears on the cover of Mr. Mellon’s upcoming book, Mr. Kennedy called the billionaire a “maverick entrepreneur.”

It is not clear what Mr. Mellon’s mega-donation means for his support of Mr. Kennedy going forward. He has so far toggled between giving to support both candidates. His most recent donation to Mr. Kennedy’s super PAC was a $5 million contribution in April.

But Mr. Mellon’s $50 million gift will significantly help pro-Trump forces narrow the financial advantage that President Biden and his allies have enjoyed so far. Miriam Adelson, the casino billionaire and widow of Sheldon G. Adelson, who died in 2021, has also made plans to fund a pro-Trump super PAC with at least as much money as the $90 million that her family gave in the 2020 campaign, although much of the cash has yet to arrive.

Mellon’s contributions follow Donald Trump‘s conviction in a hush money trial.

Critics argue that the case is politically motivated and based on an overly broad interpretation of campaign finance laws. They add that such payments are common among public figures seeking to avoid public scrutiny.

The Mellon family‘s wealth started when an Irish immigrant named Thomas Mellon founded T. Mellon & Sons’ Bank in Pittsburgh in 1869. His sons, Andrew W. Mellon and Richard B. Mellon, later grew the bank into a strong financial institution. This bank eventually became Mellon Financial Corporation, one of the largest banking institutions in the United States.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Andrew Mellon played a crucial role in financing and supporting key industries such as aluminum, oil, and steel, contributing to the growth of major corporations, such as Gulf Oil, and Union Steel. As secretary of the Treasury from 1921 to 1932, his influence shaped the economic policies of the 1920s, known as the Mellon Plan, which contributed to the economic boom of the decade.

National Photo Company Collection, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

In 2007, Mellon Financial Corporation merged with The Bank of New York to form BNY Mellon, one of the world’s largest asset management and securities services companies, preserving their 150-year legacy in banking and finance.

Article Published With The Permission of American Liberty News

Family of Isaac Hayes Sues Trump Over Playing Hit Song

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Gage Skidmore Flickr

The family of late soul singer Isaac Hayes is suing former President Donald Trump for using the icon’s music at his rallies, Isaac Hayes III announced last week.

 The filing accused the former president and the Republican Nation Committee of “willfully and brazenly” engaging in 134 counts of copyright infringement.

A letter to Trump and his campaign from the Georgia-based law firm Walker & Associates reads:

Our firm has been retained by the family and Isaac Hayes Enterprises, who own the copyright to the musical composition and recording “Hold On (I’m Coming)” (the “Song”). It has come to our attention that you or the campaign have authorized the illegal public performance of the Song on multiple occasions during various rallies for your political campaign without authorization from the copyright holder, despite being asked repeatedly not to engage in such illegal use by our client.

Upon information and belief, you, your campaign, and/or the RNC and other parties have willfully and brazenly engaged in copyright infringement in violation of several provisions of Title 17 U.S.C., including § 501, of the Copyright Act of 1976, as amended, over one hundred times. We have attached for your convenience a non-exhaustive list attached hereto as Exhibit A. As we prepared this letter, there was an additional use in Montana just two nights ago, even with your office apparently aware that you had no permission. We and the family hereby demand that you cease the continual infringement of our copyright and stop all unauthorized use of the Song.

The suit further demands Trump pay $3 million, stop using the song, and to remove any campaign multimedia of the song being played at rallies. Hayes’ estate also demanded Trump issue a statement acknowledging he played the song without permission.

Trump Names 3 A-listers As Special Ambassadors To ‘Very Troubled’ Hollywood

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Austin Green, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

President-elect Trump announced three special envoys on Thursday with the purpose of promoting business in Hollywood.

Those special ambassadors will be Jon Voight, Mel Gibson, and Sylvester Stallone, Trump said. All three actors are conservative and have appeared publicly with Trump or praised him publicly in the past. Stallone, for example, praised Trump as “the second George Washington” while introducing him at the America First Policy Gala in Palm Beach in November.

“It is my honor to announce Jon Voight, Mel Gibson, and Sylvester Stallone, to be Special Ambassadors to a great but very troubled place, Hollywood, California,” Trump wrote in a Thursday Truth Social post. “They will serve as Special Envoys to me for the purpose of bringing Hollywood, which has lost much business over the last four years to Foreign Countries, BACK—BIGGER, BETTER, AND STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE!”

“These three very talented people will be my eyes and ears, and I will get done what they suggest,” Trump added. “It will again be, like The United States of America itself, The Golden Age of Hollywood!”

The actors’ support for Trump is particularly significant given the strong anti-Trump sentiment voiced by many Hollywood progressives, such as George Clooney, who embrace politicians like former President Barack Obama.

“When George Washington defended his country, he had no idea that he was going to change the world,” Stallone said of Trump in November. “‘Cause without him, you can imagine what the world would look like. Guess what, we got the second George Washington.”

Watergate Prosecutor Says ‘Trump Is Toast’ In Fraud Trial 

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Slowking4, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Former Watergate prosecutor Nick Ackerman said former President Trump is “toast” in his New York civil fraud case.

New York Attorney General Letitia James’ case accuses Trump, his two adult sons, the Trump Organization, and top executives of falsely inflating the values of Trump’s real estate properties and other assets in order to get tax benefits and better loan terms.

James seeks around $250 million in damages, and she wants to bar Trump and his co-defendants from running another business in New York.

According to The Hill, Ackerman argued people are not only focused on the former president’s testimony but also his deposition with James’s lawyers last summer, where he invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 400 times.

“Now what does it mean to take the Fifth Amendment? It means that you are refusing to answer a question, because a truthful answer would tend to be incriminating,” Ackerman said. “Then what did Donald Trump do last week? He went into court and said, ‘Oh, I didn’t do anything fraudulent, I wasn’t involved in a fraud.’ Which is just the opposite what in effect he was saying when he took the Fifth Amendment in his deposition.”

“So you’ve got contradictory testimony,” Ackerman continued. “You can use his assertion of the Fifth Amendment against him to basically find that he’s lying, that he’s manipulating the system when he goes in, refuses to answer questions, answers the questions in a half-baked manner.”

Earlier this week when Trump took the stand he fiercely defended his business practices and condemned those involved in the case as politically motivated “Trump haters.”

“I just don’t see how this judge at the end of the day is not going to find that, with respect to Donald Trump … ‘Liar, liar, pants on fire,’” Ackerman said.

Ackerman said that in his more than 40 years of civil law experience, he has never seen anyone “do such a stupid move as to suddenly start testifying” after they’ve taken the Fifth Amendment.

Nikki Haley Lands New Gig After Failed Trump Challenge

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The White House from Washington, DC, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Donald Trump’s last Republican rival has landed a fresh new job.

Nikki Haley the former two-term South Carolina governor who served as ambassador to the United Nations in the Trump administration, is joining the Washington, D.C.-based Hudson Institute.

“Nikki is a proven, effective leader on both foreign and domestic policy,” Hudson President and CEO John P. Walters said in a statement Monday. “In an era of worldwide political upheaval, she has remained a steadfast defender of freedom and an effective advocate for American security and prosperity. We are honored to have her join the Hudson team.”

Fox News has more:

Haley, who received the Hudson Institute’s global leadership award in 2018 during her tenure as U.N. ambassador, will serve as the institute’s Walter P. Stern Chair. According to the Hudson Institute, the position was created four years ago to commemorate a former chair “who was instrumental in making Hudson one of Washington’s most respected research organizations.”

The institute emphasized that “it is fitting that Nikki has taken on this title” because “she is a courageous and insightful policymaker.”

Haley announced that she was suspending her White House campaign on March 6, the day Trump swept 14 of 15 GOP nominating contests on Super Tuesday.

To date, Haley has declined to endorse Trump.

“It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him. And I hope he does that,” Haley said last month, as she pointed to those who supported her during her White House run.

“This is now his time for choosing,” she emphasized.

D.C. Waitress Fired After Vowing To Refuse Service To Trump Officials

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A Washington, D.C.-based server has been fired after proudly saying in an interview that she planned to refuse service to Trump officials.

The server was previously employed by Beuchert’s Saloon on Capitol Hill. She took part in a report by Washingtonian magazine about how the service industry would respond to President-elect Donald Trump’s team if they patronized her place of employment.

Most individuals who were interviewed remained anonymous, but Suzannah Van Rooy provided her real name. 

“I personally would refuse to serve any person in office who I know of as being a sex trafficker or trying to deport millions of people,” the server told the outlet, as The Daily Wire previously reported. “It’s not, ‘Oh, we hate Republicans.’ It’s that this person has moral convictions that are strongly opposed to mine, and I don’t feel comfortable serving them.”

“People were a lot more motivated the first time around to do those kinds of shows of passion. This time around, there is kind of a sense of defeat and acceptance,” Van Rooy added. “But I hope that people still do stand up to this administration and tell them their thoughts on their misbehavior.”

Beuchert’s Saloon denounced Van Rooy’s comments and confirmed she was no longer employed there, per Fox News Digital. The neighborhood restaurant and bar called her statements “reprehensible” and “unforgivable.”

“Recent comments made by a member of staff who had no authority to speak on behalf of our entire restaurant have been, quite rightly, flagged as inappropriate, hostile, intolerant, and unacceptable. This staff member does NOT speak for us as a restaurant,” Beuchert’s Saloon said in a statement.

Beuchert’s saloon provided a follow-up after the backlash from the employee’s comments.

“Not only do Ms. Van Rooy’s comments clearly violate our zero-tolerance policy on discrimination, but her decision to sign into our social media accounts in the middle of the night to post her own rhetoric in wildly offensive responses to comments is a further breach of conduct and protocol. She has no authority to speak on our behalf, and her comments do not reflect the positions of over twenty other people who make up our staff,” the statement said.

“For these reasons as well as the sheer dismay and disgust we feel at her unforgivable behavior, Ms. Van Rooy has been dismissed immediately. Our staff and families (many of whom are personally offended by Ms. Van Rooy’s comments about them) are still reeling from what Ms. Van Rooy said and did, and we as a restaurant are simply horrified to be associated with base prejudice.”

Trump Files To Overturn Latest Conviction After SCOTUS Ruling

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Gavel via Wikimedia Commons Image

On Monday, former President Donald Trump moved to overturn his criminal conviction in the Manhattan hush-money case after the Supreme Court ruled presidents have immunity for “official acts” committed while in office.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg charged the former president in May with 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. Trump pleaded not guilty to all counts in the Manhattan case.  

Lawyers for Trump had filed a motion to dismiss the verdict hours after the Supreme Court’s ruling. 

Duncan Lock, Dflock, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

The motion came on the same day that the district attorney’s office sent sentencing recommendations to Judge Juan M. Merchan – who presided over the Manhattan trial – though it remains unclear whether that will be seen by the public, per reporting from The New York Times.  
Judge Merchan has received a letter from Trump’s lawyers, a person familiar with the matter confirmed to Fox News Digital

The letter asks for permission to file a motion to vacate the jury’s Manhattan verdict, asks for a delay of the July 11 sentencing, and cites the high court’s decision in arguing that evidence was included at trial that should not have been admitted. 

To file a motion in New York, defendants must first request permission from the judge in the case. 

On Tuesday, Manhattan prosecutors agreed with Donald J. Trump’s request to postpone his criminal sentencing so that the judge overseeing the case could weigh whether a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling might impact his conviction, according to The New York Times.

On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that a former president has absolute immunity for his core constitutional powers.

Former presidents are also entitled to at least a presumption of immunity for their official acts. There is no immunity, the court holds, for unofficial acts.

The Supreme Court returned the case to the trial court to determine what is left of special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment against the former President.

MyPillow Evicted From Warehouse

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Mike Lindell via Gage Skidmore Flickr

A Minnesota court has ordered MyPillow to be evicted from the warehouse it formerly used.

The Hill has more:

The Minneapolis warehouse is approximately 125,000 square feet and has been leased to Lindell since December 2015. The lease agreement between Lindell and the landlord, First Industrial LP, has been amended twice. It lasts 10 years, seven months and 20 days, and the monthly rent was $57,794.12, according to the eviction complaint.

According to the complaint, dated March 7, Lindell did not make rent payments for February and March 2024. Since it is not the first time MyPillow failed to pay its rent on more than two occasions in the previous 12-month period, per the lease agreement, the landlord is entitled to retake possession of the premises.

As of Wednesday, Lindell did not answer the eviction complaint or appear at the scheduled hearing, forcing the judge to order the eviction. He confirmed to the AP that MyPillow owes around $217,000 to the Delaware-based company for the rent.

Lindell said the company no longer needed the space and removed its property from the warehouse last June before subleasing it to another company through December. The company backed out in January and “left us all stranded.” MyPillow offered to find another tenant, but the landlord wanted to take the warehouse back, he told the newswire.

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell faces multiple defamation lawsuits from two voting machine companies, after he spread lies that the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent and stolen from former President Trump. In February, a federal judge ruled he must pay $5 million in an election data dispute case.

Andrew Cuomo to Launch New Podcast with First Guest Anthony Scaramucci

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Photos from the opening of the new Delta Air Lines terminal in LaGuardia Airport in Queens, NY, on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2019. (Chris Rank for Rank Studios) (Photos from the opening of the new Delta Air Lines terminal in LaGuardia Airport in Queens, NY, o

Look at how far Andrew Cuomo has sunk.

After resigning as New York Governor due to allegations of sexual misconduct Cuomo announced he plans to start a new business venture. Cuomo’s newest foray into the public sphere comes in the shape of a podcast and one of his first guests is scheduled to be President Donald Trump’s former communications director Anthony Scaramucci.

Scaramucci, who briefly served the Trump administration in 2017, has emerged as a critic of Trump and expressed his support for Biden in the 2020 election.

According to The Hill:

Cuomo will this week debut a new hourlong show he is calling “As a Matter of Fact” on podcast streaming service Quake, he told Axios, and the show will aim to “hear from people — their questions, their issues — and have that dialogue.”

The former governor told Axios this week he has “learned from the entire situation.”

“There’s a fundamental problem with the entire system here,” Cuomo told the outlet of the media ecosystem writ large. “We have such division of people and we have such dysfunction of government, and part of it is this hyper-partisan, extreme dialogue that goes on.”

“There is a new sensitivity that I didn’t fully appreciate that some people have, and some people have a new sense of cultural boundaries that I didn’t appreciate enough,” Cuomo said.

It seems the disgraced governor is following in his brother’s footsteps. Chris Cuomo, who was a leading anchor at CNN during the Cuomo sex scandal, also started a new podcast after being fired from the network.

Trump To Nominate New Commerce Secretary

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Donald Trump via Gage Skidmore Flickr

On Tuesday, President-elect Donald Trump is expected to announce his nomination for Secretary of Commerce: Howard Lutnick.

Lutnick is the chair and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald and is also currently serving as co-chair of the Trump transition. He has notably publicly embraced Trump’s tariff plans, which will be a major part of the job leading Commerce.

The CEO was considered a front-runner to serve as Trump’s Treasury secretary along with Scott Bessent, who served as economic adviser on the Trump campaign.

Trump just released a statement:

I am thrilled to announce that Howard Lutnick, Chairman & CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, will join my Administration as the United States Secretary of Commerce. He will lead our Tariff and Trade agenda, with additional direct responsibility for the Office of the United States Trade Representative.

In his role as Co-Chair of the Trump-Vance Transition Team, Howard has created the most sophisticated process and system to assist us in creating the greatest Administration America has ever seen.

Lutnick beat out Linda McMahon for the role leading Commerce who was considered a front runner and previously led the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term.

McMahon is also a co-chair of his transition effort.

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