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Fox News Cuts Off Navarro Press Conference, Issues Fact Check

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    Looking east towards 6th Avenue along north (48th Street) side of Fox News building on a snowy afternoon. [Photo Credit: Jim.henderson, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons]

    On Tuesday, before Trump administration adviser Peter Navarro reported to prison Fox News unexpectedly cut away from the press conference to fact-check claims he was making.

    Navarro told reporters in Miami on Tuesday, “They can put me in prison; they can put you in prison.”

    “Make no mistake about that, and make no mistake about this: They are coming after Donald Trump with the same tactics, tools and strategies they used to put me over there today,” he continued.

    Navarro also claimed he was the “first senior White House adviser in the history of our republic that has ever been charged with this alleged crime.”

    As the network cut away from Navarro’s press conference, Fox anchor Sandra Smith said “to fact-check there. It is no longer an alleged crime that he’ll be serving this four-month sentence for.”

    “He has obviously been convicted, and there was no evidence that did … that would have excluded him, per executive privilege, from testifying,” she said.

    Navarro, 74, was convicted last year on two counts of contempt of Congress.

    Ex-MSNBC Host Signals ‘Hope’ Trump Gets Assassinated

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      Gage Skidmore Flickr

      Yikes…

      Ex-MSNBC host Keith Olbermann drew swift criticism over the weekend when he seemed to express hope former President Donald Trump is assassinated.

      According to Fox News, Olbermann was referring to the Biden-Harris HQ X account flagging a clip of Trump saying he had been persecuted worse than any president in history, including Abraham Lincoln.

      “Trump says he has been treated worse than Abraham Lincoln, who was assassinated,” the Biden campaign account posted on Saturday.

      “There’s always the hope,” Olbermann wrote, linking to the post.

      https://twitter.com/KeithOlbermann/status/1769107476069097674

      One account that responded to Olbermann’s post suggested the commentator’s account should be “permanently suspended” for appearing to endorse someone killing Trump, the presumptive nominee for the 2024 Republican nomination. Trump is trying to become only the second president since Grover Cleveland to win another White House term after losing a previous re-election bid.

      Olbermann is known for his inflammatory leftist comments and has also recently called for the dissolution of the Supreme Court.

      Trump Doubles Down On Call for Liz Cheney to Be Jailed

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        Image via Pixabay

        Is he right?

        Former President Donald Trump wants ex-Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney to be thrown behind bars.

        On Sunday morning, Trump wrote that Cheney “should go to Jail along with the rest of the Unselect Committee!”

        Trump also shared an article about the committee and accused them of having “withheld crucial evidence” by not making testimony public from a Secret Service driver. The driver, who has not been named, disputed the account of former White House staffer Cassidy Hutchinson — who claimed that on his way back to the White House on Jan. 6, Trump tried to grab the steering wheel of the limo in an effort to redirect it to the Capitol.

        The Jan. 6 committee has faced intense scrutiny over its decision to withhold some testimony from the public. According to Mediaite, Committee members noted that they had a deal with the Secret Service in which they agreed to avoid disclosing “privacy information, for-official-use-only information, intelligence and law enforcement sensitive records and raw intelligence information” from 12 interviews they conducted.

        Cheney didn’t waste much time before responding to Trump’s comments.

        “Hi Donald: you know these are lies,” Trump said. “You have had all the grand jury & J6 transcripts for many months. You’re trying to halt your 1/6 trial because your VP, WH counsel, WH aides, campaign & DOJ officials etc will testify against you. You’re afraid of the truth and you should be.”

        After that, Trump reiterated his call.

        “SHE SHOULD BE PROSECUTED FOR WHAT SHE HAS DONE TO OUR COUNTRY!” Trump wrote. “SHE ILLEGALLY DESTROYED THE EVIDENCE. UNREAL!!!”

        Florida Judge Rules On Request To Dismiss Trump’s Classified Docs Probe

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        Image via Gage Skidmore Flickr

        On Thursday, Florida District Court Judge Aileen Cannon rejected former President Donald Trump’s motion to dismiss charges of retaining classified documents.

        This is only one of two motions from Trump’s legal team. The judge has not ruled on the other motion to dismiss based on the Presidential Records Act (PRA). 

        Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche initially asserted that the PRA gives the president the authority to retain documents he sees fit. However, later the judge one point remarked that the Trump defense team’s view of the Presidential Records Act would essentially “gut the PRA.”

        Fox News continues:

        “Presidents since George Washington have taken material out of the White House,” said Blanche, adding that the PRA was passed in the late ’70s and nothing in the statute says anything about documents with markings or anything that gives the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) the ability to challenge a president’s decision about which documents are personal versus presidential.

        Trump’s attorney also pointed out often that the then-president caused these boxes to be moved while he was still president and that this is the first time NARA has challenged a decision made by a president about which documents are personal versus presidential. They claim NARA only took this action because the president in question was Donald Trump.

        Blanche replied that it is up to Congress to change the law. “That’s what’s supposed to happen. DOJ can’t just decide… [what is personal versus presidential],” he said. 

        “We don’t have a lot of case law on this because this has never been done before,” added Blanche. “While he was the president he took records, like many presidents… For the first time ever, NARA took a different path and made a criminal referral,” instead of negotiating with the president as had been done in the past.

        Cannon at one point said, “Correct… the seizure of a president’s records was seen to be an extraordinary act.”

        Judge Approves $92M Bond In NY Defamation Trial as E. Jean Carroll Team Hints At New Lawsuit

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        Image via Pixabay free images

        A federal judge has accepted former President Donald Trump’s bond money which totals just under $100 million ahead of his appeal.

        Judge Lewis A. Kaplan approved the bond on Tuesday, which will now serve as a guarantee that the former president will pay out if his appeal does not overturn the verdict.

        Trump posted the $92 million bond last week following a ruling that found him liable in his New York defamation case against E. Jean Carroll in January of this year.

        Trump is appealing the January decision to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan.

        The bond value is higher than the total damages due to a requirement for 110% of the judgment value to be posted during the appeal process.

        Federal Insurance Company — based in Chesapeake, Virginia — provided the bond money, according to documents signed by the former president.

        Trump’s lawyers said he made statements about Carroll in an effort to “defend his reputation, protect his family, and defend his Presidency.”

        A jury found him liable for $83.3 million in damages to E. Jean Carroll for defaming her through previous statements attacking her credibility — $18.3 million in compensatory damages, and $65 million in punitive damages.

        Carroll’s legal team has not ruled out a potential third lawsuit against the former President.

        Monday morning, Trump again attacked Carroll on CNBC’s Squawk Box, trashing her as “Ms. Bergdorf Goodman, a person I’d never met” who was making a “false accusation” against him — similar wording to his insults that sparked her lawsuits in the first place.

        Carroll’s attorney Kaplan reacted to Trump’s comments about her client, issuing a statement that made it clear the legal team was considering going a third round with the ex-president.

        “The statute of limitations for defamation in most jurisdictions is between one and three years,” said Kaplan. “As we said after the last jury verdict, we continue to monitor every statement that Donald Trump makes about our client, E. Jean Carroll.”

        Republican Group Planning $50M Campaign To Stop Trump Re-election

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        Donald Trump via Gage Skidmore Flickr

        A coalition of anti-Trump Republicans are willing to do whatever it takes to prevent a second Trump term in the White House.

        Republican Voters Against Trump plans to spend $50 million on the anti-Trump campaign.

        The campaign is organized by Sarah Longwell, a Republican strategist and longtime Trump critic. The plan is to target “moderate Republican” and Republican-leaning voters in swing states with testimonial videos of past Trump supporters who will share why they won’t be supporting the former president in the next election.

        According to The Hill, the ads featuring the former Trump voter testimonials will be deployed on TV, streaming platforms, billboards, radio and digital media. They will run in the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. 

        “Former Republicans and Republican-leaning voters hold the key to 2024, and reaching them with credible, relatable messengers is essential to re-creating the anti-Trump coalition that made the difference in 2020,” Longwell, the president of the group’s Republican Accountability PAC, said in a Tuesday statement.

        “It establishes a permission structure that says that—whatever their complaints about Joe Biden—Donald Trump is too dangerous and too unhinged to ever be president again. Who better to make this case than the voters who used to support him?”

        The voters who are sharing their testimonies are generally not applauding Biden or arguing why he should be reelected in 2024, but mostly sharing which incidents made them oppose the former president. 

        “I voted for Donald Trump in 2020. January 6 was the end of Donald Trump for me,” Ethan, a Wisconsin resident, says in the video. He will be voting for Biden. “The peaceful transfer of power is one of the defining pieces of our democracy, and I could not believe that someone I had formerly supported would get behind an effort that would throw that under the bus … There is no choice.”

         The group had a similar strategy in 2020 where they shared over 1,000 testimonials during the election.

        ‘Trump! Trump! Trump!’ New York Attorney General Gets Booed During Ceremony

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          Gage Skidmore Flickr

          That’s embarrassing…

          New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) did not receive the warmest of welcomes from firefighters during a recent ceremony…

          In videos circulating online, booing erupted as James walked up to the podium to honor the swearing-in of the first African-American woman chaplain of the FDNY, the Rev. Pamela Holmes as well as other first responders. 

          “Oh c’mon, we’re in a house of God. Simmer down,” James told the rowdy crowd. “Thank you for getting it out of your system.” 

          Despite the crowd’s jeers, James pressed away with her remarks, paying homage to first responders, but some in the crowd continued booing. 

          Then the crowd began to repeatedly chant, “Trump!” Later in her speech, James said she prayed even for those firefighters in the audience booing her. 

          According to Fox News, Chief of Department John Hodgens later harshly criticized the behavior of the firefighters. 

          “Today’s ceremony was about one thing: the accomplishments of the members being promoted,” he said. “The members whose behavior distracted from that celebration were an embarrassment and not befitting of the world’s best fire department.” 

          New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) sued Trump in 2022, alleging he falsely altered his net worth on key financial statements to receive tax and insurance benefits. The documents, which detailed the value of the Trump Organization’s various assets, were sent to banks and insurers to secure loans and deals, which the state purports is evidence of fraud.  

          The former president faces more than 90 criminal charges in four prosecutions. 

          Charles Barkley’s Threats To Punch Trump Supporters Forces CNN Into Damage Control Mode

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            CNN Headquarters via Wikimedia Commons

            CNN anchor Gayle King was forced to initiate damage control mode after her co-host and NBA legend Charles Barkley made a faux pas.

            Mediaite’s Charlie Nash noted that the dust-up began on Saturday’s edition of “King Charles” when King played a clip of Donald Trump boasting about Black people wearing Trump mugshot t-shirts. “When you heard that, what did you think?,” she asked the hall of famer:

            Barkley let out a big sigh, before replying, “First of all, I’m just going to say this, if I see a Black person walking around with Trump mugshot I’m gonna punch him in the face.”

            “Charles. Charles, you really can’t say that ’cause, A. you don’t mean that,” King quickly interjected.

            “Oh, I mean that sincerely,” the Round Mound of Rebound fired back.

            “And then you will be arrested for assault, and then what?” King asked, reminiscent of a bewildered parent.

            “I’m gonna bail myself out and go celebrate,” Barkley replied.

            After the audience laughed, King told them not to encourage her co-host.

            Barkley later clarified that if he were present for Trump’s comments, he would have left.

            “That was an insult to all Black people,” he said. “To compare Black history, where we’ve been discriminated against, to his plight– Well, first of all, he’s a billionaire, and they are prosecuting him for stuff he did wrong.”

            King noted, “It’s still in the court system, Charles; we have to wait.”

            “Well, some of the stuff is true,” Barkley concluded. “They did storm the Capitol. They did say that the election was stolen.”

            This article originally appeared on American Liberty News. Republished with permission.

            Ex-Trump Organization CFO Pleads Guilty To Perjury Charges

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            Gavel via Wikimedia Commons Image

            On Monday, former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg appeared in Manhattan Criminal Court to plead guilty to charges related to Donald Trump’s civil fraud case.

            Weisselberg pleaded guilty to perjury charges stemming from his testimony in former President Trump’s civil fraud trial. 

            The top executive was ordered to pay more than $1.1 million, plus interest.

            The Hill reports:

            Weisselberg’s charges stem from his testimony in October during the civil fraud trial, where he testified that he “never focused on” Trump’s Manhattan triplex that was listed on the former president’s financial statements as 30,000 square feet in size – despite actually being less than 11,000 square feet.  

            But after Weisselberg testified, Forbes published an article accusing him of lying under oath, citing years old correspondence between the magazine and Trump Organization executive. 

            “A review of old emails and notes, some of which the attorney general’s office does not possess, show that Weisselberg absolutely thought about Trump’s apartment—and played a key role in trying to convince Forbes over the course of several years that it was worth more than it really was,” Forbes wrote in its Oct. 12 article.  

            When confronted by state lawyers about the Forbes article, Weisselberg conceded that the triplex in the former president’s 5th Avenue Trump Tower was only 10,996 square feet. 

            Weisselberg is among several top executives at the Trump organization who were barred last month from operating their business in New York for a range of two to three years. That ruling came from Judge Aurthur Engoron, who also banned Trump and his children from operating the business. 

            A New York Appeals Court allowed Trump and his sons to maintain control of the company temporarily while they attempt to appeal Engoron’s decision.

            Engoron also “permanently” barred defendants Weisselberg and former corporate controller Jeffrey McConney from “serving in the financial control function of any New York corporation or similar business entity registered and/or licensed in New York State” and as a director of any New York corporation or other legal entity in New York for three years.

            “There was never an option to choose a jury trial,” a Trump spokesperson told Fox News Digital last month. “It is unfortunate that a jury won’t be able to hear how absurd the merits of this case are and conclude no wrongdoing ever happened.”

            New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) sued Trump in 2022, alleging he falsely altered his net worth on key financial statements to receive tax and insurance benefits. The documents, which detailed the value of the Trump Organization’s various assets, were sent to banks and insurers to secure loans and deals, which the state purports is evidence of fraud.  

            Supreme Court Rules On Trump’s Eligibility

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

              The Supreme Court unanimously ruled Colorado cannot disqualify former President Trump from the ballot under the 14th Amendment’s insurrection ban. A significant victory for Trump as he seeks another term in the White House.

              “Former President Trump challenges that decision on several grounds. Because the Constitution makes Congress, rather than the States, responsible for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates, we reverse,” reads the unsigned opinion from the court. 

              Trump celebrated the Supreme Court ruling to restore him to the ballot in Colorado a “BIG WIN FOR AMERICA.”

              “A great win for America. Very, very important!” Trump told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview Monday morning. 

              “Equally important for our country will be the decision that they will soon make on immunity for a president — without which, the presidency would be relegated to nothing more than a ceremonial position, which is far from what the founders intended,” Trump told Fox News Digital. “No president would be able to properly and effectively function without complete and total immunity.” 

              He added, “Our country would be put at great risk.” 

              Read the unsigned ruling below:

              The Colorado Supreme Court ruled in December that Trump is disqualified from being president again and ineligible for the state’s primary

              The state’s highest court was the first to invoke Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, a post-Civil War constitutional provision aimed at preventing those who “engaged in insurrection” from holding office. Until now, the Supreme Court has never ruled on the provision.

              The 14th Amendment, Section 3 of the Constitution states, “No person shall… hold any office… under the United States… who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States… to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”

              The former president faces more than 90 criminal charges in four prosecutions. Of those, the only one with a trial date is his state case in New York in which he’s charged with falsifying business records in connection with hush-money payments to a porn actor. That case is set for trial on March 25, and the judge has signaled his determination to press ahead.

              This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.