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Bolton Reacts To Trump Mugshot: ‘He Looks Like A Thug’

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

Former Trump administration national security advisor John Bolton called his old boss a “thug” after seeing his booking photo.

During an interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, Bolton suggested that the mugshot may have been deliberately staged to portray the former president as tough.

Collins began the interview by asking, “I just wonder, as someone who worked inside the West Wing when Donald Trump was president, what is it like for you to see his mug shot tonight?”

Bolton responded, “I thought it was carefully staged. They must have thought about what look they wanted. He could have smiled. He could have looked benign. Instead, he looks like a thug. I think it’s intended to be a sign of intimidation against the prosecutors and judges. That’s what they picked, and we’ll see that picture everywhere.”

Breitbart has the transcript:

Collins said, “So, you think they actually spent time deciding, you know, should he smile in this? Should he have this scowl that he appears to have gone with?”

Bolton said, “Almost as much time as they spent combing his hair.”

Collins said, “He posted the mug shot, you know, shortly after on his own social media account, along with the phrase, never surrender. I mean, a bit ironic, given he had just surrendered at the Fulton County Jail behind me. But how do you expect him to try to use this to his political advantage, as he’s running for president?”

Bolton said that Trump would use the latest development in Georgia to his political advantage in the Republican primary as he has thus far: “Well, I think in the same way he’s used the other three indictments. I think the evidence is that the indictments have proven the law of diminishing margin of utility. If anything, they’re not undercutting his support. They’re building it up.”

Georgia DA Says Trump Investigation Is Concluded ‘We’re Ready To Go’

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Donald Trump via Gage Skidmore Flickr

The walls are closing in on Trump…

Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis (D) says the investigation into the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results is finished, and charging decisions will come by September 1.

“The work is accomplished,” Willis told local news station 11Alive on Saturday. “We’ve been working for 2 1/2 years. We’re ready to go.”

“Some people may not be happy with the decisions that I’m making, and sometimes, when people are unhappy, they act in a way that could create harm,” Willis added.

Ahead of the highly anticipated charging announcement, local law enforcement officials have been working to increase security in the area.

“I think that the sheriff is doing something smart in making sure that the courthouse stays safe,” Willis said, noting that she wrote a letter to the sheriff about security efforts.

“I’m not willing to put any of the employees or the constituents that come to the courthouse in harm’s way,” Willis added.

Trump has sought to block the investigation from proceeding. On Monday, a Georgia judge rejected one of the former president’s attempts to dismiss the probe. (RELATED: Georgia Judge Rejects Trump Effort to End Fulton County Investigation)

“The movants’ asserted ‘injuries’ that would open the doors of the courthouse to their claims are either insufficient or else speculative and unrealized,” Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney wrote in the nine-page ruling.

Report: Georgia DA Planning to Indict Trump Next Month

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Gage Skidmore Flickr

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is reportedly planning to indict former President Trump next month on racketeering charges.

Left-leaning publication The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell cited two sources close to the matter in an exclusive report detailing the possibility of racketeering charges, which would be based on “influencing witnesses and computer trespass.

“The racketeering statute in Georgia requires prosecutors to show the existence of an ‘enterprise’ – and a pattern of racketeering activity that is predicated on at least two ‘qualifying’ crimes,” Lowell explains.

The report added that while the “specific evidence was not clear” the “charge regarding influencing witnesses could include Trump’s conversations with Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger.” Trump was recorded asking Raffensperger to “find” 11,780 votes, his losing margin in the state, in order to be declared the victor. Lowell also details the potential computer trespass charges:

For the computer trespass charge, where prosecutors would have to show that defendants used a computer or network without authority to interfere with a program or data, that would include the breach of voting machines in Coffee county, the two people said.

The breach of voting machines involved a group of Trump operatives – paid by the then Trump lawyer Sidney Powell – accessing the voting machines at the county’s election office and copying sensitive voting system data.

The report notes that the copied data was then “uploaded to a password-protected site from where election deniers could download the materials as part of a misguided effort to prove the 2020 election had been rigged.”

Mark Levin Loses It In Livid Monologue On Biden DOJ

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

Fox News firebrand Mark Levin fired off some harsh accusations against President Biden’s Department of Justice on Sunday.

During the latest airing of Life, Liberty, and Levin, the host honed in on the number of leaks that have been made to the media in Trump’s ongoing legal cases.

“This department is destroying America. It’s destroying the 2024 election. It’s violating every norm, every tradition, everything it inherited to ensure that that department could be trustworthy and could be reliable,” Levin said. “And I want to say this. If we don’t break the back of the Department of Justice, and I will explain what I mean in a moment, it will destroy this country.”

Levin then begins reading headlines from the New York Times, CNN, and the Washington Post about leaks regarding Trump’s legal cases.

“Who do these leaks help? Do they help Donald Trump? Do they help a single witness? It’s the federal government. It is the Biden Department of Justice. It is the Democrat Party’s Department of Justice that’s interfering in the election.

“Look at this! You see this?! These are the leaks! From grand juries to witnesses to Mar a Lago to the nature of the classified documents,” Levin adds. “Leak after leak after leak!”

Levin then claims that the “pattern of leaks” violates Trump’s 5th and 6th Amendment rights as well as contaminates the jury pool in the upcoming cases.

“All roads go through the Department of Justice. All roads go through Jack Smith‘s office, the special counsel,” Levin screams. “Now the Trump lawyers need to wake the hell up to do something about this.”

Special Counsel Jack Smith has charged the former President with 47 counts, if convicted Trump could spend the rest of his life in prison.

Fox News Host Suggests Trump is Behind Leaked Audio Footage

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Photo via Gage Skidmore Flickr

The plot thickens…

On Tuesday, Fox News host Steve Doocy suggested former President Trump may have been behind the leak of an audio recording showing Trump talking about his handling of classified documents.

In newly obtained audio former president Donald Trump can be heard discussing classified documents with people not cleared to have access to the highly sensitive information.

On Monday’s edition of Anderson Cooper 360, the host claimed that the audio from 2021, exposes Trump sharing US military war plans against Iran despite the former president telling Fox News host Bret Baier earlier this month that there was no such document. (RELATED: Trump Responds After New Audio Tapes Discussing Classified Docs Surface)

“You know what? If Trump thinks it’s an exoneration of him, perhaps somebody on his side actually did the leaking to CNN and Maggie Haberman,” Doocy said Tuesday morning.

“That makes sense,” co-host Brian Kilmeade chimed in.

“It does, actually,” Doocy said. “He’s admitting he’s got classified documents.”

Trump was federally indicted earlier this month in connection to his handling of classified documents. He said Monday night the audio is “actually an exoneration” and accused the Department of Justice of intentionally leaking the recording.

“The Deranged Special Prosecutor, Jack Smith, working in conjunction with the DOJ & FBI, illegally leaked and ‘spun’ a tape and transcript of me which is actually an exoneration, rather than what they would have you believe,” he said in a post on Truth Social

Trump Reacts to Hunter Biden Plea Deal

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Photo via Gage Skidmore Flickr

Former President Donald Trump is not holding back on Hunter Biden’s “slap on the wrist.”

The presidential candidate reacted to the news President Biden’s son Hunter has reportedly reached a plea deal to plead guilty to two federal misdemeanor counts of failing to pay his taxes and reached a diversion agreement related to the unlawful possession of a weapon.

“They gave him a traffic ticket and cleared everything up,” Trump told Fox News Digital after Biden’s plea deal was announced. “It is a disgrace to the system, it is a disgrace to America, it is a very unfair situation, it is prosecutorial misconduct, and it is election interference — all wrapped up into one.”

“This is a corrupt justice system and a corrupt FBI,” Trump said, adding that one of his family members would likely be facing “hundreds of years.”

Donald Trump Jr., the former president’s son, also decried the Justice Department’s “double standard” in his own statement.

“The blatantly politicized nature of Joe Biden’s Justice Department under AG Garland couldn’t be more clear today,” Trump Jr. wrote in a statement. “The plea deal that they cut with Hunter Biden reeks of favoritism and brazenly reveals a system where there are two-tiers of Justice, wholly dependent on your political affiliation.”

Hunter’s criminal counsel, Chris Clark of Clark Smith Villazor, said that “with the announcement of two agreements between my client, Hunter Biden, and the Unites States Attorney’s Office for the District of Delaware, it is my understanding that the five-year investigation into Hunter is resolved.”

“Hunter will take responsibility for two instances of misdemeanor failure to file tax payments when due pursuant to a plea agreement,” Clark said. “A firearm charge, which will be subject to a pretrial diversion agreement and will not be the subject of the plea agreement, will also be filed by the Government.”

Biden has been under federal investigation since 2018. 

However, the Biden family is still having an investigation by the House Oversight Committee.

Rep. James Comer’s (R-Ky.) investigation has most recently focused on the FBI-generated FD-1023 form alleging a criminal bribery scheme between then-Vice President Joe Biden and a foreign national that involved influence over U.S. policy decisions. 

CNN Dumps Trump Transcript Over Classified Docs

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Photo via Gage Skidmore Flickr

Things are not looking good for Donald Trump.

Hours after Trump was reportedly indicted by a Florida grand jury in the classified documents case CNN’s Paula Reid shared a transcript of the tape in which Trump discusses not being able to share secret information.

Reid and Kaitlan Collins broke the news last week that Trump was caught on tape discussing an allegedly classified document that he had taken with him when he left the White House. During the tape, Trump reportedly acknowledged he can’t show the document, which outlines a plan to attack Iran, to his visitors because of the classification attached to it.

Read the transcript below:

“Secret. This is secret information. Look, look at this,” Trump says at one point, according to the transcript. “This was done by the military and given to me.”

Trump was complaining in the meeting about Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley. The meeting occurred shortly after The New Yorker published a story by Susan Glasser detailing how, in the final days of Trump’s presidency, Milley instructed the Joint Chiefs to ensure Trump issued no illegal orders and that he be informed if there was any concern.

“Well, with Milley – uh, let me see that, I’ll show you an example. He said that I wanted to attack Iran. Isn’t that amazing? I have a big pile of papers, this thing just came up. Look. This was him,” Trump says, according to the transcript. “They presented me this – this is off the record, but – they presented me this. This was him. This was the Defense Department and him. We looked at some. This was him. This wasn’t done by me, this was him.”

Trump continues: “All sorts of stuff – pages long, look. Wait a minute, let’s see here. I just found, isn’t that amazing? This totally wins my case, you know. Except it is like, highly confidential. Secret. This is secret information. Look, look at this.”

During an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital Thursday night, Trump said the case is “election interference” and “the greatest witch hunt of all time.” Trump said he will “of course” plead not guilty to charges in federal court on Tuesday, and said he is “totally innocent.”

“This is the most corrupt administration in history—there has never been an administration so corrupt, and they’re just starting to find it right now,” Trump told Fox News Digital. “They are trying to deflect all of their dishonesty by bringing this ridiculous boxes hoax case.”

He added: “They’re not going to get away with it.”

“I did absolutely nothing wrong,” he said, citing the Presidential Records Act, saying it “makes me totally innocent.”

Trump Responds to Latest Indictment Whispers

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Donald Trump via Gage Skidmore Flickr

Former President Donald Trump is responding to fresh claims that federal authorities are closing in on a new indictment against him.

On Wednesday, a former Trump associate testified before a federal grand jury in the investigation into former President Donald Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified materials.

“Today, in what can only be described as a bogus and deeply troubling effort to use the power of government to ‘get’ Trump, I fulfilled a legal obligation to testify in front a federal grand jury and I answered every question honestly,” Taylor Budowich, a former Trump spokesperson, wrote on Twitter.

“America has become a sick and broken nation—a decline led by Joe Biden and power hungry Democrats,” he added. “I will not be intimidated by this weaponization of government. For me, the need to unite our nation and make America great again has never been more clear than it is today.”

Budowich previously served as a spokesperson for Trump after he left the White House. He is now the head of MAGA Inc., a super PAC backing the former president’s 2024 bid.

The Florida grand jury hearing testimony is the latest development in the investigation by special counsel Jack Smith into whether Trump mishandled classified documents after leaving office.

Multiple outlets have reported that Trump has received a letter from federal prosecutors notifying him of the impending indictment.

Report: Ex-GOP Candidate Indicted in Shootings at Lawmakers’ Homes

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Police image via Pixabay free images

A former Republican candidate for the state House in New Mexico has been indicted on numerous federal charges over his alleged involvement in a series of drive-by shootings.

The 11-count indictment in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico accuses Solomon Peña of organizing a series of four shootings that happened at four Democratic officials’ homes between December and January. 

“SOLOMON PENA ran for the New Mexico House of Representatives and lost by nearly 50 percentage points in November 2022. Refusing to accept his electoral defeat, PENA organized a shooting spree that targeted the homes of four elected officials and their families,” the indictment reads. 

The shootings happened at the homes of two Bernalillo County commissioners, one state senator and the Speaker of the state House. 

Peña was originally arrested in January, with Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina saying at the time he “masterminded” all the attacks. 

The charges Peña is facing include conspiracy, interference with federally protected activities and using and carrying a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence, and possessing a firearm in furtherance of the crime. 

Peña lost his race to incumbent Democrat Miguel Garcia in the state’s 14th District in November. 

The indictment charges Peña and two of his alleged accomplices. No one was injured in the attacks, but bullets passed through the bedroom of the state senator’s 10-year-old daughter. 

This is a breaking news story. Click refresh for the latest updates.

Fox News Hosts Turn On Trump After Recent Tirade Targeting Former Press Sec.

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Kayleigh McEnany via Gage Skidmore Flickr

The Fox News team is defending former White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany after she became the subject of Trump’s

“Kayleigh ‘Milktoast’ McEnany just gave out the wrong poll numbers on FoxNews,” Trump wrote in a Tuesday post on Truth Social, “I am 34 points up on DeSanctimonious, not 25 up. While 25 is great, it’s not 34”

“She knew the number was corrected upwards by the group that did the poll,” he claimed. “The RINOS & Globalists can have her. FoxNews should only use REAL Stars!!!”

Shortly before Trump’s post, McEnany — a co-host of Fox News’ Outnumbered — had appeared on Fox News’ Jesse Watters Primetime, where she said that Trump’s 2024 Republican primary rival Ron DeSantis appeared to be closing in on the former president in Iowa.

“The DeSantis team would say, you know, ‘We just had polling come out that shows we closed the gap by 9 points since we announced in Iowa.’ Still, Trump’s hugely ahead, but they say they’re closing the gap. That’s their argument,” said McEnany, who served as Trump’s press secretary between April 2020 and January 2021.

“If you look at the polling now, it was Trump 34 in Iowa, it’s now Trump 25,” she continued. “That’s double digits.”

On Wednesday, Brian Kilmeade didn’t hold back from criticizing Trump’s decision to lash out at his former press secretary.

“Three shots at common weaknesses of the president,” Kilmeade said while discussing “some subtle shots at Trump,” he saw the Florida Governor make during a Tuesday stump speech in Iowa.

“They see you make things up. They say he’s he flies off the handle. For example, attacking Kayleigh McEnany is insane. She was one of the best press secretaries ever. Dana Perino, as Ari Fleischer watching to say she was fantastic, but she’s an analyst now. She doesn’t work for any campaign.”

A number of Fox News officials also knocked Trump for his attack on McEnany.

“This is pathetic. I don’t care who you are. This is unacceptable and unhinged,” reacted Blaze TV host Chad Prather. “[McEnany] took bullets for this man. We have a guy in the White House destroying the country and you go after her?!?!? It’s becoming an absolute joke.”