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Report: Trump Indictment Unsealed!

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Gage Skidmore Flickr

The charges against former President Donald Trump have been revealed after he was arraigned on Tuesday.

The indictment against the former president, People of the State of New York against Donald J. Trump, Indictment No. 71543-23, has been unsealed. Trump faces 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. 

Read the indictment below:

https://twitter.com/EricTrump/status/1643323850057306112

The charges come one day after Trump arrived in New York for the criminal proceedings.

Last Thursday, the New York grand jury voted to indict former President Donald Trump for his alleged role in a hush money bribe to adult film star Stormy Daniels amid the 2016 presidential election in DA Alvin Bragg’s yearslong investigation into the real estate mogul.

Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York opted out of charging Trump related to the Daniels payment in 2019. The Federal Election Commission also tossed its investigation into the matter in 2021.

On Tuesday, the former President surrendered to the Manhattan Criminal Court for his arraignment

“Heading to Lower Manhattan, the Courthouse,” he said on Truth Social as he made his way from Trump Tower to the courtroom.

“Seems so SURREAL — WOW, they are going to ARREST ME,” he said. “Can’t believe this is happening in America. MAGA!”

Trump was processed and then escorted to Justice Juan Merchan’s courtroom for the arraignment proceedings. Trump was not handcuffed, as some are during an arraignment, and did not have a mugshot taken. Detectives handled the arrest of the former president. However, the arraignment has been surrounded by a media firestorm after Trump became the first president to be indicted.

At least two helicopters hovered over the courthouse and the adjacent public park as protestors gathered. Dueling chants of “USA!” and “lock him up!” were fired back and forth between crowds of pro-Trump and anti-Trump demonstrators assembled in the public square across the street from the courtroom.

Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges and has called on District Attorney Alvin Bragg to be indicted himself over his handling of the case, claiming the DA “illegally leaked” details of Trump’s case.

“Wow! District Attorney Bragg just illegally LEAKED the various points, and complete information, on the pathetic Indictment against me,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Tuesday. “I know the reporter and so, unfortunately, does he. This means that he MUST BE IMMEDIATELY INDICTED. Now, if he wants to really clean up his reputation, he will do the honorable thing and, as District Attorney, INDICT HIMSELF.”

Numerous conservatives have publicly tweeted their support of Trump.

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

‘I Love Trump’ Tucker Carlson Addresses Private Text Fiasco

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Photo via Gage Skidmore Flickr

Tucker Carlson is clearing the air after his private text messages revealed his hidden hatred for former President Donald Trump.

The Fox News star tried to walk back his private remarks about Trump during an appearance on WABC radio.

“And I think this is in the text, and those were all grabbed completely illegitimately, in my opinion, in this court case, which I guess I’m not allowed to talk about, but I’m enraged that my private texts were pulled,” he said.

The Fox News host said those texts were pulled at a moment when he was texting with one of his producers because “some idiot on the Trump campaign had sent us the name of these dead voters who had voted,” referring to his false reporting after the 2020 election that echoed the Trump campaign’s unfounded claims of dead people who were fraudulently counted as voting in Georgia. After Carlson’s segment aired, a local Georgia news outlet debunked his claim, finding that two of the allegedly dead voters were alive and legally registered to vote, with CNN reporting days later that a third of the supposedly dead voters was also still living.

“And we went and I repeated them on air, and it turns out some of them were alive,” Carlson said, referring to the campaign’s accusation. “So I was just — I felt humiliated.”

Earlier this month, Carlson’s along with other prominent Fox News officials’ private text messages were revealed in court documents as part of a $1.6 billion Dominion Voting Systems defamation suit against the network.

During a Jan. 4, 2021 text conversation with an unknown producer, Carlson sounded off on the former president.

The prime-time star wrote, “We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights.”

The unknown staffer reportedly speculated that they believed the madness would cool down by “mid-February.”

“I hate him passionately,” Carlson replied. “I blew up at [former Trump official] Peter Navarro today in frustration. I actually like Peter. But I can’t handle much more of this.”

Florida Governor Breaks Silence on Potential Trump Arrest

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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) is finally addressing former President Donald Trump’s remarks over the weekend that Manhattan prosecutors plan to arrest him on Tuesday.

During an event Monday, DeSantis slammed George Soros-backed prosecutor Alvin Bragg’s highly politicized yearslong witchhunt into the former president.

“I’ve seen rumors swirl. I have not seen any facts yet, and so I don’t know what’s going to happen,” said DeSantis, a likely 2024 Republican presidential hopeful. “But I do know this: The Manhattan district attorney is a Soros-funded prosecutor and so he, like other Soros-funded prosecutors, they weaponize their office to impose a political agenda on society at the expense of the rule of law and public safety.”

“But what I can speak to is if you have a prosecutor, who is ignoring crimes happening every single day in his jurisdiction, and he chooses to go back many, many years ago to try to use something about porn star hush-money payments, that’s an example of pursuing a political agenda and weaponizing the office,” he said.

DeSantis also noted that his office would not be involved in the case “in any way,” signaling that he has no plans to help Trump fight extradition to New York should he face charges.

Prosecutors are expected to charge Trump with a felony by arguing that the alleged crime was committed to hide an illegal campaign contribution. The potential problem for Trump centers around how his company reimbursed former attorney Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty to related charges and served time in prison.

The payment to Daniels was listed as a legal expense and Trump’s company cited a retainer agreement with Cohen. The retainer agreement did not exist and the reimbursement was not related to any legal services from Cohen, thus setting up a potential misdemeanor criminal charge of falsifying business records. A report by NBC News said that Trump personally signed several of the checks to Cohen while he was serving as president.

Prosecutors can elevate the misdemeanor to a felony if they can prove that Trump’s “‘intent to defraud’ included an intent to commit or conceal a second crime.”

Prosecutors argue that the second crime is that the $130,000 hush payment was an improper donation to the Trump campaign because the money was used to stop a story for the purpose of benefiting his presidential campaign.

Mitch McConnell’s Office Provides Update Following Hospitalization

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Mitch McConnell via Gage Skidmore Flickr

Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) office is releasing more details on the senior’s sudden hospital visit.

The 81-year-old Senator fell at a dinner event on Wednesday evening at the Waldorf Astoria for the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC closely affiliated with the leader. He is being treated for a concussion and will stay in the hospital for the next few days for treatment and observation, according to reports from The Hill.

“Leader McConnell tripped at a dinner event Wednesday evening and has been admitted to the hospital and is being treated for a concussion. He is expected to remain in the hospital for a few days of observation and treatment,” his office announced Thursday, breaking hours of silence after revealing Wednesday evening that the GOP leader had tripped and injured himself at a local hotel.  

“The Leader is grateful to the medical professionals for their care and to his colleagues for their warm wishes,” McConnell’s office said.

McConnell won election to a seventh term in 2020 and is next up for reelection in 2026.  

Critics of the senior lawmaker wasted no time before offering their distasteful remarks.

However, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer offered prayers for McConnell and his family in his opening remarks on Thursday. Sen. Schumer said he spoke with the Republican Senator Thursday morning and wished him a full and speedy recovery.

Controversial conservative influencer Laura Loomer offered her own crass remarks on Twitter.

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

DeSantis Receives Unexpected Rescue After Being Called ‘Racist’

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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis received an unexpected rescue after being called a racist.

Black leaders in Miami apologized to Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis after one of its members called him a racist last week, according to reports from Fox News.

Pierre Rutledge, chair of the Miami-Dade Black Affairs Advisory Board, issued a statement on behalf of his board that apologized to DeSantis for a comment made at their Wednesday meeting from a member who said, “Our governor is racist.”

“We take it to heart when someone uses the term racist,” Rutledge said Friday. “Words matter. And so as chair, I must start by saying we want to pull that back. There’s nothing wrong with saying ‘we’re sorry.’ That’s not what we intended to say or be depicted by anyone. And that’s not the feeling of this board.”

The member labeled DeSantis a racist due to the ongoing controversy of an African-American history Advanced Placement course. Earlier this year, Gov. DeSantis rejected the course because he claimed the content did not focus on Black history, instead, the course contained Black Lives Matter and queer issues. 

DeSantis has defended the decision from his Department of Education to remove the African-American history course, which he said pushes a political agenda.

“This course on Black history, what’s one of the lessons about? Queer theory,” DeSantis said. “Now, who would say that an important part of Black history is queer theory? That is somebody pushing an agenda.”

Black leaders and Democrats in Florida have pledged to defend and keep the course in schools.

The College Board removed aspects of the course last Wednesday opposed by DeSantis. The course will be reevaluated by the Florida Department of Education to determine if it is appropriate for schools.

Boebert Says She Won’t Support McCarthy Speaker Bid Without This

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

Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert is on the fence about supporting Kevin McCarthy but one condition could push her over the edge.

Boebert, who recently won a razor-thin re-election bid, says that she will only support the California Republican if there is a mechanism to easily remove him from the top post.

According to The Hill, while at a Turning Point USA conference in Phoenix, Boebert said, “We have to have an accountability mechanism on the Speaker of the House.”

“This is third in command for the presidency of the United States of American,” she said in an interview with “Real America’s Voice,” a conservative channel. “And we are going to strip away the one check-and-balance that members of Congress have?”

Some House Republicans have expressed the desire for any lawmaker to call a motion to vacate the Speaker chair to make it easier to remove someone from the leadership post.

Earlier this month, House Freedom Caucus member Rep. Scott Perry along with six other Republicans released a list of conditions for the next Speaker.

The requests in the letter include:

  • Restore any member’s ability to make a “Motion to Vacate the Chair” and force a vote on removing the Speaker. Former Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), a founding Freedom Caucus member, helped propel former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) toward retirement by making a motion to vacate the chair in 2015.
  • Require at least 72 hours from release of final bill text before it gets a vote on the House floor.
  • Bar House GOP leadership and leadership-affiliated PACs from getting involved in primaries. The McCarthy-aligned Congressional Leadership Fund was active in many House primaries boosting McCarthy-friendly candidates in the 2022 cycle.
  • Increase the number of Freedom Caucus members in committee chairmanships and on the House Rules Committee.
  • Decline to raise debt ceiling without a plan to cap spending and balance the federal budget in 10 years.
  • Do not “return to the blind embrace of earmarks.” The practice of directing federal spending to a specific recipient or project was brought back in this Congress as “community project funding” after a decadelong ban. The House Republican Conference last month overwhelmingly voted against an internal proposal to ban the practice.
  • Use “must-pass” bills like the annual defense authorization bill and the farm bill as leverage to secure conservative priorities and “check the Biden administration.”
  • Create a “Church Committee”-style panel to target “weaponized government.” While McCarthy and House Republicans have promised extensive investigations into the Biden administration and alleged politicization of federal agencies, some, like Roy, think the plans do not go far enough.

“Negotiations after that are just a wish list,” she said. “There’s no accountability attached to the promises.”

Report: Sec. Mayorkas Tells Border Official ‘Resign or Be Fired’

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NEW YORK CITY (September 11, 2022) Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas lays flowers for USSS Master Special Officer Craig Miller and participates in the September 11th Anniversary Commemoration Ceremony at Ground Zero in New York City, NY. (DHS photo by Sydney Phoenix)

A Biden administration border official is reportedly being pressured to resign from his role.

Multiple sources close to the matter informed Politico that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Chris Magnus is being pressured by leaders to resign or be fired after criticizing their ineffectiveness at tamping down the border surge.

Magnus was reportedly told on Wednesday by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that he should either resign or be dismissed and, so far, the CBP chief has refused to step down, according to four people.

Some executive assistant commissioners at CBP have indicated they would leave the agency if Magnus does not resign, according to one of the current DHS official and the former DHS official.

Mayorkas has since shifted Magnus’ duties and responsibilities to his deputy secretary, John Tien, and has deputy CBP commissioner Troy Miller, a career government official, running the agency’s day-to-day operations, according to three of the people.

POLITICO reported in October that five current administration officials who work with Magnus described him as unengaged in his job, saying he often failed to attend White House meetings on the situation on the border, badmouthed other agencies to colleagues and superiors, and has not built relationships within CBP and across other immigration agencies to address the influx of migrants at the border. Several also said he fell asleep in numerous meetings, which Magnus blamed on the effects of his multiple sclerosis.

Magnus has been leading the border agency since December and it’s currently unclear who might permanently take over his Senate-confirmed position if he complies with Sec. Mayorkas’ wishes.

CBP is responsible for securing U.S. borders at and between ports of entry. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is the agency responsible for arresting and detaining undocumented people within U.S. borders and both agencies are encompassed within DHS.

The latest DHS data shows that for the fiscal year ending in September, nearly 2.4 million migrants were detained at the border, a 37% increase from the year before.

Biden DHS Still Colluding with Big Tech to Censor Dissent

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Joe Biden via Gage Skidmore Flickr

ANALYSIS – Even as Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) publicly shuttered its stillborn ‘Disinformation Governance Board’ (aka Ministry of Truth) after a huge outcry, new evidence shows that Team Biden is still trying to use DHS to collude with Big Tech to censor Americans on social media.

The latest information uncovered through an investigation by The Intercept points to a Facebook-designed portal that government officials could use to flag content they deem objectionable and request that the platform remove it. 

According to The Intercept:

There is also a formalized process for government officials to directly flag content on Facebook or Instagram and request that it be throttled or suppressed through a special Facebook portal that requires a government or law enforcement email to use. At the time of writing, the “content request system” at facebook.com/xtakedowns/login is still live. DHS and Meta, the parent company of Facebook, did not respond to a request for comment. The FBI declined to comment.

That the federal government believes it can directly help control what views and news can be disseminated online is beyond reprehensible.

As The Intercept notes:

How disinformation is defined by the government has not been clearly articulated, and the inherently subjective nature of what constitutes disinformation provides a broad opening for DHS officials to make politically motivated determinations about what constitutes dangerous speech.

In other words, governments don’t decide what is valid information and what isn’t.

Instead, that is what politics, a free media and the marketplace of ideas are for.

But Big Brother, especially under Democrats, is relentless in its appetite for control. (RELATED: Congressional Leaders Expose Scheme to Pump Liberal Misinformation Network Into Classrooms)

The Intercept continues to describe this Orwellian effort:

Key Takeaways:

* The work is primarily done by CISA, a DHS sub-agency tasked with protecting critical national infrastructure.

* DHS, the FBI, and several media entities are having biweekly meetings as recently as August.

* DHS considered countering disinformation relating to content that undermines trust in financial systems and courts.

* The FBI agent who primed social media platforms to take down the Hunter Biden laptop story continued to have a role in DHS policy discussions.

And all this has been corroborated by official documentation and other news reporting.

Earlier, NewsBusters reported that:

DHS continued its counter-“disinformation” work in a more cloaked fashion, and that the government specifically intended to target certain content areas including COVID-19, election security and “domestic violent extremism.”

Considering how much ‘accepted’ information about COVID was later proven false or questionable and how the FBI and DOJ have been falsely hyping the otherwise minor ‘domestic violent extremism’ threat, this effort is highly concerning.

Meanwhile, a DHS Office of Inspector General report recommended that DHS “develop a unified strategy to counter disinformation campaigns that appear in social media.”

All this portends an extremely dangerous trend that must be stopped in its tracks. 

It is critical that a GOP-controlled Congress investigate and help dismantle all these insidious DHS ‘disinformation’ efforts as soon as possible.

Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

Amanda Head: OUTRAGEOUS! Steve Bannon Will Serve Time In Prison

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Gavel via Wikimedia Commons Image

On Friday, Judge Carl Nichols sentenced former Trump strategist Steve Bannon to pay a $6,500 fine and serve four months in prison.

Watch Amanda break down the shocking news below:

Report: the U.S. Expecting Overwhelming Flood of Venezuelan Migrants

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Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The U.S. border is on red alert.

A report from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is revealing concerns about an overwhelming number of migrants from Venezuela flooding the border due to an incorrect understanding of U.S. immigration policy.

According to an internal DHS memo obtained by the Daily Caller, some factors leading to the impending swell at the border could be political changes, new visa requirements, a lack of resources due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and poor economic conditions in Latin American countries Venezuelans fled to.

The report also noted confusion regarding Temporary Protected Status (TPS) policies for Venezuelans is also another factor leading to the increase in migration.

“Deteriorating opportunities for Venezuelans in Latin America coupled with changing immigration policies will likely increase Venezuelans’ decision to travel to the U.S. southwest border (SWB) via the Darien Gap and Mexico,” the memo stated. “Venezuelans may also be pulled to the United States by the perception that once they reach the border, they have a greater chance of remaining in the United States, based on a misunderstood perception of temporary protected status.”

TPS is currently granted to Venezuelans who were in the U.S. as of March 8, 2021. However, in July the DHS announced an 18-month extension for those already in the program to renew their statuses.

Cato Associate Director of Immigration Studies David Bier previously told the DCNF a primary reason many Venezuelans aren’t sent back under Title 42 is because the U.S. doesn’t have diplomatic relations with Venezuela, which refuses to allow for deportation flights.

“This is true for deportations from Mexico as well,” Bier said. “The Trump administration also put a flight ban in effect for Venezuela, meaning no flights are allowed to go there. Nonetheless, some expulsions are still happening via third countries, but it’s much more difficult.”

Of the more than 5 million Venezuelan refugees in Latin America approximately 3.7 million of them live in Colombia and Peru, where they face “violence, hate, abuse, sexual and labor exploitation, and discrimination,” according to the memo.

“An exodus from these two countries alone would be a major concern as it could potentially signal larger waves of Venezuelan migrants to emigrate to the United States,” the memo said.

Nearly 150,000 Venezuelans are in Panama, however these refugees are close to losing their “pathways to residency” because of legislation that is set to expire, making their best option to come to the U.S. illegally.

“Without access to legal status, migrants cannot apply for work permits and are forced to seek jobs in the informal market, making them vulnerable to exploitation,” the memo said. “For those qualified to renew their regularization status, the 2,600 USD smuggling fee is cheaper than paying regularization costs in Panama.”

According to Customs and Border Patrol, the number of Venezuelan migrants encountered in fiscal year 2022 is over triple the number encountered the previous fiscal year, when 1,270 Venezuelans were expelled under Title 42.