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

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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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.”

    Trump Officially Locks Up GOP Nomination

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    Donald Trump via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    It’s finally official…

    On Tuesday evening, Donald Trump secured the GOP nomination after winning the GOP primary in Washington state.

    “It’s your favorite president speaking to you on a really great day of victory,” Trump said in a video posted to X, formerly known as Twitter, by his campaign. “One week ago, we had something called Super Tuesday and it was indeed super, because we won at numbers at nobody has ever seen before, records in virtually every state.”

    “And tonight, likewise, but this one got us over the top,” he continued. “The Republican National Committee has just declared us the official nominee.”

    After the race was called, Trump said in a post on Truth Social that “It is my great honor to be representing the Republican Party” on the top of the ticket in November.

    “Our Party is UNITED and STRONG, and fully understands that we are running against the Worst, Most Incompetent, Corrupt, and Destructive President in the History of the United States,” the former president wrote.

    “But fear not, we will not fail, we will take back our once great Country, put AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN – GREATER THAN EVER BEFORE,” he added. “November 5th will go down as the most important day in the history of our Country! GOD BLESS AMERICA.”

    President Joe Biden also secured the Democrat nomination the same day, officially teeing up a rematch of the 2020 election.

    “Voters now have a choice to make about the future of this country,” Biden said.

    Rep. Ken Buck To Retire Sooner Than Expected

    By
    admin
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    1

    Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) has decided to fast-track his retirement to next week, further whittling down the GOP majority in the House of Representatives. Buck had previously announced that he would retire in January upon the completion of his current term.

    A conservative congressman, Buck grew increasingly disillusioned with the Republican Party’s election denialism following former President Trump’s 2020 loss to Joe Biden.

    “It has been an honor to serve the people of Colorado‘s 4th District in Congress for the past 9 years. I want to thank them for their support and encouragement throughout the years. Today, I am announcing that I will depart Congress at the end of next week. I look forward to staying involved in our political process, as well as spending more time in Colorado with my family,” Buck wrote in a statement.

    Prior to running for the U.S. House, Buck was the chairman of the Colorado Republican Party. In 2010, he ran an unsuccessful campaign to unseat U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.)

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

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

    Report: Former Special Counsel To Testify As Private Citizen

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    1
    Photo via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    This is bad for Biden…

    Special Counsel Robert Hur will testify as a private citizen before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday after leaving the Department of Justice (DOJ).

    The Hill has more:

    The source added that Hur will still be bound by DOJ policies and protocols because he is testifying about his work for the agency. When DOJ employees, former or current, are set to testify, they receive a letter explaining the bounds of DOJ policy, the source said.

    Hur resigned from the DOJ last week following the conclusion of the investigation into President Biden’s handling of classified documents.

    Hur released his report to the public in February and did not recommend criminal charges against Biden for mishandling and retaining classified documents and stated that he wouldn’t bring charges against Biden even if he were not in the Oval Office. However, the report did highlight multiple occurrences involving Biden’s memory- or lack thereof.

    The special counsel described Biden as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”  

    “We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” Hur wrote in the report. “Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone from whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him—by then a former president well into his eighties—of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.” 

    The special counsel reportedly plans to double down on his comments regarding the President’s memory during his testimony.

    Fox News has obtained a copy of Hur’s opening remarks:

    “My assessment in the report about the relevance of the President’s memory was necessary and accurate and fair,” Hur wrote in a copy of the remarks obtained by Fox News. “Most importantly, what I wrote is what I believe the evidence shows, and what I expect jurors would perceive and believe. I did not sanitize my explanation. Nor did I disparage the President unfairly. I explained to the Attorney General my decision and the reasons for it. That’s what I was required to do.”

    “I analyzed the evidence as prosecutors routinely do: by assessing its strengths and weaknesses, including by anticipating the ways in which the President’s defense lawyers might poke holes in the government’s case if there were a trial and seek to persuade jurors that the government could not prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” Hur added.

    Hur also will say: “There has been a lot of attention paid to language in the report about the President’s memory, so let me say a few words about that. My task was to determine whether the President retained or disclosed national defense information “willfully”—meaning, knowingly and with the intent to do something the law forbids. I could not make that determination without assessing the President’s state of mind.”

    Report: New Details Emerge In Death Of Mitch McConnell’s Sister-In-Law

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    1
    Police image via Pixabay free images

    A tragedy…

    Angela Chao, Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s sister-in-law, reportedly made a phone call to friends in her last moments after accidentally driving her vehicle into a pond.

    Chao accidentally put her vehicle into reverse instead of drive while attempting a three-point turn, causing it to go backward and sink into the remote body of water at a Texas ranch on Feb. 10, a new report claims, according to The Wall Street Journal.

    The billionaire and former Foremost Group CEO hosted a gathering of several friends from Harvard Business School at her secondary private residence including a 10-bedroom guesthouse in Texas’ Hill Country, according to the outlet. Chao decided to drive her Tesla four minutes to return to her primary residence instead of walking at 11:30 p.m. due to the cold weather.

    The Tesla Model X SUV sunk fast after McConnell’s sister-in-law backed into the pond after failing to make a K-turn, the outlet reported.

    Blanco County emergency units arrived at 12:28 a.m., one hour after Chao’s Teslas entered the water and 24 minutes after the incident was reported, according to the outlet. Multiple emergency personnel exited their vehicles due to the rough terrain before unsuccessfully attempting to break the car’s windows, the outlet reported. One sheriff’s deputy stood on top of the Tesla. 

    The Tesla was finally removed from the pond by a two-man rescue crew at 12:56 a.m., the outlet reported. However, Chao was unresponsive and EMS responders could not revive her after 43 minutes of resuscitation attempts.

    While addressing the tragic incident on the Senate floor, McConnell said that the incident caused a “particularly difficult time” for his family, adding that “there’s a certain introspection that accompanies the grieving process.”

    Former Trump Adviser, Peter Navarro, To Report To Prison Next Week

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    1
    Image via Pixabay

    The walls are closing in…

    Former Trump Administration adviser Peter Navarro is scheduled to report to a Miami prison on March 19 to begin serving a four-month sentence for refusing to comply with a congressional investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.

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

    The Hill has more:

    His lawyers wrote in a Sunday court filing that a federal appeals court should temporarily put his sentence on hold while he appeals his conviction. If that effort fails, he could become the first key Trump adviser to serve jail time over efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

    U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, who oversaw Navarro’s trial, declined to allow the Trump ally to stay out of prison while the appellate process plays out.

    Navarro’s counsel had argued that the question of executive privilege, which Navarro claimed Trump invoked over any testimony to the House Jan. 6 panel, rises to that threshold.

    Navarro told the judge during his sentencing he had an “honest belief” that executive privilege had been invoked by Trump. His lawyers wrote court filings that the judge’s decision “hamstrung” Navarro’s defense by leaving open the question of whether a president can direct his subordinates not to testify before Congress. 

    After his conviction, Navarro asserted his case could reach the Supreme Court due to the questions it raises about executive privilege for high-ranking White House staff. 

    Ex-White House adviser Steve Bannon was also convicted on two counts of contempt of Congress last year and sentenced to four months in prison, but a different judge said he could remain free pending appeal.

    Montana Republican Ends Re-Election Bid

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    0
    Ted Eytan from Washington, DC, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

    On Friday, Montana Rep. Matt Rosendale (R) announced he is ending his re-election campaign and will retire at the end of his term.

    The unexpected news comes after a chaotic few weeks for the Montana Republican. In February, he launched a Senate campaign, which he suspended days later after former President Trump endorsed his primary opponent. Instead, Rosendale pivoted to running for another term in Congress. (RELATED: Congressman Drops Out Of Senate Race Days After Launching Bid)

    In a statement posted on X, Rosendale referenced a death threat against him and “defamatory rumors” targeting him and his family that surfaced after suspending his Senate bid.

    “Since that announcement, I have been forced to have law enforcement visit my children because of a death threat against me and false and defamatory rumors against me and my family. This has taken a serious toll on me, and my family. Additionally, it has caused a serious disruption to the election of the next representative for MT-02,” Rosendale wrote.

    “To me, public service has truly always been about serving, not titles or positions of power. The current attacks have made it impossible for me to focus on my work to serve you. So, in the best interest of my family and the community, I am withdrawing from the House race and will not be seeking office,” he added.

    In February, Rosendale released a similar statement explaining the quick decision to end his campaign.

    “Instead of one of those phony statements from politicians, here’s my statement on why I’m withdrawing my candidacy for the U.S. Senate,” Rosendale said in a statement. “As everyone knows, I have planned to run for the U.S. Senate and to win both the primary and the general election. However, the day I announced, President Trump then announced that he was endorsing a different candidate.”

    “I have long been a supporter of the president, and remain so,” he continued. “But I have been forced to calculate what my chances of success would be with Trump supporting my opponent. This race was already going to be tough, as I was fighting against Mitch McConnell and the rest of the Republican establishment in Washington. But I felt like I could beat them, as the voters do not agree with them choosing who would be the next U.S. Senator from Montana.”

    RNC Elects New Leadership Board

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    1
    Image via gage Skidmore Flickr

    On Friday, the Republican National Committee (RNC) elected Michael Whatley and Lara Trump as its new chair and co-chair.

    Speaking to RNC members, Whatley vowed that the organization “will be focused like a laser on getting out the vote and protecting the ballot.”

    “In less than eight months, we are going to determine the fate of not only the United States but of the entire world,” he said. “And this body, the RNC, is going to be the vanguard of a movement that will work tirelessly, every single day to elect our nominee Donald J. Trump as the 47th president of the United States, flip the Senate, expand our majority in the House of Representatives.”

    Whatley previously served as chair of the North Carolina GOP and RNC general counsel.

    Lara Trump will serve as co-chair and will have a major focus on fundraising.

    Speaking to RNC committee members on Friday, Lara said the RNC had already received a check for $100,000 and pointed to the importance of fundraising and encouraging early voting, something that the GOP has at times struggled to rally around.

    “We’ve got to play the game a little bit differently. We have to encourage people to do things like early voting,” she said. 

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

    Trump Posts $91.6 Million Bond To E. Jean Carroll In Potential Legal Settlement

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    1
    Image via Pixabay free images

    Former President Donald Trump has posted a $91.6 million bond in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case.

    Despite his appeal, Trump had to post the money which he can get back if he wins the case in appeals court.

    The Hill reports:

    Trump had aimed to delay posting the bond or reduce the amount as he seeks a new trial and otherwise continues fighting the recent verdict.

    But after U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan rejected Trump’s latest request to delay a Monday deadline, the former president on Friday formally filed his appeal and posted the full $91.63 million bond.

    “President Trump respectfully requests that this Court recognize the supersedeas bond obtained by President Trump in the sum of $91,630,000.00 and approve it as adequate and sufficient to stay the enforcement of the Judgment, to the extent that the Judgment awards damages, pending the ultimate disposition of President Trump’s appeal,” Trump attorney Alina Habba wrote in court filings.

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

    George Santos Announces Primary Challenge

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    1

    Ex-Congressman George Santos (R-Ny.) is reportedly planning a political comeback.

    Less than a year after being expelled from Congress, Santos says he plans to mount a primary challenge against Nick LaLota (R).

    During his visit to the Capitol for President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, Santos announced on Twitter, that he would challenge LaLota of New York’s 1st Congressional District, on Long Island.

    “Tonight, I want to announce that I will be returning to the arena of politics and challenging Nick [LaLota] for the battle over #NY1,” Santos wrote on Twitter during Biden’s address. “I look forward to debating him on the issues and on his weak record as a Republican. The fight for our majority is imperative for the survival of the country.”

    “New York hasn’t had a real conservative represent them since I left office arbitrarily, thanks to RINO, empty suits like @nicklalota. He is willing to risk the future of our majority and the future of this country for his own political gain,” Santos wrote.

    “God bless you all, and we are off to the races!” Santos concluded.

    “To raise the standard in Congress, and to hold a pathological liar who stole an election accountable, I led the charge to expel George Santos. If finishing the job requires beating him in a primary, count me in,” LaLota told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

    Santos was expelled from the House of Representatives on Dec. 1 after being indicted on multiple felony counts related to alleged campaign finance crimes, following which the House Select Committee on Ethics produced a report corroborating the indictment’s allegations. 

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