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    House Committee Withdraws Subpoena

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    2
    Donald Trump via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    The House Select Committee appointed to investigate the Jan. 6th, 2021 Capitol riot has withdrawn its subpoena of former President Trump as the panel concludes its work ahead of the 118th Congress.

    According to committee chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), the former president’s testimony is “no longer needed.”

    Trump was initially subpoenaed by the committee in October for testimony and documents regarding the protests at the Capitol Building on January 6th.

    Thompson noted in a letter to Trump’s attorneys: “In light of the imminent end of our investigation, the Select Committee can no longer pursue the specific information covered by the subpoena.”

    He added, “Therefore, through this letter, I hereby formally withdraw the subpoena issued to former President Trump, and notify you that he is no longer obligated to comply or produce records in response to said subpoena.”

    Trump shared a message on his social media celebrating the “win.”

    This story is breaking. Check back with Great America News Desk for the latest updates.

    House Committee Set Date to Reveal Trump Tax Returns

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    1
    Gage Skidmore Flickr

    The years-long battle into Donald Trump’s tax records could be concluded as soon as this Friday.

    A spokesperson for the Democrat-led House Ways and Means Committee told multiple news outlets that the disclosure will take place Friday, less than a week before Republicans take control of the lower chamber.

    According to The Daily Wire, The panel voted along party lines last week to release Trump’s tax returns following a years-long legal battle capped by the Supreme Court rejecting the former president’s plea to block the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) from giving the tax records to the committee.

    Chairman Richard Neal (D-MA) said the release would happen after a few days, allowing staff to make redactions of sensitive information.

    With Trump engaged in a third bid for the White House, his campaign condemned Democrats over the vote to release his tax returns.

    “This unprecedented leak by lame-duck Democrats is proof they are playing a political game they are losing,” said Trump’s campaign, according to The Washington Post. “If this injustice can happen to President Trump, it can happen to all Americans without cause.”

    While Democrats have argued that they needed access to Trump’s tax returns for the sake of oversight, Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX), the top Republican on the Ways and Means Committee, echoed concerns raised by Trump’s team, saying the disclosure will “set a terrible precedent that unleashes a dangerous new political weapon that reaches far beyond the former president and overturns decades of privacy protections for average Americans that have existed since the Watergate reforms.”

    The House Ways and Means Committee has already summarized its findings, issuing a report last week that said the IRS failed to adhere to its own policy and audit Trump during his first two years in office, only started one on Trump’s 2016 income tax return the same day in 2019 the panel requested access and failed to complete it by the time Trump left office in January 2021. A supplemental report prepared by Joint Committee on Taxation was also released last week, showing how much Trump paid or did not pay in taxes each year, per CNBC. That review found Trump paid no federal income taxes during his final year as president.

    Kari Lake Appeals Key Court Dismissal

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    Kari Lake speaking with supporters at a "Stand for Freedom" rally at the Embassy Suites by Hilton Scottsdale Resort in Scottsdale, Arizona. [Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons]

    Kari Lake won’t go down without a fight.

    The 2022 Arizona gubernatorial hopeful has filed an appeals notice to overturn an Arizona judge’s decision to dismiss her election contest.

    CV2022095403-Lakes-NoticeDownload

    According to The Washington Examiner, in the appeal filed with Arizona Superior Court on Tuesday, the Republican challenged the dismissal of several counts that were thrown out by Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson over the weekend.

    In his decision, Thompson ruled Lake’s campaign did not have sufficient evidence to support her claims that the election was influenced by intentional misconduct that handed Hobbs the victory.

    “I am standing up for the people of this state, the people who were done wrong on Election Day, and the millions of people who live outside of Maricopa County, whose vote was watered down by this bogus election in Maricopa County,” Lake told Steve Bannon on his War Room podcast on Tuesday.

    Lake signaled her intent to appeal the judge’s decision shortly after her lawsuit was thrown out, claiming her “election case provided the world with evidence that proves our elections are run outside of the law.”

    Earlier this week, Gov.-elect Katie Hobbs (D) requested the judge sanction Lake.

    Maricopa County and Hobbs argued Lake and her team should have known that they had no evidence to successfully mount an election challenge. They also noted the Republican’s refusal to commit to accepting the election results prior to the midterms citing a since-deleted tweet Lake issued on Monday accusing the judge of integrity violations. 

    On Wednesday, Lake avoided being found liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees incurred by Arizona Governor-elect Katie Hobbs and Maricopa County after a judge rejected pleas to sanction the losing gubernatorial candidate. 

    Arizona Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson ruled Tuesday that Lake must pay $33,000 for the expert witnesses hired by Hobbs in defense of her Nov. 8 election victory.

    Mike L*ndell to Audit DeSantis Election Win

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    1
    Mike Lindell via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    MyPillow CEO and staunch Trump loyalist Mike L*ndell indicated he doesn’t think Florida Governor Ron DeSantis won his re-election battle by the blow-out margins that have been reported.

    DeSantis dominated his Democrat opponent Charlie Crist in his midterm election blowout, winning by more than 1.5 million votes, a 19.4% margin of victory.

    The Florida Governor won 62 of Florida’s 67 counties, including 59 counties by double digits. DeSantis won Miami-Dade County, the largest county in the state and a Democrat stronghold, by 11 points. He won Palm Beach County, the third largest county in the state and another Democrat stronghold, by three points.

    “What we’re doing now is, I’m going after Dade County in the 2022 el*ction. And everyone says, ‘Well, why would you go after Dade County?’” L*ndell said. “This is where Ron DeSantis won Dade County, that’s a Republican won Dade County. Well, for me, I look at deviations, everybody. That’s a deviation.”

    “I don’t believe it,” L*ndell claimed. “So I want to show, it’s gonna show everybody just like we always say about Democrats where they st*le their el*ctions, just like they did, the one nice lady in Georgia that got zero votes in her own precinct. I want to find out in Dade County, what happened there because it’s, it’s a deviation from norm, you know, it’s very much a deviation.”

    DeSantis has been widely considered to be a top contender for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination and could pose a major threat to Trump’s campaign if he announces his own campaign.

    A series of recent polls have shown DeSantis soaring past Trump in hypothetical matchups.

    Last week a Wall Street Journal poll found ​Gov. Ron DeSantis leads former President Donald Trump among Republican primary voters as a potential 2024 nominee and outpaces him in favorability, according to a poll released on Wednesday.

    The Florida Republican defeats Trump 52% to 38% among GOP primary voters in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup for the nomination, with 36% saying they would “definitely” vote for DeSantis compared with 29% who are definite for Trump, 

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

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    15
    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.”

    Leftist Protestors Charged After Violent Protest

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    19
    Arrest image via Pixabay

    Five young leftist protestors were charged with domestic terrorism stemming from a violent protest at the planned site of a police training center.

    Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) revealed in a press release that the individuals have been arrested and charged after protesters threw rocks at police cars and attacked EMT workers with rocks and bottles at a fire station near the site.

    The string of arrests comes after an attempt to stop the construction of the police training site, which has been dubbed “Cop City,” by camping out in the woods and building entrenchments. 

    “Task force members used various tactics to arrest individuals who were occupying makeshift treehouses,” the release said, adding that police found “explosive devices, gasoline and road flares” after clearing out the protest site. 

    Francis Carroll, a 22-year-old from Maine, was charged with criminal trespass, domestic terrorism, aggravated assault, felony obstruction, interference with government property and possession of tools for the commission of a crime.

    Nicholas Olson, a 25-year-old from Nebraska, was charged with domestic terrorism, aggravated assault, interference with government property and obstruction.

    Serena Hertel, a 25-year-old from California, was charged with criminal trespassing, domestic terrorism, aggravated assault, obstruction and inciting a riot. 

    Leonardo Vioselle, 20, from Macon, Georgia, was charged with criminal trespass, domestic terrorism, and possession for tools of the crime. 

    Arieon Robinson, a 22-year-old from Wisconsin, was charged with criminal trespass, obstruction and domestic terrorism. 

    “They were shooting pepper balls, tear gas at people who were peacefully holding the forest space right now,” one of the protesters at the scene told WAGA-TV. “I think it’s truly abhorrent.” 

    “The City of Atlanta has leased 381 acres of Weelaunee Forest, stolen Muscogee land, to the Atlanta Police Foundation for a police military facility funded by corporations,” the Stop Cop City organization states on its website. “Cop City will never be built. #StopCopCity #DefendWeelaunee.”

    Report: New Fetterman Chief of Staff Co-founded Org to Push Trump-Russia Collusion Hoax

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    3

    Senator-elect John Fetterman’s (D-PA) new chief of staff helped launch an initiative to promote the since-debunked Trump-Russian collusion hoax.

    According to Fox News, Adam Jentleson co-founded The Moscow Project, an initiative launched by John Podesta’s Center for American Progress Action Fund (CAPAF) and headed by Max Bergmann, a former John Kerry speechwriter. 

    The Moscow Project routinely accused the Republican president of colluding with Russia and endorsed the since-debunked Steele Dossier as credible.

    On March 23, 2017, Jentleson tweeted that he was “very excited” about The Moscow Project and linked to a since-deleted copy of the infamous Steele dossier that was annotated by the project.

    “If you’ve been wondering how much of the Steele dossier is backed up by fact, we annotated it here. (Hint: a lot.),” Jentleson wrote at the time.

    The dossier by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele – controversially published in its raw form in 2017 by BuzzFeed News – alleged that Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 presidential election over Hillary Clinton and claimed that the Kremlin had blackmail material on the former president, including a tape of prostitutes urinating on him in a Moscow hotel.

    The dossier served as the basis for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants against Trump campaign aide Carter Page, and it was originally commissioned by a research firm hired by Hillary Clinton’s campaign lawyer Marc Elias. The 35-page dossier has since been repeatedly discredited and debunked, including by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s two-year investigation, which found no evidence of collusion.

    “The Moscow Project helpfully annotated it for you,” Jentleson wrote of the dossier in April 2017. “Steele is former MI6 head of Russia desk.”

    Republican Senator Announces Bid for Indiana Governor

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    0

    On Monday, Mike Braun officially kicked off his campaign to become Indiana’s next governor.

    According to The Hill, the first-term Indiana senator made his decision official during a luncheon at an Indianapolis steakhouse on Monday.

    Braun’s announcement came just hours after another Indiana Republican, Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch, jumped into the gubernatorial race. Eric Doden, a former appointee of former Gov. Mike Pence, has been in the contest since May. 

    Holcomb cannot seek reelection because of term limits.

    Last month, Braun officially filed the paperwork for his gubernatorial run.

    Braun’s announcement is likely to trigger a competitive Republican primary for his Senate seat. Among those eyeing a run for Braun’s seat is Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.). Banks’s office told The Hill late last month that the Indiana congressman is “very seriously considering running for the U.S. Senate.”

    “Indiana deserves a proven conservative to continue Senator Braun’s work in the United States Senate,” Banks said in a statement. “I am strongly considering running for the open Indiana Senate seat in 2024, and I will spend the upcoming holidays praying and talking with my wife, family and close friends about how I can best serve Indiana.”

    Trump Special Master Request Rescinded: Report

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    6
    Marine One lifts-off after returning President Donald J. Trump to Mar-a-Lago Friday, March 29, 2019, following his visit to the 143-mile Herbert Hoover Dike near Canal Point, Fla., that surrounds Lake Okeechobee. The visit was part of an infrastructure inspection of the dike, which is part of the Kissimmee-Okeechobee Everglades system, and reduces impacts of flooding for areas of south Florida. (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian) [Photo Credit: The White House from Washington, DC, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons]

    The federal judge in Florida who initially granted former President Donald Trump’s special master request has dismissed his lawsuit, marking a sudden end to the monthslong chronicle since the FBI’s search of Trump’s residence.

    Following the FBI’s unprecedented search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, the former president requested a third party to oversee the Justice Department’s investigation into the documents seized from the Florida estate.

    On Monday, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, an appointee of the former president, affirmed an appeals court’s decision that she lacked jurisdiction to appoint a special master to oversee documents taken from his estate and lifted an injunction that blocked investigators from using them in a criminal investigation in the meantime.

    By dismissing the lawsuit, titled Trump v. United States, all scheduled hearings over the dispute in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida are canceled, and all pending motions are “denied as moot,” according to a court order.

    gov.uscourts.flsd_.618763.199.0Download

    The Washington Examiner reports:

    Earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled that Cannon never had the jurisdiction to assign U.S. District Senior Judge Raymond Dearie, a semiretired jurist based in Brooklyn, to serve the role of the special master.

    “We cannot write a rule that allows any subject of a search warrant to block government investigations after the execution of the warrant,” Judge William Pryor, an appointee of George W. Bush, wrote for a unanimous panel ruling. “Nor can we write a rule that allows only former presidents to do so. Either approach would be a radical reordering of our caselaw limiting the federal courts’ involvement in criminal investigations. And both would violate bedrock separation-of-powers limitations.”

    Dearie had expected to complete his review by Friday. The 11th Circuit’s decision came less than two weeks after Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed special counsel Jack Smith to oversee the investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the unauthorized transfer of about 100 classified documents to Mar-a-Lago after he left the Oval Office.

    This story is developing. Check back with Great America News Desk for the latest updates.

    Michelle Obama Among Those who Pressured Twitter to Ban Trump: Report

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    4
    FLOTUS at Fayetteville, N.C. -The Arts Center speech Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian

    The latest installment of the bombshell “Twitter files” reveals more details on how the platform planned and executed its infamous ban on the 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump.

    The latest file released by free speech advocate and Twitter CEO Elon Musk shows that high-profile Democrats like former first lady Michelle Obama pressured platform executives to ban the president from the social media platform.

    “Now is the time for Silicon Valley companies to stop enabling this monstrous behavior—and go even further than they have already by permanently banning this man from their platforms and putting in place policies to prevent their technologies from being used by the nation’s leaders to fuel insurrection,” Obama wrote in a lengthy statement posted to Twitter on Jan. 7.

    Journalist Michael Shellenberger released the fourth batch of documents that show internal communications by the company’s executives between Jan. 6-8, 2021, including and shortly after the riot at the Capitol Building, according to Fox News.

    The files also showed Twitter maintained a policy — called “Public-interest exceptions” — where elected officials were not banned as there was a great public interest in their comments, even if they seemed to violate other policies.

    While Trump’s temporary suspension was lifted, this second policy was specifically and intentionally ignored in Trump’s case, Shellenberger reported. Dorsey was also on vacation at the time of Trump’s ban.

    “Dorsey was on vacation in French Polynesia the week of January 4-8, 2021,” Shellenberger reported. The chief executive delegated much of the responsibility to senior executives, including former Twitter Head of Trust and Safety Yoel Roth and former Head of Legal, Policy, & Trust Vijaya Gadde, who Shellenberger points out were “overwhelmingly progressive.”

    “Twitter employees recognize the difference between their own politics & Twitter’s Terms of Service (TOS), but they also engage in complex interpretations of content in order to stamp out prohibited tweets,” Shellenberger also pointed out.

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