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Wyoming Official Intervenes On Court Labeling Trump ‘Insurrectionist’

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    Missvain, CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

    Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray is working to change a Colorado judge’s ruling which labeled former President Donald Trump an “insurrectionist”.”

    “As chief election officials of our states, [Secretaries of State] have to stand up for the electoral process in our republic, and this is pivotal to ensuring the integrity of our elections,” Gray told Fox News Digital in a phone interview. 

    “I ran on election integrity, and that’s why the people of Wyoming voted me into office. And I’m following through on that, and defending the truth here, and making sure that these outrageous, frivolous lawsuits that the radical left is bringing and trying to remove President Trump from the ballot, that they don’t succeed.” 

    Gray filed an amicus curiae brief, otherwise known as a friend of the court brief, with the Colorado Supreme Court last week that argues a Colorado District Court made a mistake when labeling Trump an “insurrectionist” in a legal case that worked to remove Trump’s name from the state’s primary ballot. 

    The amicus brief calls on the Colorado Supreme Court to vacate the district court’s order and “direct the District Court to dismiss the petition for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.” 

    “It really should have been dismissed immediately, the case is frivolous. And instead we got this 95-page finding from this local judge there in Colorado and with the principle of issue preclusion, this could be really used against President Trump,” Gray said. “So it’s very important that this is just dismissed in its entirety. And that’s what we really try to delve into with this amicus brief … and we’re really proud that Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft and Ohio Secretary of State LaRose signed on.” 

    Gray’s move comes after a liberal group attempted to have Trump removed from the state’s 2024 primary ballot under the 14th Amendment..

    Gray told Fox News the case should have been dismissed from the start.

    “The frivolous lawsuits, they’re happening around the country, and it’s imperative that voters in one state not be affected by judgments in other states. And if you think about it, preventing an eligible candidate in one state for being able to attain electoral votes affects every other state. And preventing a candidate from being on the ballot, primary or caucus, artificially will alter momentum,” Gray said. 

    Report: Trump Eyeing Tucker Carlson As Potential VP Pick

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      Tucker Carlson via Gage Skidmore Flickr

      A new Axios report gives an inside look at a plausible Trump administration cabinet if he’s elected President.

      On Thursday, Axios reported that Trump is looking to fill his cabinet with those “who share his zeal to punish critics, purge non-believers, and take controversial legal and military action.”

      “Trump hasn’t settled on specific roles for specific figures, and hates it when his staff and friends speculate otherwise. It’s not in his DNA to do detailed personnel planning, and a lot depends on the last few people he’s talked to,” the report says. “But in rolling conversations with friends and advisers, he’s been clear about the type of men — and they’re almost all older, white men — he’d want to serve at his pleasure if he were to win a second term.”

      The reported list of Trump’s potential vice president picks consists entirely of conservative stars like Senator J.D. Vance (Ohio), Kari Lake, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA). According to the Axios report, an interesting possible vice president is former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who has become Melania Trump’s top choice.

      From the report:

      She thinks Carlson would make a powerful onstage extension of her husband, a source close to Trump told us. The former first lady has made few campaign appearances this time around — but a Trump-Carlson ticket might encourage her to hit the trail.

      Trump, asked last month about Carlson as a potential V.P., said: “I like Tucker a lot. … He’s got great common sense.”

      Despite Axios’ report indicating Carlson is a potential choice for Trump’s running mate other political pundits have cast doubts on Carlson’s ability to attract votes from any Democrats or Independents.

      Other possible top members of a new Trump administration could be Stephen Miller as attorney general.

      McCarthy Announces Early Retirement

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      Photo via Gage Skidmore Flickr

      Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that he is resigning from Congress.

      The California Republican will leave at the end of the year, setting up a special election before 2024’s U.S. House of Representatives elections.

      Multiple Republican lawmakers told Axios last week that the former House Speaker would vacate his long-held congressional seat before the end of the year.

      According to the report, McCarthy had reportedly gone so far as to confide in major donors that he intended to “get the hell out” of Congress, further eroding the GOP’s tenuous three-vote majority.

      “I have another week or so to decide because if I decide to run again, I have to know in my heart I’m giving 110%,” McCarthy told financial reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin last Wednesday at Manhattan’s DealBook Summit. “I have to know that I want to do that,” the longtime Republican leader continued. “I also have to know if I’m going to walk away, that I’m going to be fine with walking away. And so I’m really taking this time now.”

      Reaction to the then-rumors from his Republican colleagues was mixed.

      “I mean, why the hell would he stay?,” one Republican lawmaker opined. “Damn shame,” quipped another.

      Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz (R), who lead the intra-party rebellion against McCarthy, had an uncompromising take: “I suspect the former speaker will return to spend more time with the people he’s always represented – on Wall Street and K Street. I don’t imagine he’ll be walking the streets of Bakersfield.”

      Some Republicans are worried that McCarthy may use his campaign funds to interfere in the primaries of the eight GOP lawmakers who voted for his removal instead of helping to expand the GOP’s majority.

      California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) is expected to hold a special election after McCarthy departs at the end of the year.

      This article was republished with permission from American Liberty News.

      Trump Predicts Biden Won’t Be Democrat Nominee

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      Joe Biden via Gage Skidmore Flickr

      Trump is calling it now, Biden will not be the Democrats’ nominee for president next year.

      “I personally don’t think he makes it,” Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity during a town hall-style event in Davenport, Iowa, on Tuesday. 

      “I can’t think of in the last couple of months any appearance that he’d had where he wasn’t either mumbling or bumbling or stumbling or having no clue where to go, where to exit. Now my question is: do you think in 11 months he will be their candidate?” Hannity asked Trump. 

      “I think he’s in bad shape physically. Do you remember when he said, ‘I’d like to take him behind the barn’? If he took me behind the barn, and I went like this,” Trump said, puckering to blow air from his mouth, “I believe he’d fall over. I believe he’d fall over, who knows!” 

      “And by the way, it was okay for him to say that,” Trump said of Biden’s comment. “He could say that and everybody thought it was so cute. If I ever said it, they’d say, ‘He’s a dictator, he’s a horrible human being.’ You know it’s a whole double standard we have, not only in the law but just about everything else, as you know very well. I personally don’t think he makes it physically. I watched him at the beach. He wasn’t able to lift a beach chair which is meant for children to lift… and mentally I would say he’s possibly equally as bad and maybe worse.” 

      Trump has been narrowly topping Biden in head-to-head polls taken over the past several weeks, including in battleground states. A recent poll conducted by The Economist/YouGov found that 51% of respondents believe Trump has done a better job as president, while 41% answered that Biden has done better.

      Biden Says Re-Election Plans Entirely Revolve Around Trump

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      Joe Biden via Gage Skidmore Flickr

      Now we see where President Biden’s priorities are…

      During remarks to donors at one of the fundraisers he attended on Tuesday in Massachusetts the President said he doubted he would seek a second term in the White House if Donald Trump was not also running for President.

      “If Trump wasn’t running, I’m not sure I’d be running. But we cannot let him win,” Biden said, according to a press pool report from the event.

      Another reporter also asked if Trump were to drop out of the race if Biden would consider doing the same.

      “Would you drop out if Trump drops out?” the reporter asked.

      “No, not now,” President Biden replied.

      Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN), who is running a challenge against Biden for the Democrat Party’s 2024 nomination, responded to Biden’s quote on Tuesday, saying on X, “Says the candidate with lower approval figures and losing to Trump in every poll of consequence. It’s downright delusional.”

      Trump has been narrowly topping Biden in head-to-head polls taken over the past several weeks, including in battleground states. 

      President Biden’s age and leadership abilities have cast serious doubts among Americans that Biden is the right man for the job. Even former Obama adviser David Axelrod has openly questioned if it would be “wise” for Biden to back out of the race now.

      Trump has dominated the polls thus far, however, his numerous legal battles are cause for concern.

      Speaker Johnson Says GOP Is Blurring Faces In Capitol Riot Tapes

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

      On Tuesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La) confirmed House Republicans are blurring the faces of individuals seen on January 6, 2021 Capitol footage to avoid retaliation from the Justice Department.

      “We have to blur some of the faces of persons who participated in the events of that day because we don’t want them to be retaliated against and to be charged by the DOJ and to have other concerns and problems,” Johnson said in a press conference on Tuesday.  

      “We’re working steadily on it. And we’ve hired additional personnel to do that,” Johnson said. “And all of those tapes, ultimately at the end, will be out so everybody can see them.”

      “I don’t think partisan elected officials in Washington should present a narrative and expect that it should be seen as the ultimate truth,” Johnson said of Jan. 6.

      “The release of the January 6 tapes is a critical and important exercise. We want transparency,” Johnson said. “House Republicans trust the American people to draw their own conclusions.”

      Last month, House Republicans released some of the security footage from the riot and posted it online where its available to the public. However, with the change in Speaker leadership the House Administration Committee is now proactively reviewing all footage and posting as much online as possible, as well as allowing members of the public to request time at the in-person terminals.

      Liz Cheney Not Ruling Out Third Party White House Run

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      Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

      Former Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney is not ruling out a run for the White House in the near future and plans to make a final decision in the coming months.

      During a recent interview with The Washington Post, the anti-Trump Republican said she’s open to considering a third-party run for President, steering away from the already-crowded Republican primary field.

      “Several years ago, I would not have contemplated a third-party run,” Cheney told The Washington Post. But “democracy is at risk” both at home and abroad, she said, citing former President Trump’s “continued grip on the Republican Party.” 

      “We face threats that could be existential to the United States and we need a candidate who is going to be able to deal with and address and confront all of those challenges,” Cheney told the Post. “That will all be part of my calculation as we go into the early months of 2024.”

      In October, Cheney refused to rule out a White House bid. She also said in her recent interview with the Post that she hasn’t ruled out voting for Democrat President Biden if he’s the 2024 nominee.

      Cheney, who lost her 2022 midterm re-election bid, has repeatedly pushed against another Trump presidency. On Monday, Cheney issued a grim warning against supporting Trump.

      “I hope that there are options and alternatives that reflect the important challenges that we’re facing, and that reflect leadership to meet those challenges, but that choice can never be Donald Trump because a vote for Donald Trump may mean the last election that you ever get to vote in,” she told NBC’s Savannah Guthrie on “Today.”

      “And again, I don’t say that lightly, and I think it’s heartbreaking that that’s where we are, but people have to recognize that a vote for Donald Trump is a vote against the Constitution,” she continued.

      She also said Monday that “there’s no question” that Trump would refuse to leave the White House at the end of his second four-year term if re-elected.

      “He’s already attempted to seize power, and he was stopped, thankfully, and for the good of the nation and the republic,” she said. “But he said he will do it again. He’s expressed no remorse for what he did.”

      She added that it’s “a very, very real threat and concern” that Trump will make himself a dictator if he wins the White House.

      “I don’t say any of that lightly,” she said. “And frankly, it’s painful for me as someone who you know, has spent their whole life in Republican politics who grew up as Republican to watch what’s happening to my party, and to watch the extent to which Donald Trump himself has, you know, basically determined that that the only thing that matters is him his power, his success.”

      Jury To Hear Election Workers’ Case Against Rudy Giuliani

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        Photo via Gage Skidmore Flickr

        A Washington, D.C. federal judge ruled Sunday that a jury will hear and decide a case to determine how much ex-New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani owes two Georgia poll workers for falsely claiming they helped steal the 2020 election from former President Trump.

        U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell denied Giuliani’s request to hold a bench trial instead of a jury trial, meaning the judge would decide the case instead of a jury. In her ruling, she chided him for the “significantly tardy” motion, having set an October deadline for all pre-trial motions, according to The Hill.

        “Perhaps Giuliani’s submission is titled a ‘Trial Brief,’ rather than a motion seeking to convert the scheduled jury trial to a hearing, in a fairly blatant effort to avoid being called out for filing an untimely pretrial motion,” Howell wrote in a footnote.

        Following the 2020 election, Giuliani falsely claimed Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss committed election fraud by processing “suitcases” of illicit ballots in Georgia.

        The two election workers sued Giuliani, and as their case proceeded, he failed to turn over evidence despite “repeated reminders” from the court. Howell in August found Giuliani civilly liable for Freeman and Moss’s claims of “defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, civil conspiracy, and punitive damage,” citing the longtime Trump ally’s “willful shirking of his discovery obligations” as reason.

        In her Sunday opinion, Howell again cited Giuliani’s “discovery misconduct” as a reason to deny his request for a bench trial.

        “This Court will not reward him for conduct that has ‘already resulted in significant prejudice to Plaintiffs,’” Howell wrote, quoting her earlier decision.

        Report: News Networks Weigh In On Hiring Expelled Congressman

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          CNN Headquarters via Wikimedia Commons

          Less than a week after the House of Representatives voted to expel George Santos (R-N.y.) from the chamber and whispers are already spreading as to what the disgraced Congressman will do next.

          Santos, who is facing over 20 federal counts, has attracted attention since stepping foot in Congress triggering questions over a potential career in the media.

          It’s not uncommon for former elected officials or administration officials to join news networks after their terms have ended. However, it seems most cable news networks have plenty to say about Santos becoming a new contributor.

          Mediaite has more:

          A network source said NBC News and MSNBC “have no plans” of exploring any kind of relationship with the former congressman. A spokesperson for CNN said the network does not plan on speaking with him. A Fox News source said “we have no intention of entertaining that notion.” A NewsNation spokesperson said the network will not be hiring Santos.

          OAN, which has aired commentary critical of Santos, said through a spokesperson: “We are unaware of Mr. Santos seeking a position in media. Nor have we reached out to him.”

          Newsmax, where Santos has appeared frequently in recent weeks, did not respond to a request for comment.

          Trump Scores Ohio Republican Party Endorsement

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            Gage Skidmore Flickr

            Ohio’s Republican Party endorsed former President Trump in his reelection bid for the White House on Friday.

            “President Trump has proven time and again that despite the unhinged and relentless attacks from the radical left, he will never give up on fighting for Ohio’s workers, business and families,”  Ohio Republican Party chair Alex M. Triantafilou said in a Trump campaign press release. “His unapologetic leadership and commitment to putting America First is exactly what we need to reverse course from the failed policies of Joe Biden and Sherrod Brown.”

            According to multiple sources, the Ohio Republican Party was the first state Republican party to endorse the former president in the election. 

            “While we appreciate all of the Republican candidates who are passionately making their case to the American people, it is clear that President Trump is the right choice in this moment,” Triantafilou continued in his statement.