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Report: New York Prosecutors Close on Charging Trump

By
Madeleine Jackson
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7
Donald Trump via Gage Skidmore Flickr

Back in January, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office dramatically escalated its investigation into former President Donald Trump.

At the time, D.A. Alvin Bragg began presenting evidence to a New York City grand jury on Trump’s role in paying for porn star Stormy Daniels‘ silence before the 2016 presidential election.

Now, the former president is being told that he could appear before the grand jury and testify next week if he wishes to — a strong indication he will face criminal charges.

Per The New York Times:

The Manhattan district attorney’s office recently signaled to Donald J. Trump’s lawyers that he could face criminal charges for his role in the payment of hush money to a porn star, the strongest indication yet that prosecutors are nearing an indictment of the former president, according to four people with knowledge of the matter.

The prosecutors offered Mr. Trump the chance to testify next week before the grand jury that has been hearing evidence in the potential case, the people said. Such offers almost always indicate an indictment is close; it would be unusual for the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, to notify a potential defendant without ultimately seeking charges against him.

In New York, potential defendants have the right to answer questions in the grand jury before they are indicted, but they rarely testify, and Mr. Trump is likely to decline the offer. His lawyers could also meet privately with the prosecutors in hopes of fending off criminal charges.

Any case would mark the first indictment of a former American president, and could upend the 2024 presidential race in which Mr. Trump remains a leading contender. It would also elevate Mr. Bragg to the national stage, though not without risk, and a conviction in the complex case is far from assured.

The payments to Daniels were to cover up an alleged affair between her and Trump. Bragg’s office chose to revive the investigation, which prosecutors used to charge former Trump attorney Michael Cohen with campaign finance violations.

Bragg’s predecessor considered charging Trump with violating election law for falsifying business records to misrepresent the payments but ultimately abandoned the idea.

In a lengthy statement, Trump lashed out about the news Thursday evening, saying in part:

I did absolutely nothing wrong, I never had an affair with Stormy Daniels, nor would I have wanted to have an affair with Stormy Daniels.
This is a political Witch-Hunt, trying to take down the leading candidate, by far, in the Republican Party while at the same time also leading all Democrats in the polls, including Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

Mitch McConnell’s Office Provides Update Following Hospitalization

By
Madeleine Jackson
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8
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.

Liberal Congresswoman’s Bodyguard Offers Bizarre Excuse Amidst Claims of Anti-Semitism

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
    -
    1
    Cori Bush via Wikimedia Commons

    Liberal Congresswoman Cori Bush (D-MO) isn’t used to being in the spotlight but right now all eyes are on a member of her security team.

    Bush’s bodyguard, Nathaniel Davis has invited backlash over his claims to be a master of psychic self-defense born 109 trillion years ago along with his anti-semitic comments. The Washington Free Beacon confirmed that Davis is in fact a St. Louis, Missouri, spiritual guru known as Aha Sen Piankhy who teaches classes on how to read minds, summon mythical beings, and maintain urban gardens “to avoid having to buy food from the Jews.”

    Davis initially gained notoriety over his claim to host a number of supernatural abilities, including the ability to summon hurricanes, levitate, and retrieve winning lottery numbers “from the spirit realm.”

    Nathaniel Davis demanded The Free Beacon retract a previous article in which the outlet detailed Davis’s connections with Bush and history of advancing anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

    Per the original report from The Free Beacon:

    When Davis, who did not return requests for comment, is not protecting the congresswoman, he spends his time teaching St. Louis’s black community to grow their own food—so they can liberate themselves from a genocidal Jewish cabal that runs the world.

    “I’m going come teach the people how to survive. It’s what I came to this planet for in this lifetime,” Davis said in a July 17, 2020, Facebook live stream. “I’m 109 trillion years old in this galaxy, the Milky Way galaxy.”

    Davis has advanced a number of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, including the belief that the Rothschild family “runs the Western Hemisphere” and unleashed the COVID-19 pandemic to murder 99 percent of the human population. Davis is also a proponent of QAnon, according to a Facebook post he shared in December 2018.

    “You got the global elite looking to kill every last one of us. They want to wipe out half the population of the planet,” Davis said in a July 17, 2020, Facebook live stream.

    However, despite Davis’s history of anti-Semitic comments, the bodyguard said it’s impossible for him to be anti-Semitic because he himself is a member of the Tribe of Issachar, one of the lost tribes of Israel.

    “That makes me Hebrew. How can I be anti-Semitic?” Davis asked the Free Beacon, adding “You’re literally dealing with the priesthood, literally.”

    “If you could retract the whole anti-Semite, because I’m not, man. I’m not,” Davis said. “I got bar mitzvah’ed in this city. There’s no way I can be anti-Semite. No way. You didn’t complete your homework.”

    The bodyguard also asserted he never made any claims about the Rothschild family or promoted any anti-semitic conspiracies.

    “I didn’t make any type of statement dogging anybody of any nationality or background,” Davis told the Free Beacon. “Didn’t do that. That’s not how I move.”

    It’s not exactly clear how David came to work for the Congresswoman. However, a deep dive by The Free Beacon revealed the congresswoman’s personal Facebook page show that she is friends with “Aha Davis Zadok El,” one of Davis’s Facebook accounts. There, he claims to be a member of the “Priesthood of the Sun Moon Sect.” Davis’s various Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts are riddled with references to the “Priesthood of the Sun Moon Sect.”

    Davis has earned over $137,000 providing “security services” for Bush since 2020, according to FEC filings, the latest of which showed disbursements of $5,000 in Dec. 2022. 

    Citing a “non-disclosure agreement,” Davis refused to comment on the “security services” he has provided to Bush.

    “I can’t talk to you about that,” Davis said when pressed for details about his non-disclosure agreement.

    The Free Beacon reported that Davis changed his story minutes later and denied ever mentioning a non-disclosure agreement, claiming it would be false to report that he did.

    Former Trump Official Launches New PAC Supporting Gov. Ron DeSantis

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    6
    Photo via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is already seeing a tremendous outpouring of support for a 2024 White House bid and he hasn’t even decided to run yet.

    A senior Trump administration official and former Virginia attorney general has launched a new political action committee (PAC) to persuade Gov. DeSantis to throw his hat into the ring. Ken Cuccinelli served as acting deputy Homeland Security secretary under former President Trump during his final year in office.

    The ex-Trump official filed Never Back Down PAC with Federal Elections Commission (FCE) in late February according to documents obtained by The Hill.

    Cuccinelli launched the campaign to draft DeSantis into the 2024 race on Thursday, saying in a video that “America’s future is Ron DeSantis.”

    “Ron DeSantis doesn’t just talk, he acts, but most of all he never backs down,” Cuccinelli says in the video. “Gov. DeSantis, today I’m asking you to run for president. You’ve had our back, now we will have yours.”

    Two similar super PACS— titled “Ready for Ron” and “Ron to the Rescue” — which are not affiliated with DeSantis or his political circle are already up and running, raising money as they urge the governor to launch a presidential campaign. But sources in DeSantis’s wider political orbit have described those groups as “a grift – plain and simple” to Fox News.

    Super PACs, known as independent expenditure-only committees, are legally allowed to raise unlimited sums of money from corporations, unions, associations and individuals, and to spend unlimited sums to support or oppose political candidates. Unlike traditional PACs, they are prohibited under long-standing federal rules from either coordinating or contributing directly to a candidate or candidate’s campaign. 

    DeSantis is widely expected to announce a presidential bid this spring. (RELATED: DeSantis Lays Out Timeline for 2024 Decision)

    Last month, the Republican governor told “Fox & Friends” we would make a final decision after Florida’s legislative session wraps up in May and after his book tour.

    Trump launched his campaign right after the 2022 midterm elections and has consistently attacked DeSantis ahead of his possible entry into the race.

    “I have been speaking to many grassroots conservative activists around the country who are very enthusiastic for Governor DeSantis to run for President in 2024,” Cuccinelli said in a statement. “The energy is there, grassroots conservatives see the Governor as a leader and a fighter with a winning conservative track record who will lead the Republican Party to victory in 2024.”

    Cuccinelli is hardly the first Trump-aligned Republican to change allegiances.

    Donald Tapia, a prominent businessman from Arizona and Trump’s former ambassador to Jamaica from 2019 to 2021, was a strong financial backer of Trump in 2016 and 2020, contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars to the former president over his two elections but recently announced he plans to support DeSantis for president.

    “The name-calling has turned a lot of people off,” Tapia said to Politico. “Let me tell you, we don’t like that.”

    However, despite some grumblings among conservatives, Trump has consistently come on on top in various 2024 hypothetical matchups.

    Tucker Carlson Jan 6 Exposé – Partly True and Also Kinda Dumb

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    20
    Photo via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    ANALYSIS – Tucker Carlson’s misguided attempt to use cherry-picked moments of the newly released video of Jan. 6 to argue that nothing bad happened at the Capitol that day, is horribly timed and very dumb. 

    As I wrote the day after I personally observed events at the Capitol that day, January 6 was neither a deadly coup, insurrection nor peaceful guided tours of the Capitol. 

    It was a mixture of some of those things, none of those things, and everything in between.

    And Tucker would have been far more effective, and credible had he used the video to show that the Left’s Jan. 6 narrative was incomplete, distorted, and totally one-sided, rather than trying to say it was totally false.

    Because the truth is that Jan 6 was like the story of the blind men and the elephant, each one grasping one part of the animal, like the leg, tail, or trunk, and describing the giant beast as something totally different.

    On Jan. 6 what began as a massive peaceful rally of tens of thousands of pro-Trump protesters, soon degraded when smaller elements (a few hundred) of the much larger peaceful crowd broke off and did conduct a violent attack on parts of the Capitol.

    Hundreds more just stupidly followed the initial ‘attack mob’ inside.

    In the first group, some had military training, used stack formations, and were very organized and intent on forcefully breaching the building. 

    While none were found with, or used firearms, during the riot, there was violence with sticks, flagpoles, and pepper spray.

    I called these violent rioters, thugs, and criminals.

    They were similar to the violent BLM rioters who had violently attacked police at the White House in the summer of 2020 or besieged the Portland Federal Courthouse for months.

    On Jan. 6 police officers were similarly attacked and beaten, and the Capitol was ultimately breached unlawfully.

    Inside, one non-violent protester, Ashley Babbitt, an Air Force security forces veteran, was shot by a Capitol Police Officer. Likely, unjustly. 

    She was the only person killed during the riot.

    All this occurred in the span of just a few hours.

    But the Capitol complex is massive, and what was happening violently on one end was not being replicated at other parts of the Capitol. 

    As much of the Tucker video showed truthfully, in many places and entrances, Capitol Police had allowed protesters inside, in some cases escorted them around. 

    In other cases, the police simply stood by as the ‘tourist’ protesters milled around and took selfies or acted stupidly.

    Still, ever since then, there has been a profound narrative battle pitting those fanatics on the right who said nothing at all happened and the fanatics on the left who claim Jan. 6 was worse than Pearl Harbor or 9/11, and an insurrection that risked the essence of American democracy. 

    Sadly, neither side is correct, but only the most extreme one-sided ‘insurrection’ narrative was put forward by the left and last Congress’ Democratic-run Jan. 6 committee, and repeated daily by the partisan, anti-Trump media.

    The insurrection narrative was pushed by cherry-picked videos and photos of the same short-lived Capitol violence from different views and angles, repeated in a nearly constant loop for the most distorted and dramatic effect possible.

    But now Tucker has done the same.

    As Politico reported:

    Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger wrote in an internal message to officers that Carlson’s Monday night primetime program “conveniently cherry-picked from the calmer moments of our 41,000 hours of video” to incorrectly portray the violent assault as more akin to a peaceful protest. He added that Carlson’s “commentary fails to provide context about the chaos and violence that happened before or during these less tense moments.”

    And many Republican leaders agreed.

    The timing is also horrible.

    As Politico reported:

    “It’s definitely stupid to keep talking about this … So what is the purpose of continuing to bring it up unless you’re trying to feed Democrat narratives even further?” Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) said in an interview, noting the videos didn’t show “anything we don’t already know.”

    “I don’t really have a problem with making it all public. But if your message is then to try and convince people that nothing bad happened, then it’s just gonna make us look silly.”

    So how should we view the events of the January 6 riot accurately and fairly?

    Probably the best description was provided by Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.) when he said he has “a hard time with all of it.”

    He added that Jan. 6 “was not a peaceful protest. It was not an insurrection. It was a riot that should have never happened. And a lot of people share the blame for that. The truth is always messier than any narrative.”

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

    Amanda Head: ‘Jesus Revolution’ Destroys Box Office Performace of Oscar-nominated Films

    By
    Amanda Head
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    5

    It’s time to run to your local movie theaters.

    A new faith-based film “Jesus Revolution” is setting the box office on fire. The new film has already surpassed numerous Oscar-nominated films’ box office earnings.

    Watch Amanda explain the phenomenon below:

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

    Like the FBI, Politicized DHS Running ‘Shady’ (Likely Illegal) Domestic Intelligence Program

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    2

    ANALYSIS – It isn’t news that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has proven to be vulnerable to political pressure. Just look at the threat assessments produced in 2020 that single out ‘white supremacists’ as the ‘most lethal domestic terror threat’ in the U.S., despite their numbers being minuscule.

    According to that report, self-described ‘white supremacists’ were responsible for 49 homicides in 26 attacks spread across more than a decade and a half – from 2000 to 2016.

    Yes, that’s more murders than any other specific domestic extremist group but let’s get real. 

    There are more murders in Chicago in one weekend than the entire number of white supremacist killings nationwide in those sixteen years.

    This DHS report, though produced under the last year of Trump’s term, like many others recently by different federal agencies, like the FBI, is part of a wider political campaign that conflates the relatively small number of white supremacists, and other so-called right-wing extremists, with the tens of millions of mainstream conservatives and Trump supporters.

    And we can now add traditional Catholics to the feds’ “most wanted” list.

    The FBI recently produced a memo by its Richmond, Virginia, Field Office that was leaked on Jan. 23, 2023. 

    That memo, according to a group of 20 GOP state attorney generals, “identifies ‘radical-traditionalist Catholic[s]’ as potential ‘racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists.’”

    In their letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, Fox News reported, the AGs told the FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) to “desist from investigating and surveilling Americans who have done nothing more than exercise their natural and constitutional right to practice their religion in a manner of their choosing.” 

    The AGS also asked that the DOJ and the FBI “reveal to the American public the extent to which they have engaged in such activities.”

    The AGs letter notes that the FBI memorandum deploys “alarmingly detailed theological distinctions to distinguish between the Catholics whom the FBI deems acceptable, and those it does not.”

    It’s in this context of politicized and weaponized federal law enforcement agencies, that this latest report of DHS malfeasance deserves special attention.

    Specifically, we are talking about the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis (OIA), whose leadership, according to Politico, was called “shady” and run “like a corrupt government.” 

    For years it has been operating a secretive domestic-intelligence gathering program that many DHS employees have complained may be illegal.

    The OIA’s Overt Human Intelligence Collection Program allows DHS officials to bypass lawyers and seek intelligence interviews with individuals being held in local jails, federal prisons, and immigrant detention centers.

    While most law-abiding U.S. citizens may not care much about this DHS target group, remember this is just another example of how elements of DHS appear corrupt, and play fast and loose with the law, and all our civil liberties.

    But the Department’s politicization is probably the biggest danger according to documents obtained by Politico.

    As the New York Post reports:

    The ability of DHS to be impartial and withstand caving to political pressure was also a major concern, documents show. 

    An internal analysis during the Trump administration found a “significant number of respondents cited concerns with politicization of analytic products and/or the perceptions of undue influence that may compromise the integrity of the work performed by employees. This concern touches on analytic topics, the review process, and the appropriate safeguards in place to protect against undue influence.”

    The document adds that “a number of respondents expressed concerns/challenges with the quality and effectiveness of I&A senior leadership” such as the “inability to resist political pressure.”

    “The workforce has a general mistrust of leadership resulting from orders to conduct activities they perceive to be inappropriate, bureaucratic, or political,” the document continues.

    It is clearly time to rein in rogue elements at DHS and FBI, but also to clean house at the top levels of both organizations, and DOJ.

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

    Texas Lawmaker Files Bill to Prompt Potential Secession from U.S.

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
    -
    9

    The 49 states of America?

    Earlier this week, Texas Rep. Bryan Slaton (R) filed a bill to allow Texans to vote in the next general election on whether to secede from the United States and form its own sovereign nation.

    “All political power rests in the People of Texas, and they deserve to have an opportunity to make their voice heard about the future of Texas,” Slaton said in an emailed statement to The Daily Wire.

    The Texas Independence Referendum Act in the Texas House of Representatives would place a referendum on the ballot asking residents to determine the state’s future by exploring whether or not lawmakers should establish a commission to investigate the feasibility of Texas seceding from the Union and provide further recommendations to the state legislature.

    The Texas Nationalist Movement, a group of approximately 440,000 Texans from across the political spectrum, has been leading the charge of the so-called “TEXIT” coalition to gain independence from the federal government since 2005.

    President Daniel Miller of the group told The Daily Wire that its members represent the Lonestar State more than the Republican or Democrat parties.

    “At the end of the day, the people of Texas want that right of self-government,” Miller said. “They do not feel like they’re being represented in a system where they feel crushed under the weight of 180,000 pages of federal laws, rules, and regulations administered by two and a half million unelected bureaucrats.”

    Should the bill pass the state legislature and voters later this year, a bicameral committee of house and senate representatives will formulate a plan addressing four key issues relating to Texas independence. Such issues include constitutional and statutory matters, international covenants, treaties and agreements, and negotiations with the federal government.

    “Texans are tired of making decisions here at home and having them overwritten at the stroke of a pen by an executive order or a ruling from an unelected, unaccountable federal judiciary,” Miller said. “Texans want the ability to govern themselves, and they believe that the best people to govern Texas just happen to be Texans.”

    Miller says the TEXIT movement is different from other attempts to those efforts ignore the underlying issue of a “terminally broken” federal system.

    “You could shift your counties over to a state that feels a little a little bit more representative of where you are ideologically,” Miller said. “But at the end of the day, it’s still the federal system that’s broken — and it’s still the federal system that drives so much of the dysfunction that we find in the United States right now.”

    Efforts to prompt the Lonestar State to secede from the United States have gained traction before but have hit serious roadblocks. Numerous historians argue when the Confederacy surrendered in 1865, states could no longer legally secede from the Union.

    “The legality of seceding is problematic,” Eric McDaniel, associate professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin, told The Texas Tribune in 2016. “The Civil War played a very big role in establishing the power of the federal government and cementing that the federal government has the final say in these issues.”

    In 1836 Texas became a republic after breaking from Mexico. Nine years later Texas was annexed into the United States as the 28th state. Texans voted to secede from the Union in 1861 after divisions within the nation wanted to expand slavery into western territories. However, nine years later, Texas rejoined the country during the Reconstruction Era after the Confederacy was defeated in the Civil War.

    Just before the Union readmitted the state back into the country, the U.S. Supreme Court declared in the 1869 case Texas v. White that efforts for individual states to unilaterally secede from the Union were ‘absolutely null.’”

    In 2006, the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia wrote, “the answer is clear” concerning the legal basis of secession.

    The topic of secession has recently dominated airwaves after pro-Trump Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene called for a “national divorce” prompting support and backlash from both sides of the political aisle.

    Fox News Sean Hannity seemed to support Rep. Greene’s idea.

    Private Tucker Carlson Messages Reveal ‘Passionate’ Hate for Donald Trump

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
    -
    0
    Photo via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    New court documents are pulling back the curtain on the not-so-rosy relationship between Donald Trump and Fox News star Tucker Carlson.

    More of Carlson’s private messages were revealed as part of Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against the network.

    According to Mediaite, Carlson admitted his negative opinion of Trump during a text conversation with an unknown staffer on Jan. 4, 2021, just days before the riot at the U.S. Capitol, 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.”

    Carlson added that Trump and his lawyers “have so discredited their own case, and the rest of us to some extent, that it’s infuriating. Absolutely enrages me.”

    “That’s the last four years,” Carlson continued. “We’re all pretending we’ve got a lot to show for it, because admitting what a disaster it’s been is too tough to digest. But come on. There isn’t really an upside to Trump.”

    The Fox News star has hosted the nightly political talk show “Tucker Carlson Tonight” since 2019, has outwardly been a staunch supporter of the former president for years but his private messages reveal a very different side to the story.

    According to Mediaite, Carlson expressed fear to a producer that Trump could “destroy” the network if it did not handle its coverage of his 2020 election claims in a certain way.

    “What [Trump]’s good at is destroying things. He’s the undisputed world champion of that. He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong,” Carlson said.

    House Speaker Kevin McCarthy recently handed over 41,000 hours of Jan. 6th, 2021 footage to Carlson.

    “[T]here was never any legitimate reason for this footage to remain secret,” Carlson told Axios. “If there was ever a question that’s in the public’s interest to know, it’s what actually happened on January 6.”

    “By definition, this video will reveal it,” Carlson said. “It’s impossible for me to understand why any honest person would be bothered by that.”

    Fox News has defended itself against the Dominion suit by arguing it was simply reporting on newsworthy allegations from the president of the United States and his surrogates.

    Fox News issued a statement on the new release of exhibits, arguing the full context of the comments being cited by Dominion undermines their claims:

    “Thanks to today’s filings, Dominion has been caught red handed again using more distortions and misinformation in their PR campaign to smear FOX News and trample on free speech and freedom of the press. We already know they will say and do anything to try to win this case, but to twist and even misattribute quotes to the highest levels of our company is truly beyond the pale,” a spokesperson said.

    Is Doug Mastriano Planning a Senate Run?

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
    -
    2
    Photo via Wikimedia Commons

    While Doug Mastriano’s November gubernatorial loss disappointed Republicans retired Army colonel-turned-state senator seems ready to strategize for the future.

    A new report from POLITICO reveals Mastriano’s first steps toward a potential Senate run in 2024 and it seems clear he’s not ready to throw in the towel when it comes to pursuing higher office.

    “What do you do with a movement of 2.2 million?” he told POLITICO. “We’re keeping it alive.”

    “We’ve seen people in the past, other Republican gubernatorial candidates, they rise and they disappear when they lose. Why?” he asked. “You have people that love you and support you.”

    Mastriano affirmed he is “praying” about whether to go forward with a potential Senate run in 2024. After God, his wife, Rebbie, will have the final word he said.

    However, if Mastriano does decide to mount a Senate campaign the Republican would run in a primary for the right to take on Democrat Sen. Bob Casey. Which is likely to be a considerable challenge due in part to Sen. Casey’s familial history in the Keystone State.

    POLITICO noted that “no one in the Pennsylvania GOP establishment is eager for that matchup. “

    Casey’s father, former Gov. Robert Casey Sr., signed abortion regulations into law that went all the way to a landmark Supreme Court case, where they were largely kept intact. Mastriano even noted that Casey Sr. was “more pro-life than most Republicans” before insisting Sen. Casey is incapable of living up to his father’s legacy.

    “I think he’s a huge disappointment. He’s nothing like his dad,” he said.

    Still, all signs point to the fact Mastriano is taking steps to position himself for a possible run. He’s planning an upcoming rally in central Pennsylvania, which will feature Trump lawyer Christina Bobb and conservative media personality Wendy Bell as speakers. Mastriano also led a hearing on the East Palestine train derailment over the border from the incident in western Pennsylvania, and he successfully pushed a committee he chairs to subpoena Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw to testify.

    He also hired Dan Cox, the unsuccessful Maryland gubernatorial nominee, as his chief-of-staff which has fueled speculation he might want to run for higher office again. He seemed to confirm the link during the interview.

    “Hmm,” he said, laughing. “Gute erkennung. As the Germans say, ‘Good deduction.’”

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