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Report: Giuliani, Former Chief Of Staff Among Top Trump Aides Indicted In Arizona

By
Madeleine Jackson
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6
Photo via Gage Skidmore Flickr

An Arizona grand jury charged top 2020 Trump campaign aides and lawyers alongside 11 so-called “fake electors” on Wednesday over their efforts to alter the outcome of the 2020 presidential election in the state.

The indictment lists the 11 fake electors, but redacted the names of seven other individuals who were indicted following the investigation led by Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D).

The Washington Post reported the names of those seven individuals as “former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, attorneys Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, John Eastman and Christina Bobb, top campaign adviser Boris Epshteyn and former campaign aide Mike Roman.”

The felony charges stem from the 11 Trump supporters gathering at the Arizona GOP’s headquarters following the 2020 election to sign fraudulent certifications claiming to be Arizona’s 11 official electors to the Electoral College, with the intent that their votes would eventually be counted for Donald Trump.

“They are accused of allegedly aiding an unsuccessful strategy to award the state’s electoral votes to Trump instead of Biden after the 2020 election,” the Post added.

“In Arizona, and the United States, the people elected Joseph Biden as President on November 3, 2020,” the indictment reads.

“Unwilling to accept this fact, Defendants and unindicted coconspirators schemed to prevent the lawful transfer of the presidency to keep Unindicted Coconspirator 1 in office against the will of Arizona’s voters,” it continued, referring to Trump. “This scheme would have deprived Arizona voters of their right to vote and have their votes counted.”

Ex-Arizona Republican Party chairwoman Kelli Ward is among those charged for her role as a fake electoral. Politico’s Kyle Cheney noted that Trump himself is listed as an unindicted co-coconspirator.

Mayes released a video with the indictment.

“We conducted a thorough and professional investigation over the past 13 months into the fake electors scheme in our state. I understand for some of you today didn’t come fast enough. And I know I’ll be criticized by others for conducting this investigation at all. But as I’ve stated before, and we’ll say here again, today, I will not allow American democracy to be undermined.”

Ex-GOP Congressman Suspends House Campaign

By
Madeleine Jackson
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0

It’s over before it even started…

Former Republican New York Congressman George Santos has suspended his independent campaign less than two months later. (RELATED: George Santos Now Running For Congress As ‘Ultra MAGA Independent’)

Santos was running to unseat Republican Rep. Nick LaLota who represents New York’s 1st Congressional District after being expelled last year.

“I have decided to withdraw from my independent run for NY-1,” Santos announced via social media on Tuesday. “I don’t want my run to be portrayed as a reprisal against Nick Lalota”

“Although Nick and I don’t have the same voting record and I remain critical of his abysmal record, I don’t want to split the ticket and be responsible for handing the house to Dems,” Santos continued, citing r. “It is clear that with the rise of antisemitism in our country we cannot afford to hand the house to Dems as they have a very large issue with antisemitism in their ranks.”

Santos launched his independent campaign for NY-1 in March, despite having previously represented a different New York district.

Last December, the House of Representatives voted 311-114-2 to expel the Santos with 105 Republicans joining almost all Democrats. (RELATED: House Votes To Expel George Santos)

A scathing House Ethics report said there was clear evidence Santos committed serious crimes and said the New York Republican “blatantly stole from his campaign” and “deceived donors into providing what they thought were contributions to his campaign but were in fact payments for his personal benefit.”

His campaign committee reported zero expenditures and zero fundraising income in a filing to the Federal Elections Commission.

“The future holds countless possibilities and I am ready willing and able to step up to the plate and go fight for my country at anytime,” Santos said on Tuesday. “I will continue to participate in the public policy discussions and will do my part.”

He concluded, “I will always strive to stand on the right side of history. It’s only goodbye for now, I’ll be back.”

Article Published With The Permission of American Liberty News.

Report: Secret Service Prepping If Trump Sentenced To Jail

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    1
    Image via Pixabay

    The U.S. Secret Service doesn’t know what to do about its “Trump problem.”

    The Secret Service is tasked is protecting our current and former presidents, and regarding former President Donald Trump, the organization has reportedly already had meetings to plan how to handle his security if he ends up behind bars.

    Trump is currently on trial in New York facing 34 felony counts for falsifying business records regarding alleged hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election.

    According to a report by ABC News, the Secret Service “held meetings and started planning for what to do if former President Donald Trump were to be held in contempt in his criminal hush money trial and Judge Juan Merchan opted to send him to short-term confinement,” citing as a source “officials familiar with the situation.”

    During Tuesday’s arguments, prosecutors said they were “not yet seeking an incarceratory penalty,” asking Merchan to impose fines, but also highlighted Trump’s ongoing attacks and argued that he “seems to be angling for” being imprisoned.

    The ABC News report added that the officials “do not necessarily believe Merchan would put Trump in a holding cell in the courthouse but they are planning for contingencies.” These sources added that the discussions had not yet gotten to the point of discussing what to do if Trump is convicted and sent to prison, in this case or in the other three criminal matters pending against the former President, including two federal cases and one in Georgia.

    The Secret Service would not comment on specific discussions or plans for protecting Trump, but issued a statement:

    Under federal law, the United States Secret Service must provide protection for current government leaders, former Presidents and First Ladies, visiting heads of state and other individuals designated by the President of the United States. For all settings around the world, we study locations and develop comprehensive and layered protective models that incorporate state of the art technology, protective intelligence and advanced security tactics to safeguard our protectees. Beyond that, we do not comment on specific protective operations.

    The New York Times’ reporting cited two sources saying that the “impromptu meeting” with federal, state, and city agencies to discuss how to manage imprisoning Trump was instigated by the prosecution’s arguments regarding the gag orders, specifically the request that Merchan expressly remind the former president he could, in fact, be thrown in jail for contempt.

    The short-term incarceration Trump might face for violating a gag order would be in a courthouse holding cell, not a regular state jail or federal prison that he might find as his new address if he’s convicted in any of the cases against him.

    “The far more substantial challenge — how to safely incarcerate a former president if the jury convicts him and the judge sentences him to prison rather than home confinement or probation — has yet to be addressed directly, according to some of a dozen current and former city, state and federal officials interviewed for this article,” reported the Times, adding that it would require “keeping him separate from other inmates, as well as screening his food and other personal items,” plus making accommodations for a rotating detail of Secret Service agents to protect him 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Despite the normal prohibition on firearms in prisons, Trump’s agents “would nonetheless be armed.”

    Report: Nikki Haley Snags over 150K votes in Battleground State After Dropping Out

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    0
    The White House from Washington, DC, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

    Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley received more than 150,000 votes in the Pennsylvania GOP primary on Tuesday despite having dropped out of the race weeks ago. 

    The Hill reported the most recent election returns, from just after 9 a.m. Wednesday, show Haley with nearly 157,000 votes, enough for 16.6 percent of the total, with 90 percent of votes cast counted.

    Former President Trump still easily won the primary, with more than 80 percent of the vote as of the latest count, and he will win all of Pennsylvania’s delegates in the winner-take-all primary. But Haley’s total is still a significant amount for a candidate who has not been in the race since early last month. 

    Despite Haley’s popularity among Republicans the former South Carolina Governor, she was unable to take a commanding lead over Trump.

    Still, Haley on Tuesday appears to have reached or came close to 20 percent in several counties. Her showing may not have significantly impacted Trump taking the state on his way to officially becoming the Republican nominee, especially as he became the presumptive nominee last month after clinching enough delegates. 

    But it could indicate a reason for concern in the general election, in which Pennsylvania is one of the key battleground states that could determine the winner of the race. The polling average of the state from Decision Desk HQ/The Hill has Trump ahead of President Biden in the state by just 0.4 percent, meaning every vote may have added importance there compared to other states in November. 

    Haley has seen continued support over recent weeks in other states. She received more than 77,000 votes in the Georgia GOP primary in March a few days after she dropped out, more than 150,000 votes, or almost 20 percent, in the Washington Republican primary and more than 110,000 votes in the Arizona GOP primary.

    [Watch] Trump’s Niece Compares Him Unfavorably To Jeffrey Dahmer On MSNBC

      By
      admin
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      3
      Photo via Gage Skidmore Flickr

      Mary Trump‘s aversion to her famous uncle is well-known, but it’s not every day she compares him to one of America’s most infamous serial killers.

      On national television.

      Reflecting on the Stormy Daniels hush money case, Trump’s niece joined MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell to mock the lack of Trump supporters demonstrating outside the courthouse and the absence of the former president’s family inside the courtroom.

      Several reporters also noticed their lack of attendance in the courtroom, asking the presumptive Republican nominee where Melania is.

      Appearing on Monday’s edition of “The Last Word,” Mary and Larry mocked the presidential front-runner, saying that even Jeffrey Dahmer‘s parents attended his trial. 

      “This is something that I’ve never seen,” O’Donnell claimed. “Not actually made manifest in the courtroom, before Donald Trump‘s in that courtroom alone. Jeffrey Dahmer’s parents were there every single day. It is. It is very hard, to, to find a courtroom where the criminal defendant doesn’t have a relative sitting there in the front row.”

      The younger Trump replied: “Yeah, well, I got a couple of things about that. First of all, it’s another example of how, he, he perverts systems or expectations. For anybody else, that would just be damning. Right. Just the way he talks about dogs would be damning.”

      “How many times have we heard that his bizarre behavior, that, that he engages in bizarre behaviors or just doesn’t conform in a way that, that a, a reasonably well-adjusted human being would?”

      “But like everything else about him, it just kind of gets baked in,” she continued. “Right.”

      “But it is. Let’s, it’s worth, pausing, about how under. Unfair on. Unreal. Bizarre. Strange. Unacceptable. Weird. Whatever adjective you want to use, it is that he is there alone in terms of friends and family,” her assessment continued.

      “I think it is worth pointing out… One. I don’t think he cares. I don’t think it matters to him. That is not where he gets his energy. That is not what gives him solace to the extent that anything does,” Trump opined. “He’s more upset about the fact that there aren’t more people outside protesting on his behalf. Right.”

      “But it also points to, the bizarre thing about my family that every transaction in this family is a transactional one,” the estranged niece continued. “I’m sorry. Every relationship, I should say, is a transactional one. His kids have decided, for whatever reason, that it’s not worth their time for them to be in that courtroom because they’re not going to get anything out of it. That’s, that’s the way this family rolls.” 

      Article Published With The Permission of American Liberty News

      Report: Judge To Rule Over Trump Gag Order

        By
        Madeleine Jackson
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        2
        Gavel via Wikimedia Commons Image

        On Tuesday, the New York judge presiding over Donald Trump’s criminal hush money trial will deliver a ruling over the recently imposed gag order.

        Ahead of Judge Merchan’s ruling, Trump blasted the controversial gag order in a Truth Social post.

        “HIGHLY CONFLICTED, TO PUT IT MILDLY, JUDGE JUAN MERCHAN, HAS TAKEN AWAY MY CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH,” Trump wrote on Truth Social shortly after arguments over the gag order concluded. “EVERYBODY IS ALLOWED TO TALK AND LIE ABOUT ME, BUT I AM NOT ALLOWED TO DEFEND MYSELF. THIS IS A KANGAROO COURT, AND THE JUDGE SHOULD RECUSE HIMSELF!”

        Prosecutors with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office claim Trump has so far violated the order barring him from attacking witnesses, prosecutors, court staff, and the judge’s family 10 times. They are asking the judge to fine Trump $1,000 for each violation.

        Trump is being charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records to make alleged hush money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels.

        The purported violations were mainly posted to Trump’s Truth Social, where he has made comments about potential witnesses in recent days. The gag order does not prevent Trump from attacking the judge or Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D). 

        One post, made on April 10, thanked an ex-lawyer to porn actress Stormy Daniels for “revealing the truth about two sleazebags who have, with their lies and misrepresentations, cost our Country dearly.”  

        The “sleazebags” in question were Daniels and Trump’s ex-fixer and personal attorney, Michael Cohen — both expected to be prominent witnesses in the district attorney’s case. 

        Another post maligns Cohen as a “disgraced attorney and felon…prosecuted for lying” and suggested that an ex-Manhattan prosecutor who once oversaw the investigation into Trump, Mark Pomerantz, should be “prosecuted for his terrible acts in and out of the D.A.’s office.” 

        Trump has appealed the gag order, arguing it is an unconstitutional violation of his First Amendment rights, but it remains in effect as of now. 

        Asa Hutchinson Announces New Career Move

          By
          Madeleine Jackson
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          0

          Former 2024 GOP presidential candidate Asa Hutchinson is joining Scripps News as a political analyst, the news organization announced on Monday. 

          The former Arkansas governor who also launched an unsuccessful bid for the White House is set to appear regularly on Mondays on the news outlet’s politics and campaign-oriented evening show, “The Race.”  

          He joined the news outlet as a political analyst for the first time on Monday.  

          “I am excited to be part of the Scripps News team as we head into one of the most consequential elections in history,” Hutchinson said in a press release. “Scripps News is committed to balance in its coverage of politics, and that is what America needs at this critical moment.”  

          According to The Hill, the former Arkansas governor performed poorly in the primary as the Republican contest underscored former President Trump’s enduring dominance within the party. He ultimately dropped out in January after the Iowa caucuses.  

          Hillary Clinton Claims Trump Wants To ‘Kill’ Opponents

          By
          Madeleine Jackson
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          5
          Hillary Clinton via Gage Skidmore Flickr

          That’s extreme…

          Hillary Clinton made an extreme accusation that 2016 rival Donald Trump wants to “kill his opposition” because of his purported affinity for “strongmen” leaders such as Russian President Vladimir Putin.

          The Daily Wire continues:

          “We haven’t talked much about the international arena, but, you know, his bromance with Putin,” said Clinton, who served as U.S. secretary of state and U.S. senator, during a podcast released last week.

          “And it was actually called that I think by the former prime minister of Australia, who said he saw Trump with Putin and Trump was like, you know, just gaga over Putin because Putin does what he would like to do: kill his opposition, imprison his opposition, drive, you know, journalists and others into exile, rule without any check or balance.”

          “That’s what Trump really wants,” Clinton added. “And so we have to be very conscious of how he sees the world because, in that world, he only sees strongmen leaders. He sees Putin, he sees [Chinese leader Xi Jinping], he sees Kim Jong Un in North Korea. Those are the people he is modeling himself after, and we’ve been down this road in our world history. We sure don’t want to go down that again.”

          The interview took place on the “Defending Democracy” podcast hosted by Marc Elias, who served as the lawyer who directed funding from Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and Democratic National Committee that went toward British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s now-discredited dossier that contained allegations of a conspiracy between Trump and Russia.

          Running with the “Russiagate” narrative, which allegedly was the opposite of what some U.S. intelligence information showed, Clinton said one of the reasons Putin “went after” her is “because he knew I would deal with him in an appropriate way and Trump would basically do whatever he wanted.” She added, “It’s really important to think about what could happen to our world with Trump back in the White House,” adding later that it was a “very scary prospect.”

          Report: SCOTUS Rejects Kari Lake’s Voting Machine Suit

          By
          Madeleine Jackson
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          1
          Duncan Lock, Dflock, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

          On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Republicans Kari Lake and Mark Finchem’s lawsuit over the use of voting machines in Arizona elections.

          The Hill reports Lake and Finchem asked the Supreme Court to review a federal appellate judge’s decision to dismiss their case last October. The suit sought to block electronic voting machines from being used in the state, questioning their accuracy and reliability.  

          Lawyers for Lake, who is running for a Senate seat in Arizona this cycle, and Finchem, who is seeking a state Senate seat, argued in a court filing to the Supreme Court that they had sufficiently argued that “[a]ll Arizona-certified optical scanners and ballot marking devices, as well as the software on which they rely, have been wrongly certified for use”; Arizona’s voting machines had been “hacked” and “manipulated”; and that there were apparent discrepancies in the Maricopa County’s vote count after the 2020 election. 

          The lawsuit was filed ahead of the November 2022 midterms while Lake was running for governor.

          The Supreme Court’s decision to decline to revisit the federal court’s decision puts a cap on Lake’s and Finchem’s lawsuit.

          “We are obviously disappointed that the U.S. Supreme Court decided not to review the decisions of the Arizona district court and the Ninth Circuit, and order that our challenge to the 2022 election procedures be heard on the merits,” said Kurt Olsen, one of the attorneys that sought to get the Supreme Court to consider the case, in a statement, who argued new information came to light after their case was dismissed by the  circuit court. 

          “Although the Supreme Court grants review in less than 1 percent of cases presented on petition, we believe we presented a case.”

          “The Kari Lake and Mark Finchem case was dismissed based on a purported lack of standing to assert an injury,” Olsen wrote. “Therefore, the courts, even now, have not ruled on the merits of our case. We will continue to raise these issues especially in light of the upcoming 2024 election.”

          Trump Promotes ‘Peaceful Protests’ Ahead Of Hush Money Trial’s Opening Arguments

          By
          Madeleine Jackson
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          0
          Photo via Gage Skidmore Flickr

          Before opening arguments are scheduled to begin in Donald Trump’s hush money trial in Manhattan the former President urged supporters to exercise their right to protest.

          Trump is being charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records to make alleged hush money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels.

          Opening statements are expected to begin Monday.

          In a post just before he left for the courthouse, Trump questioned why pro-Palestinian protesters were allowed to “roam the Cities, scream, shout, sit, block traffic, enter buildings, not get permits, and basically do whatever they want” while his supporters are “rudely and systematically shut down and ushered off to far away ‘holding areas,’ essentially denying them their Constitutional Rights.”

          “America Loving Protesters should be allowed to protest at the front steps of Courthouses, all over the Country,” Trump added, appearing to reference how demonstrators who have shown up outside his trial have been kept across the street from the building.

          Trump urged his supporters to “GO OUT AND PEACEFULLY PROTEST. RALLY BEHIND MAGA. SAVE OUR COUNTRY!”

          In a separate post Sunday, Trump specifically attacked Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D), who is leading the case against Trump, and defended the payment at the heart of the case as a “legal expense.”

          “What other term would be more appropriate??? Believe it or not, this is the pretext under which I was Indicted, and that Legal Scholars and Experts CANNOT BELIEVE,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “It is also the perfect Crooked Joe Biden NARRATIVE – To be STUCK in a courtroom, and not be allowed to campaign for President of the United States!”

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