Donald Trump is throwing his support behind Jim Jordan to become the next Speaker of the House.
“He is a STRONG on Crime, Borders, our Military/Vets, & 2nd Amendment. Jim, his wife, Polly, & family are outstanding – He will be a GREAT Speaker of the House, & has my Complete & Total Endorsement!” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.
“Congressman Jim Jordan has been a STAR long before making his very successful journey to Washington, D.C., representing Ohio’s 4th Congressional District. Respected by all, he is now Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee,” Trump wrote.
The former president backed Jordan over Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), who announced his own bid to replace ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday.
Trump had initially declined to back any particular candidate for Speaker following McCarthy’s removal, telling reporters Wednesday that “we have some great people in the Republican Party that could do a great job as Speaker.”
Some House Republicans floated the former president himself as a possible Speaker nominee, with the conference scrambling to coalesce around a new leader following McCarthy’s exit from a position he had held since January.
Trump appeared to dismiss those calls, saying Wednesday he was “totally” focused on his White House bid. On Thursday, he said he would do so on a temporary basis only “if necessary,” adding to Fox News Digital: “I have been asked to speak as a unifier because I have so many friends in Congress.”
On Wednesday, former President Trump asked to dismiss the whole of the government’s election interference case against him, arguing all his actions leading up to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol are protected by presidential immunity.
“The prosecution does not, and cannot, argue that President Trump’s efforts to ensure election integrity, and to advocate for the same, were outside the scope of his duties. Instead, the prosecution falsely claims that President Trump’s motives were impure — that he purportedly ‘knew’ that the widespread reports of fraud and election irregularities were untrue but sought to address them anyway,” Trump’s attorneys wrote in the motion.
“But as the Constitution, the Supreme Court, and hundreds of years of history and tradition all make clear, the President’s motivations are not for the prosecution or this Court to decide. Rather, where, as here, the President’s actions are within the ambit of his office, he is absolutely immune from prosecution.”
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Former President of the United States Donald Trump speaking with attendees at the 2022 Student Action Summit at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Florida. [Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons]
Former President Donald Trump is seeking to delay his trial in the Mar-a-Lago case until “at least mid-November 2024,” which would put it beyond next year’s presidential election.
The request from Trump comes on the heels of complaints from his legal team about the amount of classified evidence they’ve been able to review in the case, as well as their workload, as they manage numerous indictments filed against the former president.
The attorneys say they have yet to get access to all classified evidence underpinning charges in a superseding indictment that accused Trump of an additional Espionage Act charge and of trying to delete security camera footage from his Florida home.
Trump’s team also complains that it “only has access to a small, temporary facility in Miami” to view the highly classified records. It must visit the facility in person while managing hearing dates for Trump’s trial on allegations he sought to block the transfer of power after losing the 2020 election.
“The March 4, 2023 trial date in the District of Columbia, and the underlying schedule in that case, currently require President Trump and his lawyers to be in two places at once,” Trump’s attorneys, Christopher Kise and Todd Blanche, wrote in the filing.
Trump is set to face trial on the classified records case in May.
On Wednesday, Biden made a stark reversal from his campaign policy and announced the need for a border wall in Texas citing security, drug and arms trafficking, and steepening migration.
“There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States in the project areas,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in the statement.
The U.S. Border Patrol saw more than 245,000 people in the last fiscal year trying to enter the United States in the Rio Grande Valley Sector, the DHS said, citing data from August.
Trump wasted no time before chiding Biden over the border barrier.
“Biden sees our country is being invaded,” Trump said. “What is he going to do about the 15 million people from prisons, from mental institutions, insane asylums, and terrorists that have already come into our country?”
“What has happened to our country?” Trump said, adding that the Biden administration needs to “go back to Trump policies.”
“He has to reinstate Remain in Mexico and Title 42,” Trump said. “He has to do all of the other things that we were doing.”
A Trump campaign spokesperson told Fox News Digital Wednesday night that “President Trump is always right.”
“That’s why he built close to 500 miles of powerful new wall on the border and it would have been finished by now,” the spokesperson said. “Instead, Crooked Joe Biden turned our country into one giant sanctuary for dangerous criminal aliens.”
A new poll of likely Republican primary voters in New Hampshire showed former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley— not Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — running second in the first primary state.
But they both remain far behind the frontrunner, Donald Trump. The former president leads his Republican rivals with 49 percent support in the poll of 500 likely GOP primary voters that was conducted after the second debate and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.
But Trump remains immovable atop the field. And no other candidate cracked double digits in the Suffolk/Globe/USA TODAY survey. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie notched 6 percent support, while entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott got roughly 4 percent apiece. Former Vice President Mike Pence and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum trailed even further behind, with just 1 percent each.
The poll comes days before GOP candidates will descend on New Hampshire next week, starting with the former president on Monday and most of the rest of the field at a weekend cattle call hosted by the state GOP.
New York Judge Arthur Engoron issued a limited gag order for all parties on Tuesday after Trump’s Truth Social account made a post targeting the judge’s principal clerk while she sat just feet away from him in the courtroom.
The judge issued the gag order barring Trump and any party in the case from posting or speaking publicly about members of his staff after Trump released personally identifying information about his principal clerk
The trial judge, without naming Trump, addressed the court on the matter, saying “one of the defendants” posted a “disparaging, untrue and personally-identifying post” about his staff, and though the judge ordered it deleted, it had been emailed out to “millions of other recipients.”
“Personal attacks on members of my court staff are not appropriate and I will not tolerate it under any circumstance,” Engoron said.
He added that he warned counsel off the record about the former president’s comments yesterday, but the warning went unheeded.
In a Truth Social post that went up while Trump was sitting in the courtroom Tuesday, Trump targeted Engoron’s principal law clerk — who was sitting just a few feet away — calling her “Schumer’s girlfriend,” that reposted a picture of her alongside Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a fellow New York Democrat.
It is unclear what connection, if any, Schumer has with the clerk.
Trump’s campaign on Tuesday also sent out an email shortly after the Truth Social post while the court was on a lunch break
On Tuesday, the House of Representatives voted 208-218 on a motion to table Gaetz’s resolution to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), setting the stage for a vote on whether he should remain in the top spot.
Ahead of Tuesday’s vote, McCarthy indicated he would not make any deals with Democrats in exchange for their support to help save his Speakership and Democrats would not offer any lifelines.
“They haven’t asked for anything. I’m not going to provide anything,” McCarthy said in an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
“Hakeem Jeffries and I have a good relationship,” McCarthy said. “That doesn’t mean they’re going to vote for me. I understand where the Democrats are. I’m not asking for any special deal or anything else.”
According to The Hill the only time the House has voted on whether to oust a Speaker was in 1910, in an unsuccessful move against Speaker Joseph Cannon (R-Ill.).
Over the weekend, the Florida Congressman told CNN’s Jake Tapper that he planned to make good on his threats to oust McCarthy this week.
“I do intend to file a motion to vacate against Speaker McCarthy this week,” Gaetz (R-Fla) said. “I think we need to rip off the band aid. I think we need to move on with new leadership that can be trustworthy.”
“Speaker Mccarthy made an agreement with House conservatives in January, and since then he has been in brazen, repeated material breach of that agreement,” Gaetz said Sunday. “This agreement that he made with Democrats, to really blow past a lot of the spending guardrails we had set up, is a last straw.”
As part of the list of concessions made during his battle for the Speaker’s gavel in January only five Republicans need to side with Democrats to oust McCarthy.
Five GOP lawmakers – Reps. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.), Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), Bob Good (R-Va.), Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), and Eli Crane (R-Ariz.) – have said they are voting against keeping McCarthy as speaker. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) has strongly suggested he would do so as well.
A day after his New York civil trial kicked off, former President Donald Trump called on New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron to reverse his previous ruling finding Trump liable for fraud.
In a Tuesday morning Truth Social post, Trump shifted blamed New York Attorney General Letitia James — a “Trump Deranged Lunatic” — for having provided Engoron with “false and ridiculous information.”
“Now that it has been agreed in Court that Mar-a-Lago is WORTH 50 to 100 times the Value the Racist & Incompetent Attorney General of New York State, Letitia ‘Peekaboo’ James, ascribed to it (18 Million Dollars), & likewise other assets that were valued crazily low by this ‘Monster’ that has allowed Violent Crime in New York to reach EPIDEMIC levels, and dangerous illegal migrants to roam free all over our State, we hope the Judge will TERMINATE his first ruling of fraud in that he was given false and ridiculous information by the Trump Deranged Lunatic, A.G. James,” wrote Trump.
“In actuality, I am WORTH FAR MORE than the numbers put down on the Financial Statements, not less. In addition, there is a far reaching and professionally drawn Disclaimer Clause boldly stated on the FIRST PAGE OF THE DOCUMENT,” he continued. “This entire case should be thrown out and dismissed. The A.G. should be reprimanded and sanctioned for bringing this case with its FAKE LOW VALUES, in order to make me look bad. Election Interference!”
Trump’s ask comes just one day after he attacked Engoron as a “Trump hater” and “rogue judge” with “contempt for his own court system.”
“He [Engoron] should resign from the ‘Bench. and be sanctioned by the Courts for his abuse of power, and his intentional and criminal interference with the Presidential Election of 2024, of which I am leading all candidates, both Republican & Democrat, by significant margins,” argued Trump on Truth Social Monday Morning. “Likewise, Letitia James should resign for purposeful and criminal Election Interference. She is fully aware that Mar-a-Lago, and other assets, are worth much more than what she is claiming. Both of these Democrat Operatives are a disgrace to New York, and to the United States of America!”
Last week, Engoron sided with James and found Trump committed fraud by overestimating the worth of the Trump Organization.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) Michael J. McCord provide testimony at a Senate Armed Services Committee budget hearing, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C., March 28, 2023. (DoD photo by Chad J. McNeeley)
ANALYSIS – General Milley’s comments were beneath him, even if Trump provoked him. As I wrote about earlier, former President Donald Trump made typically inappropriate remarks when he implied outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, due to his back-channel calls to China’s top general, deserved the ‘DEATH’ penalty for treason (all caps were in Trump’s post on Truth Social).
While no one should take Trump’s bombastic social media posts too seriously, I did say Trump was wrong to add fuel to an already flammable political environment in our country with his comments. I have also criticized Milley for his many overreactions to Trump’s words and deeds during his time in office.
In doing so, Milley made Trump out to be something he wasn’t, placed himself smack in the middle of the Democrat Party narrative of Trump, and undermined the commander-in-chief and the presidency.
In my view Milley has also been at the very least deliberately and willfully ignorant of the extreme woke policies the Pentagon has been pushing. Still, despite all my jabs at Milley, I respected his decades of service to the uniform and our country.
It’s a shame then, that Milley chose to take the low road on his way out of the DC swamp, demeaning himself and the institution, while himself politicizing the military against Trump.
Gen. Milley retired this week after four years as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “We are unique among the world’s militaries,” the top military officer said at a retirement ceremony on Friday, noting that service members swear an oath to the Constitution.
“We don’t take an oath to a country. We don’t take an oath to a tribe. We don’t take an oath to a religion. We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, or a tyrant or a dictator. And we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator.”
Readers will catch the parting shot at Mr. Trump. The media certainly did. And who could blame Gen. Milley for loathing Mr. Trump? Casually floating the idea of harming a U.S. military officer is conduct unworthy of a wannabe Commander in Chief.
Yet it was still dispiriting to hear Gen. Milley’s remarks about a former President, in public, while wearing the uniform of the U.S. Army. Mr. Trump is the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination. Like it or not, he commands political support in the country. That doubtless includes a large chunk of the enlisted ranks of the United States military services. The end-of-tour catharsis of a swipe at Mr. Trump isn’t worth polarizing the force over politics.
I agree wholeheartedly with the Journal. Milley knows better, and with his bitter and snarky jabs at Trump chose to take the low road rather than the high road on his way out.
Despite my great misgivings about the truly woke new Joint Chiefs Chairman, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, I also concur with the Journal’s parting words: “We hope that turning down the temperature of politics in the U.S. armed forces is a priority for the new chairman—perhaps behind only the military threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party.”
Message to Brown: We need an apolitical military leadership no matter the provocations from any political leader. That also means being non-ideological and non-woke.
It’s a shame Milley couldn’t see that while he was chairman, and also couldn’t just leave gracefully.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
ANALYSIS – In what is only the latest weaponized, partisan legal action against former President Donald Trump, the far-left Democrat New York state attorney Letitia James and her leftist cohort Justice Arthur Engoron have just found Trump guilty of civil fraud before his trial even began.
Never mind that the case is obscene to begin with and should not even exist. And the law it is based on is obscene as well and should not exist either. Andrew McCarthy explains in National Review:
James, an ambitious progressive authoritarian who campaigned for office on a vow to weaponize the Empire State’s legal processes against Trump, decided to package the scraps [of leftover fraud charges no one else could prosecute] into a lengthy civil complaint. After all, she had a secret weapon: New York’s Executive Law 65(12), which empowers an abusive prosecutor to put partisan enemies out of business without having to prove anything. Although this provision purports to outlaw “repeated” and “persistent” “fraud” and/or “illegality,” in reality, as I explained last week in a column for The Messenger:
“The law doesn’t require a showing of harm. The state need not prove the defendant even intended to defraud anyone, much less actually defrauded someone. It need not be established that any creditor or financial institution even relied on the defendant’s misrepresentations, that those misrepresentations were material, or that anyone was actually fooled by them. The state just has to show that a defendant made false claims with enough “persistence” and “repetition” that at least two persons were “affected” — which, whatever it means, is not a synonym for ‘harmed.’”
Claiming Trump significantly overvalued his properties and assets when presenting his company’s financials to banks and lenders and that this somehow “affected” someone, James is seeking at least $250 million in penalties, a ban against Trump and his sons Donald Jr. and Eric from running businesses in New York, and a five-year commercial real estate ban against Trump and the Trump Organization.
The accusations are that Trump inflated the value of assets by $1.9 billion to $3.6 billion annually between 2011 and 2021 to save hundreds of millions on loans and insurance.
This, even though no one has been claimed to have been harmed, and all financial institutions take self-declared valuations like those made by Trump, with a grain of salt when making loans and other major financial decisions.
Bankers and insurance executives have a fiduciary obligation to conduct their own due diligence to determine what they believe are fair market valuations of assets. And they always do.
And as McCarthy further explains, everyone involved knew Trump exaggerated just about everything:
…this was for political consumption and the burnishing of celebrity. In the league of sophisticated financial actors in which Trump plays, where corporate departments are dedicated to valuation analysis because that’s the bread-and-butter of finance, nobody took this nonsense seriously. Indeed, Trump even included a “worthless clause” in his SFCs which, in so many words, warned that they were apt to be, you know, somewhat less than perfectly accurate. Many of the financial institutions that did business with Trump did so for years, and knew exactly the cat they were dealing with. They made loans and indemnified Trump because they knew, based on their own expertise and experience with him, that he was quite wealthy (even if not as wealthy as he claimed) and that he would pay up.
But that didn’t stop Justice Engoron, who ruled preemptively on September 26 that James had proven Trump and his co-defendants fraudulently inflated his assets.
Engoron, in his ruling, ordered the cancellation of certificates that 10 of Trump’s business entities need to operate some of his marquee properties — including Trump Tower and his golf clubs in New York — and said he would appoint independent receivers to oversee their “dissolution.”
The judge thus essentially imposed the corporate death penalty on Trump’s businesses BEFORE the trial even began.
Trump responded in a post on his Truth Social platform the day of the ruling, calling accusations that he committed fraud “ridiculous and untrue,” and hit back, calling Engoron a “DERANGED” judge.
In this case, I must agree with Trump’s wording. The judge is deranged, but he is also a partisan hack and embarrassment in what is already a highly partisan and embarrassing New York judicial system.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
