Headlines for 4-26-2023
đ˝A well informed citizenry is the best defense against tyranny. - Thomas Jefferson
đ˝A well informed citizenry is the best defense against tyranny. - Thomas Jefferson
đ˝There is no power greater than a community discovering the truth and taking action to ensure it never happens again
Washington Post: What Trumpâs Many Legal Troubles Mean for His 2024 Campaign: Former President Donald Trump embarked on another White House run while facing a slew of legal troubles, not least the criminal probe in New York City that has now led to a felony indictment. The cases could pose distractions and produce unflattering revelations â not to mention adverse verdicts â that no presidential candidate would welcome. Trump is no normal politician, though, and the legal scrutiny could feed his preferred narrative that he is being unfairly targeted by the current Democratic administration and a âdeep stateâ bureaucracy.Â
The Atlantic: MAGA Is Ripping Itself Apart: Itâs been a difficult and disorienting four weeks in MAGA world. On March 30, former President Donald Trump was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury for his alleged role in participating in a scheme to cover up potential sex scandals during the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump is the nationâs first former president to face criminal charges, and more serious charges may well follow. Last week, Fox News, the highest-rated and most influential cable news network in America, agreed to pay more than three-quarters of a billion dollars to resolve a defamation suit filed by Dominion Voting Systems over the networkâs promotion of deranged conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. It was, according to The Washington Post, the largest publicly disclosed monetary settlement ever in an American defamation action. There are more, and potentially more expensive, lawsuits pending.
Washington Post: Trump has an electability problem. The GOP doesnât seem to know â or care.: On paper, âelectabilityâ looks as if it might be Florida Gov. Ron DeSantisâs ace in the hole in the 2024 GOP primaries. While Donald Trump and the GOP suffered a third consecutive disappointing election in 2022, DeSantis cruised to a 19-point reelection victory in what was until recently a swing state. The circumstances instantly injected DeSantisâs potential 2024 bid with vigor, and he soon signaled that a campaign would make superior electability a calling card. The application of this strategy has been anything but smooth. Not only has Trump â even after his indictment last month â regained ground he had lost to DeSantis, but despite polls regularly showing DeSantis performing better in the general election, they also suggest electability is no longer much of an asset for him.
The Hill: Almost 2 in 3 Republicans say Trump should be reelected even if found guilty: poll: Almost two in three Republicans said former President Trump should be reelected even if he is found guilty of a crime, according to a new poll. An NPR-PBS NewsHour-Marist poll released Tuesday found that 63 percent of Republicans, and 27 percent of all U.S. adults, said Trump should be president again even if he is convicted of the current or potential charges he is facing. Four in 10 Republican-leaning independents said Trump should be reelected regardless of the legal challenges, while just more than half said he should not. More than three-quarters of independents who do not lean toward one party and nearly all Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said Trump should not serve as president again. An NBC News poll released Sunday also found that two-thirds of Republican primary voters are continuing to support Trump and are not concerned about his electability.Â
USA Today: 'I'm here because Donald Trump raped me': E. Jean Carroll testifies; Trump attacks: E. Jean Carroll detailed her rape allegations against Donald Trump in civil court on Wednesday, while the ex-president and 2024 Republican presidential candidate attacked the lawsuit as politically motivated. "I'm here because Donald Trump raped me," Carroll said during the first day of testimony in her defamation lawsuit against the ex-president. On his Truth Social website, Trump â who is not attending the trial â said that "this is a fraudulent & false story." U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan admonished Trump's legal team about the posts and suggested that the defendant is risking a contempt of court citation.
Reuters: Biden says Trump represents a danger to democracy: U.S. President Joe Biden said on Wednesday he may not be the only one who can beat Donald Trump in 2024, but that he knows him well, touting his familiarity with the way the former president works a day after launching his reelection bid. "I may not be the only one, but I know him well and I know the danger he presents to our democracy," Biden said. "We've been down this road before." Biden launched his reelection bid on Tuesday with a promise to protect American liberties from "extremists" linked to Trump and made his announcement in a video with imagery from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump's supporters
The Hill: Manhattan DA asks court to order Trump to keep evidence confidential: Manhattan prosecutors are asking a judge to prevent former President Trump from disseminating evidence in his hush money criminal case publicly after his lawyers declined to consent to such an agreement, according to court filings. Prosecutors are arguing a protective order, which would place rules on how Trump can use evidence prosecutors turn over to him during discovery, is needed given his history of attacking those involved in legal proceedings against him.
MSNBC: Why the striking unpopularity of the âMAGA movementâ matters: The latest national NBC News poll asked respondents for the opinions about several prominent public figures and political entities, none of which were especially popular. Only 38% of American adults, for example, have a positive view of President Joe Biden, and the Democratic Party he leads fared about as well, with a 36% favorability rating. The news for the right was slightly worse. Only 33% have a positive view of the Republican Party, which was roughly in line with Donald Trumpâs 34% favorability rating.
Associated Press: Proud Boys Jan. 6 trial in hands of jury weighing conspiracy: Jurors began deliberating Wednesday to decide whether former Proud Boys extremist group leader Enrique Tarrio and four lieutenants are guilty of seditious conspiracy in one of the most serious cases the Justice Department has brought in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Deliberations got underway in Washingtonâs federal court more than four months after jury selection began. The far-right extremist groupâs members are accused of plotting to use force to keep then-President Donald Trump in the White House after he lost the 2020 election. Defense attorneys say there was no conspiracy and no plan to attack the Capitol. Theyâve sought to portray the Proud Boys as an unorganized drinking club whose membersâ participation in the riot was a spontaneous act fueled by Trumpâs election rage. Tarrio, a Miami resident, was tried alongside four other Proud Boys: Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola. They could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted of seditious conspiracy, a Civil War-era charge that can be difficult to prove.
NPR: Some state lawmakers say Tennessee expulsions highlight growing tensions: A day after the Republican-dominated Tennessee House voted to expel two Black legislators for interrupting a floor session, Democrats next door in Georgia gathered on Zoom. "This is not a time for us to shrink back," state Rep. Kim Schofield said. "This is a day of awakening. If you don't think it can happen in Georgia, you are sadly mistaken." While the two Tennessee Democrats are now back in their seats, lawmakers in other parts of the country worry the debacle over decorum may foreshadow what's to come in their own state legislatures. Wednesday, Montana's House may vote to censure or expel state Rep. Zooey Zephyr, a transgender Democrat who spoke out against a move to ban gender-affirming care for minors using controversial language. Republicans say she broke the rules of decorum.
New York Times: Disney Sues DeSantis Over Control of Its Florida Resort: Last year, under pressure from its employees, Disney criticized a Florida education law prohibiting classroom discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity for young students. Almost instantly, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida started calling the company âWoke Disneyâ and vowing to show it who was boss. âIf Disney wants to pick a fight, they chose the wrong guy,â Mr. DeSantis wrote in a fund-raising email at the time. Since then, Florida legislators, at the urging of Mr. DeSantis, have targeted Disney â the stateâs largest taxpayer â with a variety of hostile measures. In February, they ended Disneyâs long-held ability to self-govern its 25,000-acre resort as if it were a county. Last week, Mr. DeSantis announced plans to subject Disney to new ride inspection regulations.
New York Times: I Worked at CNN and Reported on Tucker Carlson. He Was Never Invincible.: Mondayâs purge of Tucker Carlson, from Fox News, and Don Lemon, from CNN, confirmed a belief that has been gnawing at me for years: We think about cable news all wrong. The Friday episode of âTucker Carlson Tonightâ that turned out to be his last drew only about 2.6 million viewers â a measly 1 percent of the American adult population. But on Monday, the news of his firing was one of the top stories in the country. Thatâs because the power of cable news is in its reach and repetition, not its ratings. I learned this during my nearly nine years at CNN, where I anchored a weekly program about the media and reported on Mr. Carlsonâs radicalization. The people who tuned in to his show at 8 oâclock sharp were only a subset of his total audience. When you count all the people who saw him on a TV at a bar or in an airport and all the people who watched a clip on the internet or heard radio talk-show hosts quote him, he had a monthly audience of surely tens of millions.
New York Times: Montana House Votes to Discipline Transgender Lawmaker: The Montana House of Representatives took the extraordinary step of blocking the stateâs only transgender lawmaker from the House floor for the remainder of the legislative session on Wednesday after an escalating standoff over her ability to speak in the House led to heated protests and arrests on Monday and the abrupt cancellation of Tuesdayâs session. The vote was 68 to 32 in the Republican-controlled chamber. The speaker adjourned the session immediately after the vote. Ms. Zephyr will still be allowed to cast votes during House proceedings for the remainder of session, which concludes on May 5, but must do so remotely. The move is the culmination of a weeklong battle between House leadership and Representative Zooey Zephyr, who was barred from participating in deliberations on the House floor after she made impassioned comments during debate over a bill that would prohibit hormone treatments and surgical care for transgender minors. The bill has since been sent to Gov. Greg Gianforte, who has indicated that he will sign it.
Politico: Judge chides Trump for calling rape trial âmade up SCAMâ on social media: The federal judge overseeing the civil trial in which Donald Trump is accused of rape admonished the former president for a social media post in which he called the lawsuit âa made up SCAM.â Trump could be âtampering with a new source of potential liability,â U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan told one of Trumpâs lawyers in court on Wednesday. The lawsuit was filed by E. Jean Carroll, a magazine columnist who alleges Trump sexually assaulted her in a dressing room of luxury department store Bergdorf Goodman in the 1990s. She is suing him for rape and defamation in a trial that began Tuesday in Manhattan federal court. Trump has denied her account, saying the incident ânever happenedâ and calling her claim a âhoax.â On Wednesday morning, Trump posted on his social media site, Truth Social, about the lawsuit. He called Carrollâs lawyer a âpolitical operativeâ and said her legal defense is âfinanced by a big political donor that they said didnât exist.â He attacked Carroll directly, calling her âMs. Bergdorf Goodmanâ and saying she was âlike a different personâ during a CNN interview.
NPR: Disney sues Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, claiming 'government retaliation': The Walt Disney Company has filed a lawsuit against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other officials. Disney accuses DeSantis with orchestrating a "campaign of government retaliation" against the company and violating its protected speech. It's the latest action in a feud that began more than a year ago when Disney's former CEO said he'd work to overturn a law banning discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in the schools. The law, the "Parental Rights in Education Act," is called "Don't Say Gay" by critics.
New York Times: Man vs. Mouse: Ron DeSantis Finds Taking On Disney Is a Dicey Business: When Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida went to war against Disney over what he labels its âwokeâ corporate sensibility and its criticism of state policies, Tim Wildmon was cheering from the sidelines. Mr. Wildmon, the president of the American Family Association, a right-wing religious organization, has more experience in this area than most: In 1995, his organization, which is known for its opposition to L.G.B.T.Q. rights, rallied a broad coalition of evangelical groups to boycott Disney after it extended family benefits to gay employees. But since then, Mr. Wildmon has learned to temper his expectations. After an early wave of international media attention, the boycott receded from the headlines, and by the time Mr. Wildmon officially pulled the plug on it a decade later, it had had little discernible impact on Disneyâs policies or revenues.
Politico: Donât Believe Everything You Read About Tucker Carlson: Following the surprise sacking of Fox News star Tucker Carlson on Monday, a cannonade of anonymous sources promptly shared the reasons for his dismissal with the press. But there was little consensus, as the sources conveyed dueling accounts. Employers are usually tight-lipped about personnel decisions, mostly to avoid legal fallout should a fired worker regard their comments as defamatory. So it stands to reason why the company initially kept quiet on why Carlson was exiting in its anodyne corporate statement that thanked him âfor his service.â
LA Times: Tucker Carlson is about to find out if heâs bigger than Fox News: There are many reasons Tucker Carlsonâs substantial fan base might abandon him. Blockbuster texts revealed that his private words didnât match some of the views he sold publicly every weeknight to millions of loyal viewers. A lawsuit charged that he contributed to a hostile work environment of bullying and conspiracy-mongering. And when Fox News fired him Monday as host of the highest-rated show on cable televisionâs most popular news outlet, the glib and combative star lost his direct line into the households of American conservatives. Many media figures might be cowed by the string of beatdowns. But the shape-shifting Carlson has recovered from previous career calamities â which now includes the rare distinction of being fired by all three major cable news channels. He has managed, every time so far, to not only rebound but to expand his audience, while moving toward darker and more divisive themes.
The Hill: Audio shows Cruz outlining plan to Fox News to delay 2020 election certification: Newly revealed audio shows Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) explaining how delaying the certification of President Bidenâs 2020 election victory would work on a call with a leading Fox News host and her former producer. âI think that the country deserves to have a credible assessment of these claims and what the evidence shows and the mechanism to try and force that is delaying the certification of the results on the sixth,â Cruz told Fox host Maria Bartiromo and Abby Grossberg, a leading producer on her show. Cruz was referring to Jan. 6, 2021 â the day Congress was to certify the election results. A mob of then-President Trumpâs supporters ended up overwhelming Capitol Police and interrupting that largely ceremonial event, forcing the temporary evacuation of Congress. Lawmakers resumed their work after the Capitol was cleared.
Vox: The new controversy on the left: Is it okay to say Tucker Carlson had some good ideas?
The day after Tucker Carlson lost his job at Fox News, he got some praise from a surprising source: the progressive magazine The American Prospect. The piece may have been titled âThe Smuggest Man on Air,â but its thrust was decidedly more admiring of the host. Journalists Lee Harris and Luke Goldstein wrote that Carlson was âskilled at skewering comfortable pieties on the left and rightâ and that his âinsistent distrust of his powerful guests acts as a solvent to authority.â They praised Carlsonâs criticisms of free market conservative dogma and the US foreign policy establishment, and only briefly mentioned what they termed his âobsessively nativistâ messaging, which they said âalienated viewers who might otherwise have embraced his populist perspective.â The backlash from some quarters of the left was swift.
Washington Post: A rare peek inside Fox Newsâs outrage machine: On the evening of Jan. 6, 2021, even as members of Congress were just starting to filter back into the Capitol after it had been cleared of the violent rioters who had overrun it, Tucker Carlson began spinning the dayâs events to fit his preferred narrative. He focused on the death of Ashli Babbitt, the rioter shot by a Capitol Police officer as she tried to climb through a window into Speakerâs Lobby off the House floor. Babbittâs death, in Carlsonâs early formulation, was an indicator not of the tragic consequences of falling into the world of election-fraud conspiracy theory, but of an aggressive government intent on quashing dissent. Babbitt, he said, âbore no resemblance to the angry children we have seen wrecking our cities in recent months â pasty, entitled nihilists dressed in black, setting fires and spray-painting slogans on statues. She looked pretty much like everyone else.â
NBC News: Ex-Proud Boys head rails against DOJ in Twitter Spaces event as case heads to jury: Hours before jurors began deliberating the fate of five Proud Boys charged with seditious conspiracy in connection with the attack on the U.S. Capitol, the former head of the far-right organization said that federal prosecutors were unfairly using "locker room" talk against Jan. 6 defendants, echoing a defense used by Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign. "What they were trying to do, what people are trying to do â and this is in general, again, I'm speaking in general â what they are trying to do is manipulate how we talk to each other in the locker room," Tarrio said, speaking Tuesday night from jail in a Twitter Spaces event hosted by the far-right website The Gateway Pundit. "It's not fair, it really isn't. ... It's just not right. It's not the justice system that we grew up in civics class learning about."
Politico: How Biden Could Take Advantage of Trumpâs Indictment â The Korean Way: They say sharing a common challenge is the best way to build a friendship. President Joe Biden, then, is on track to becoming fast friends with South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol; the two are reuniting during Yoonâs state visit to Washington, D.C., this week, as the two heads of state face a number of similar challenges. Both suffer from miserably low approval ratings. Bidenâs popularity trails behind that of virtually every modern U.S. president. In Morning Consultâs survey of 22 major global leaders, Yoon comes in dead last with a 19 percent approval rating and a staggering 75 percent disapproval rating. Neither president can pass any significant law, as their opposition controls at least part of the legislature.
NPR: Most Republicans would vote for Trump even if he's convicted of a crime, poll finds: As President Biden launches his reelection campaign, a rematch between Biden and former President Donald Trump looks increasingly likely. This comes as a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll out Tuesday that finds two-thirds of Republicans would still vote for Trump even if he is found guilty of a crime. "Everything that Trump has ever been accused of, has come out to be false," said one of the almost 1,300 poll respondents, Richard Holton II, 65, of Beaver Creek, Ohio. Holton believes the 2020 election was stolen, that Hillary Clinton "cheated" in 2016 and that Democrats start wars and are bad for the economy. He channels Trump, calling the indictment in New York, stemming from hush-money payments to a porn actress, a "hit job by the Democrats."
TIME: Just Like in Florida, Trump Easily Winning South Carolina Endorsement Race: The Florida Congressional delegation has been in the middle of a political grudge match this month, as Donald Trump has used his growing support from its Republican members to embarrass his potential 2024 rival, Ron DeSantis. At least 11 of the stateâs 20 House members have endorsed the former president over their own governor. DeSantis has secured the backing of only one of Floridaâs Capitol Hill lawmakers, who also happens to be his former Secretary of State. But as the drama has been unfolding over the Sunshine Stateâs legislators, Trump has also been dominating the endorsement battle in another crucial primary state, just a few hundred miles north, thatâs home to two of his other GOP rivals.
Washington Post: Thereâs a better alternative to a criminal prosecution for Jan. 6: In his April 18 Tuesday Opinion column, âThis Jan. 6 case could make U.S. politics even worse,â Jason Willick argued cogently that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuitâs decision on April 7 erred in upholding application of the criminal provision enacted by Congress following the Enron Corp. scandal to the rioters of Jan. 6, 2021. â But he failed to mention another federal criminal provision â Title 18, Section 2383 of the U.S. Code â the applicability of which to Mr. Trumpâs reelection effort still awaits an answer from the Justice Department. This provision would prohibit Mr. Trump from again holding public office because he gave âaid or comfortâ to the Jan. 6 âinsurrection.â This provision is clearly more pertinent to Mr. Trumpâs situation than the one cited and discussed by Mr. Willick.
NPR: Donald Trump's civil rape case goes to trial in Manhattan: Lawyers for former President Trump and E. Jean Carroll, the woman who has accused him of raping her in an upscale Manhattan department store in the mid 1990s, presented diametrically opposing accounts of what did or did not happen to a jury on Tuesday, the first day of trial in Carroll's civil suit against Trump. Carroll's attorney, Shawn Crowley, began her opening presentation by vividly recounting the story at the core of Carroll's allegations. Crowley described Trump locking Carroll inside a changing room, and forcing her into sexual intercourse, even as she resisted. Crowley said now, nearly three decades later, Carroll is trying to hold Donald Trump accountable for what he did to her in that dressing room and to "restore her good name."
CNN: Manhattan prosecutors ask judge to limit Trumpâs ability to publicize information about his criminal case: Prosecutors with the Manhattan district attorneyâs office have asked the judge overseeing Donald Trumpâs criminal case to impose a protective order restricting the former presidentâs ability to publicize information about the investigation. In a motion, prosecutors told the judge that Trumpâs team would not consent to a protective order. âThe risk that this Defendant will use the Covered Materials inappropriately is substantial. Defendant has a long history of discussing his legal matters publiclyâincluding by targeting witnesses, jurors, investigators, prosecutors, and judges with harassing, embarrassing, and threatening statements on social media and in other public forumsâand he has already done so in this case,â prosecutors wrote in the filing.
New York Times: Chief Justice Declines to Testify Before Congress Over Ethics Concerns: Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. told the Senate Judiciary Committee in a letter released Tuesday evening that he was declining its invitation to testify about ethics rules for the Supreme Court. In an accompanying statement on ethics practices, all nine justices, under mounting pressure for more stringent reporting requirements at the court, insisted that the existing rules around gifts, travel and other financial disclosures are sufficient. The chief justice wrote that such appearances before the committee were âexceedingly rare, as one might expect in light of separation of powers concerns and the importance of preserving judicial independence.â
Washington Post: Audio of Cruzâs talk with Fox host sheds light on plan to challenge 2020 results: Sen. Ted Cruz advocated the creation of a congressionally appointed electoral commission ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol to make a credible assessment of unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election, according to a recording made by Abby Grossberg, a former producer at Fox News. The Jan. 2, 2021, recording, provided to The Washington Post by Grossbergâs attorney, largely mirrors previous reports and public statements made by Cruz about efforts to overturn the election results. But the tape featuring a previously private conversation among Cruz, Grossberg and Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo on the push to deny the certification of Joe Bidenâs victory on Jan. 6, 2021, sheds new light on the scope of Cruzâs scheming to assist Donald Trump in overturning Bidenâs victory.
Politico: Proud Boys leaders: Trump caused Jan. 6 attack: Former Proud Boys national chair Enrique Tarrio â the man prosecutors have portrayed as the ringleader of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol â told jurors Tuesday that heâs merely a scapegoat for the real culprit: Donald Trump. âIt was Donald Trumpâs words. It was his motivation. It was his anger that caused what occurred on January 6th in your amazing and beautiful city,â said Nayib Hassan, Tarrioâs lawyer, during closing arguments in a seditious conspiracy trial stemming from the Jan. 6 attack.
Wall Street Journal: Senators to Introduce Bipartisan Bill Mandating Code of Ethics for Supreme Court: Sens. Angus King (I., Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska) will introduce a bipartisan bill Wednesday that would require the U.S. Supreme Court to create its own code of conduct within a year, following media reports that raise questions about whether Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch properly disclosed their financial activities. âItâs pitiful that weâre having to introduce this billâitâs pathetic that the Supreme Court hasnât done this itself,â Mr. King said. The senator, who caucuses with the Democrats, noted that every other federal judge is subject to a code of conduct. âAnd by the way, weâre not prescribing what the standard should be,â Mr. King said. âWeâre just saying, âDo it yourself, and then be sure that thereâs someone to keep track of it and that thereâs some transparency in reporting.ââ
Business Insider: A former GOP strategist says Tucker Carlson would be a huge threat to Trump if the ex-Fox News host were to run for president in 2024: Tucker Carlson would pose a credible threat to former president Donald Trump in the 2024 GOP presidential race if he were to run, says a former GOP strategist. Carlson has not hinted at having presidential ambitions, but onetime GOP strategist Rick Wilson says Carlson â who until Monday was one of Fox News' top anchors â has what it takes to put up a good fight against Trump for the Republican nomination. "What if he runs? He's rich enough. He'd instantly have an online fundraising juggernaut second only to Trump, and perhaps surpassing him," Wilson, who served as a strategist for former President George H.W. Bush, tweeted on Tuesday. Wilson was a field director on Bush's 1988 campaign, then worked for former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani as a campaign advisor in the early 2000s, per Ballotpedia. Wilson is now a staunch Trump critic and one of the cofounders of The Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump super PAC.
New York Times: The Tucker Realignment: Across Donald Trumpâs presidency and immediately afterward there was a lot of talk about realignment. Everyone could see that the Republican coalition was becoming more working-class and the Democratic coalition more dominated by upper-class professionals. The question was whether that shift would fundamentally transform the policy commitments of both parties, along lines suggested by Trumpâs populist 2016 campaign, or whether Republicans and Democrats would snap back into their pre-Trump postures once he left the White House. That question has not yet been fully answered. Seen from some angles, the parties look reshaped by their changing coalitions; seen from others, any deep realignment seems stillborn. Culture warriors are now more influential than class warriors on the left, but the Democrats are still resolutely redistributionist. The right is more protective of Medicare and Social Security than it was in 2012, but House Republicans are still pretending to be government cutters.
New York Times: Manhattan D.A. Seeks to Limit Trumpâs Access to Some Evidence: The Manhattan district attorneyâs office on Tuesday sought to limit Donald J. Trumpâs access to certain material from his criminal case, urging a judge to bar him from reviewing the material without his lawyers present. The request, filed with the court on Tuesday, also seeks to prohibit Mr. Trump from publicizing the prosecutionâs evidence on social media or through other channels. When 34 felony charges were unsealed against Mr. Trump earlier this month, prosecutors working for the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, said they were working with the former presidentâs lawyers to come to an agreement as to how some case material â personal information of witnesses and evidence, including grand jury testimony â could be used.
Washington Post: Ex-Proud Boys leader argues Trump is to blame for Jan. 6 attack: Facing the possibility of years in prison on felony convictions, the longtime leader of the far-right Proud Boys sought Tuesday to deflect blame for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack onto former president Donald Trump. Henry âEnriqueâ Tarrio is accused of organizing a small group of loyal Proud Boys to lead the pro-Trump mob in storming the U.S. Capitol building. Four members of that âMinistry of Self Defenseâ have been on trial for the past four months with Tarrio, all accused of a seditious plot to prevent Joe Biden from taking office. While other defendants have pointed at Trumpâs role in fomenting the violence at the Capitol, Tarrioâs attorney Nayib Hassan was far more direct. Early in his closing argument Tuesday, he quoted Trump telling supporters to âfight like hellâ on Jan. 6.
Axios: What we know about Montana House silencing first transgender lawmaker: A planned session of the Montana House of Representatives was canceled by Republican lawmakers Tuesday, a day after protests against the silencing of state Rep. Zooey Zephyr, a first-term Democrat who is transgender. Demonstrations broke out during House proceedings Monday, with police in riot gear clearing the chamber and seven people getting arrested. Zephyr said on Tuesday night she's been "informed that during tomorrowâs floor session there will be a motion to either censure or expel me."
ABC News: Montana transgender lawmaker faces censure or expulsion: Montana Republican leaders will vote Wednesday on censuring or expelling lawmaker Zooey Zephyr, a transgender state representative who has been silenced in the House since last week after telling colleagues that if they voted for a bill to ban gender-affirming medical care for transgender children they would âhave blood on their hands.â On Tuesday night, Zephyr tweeted a letter she received from House leaders informing her of the plan to consider disciplinary action against her during Wednesday's session.
New York Times: Bidenâs 2024 Campaign Begins. You Might Miss It at First.: President Biden has formally moved from a campaign-in-waiting to a campaign of waiting. Despite his heavily anticipated re-election announcement on Tuesday, Mr. Biden has no immediate plans to barnstorm the key battlegrounds. Decorative bunting is nowhere to be found, and large rallies will come later. Instead, Mr. Bidenâs next steps look much like his recent ones: leveraging the White House to burnish his record with ribbon-cuttings, and willingly ceding the stage to a Republican presidential primary that is already descending into a dogfight between Donald J. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, even before he has entered the race.
Roll Call: Bipartisan groups urge Congress to boost election security grants: A bipartisan group of more than three dozen former election officials, members of Congress and Cabinet secretaries is calling for increased federal funding for election security to counter cyberthreats. In a letter to the House and Senate shared first with CQ Roll Call, members of the National Council on Election Integrity are seeking at least $400 million in fiscal 2024 for election security grants. âForeign and domestic bad actors have demonstrated the capacity to cast doubt on the legitimacy of a safe and secure election through advanced AI-fueled disinformation, cyber attacks on registration systems, malign finance operations, and targeting of electrical systems during critical voting or tabulation periods,â the group wrote. âThe lack of adequate federal funding to match the cyber threat has left our election system at increasing risk.âÂ
Atlanta Journal-Constitution: The Jolt: Top Trump lawyer never saw proof of Dominion fraud claims: One of the chief architects of pro-Donald Trump election conspiracy theories conceded in a recording that she never saw evidence of voting machine fraud in Georgia â and thatâs why she didnât target election equipment maker Dominion in a failed lawsuit challenging the stateâs results. Thatâs what Cleta Mitchell told donors and officials at the Republican National Committeeâs spring retreat this month in an audio recording obtained by Lauren Windsor, a left-leaning operative. Mitchell was one of the former presidentâs most ardent election fraud crusaders during the 2020 campaign. She joined him on his January 2021 call to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger urging him to âfindâ enough votes to overturn his defeat in Georgia. âWe had all these people telling us, âItâs the voting machines, itâs the voting machines.â Well, itâs one thing to say that, and itâs another to have to put it into a lawsuit where you have to put on evidence and you have to have an expert,â Mitchell said.
Politico: Florida GOP lawmakers ready move allowing DeSantis to run for president without resigning: Â Floridaâs Republican-controlled Legislature will clear the way for Gov. Ron DeSantis to run for president in 2024 by changing state law to make it clear he would not have to resign his current position if he became the GOP nominee. With time running out on this yearâs annual session, Senate Republicans will add the provision to a sweeping elections bill that will go before the full Senate on Wednesday. The elections bill is a top priority for DeSantis and Republicans and is expected to go to the governorâs desk between now and May 5. The move comes shortly before DeSantis is expected to jump into a potentially volatile Republican primary for president, where he will go up against former President Donald Trump. DeSantis has already been visiting early primary states as part of a book promotional tour that has been seen as a warm-up exercise to a full-blown campaign. But Trump has racked up a number of endorsements, including from many Florida GOP members of Congress and has been leading in multiple polls.
NBC News: Trump zeroes in on a key target of his 'retribution' agenda: Government workers: A central part of Donald Trumpâs 2024 presidential bid is a promise to dismantle the âdeep state.â âEither the deep state destroys America or we destroy the deep state,â the former president declared in March at his first rally. He has also vowed "retribution" for his political enemies, saying that if he gets back into the White House "their reign is over." Last month, Trump released a list of proposals to take down what many conservatives believe is a secret cabal of government workers who wield enormous power and work against Republicans. Many seemed personal, tied to Trump investigations past and present. They included cracking down on government whistleblowers, making troves of documents public and creating independent auditors to monitor U.S. intelligence agencies.
CNN: Trump, in 2023, tells a new lie about the 2020 election: Add another election lie to the long, long list. Former President Donald Trump has tried for nearly two and a half years to convince Americans that he was the rightful winner of the 2020 presidential election he lost fair and square to Joe Biden. He is still trying today, in 2023, as he seeks the Republican presidential nomination once more. But Trumpâs latest supposed piece of evidence, like his previous supposed pieces of evidence, is complete bunk. In a speech to a Republican gathering in Florida on Friday, during which he repeated his usual lie that the 2020 election was ârigged and stolen,â Trump pointedly noted that Biden got more votes than Trump in fewer than a fifth of US counties in 2020. Trump then said, âNothing like this has ever happened before. Usually itâs very equal, or â but the winner always had the most counties.â
Bloomberg: Trump Lawyer Tacopina Has a Lot in Common With His Client: Joe Tacopina is a brash New Yorker with a fondness for the camera and a penchant for in-your-face remarks â much like his latest client, Donald Trump. During his almost 30 years as a New York trial lawyer, Tacopina has had a roster of A-list clients including former New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez, rapper Meek Mill and Rihannaâs husband, rapper A$AP Rocky.Â
NBC News: âMAGA movementâ widely unpopular, new poll finds: President Donald Trump is still unpopular and so is the political movement created in his image, according to a new national NBC News poll. The Make America Great Again, or âMAGA,â movement, which takes its name from Trumpâs first campaign slogan, was the least popular individual or group tested in the new survey. Just 24% of Americans have positive views of the movement, while 45% voice negative views. These numbers come as President Joe Biden made Trump â and his movement â the centerpiece of his re-election launch video on Tuesday. Biden in his video that âMAGA extremists are lining up to take those bedrock freedoms away.â Biden and his fellow Democrats often use the term âMAGAâ as a catch-all to describe pro-Trump Republicans who embrace the former presidentâs more extreme positions, including his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.Â
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