Monthly Archives: May 2022

Donald Trump Jr., a prominent and vocal member of the MAGA crowd, has some concerns when it comes to Finland possibly joining NATO.

On Monday morning, Trump Jr. shared his thoughts on the possibility that the European country may become the newest member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). In his statement, posted to Twitter, Trump Jr. brought up Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a reason to reconsider the possible move.

"I get there's nothing going on at home that Congress could be worrying about, but after decades of not being in NATO and being just fine isn't the notion of eliminating this buffer zone a bit how the Ukraine invasion started?" he wrote.

The statement from the eldest son of former President Donald Trump came after the Nordic country and neighboring Sweden both indicated they wanted to join the international military alliance. The decision to apply for membership was influenced by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened retaliation if the countries' applications are accepted.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell recently stated that both of those countries would be "important additions" to NATO, according to the Associated Press. McConnell added that the congressional vote to ratify Finland's admission to the decades-old international alliance could take place "before the August recess," Newsmax reported.

The White House defended Finland and Sweden's application and asserted that their acceptance into the alliance would strengthen America's security. Russia is firmly opposed to the possible addition of the two countries.

On Monday, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov voiced his objection to the NATO alliance possibly growing by two countries, stating, "[NATO] should not have any illusions that we will simply put up with thisin Brussels, Washington or other NATO capitals."

Ryabkov went on to say, "That is, the general level of military tension will increase, and there will be less predictability in this area."

This isn't the first time Trump Jr. has offered his opinions on America's handling of the Ukraine/Russia conflict. In March, he suggested sending his father to Europe to meet with NATO leaders to discuss Russia's invasion of Ukraine instead of President Joe Biden.

In a tweet, Trump Jr. posted that "sending Biden to Europe for 'High Stakes' NATO talks will only embolden our enemies further."

He went on to claim that "if you want to get something done right send Trump."

Newsweek reached out to a representative for Donald Trump Jr. and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland for comment.

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Donald Trump Jr. Throws Cold Water on Finland Joining NATO - Newsweek

Tim James must be a big fella, right?

Auburn football records have him at 511 and 209 pounds during his playing career from 1981-82, a 22-game stretch in whichhe rushed for 26 yards in nine attempts and scored one garbage time touchdown against Bill Currys Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets that no one will ever, ever take away from him.

Takes an awful big man to put up those numbers.

Just like it takes a big and brave hombre to go after the real threats facing Alabama, like drivers license exams coming in languages other than English and, in his most recent obsession, Birminghams Magic City Acceptance Academy, a 6-12th grade charter school that caters to LGBTQ students. His ad last month one, which, in his words, decried the first transgender public school in the South was a new low for a candidate who excels onlyin the sad art of bigotry, shamefully distinguishing itself from the other transbaiting weve seen this campaign season as it used pictures of actual MCAA students.

Much like I dont care that James was used primarily as a blockingfullback, James doesnt care about those students; theyre not people to him, only soft political targets to foment rage in GOP primary voters. But, again, thats not much different than Katie Britt talking about full-term abortions in a locker room. It takes, though, a real coward like James to go after children.

Children.

(Lindy Blanchard also has an ad out focusing on the school Im not sure whether its more or less shameful to be a bandwagoning bully.)

The school decided prudently to increase security after the ad, which drew hecklers to campus and one woman who tried to film students, and MCAAs increased profile and status as a target has made at least one student, as she told the New York Times, scared to come to school. There is a reasonable line to draw from Jamess ad to those weirdos and wackadoos, a causal relationship born from callousness and hate.

But what if that behavior escalates? What if someone vandalizes the school or does something even more unthinkable, acting against the very people James has so clearly and reprehensibly made a target? What then would be Son of Fobs legal responsibility for what happens? If we assume (for arguments sake) that his commercial represents a call to illegal action, his accountability and constitutional protections would be analyzed under the Supreme Courts incitement standard, a line of cases that began in earnest during World War I and encompassed the nebulous clear and present danger test before settling into something more workable.

In Brandenburg v. Ohio, a 1969 case in which the Supreme Court overturned the criminal conviction of a Klu Klux Klan leader arrested for promising revengance for perceived slights during a televised rally, the Court established a four-part test for the criminalization of speech calling for violence. First, the government must seek to punish a speaker trying to move others to break the law, meaning that incitement cant cover otherwise lawful activity. Second, that speaker must intend for their speech to motivate the audience. Third, the lawlessness should be imminient, so the violence cannot be either far off in time or at some indefinite point. Finally, there must be a likelihood of violence in that the audience should be willing, ready and able to respond to the speakers call to lawbreaking.

The Brandenburg test is a good one that balances two important interests: allowing for the widest possible universe of speech while also attempting to keep people and property safe. Under Brandenburg, for example, theres nothing wrong with standing in front of a crowd and calling for a large-scale communist revolution that would by definition require violently seizing the means of production because (unfortunately for you, comrade) that revolution isnt coming tomorrow. Its abstract and philosophical, the sort of speech that should be tolerated at least by the government in a democratic society.

And the First Amendment protections extended by Brandenburgcan be surprising in practice. Donald Trumps speech on Jan. 6 looks like incitement, especially if we follow the intellectually seductive desire to blame one man for the storming of the Capitol, yet if we actually apply the case law, it likely falls short of whats criminally actionable incitement. Ransacking Congress and preventing the electoral vote count is clearly illegal, which satisfies the first prong. Likewise, the proposed violence directly followed the speech, which was given in front of the presidents angriest and most ardent supporters ones who were ready and willing to do the things they did.

But unless the congressional committee investigating Jan. 6finds a smoking gun or two in the texts, emails and other missives leading up to Trumps speech, the president likely did not have the intent necessary under Brandenburg. Yes, we can parse his words and point to a line or two (like We fight like hell. And if you dont fight like hell, youre not going to have a country anymore, for example) but I defy anyone to watch the entire hour-plus long speech and conclude it was anything more than his usual collection of imagined nonsense and self-entitled gripes. At the very least, if we could imagine a speech in which Trump was to tell his legion to assault the Capitol in order to disrupt Congress, it would be more to the point and absolutely more explicit.

Applying Brandenburg to a hypothetical in which the worst happens to MCAA and its students, were left with the same intent problem with James. The commercial is offensively craven, but on its face, the gubernatorial candidate is dredging the primary swamps for votes; unless theres some secret email to an adviser that reads Id like a commercial that motivates folks to go down to that campus to tear it all to hell, James doesnt have the necessary intent under the law. Comparing his ad to Trumps speech, however, gives us a stark difference and an even bigger issue: Jamess commercial is broadcast to anyone who happens to be watching television, whereas Trumps diatribe was given only to his supporters theres not much likelihood of violence in the legal realm of incitement where your audience consists of passionate supporters, random channel flippers and anyone unfortunate enough to be stuck on a treadmill at Planet Fitness. Finally, theres no hint of imminence in the ad, meaning theres no sign that someone should act against the school now. All told, there would be no legal liability for James under a theory of incitement if the worst should happen.

Yet legal liability is not the end of the story. Trump was impeached for his role in Jan. 6 in a political process that only happened to have some legal window dressing. Likewise, Jamescould face some type of punishment from Alabamas voters, but that seems more aspirational than anything else.

The real answer here, as unsatisfying as it may be, is to hold James morally responsible for whatever happens. Because while it takes a big, strong man to maybe just maybe if things break right embarrass Gov. Kay Ivey by dragging her into a runoff, only a monster would attack high school students to do so.

His ads will fade. But that shame and the moral consequences for his brazen bigotry never will.

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Opinion | Tim James: Donald Trump and the limits of criminal accountability for speech - Alabama Political Reporter

Former President Donald Trump endorsed State Sen. Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvanias Republican primary for governor, announcing his support for the front-runner just days before Tuesdays election.

The endorsement could very well put Mastriano over the top and deal a crippling blow to eleventh-hour efforts by some establishment Republicans to stop Mastriano, a far-right, staunch Trump ally.

There is no one in Pennsylvania who has done more, or fought harder, for Election Integrity than State Senator Doug Mastriano, Trump said in a statement Saturday morning. He is a fighter like few others, and has been with me right from the beginning, and now I have an obligation to be with him.

The endorsement comes as Trumps chosen candidate in Pennsylvanias U.S. Senate race celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz is locked in a dead heat with two rivals.

Mastriano, by contrast, has been leading by double digits in recent polls of the nine-candidate race.

Im honored to receive the endorsement from President Trump today, Mastriano said in a statement. But the honor is not for me. Its for the millions of hard-working Pennsylvanians who want their individual liberties restored, power returned to the people, and for their elected leaders to fulfill the America First and Pennsylvania First agenda.

READ MORE: Doug Mastriano embodies a Christian nationalist movement as he runs for governor: We have the power of God

The endorsement amounts to a safe bet at a time when other Trump-backed candidates including Oz and David Perdue in Georgias gubernatorial race are at risk of losing. Trumps choice in Nebraska, Charles Herbster, lost in a gubernatorial primary this past week. Of course, plenty of Trumps picks have won like author J.D. Vance in Ohios GOP Senate race.

Trump made his pick in the Pennsylvania governors race days after some establishment Republicans launched a last-minute effort to stop Mastriano, who they think will lose badly in November to state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, the presumptive Democratic nominee.

Mastriano on Saturday mocked those efforts.

The swamp is slapping us around, Mastriano told supporters at a rally in Bucks County. These people are so stupid. Just dumb.

Mastriano said the effort was failing and drew sustained cheering when he noted Trump had endorsed him just hours earlier. He lumped the media in with his rivals, accusing them all of spreading disinformation and false claims about him.

A mention of President Joe Bidens 2020 victory prompted several in the audience to shout out that he did not win that election.

Mastriano used the occasion to repeat Trumps lies that the election was stolen in Pennsylvania, singling out the use of mail ballots in Philadelphia.

Mastriano was a leading figure in the effort to overturn Bidens victory in the state.

He took buses to Washington for the Jan. 6, 2021, Stop the Steal rally that led a pro-Trump mob to storm the Capitol, and has continued to spread baseless conspiracy theories about the election. He has said he left before things turned violent, and has been subpoenaed by the congressional committee investigating the attack.

Trump just endorsed one of the most extreme and dangerous GOP candidates in the country for Governor of PA, Shapiro said Saturday on Twitter. He wants to ban abortion and undermine elections. He attended the 1/6 insurrection and crossed police barricades.

Mastrianos top rivals in the race are former U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta, former Delaware County Councilman Dave White, and former U.S. Attorney Bill McSwain.

Barletta had benefited the most in recent days from GOP efforts to coalesce around a single alternative to Mastriano, as numerous current and former elected officials endorsed him. That included state Senate leader Jake Corman, who dropped out of the governors race and asked his supporters to back Barletta instead.

But it wasnt enough to sway Trump.

I will continue making the case to the people that I am the only candidate who can unite the party and bring victory in November, Barletta said in a statement Saturday after Trumps announcement. I look forward to having President Trumps endorsement Wednesday morning.

Without saying his name, Mastriano at the Saturday rally alluded to efforts to coalesce the party around Barletta as an attempt to anoint a golden child.

Mastriano cited Corman by title, drawing boos from the crowd. Mastriano also alluded to another rival, former U.S. Attorney Bill McSwain, without naming him but citing the millions in dark money spent by outside groups to support McSwain and, at times, attack Mastriano. He suggested that made McSwain bought and paid for by the establishment.

READ MORE: A last-ditch GOP effort to stop Doug Mastriano in the Pa. governors race appears to be too little, too late

And he took a shot at Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination for Senate, calling him a radical, left-wing communist. Still, Mastriano shared that Fetterman, who presides over the state Senate, complimented the strength of his support, evidenced by how many people signed his nomination petitions to get on the ballot.

Mastriano drew groans when citing Gov. Tom Wolf, a term-limited Democrat, and his efforts to try to stem the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

He criticized Shapiro mocking him as Little Josh, born with a silver spoon in his mouth for supporting Wolfs policies.

Mastriano also claimed during his 30-minute speech that he and his wife, Rebbie, have endured abuse and death threats for his campaign.

Rebbie Mastriano, speaking before her husband, cast the campaign in biblical terms and said candidates attacking her husband were deflecting from their shortcomings.

Its really insulting to you, she said.

Democrats have been trying to boost Mastrianos candidacy because they appear to see him as the weakest candidate against Shapiro.

Shapiros campaign this month started airing TV ads promoting Mastriano as one of Donald Trumps strongest supporters, and the state Democratic Party sent mailers to registered Republican voters linking Mastriano to Trump.

Trump was said to like multiple candidates in the field, meeting with several over the course of the race. Each, to varying degrees, has amplified or flirted with Trumps false claims of voter fraud. And each of the top contenders has pledged to repeal the states 2019 expansion of mail voting and proposed more stringent voter ID rules, among other policies.

Barletta was one of Trumps earliest supporters in his 2016 campaign, and the former president endorsed Barletta in his unsuccessful 2018 Senate race. Barletta, like other candidates in both the gubernatorial and Senate races, hired former Trump aides for his campaign, and he held a fund-raiser at Trumps Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

White, a wealthy owner of an HVAC business who pitches himself as a blue-collar businessman, met with Trump in late April. At the meeting, Whites pollster John McLaughlin, who has also worked for Trump showed Trump an internal poll that had White in second place, trailing only Mastriano, according to people familiar with the meeting.

Corman tried to stay in the mix for a while, too. While he trailed in the polls, Corman appears to have struck up a rapport with Trump over golf. And the senator posted pictures of himself with his daughter at Mar-a-Lago this month, where they attended a screening of an election conspiracy film called 2000 Mules. Its a movie every American should see, Corman said on Twitter.

But it was McSwain, a former Trump-appointed U.S. attorney in Philadelphia, who fared the worst in the Trump sweepstakes. The former president condemned McSwain for not prosecuting voter fraud in 2020. Do not vote for Bill McSwain, Trump said last month, calling him a coward, who let our Country down.

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Trump endorsed Doug Mastriano in the Pa. governors race, a late boost for the far-right front-runner - The Philadelphia Inquirer

The New York Times, citing two people whod been briefed on the matter, reported Thursday the convening of a federal grand jury that is investigating the handling of 15 boxes of classified White House documents that were squirreled away at Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trumps Florida home. Its easy to understand why this reporting didnt lead most newscasts that day given the more dramatic story of the decision by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2001, attack on the U.S. Capitol to subpoena five sitting members of Congress. But that story shouldnt distract us from the big news that a grand jury has reportedly been impaneled to find out how and why national secrets were packed up in Washington and parked in Palm Beach.

While some pundits have asserted that convening the grand jury is part of a routine damage assessment, thats a misleading explanation.

To borrow a concept from the world of classified information access, heres what you need to know to process this development. First, a grand jury means the Justice Department believes a crime may have been committed. While some pundits have asserted that convening the grand jury is part of a routine damage assessment to explore the national security aspects of what the intelligence community calls a spill of classified documents, thats a misleading explanation.

To be sure, every agency that has a piece of the intelligence reporting in the boxed documents will have to be notified, will have to conduct analyses of the threat that could be posed if their reporting gets into the wrong hands and will have to determine what steps can be taken to prevent a recurrence. But that kind of routine cleanup of a spill doesnt require a grand jury. A grand jury investigates potential crimes.

When The Washington Post reported Feb. 10 that classified documents, including some marked "top secret," had been discovered at Trumps Florida residence, Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich, in a written statement to the newspaper, said: It is clear that a normal and routine process is being weaponized by anonymous, politically motivated government sources to peddle Fake News. The only entity with the ability to credibly dispute this false reporting, the National Archives, is providing no comment.

In a letter dated Feb. 18 to Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., chair of the Committee on Oversight and Reform, David S. Ferriero, the archivist of the United States, said the National Archives and Records Administration has identified items marked as classified national security information within the boxes and identified certain social media records that were not captured and preserved by the Trump Administration and that it has learned that some White House staff conducted official business using nonofficial electronic messaging accounts that were not copied or forwarded into their official electronic messaging accounts.

Also in that letter, Ferriero wrote, Because NARA [National Archives and Records] identified classified information in the boxes, NARA staff has been in communication with the Department of Justice.

When The New York Times asked Budowich for comment for its story that a grand jury was being convened, he said: President Trump consistently handled all documents in accordance with applicable law and regulations. Belated attempts to second-guess that clear fact are politically motivated and misguided.

I think this case, as prosecutors say, has legs. Meaning it can go places we may not even envision.

While mishandling classified material is often addressed with administrative sanctions, including reprimands, suspensions without pay, removal or terminations of security clearances, mishandling classified information can be a federal violation with criminal penalties. As a primer from the Brennan Center for Justice explains, federal law imposes penalties for knowingly removing classified material without authority and with the intent to keep it in an unauthorized location.

This charge is available only for knowing and intentional mishandling, such as occurred in the cases of former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger and former CIA Director John Deutch, it says.

Second, I think this case, as prosecutors say, has legs. Meaning it can go places we may not even envision, because it's unlikely the Justice Department would convene a grand jury if officials there didn't think they had some evidence that could overcome Trumps likeliest defenses.

Trump may assert that as president he had the authority to classify and declassify information as he saw fit, which, with certain caveats, is correct. Or he could claim he didnt know the content of the boxes and that some low-level staffer mistakenly included the documents which purportedly contained some "top secret"-level data in Trumps move from the White House. Those defenses are difficult to disprove. So why would the Justice Department go to the trouble of opening a criminal case and convening a grand jury unless prosecutors believed they could effectively counter them?

A sentence in The New York Times story may shed some light on what the Justice Department may have: The documents in question are believed to have been kept in the residence of the White House before they were boxed up and sent to Mar-a-Lago. Fifteen boxes of classified documents sitting in the residential wing of the White House doesnt sound like a mistake to me. That sounds deliberate and less like an error that could be attributed to staff. Virtually every day during my 25 years with the FBI, I handled classified information. It was my experience that staffers, whose job is to know and comply with the rules and regulations for handling such data, dont deliberately break those rules unless someone at a high level makes them break those rules. Thats why I dont believe this grand jury is targeting low-level staffers.

Third, perhaps this is bigger than just a mishandling case. As Justice Department investigators examine the documents, theyll be able to see whether the contents held some value to Trump or those around him and possibly determine whether Trump could benefit from whatevers in those documents. We mustnt forget that during Trumps term, his family members parlayed their relationship with him into personal profit and that while he was president, Trumps own businesses reportedly raked in $2.4 billion.

The first step to solving the Mar-a-Lago mystery is to get those documents into the hands of federal prosecutors and agents. The convening of a grand jury suggests that may have already happened. Now, we wait for the mystery to be solved.

Frank Figliuzzi is an MSNBC columnist anda national security contributor for NBC News and MSNBC. He was the assistant director for counterintelligence at the FBI, where he served 25 years as a special agent and directed all espionage investigations across the government. He is the author of "The FBI Way: Inside the Bureau's Code of Excellence."

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An investigation into Trump's handling of classified documents is huge - MSNBC