Category Archives: Donald Trump

Former President Donald Trump heads to South Texas ahead of Midterm Election

Diana Arevalo, the Travis County coordinated campaign manager and former state representative, and Matt Mackowiak, chair of the Travis County GOP, discuss Former President Donald Trump's recent trip to Texas.

AUSTIN, Texas - Just weeks before Election Day, Former President Donald Trump held a rally in south Texas to try and weaken the Democratic grip on the Texas border.

Diana Arevalo, the Travis County coordinated campaign manager and former state representative, and Matt Mackowiak, chair of the Travis County GOP, join FOX 7 Austin's Mike Warren to discuss.

MIKE WARREN: Diana, starting with you. Can the Texas GOP actually flip the valley?

DIANA AREVALO: I think we're going to have to try pretty hard. I think they got really excited with a special election. And right now what you're seeing in the RGV is a strong grassroots organization. A lot of people are mobilizing and getting people organized and getting ready to go out and vote. We have block walkers, people, phone banking, doing all the hard work, putting the work in, day in, day out. I'm excited to see what happens with Michelle by the race, and I think there's a lot of people mobilizing their immediate communities, their families to turn out the vote.

MIKE WARREN: Matt Mackowiak, why is the national GOP so focused on South Texas especially, especially Congressional District 15?

MATT MACKOWIAK: Yeah. I mean, Diana has a tough job here trying to convince people who are watching that South Texas is not going to go red. It is going to go red. The triple C, the campaign committee at the national level has pulled out of the very race that she's talking about, and that's because Monica de la Cruz is going to win that congressional seat. I feel very, very, very confident of that. There are three seats down there. We have rising star Latina candidates in south Texas who are running Myra Flores, who won that special election. Cassie Garcia, who is running against Henry R in a district, goes from San Antonio down to Laredo, and then Monica de la Cruz, who I think again is highly likely to win. You know, what we didn't know is the over-performance among Hispanic voters for Republicans in south Texas in 2020. We didn't know if that was an aberration. When you look at the candidate recruitment, when you look at the primary turnout, which was up significantly on the Republican side, well, it was flat on the Democratic side. These things all show that this trend is growing. It's rising. And it is going to be one of the big storylines here three weeks from tonight.

MIKE WARREN: You know, Diana, more people in that part of the state are voting Republican. Why is that? What do you think the reasons are?

DIANA AREVALO: You know if you get lucky one time, I think you're getting on a high. First and foremost, I think Matt needs a map. Laredo is not part of the RGV. Henry Juarez district is not part of that. The bulk of it is not part of that immediate community. But let me tell you what's going on. I'm not going to subscribe to President Trump's machismo politics of allowing and telling women what they can and cannot do with their bodies and what they can and cannot do. So right now, I'm unhappy to see so many Latinas organizing in the Democratic Party, whether it's Rochelle Garza for Texas attorney general, whether it's Michelle Valle or even all of our down ballot candidates. They're organizing and they're working hard. I'm not going to look at the national politics. I'm going to look at the communities and the people that are working and putting in the work every single day.

MIKE WARREN: Mama Kovacs Similar question. You know, what are the issues that could turn this area toward the Republicans? What are voters really concerned about?

MATT MACKOWIAK: Yeah. I don't know if Diana didn't hear my answer or what, but. But it's not one time we haven't gotten lucky. One time, a Donald Trump was able to flip Cameron County and Stark County. Stark County, Hillary won by 30 points four years before. So you could argue that's the first time. The second time is when we flipped the McAllen mayor's office to Republican seat for the first time, I think, in 50 years. The third time is when Mara Flores won that special elections. That's three occasions just in the last two years when Republicans have made significant inroads in, yes, south Texas and the Rio Grande Valley. Now to the question you asked. Immigration, the border, fentanyl, this is what's driving voters away from the radical Democratic Party toward the Republican Party. They believe laws need to be enforced. They believe that we need border security. They know that our communities are being overrun not just by fentanyl, but also by narco trafficking gangs, that human trafficking gangs. And so we are going to see significant, significant victories for Republicans in south Texas and the Rio Grande Valley in three weeks.

MIKE WARREN: All right. We're going to have to wrap it up for that. Matt, Diana, thank you both very much.

Read more:

Former President Donald Trump holds rally in South Texas ahead of Midterm Election - FOX 7 Austin

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.

The final hearing of the House January 6 Committee made clear that a duly elected and sworn president of the United States tried to overthrow the constitutional order. When are we going to act on that knowledge?

But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.

There are days when the presidency of Donald Trump seems like just another natural disaster that we can allow to recede into history after we count its victims and repair the damage. But earthquakes and volcanoes do not have will and cannot choose to return and destroy again. Trump, however, is like a hurricane pacing just offshore, waiting and plotting to flatten and flood our political system, perhaps for good.

And the hell of it is, we Americans know hes there. We know what hes done and what he can do (again). Yet millions of us would gladly welcome his landfall again. Millions more of us have thrown up our hands in exasperation as Trump and most of his regiment of Renfields have, for now, managed to escape any consequences for their actions.

Yesterday, in what was likely the final hearing of the January 6 committee, the nation was told, once more and without ambiguity, that Donald Trump, the commander in chief, actively sought to subvert our democratic order. My Atlantic colleague David Frum summed up the committees findingsand the nations reactionin one tweet: Decisive [and] irrefutable documentary evidence that the 45th president of the United States tried to overthrow the US Constitution by violence, no big deal, just another news day.

For years, I have been wondering when Americans would draw the line on Trump and his minions. We could rehearse the litany of Trumps awfulness: his vulgarity, his racism, his callous disregard for veterans, his pathetic submissiveness around Vladimir Putin. We could remind ourselves of the attempt to pressure the Ukrainian government that got him impeached (the first time).

None of it seems to matter, because for a large swath of the American public, nothing really matters. And here, I do not mean only the MAGA Republicans, loyalists who are already a lost cause. (Trump was tragically prescient when he said that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and they would not abandon him.) Nor do I mean the people who have attached their parasitical careers to their Trumpian host.

No, I mean the ordinary Americans who shrug at a violent insurrection and the near-miss of a coup. As the historian Michael Beschloss said on MSNBC last night after the hearing, Trump probably wanted to declare martial law. He also pointed out that the insurrection was a close-run thing, noting that if Trump and those rioters had been a little bit faster, we might be living in a country of unbelievable darkness and cruelty.

But who cares? After all, inflation is too high, and gas is still too expensive, and thats a bigger problem than the overthrow of the government, isnt it?

The worst of the worst, however, are the people in public life who know better but who refuse to condemn the candidates flying Trumps banner. Ohio Senator Rob Portman, for example, supports J. D. Vance, a former Trump critic who now slathers himself in the stink of Trumpism like a teenage kid with his first bottle of cheap body spray. Portman is retiring and had nothing to losewell, nothing except his long-standing reputation as a decent manbut he declared his support anyway. Apparently, with a Senate seat in play, Portman thought it gauche to be too judgmental about Vance emulating Trump, the president who put his own vice president in mortal danger.

In a country that still had a functional moral compass, citizens would watch the January 6 hearings, band together regardless of party or region, and refuse to vote for anyone remotely associated with Donald Trump, whom the committee has proved, I think, to be an enemy of the Constitution of the United States. His party, as an institution, supports him virtually unconditionally, and several GOP candidates around the country have already vowed to join Trump in his continuing attack on our democracy. To vote for any of these people is to vote against our constitutional order.

Its that simple.

Many GOP supporters, particularly in the conservative-media ecosystem, would reject all of this as guilt by associationas if somehow, a candidate who embraces Trump may be excused for supporting lawlessness and sedition. This is how, for example, The Wall Street Journal justified endorsing Kari Lake in Arizona. Lake is one of the most extreme election deniers and Trump sycophants in the GOP, but the Journal thinks shed be great on the issue of school choice, as though the funding of education would be the big issue if Lake conspires with other Trump cultists across the United States to deliver the final blow to the notion of the peaceful and constitutional transfer of power.

In the confusion of the moment back in January 2021, it was easier to believe that perhaps the mob was spontaneous, that elected Republicans were sincere in reviling Trump for his part in creating it, and that the GOP might come to its senses, at least where Trump is concerned. Today, thanks to the January 6 committee and the evidence it has amassed, we know better. To vote for anyone still loyal to a party led by the narcissistic sociopath who put our elected officials and our political system itself in peril is to abandon any pretense of caring whether the United States remains a constitutional democracy. The question is whether enough of us will care, in little more than three weeks from now, to make a difference.

Related:

Pregnancy Is a War; Birth Is a Cease-Fire

By Katherine J. Wu

Evolutionarily speaking, every human is a bit of a preemie. The nine months most babies spend in the womb are enough for them to be born with open eyes, functional ears, and a few useful reflexesbut not the ability to stand, sprint, climb, or grasp onto their parents limbs. Compared with other primates, our offspring are wobbly and inept; theyd probably get their butts kicked by infant lemurs, gorillas, and even tiny tarsiers, which all come out more fully formed. Think of it this way: Researchers have estimated that, for a newborn human to be birthed with a brain as well developed as that of a newborn chimp, they would have to gestate for at least an extra seven monthsat which point they might run 27 inches from head to toe, and weigh a good 17 or 18 pounds, more than the heftiest bowling ball on the rack.

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Play our daily crossword.

I still get a Sunday paper. I know I can read it in bits and pieces on the internet, but theres something about Sundays that just makes me want to spread newsprint all over the place. Maybe its nostalgia; as a child, of course, I snatched up the funnies, and I am one of the cranky older people who today laments the shrinkage in size and length of the comics (which I still read first even now). In college and graduate school, the Sunday paper came along to brunch, for a group of friends to share and discuss.

But I also come back to my phone or desktop for some weekend reads, and you should too, starting this Sunday, October 16, when we launch The Atlantics new culture-focused weekend edition of the Daily. Every Sunday, our writers will provide answers to interesting questions about many areas of culture. This week, the debut installment includes recommendations on what to read, watch, and listen to from the Atlantic staff writer Sophie Gilbert, a 2022 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Criticism. In response to What was the last thing that made you snort with laughter?, she answers, This is going to make me seem unbearably basic, but I believe it was a facial expression Kelly Bishop made on Gilmore Girls when Lorelai did something irritating.

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Isabel Fattal contributed to this newsletter.

Read the rest here:

Donald Trump Tried to Destroy the Constitution - The Atlantic

Highlights: Wisconsin Senate debate between Ron Johnson, Mandela Barnes

The second debate between Mandela Barnes and Ron Johnson was at Marquette University's Varsity Theater Thursday. Video courtesy of WTMJ TV.

Lou Saldivar, Wochit

Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson's campaign has retained the Cross Plains-based lawfirm thatrepresented former President Donald Trump in the failed effort to throw out hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots in Wisconsin and reverse the results of the 2020 election.

The firm is headed byattorneyJames Troupis, who wasallegedly at the center of the plot to recognize so-called fake electors in what was the last-ditch pushby the former president and his allies to stymie President Joe Biden's election on Jan. 6, 2021, the day of the U.S. Capitol insurrection.

The Johnson campaign made about $20,000 in payments to the Troupis firm since July.

NBC News was the first to report the payments.

A spokeswoman for Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes criticized the payments on Monday. Barnes, a Democrat, is challenging Johnson, a second-term Republican, next month.

"Ron Johnson is hell-bent on holding onto power through any means possible so that he can continue delivering tax breaks to his wealthiest donors, follow through on his plan to put Social Security on the chopping block, and rip away womens reproductive rights," spokeswoman Maddy McDaniel said.

But Ben Voelkel, a top aide to Johnson, said there was nothing unusual about the payments.

"As anyone who works on campaigns in this state knows, close elections in Wisconsin are the rule, not the exception," Voelkel said. "It would be reckless to be unprepared for any possible circumstance and this campaign has been preparing for months for just that.

Troupis did not respond immediately to an email or call.

More: Wisconsin U.S. Senate election updates: Diane Hendricks gives $9.4 million to pro-Johnson Super PAC

More: The debates are done. Here's what to expect in the final weeks of the Mandela Barnes-Ron Johnson Wisconsin U.S. Senate race

According to filings, the first $13,287 to Troupis' firm was for "legal consulting" on July 15. Johnson's campaign then paid Troupis' office $7,000 on Aug. 18 for "recount: legal consulting."

Troupis once gave $1,000 to Johnson's campaign more than a decade ago.

Troupis, a former Dane County Circuit Judge, unsuccessfully sought to throw out hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots in 2020 when he was hired by Trump to oversee recounts in Dane and Milwaukee counties following Trumps defeat in Wisconsin.

Since then, investigations by a U.S. House committee convened to probe the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol have revealed Troupis was at the center of a plot to put in place Republican electors in states Trump was trying to overturn election results and was the first in the state to receive a memo pushing the idea from Boston-area attorney Kenneth Chesebro.

Johnson also acknowledged this summer that on Jan. 6, 2021, hours before the attack, he coordinated with Troupis to get to then-Vice President Mike Pence a document Troupis described as regarding Wisconsin electors.

Earlier this month, Johnson downplayed his role in the incident.

"The entire episode lasted about an hour," Johnson said on Oct. 4 in Milwaukee. "I got a text from the president's lawyer (Troupis) who asked me if we could deliver something through the vice president and if I could I have a staff member handle it."

Johnson said he did not know what information was being handed over.

"I had no idea that there were even an alternate slate of electors," he said. "I had no knowledge of it, no involvement in it. And you can't even call it participation. I wrote a couple of texts. I was involved for a few seconds. There's nothing to this story."

As Trumps attorney during the 2020 recounts, Troupis and his brother ChrisTroupis, sought to throw out all in-person absentee ballots, all mailed-in absentee ballots if applications for them could not be tracked down, all absentee ballots submitted by those who claimed to be indefinitely confined, and all ballots where clerks filled in missing address information for witnesses to absentee ballots.

Federal Election Commission records show Troupis' firm was paid $471,994from Trump's campaign and the Make America Great Again PAC in late 2020 and early 2021 for the firm'swork on the recount.

The effort laid the groundwork for unsuccessful lawsuits Trump and his allies filed ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection to overturn the results of Wisconsins election, and for successful litigation since. Clerks are no longer allowed to fill in missing witness address information on absentee ballot envelopes.

Over the years, Troupis has been a regular donor to Republican and conservativecandidates and causes in Wisconsin, having given nearly $30,000 to them over the past 30 years.

Johnson officials noted that all major campaigns hire law firms. They noted that Barnes' campaign has paid out$88,964to the Elias Law Group since December. Marc Elias, the head of the firm, has been involved in a number of recounts for Democratic campaigns over the years.

Our subscribers make this reporting possible. Please consider supporting local journalism by subscribing to the Journal Sentinel at jsonline.com/deal.

Excerpt from:

Ron Johnson campaign hires Troupis law firm that represented Donald Trump in attempt to throw out 2020 ballots in Wisconsin - Milwaukee Journal...

Editor's note: This article is an excerpt adapted from the authors' new book, "Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind Congress's Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump," (William Morrow, 2022).

***

As the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol winds down its long-running investigation, pundits and historians are debating its legacyand whether the panels comprehensive findings and take-no-prisoners investigative approach will pave the way for holding former President Trump accountable.

The committees dedication to asserting Congresss authority has been impressively unrelenting: Investigators not only convinced witnesses from Trumps inner circle to come forward but also took those who ignored their subpoenas to courteven appealing to the Justice Department to arrest and charge those who would not comply with their summons.

But that track record has come in a uniquely favorable and lower-stakes environment: The president they are investigating is not in office anymore, and the one who replaced him is friendly to their cause. Such wins wont dictate what may happen when an out-of-control executive branch needs checking by Congressthe most critical situation of all.

Instead, the strength of Congresss oversight power in the face of an obstinate administration is atrophying, a trend exacerbated by the bungled impeachments of Donald Trump. And as we found through reporting our new book, Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind Congresss Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump, there is blame to be shared on both sides of the aisle.

The story of how Trump overcame two impeachments and safeguarded his ability to make another run at the White House is, at its core, a story of how Congress repeatedly missed opportunities to check him. Republicans capitulated to political pressures and failed to act on their private revulsion with the presidents conduct, emboldening Trump and fueling the cult of personality around him at junctures when he might otherwise have been restrained. Despite myriad opportunities to change course, they doubled and tripled down on their fealty to Trump, protecting him when they could have sidelined him, thereby inuring a shock-fatigued public to the outrageousness of his increasingly dangerous behavior.

According to conventional wisdom, that is the beginning and the end of the story: Democrats, the thinking goes, simply couldnt overcome the intransigence of Trumps congressional lackeys, who defended him despite overwhelming evidence of his guilt. But while there is truth to that narrative, the reality of what occurred was far more complex. Trump escaped accountability not simply because his own party wouldnt stand up to him but also because the opposing party was afraid to flex the full force of its constitutional muscle to check him.

Republicans didnt just block and sabotage impeachmentDemocrats never went all-in. Instead, they prioritized what they perceived as political security over the long, time-consuming course of bringing a rogue president to justice, fumbling their best chance to turn the American public away from Trump for good and compromising impeachment in the process.

Our reportingbased on more than 250 interviews with lawmakers, staffers and others involved in every chapter and political corner of the impeachments sagaindicates that during both impeachments, Democratic leaders pulled punches and took procedural shortcuts rather than prioritizing the fact-finding that might have persuaded the public to turn away from the president, even if it failed to compel 67 senators to convict. Led by a cautious Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who harbored deep skepticism about impeachment from the start, Democrats pursued the first impeachment at a breakneck tempo, giving themselves an artificial deadline of Christmas, which forced them to cut corners. That meant eschewing court fights for firsthand witnesses such as former National Security Adviser John Bolton, who could have testified to allegations that Trump tried to strong-arm Ukraine for political favors, and which would have affirmed the authority of congressional subpoenas over the Trumps across-the-board stonewalling.

Democrats also threw out an impeachment tradition of giving the president unquestioned due process rights, over the protestations of House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, who argued to impeachment leader Adam Schiff that it would be unconstitutional to put preconditions on Trumps right to represent himself. In a further break from the Clinton and Nixon impeachments, Pelosi never reached out to Republican lawmakers to fashion the rules of the road for impeachment, as Democrats did while launching their probes of Richard Nixon and Bill Clintonand even told her team it wasnt worth trying to persuade Republican voters of Trumps guilt.

Indeed, our reporting shows that House GOP leaders exploited both issues to keep wavering members of their rank and file in line, as they knowingly compromised the interests of Congress as an institution in order to defend Trump. Our book recounts early episodes in which GOP leaders gave up on attempts to convince the White House to comply with the impeachment probe, despite their concerns that they were crippling their legislative branch authorityand giving future presidents a ready excuse to make further power grabs. Still, they never criticized Trumps stonewalling publicly. Our book also shows how GOP leaders twisted themselves into legal knots during the second impeachment to embrace a questionable procedural offramp, declaring that former presidents, even if impeached while in office, could not stand triala January exception that they did not fully believe in.

Our book demonstrates that, time and again, congressional leaders failed to learn from their mistakes, and repeatedly treated their oversight responsibilities and constitutionally derived power to impeach and convict as burdens too heavy to bear. Democrats, though vocally declaring throughout the first impeachment that trials without witnesses were anathema, worked to shut down Rep. Jamie Raskins attempt to summon Republican witnesses to testify during Trumps second trial. They later folded their cards on a related lawsuit that they themselves had argued would affirm the power of a congressional subpoena, putting party unity over congressional authority. After two years of battling for former White House Counsel Don McGahns testimony, House Democrats settled the case without a final verdict from the Supreme Court, caving to pressure from the Biden administration, which, fearing a GOP takeover in Congress, saw the case as too great a threat to executive authority and autonomy. The GOP, meanwhile, sought to stamp out and bury any visible vestiges of their personal revulsion at Trumps conduct, leaving GOP voters with the distinct impression that the former president had done nothing wrong.

The lawmakers who led the Trump impeachments have since rationalized these decisions as matters of political necessity. Democrats argue that the looming 2020 election forced them to work quickly through Trumps first impeachment and his trial, and that they could not allow Trumps second to overshadow the fledgling presidency of Joe Biden. For Republicans, meanwhile, Trump was simply too important a political galvanizing force to reject. But that doesnt ameliorate the long-term detrimental effect of the decisions they made to hustle through impeachment, leaving their most formidable tools of oversight rejected or untested.

The result was more than two acquittals of Trump, permitting him to contemplate another run for office. The failed efforts exposed the devastating limits of Congresss ability to check a president.

***

Impeachment, the only congressional oversight power explicitly referenced in the Constitution, is relatively undefined. Beyond a loose direction to use it as punishment for treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors, there is no explicit guidance on how it ought to be wielded, save for precedent. That makes the experience of the two failed impeachments significantly influential, as they constitute half of all the completed presidential impeachments in U.S. history, and half of those that have even been attempted in modern times.

Historians and political scientists will likely study the two failed impeachments of Trump for decades to come and try to take lessons from them for the future. But based on our reporting, this period in history fundamentally altered the process of impeachment. Impeachment now appears destined to be primarily a political weapon instead of a constitutional failsafe to bring a president abusing office to justice.

Most Democrats have defended their impeachment efforts as successful, blaming the GOP for Congresss ultimate failure to convict Trump and bar him from seeking future office. They argued that they did what they had to do, pointing to the fact that almost every Democrat in Congress agreedtwicethat Trump had to go, and that they secured the highest-ever number of votes to convict a president during his second trial. But party unanimity with occasional handfuls of crossover was not the standard to which impeachment was designed to appeal. The writers of the Constitution intended for impeachment to be a tool to remove a self-aggrandizing despot or would-be dictator from power.

To be sure, the Framers didnt make that an easy task. By setting a two-thirds requirement for conviction, they essentially dictated that any impeachable infraction would have to be egregious on its faceor exposed as such through scrupulous and persuasive investigation. The power of impeachment, properly wielded, was envisioned as a daunting check on the executive, but also as a heavy responsibility for the would-be congressional accuserswhich explains why, in the history of the country, it has been so seldom exploited.

But neither party was willing to assume that responsibility. Republicans made an early and fateful decision to help cripple Congresss impeachment power when they endorsed the Trump administrations stonewalling tacticsdespite recognizing the long-term dangers of doing so. Democrats also contributed to the long-term damage when they declined to fight back with every mechanism at their disposal, eschewing opportunities to enforce their impeachment subpoenas through the courtsdespite Nadler having said that doing so would, uniquely, unlock Congresss zenith power. Instead, they shied away from court fightsretreats that suggested they didnt believe in the strength of the congressional power they were wielding. When they encountered Republican resistance, they prioritized acting swiftly over fully, ignoring specific appeals for evidence if it proved too cumbersome to obtain.

Combined, these decisions created a new, unfortunate standard for impeachments that can easily be exploited in the future. There is now clear precedent for giving shortened shrift to the fact-finding process and for sidestepping key witnesses to an alleged constitutional crime. There is now clear precedent for presidents to stonewall and assume that impeachment subpoenas will not be enforced. There is arguably also clear precedent now for plowing ahead without buy-in from members of the presidents partya standard that Nixons and Clintons impeachments upheldand treating it as a box-checking exercise to please a political base. There is precedent for bypassing the custom of due process that says an accused president can cross-examine the witnesses against them before being impeached. And there is clear precedent for dismissing impeachments that come too close to the end of a presidency to do all the above.

House Democrats, to their credit, have endeavored to make some changes that will improve Congresss posture come the next impeachment. In fact, before the ink had even dried on the first set of articles against Trump, they had started drafting a set of post-Trump reforms inspired by the series of laws that Congress passed after Watergate. The list, spearheaded by Adam Schiff, included requirements that courts rule quickly on interbranch disputes regarding oversight matters, limiting exploitation of the slow-moving judicial brancha strategy that Trump had ably perfected. But while the package passed the House, it has stalled in the Senate, leaving the strategy of stonewalling ripe for future abuse.

Still, impeachment is at a critical crossroads. The lowered procedural and political threshold for indicting a president has dramatically increased the risk that the Constitutions ultimate check on a president will soon be reduced to nothing more than a political messaging tool. With fewer bars to clear, the once-extraordinary process is at risk of becoming an everyday vehicle to express the heights of partisan rage instead of a failsafe to protect the American democratic order.

And the transition is already underway. During Bidens first year in office, GOP lawmakers who had accused Democrats of pursuing half-baked vendettas filed a record-shattering six resolutions of impeachment against Bidenmore than Democrats had filed at the same point in Trumps presidency. Some cited the haphazard and chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021. Others fixated on policy disputes, expressing animus against Biden for things like stopping construction on Trumps border wall or extending an eviction moratorium during the coronavirus pandemichardly the high crimes and misdemeanors standard articulated by the Founders. As Republicans eye a takeover of the House in 2023, there is every expectation that they will pursue some, if not all, of these avenues with the intention of giving Biden the black mark of impeachment, to level the playing field in what many anticipate could be a Biden-Trump rematch in 2024. And there is every reason to believe they will exploit and even replicate the corner-cutting strategies Democrats standardized to legitimate more highly politicized impeachment cases against Biden.

That should serve as a reminder that there is a potentially worse consequence of the debasement of impeachment that shouldnt be overlooked: that a party with congressional supermajorities may one day oust a president based on no evidence at all. In other words, the most dangerous legacy of Trumps impeachments is not that impeachment will become a broken, partisan battle cry that never works againbut that someday in the future, and for the first time in American history, it just might succeed, for all the wrong reasons.

Link:

How Trump's Two Failed Impeachments Upended Checks and Balances - Lawfare

Following a number of delays, a New York District judge has ordered Donald Trump to sit for a disposition hearing for defamation lawsuit stemming from allegations he raped a woman in the 1990s.

Judge Lewis A. Kaplan ruled on Wednesday that the former president must answer questions under oath in relation to the allegations made by magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll.

Carroll claims that Trump assaulted her at a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-1990s, and later defamed her character while denying it.

Kaplan rejected Trump's legal team's attempts to have the deposition delayed and ordered the former president to appear for a deposition hearing on Sunday.

"The defendant should not be permitted to run the clock out on plaintiff's attempt to gain a remedy for what allegedly was a serious wrong," Kaplan wrote.

The decision means that Trump must now answer questions over claims he defamed Carroll's character under three weeks before the midterm elections take place.

With the hearing taking so close to the midterms, where the GOP will be hoping to regain control of the Senate and the House, the deposition could be seen as a so-called "October surprise"a news event that has the potential to influence the results of an upcoming November election.

For months, there has been speculation that the October surprise that may drop prior to the Midterms could be Trump being indicted over any of investigations into him, or the House select committee looking into the January 6 attack releasing their report on the former president's actions surrounding the insurrection.

However, the January 6 panel, who present their ninth and possibly final live hearing on Thursday, have not confirmed when they will release their report. It was said that the committee may release a preliminary version in October, but this was before their ninth hearing was delayed from September 29 because of Hurricane Ian.

It is also unlikely that the Department of Justice will file any charges against Trump over January 6 or allegations he mishandled classified documents seized from his Mar-a-Lago resort to adhere to the 90-day rule.

This is an unofficial but highly followed protocol, meaning that prosecutors will avoid making any decisions that could affect how people vote so close to an upcoming election or elections to avoid accusations of meddling in the political process.

However, despite its proximity to the midterm elections, Thomas Gift, founding director of University College London's Centre on US Politics, says that barring "something unforeseen," the odds of Trump's deposition having an impact on the outcome of midterm results are "essentially zero."

"The same is true of it affecting his own chances in 2024 if he decides to run for president. Trump has been marred by so many scandals, allegations and accusations of wrongdoing that this story, too, will get lost in the shuffle," Gift told Newsweek.

"Trump is known as the 'Teflon president' for a reason. The haze of scandals surrounding him at any one time is almost too much for voters to keep track of, and he effectively uses the sheer number of court cases he's implicated in as evidence that he's the victim of a political hit-job.

"For any other politician, this would be a major story. For Trump, it's just business as usual," Gift said.

Trump's lawyers have attempted to quash the suit by claiming the Republican was just doing his job as president by denying the rape allegations, including stating Carroll is "not my type" in 2019.

If authorities agree that Trump was acting within the scope of his duties as a federal employee by denying the claims, then the U.S. government would become the defendant in the case.

In a lengthy statement on his social-media channel Truth Social on Wednesday night, Trump described the suit as a "complete con job," while once again denying the rape claim because Carroll is "not my type."

"She completely made up a story that I met her at the doors of this crowded New York City Department Store and, within minutes, 'swooned' her," Trump wrote.

"It is a Hoax and a lie, just like all the other Hoaxes that have been played on me for the past seven years. And, while I am not supposed to say it, I will. This woman is not my type!

"She has no idea what day, what week, what month, what year, or what decade this so-called 'event' supposedly took place. The reason she doesn't know is because it never happened, and she doesn't want to get caught up with details or facts that can be proven wrong."

A spokesperson for Roberta Kaplan, Carroll's attorney, told the Associated Press she looked forward to "moving forward to trial with all dispatch."

On May 24, 2021, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed the Adult Survivors Act, which allows alleged victims of rape to sue for damages without the statute of limitations blocking it.

A spokesperson for Kaplan's firm added that the latest comment from Trump "obviously does not merit a response."

Read more from the original source:

Donald Trump's Deposition is the October Surprise No One Was Expecting

Former President Donald Trump angrily lashed out Wednesday, calling the nations legal system a broken disgrace after a judge ruled he must answer questions under oath next week in adefamation lawsuitlodged by a writer who says he raped her in the mid-1990s.

He also called the 2019 lawsuit by E. Jean Carroll, a longtime advice columnist for Elle magazine, a hoax and a lie.

The outburst late in the day came hours after U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan in Manhattan rejected a request by his lawyers to delay a deposition scheduled for Oct. 19.

Kaplan is presiding over the case in which Carroll said Trump raped her in the dressing room of a Manhattan Bergdorf Goodman store in the mid-1990s. He called the lawsuit a complete con job.

I dont know this woman, have no idea who she is, other than it seems she got a picture of me many years ago, with her husband, shaking my hand on a reception line at a celebrity charity event, Trump said.

She completely made up a story that I met her at the doors of this crowded New York City Department Store and, within minutes, swooned her. It is a Hoax and a lie, just like all the other Hoaxes that have been played on me for the past seven years, he said.

Then he grumbled: Now all I have to do is go through years more of legal nonsense in order to clear my name of her and her lawyers phony attacks on me. This can only happen to Trump!

Carroll is scheduled to be deposed on Friday.

Columnist E. Jean Carroll leaves federal court, on Feb. 22, 2022, in New York. Former President Donald Trump will have to answer questions under oath next week in a defamation lawsuit lodged by the writer, who says he raped her in the mid-1990s. (Larry Neumeister/AP)

Roberta Kaplan, Carrolls attorney, said she was pleased with the judges ruling and looked forward to filing new claims next month and moving forward to trial with all dispatch after New York state passed the Adult Survivors Act, allowing her to sue for damages for the alleged rape without the statute of limitations blocking it.

After Trumps statement was released, a spokesperson for Kaplans firm, Kaplan Hecker & Fink, said the latest statement from Donald Trump obviously does not merit a response.

Trumps legal team has tried various legal tactics to delay the lawsuit and prevent him from being questioned by Carrolls attorneys. But Judge Kaplan wrote that it was time to move forward, especially given the advanced age of Carroll, 78, and Trump, 76, and perhaps other witnesses.

The defendant should not be permitted to run the clock out on plaintiffs attempt to gain a remedy for what allegedly was a serious wrong, he wrote.

Carrolls lawsuit claims that Trump damaged her reputation in 2019 when he denied raping her. Trumps legal team has been trying to squash the lawsuit by arguing that the Republican was just doing his job as president when he denied the allegations, including when he dismissed his accuser as not my type.

Trump doubled down on the comment in his statement Wednesday, saying: And, while I am not supposed to say it, I will. This woman is not my type! She has no idea what day, what week, what month, what year, or what decade this so-called event supposedly took place. The reason she doesnt know is because it never happened, and she doesnt want to get caught up with details or facts that can be proven wrong.

Whether Trump will remain the defendant in the original lawsuit is a key question because if Trump wasacting within the scope of his dutiesas a federal employee, the U.S. government would become the defendant in the case.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a split decision last month that Trump was a federal employee when he commented on Carrolls claims. But it asked another court in Washington to decide whether Trumps public statements occurred during the scope of his employment.

Kaplan, the judge, said Trump has repeatedly tried to delay the collection of evidence in the lawsuit.

Given his conduct so far in this case, Mr. Trumps position regarding the burdens of discovery is inexcusable, he wrote. As this Court previously has observed, Mr. Trump has litigated this case since it began in 2019 with the effect and probably the purpose of delaying it.

The judge noted that the collection of evidence for the lawsuit to go to trial was virtually concluded, except for the depositions of Trump and Carroll.

Mr. Trump has conducted extensive discovery of the plaintiff, yet produced virtually none himself, Kaplan said. Completing these depositions which already have been delayed for years would impose no undue burden on Mr. Trump, let alone any irreparable injury.

The judge also said the deposition could be useful when Carrolls lawyer next month files the new lawsuit.

Whether the rape occurred is central to the defamation claims, as well as the anticipated new lawsuit, the judge said.

Associated Press Writer Jill Colvin reported from Washington

Original post:

Donald Trump angrily lashes out after his deposition is ordered

Donald Trump lashed out angrily on Wednesday, calling the US legal system a broken disgrace after a judge ruled he must answer questions under oath next week in a defamation lawsuit lodged by a writer who says he raped her.

He also called the 2019 lawsuit by E Jean Carroll, a longtime advice columnist for Elle magazine, a hoax and a lie.

The outburst came hours after a US district judge in Manhattan, Lewis A Kaplan, rejected a request by Trumps lawyers to delay a deposition scheduled for 19 October.

Carroll says Trump raped her in the dressing room of a Manhattan Bergdorf Goodman store in the mid-1990s. He called the lawsuit a complete con job.

I dont know this woman, have no idea who she is, other than it seems she got a picture of me many years ago, with her husband, shaking my hand on a reception line at a celebrity charity event, Trump said.

She completely made up a story that I met her at the doors of this crowded New York City Department Store and, within minutes, swooned her. It is a Hoax and a lie, just like all the other Hoaxes that have been played on me for the past seven years.

Now all I have to do is go through years more of legal nonsense in order to clear my name of her and her lawyers phony attacks on me. This can only happen to Trump!

Carroll is scheduled to be deposed on Friday. Roberta Kaplan, Carrolls attorney, said she looked forward to filing new claims next month and moving forward to trial with all dispatch after New York state passed the Adult Survivors Act, allowing Carroll to sue for damages for the alleged rape without the statute of limitations blocking it.

A spokesperson for Kaplans firm said the latest statement from Donald Trump obviously does not merit a response.

Trumps lawyers have tried various tactics to delay the lawsuit and stop him being questioned by Carrolls attorneys. But Kaplan wrote that it was time to move forward, especially given the advanced age of Carroll, 78, and Trump, 76, and perhaps other witnesses.

The defendant should not be permitted to run the clock out on plaintiffs attempt to gain a remedy for what allegedly was a serious wrong, he wrote.

Carrolls lawsuit claims Trump damaged her reputation when he denied raping her. Trumps legal team has argued that he was just doing his job as president when he denied the allegations, including when he dismissed his accuser as not my type.

On Wednesday, Trump said: And, while I am not supposed to say it, I will. This woman is not my type! She has no idea what day, what week, what month, what year, or what decade this so-called event supposedly took place. The reason she doesnt know is because it never happened, and she doesnt want to get caught up with details or facts that can be proven wrong.

If Trump was acting within the scope of his duties as a federal employee, the US government would become the defendant in the original lawsuit.

The second US circuit court of appeals said last month Trump was a federal employee when he commented on Carrolls claims. But it asked another court in Washington to decide whether the public statements occurred during the scope of his employment.

Kaplan said Trump had repeatedly tried to delay the collection of evidence.

Given his conduct so far in this case, Mr Trumps position regarding the burdens of discovery is inexcusable, he wrote. As this court previously has observed, Mr Trump has litigated this case since it began in 2019 with the effect and probably the purpose of delaying it.

The judge noted that the collection of evidence for the lawsuit to go to trial was virtually concluded, except for depositions of Trump and Carroll.

Mr Trump has conducted extensive discovery of the plaintiff, yet produced virtually none himself, Kaplan said. Completing these depositions which already have been delayed for years would impose no undue burden on Mr Trump, let alone any irreparable injury.

The judge also said the deposition could be useful when Carrolls lawyer next month files the new lawsuit. Whether the rape occurred is central to the defamation claims, as well as the anticipated new lawsuit, the judge said.

Continued here:

Trump lashes out after deposition ordered in E Jean Carroll lawsuit - The Guardian US

American democracy is in peril, teetering between democracy and authoritarianism and under siege by Donald Trump, the Republican Party and the larger white right. To call them "conservative" is an insult to language.

In a recent Salon essay,historian Robert McElvaineaddressed this directly, calling out "the media's ingrained tendency to aid and abet the enemies of democracy through the careless use of language," and especially "the ubiquitous use of the word 'conservative' to describe extreme right-wing radicals and their beliefs, which only seek toconservewhite supremacy and more specifically the class or caste supremacy of a small minority of wealthy and nominally Christian white men."

Even President Biden, a career politician and a conflict-averse lifelong moderate who still yearns to "unite" America, has publicly warned that the "MAGA Republicans" which at this point means nearly all Republicans are the greatest internal threat to the country since the civil war.

America's democracy crisis is a drama of raw political power, and a nationwide campaign by the Republican fascists to end America's multiracial democracy. If they prevail,Black and brown people, most women, LGBTQ people, those with disabilities, non-Christians (or liberal Christians), immigrants, poor people and anyone else targeted as the Other more generally (and thus deemed "un-American") will literally become second-class citizens both under the law and in daily life.

Many Americans who believe they are safe from American fascism because of the color of their skin, their money or other forms of privilege will rapidly learn that their freedom, safety and quality of life will be greatly diminished as well.In a recent Salon interview, author and activist Brynn Tannehill summarized this harsh reality:

Everybody who watches a zombie movie assumes that they're going to be part of the resistance and not part of the shambling, undead brain-eating horde. All these people assume that under a fascist system they are going to be among the winners. There are many more losers in a fascist system than winners. The winners make sure that their people get taken care of first, and if you're not near the front of the line for the goodies you aren't going to get them. The vast majority of Americans are not going to be rewarded by fascism.

American fascism is not a foreign import or unimaginably alien. It is in our soil, and in many ways a continuation of this continent's long history of white supremacy and racism going back to the 17th century. Trump and the other neofascists are like political necromancers: They summoned up these dark, lingering energies and are now using them for their own purposes.

Trumpism, like other forms of neofascism and fake right-wing populism, is based on a cult of personality and pathological feelings of shared identity between the leader and the follower. Any criticism of the leader is experienced as an attack on the follower, and an existential threat to one's racial identity and core sense of self.

Trump's anger is rooted in the assumption that a rich white man is above the law and that it's a violation of the natural order for a Black woman to have any power over him.

As Donald Trump faces the real possibility of finally being held accountable for his many obvious crimes, whether those be fraud, seditious conspiracy or violations of the Espionage Act, he will incite and channel even more white rage and white tribalism. He will urge hisacolytes and followers to tear the country down rather than see him face justice. He will urge them to do so again if he or his partyare somehow defeated at the polls in the upcoming midterms or the 2024 presidential election.

Words presage action; depending on the context, words and language can be a type of violence. Donald Trump has repeatedly said that the prosecutors who are investigating him for alleged crimes in New York and Georgia all three happen to be Black are "racist," "horrible" and "mentally sick" people who are unfairly targeting him, and by extension his overwhelmingly white followers.

The assumption here is that white people, especially rich white men, are above the law and moreover that it is a violation of the natural order of things, or American "tradition," that Black people (and Black women in particular) could in any way potentially have so much power.

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

AP reporter Bobby Calvan interviewed a communications scholarabout how "Trump's rhetoric has escalated, perhaps because he recognizes that some among his base are receptive to more overt racism":

"It intensifies that discourse and makes it explicitly racial," said Casey Kelly, a communications professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln who for years has pored over transcripts of Trump's speeches.

At a recent rally in Arizona, he said falsely thatwhite people in New York were being sent to the back of line for antiviral treatments.

And now Trump is using the investigations against him and the prosecutors behind them as "evidence of a larger systemic pattern that white people don't have a place in the future of America and he's the only one that can fight on their behalf," Kelly said.

Michael Steele, who more than a decade ago was the first African American to chair the Republican National Committee, said Trump was being Trump.

"If he can race bait it, he will. These prosecutors, these Black people are coming after me the white man," Steele said.

Trump is questioning their legitimacy, said Diana Becton, another Black district attorney who serves in Contra Costa County in the San Francisco Bay area.

"His accusations are certainly not subtle. They're frightening," Becton said. "It's like saying, we are out of our place, that we're being uppity and we are going to be put back in our place by people who look like him."

At the National Hispanic Leadership Conference last Wednesday in Miami, Trump continued with his racist victimology, telling attendees that "No other president has been harassed and persecuted like we have." He also attempted to compare the FBI search of his redoubt at Mar-a-Lago for classified documents with the compounds of drug cartels in Mexico:

They raided Mar-a-Lago, but the cartels, they have their own Mar-a-Lagos those are fine.Leave them alone. Let them continue to destroy our country.

Think how sick it is what's happening in this country.We're a country of investigations. We don't talk about greatness anymore. Everybody gets investigated. The cartels nothing's happening to them. But they go after politicians!

Trump's fundraising and other political emails repeatedly emphasize the fictional narrative that his supporters and other "real Americans" are being victimized and are under attack by "Democrats" and their supporters, including Black Lives Matter activists and "elites" who want to destroy American heritage, values, culture and traditions. (All of which are understood as white by default.)

Trump's fundraising repeatedly emphasizes the narrative that his supporters are under attack from "elites" who want todestroy American heritage, values, culture and traditions.

Such language is not a racial dog whistle or coded appeal. These are blaring sirens. Public opinion polls and other research have consistently shown that a high percentage of white Republicans believe that white people are the real "victims" of racism in America and are somehow oppressed or otherwise discriminated against because of their skin color, religion or cultural values and beliefs. There is no evidence to support such delusional fantasies.

In reality, American society from before the founding and through to the present is based upon the creation, protection, perpetuation and expansion of white privilege and other unearned advantages for those deemed to be white by birth or otherwise identified with whiteness and white power. Yet the compulsiontoward white victimology and white grievance-mongering is so powerful in the Age of Trump that a majority of Republicans and Trump supporters now believe in some version of the antisemitic "great replacement" conspiracy theory.

In a previous essay for Salon, I wrote:

Did Republicans and Trump supporters feel shame and disgust about themselves when they learned that the terrorist who killed 10 black people in Buffalo shared their delusional beliefs about white people being "replaced" or "oppressed" in America? Of course not. If anything, the Buffalo attack appears to have reinforced their commitment to protecting white privilege and white power by any means necessary.

A new Yahoo News/YouGov poll conducted ... only days after the Buffalo killings found that 61% of Trump voters believed in the central claim of the "great replacement" theory that "a group of people in this country are trying to replace native-born Americans with immigrants and people of color who share their political views." ...

According to this poll, almost three-fourths of Trump voters and more than 60% of Republicans believed the fantastical claim that "discrimination against white people has become as big a problem as discrimination against Black people in the U.S." ...

Another new poll, this one conducted in April by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and Tulchin Research, found that while a plurality of Americans had "a positive view of the country's changing demographics," that was not true for Republicans, "a majority of whom viewed those changes not only negatively, but as a threat to white Americans."

The white supremacist mass shooting earlier this year in Buffalo represents a much larger trend in American history: White racial paranoia and feelings of white grievance and victimhood have been the fuel for massive acts of violence against Black and brown Americans. Notable examples include the end of Reconstruction and the Red Summer. Indeed, Donald Trump's coup attempt and the assault on the Capitol by his followers on Jan. 6, 2021, was a textbook white-rage attack against the very idea of multiracial democracy.

In his new book "American Midnight," historian Adam Hochschild describes these historical continuities of white supremacy and white rage:

On Memorial Day 1917, a march of some 1,000 Klansmen though the New York City borough of Queens turned into a brawl with the police. Several people wearing Klan hoods were arrested, one of them a young real estate developer named Fred Trump. Ninety years later, his sone, with similar feelings towards people of color, would enter the White House.

During Donald Trump's presidency, the forces that had blighted the America of a century earlier would be dramatically visible yet again: rage against immigrants and refugees, racism, Red-baiting, fear of subversive ideas in schools, and much more. And, of course, behind all of them is the appeal of simple solutions: deport aliens, forbid critical journalism, lock people up, blame everything on those of a different color or religion.

In his book "On the Pleasures of Owning Persons: The Hidden Face of American Slavery," anthropologist and psychiatrist Volney Gay explains how ethnic violence entrepreneurs such as Donald Trump use fear, anxiety and feelings of group victimization and aggrievement as a way to expand their power:

Because splitting is a universal form of thinking, savvy political leaders use it when necessary to advance their agenda. In this sense, many politicians are canny. They recognize their subjects' anxieties and then exploit them to increase panic, anxiety, and regression to primitive solutions. These appeals to group solidarity and to a mythic past are identical. In each instance, a dominant group fears annihilation of its way of life and its identity (or at least manufactures those anxieties in its subjects).

With the rising neofascist tide, both here and around the world, the American people are at a crossroads. They are experiencing two countervailing forces where a fascist reactionary force is pushing back with great success against centuries of positive revolutionary struggle whose aim was to create a better, more inclusive, multiracial pluralistic democracy in the United States. The American people, and white Americans in particular, now have to decide what type of nation this will be. Do we move backward into some of the worst parts of our history, or do we move forward along that long, often broken arc of progress to a better tomorrow?

Read more

Trump and the world he made

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Donald Trump has learned how to manipulate white rage that's very dangerous - Salon

Motion for Preliminary Injunction Seeks to Stop Ongoing Fraud, Prevent Trump from Moving Assets to Evade Liability, and Appoint a Monitor to Oversee Financial Disclosures

NEW YORK New York Attorney General Letitia James took action today to stop Donald Trump and the Trump Organization from continuing to engage in the significant fraudulent and illegal business activity outlined in Attorney General James September 2022 lawsuit pending trial. In a motion for a preliminary injunction filed today, Attorney General James is seeking several measures to stop Mr. Trump and the Trump Organizations ongoing fraudulent scheme and ensure funds are available to satisfy any disgorgement award, including prohibiting the Trump Organization from transferring any material assets to another entity without court approval, requiring that any new financial disclosures to banks and insurers contain all supporting and relevant material, and asking for the appointment of an independent monitor to oversee compliance with these measures. Attorney General James is also seeking the courts permission to serve Mr. Trump and Eric Trump electronically, as both defendants and their counsels have refused to accept service of the complaints for almost a month.

Our investigation uncovered the fact that Donald Trump and the Trump Organization engaged in significant fraud to inflate his personal net worth by billions of dollars to illegally enrich himself and cheat the system, said Attorney General James. Since we filed this sweeping lawsuit last month, Donald Trump and the Trump Organization have continued those same fraudulent practices and taken measures to evade responsibility. Today, we are seeking an immediate stop to these actions because Mr. Trump should not get to play by different rules.

Since Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization became aware of the Office of the Attorney General's (OAG) investigation, they have continued to use many practices they knew to be improper or fraudulent, including on Mr. Trumps 2021 Statement of Financial Condition.

Beyond the continuation of that fraud, the Trump Organization appears to be taking steps to restructure its business to evade the reaches of OAGs lawsuit. On September 21, 2022, the same day OAG filed its lawsuit, the Trump Organization registered a new entity with the New York Secretary of State: Trump Organization II LLC. That entity is a foreign corporation that was incorporated in Delaware. The Trump Organization has since refused to provide any assurance that it will not seek to move assets out of New York to evade legal accountability.

Specifically, OAG is seeking an order that would prohibit the Trump Organization from submitting a statement of financial condition or other asset disclosure for Mr. Trump to lenders and insurers, either to satisfy existing obligations or to obtain new financing and insurance, that fails to adequately disclose the assumptions and techniques used for valuing his assets, as outlined in the complaint. The order would also prohibit the Trump Organization from transferring any material asset to a non-party affiliate or otherwise disposing of a material asset without court approval.

In order to oversee these requests, the motion seeks the appointment of an independent monitor until trial that would oversee the submission of financial disclosure information to any accounting firm compiling the 2022 Statement of Financial Condition; financial disclosures to lenders and insurers required by continuing obligations or to obtain new financing and insurance; and any corporate disposition of significant assets.

In September 2022, Attorney General James filed a lawsuit against Mr. Trump, the Trump Organization, senior management, and involved entities for engaging in years of financial fraud to obtain a host of economic benefits. The lawsuit alleges that Mr. Trump, with the help of his children Donald Trump, Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Eric Trump, and other senior executives at the Trump Organization, falsely inflated his net worth by billions of dollars to induce banks to lend money to the Trump Organization on more favorable terms than would otherwise have been available to the company, to satisfy continuing loan covenants, to induce insurers to provide insurance coverage for higher limits and at lower premiums, and to gain tax benefits, among other things. From 2011 to 2021, Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization knowingly and intentionally created more than 200 false and misleading valuations of assets on his annual Statements of Financial Condition to defraud financial institutions.

This investigation and subsequent legal action have been conducted by Senior Enforcement Counsel Kevin Wallace, Special Counsel Andrew Amer, Assistant Attorney General Colleen K. Faherty, Assistant Attorney General Alex Finkelstein, Assistant Attorney General Wil Handley, Assistant Attorney General Stephanie Torre, Special Counsel to the Solicitor General Eric R. Haren, Enforcement Section Chief Louis M. Solomon and Legal Support Analyst Samantha Stern. Additional support was provided by Assistant Attorney Generals Sherief Gaber and Matthew Conrad, Data Analyst Anushua Choudhury, Senior Data Analyst Akram Hasanov, Data Scientist Chansoo Song, Deputy Director of Research and Analytics Megan Thorsfeldt, and Director of Research and Analytics Jonathan Werberg; as well as Information Technology Specialist Hewson Chen, Information Technology Specialist Paige Podolny, and Information Technology Specialist John Roach. Appellate support was provided by Deputy Solicitor General Judith Vale and Assistant Solicitor General Eric Del Pozo. The investigationand legal action are overseen by First Deputy Attorney General Jennifer Levy.

A memorandum of law andaffirmationwere filed in this matter.

Go here to see the original:

Attorney General James Takes Action to Immediately Stop Donald Trump and the Trump Organization from Continuing Financial Fraud - New York State...

Former President Donald Trump is known to brag about and sometimes inflate the number of people in the crowd at his rallies. News photos show big crowds at recent-days ralliesin Arizona and Nevada.

But two recent Facebook posts swing in the opposite direction, claiming that his supporters abandoned him at an event.

"Trump rally just got shut down after no one shows up," read one Facebook post from Oct. 8.

The post was flagged as part of Facebooks efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook.)

A video in the post reveals that the event in question was not a rally featuring Donald Trump, but one thrown by his supporters.

The video shows an Oct. 7 Daily Beast story about a "pro-Trump rally" on the Capitol grounds that day attended by "a mere 27 individuals." The event nevertheless went on, according to the story.

Looking for reports that recent rallies that Trump appeared at were shut down, we found only old news coverage.A 2016 Politico story, for example, told the story of a planned Chicago rally that was called off amid safety concerns as protesters gathered outside.

We rate the claim that Trumps rally was recently shut down False.

Follow this link:

No, Trumps rally wasnt canceled because of poor attendance - PolitiFact