Jaff's stupid shit [Archive] - Page 2 - ColtFreaks.com

JAFF

05-24-2023, 03:35 PM

https://www.salon.com/2023/05/22/shocked-at-the-stupidity-prosecutors-obtain-lawyer-notes-that-blow-up-trumps-mar-a-lago-defense/

Special counsel Jack Smith's team has obtained lawyer notes showing that former President Donald Trump was warned that he could not keep any classified documents in response to a subpoena he failed to comply with last year, according to The Guardian.

Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran, who was ordered to testify before a grand jury by a judge after prosecutors pierced his attorney-client privilege claims, conveyed the previously unreported warning to the former president last year, according to the report. The warning "could be significant" in Smith's probe because it shows that he was aware of his subpoena obligations, according to the report.

"Trump knew. He's always known," tweeted MSNBC legal analyst Katie Phang.

Related

"Very damaging": Legal experts say new Mar-a-Lago evidence could "blow up" in Trump's face at trial
Advertisement:

The warning was included in about 50 pages of contemporaneous notes written by Corcoran.

Corcoran in June found about 40 classified documents in a Mar-a-Lago storage room. He met with Justice Department investigators and later drafted a letter affirming that no other materials were at the property. But the FBI later found about 100 more classified documents while executing a court-authorized warrant in August.

Prosecutors are investigating whether Trump intentionally sought to obstruct the subpoena. They have particularly "fixated" on Trump valet Walt Nauta, who told prosecutors that Trump personally told him to move boxes out of the storage room before and after the subpoena was issued.

Corcoran's notes "revealed how Trump and Nauta had unusually detailed knowledge of the botched subpoena response, including where Corcoran intended to search and not search for classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, as well as when Corcoran was actually doing his search," according to The Guardian's Hugo Lowell.

Advertisement:

Though prosecutors are typically barred from reviewing attorney notes, Corcoran's attorney-client privilege claims were pierced after a judge agreed with prosecutors that Trump may have used Corcoran's legal services to further a crime.

Related

"Evidence could be huge": Experts stunned how fast court denied Trump bid to block lawyer testimony
The notes described how Corcoran told Nauta about the subpoena ahead of the search because he needed him to unlock the storage room, which prosecutors have taken a sign that the aide was closely involved in the search, according to the report. Corcoran also wrote that Nauta offered to help him go through the boxes, though the attorney declined.

Advertisement:

Corcoran's notes also revealed that the search took several days and there were times when the storage room may have been left unattended during the search, according to the report.

Prosecutors would need to show that Trump instructed Nauta to remove boxes he expressly knew included classified documents covered by a subpoena with the intention of hiding them from his attorney's search, the report noted.

Trump's attorneys have argued that the subpoena response is incomplete because Corcoran was not as thorough as he should have been because he delayed the search and did not realize how many boxes were in the storage room.

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

The DOJ interviewed Nauta last year and believed that he was not forthcoming about his account of moving the boxes. Prosecutors threatened to charge Nauta with lying to the FBI after he gave contradictory answers but Nauta stopped cooperating with prosecutors after his lawyer demanded an immunity deal. Prosecutors have since asked other witnesses about what Nauta did with the boxes, according to the report.

Advertisement:

"This is nothing more than a targeted, politically motivated witch-hunt against President Trump that is concocted to meddle in an election and prevent the American people from returning him to the White House," a Trump spokesperson told The Guardian.

MSNBC host Mike Brzezinski interviewed Lowell about his report, noting that "every time I read into this, I'm just shocked at the stupidity of those, honestly, of former President Trump, moving documents in and out of his office before and after the subpoena, and I guess having people do it for him."

Lowell explained that the previously unreported warning is a "problem for the former president."

"And it becomes a problem for his legal team and there's a whole bunch of other stuff in the notes about how the valet had unusually detailed knowledge about where the lawyer was conducting his searches for classified documents," he told MSNBC, "and I think the special counsel's office is looking at this as the core, the heart of the obstruction investigation."

JAFF

05-25-2023, 03:32 PM

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/25/politics/oath-keepers-sentencing-stewart-rhodes-kelly-meggs/index.html

Stewart Rhodes, the founder and leader of the Oath Keepers, was sentenced to 18 years in prison on Thursday for leading a far-reaching plot to keep then-President Donald Trump in power after he lost the 2020 election.

The sentence is the first handed down in over a decade for seditious conspiracy.

“What we absolutely cannot have is a group of citizens who – because they did not like the outcome of an election, who did not believe the law was followed as it should be – forment revolution,” District Judge Amit Mehta said before handing down the sentence. “That is what you did.”

“I dare say, Mr. Rhodes – and I never have said this to anyone I have sentenced – you pose an ongoing threat and peril to our democracy and the fabric of this country,” Mehta said.

The judge added: “I dare say we all now hold our collective breaths when an election is approaching. Will we have another January 6 again? That remains to be seen.”

Mehta said Rhodes, 58, has expressed no remorse and continues to be a threat.

“A seditious conspiracy, when you take those two concepts and put it together, is among the most serious crimes an American can commit,” the judge said. “It is an offense against the government to use force. It is an offense against the people of our country.”

Earlier on Thursday, Mehta ruled that Rhodes’ actions amounted to domestic terrorism.

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 06: Pro-Trump supporters storm the U.S. Capitol following a rally with President Donald Trump on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC. Trump supporters gathered in the nation's capital today to protest the ratification of President-elect Joe Biden's Electoral College victory over President Trump in the 2020 election. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
Capitol riot victims recount their experiences ahead of Oath Keepers seditious conspiracy sentencing
“He was the one giving the orders,” Mehta said. “He was the one organizing the teams that day. He was the reason they were in fact in Washington DC. Oath Keepers wouldn’t have been there but for Stewart Rhodes, I don’t think anyone contends otherwise. He was the one who gave the order to go, and they went.”

Rhodes was convicted of seditious conspiracy by a Washington, DC, jury in November in a historic criminal trial that was a test of the Justice Department’s ability to hold January 6 rioters accountable and validated prosecutors’ arguments that the breach of the Capitol was a grave threat to American democracy.

The seditious conspiracy charge has rarely been brought in the century and a half that the statute and its forerunners have been on the books.

US Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn, who testified earlier this week about his experience on January 6, told CNN that Donald Trump should be “next.”

“It is a step towards full accountability,” Dunn said. “His lawyers argued that Donald Trump is the root of the problem, and I totally agree. Let’s get him next.”

“I have a hard time finding joy or celebration in a sentence of 18 years,” Dunn said. “I believe that justice shouldn’t be celebrated – it should be expected.”

CNN National Security Analyst Juliette Kayyem said the sentencing should have a “chilling effect on these groups,” especially as the presidential election season begins.

“This tough sentence is going to make the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys, all these organizations, it’s going to make them more difficult for them to recruit and, as important, for them to raise money,” Kayyem said.

Prosecutors sought 25 years
Prosecutors had asked Mehta to sentence Rhodes to 25 years behind bars, and to apply the enhanced terrorism sentencing penalties.

“This is terrorism,” prosecutor Kathryn Rakoczy said Thursday.

“It is not blowing up a building directly or telling someone to blow up a building, but in light of the threat of harm and historic nature of attempting to stop the certification of an election for the first time in American history,” Rhodes and other Oath Keepers leaders should be punished more harshly, she said.

'So relieved': Ex-wife of Oath Keepers founder reacts to verdict
03:21 - Source: CNN
Rhodes, who was accused of leading dozens other individuals in a coordinated plot that culminated in the January 6 siege, was also found guilty of obstructing an official proceeding and tampering with documents.

Of those that Rhodes led, 22 have already been convicted of various federal crimes by a jury or guilty plea. Eight, including Rhodes’ codefendant Kelly Meggs who will be sentenced later Thursday as well, were convicted of seditious conspiracy.

Rhodes repeats false allegations about 2020 election
Rhodes, before he was sentenced, said he was a “political prisoner” and vowed to continue to “expose the criminality of the regime” in prison.

“I’d like to start by just saying that I’m a political prisoner, and like President Trump, my only crime is opposing those who are destroying our country,” Rhodes told Mehta in court.

For 20 minutes, Rhodes relitigated allegations that the 2020 presidential election was unconstitutional and shouted that he was “not able to drop that under my oath” during his military service and “not able to ignore the Constitution.”

The leader repeatedly defended his and his followers’ actions on January 6, saying that “no Oath Keeper took part in any of the fighting” and that the violence at the Capitol was “all done by other people.”

“I believe this country is incredibly divided, and this prosecution – not just mine but all the J6ers – is making it worse,” Rhodes said.

He continued, “I believe every J6er is a political prisoner and all of them are being grossly overcharged. It is going to make people feel like this government is even more illegitimate than they did before.”

JAFF

05-25-2023, 04:21 PM

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/supreme-court-delivers-blow-key-biden-environmental-policy-unanimous-ruling

This goes further back to Obama admin. It really screwed western states and ranchers

JAFF

05-26-2023, 08:17 AM

Lov2fish

05-26-2023, 11:06 AM

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/5-year-old-children-in-texas-are-being-given-winnie-the-pooh-books-that-teach-them-how-to-survive-a-school-shooting/ar-AA1bJ0vR?cvid=7df6f65d7d6549748199ac854d2160d3&ei=20

Normalization of school shootings

https://www.chds.us/sssc/charts-graphs/

All shootings last as long as it takes for another gun to show up. None of these fucking tragedies happened until they started with all the gun free zones, and twisted democrats. 90% of mass shootings are a result of your fucking party. Wanna stop them? Stop letting democrats own guns. Not one shooter was a member of the NRA, but they are the whipping boy for every single one. Liberalism is a fucking mental disorder.

JAFF

05-26-2023, 03:10 PM

All shootings last as long as it takes for another gun to show up.

Very true, ask the parents of Uvalde, if that works for them

Lov2fish

05-26-2023, 04:39 PM

JAFF

05-26-2023, 05:31 PM

Put a couple teachers through some training and arm them. Instead of sending money to Ukraine, get some vets and hire them to guard schools. At least until we can disarm democrats so this shit stops.

The gun arrived in Ulvalde pretty damn quick, just had a soft pussy police chief who wouldn't give the go ahead to enter. One officer was requesting approval to engage the suspect when he was still in the fucking parking lot. Why did he need permission? Cause of the soft ass left and their, "The Police Are Bad" mentality. Cops are afraid of going to jail.

Supreme Court has ruled twice that police have no legal obligation to protect you, so with the constant attack on them from the left, they don't. Again, liberalism is a fucking mental disorder.

You want vets to protect schools, and it sounds good. The problem is that schools are open canvases, easy for kids to access. So that needs to change, put a fence around it. Well, better be safe, put a double fence, and add dogs. Seriously, dogs in schools wouldnt be the worst ideas.

If you wont regulate or prevent anyone from buying a gun, the only way to keep kids safe is to turn every school into a FORT.

Or, we could not hand guns out like candy.

Racehorse

05-26-2023, 09:26 PM

Or, we could not hand guns out like candy.

This comment is dumb.

Racehorse

05-26-2023, 09:31 PM

If you wont regulate or prevent anyone from buying a gun, the only way to keep kids safe is to turn every school into a FORT.

This is also naïve. Regulating guns would be even less effective as regulating drugs. we see drug trade increasing over and over, despite regulations. opiod abuse by selling illegally has not stopped with regulation, so why would you expect it to work for guns? Abortion advocates say that outlawing them won't stop women from getting them, and they would just get them illegally, but you think that would not happen with guns? No, all it would do is make harmless gun owners into criminals, just like it would women who need an abortion for whatever reason that has been outlawed.

Political fights get me ill because of people who argue extremes, like you. Be realistic for once.

Lov2fish

05-26-2023, 10:15 PM

You want vets to protect schools, and it sounds good. The problem is that schools are open canvases, easy for kids to access. So that needs to change, put a fence around it. Well, better be safe, put a double fence, and add dogs. Seriously, dogs in schools wouldnt be the worst ideas.

If you wont regulate or prevent anyone from buying a gun, the only way to keep kids safe is to turn every school into a FORT.

Or, we could not hand guns out like candy.

Hand em out like candy? How many have you bought? I have to undergo a background check every single time, not just when they feel like it. You can't circumvent the God given rights of Americans cause of your feelz. I own in excess of 200 firearms and have no desire to hurt anyone that doesn't hurt me or my family.

The last time there was an "Assault Weapon" ban it essentially did nothing and two of the years long gun deaths went up. So the ban guns mantra is tiresome and useless. I never hear anyone say how they are going to disarm criminals.

omahacolt

05-27-2023, 11:43 AM

Put a couple teachers through some training and arm them. Instead of sending money to Ukraine, get some vets and hire them to guard schools. At least until we can disarm democrats so this shit stops.

The gun arrived in Ulvalde pretty damn quick, just had a soft pussy police chief who wouldn't give the go ahead to enter. One officer was requesting approval to engage the suspect when he was still in the fucking parking lot. Why did he need permission? Cause of the soft ass left and their, "The Police Are Bad" mentality. Cops are afraid of going to jail.

Supreme Court has ruled twice that police have no legal obligation to protect you, so with the constant attack on them from the left, they don't. Again, liberalism is a fucking mental disorder.
this kind of shit is retarded.

banning guns won't work but you want to ban every single thing you don't like.

JAFF

05-27-2023, 11:44 AM

This comment is dumb.

Yes, because that is sarcasm. So what do we do? If its not a gun problem, it has to be a people problem.

How do we allow law abiding people to have guns and withhold them from the criminal and mentally ill?

https://www.thetrace.org/2023/03/guns-america-data-atf-total/

According to the web site above, there are about 350 MILLON guns in circulation in the US. So try to take guns away from all people is impractical. So that leaves us with who should and those who should never have a gun. More red flag laws, where law enforcement must take every inquiry seriously. And most important, put more safety officers in and around school campuses, and other possible possible targets. Former police and sheriffs, military, people who can trained in school safety.

Its a people problem, and it needs to be solved by people. And of course it will take money for salary and training. Spending money on security officers is the best option I can think of if the government wont control gun sales.

Lov2fish

05-27-2023, 03:31 PM

this kind of shit is retarded.

banning guns won't work but you want to ban every single thing you don't like.

Sarcasm flies right over your head huh? Beside the fact it is true, most of the mass shooters are democrats. So even though it was sarcasm, it holds weight. Still stand on the thought liberalism is a fucking mental disorder.

I'm never for banning anything. If a civilian wants to buy an F-22 and has the money, get that m'fer. My only exception is, nobody including any government body should own nuclear weapons. We are one loose screw from being turned to ash. It is scary enough the last m'fer and the current m'fer had/have the nuclear codes.

omahacolt

05-28-2023, 08:51 AM

Sarcasm flies right over your head huh? Beside the fact it is true, most of the mass shooters are democrats. So even though it was sarcasm, it holds weight. Still stand on the thought liberalism is a fucking mental disorder.

I'm never for banning anything. If a civilian wants to buy an F-22 and has the money, get that m'fer. My only exception is, nobody including any government body should own nuclear weapons. We are one loose screw from being turned to ash. It is scary enough the last m'fer and the current m'fer had/have the nuclear codes.

i find this very hard to believe.

you aren't for banning anything but the people you support and worship certainly do. which makes you in full support as well

Colts And Orioles

05-28-2023, 11:30 AM

I find this very hard to believe.

o

It's irrelevant, and inconsequential ...... most mass shooters are psychotic, young males with a chip on their shoulder bigger than Mount Everest, and mental health issues so massive that Sigmund Freud would have a hard time coming to terms with them ...... the Republican/Democrat and the Liberal/Conservative angles are hardly something in which these sociopaths have dedicated any significant amount time, energy, or thought to in their lives. The vast majority of them hardly represent either side of what we think of as the American political spectrum.

o

JAFF

05-28-2023, 03:54 PM

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/28/business/state-farm-california-insurance-wildfire/index.html

A lot of expensive homes in SoCal hills.

JAFF

05-28-2023, 05:44 PM

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/proof-that-trump-shared-mar-a-lago-docs-changes-the-game-for-jack-smith-indictment-guardian-reporter/ar-AA1bNFbL?cvid=b61bc2229c6c445499d7d261c872d71a&ei=23

Racehorse

05-28-2023, 08:41 PM

The other option is to make the rates very high on the premium, which would make most end up self-insured anyway.

JAFF

05-29-2023, 09:03 AM

The other option is to make the rates very high on the premium, which would make most end up self-insured anyway.

If I had a house in the hills, I would be putting a metal roof on it.

I would bet any one the same thing is going to happen in the Colorado prairies north and south of Denver. High winds and long dry summers make for a bad situation on the front range.

JAFF

05-29-2023, 09:33 AM

Lov2fish

05-29-2023, 10:04 AM

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/biden-and-mccarthy-have-a-debt-ceiling-deal-heres-whats-in-it-123629857.html

The best deals are the ones where both sides feel like they got screwed. Sounds so dumb, but its true. If one group gets the short end, they will do just about anything to pay back the winners next time around.

Only people who got screwed was us. They should have never raised the debt ceiling and let the shit default. Contrary to what that fucking dufus thinks he can not raise the debt ceiling constitutionally as he insinuated so many times. It fucking wears me out they all swore an oath to uphold that document with zero idea what it means. It was even written where a fifth grader could understand it as that was the average educational capabilities of the people at the time of penning it. That speaks volumes for the fucking tards who inhabit DC

Lov2fish

05-29-2023, 11:01 AM

i find this very hard to believe.

you aren't for banning anything but the people you support and worship certainly do. which makes you in full support as well

Who the fuck do I support and worship, moron? You know nothing about me, but have zero problem assuming.

JAFF

05-29-2023, 01:43 PM

Only people who got screwed was us. They should have never raised the debt ceiling and let the shit default.

You should stop paying your bills. See how that works.

No money to pay the military, their salaries. No mail, no Amtrak, no airline travel, ( air controllers fed employees), no fed guarantee of your money incase of a bank run which there will be, and wall street losing its collective shit. Social Security, Medicare wont be mailing out checks or paying bills.

Trump wants the default, which should tell you what a horrible idea it is

Lov2fish

05-29-2023, 05:25 PM

You should stop paying your bills. See how that works.

No money to pay the military, their salaries. No mail, no Amtrak, no airline travel, ( air controllers fed employees), no fed guarantee of your money incase of a bank run which there will be, and wall street losing its collective shit. Social Security, Medicare wont be mailing out checks or paying bills.

Trump wants the default, which should tell you what a horrible idea it is

You have absolutely no idea how government spending works. I don't spend more than I make either, cause I am not that fucking retarded. Can't say the same for 535 math illiterate dumbasses we employ.

JAFF

05-29-2023, 06:24 PM

You have absolutely no idea how government spending works. I don't spend more than I make either, cause I am not that fucking retarded. Can't say the same for 535 math illiterate dumbasses we employ.

Nice to know. The problem is that we are not talking about new money. The bills that need to be paid are from spending bills passed by BOTH parties in previous sessions. If the treasury runs out of money, they cant pay who we the people owe.

And the rules do not allow for the government to pick and choice. A bill comes due, they pay it. All those eligible for social security get it on the second wednesday, unless the govt. runs out of cash.

You want a second great depression, let the nation default

JAFF

05-30-2023, 07:49 AM

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/29/us/hollywood-florida-shooting-monday/index.html

What we need is a portable metal detector. Built like the old phone booths, on wheels, with a bit more room. Take it to the park, to an event center, the beach, or local park.

You want to enter the party, you must be examined before enter the party area. You go in and the door shuts, and scan the subject. If it detects metal keep it locked shut until the LEOs arrive. It should Have a breathalyzer, for the idiot who shows up to the party drunk.

JAFF

05-31-2023, 07:13 AM

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/31/us/teachers-guns-school-safety/index.html

Lov2fish

05-31-2023, 09:33 AM

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/31/us/teachers-guns-school-safety/index.html

1 in 5 would carry. If you have 3 armed teachers per school and a trained resource officer at each school these school shootings would stop. Any place a gun free zone exist is a hunting ground for sick individuals. They know it is full of soft targets with zero to little resistance for a decent amount of time. I personally could care less about those signs. If there is a gun free zone, it no longer is when I arrive.

JAFF

05-31-2023, 02:14 PM

1 in 5 would carry. If you have 3 armed teachers per school and a trained resource officer at each school these school shootings would stop. Any place a gun free zone exist is a hunting ground for sick individuals. They know it is full of soft targets with zero to little resistance for a decent amount of time. I personally could care less about those signs. If there is a gun free zone, it no longer is when I arrive.

Educators carrying guns. Questions I have.

1. Will the school corp provide me with a gun, or will I be expected to by my own gun and ammo?

If you know anything about education and teachers, a school board will by pop guns and spit wads.

2. What gun will I be using?

If its a pistol, I am going to complain. School shooters are bringing AR 15’s. What the fuck am I going to do with a pistol. Give me a shot gun, I will have a chance of hitting something.

3. Will I receive training and instruction, or am I on my own?

Again, if you know anything about school boards, you will be on your own.

4. Liability insurance to cover my use of a gun in a school?

No shit, what happens if I shoot and miss and injure or kill a student/employee of the school? The fantasy here is that the typical educator can turn into Captain America by giving them a gun.

5. Where do I store my pistol/machine gun/ shot gun in the class room?

Am I wearing it on my hip, or is it stored in a box with a glass front to break in case of crazy shooter. Am I carrying it during passing periods, or I keep it stored until I hear gun fire?

Educators need to educate. If the public wants fire arms in schools, they need to hire experts who are trained to do what is necessary to protect our children.

The real problem is that gun violence wont stop by hardening the security around schools. It will just look for another easy target. Parks, zoo, museums, amusement parks, theaters, resturants, ……………..

Lov2fish

05-31-2023, 03:57 PM

1. Will the school corp provide me with a gun, or will I be expected to by my own gun and ammo? For what we pay in taxes I would expect a very nice reliable firearm and ammo

If you know anything about education and teachers, a school board will by pop guns and spit wads.

2. What gun will I be using? Hopefully something with serious stopping power. A 40 cal or 45 ACP

If its a pistol, I am going to complain. School shooters are bringing AR 15’s. What the fuck am I going to do with a pistol. Give me a shot gun, I will have a chance of hitting something. This is a fallacy. In closed quarters a pistol is your best defense, again see caliber above.

3. Will I receive training and instruction, or am I on my own? They better be providing training. I know Indiana currently will train teachers in districts where it is approved to be armed. It is approved at a state level but each district is its own little dictatorship.

Again, if you know anything about school boards, you will be on your own.

4. Liability insurance to cover my use of a gun in a school? Versus liability for lawsuits?

No shit, what happens if I shoot and miss and injure or kill a student/employee of the school? The fantasy here is that the typical educator can turn into Captain America by giving them a gun. It is not a fantasy. It is a reality that an armed teacher trained is better than a 15 minute wait until police arrive.

5. Where do I store my pistol/machine gun/ shot gun in the class room? A locked drawer with a key only you have. Nobody will know which teachers are armed. Its not like you have to hang a fucking sign. A sign is how some of this shit happen.

Am I wearing it on my hip, or is it stored in a box with a glass front to break in case of crazy shooter. Am I carrying it during passing periods, or I keep it stored until I hear gun fire? Read above, redundant question.

Educators need to educate. If the public wants fire arms in schools, they need to hire experts who are trained to do what is necessary to protect our children.

The real problem is that gun violence wont stop by hardening the security around schools. It will just look for another easy target. Parks, zoo, museums, amusement parks, theaters, resturants, …………….. Where they all have fucking gun free zones and the only ones who comply are law abiding citizens. Look at mass shootings as a whole from when they started until now. Damn near as many firearms in circulation as now, yet you didn't hear about this shit. It started gaining traction after Reagan gutted the mental health programs. Start there, not with the hundred million gun owners who go about their business every day and not harming a soul.

Making me defenseless is not going to make you safer. The decision to kill was made long before the weapon was ever chosen. Once decision was made no gun control laws have prevented one mass shooting, having gun free zones have contributed to it though.

JAFF

05-31-2023, 06:48 PM

Trump captured on tape talking about classified document he kept after leaving the White House

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/31/politics/trump-tape-classified-document-iran-milley/index.html

Federal prosecutors have obtained an audio recording of a summer 2021 meeting in which former President Donald Trump acknowledges he held onto a classified Pentagon document about a potential attack on Iran, multiple sources told CNN, undercutting his argument that he declassified everything.

The recording indicates Trump understood he retained classified material after leaving the White House, according to multiple sources familiar with the investigation. On the recording, Trump’s comments suggest he would like to share the information but he’s aware of limitations on his ability post-presidency to declassify records, two of the sources said.

20221115 trump web card image updated november 15
Notable legal clouds that continue to hang over Donald Trump in 2023
CNN has not listened to the recording, but multiple sources described it. One source said the relevant portion on the Iran document is about two minutes long, and another source said the discussion is a small part of a much longer meeting.

ADVERTISING

Special counsel Jack Smith, who is leading the Justice Department investigation into Trump, has focused on the meeting as part of the criminal investigation into Trump’s handling of national security secrets. Sources describe the recording as an “important” piece of evidence in a possible case against Trump, who has repeatedly asserted he could retain presidential records and “automatically” declassify documents.

Prosecutors have asked witnesses about the recording and the document before a federal grand jury. The episode has generated enough interest for investigators to have questioned Gen. Mark Milley, one of the highest-ranking Trump-era national security officials, about the incident.

The July 2021 meeting was held at Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, with two people working on the autobiography of Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows as well as aides employed by the former president, including communications specialist Margo Martin. The attendees, sources said, did not have security clearances that would allow them access to classified information. Meadows didn’t attend the meeting, sources said.

Meadows’ autobiography includes an account of what appears to be the same meeting, during which Trump “recalls a four-page report typed up by (Trump’s former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) Mark Milley himself. It contained the general’s own plan to attack Iran, deploying massive numbers of troops, something he urged President Trump to do more than once during his presidency.”

The document Trump references was not produced by Milley, CNN was told.

Investigators have questioned Milley about the episode in recent months, making him one of the highest-ranking national security officials from Trump’s administration to meet with the special counsel’s team. Milley’s spokesman Dave Butler declined to comment to CNN.

WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 30: White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows listens as U.S. President Donald Trump meets with New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy in the Oval Office of the White House April 30, 2020 in Washington, DC. New Jersey, like many states, is seeking assistance from the federal government for the health and economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Out of the spotlight, Mark Meadows wields quiet political power amid Trump legal woes
The revelation that the former president and commander-in-chief has been captured on tape discussing a classified document could raise his legal exposure as he continues his third bid for the White House. Trump has denied any wrongdoing.

A Trump campaign spokesman said “leaks” are meant to “inflame tensions” around Trump.

“The DOJ’s continued interference in the presidential election is shameful and this meritless investigation should cease wasting the American taxpayer’s money on Democrat political objectives,” the spokesman added.

When asked at a CNN town hall this month if he showed classified documents he kept after the presidency to anyone, Trump answered: “Not really. I would have the right to. By the way, they were declassified after.”

A lawyer for Meadows declined to comment. A lawyer for Martin declined to comment.

Smith’s investigation has shown signs of nearing its end, though it hasn’t yet resulted in any criminal charges. A spokesman for the special counsel’s office declined to comment for this story.

In this February 2020 photo, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley chats with President Donald Trump after he delivered the State of the Union address at the Capitol in Washington, DC.
In this February 2020 photo, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley chats with President Donald Trump after he delivered the State of the Union address at the Capitol in Washington, DC.
Olivier Douliery/AFP/Getty Images/File
Trump was outraged at New Yorker story on Milley and Iran
The recording that’s now in the hands of prosecutors shows they are not only looking at Trump’s actions regarding classified documents recovered from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, but also at what happened at Bedminster a year earlier.

The meeting in which Trump discussed the Iran document with others happened shortly after The New Yorker published a story by Susan Glasser detailing how, in the final days of Trump’s presidency, Milley instructed the Joint Chiefs to ensure Trump issued no illegal orders and that he be informed if there was any concern. The story infuriated Trump.

WASHINGTON, DC - DECEMBER 31: U.S. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump walk on the South Lawn while returning to the White House on December 31, 2020 in Washington, DC. President Trump and the First Lady returned to Washington, DC early and will not be in attendance at the annual New Years Eve party at his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
'You're blowing this': New book reveals Melania Trump criticized her husband's handling of Covid
Glasser reported that in the months following the election, Milley repeatedly argued against striking Iran and was concerned Trump “might set in motion a full-scale conflict that was not justified.” Milley and others talked Trump out of taking such a drastic action, according to the New Yorker story.

On the recording and in response to the story, Trump brings up the document, which he says came from Milley. Trump told those in the room that if he could show it to people, it would undermine what Milley was saying, the sources said. One source says Trump refers to the document as if it is in front of him.

Several sources say the recording captures the sound of paper rustling, as if Trump was waving the document around, though is not clear if it was the actual Iran document. There’s also laughter in the room that’s captured on the recording.

The US military has contingency plans and courses of action that apply to countries and situations around the globe.

Honig: Trump prosecutors have put themselves "into a calendar corner'
07:16 - Source: CNN
The meeting took place well before Trump’s team shipped 15 boxes of presidential records and classified documents back to the National Archives and Records Administration in January 2022 after months of back-and-forth between his team and the records agency.

The Justice Department later obtained additional documents with classified markings from Trump, seizing more than 100 during a search of Mar-a-Lago last August. Trump’s legal team hired people to search other Trump properties, including Bedminster, late last year.

Investigators from the special counsel’s office also have asked in their document handling and obstruction investigation about other scenarios in which Trump may have shown national security documents, such as maps, to others, sources say. They’ve also asked several witnesses to share details about Trump’s anger toward Milley.

During the summer of 2021, sources say multiple people were making recordings of Trump as he held conversations with journalists and biographers.

Trump’s different explanations on the declassified documents
Trump and his attorneys have given several different, often conflicting, explanations for why Trump didn’t intentionally retain classified materials in violation of federal law. 

Initially, Trump allies argued he had a “standing declassification order” so that documents removed from the Oval Office were immediately declassified.  A few weeks later, Trump told Fox News that he could declassify things “just by thinking about it.”

Earlier this year, Trump’s legal team told Congress that classified material was inadvertently packed up at the end of the administration. Most recently, Trump told CNN at a town hall that materials were “automatically declassified” when he took them.

However, there’s no indication Trump followed the legally mandated declassification process, and his attorneys have avoided saying so far in court whether Trump declassified records he kept.

JAFF

06-01-2023, 07:27 AM

The right is going after Chik F A?

One of the best companies in terms of employer/employer relations.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2023/05/31/the-new-anti-woke-crusade-targets-dei-and-chick-fil-a/?sh=413f2ef57d1f

The New 'Anti-Woke' Crusade Targets DEI—And Chick-Fil-A?
Conor Murray
Forbes Staff
I'm an explainers and trends reporter for Forbes.
Follow
May 31, 2023,04:24pm EDT
TOPLINE As companies and colleges face a sudden surge in online and legislative attacks against diversity, equity and inclusion programs—the latest in an anti-”woke” political movement on the right—online critics are zeroing in on targets including, somewhat bizarrely, Christian-affiliated restaurant chain Chick-fil-A.
Chick-fil-A Ranks As America's Favorite Restaurant According To One Industry Survey
Critics are accusing Chick-fil-A of going "woke" because of its DEI commitment. (Photo by Brandon ... [+]GETTY IMAGES
KEY FACTS

Many companies and universities have made commitments to a diverse and inclusive workplace, especially since the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements of the last decade, with every Fortune 100 company voicing a commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion and an estimated 83% of companies working to implement DEI programs, according to a WorldatWork survey of 656 companies.
DEI programs have faced backlash from right-wing critics, who have moved to boycott companies who make commitments to diversity—most recently Chick-fil-A, which became the target of right-wing backlash on Tuesday when its years-old announcement of its commitment to DEI and its hiring of a vice president of DEI resurfaced on Twitter.
PROMOTED

Though the backlash is new, Erick McReynolds has served as vice president for DEI since November 2021, and was previously executive director of DEI since June 2020, according to his LinkedIn.
Chick-fil-A’s critics were further outraged by a resurfaced three-year-old video of chairman and former CEO Dan Cathy shining a Black man’s shoes onstage in an Atlanta church during a discussion about racism, a gesture meant as a means to “put words to action” in repenting for racism, that was criticized as “bizarre” at the time.

KEY BACKGROUND

On Monday, both chambers of the Texas state legislature passed a ban on DEI programs at publicly funded universities, two weeks after Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) signed a bill into law defunding DEI programs at Florida public colleges and limiting how race can be discussed in classes. At least 20 states have introduced various bills targeting collegiate DEI programs, diversity in hiring and identity-based preferences for admission, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, though some of these bills have failed.

Forbes Daily: Get our best stories, exclusive reporting and essential analysis of the day’s news in your inbox every weekday.

Sign Up
You may opt out any time. By signing up for this newsletter, you agree to the Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy
CHIEF CRITICS

Conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, criticized Chick-fil-A’s DEI commitment on Twitter to his 2.2 million followers. He accused DEI initiatives of being “anti-white, anti-American, and anti-Christian,” as well as a “Marxist Trojan Horse with a sweet sounding name.” Conservative Blaze TV host Lauren Chen tweeted to her 500,000 followers there is “no legitimate, non-woke reason for any company to have a ‘DEI’ department or program” because “individuals will be rewarded or penalized on the basis of race, gender, or sexuality.” DeSantis, a high-profile DEI critic, has previously suggested the acronym instead stands for “discrimination, exclusion and indoctrination.”

CONTRA

McReynolds stated Chick-fil-A’s mission of “ensuring mutual respect, understanding and dignity everywhere we do business” on the company’s DEI webpage. The Chick-fil-A DEI statement commits to promoting equal opportunity for employees and cites its work with universities and organizations like the Women’s Foodservice Forum, National Black MBA Association and Association of Latino Professionals of America to hire talent. Democratic politicians have also defended DEI from right-wing attacks, including Ohio State Rep. Casey Weinstein (D-Hudson), who tweeted: “Good for @ChickfilA!” Texas Democrats, including State Rep. Barbara Gervin-Hawkins (D-San Antonio), defended diversity as “not a threat but a strength” after the Texas House passed a bill banning DEI programs in public universities.

TANGENT

Right-wing outrage against DEI programs follows increasing attacks on companies deemed to be “woke” for their marketing campaigns that include LGBTQ people or their Pride Month product lines. Bud Light faced a boycott and criticism from conservative pundits after it sent transgender TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney a custom can with her image on it in early April. Since then, a long line of companies have faced online backlash, including Target and Kohl’s for their Pride Month products, as well as The North Face and Jack Daniels for marketing campaigns featuring drag queens. Some of these marketing campaigns are old but have been dug up and recirculated on social media by angered conservatives, including a months-old Miller Lite marketing campaign that originally aired in March for Women’s History Month but went viral on Twitter more than two months later. Attacks on DEI in education also follow several states’ efforts to ban “critical race theory” in schools and books in schools and libraries.

SURPRISING FACT

The conservative backlash to Chick-fil-A’s DEI commitment is a stark contrast to its history of tension with the LGBTQ community, which has prompted some LGBTQ supporters to boycott the company and conservatives to readily embrace it. Chick-fil-A vocally abides by Christian values, stating its corporate purpose is to “glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us.” The company famously closes its restaurants on Sundays according to the wishes of its founder, Truett Cathy, who wanted employees to rest and worship if they choose. Chick-fil-A has long faced criticism from the left wing because of Dan Cathy’s statements opposing same-sex marriage in 2012, and the company’s charitable foundation’s history of donating money to anti-LGBTQ groups. Some conservatives have supported the company because of Cathy’s religious beliefs and anti-gay marriage stance: in 2012, former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-Ark.) declared August 1 to be “Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day,” and praised Cathy on Facebook for “his view that the Biblical view of marriage should be upheld.”

FURTHER READING

Kohl’s Becomes Latest Target Of LGBTQ Culture Wars: Here Are All The Others—From Bud Light To Target (Forbes)

Molson Coors Slaps Anti-‘Woke’ Critics—Like Joe Rogan And Ben Shapiro—And Defends Miller Lite Women’s History Ad (Forbes)

JAFF

06-01-2023, 02:52 PM

JAFF

06-01-2023, 03:57 PM

Disney nixes $1 billion Florida development, latest casualty in DeSantis' 'war on woke'

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2023/05/18/disney-pulls-florida-development-desantis-lake-nona/70233556007/

Never fuck with someone who buys printers ink by the barrel

JAFF

06-01-2023, 07:08 PM

https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/01/us/arizona-phoenix-groundwater-limits-development-climate/index.html

How humans have changed the enviroment

Lov2fish

06-01-2023, 07:38 PM

JAFF

06-01-2023, 08:11 PM

Idiots from both sides are always trying to cancel out shit instead of minding their own business and staying in their lane. Glad I grow my own food and hunt the meat. Can't protest Ma'Nature, she is always correct

Which has nothing to do with the article.

Chic-F-A is one of the most successful fast food restaurants, who conquered Covid and showed the world how to run a business. The focus on the teachings of Jesus, treat all employees with respect and do not judge them for their private lives. It gets cold in Indy in the winter, so local chic-f-las put their crew in winter clothes and put heaters outside so the crew members had some cover from the weather.

They stand by the teachings of Jesus, love thy neighbor. The customers and their crew. If that is woke, then Im for it.

Racehorse

06-02-2023, 09:37 AM

Just because of one tweet (or twit), you think the whole lot is against a company? SMH

JAFF

06-02-2023, 11:00 AM

Just because of one tweet (or twit), you think the whole lot is against a company? SMH

Not the point. They take equity and equality for their employees seriously, and are an example how a business should be run. But for some reason the far right hates them

Heres the quote

Conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, criticized Chick-fil-A’s DEI commitment on Twitter to his 2.2 million followers. He accused DEI initiatives of being “anti-white, anti-American, and anti-Christian,” as well as a “Marxist Trojan Horse with a sweet sounding name.” Conservative Blaze TV host Lauren Chen tweeted to her 500,000 followers there is “no legitimate, non-woke reason for any company to have a ‘DEI’ department or program” because “individuals will be rewarded or penalized on the basis of race, gender, or sexuality.” DeSantis, a high-profile DEI critic, has previously suggested the acronym instead stands for “discrimination, exclusion and indoctrination.”

That is the politics of hate. They are attacking chik-f-a because the wont join their politics that divide a community. The far right wants to separate the races, put women back in the kitchen and use religion to scare people rather than bring them together.

Having a DEI office is a means to monitor how an organization is managing its hiring and employe retention. What is the make up of management, who are attracting for jobs and rate of turnover by store, by region, in the country.

Racehorse

06-02-2023, 11:22 AM

Not the point. They take equity and equality for their employees seriously, and are an example how a business should be run. But for some reason the far right hates them

Heres the quote

Again, you are quoting one guy in the media and one politician. My point stands. You are taking what two people are saying and making it equate to an entire group. There is a word for that, but somehow you only apply it to conservatives.

That is the politics of hate. They are attacking chik-f-a because the wont join their politics that divide a community. The far right wants to separate the races, put women back in the kitchen and use religion to scare people rather than bring them together.
HAHAHAHA. nNo. You try to make one side seem like morons, but defend the morons on your side. When will you grow up and see there are morons everywhere, including on your vote on your ballot.
Having a DEI office is a means to monitor how an organization is managing its hiring and employe retention. What is the make up of management, who are attracting for jobs and rate of turnover by store, by region, in the country.I have no issue with any such office. I guess you think everyone on one side of the aisle agrees with everyone else on that side. Seems mire like your side to me. The right is a fractured group, because many issues important to one segment is irrelevant to another, which is why we ended up with Trump.

Lov2fish

06-02-2023, 12:02 PM

Which has nothing to do with the article.

Chic-F-A is one of the most successful fast food restaurants, who conquered Covid and showed the world how to run a business. The focus on the teachings of Jesus, treat all employees with respect and do not judge them for their private lives. It gets cold in Indy in the winter, so local chic-f-las put their crew in winter clothes and put heaters outside so the crew members had some cover from the weather.

They stand by the teachings of Jesus, love thy neighbor. The customers and their crew. If that is woke, then Im for it.

My point being, I don't care about fast food joints, who is protesting them and who isn't. My definition of fast food is, is a 3 year old deer faster than a 4 year old deer, or how fast is that rabbit running when leading him.

Fuck em all, and fuck those who care about it.

Colts And Orioles

06-03-2023, 04:46 PM

o

The general theme of this thread reminds me of this song, by the late Joe South. ......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDeVonv3kY0

o

JAFF

06-03-2023, 07:10 PM

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jun/03/utah-school-district-book-of-morman-ban

Utah school district that banned Bible considers removing Book of Mormon

Racehorse

06-04-2023, 08:18 AM

o

The general theme of this thread reminds me of this song, by the late Joe South. ......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDeVonv3kY0

o

I had forgotten that song.

Colts And Orioles

06-06-2023, 07:51 PM

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/31/us/teachers-guns-school-safety/index.html

o

Maybe they ought to just let the students themselves carry guns ...... then, we'd REALLY see a "survival of the fittest" atmosphere come to fruition.

o

JAFF

06-07-2023, 08:07 PM

Mark Meadows testified to federal grand jury in special counsel probe of Trump

https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/06/politics/mark-meadows-grand-jury-trump-probe/index.html

—
Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s former chief of staff, has testified to a federal grand jury as part of special counsel Jack Smith’s ongoing investigation into the former president, according to one source familiar with the matter.

Meadows was asked about the former president’s handling of classified documents as well as efforts to overturn the 2020 election, another source familiar with the matter said.

George Terwilliger, a lawyer representing Meadows, said in a statement that “Without commenting on whether or not Mr. Meadows has testified before the grand jury or in any other proceeding, Mr. Meadows has maintained a commitment to tell the truth where he has a legal obligation to do so.”

A spokesperson for the special counsel’s office declined to comment.

The New York Times first reported on Meadow’s appearance before the grand jury.

ADVERTISING

Meadows is viewed as a critical witness to Smith’s investigation. He was ordered to testify before the grand jury and to provide documents after a judge rejected Trump’s claims of executive privilege.

His testimony could provide investigators key insight into the former president’s actions and mental state following the election he lost to Joe Biden as well as into Trump’s actions after he left office in January 2021.

CNN previously reported that Meadows, under subpoena, turned over some materials to the Justice Department as part of their investigation.

Multiple sources told CNN last week that Smith has focused on a meeting related to Meadows as part of his criminal investigation into Trump’s handling of documents. Two people working on the former chief of staff’s autobiography attended a meeting in Bedminster, New Jersey, in July 2021 where Trump acknowledged he held onto a classified Pentagon document about a potential attack on Iran, the sources said. The meeting was recorded, but it is unknown from where the Justice Department first obtained the recording. Meadows didn’t attend the meeting.

A source close to Trump’s legal team told CNN earlier in May that Trump’s lawyers had had no contact with Meadows and his team and were in the dark on what Meadows is doing in the investigation. Meadows’ silence has irked lawyers representing other defendants aligned with Trump who have been more open, several sources familiar with the Trump-aligned legal teams said at the time. In particular, they pointed to a $900,000 payment Trump’s Save America political action committee paid to the firm representing Meadows, McGuireWoods, at the end of last year.

Meadows’ testimony and records were hotly pursued in multiple investigations around January 6 and the 2020 election, although he had stopped short of providing answers to the House select committee and a criminal investigation in Fulton County, Georgia.

A juror on the Atlanta-based grand jury shared earlier this year that Meadows had testified but declined to answer questions, saying Meadows cited his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination as well as other privileges.

That may indicate Meadows required from federal prosecutors in Smith’s investigation an assurance he wouldn’t be charged with a crime if they sought his substantial testimony.

While Meadows refused to testify in front of the January 6 House select committee, the Justice Department declined to charge him with a crime on those grounds.

The panel said that Meadows appeared to be one of several participants in a criminal conspiracy as part of Trump’s attempt to delay and overturn the results of the 2020 election. Its final report paints Meadows as an integral part of that effort, as documented by the more than 2,000 text messages Meadows turned over to the committee before he stopped cooperating.

The government has been presenting evidence in both probes for months to grand juries in Washington, DC. Prosecutors are also using a grand jury based in Miami in the classified documents probe, bringing in multiple witnesses in recent weeks.

CNN previously reported that Secret Service agents assigned to protect the former president have been called to testify in the classified documents probe. Another source familiar with the matter tells CNN that every member of his detail – more than 20 agents – have testified.

JAFF

06-07-2023, 08:10 PM

Meadows burned papers after meeting with Scott Perry, Jan. 6 panel told

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/26/meadows-burned-papers-meeting-scott-perry-00035411#:~:text=Then%2DWhite%20House%20chief%20of %20staff%20Mark%20Meadows%20burned%20papers,one%20 of%20his%20former%20aides.

The unusual move came after a meeting between then-President Donald Trump’s then-chief of staff and the Pennsylvania Republican, according to recent testimony.
Then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows talks to reporters at the White House.
Then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows talks to reporters at the White House on October 21, 2020. | Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

By BETSY WOODRUFF SWAN and KYLE CHENEY
05/26/2022 02:08 PM EDT
Updated: 05/26/2022 09:02 PM EDT
Then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows burned papers in his office after meeting with a House Republican who was working to challenge the 2020 election, according to testimony the Jan. 6 select committee has heard from one of his former aides.

Cassidy Hutchinson, who worked under Meadows when he was former President Donald Trump’s chief of staff, told the panel investigating the Capitol attack that she saw Meadows incinerate documents after a meeting in his office with Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.). A person familiar with the testimony described it on condition of anonymity.

The Meadows-Perry meeting came in the weeks after Election Day 2020, as Trump and his allies searched for ways to reverse the election results.

It’s unclear whether Hutchinson told the committee which specific papers were burnt, and if federal records laws required the materials’ preservation. Meadows’ destruction of papers is a key focus for the select committee, and the person familiar with the testimony said investigators pressed Hutchinson for details about the issue for more than 90 minutes during a recent deposition.

POLITICO could not independently confirm that Meadows burned papers after a meeting with Perry.

A lawyer for Meadows declined to comment, as did a spokesperson for the Jan. 6 committee. A lawyer for Hutchinson did not respond to requests for comment, and neither did a spokesperson for Perry.

Before the 2020 election, Perry — who represents the Harrisburg, Pa. region — had a relatively low national profile. But testimony and documents obtained by congressional investigators show he was the first person to connect Trump with Jeffrey Clark, a top Justice Department official who sympathized with the then-president’s efforts to overturn his loss to Joe Biden.

Senior Trump DOJ officials have testified that the former president came close to appointing Clark as acting attorney general in order to use the department’s extraordinary powers to sow doubt about the election results and urge state legislatures to consider overriding Biden’s victory.

Perry, now chair of the pro-Trump House Freedom Caucus, spent weeks pressing Meadows to implement the plan.

“Mark, just checking in as time continues to count down,” Perry texted Meadows on Dec. 26, 2020, according to messages released by the select panel. “11 days to 1/6 and 25 days to inauguration. We gotta get going!”

But the effort didn’t come to fruition. Instead, in an Oval Office meeting, the rest of DOJ leadership threatened to quit if Trump made Clark attorney general.

The select committee has also revealed that Meadows and Perry took steps to conceal some of their communications after the election. For example, in a Dec. 2020 text message exchange the committee included in an April court filing, Perry told Meadows he had “just sent you something on Signal,” referring to the encrypted messaging app popular with journalists and government officials.

An investigation by Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee last year delved further into Perry’s involvement in the attempt to overturn the election and urged the Jan. 6 select panel to look into the Pennsylvanian further.

Earlier this month, the select panel also subpoenaed Perry and four other Republican lawmakers. Perry’s compliance deadline is today, and he hasn’t signaled whether or not he will cooperate. The select committee also subpoenaed Clark and later voted in favor of holding him in contempt of Congress, although the full House has not taken any such vote.

Since his involvement with the former president’s efforts, Perry has gained political clout. In November, he was elected head of the Freedom Caucus, which wields significant influence in the House Republican conference.

The New York Times first reported that the committee heard testimony indicating Meadows burned White House papers. The Trump White House’s unorthodox approach to document management has drawn significant media scrutiny in recent weeks — and has also caught the attention of DOJ.

During his presidency, Trump was known to tear up papers and throw them in the trash. Aides would scurry to reassemble those papers for archiving, as federal record-keeping laws require.

After leaving the White House, Trump had 15 boxes of documents shipped to Mar-a-Lago. Some of those boxes were marked as classified, according to The Washington Post, and the Justice Department is now investigating the matter. Mishandling classified material is illegal.

JAFF

06-08-2023, 08:10 PM

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/08/trump-says-hes-been-indicted-in-classified-documents-probe-00101165

Former President Donald Trump said Thursday that he has been indicted on charges connected to his handling of classified national security records, writing on social media that he has been summoned to federal court on Tuesday in Miami.

The precise charges that federal prosecutors have obtained against Trump were not immediately clear, but Trump said his attorneys were informed by the Justice Department on Thursday that a grand jury indictment had been obtained.

Prosecutors are charging the former president with seven criminal counts, according to a person familiar with the indictment.

The documents investigation has been overseen by special counsel Jack Smith and appeared to be nearing the charging phase in recent days. Smith’s team recently sent Trump a target letter and Trump’s lawyers met with senior Justice Department officials in Washington in what now appears to have been an unsuccessful bid to head off criminal charges against the former president.

A Justice Department spokesperson referred questions about Trump’s assertions about an indictment to a Smith spokesperson, who declined to comment Thursday evening.

It’s a moment as fraught as it is historic: the first-ever federal charges against a former president, who also happens to be the Republican Party’s frontrunner for the 2024 nomination. The charges ignite what is sure to be a protracted and intense period of pretrial litigation that will overlap with the GOP nominating contest and galvanize Republican voters who have so far been unfazed by Trump’s legal entanglements.

Trump, who is already facing state felony charges in Manhattan related to alleged hush money payments to a porn star, has now been tagged with his second set of criminal charges, with more potentially looming. An Atlanta-based district attorney is gearing up to make a charging decision in a long-running probe of Trump’s bid to subvert the 2020 election as soon as next month. And Smith is similarly investigating Trump for his effort to derail the transfer of power to Joe Biden.

Trump has spent months railing against Smith and other investigators, seeking to cast their probes as a politically motivated conspiracy against him — and he spent the days preceding the latest indictment attacking the Justice Department by making false comparisons to Joe Biden’s own handling of classified information.

The documents probe has its origins in a dispute between Trump and the National Archives, which began shortly after Trump left office in January 2021. Archives officials, who realized Trump had retained some presidential papers, began asking him to return the records because they were property of the federal government.

But Trump resisted, triggering a lengthy round of negotiation that stretched to January 2022, when he agreed to return 15 boxes of material to the Archives. That’s when Archives officials discovered several documents that were marked classified and alerted the Justice Department.

By April 2022, DOJ issued a subpoena to Trump’s office for all remaining classified documents at his Mar-a-LAgo estate. They also subpoenaed for surveillance footage from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, which his company, the Trump Organization, monitored remotely. In early June 2022, top DOJ officials visited Mar-a-Lago to meet with Trump’s lawyers Evan Corcoran and Christina Bobb, who handed over another sealed folder containing classified records. Accompanying the folder was a signed letter assuring DOJ that the folder represented all of the remaining classified material at Trump’s property.

But that turned out to be false. In August, based on evidence that Trump had not fully turned over additional classified documents, the FBI raided Trump’s estate and recovered additional boxes containing highly classified material mixed with Trump’s personal items and other non-classified presidential records.

The raid galvanized public attention to the documents probe and drew Trump’s fury in a way it hadn’t before. Two weeks later, he sued to reclaim his property, igniting a legal fight that would briefly delay the Justice Department’s investigation. That fight stretched into November, when Trump announced his latest bid for the White House.

That announcement also triggered Attorney General Merrick Garland’s decision to appoint Smith as special counsel to oversee both the documents investigation and the probe of Trump’s 2020 election gambit. Garland indicated that Smith, who returned to the United States from a stint as a war crimes prosecutor at the Hague, would maintain the rapid pace of the investigations, which had been ongoing for months by the time he arrived.
MOST READ
trump-93872.jpg
Trump notified that he is the target of ongoing criminal investigation
DeSantis breaks his silence about California migrant flights
House Republicans cancel vote to hold FBI director in contempt
Pat Robertson, evangelical and Christian political trailblazer, dies at 93
The Real Reason Chris Licht Got Fired

Although the election probe drew higher-profile witnesses, like former Vice President Mike Pence and other senior figures in Trump’s White House, the documents probe always seemed poised to wrap first, and Smith brought in a steady stream of witnesses — employees of Trump’s estates, advisers and even Corcoran, Trump’s lawyer.

To secure Corcoran’s testimony, Smith fought a secret grand jury battle that was ultimately decided in his favor by U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell, who ruled that attorney-client privilege did not apply to Corcoran’s testimony and documents because they likely included evidence of a crime.

JAFF

06-10-2023, 12:00 PM

National Review editorial board: Impossible to read Trump indictment and ‘not be appalled’

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/national-review-editorial-board-impossible-to-read-trump-indictment-and-not-be-appalled/ar-AA1cnrtg?cvid=eb54fcca06f94905bb0625fdd309db14&ei=6

The editorial board for The National Review said one cannot read the allegations outlined in the federal indictment against former President Trump and “not be appalled.”

The editorial board said in a post on Saturday that it has in the past pointed out times that it believes Trump’s opponents have manipulated the law to pursue politically motivated legal claims against him. It added that the members of the board do not like the precedent of a federal prosecutor who serves under the president indicting the president’s lead rival for reelection.

“That said, it is impossible to read the indictment against Trump in the Mar-a-Lago documents case and not be appalled at the way he handled classified documents as an ex-president, and responded to the attempt by federal authorities to reclaim them,” the editorial states.

The board for the conservative news outlet noted that many of the boxes that Trump had moved from the White House to Mar-a-Lago at the end of his presidency only contained newspaper clippings, photos, cards and letters, but they also included hundreds of documents with classified markings.

The information on the documents covered information relating to U.S. nuclear programs, defense capabilities, vulnerabilities and plans for potential retaliatory action in the event of an attack from another country, according to the indictment.

The board said Trump no longer had a right to possess these documents after his term ended, and he stored them “recklessly” in locations like his bedroom, a bathroom and a ballroom at Mar-a-Lago. It also mentioned federal prosecutors’ allegations that Trump ignored requests for the documents to be returned for months and attempted to keep investigators from obtaining the documents he had.

Discover the Past
Discover the Past
Ad
Newspapers.com
The editorial board argued the “most damning” part of the indictment is the transcript of the conversation Trump had in which he showed one document to a reporter who was not authorized to see it.

“Equally damning, particularly for someone who was and would like again to be the nation’s chief executive, responsible for the enforcement of the laws, is the evidence that Trump not only deceived the investigators and the grand jury, but his own lawyers — knowing and intending that they would consequently obstruct the investigation,” the editorial states.

The indictment alleges that Trump had an aide, who has also been indicted, move boxes of documents away from a storage room when one of his attorneys came to Mar-a-Lago to confirm that the subpoena was being fully complied with. This caused his legal team to wrongly tell investigators that all documents had been turned over.

The board said it understands conservatives might be frustrated with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton not facing charges for her use of a private email server while serving and that President Biden might not face charges for his own alleged mishandling of some classified documents.

“But it doesn’t change the fact the country wouldn’t be in this uncharted territory if Trump hadn’t taken documents he had no right to, and simply complied when asked to give them back,” the editorial concludes.

The board previously declared in November that it would reject Trump as a choice for the Republican nomination for president in 2024.

JAFF

06-10-2023, 12:32 PM

https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/10/us/faith-violence-security-blake-cec/index.html

—
Jeanne Assam had a gut feeling that something terrible was about to happen as she watched parishioners leave a Sunday worship service at a Colorado megachurch one snow-covered December day.

That morning, a gunman had escaped after killing two people at a missionary training center about 70 miles away. Assam had a premonition that the gunman would next target the Colorado Springs church where she volunteered as an unpaid security officer. Her feeling was so strong that she volunteered to work that day, even though she had planned to stay home.

At 12:55 pm., Assam heard someone in the church lobby say that something weird was going on in the parking lot. Someone had lit a smoke bomb. A rifle shot then rang out in the parking lot. Assam heard a panicky voice shout from the packed crowd in the church lobby, “Get down! He’s got a gun!”

“I could tell it was the crack of a high-powered rifle,” Assam said. “It [the gunfire] was just thundering out really loud, just booming. People were screaming and running.”

As people fled, Assam reached for a Beretta 92FS 9mm semi-automatic pistol tucked in her jeans and sprinted toward the gunshots. She found a hiding spot near the church church’s main hallway.

She peeked out from her hiding spot and spotted the source of the rifle shots. A man was carrying an assault rifle in his left hand and had a thick black glove on his right hand. He was wearing a bulletproof vest and a backpack, and was cursing aloud as he moved, firing his rifle.

Assam gripped her Beretta and said a silent prayer: “God be with me.”

She then stepped from her hiding spot and faced the gunman.

What happened next at the New Life Church in December 2007 would change the way many churches approached security. It would also foreshadow a disturbing trend that has only worsened in subsequent years: 11 o’clock on Sunday morning is now one of the most dangerous hours of the week in America, pastors and church security officials say.

And for religious leaders, this poses a dilemma.

The church has become a frontline for the nation’s social ills
The New Life shooting was a transformative event that convinced many churches to add armed security to their Sunday morning worship services. But the security issues facing houses of worship have worsened since then, religious leaders and security officials say.

Church leaders say they are concerned about another array of threats that have become more common in a post-pandemic America where many people are on edge. Many of the contemporary issues afflicting the country — too many people carrying concealed weapons, domestic disputes that turn violent, people struggling with mental illnesses — are now spilling into Sunday morning worship services, pastors and security officials say.

Jake Stephens pays his respects outside the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina June 19, 2015, two days after a mass shooting left nine dead during a bible study at the church. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
Jake Stephens pays his respects outside the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, on June 19, 2015 -- two days after a mass shooting left nine dead during a Bible study meeting at the church.
Brian Snyder/Reuters
Churches have long been concerned about losing members as church attendance plummets across denominations. Now they have a new worry: protecting those members that remain.

“Everything that is happening in the culture spills over into the church,” says the Rev. Brady Boyd, senior pastor of New Life Church, the same church where Assam confronted a gunman 16 years ago. Boyd says it’s rare but not uncommon for uniformed officers to handcuff someone creating a disturbance – usually related to a domestic dispute – in his church.

“That’s actually why the church exists,” he says. “The church should be a place where we see cultural problems manifest. It shouldn’t surprise us that we’re seeing broken families show up in our building, we’re seeing mental health issues and people wrestling with post-Covid anxiety.”

A house of worship, though, is traditionally the last place someone would expect to see lethal violence. Churches are called sanctuaries for a reason. A sanctuary is defined as a place of refuge and safety “set apart from the profane, ordinary world.”

But church and security officials say houses of worship are placed in a uniquely dangerous position every Sunday morning. Congregations are traditionally unprotected and are expected to welcome “the stranger” no matter how dangerous they may look. Houses of faith are one of the few public communal spaces in the country that were created to embrace all comers, including broken or disturbed people on the fringes of society.

The New Life shooting in Colorado ushered in an era of mass shootings where even churches are no longer safe.

In 2015, a White supremacist gunman killed nine worshippers at a historic Black church in Charleston, South Carolina. Two years later, a gunman killed 26 worshippers at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. In 2019, a gunman killed two people inside a Texas Church of Christ—including an armed parishioner working security—before he was shot to death by another member of the church’s security team. The entire shooting incident, from the time the gunman pulled a weapon to the time he was shot, lasted six seconds.

SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, TX - NOVEMBER 12: The First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs is turned into a memorial to honor those who died on November 12, 2017 in Sutherland Springs, Texas. The inside of the church has been painted white with 26 white chairs placed around the room. On each chair is a single rose and the name of a shooting victim. The chairs are placed throughout the room at the location where the victim died. The memorial will be open to the public. Devin Patrick Kelley shot and killed the 26 people and wounded 20 others when he opened fire during Sunday service at the church on November 5th. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
The First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, Texas, is turned into a memorial to honor the 26 people who died November 5, 2017 when a gunman opened fire at the church.
Scott Olson/Getty Images
And in May 2022 a gunman killed one person and wounded five others at a Presbyterian church in Orange County, California.

And then there are the less lethal acts of violence that don’t make the news. Those are hard to quantify, but a church security firm released a report in 2019 that estimated some 480 incidents of serious violence take place at communities of worship in the US each year. The report also said that two-thirds of the assailants had no affiliation with the congregation.

Mosques and synagogues have become targets too
These mass shootings, though, are not confined to churches. Every house of worship is now considered a soft target. In 2012 a man gunned down six people at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. And in 2018, a gunman killed 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. A 50-year-old man faces federal hate crime charges and the death penalty at his trial, which began in Pittsburgh last week.

Rabbi Hillel Norry of the Temple Beth David in Georgia says synagogues have recently started using more advanced protective technology, such as security apps and surveillance cameras with remote live feeds.

Most houses of worship are trying to find the balance between being too open or too vigilant, Norry says.

“There’s two things that I know are wrong: being wide open and the other is being closed up and shuttered where everything is locked up and only members can get in if they have the code,” says Norry, a black belt in Tae Kwon Do who advocates for armed self-defense in synagogues where it’s permitted.

PITTSBURGH, PA - OCTOBER 31: Mourners visit the memorial outside the Tree of Life Synagogue on October 31, 2018 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Eleven people were killed in a mass shooting at the Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood on October 27. (Photo by Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)
Mourners visit a memorial outside the Tree of Life synagogue on October 31, 2018 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania -- four days after 11 people were killed in a mass shooting there.
Jeff Swensen/Getty Images/File
“That’s why congregations are there – to greet people who we don’t know yet,” Norry says. “If not, close your doors and get into another line of work. If you’re only there for the people who are already there, that’s not church. That’s a club.”

Mosques also face increased fears about security. A gunman who killed 51 people during an attack on two mosques in New Zealand in 2019 demonstrated the potential risks of anti-Muslim sentiment in the US.

The CEO of a company that offers security training says mosques are struggling to pay for added security while now contending with a new threat.

“One of the biggest challenges facing mosques are cyberattacks,” says Shaukat Warraich of Mosque Security. “Aggressive and hateful emails and social media posts against [Islamic] centers have become more and more abusive.”

‘Hope is not a strategy,’ one security consultant says
These threats have led more churches to not only add and train armed security but to hire security consultants like Full Armor Church. Full Armor, like similar businesses, helps churches organize, train and operate security ministries. Dwayne Harris, Full Armor’s president, says the typical house of worship has about five minutes before a first responder answers an emergency, such as an active shooter, a member suffering a medical emergency or a fire.

Some churches’ security plans amount to this: Hope nothing bad happens, he says. Harris says he launched Full Armor in 2016 to accommodate a growing number of churches searching for ways to boost their security.

“Hope is not a strategy,” says Harris, an ordained bishop who says on his website that he “actively serves in full time law enforcement” and has experience with SWAT teams, and de-escalation training programs.

“You have to have some training, walk through and talk-through plans on how you’re going to confront a crisis,” Harris says.

OAK CREEK, WI - AUGUST 7: Police officials stand guard outside the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin August, 7, 2012 Oak Creek Wisconsin. A suspected gunman, 40-year-old Wade Michael Page, allegedly killed six people at the temple August 5, was shot to death by police at the scene. He was an army veteran and reportedly a former leader of a white supremacist heavy metal band. Three others were critically wounded in the attack. (Photo by Darren Hauck/Getty Images)
Police stand guard on August, 7, 2012, outside a Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. A gunman had killed six people at the temple two days earlier before he was shot to death by police.
Darren Hauck/Getty Images
Full Armor and other church security firms offer similar advice: Install video surveillance, train armed security staff, create a single entrance for the church and identify members with military, law enforcement and medical training.

One of the most effective weapons a church can deploy to protect itself is something else: friendliness, Harris says.

The more people can greet visitors to the church the more chance they can access potential risks. He cites the multiple checkpoints, or “touchpoints” that greet airline travelers. Each layer of interaction boosts security.

“Hospitality is the number one tool for church safety,” Harris says. “The more touchpoints you have for individuals, the easier it is to identify risks. Having touchpoints—greeting people at the door, interacting with them, and discovering their needs, their family dynamics—you may be able to identify someone who is agitated or has a grievance.”

Some of the biggest threats are internal
Despite the specter of mass shootings, some pastors say their greatest security challenges are internal. They cite other risks, such as mentally unstable members of the congregation or pedophiles who try to join church ministries that put them into contact with children.

Others also cited the threats of domestic violence or family disputes erupting in a congregation. An enraged man whose wife and children left him often knows where they will be on a Sunday morning.

“What causes some people to go south is they lost hope,” says the Rev. Tim Russell of the Light House Church in Missouri, which has an armed security staff.

“A man may have received a phone call. Their wife said, ‘I’m leaving after 30 years,’ and they lost their job. And they think they have nothing to live for, so they just go south.”

The Geneva Presbyterian Church is seen after a deadly shooting, in Laguna Woods, California, U.S. May 15, 2022. REUTERS/David Swanson
The Geneva Presbyterian Church is seen after a deadly shooting, in Laguna Woods, California on May 15, 2022.
David Swanson/Reuters
Sometimes a pastor’s sermon also can go south if they anger the wrong person. Pastors said they are seeing more people rushing the pulpit during services out of anger or a misguided attempt to share a message with the pastor.

Boyd, of New Life church, says he was preaching a holiday sermon two years ago about the violence in the Christmas story (Israel’s ruler ordered the execution of infants after hearing about Jesus’ impending birth) when a large young man rushed the pulpit, and started yelling and cursing at him.

At first, Boyd’s security team did nothing. They thought the pulpit intruder was a dramatic prop Boyd had arranged beforehand to deploy during his sermon.

Then they rushed the stage and subdued the man.

Boyd says the emotional demands on church leaders is almost nonstop.

“We have more counseling appointments for anxiety, fear, depression suicide than ever before in the history of our church right now,” he says.

Another concern, some pastors say, is the rise of churchgoers bringing concealed weapons into the pews. Many churches in the Bible Belt are located in open-carry states where worshippers often carry guns into services, pastors say.

Boyd says New Life typically has about 20 armed security officers in its sprawling church complex, which draws an estimated 14,000 members. But his church security does not have a monopoly on Sunday morning firepower. Colorado Springs is home to both an army and air force base. Many military veterans, aware of the church’s prior mass shooting, come to the service armed and ready, he says.

“Because we live in Colorado, where the gun laws are pretty liberal—if you can make fog on a mirror here you can get a gun—I bet we have 200 or 300 other people in our services that are carrying, men and women,” Boyd says.

He adds that having more guns in church does not make him feel safer.

“We would prefer people leave their weapons in their vehicle,” he says. “If a shooting were to happen and everyone pulled their weapons, it would be difficult to determine the good guys vs. the bad guys.”

Can churches go too far with security?
Adding too much security, though, could detract from the historic mission of houses of worship, some religious leaders and security officials say.

Churches are supposed to welcome the stranger, not frisk them, they say.

Churches are directed to minister to the “least of these” on the fringes of society. In many cases, the least of these include people who not dressed well, may be off the streets, may not smell well or act in unusual ways. If churches get too preoccupied with security, they could turn away the very people Jesus gravitated to, says the Rev. Tommy Mason of the Marion County Baptist Association in Alabama.

“You don’t want to turn people away just because they look a little different or because they don’t have the best clothes on,” says Mason, who received training from Full Armor to beef up his church’s security.

“And you don’t to be a place that looks like a prison or where you have a bunch of bouncers standing at the door. You have to welcome and assist them because they’re broken, and they want to hear the Word of God.”

Members of the Secret Service stand guard as US President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden attend a memorial mass at Saint Joseph on the Brandywine Catholic Church on the anniversary of the death of their son Beau Biden, on May 30, 2023, in Wilmington, Delaware. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP) (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
Members of the Secret Service stand guard as President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden attend a memorial mass at Saint Joseph on the Brandywine Catholic Church on the anniversary of the death of their son Beau Biden, on May 30, 2023, in Wilmington, Delaware.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty
How Assam stopped a gunman
Some broken people, though, may not want help. They may want to inflict pain.

That was the situation Assam, the New Life church volunteer, faced on that bitterly cold Sunday morning when she confronted a gunman in the megachurch”s main hallway.

“Police officer! Drop your weapon!” she shouted at the man as she leveled her Beretta handgun at him.

The man turned to her and leveled his weapon. He said nothing to her, Assam says. She fired.

“He just goes flying backwards, like had been pushed,” Assam says.

The gunman was down but still dangerous. He sat up and start firing at her again as she closed the distance, Assam says. She fired again, hitting him in his carotid artery. His blood splattered on her face, jeans and boots, Assam says.

By this time, the gunman had killed two teenaged sisters and wounded three others.

“It was awful to have to kill somebody,” Assam says. “I had to. He gave me no choice.”

Jeanne Assam, second right, the security guard who shot and wounded an armed assailant in the New Life Church after services on Sunday, holds hands with worshippers during the family service at the church in Colorado Springs, Colo., on Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2007. A lone gunman killed two worshippers outside the church after services on Sunday and was gunned down by a security guard when he entered the building. The gunman is also connected to a double shooting at a missionary school in the northwest Denver suburb of Arvada, Colo., roughly 12 hours before the massacre at the New Life Church. (AP Photo/Jerilee Bennett, Pool)
Jeanne Assam, second right, the security guard who shot an armed assailant at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs in 2007, holds hands with worshippers during a family service at the church.
Jerilee Bennett/AP
Assam was widely lauded for her actions. President George W. Bush posed for pictures with her. News reports focused on her calm and faith. Assam credits her poise to her experience as a police officer. Before moving to Colorado Springs, she spent five years as an officer with the Minneapolis Police Department.

Assam says she supports churches elevating their security but that hiring armed staff with no experience in law enforcement or the military may not be enough. A shooting range doesn’t replicate the actual experience of facing a yelling, cursing human being charging at you with a weapon, she says.

“You’re going to be shooting at a human being who is probably enraged and not in the right mindset, and you cannot hesitate, or you will die.”

And yet armed church security cannot be too eager to use violence, she says.

“Not everybody who dresses weird is going to be an active shooter,” she says. “They need to be vigilant, but they also need to be compassionate and respectful of people who don’t look or smell like they do. Churches are like hospitals for the hurting.”

Houses of worship must strike a balance between openness and safety
Church leaders want their congregations to feel safe.

But striking a balance between protecting their flock and serving the broken stranger will be one of the most difficult challenges they face in the years ahead.

If they get the balance wrong, they can unintentionally accelerate the already alarming decline in church membership. And what may seem like vigilance could seem instead like hypocrisy.

Consider this sobering Sunday morning scenario:

A spiritual seeker visits a church and finds it filled with metal detectors and armed security guards carrying walkie-talkies. As he or she looks around, they may ask themselves, how can a church sing “A mighty fortress is our God” when they have security teams flanking the pastor and people deemed suspicious being ejected from the service?

This is the tension many places of worship must navigate today as they mobilize to protect their flock from spiritual and lethal threats.

They must somehow find a way to be both a sanctuary, and — when need be — a fortress.

JAFF

06-11-2023, 10:44 AM

'He's toast': Bill Barr 'shocked' by Trump's 'damning' Espionage Act charges

https://www.rawstory.com/bill-barr-trump-toast/

During an interview on Fox News, Barr was asked about Trump's recent federal indictment.

"What about this chief argument that comes up for the president's allies and his legal team that this should have been handled under the Presidential Records Act, not this Espionage Act charge and other federal statutes that were used here?" host Shannon Bream wondered.

"It started out under the Presidential Records Act and the archives trying to retrieve documents that Trump had no right to have," Barr replied. "But it quickly became clear that what the government was really worried about were these classified and very sensitive documents."

01:53

03:52
Barr said he was "shocked by the degree of sensitivity of these documents and how many there were."

"And so the government's agenda was to get those, protect those documents, and get them out," he continued. "And I think it was perfectly appropriate to do that. It was the right thing to do."

"And I think the counts under the Espionage Act that he willfully retained those documents are solid counts," Barr added. "But I do think that even half of what Andy McCarthy said, which is if even half of it is true, then he's toast. I mean, it's a pretty, it's a very detailed indictment, and it's very, very damning."

JAFF

06-13-2023, 02:52 PM

So the public knows what has happened

https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/06/politics/annotated-trump-indictment-dg/

Those are the government charges

JAFF

06-13-2023, 03:22 PM

Trump can't win': Koch network releases ads targeting ex-president

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-can-t-win-koch-network-releases-ads-targeting-ex-president/ar-AA1cstNQ?cvid=8867424c93494261a6518371eb7e38d9&ei=18

Wow, there is a huge shot to bad orange mans ego

JAFF

06-14-2023, 05:01 PM

“That is not a defense”: Ex-Mueller prosecutor says Trump’s post-arrest speech was a “confession”

https://www.salon.com/2023/06/14/that-is-not-a-defense-ex-mueller-prosecutor-says-trumps-post-arrest-speech-was-a-confession/

Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday spoke to supporters at his Bedminster, N.J. golf club hours after he was fingerprinted, booked and pleaded not guilty to 37 federal criminal charges in Miami, declaring that he had "every right to take these documents."

Trump pleaded not guilty to charges that he illegally retrained national security information and sought to obstruct the investigation into the missing records.

"Whatever documents a president decides to take with him, he has the right to do so. It's an absolute right. This is the law," Trump declared in his speech.

That is not the law. While the Presidential Records Act allows Trump to retain "personal" records like family photos, it requires the National Archives to "assume responsibility for the custody, control, and preservation of, and access to, the Presidential records of that President."

Advertisement:

"There is absolutely no legal authority that supports the idea that a president could assert, for example, that classified records are 'personal.' That would still be true even if such records were declassified," Jason Baron, former director of litigation for the National Archives and Records Administration, told CBS News, adding that Trump "simply is wrong in saying that he had an absolute right to take official documents with him when he left office."

Related

Legal experts destroy Trump's defense: "Every single iota of evidence" came from his "own people"
Trump also claimed that "the president enjoys unconstrained authority to make decisions regarding the disposal of documents."

But the Presidential Records Act says that the National Archives must sign off on any disposal of presidential records.

Michael Cohen on Trump: "He'll be guilty"

Trump during his speech decried his indictment as "the most evil and heinous abuse of power in the history of our country" even though more than a dozen of his former administration officials admit the allegations in the indictment are damning.

"There is not an Attorney General of either party who would not have brought today's charges against the former president," prominent conservative Judge Michael Luttig tweeted on Tuesday. "He has dared, taunted, provoked, and goaded DOJ to prosecute him from the moment it was learned that he had taken these national security documents."

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

Trump accused President Joe Biden of having his "top political opponent arrested on fake and fabricated charges of which he and numerous other presidents would be guilty, right in the middle of a presidential election in which he is losing very badly."

Advertisement:

Trump then went on to vow to do the same thing he accused Biden of doing – appointing a prosecutor to investigate his opponent.

"I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family," Trump said.

Former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, who served on special counsel Bob Mueller's team, zeroed in on Trump's claim that he had "every right" to take the documents he is charged with violating the Espionage Act over.

"Those statements that you just played are admissible as admissions, regardless of whether Donald Trump takes the stand or not. Those are admissions. So, that is–part of what he said is just a straight-out confession. It's not a defense. It's a confession," Weissmann told MSNBC.

Advertisement:

"He said, 'I could take these,'" Weissmann later added. "When you are charged with the illegal retention, the illegal possession of the documents, it is not a good idea to say, 'Hey, you want to know why I took these? Because I could. That is not a defense to that charge. That is an admission to the charge."

JAFF

06-16-2023, 06:04 PM

Poll: Majority Says Trump Should Drop Out of Presidential Race

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/poll-majority-says-trump-should-drop-out-of-presidential-race/ar-AA1cEjVJ?cvid=15f59f1f34a448de913c68ed5980d64c&ei=19

A strong majority of 56% of Americans think former President Donald Trump should drop out of the 2024 presidential race because of his second indictment involving his alleged "willful" possession of classified documents, according to a poll released Friday by the Marist institute of Public Opinion.

But Republicans largely say they'll stick with him anyway, if he chooses to stick it out and seek the Oval Office job again, according to the survey.

OMEGA | Digital Temperature Gauges | PRTXB-4
OMEGA | Digital Temperature Gauges | PRTXB-4
Ad
OMEGA Engineering
The poll was taken after Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith announced 37 charges involving Trump's possession of classified documents and his refusal to hand them over despite requests, a subpoena and a search of his Mar-a-Lago home by federal agents – a historic and unprecedented federal indictment of a former commander in chief.

But the survey found that a partisan thread remains woven through the most recent Trump drama, with a devoted segment of his Republican Party saying the charges won't keep them from backing the current front-runner for the 2024 GOP nomination. Even though an overwhelming majority of the public as a whole thinks Trump did something illegal or at least wrong, Republicans aren't letting it affect their votes.

The poll found that 64% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say they will continue to support Trump if he remains in the race, while 32% of Republicans say they plan to support another GOP candidate in the increasingly crowded primary.

Buttressing Trump's own claims that his legal woes only make him more appealing to his base, the survey found that 76% of Republicans have a favorable opinion of Trump, up from 68% who felt that way in February.

Since the winter, Trump has lost a civil case brought by advice columnist E. Jean Carroll, with a jury finding Trump committed "sexual abuse" of her and defamed her. That jury said Trump should pay Carroll $5 million.

In March, Trump was indicted by a grand jury in New York on charges related to his hush-money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. And more indictments, including federal charges related to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol and a Georgia case related to whether the former president attempted to overturn the 2020 election results in the swing state.

But Trump's mounting legal problems, while solidifying the views of his political critics, aren't deterring Republican voters and may even be helping Trump, who has cast himself as the victim of a political "witch hunt."

On the question of whether Trump should stay in the race, 56% say no and 43% said yes, the Poughkeepsie-based, independent Marist poll found. The group wanting Trump to leave the race includes 87% of Democrats and 58% of independents. But among Republicans, 83% say the twice-impeached and twice-indicted Trump should stay in the fight for the nomination.

And while the overwhelming majority of Democrats, 78%, and half of independents – up from 41% in March – believe Trump broke the law, Republicans sharply disagree. They survey found that half of Republicans think Trump did nothing wrong – up from 45% in a March Marist survey.

"Time will tell if this pattern holds. But for now, Republicans are grounded on where they stand on Trump regardless of these unfolding events." Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute, said in a statement.

Trump continues to lead in national and most statewide primary polls. His GOP opponents have been largely measured in their criticisms of him, and several have said they would pardon the former president if they themselves were elected to the White House – a sign of the power Trump's base has in the party.

Trump and many of his primary opponents are scheduled to speak next week at the Faith & Freedom Coalition conference in Washington.

JAFF

06-16-2023, 08:00 PM

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump-just-got-dumped-by-his-lawyer-again/ar-AA1cED1h?cvid=e3edbd1d42f847cba44e11ce01f80d58&ei=44

Donald Trump is bleeding lawyers as quickly as he needs them, with Jim Trusty—once representing the former president in both his criminal documents case and a defamation lawsuit—motioning to end his relationship with Trump altogether on Friday.

Trusty wrote in a motion that he was dropping Trump as a client in his defamation suit against CNN because of “irreconcilable differences” that made it impossible for him to “effectively and properly represent” him.

“The defamation lawsuit against CNN is entering a new phase, as more irrefutable facts are revealed,” a spokesperson for Trump told Politico. “We thank Mr. Trusty for his work on this case and wish him all the best.”

Trump is seeking $475 million in damages from CNN, claiming the network conducted a “campaign of dissuasion in the form of libel and slander.”

CNN has asked the judge for the case to be “dismissed with prejudice.”

The motion to withdraw from Trusty came after he’d already removed himself as counsel to Trump, as did the attorney John Rowley, in the federal documents case brought by special counsel Jack Smith. That criminal case relates to sensitive government documents that Trump allegedly kept after his time in the White House and his alleged obstruction of the federal investigation.

Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges in Florida on Tuesday.

Trump is reportedly still looking to hire more lawyers to beef up his defense, but has been struggling to find someone willing and qualified to take the gig.

omahacolt

06-17-2023, 03:36 PM

have no idea how the guys here can still love trump after all that has came out. they will say they don't like him but they do

Racehorse

06-17-2023, 03:47 PM

have no idea how the guys here can still love trump after all that has came out. they will say they don't like him but they do

I don't think people love Trump. I know I don't.

JAFF

06-17-2023, 07:56 PM

I don't think people love Trump. I know I don't.

We have lots of them in rural Indiana. 4 wd rust buckets with trump flags flying

Racehorse

06-17-2023, 08:37 PM

We have lots of them in rural Indiana. 4 wd rust buckets with trump flags flying

I don't think they like the actual guy, but what he represents to them. He is the first republican candidate who has stood up to the democrats since Reagan. Now, Reagan was loved, and by a lot on both sides of the aisle. trump is a tool for the angry voters from the right wing. Gingrich was close to being the guy, but then he did some stupid stuff and disappeared.

omahacolt

06-18-2023, 01:47 PM

I don't think they like the actual guy, but what he represents to them. He is the first republican candidate who has stood up to the democrats since Reagan. Now, Reagan was loved, and by a lot on both sides of the aisle. trump is a tool for the angry voters from the right wing. Gingrich was close to being the guy, but then he did some stupid stuff and disappeared.

they love the guy. i know tons of trump fans and they love him. a guy without a single redeeming quality and they love him.

i agree with you that they love that he pretends to be some macho tough guy. that he is fighting the evil democrats and establishment for them. its all fucking bullshit. trump loves himself and himself only. a pure garbage human being.

most of that is because the republican propaganda machine is fucking massive and extremely effective. what fox news and am radio has done to the american people has been a disaster. just constant rage baiting the people consuming it. its probably mostly effective because your average republican is a moron. the vast majority of the republican base is very uneducated. they fall in lock step with whatever message the republican party puts out there. will vote against their best interests and show a disturbing lack of empathy.

trump and his cronies are clearly criminals. were some democrats criminals? yeah. im sure they are. lets get them too.

the problem is trump has no regard for this country. anyone that thinks they weren't trying to overthrow the government by overturning the election is a child with their fingers in their ears. it happened. there was a plan in place and they were trying to execute it. shockingly Pence found the one time in his entire life to do the right thing. more people than just pence but he was a key figure that they needed and he wouldn't go along with it.

trump is a danger to this country and that is why he needs to be made an example of. whatever punishment he gets, if any, won't be enough. no telling how his mishandling of documents cost this country. this isn't a tds rant. its just the facts. which many people will refuse to listen to because they are to insecure to realize they backed the wrong horse.

Racehorse

06-19-2023, 08:01 AM

they love the guy. i know tons of trump fans and they love him. a guy without a single redeeming quality and they love him.

i agree with you that they love that he pretends to be some macho tough guy. that he is fighting the evil democrats and establishment for them. its all fucking bullshit. trump loves himself and himself only. a pure garbage human being.

most of that is because the republican propaganda machine is fucking massive and extremely effective. what fox news and am radio has done to the american people has been a disaster. just constant rage baiting the people consuming it. its probably mostly effective because your average republican is a moron. the vast majority of the republican base is very uneducated. they fall in lock step with whatever message the republican party puts out there. will vote against their best interests and show a disturbing lack of empathy.

trump and his cronies are clearly criminals. were some democrats criminals? yeah. im sure they are. lets get them too.

the problem is trump has no regard for this country. anyone that thinks they weren't trying to overthrow the government by overturning the election is a child with their fingers in their ears. it happened. there was a plan in place and they were trying to execute it. shockingly Pence found the one time in his entire life to do the right thing. more people than just pence but he was a key figure that they needed and he wouldn't go along with it.

trump is a danger to this country and that is why he needs to be made an example of. whatever punishment he gets, if any, won't be enough. no telling how his mishandling of documents cost this country. this isn't a tds rant. its just the facts. which many people will refuse to listen to because they are to insecure to realize they backed the wrong horse.
There are some very accurate points in your post, but to claim that republicans or democrats are more/less educated is a fallacy. Both parties have morons voting for them, and both parties have intelligent supporters. The problem is that the idiots on both sides yell the loudest, so people assume they represent the totality of the group.

omahacolt

06-19-2023, 06:26 PM

There are some very accurate points in your post, but to claim that republicans or democrats are more/less educated is a fallacy. Both parties have morons voting for them, and both parties have intelligent supporters. The problem is that the idiots on both sides yell the loudest, so people assume they represent the totality of the group.

sure there are some dipshit democrats. but just going by anecdotally, it isn't even close. republicans are part tards. way more than dems.

with my job i deal with mostly high school educated people or drop outs. lots of lower iq folks. and lots of them are republicans. not even knowing their political stances, i would never take life advice from most of these people. never the die hard republicans. they are always fucking stupid. i understand there are smart republicans but the vast majority i run across are fucking idiots.

again this is all anecdotal. but i just don't know too many people i would call democrats or liberals. i know probably like 4 democrats really well and they are pretty bright people.

most of the smarter people i know are moderate to slightly right. which is how i would really classify myself. some here might say bs because i shit on the republicans so much. but it really is true and if we all had beers you would understand. but here is the kicker, there is zero chance we would vote for the shit show that is the republican party today.

the republican party hasn't been fiscally conservative since before reagan. maybe bush 1 was fiscally conservative but i don't remember. reagan wasn't. bush 2 wasn't. trump certaintly wasn't.

the republican party is all about banning everything. there is zero small government. it is only culture wars, ban anything that isn't white, christian and male and tax cuts for the rich.

i have loved ones that are gay. it is an absolute disaster what the fuckface republicans are doing to people that are simply different than them. its disgusting. boycotting companies for acknowledging people exist? fuck off

i am all for letting people do whatever they want if it isn't hurting anyone else. you know, like freedom. the republican party is 100% against that. only stupid people would be against that

JAFF

06-19-2023, 06:35 PM

sure there are some dipshit democrats. but just going by anecdotally, it isn't even close. republicans are part tards. way more than dems.

with my job i deal with mostly high school educated people or drop outs. lots of lower iq folks. and lots of them are republicans. not even knowing their political stances, i would never take life advice from most of these people. never the die hard republicans. they are always fucking stupid. i understand there are smart republicans but the vast majority i run across are fucking idiots.

again this is all anecdotal. but i just don't know too many people i would call democrats or liberals. i know probably like 4 democrats really well and they are pretty bright people.

most of the smarter people i know are moderate to slightly right. which is how i would really classify myself. some here might say bs because i shit on the republicans so much. but it really is true and if we all had beers you would understand. but here is the kicker, there is zero chance we would vote for the shit show that is the republican party today.

the republican party hasn't been fiscally conservative since before reagan. maybe bush 1 was fiscally conservative but i don't remember. reagan wasn't. bush 2 wasn't. trump certaintly wasn't.

the republican party is all about banning everything. there is zero small government. it is only culture wars, ban anything that isn't white, christian and male and tax cuts for the rich.

i have loved ones that are gay. it is an absolute disaster what the fuckface republicans are doing to people that are simply different than them. its disgusting. boycotting companies for acknowledging people exist? fuck off

i am all for letting people do whatever they want if it isn't hurting anyone else. you know, like freedom. the republican party is 100% against that. only stupid people would be against that

I would like to add they are overly occupied with the reproductive rights of women they dont know. They bitch about baby mommas but are hell bent on preventing women from having birth control. They dont like abortion, but they constantly attack Planned Parenthood.

JAFF

06-19-2023, 09:59 PM

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/fox-s-bret-baier-tells-trump-he-lost-the-2020-election/ar-AA1cLzWt?cvid=187e738480764d3fbc27ee3ace7a0343&ei=15

The times they are a changing

Racehorse

06-20-2023, 08:07 AM

sure there are some dipshit democrats. but just going by anecdotally, it isn't even close. republicans are part tards. way more than dems.

with my job i deal with mostly high school educated people or drop outs. lots of lower iq folks. and lots of them are republicans. not even knowing their political stances, i would never take life advice from most of these people. never the die hard republicans. they are always fucking stupid. i understand there are smart republicans but the vast majority i run across are fucking idiots.

again this is all anecdotal. but i just don't know too many people i would call democrats or liberals. i know probably like 4 democrats really well and they are pretty bright people.

most of the smarter people i know are moderate to slightly right. which is how i would really classify myself. some here might say bs because i shit on the republicans so much. but it really is true and if we all had beers you would understand. but here is the kicker, there is zero chance we would vote for the shit show that is the republican party today.

the republican party hasn't been fiscally conservative since before reagan. maybe bush 1 was fiscally conservative but i don't remember. reagan wasn't. bush 2 wasn't. trump certaintly wasn't.

the republican party is all about banning everything. there is zero small government. it is only culture wars, ban anything that isn't white, christian and male and tax cuts for the rich.

i have loved ones that are gay. it is an absolute disaster what the fuckface republicans are doing to people that are simply different than them. its disgusting. boycotting companies for acknowledging people exist? fuck off

i am all for letting people do whatever they want if it isn't hurting anyone else. you know, like freedom. the republican party is 100% against that. only stupid people would be against that
I agree with you about preferring to let people live as they feel free to do so. However, I teach at a public school, and the vast majority of dumb students espouse the ideas of the democrat party. The idiots are evenly divided. It sounds like you are more aligned with the libertarian ideology, which most people are. The left wants to control us in these areas, while the right wants to control us on those areas. Both want to tell us what to do, and the libertarian says, ENOUGH! STOP CONTROLLING PEOPLE!

JAFF

06-20-2023, 01:40 PM

https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/hunter-biden-federal-investigation-06-20-23/index.html

He is a small fry grifter, which is why his father has kept him out of his office and campaign.

Lov2fish

06-20-2023, 03:50 PM

I agree with you about preferring to let people live as they feel free to do so. However, I teach at a public school, and the vast majority of dumb students espouse the ideas of the democrat party. The idiots are evenly divided. It sounds like you are more aligned with the libertarian ideology, which most people are. The left wants to control us in these areas, while the right wants to control us on those areas. Both want to tell us what to do, and the libertarian says, ENOUGH! STOP CONTROLLING PEOPLE!

I voted for Gary Johnson and Jo Jorgensen the last two presidential cycles. The only thing that keeps me from being a full fledged Libertarian is their stance on violence and border control. Without borders we are not a country. Streamline the process and get those who want in vetted. Sometimes violence is needed to resolve a conflict. The most peaceful men I know are also the most dangerous men I know!!!

omahacolt

06-20-2023, 07:31 PM

I agree with you about preferring to let people live as they feel free to do so. However, I teach at a public school, and the vast majority of dumb students espouse the ideas of the democrat party. The idiots are evenly divided. It sounds like you are more aligned with the libertarian ideology, which most people are. The left wants to control us in these areas, while the right wants to control us on those areas. Both want to tell us what to do, and the libertarian says, ENOUGH! STOP CONTROLLING PEOPLE!

i do lean libertarian in a lot of ways. absolutely let people do what they want. stop getting mad because people don't live like you want them to. to be free is to tolerate shit you don't like. like pats fans

Racehorse

06-20-2023, 09:34 PM

i do lean libertarian in a lot of ways. absolutely let people do what they want. stop getting mad because people don't live like you want them to. to be free is to tolerate shit you don't like. like pats fans

I am not mad at all.

JAFF

06-22-2023, 08:28 AM

https://www.indystar.com/story/news/2023/06/21/moms-for-liberty-hamilton-county-indiana-quotes-hitler-in-newsletter/70344659007/

Moms for Liberty's Hamilton County chapter quotes Hitler in first newsletter
Indianapolis Star

The Hamilton County chapter of Moms for Liberty, a national organization recently listed as an "extremist group" by a civil rights watchdog, introduced its first newsletter Wednesday, The Parent Brigade. Adolf Hitler was quoted on its front cover.

Just below The Parent Brigade's masthead was a quote Hitler used at a Nazi rally in 1935: "He alone, who OWNS the youth, GAINS the future." The pages of the newsletter were posted on the group's Facebook page.

IndyStar reached out to officials with the Hamilton County chapter of Moms for Liberty requesting more context about the quote's usage but had received no response as of 9:20 p.m. Wednesday.

Below Hitler's words on the front page appeared a message from Moms for Liberty national co-founders Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich, with the headline: "Moms for Liberty will not be be intimidated by hate groups!"

Justice and Descovich appeared to be responding to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which labeled the Florida-headquartered Moms for Liberty and 11 other right-wing “parents' rights” organizations as extremist groups in its annual report, released earlier this month.

“(The movement) is primarily aimed at not wanting to include our hard history, topics of racism, and a very strong push against teaching anything having to do with LGBTQ topics in schools,” Susan Corke, an SPLC official, told USA TODAY.

Page 4 of the Parent Brigade included a mention of Carmel High School. The newsletter decried the school's recent $10,000 award from the "It Gets Better Project," a nonprofit organization whose stated mission is to uplift, empower and connect LGBTQ youth around the globe.

Money awarded to Carmel High School will be used to produce community-wide Pride events at the Carmel Pride festival happening June 25 at Carter Green.

The Parent Brigade newsletter also called out sponsors of Carmel Pride, labeling the event "perversion."

Colts And Orioles

06-22-2023, 02:05 PM

A WTF Moment in Indiana

o

A "What the fuck" response would suggest surprise ...... I'm not necessarily surprised.

o

JAFF

06-22-2023, 02:32 PM

o

A "What the fuck" response would suggest surprise ...... I'm not necessarily surprised.

o

Apparently this is their response to having transgender students in school.

So much for , “Love thy neighbor”.

JAFF

06-23-2023, 03:07 PM

https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/23/politics/special-counsel-fake-electors-immunity-testimony-jan-6/index.html

Get them while they are hot.

JAFF

06-23-2023, 08:21 PM

https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/23/politics/special-counsel-fake-electors-immunity-testimony-jan-6/index.html

Special counsel Jack Smith has compelled at least two Republican fake electors to testify to a federal grand jury in Washington in recent weeks by giving them limited immunity, part of a current push by federal prosecutors to swiftly nail down evidence in the sprawling criminal investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

The testimony, described to CNN by people familiar with the situation, comes after a year of relative dormancy around the fake electors portion of the investigation and as a parade of related witnesses are being told to appear before the grand jury with no chance for delay.

That activity could signal that investigators are nearing at least some charging decisions in a part of the 2020 election probe, sources added. It also comes just as the special counsel’s office filed charges against former President Donald Trump for his handling of classified documents.

Prosecutors initially obtained documents and interviews last spring from many of the Republicans who signed false certificates to the federal government, asserting they were the rightful electors for Trump in seven battleground states won by Joe Biden.

Prosecutors have played hardball with some of the witnesses in recent weeks, refusing to grant extensions to grand jury subpoenas for testimony and demanding they comply before the end of this month, sources said. In the situations where prosecutors have given witnesses immunity, the special counsel’s office arrived at the courthouse in Washington ready to compel their testimony after the witnesses indicated they would decline to answer questions under the Fifth Amendment, the sources added.

Locking in witness statements
The compelled testimony has allowed the special counsel’s office to lock in witness statements and potentially information that other investigators who have looked at the aftermath of the 2020 election couldn’t obtain.

At least one other witness has spoken to investigators in the past two weeks outside of the grand jury with an agreement the person would be protected from potential prosecution, another source said.
At least half a dozen witnesses have testified before the federal grand jury in Washington over four days in the past two weeks, with many of the sessions focused on the fake electors’ plot orchestrated by attorneys assisting the Trump campaign in 2020. The numbers, profile of the witnesses and prosecutor tactics suggest a probe picking up its pace, several people familiar with the investigation said.

Former President Donald Trump attends an event with supporters at the Westside Conservative Breakfast, in Des Moines, Iowa, Thursday, June 1, 2023. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
Timeline: The special counsel inquiry into Trump's handling of classified documents

This is the 'single most important' piece of evidence in Trump indictment, according to CNN legal analyst
01:36 - Source: CNN
Lawyers who have been in touch with the special counsel’s office in the wake of Trump’s indictment in Florida have found that prosecutors are still examining what appear to be other aspects of the investigation into Trump and his allies’ efforts to subvert the 2020 election results.

It is not clear if Trump is a target in the fake electors aspect of Smith’s ongoing criminal probe. But in recent months, prosecutors have pursued information about the former president’s words and actions after the 2020 election, including securing court-ordered testimony from his former vice president, Mike Pence.

Prosecutors have also asked multiple witnesses recently about Trump’s actions before, during and after the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, sources said.

An interest in former Trump legal team
In recent weeks, the special counsel’s office has also shown interest in several members of Trump’s post-election legal team who promoted baseless claims of widespread voter fraud, including his former lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, as well as former Justice Department appointee Jeffrey Clark, who tried to help Trump’s push to use the Department of Justice to overturn the election.

Giuliani played a key role in overseeing the fake electors plot across seven battleground states as part of the broader push to overturn the 2020 presidential election results for Trump, as CNN has previously reported.

Rudy Giuliani speaks to the press about various lawsuits related to the 2020 election, inside the Republican National Committee headquarters on November 19, 2020.
Rudy Giuliani speaks to the press about various lawsuits related to the 2020 election, inside the Republican National Committee headquarters on November 19, 2020.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Prosecutors have also continued to focus on potential financial crimes and money laundering after Trump raised millions of dollars off false claims the election was stolen. One former Trump campaign official who testified this month before the grand jury was asked about specific campaign ads and messaging produced as part of those fundraising activities, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Multiple 2020 election witnesses are scheduled for grand jury appointments in the coming days, sources say.

Fake electors in Nevada
The fake electors scheme – one of the more public efforts to overturn Biden’s win in the 2020 election – now appears to be at the forefront for prosecutors, sources said. The Republicans at the center of the fake electors effort asserted that Trump won in seven battleground states that he actually lost, and signed documents claiming they were the rightful electors.

The two Nevada Trump electors who were given the limited immunity – the state’s Republican Party Chairman Michael McDonald and another Nevada GOP official, Jim DeGraffenreid – both testified before the grand jury last week.

At least two more grand jury witnesses this week had insight into the fake electors scheme, including Gary Michael Brown, a 2020 Trump campaign election day operations official, who had told campaign staff he delivered fake elector votes for Trump to Congress from battleground states. Brown previously never responded to House Select Committee investigators who tried to reach him in their separate investigation.

Attorneys representing the witnesses declined to comment to CNN.

McDonald and DeGraffenreid previously declined to answer some questions about the fake electors scheme in the House inquiry.

McDonald also previously told reporters in Nevada that the FBI seized his phone as part of the federal probe related to January 6 and efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

The two Nevada fake electors who testified recently spoke to the grand jury about the actions of Nevada’s former GOP attorney general Adam Laxalt, and Jesse Binnall, a lawyer who worked for the Trump campaign in Nevada. Laxalt and Binnall both appeared at a press conference in mid-November 2020 to tout a lawsuit challenging the presidential election results and spreading claims of election fraud.

“Donald Trump won the state of Nevada after you account for the fraud and irregularities that occurred in the election,” said Binnall, who was one of the lawyers who brought a failed lawsuit on behalf of the GOP electors in Nevada.

“Adam Laxalt has never been contacted by the special counsel,” Robert Uithoven, a Laxalt spokesman, told CNN.

Binnall declined to comment.

As part of the special counsel’s investigation into the state-level efforts to overturn the election results, several county election commissions and state officials in battleground states Trump tried to contest received subpoenas last year for documents related to communications involving his campaign and various allies.

Nevada’s Clark County was among those that produced documents following a subpoena. In the batch of documents handed over and obtained by CNN, representatives for Trump’s campaign were in touch with election workers in Clark County. In their communications, the election workers parried questions from the Trump campaign about mail-in ballots and knocked down rumors, including a claim that there were problems with ballot tabulation hardware, the documents show.
This story has been updated with additional reaction.

JAFF

06-24-2023, 12:04 PM

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/freaked-out-russia-shocked-by-military-coup-against-putin/ar-AA1cYLV8?cvid=85048f579f924d27b6ba814b0120486a&ei=10

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/watch-checkpoints-set-up-around-moscow-as-wagner-advances-on-city/vi-AA1cYCNL?cvid=077b6b931deb4afdafb3b8b5c0d151fd&ei=16

Racehorse

06-24-2023, 12:20 PM

JAFF

06-24-2023, 02:03 PM

Did his reaction look like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hqU1m1ZTQ8

We could wish.

Its a big country, lots of time zones, huge boarders. Nature abhors a vacuum.

JAFF

06-25-2023, 04:45 AM

https://news.yahoo.com/opinion-supreme-courts-message-red-175917367.html

And:

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/federal-judge-blocks-florida-law-banning-minors-from-attending-drag-shows/

omahacolt

06-25-2023, 10:17 AM

lots of bigots in this world. indiana is stock full of them

omahacolt

06-25-2023, 10:20 AM

everyone needs to be held accountable for trying to overthrow the election. i hope they all die in jail

omahacolt

06-25-2023, 10:20 AM

or just execute them for treason. that is fine as well

JAFF

06-25-2023, 11:29 AM

lots of bigots in this world. indiana is stock full of them

Oh, but they have accepted Jesus and are saved and will be forgiven. Praise Jesus.

Racehorse

06-25-2023, 05:40 PM

Oh, but they have accepted Jesus and are saved and will be forgiven. Praise Jesus.

I'm pretty sure Jesus is upset with racists.

JAFF

06-25-2023, 08:29 PM

I'm pretty sure Jesus is upset with racists.

I agree. But the far right white christians who quote hitler think they are safe because they have take Christ into their hearts.

They claim they want a smaller fed, but one thats big enough to dictate to women their reproductive rights.

They are antisemitic, homophobic and love to talk about Jesus but they ignore his lessons.

I dont have a problem with Jesus. I have a problem with those sanctimonious far right hypocrites who believe the Bill of Rights is whits only

Colts And Orioles

06-26-2023, 08:22 AM

Or just execute them for treason ...... that is fine, as well.

o

Life in prison is arguably a worse fate than the death ...... they are both awful fates, but one puts you out of your misery while the other prolongs it.

o

JAFF

06-26-2023, 11:04 AM

JAFF

06-26-2023, 02:54 PM

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/illegal-trump-caught-diverting-campaign-donations-as-legal-bills-pile-up/ar-AA1d3oCQ?cvid=2ec2efa4448c435fb63e0d834fe236e6&ei=40

Donnie cant pay his lawyers fees with his own money, so he’s flim flaming his supporters and taking campaign money to cover his lawyers.

Always the grift and con

Racehorse

06-26-2023, 04:20 PM

I agree. But the far right white christians who quote hitler think they are safe because they have take Christ into their hearts.

They claim they want a smaller fed, but one thats big enough to dictate to women their reproductive rights.

They are antisemitic, homophobic and love to talk about Jesus but they ignore his lessons.

I dont have a problem with Jesus. I have a problem with those sanctimonious far right hypocrites who believe the Bill of Rights is whits only

i agree with most of this. I just wish you had the same energy when it comes to bad people who vote as you do.

JAFF

06-26-2023, 05:26 PM

i agree with most of this. I just wish you had the same energy when it comes to bad people who vote as you do.

If a democrat is breaking the law, put them in jail. Trumps admin had 4 years to try and put Hillary in jail and failed, because

1. Their stupid

2. It was better to harasses her everyday on fox news, knowing any charge wouldnt bring a conviction.

Bill and Hillary while 2 of the most repulsive people on the N American continent knew how far to push the law, unlike the a sociopathic, egomaniac who believes the bullshit lies he tells. They spent 4 years trying to put Hunter Biden in jail, and failed. They didnt care if they did, they only wanted the story to continue to make the dems look bad. How did that work out?

Stop thinking people who see Trump as a threat being blind to the shit the democrats do and have done. I wont make excuses for members of my party when they break the law.

This republic, our REPUBLIC, is in danger. From Trump and people who excuse his criminal behavior

Colts And Orioles

06-26-2023, 08:37 PM

o

Life in prison is arguably a worse fate than the death ...... they are both awful fates, but one puts you out of your misery while the other prolongs it.

o

Neither is a deterrent. I believe the state should not execute its citizens. Life in super max is god awful, thats enough.

o

I don't believe in the death penalty, either. My assertion was that some people would rather die than live 30-40 years in a maximum-security prison, and I can understand that.

o

JAFF

06-26-2023, 10:49 PM

Dolphin moms use ‘baby talk’ with their calves, a first among non-human species

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/dolphin-moms-use-baby-talk-with-their-calves-a-first-among-non-human-species/ar-AA1d4la0?cvid=f41d57e493e9464d902640b349a82ff2&ei=18

What did the dolphins say in Hitchhiker's Guide to the galaxy?

The last ever dolphin message was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do a double-backwards-somersault through a hoop whilst whistling the 'Star-Spangled Banner', but in fact the message was this: So Long, and thanks for all the fish.

Racehorse

06-27-2023, 07:58 AM

If a democrat is breaking the law, put them in jail. Trumps admin had 4 years to try and put Hillary in jail and failed, because

1. Their stupid

2. It was better to harasses her everyday on fox news, knowing any charge wouldnt bring a conviction.

Bill and Hillary while 2 of the most repulsive people on the N American continent knew how far to push the law, unlike the a sociopathic, egomaniac who believes the bullshit lies he tells. They spent 4 years trying to put Hunter Biden in jail, and failed. They didnt care if they did, they only wanted the story to continue to make the dems look bad. How did that work out?

Stop thinking people who see Trump as a threat being blind to the shit the democrats do and have done. I wont make excuses for members of my party when they break the law.

This republic, our REPUBLIC, is in danger. From Trump and people who excuse his criminal behavior

Oh, the irony in the underlined part, lol.

As to the topic at hand, there were no laws broken in the story you shared. Just stupid people saying stupid stuff. You are moving the goalposts here.

Lov2fish

06-27-2023, 05:39 PM

If a democrat is breaking the law, put them in jail. Trumps admin had 4 years to try and put Hillary in jail and failed, because

1. Their stupid

2. It was better to harasses her everyday on fox news, knowing any charge wouldnt bring a conviction.

Bill and Hillary while 2 of the most repulsive people on the N American continent knew how far to push the law, unlike the a sociopathic, egomaniac who believes the bullshit lies he tells. They spent 4 years trying to put Hunter Biden in jail, and failed. They didnt care if they did, they only wanted the story to continue to make the dems look bad. How did that work out?

Stop thinking people who see Trump as a threat being blind to the shit the democrats do and have done. I wont make excuses for members of my party when they break the law.

This republic, our REPUBLIC, is in danger. From Trump and people who excuse his criminal behavior

They're Stupid (Fixed it for ya)

Make no mistake about it, she broke the law, the same as they all break the law. Nobody is going to jail, not even Trump as much as you want him too.

One of my biggest pet peeves with democrats. You can do as you want, and believe what you want, as long as it is the same as them. As soon as you don't, you're racist, a bigot and every phobe they can fucking dream up. Democrats have a fucking mental disorder, ALL OF THEM.

JAFF

06-28-2023, 07:48 PM

I dont know what is like elsewhere, but this article has a map that explains a lot.

https://www.indystar.com/story/news/2023/06/28/canada-wildfire-map-indianapolis-indiana-air-quality/70364007007/

I havent seen this kind of air pollution since I was a kid living in Glendale Ca in the 60’s.

The fires reach across an entire continent.

Racehorse

06-29-2023, 08:12 AM

JAFF

07-01-2023, 03:11 PM

I heard a long time ago that a lot of forest fires were due to poor forest management. They do not do any logging, instead, waiting for the trees to die naturally. Then they leave the old, dead stuff on the ground to dry out, making kindling for whatever spark ignites, and whoosh, the fire is uncontrollable.

I this might be something greater than miss management. Much of the fires are grasslands, combined with extended drought and high winds, I dont know what can be done other than cutting a fire gap. Early pioneer stories of prairie fires that couldnt be out run is what is happening. The low populations in central Canada resemble the population densities of Nevada, Montana and Wyoming. They may not have enough personnel considering the total population of Canada when you get as far north as Calgary.

JAFF

07-01-2023, 07:39 PM

https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/01/us/canada-wildfire-smoke-us-air-quality/index.html

Its a good read, many factors

Racehorse

07-01-2023, 08:34 PM

https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/01/us/canada-wildfire-smoke-us-air-quality/index.html

Its a good read, many factors

CNN does not have good reads, lol.

omahacolt

07-02-2023, 12:01 PM

They're Stupid (Fixed it for ya)

Make no mistake about it, she broke the law, the same as they all break the law. Nobody is going to jail, not even Trump as much as you want him too.

One of my biggest pet peeves with democrats. You can do as you want, and believe what you want, as long as it is the same as them. As soon as you don't, you're racist, a bigot and every phobe they can fucking dream up. Democrats have a fucking mental disorder, ALL OF THEM.

and republicans are different? republicans literally try to ban everything they don't like. then pretend they like freedom.

usually when people get called a racist or a bigot, they are being a racist or a bigot. of course racists and bigots don't like to be called that. doesn't change the fact that they are that

Lov2fish

07-02-2023, 09:26 PM

and republicans are different? republicans literally try to ban everything they don't like. then pretend they like freedom.

usually when people get called a racist or a bigot, they are being a racist or a bigot. of course racists and bigots don't like to be called that. doesn't change the fact that they are that

Did I say Republicans are not complicit? You keep trying to paint me into something I am not. It just makes you look fucking retarded.

And your last statement is more bullshit than truth. I don't approve of gay marriages, but as long as it isn't interfering in my life I could care less. But I'll get called a homophobe for that. Doesn't matter that I am not. Democrats just want to hear their bullshit coming out of my mouth. Again, fucking democrats are as useless as tits on a bull.

JAFF

07-03-2023, 12:02 PM

CNN does not have good reads, lol.

This one is. Like most environment issue, it is not an easy fix, so many variables

Racehorse

07-03-2023, 01:19 PM

This one is. Like most environment issue, it is not an easy fix, so many variables

OK. I broke down and read it. It seems they think like I do, that fires are a part of nature that should be left to itself if the danger is nearly nil.

JAFF

07-03-2023, 07:00 PM

OK. I broke down and read it. It seems they think like I do, that fires are a part of nature that should be left to itself if the danger is nearly nil.

Yes. IF thats the case, then where and how you build needs to be considered. People need to fit into the environment, and stop trying to get nature to bend to our wishes. Natural resources are renewable, but at a slower pace than we consume them.

JAFF

07-04-2023, 02:15 PM

https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/04/politics/american-political-divisions-july-fourth/index.html

Nothing is a guarantee.

Racehorse

07-04-2023, 02:49 PM

Nothing lasts forever except spirits.

Colts And Orioles

07-04-2023, 09:29 PM

o

When I was in 9th grade in the 1979-80 school year, I remember telling Mr. Talarico that there was no way that the U.S.S.R. could fold, because of the fact that they could essentially match the United States in terms of nuclear power.

My thinking at that time was uninformed, naïve, and simplistic ...... Mr. Talarico, to his credit, asked me rhetorically, "How do you KNOW that ???"

I've come a long way since being a naïve, presumptuous Freshman in high school more than 43 years ago (at least I like to believe that I have.) Nothing, nothing, NOTHING is guaranteed in this life ...... not the Roman Empire, not the former Soviet Union, and not the United States that we currently live in.

o

JAFF

07-05-2023, 04:58 PM

https://www.nbcdfw.com/weather/weather-connection/earths-hottest-day-ever-was-recorded-on-july-3-2023/3289861/

Racehorse

07-05-2023, 06:19 PM

NOAA/ Maine global temperature data goes back to 1979, but researchers say these temperature readings are comparable with data that goes back much further. They are confident this is the highest global temperature since instrumental measurements began around the 1850s.
Means they really don't know.

JAFF

07-05-2023, 09:59 PM

Means they really don't know.

That is the point. We dont know, lets go figure it out.

We do know a lot about physics, geology and chemistry. These concepts have LAWS that are considered universal and accepted as true.

Svante Arrhenius In the in the early 1900s suggested CO and C02, were causing a rise in global temperature. He was one of the early recipients of a Nobel Prize in chemistry. He predicted the trend what we are experiencing now.

We know from the fossil record and minerals in the rock how the environment has changed between the 5 extinction events that have occurred. From the last 120 years of charting the change in CO2 and temperature we get this.

https://zfacts.com/zfacts.com/p/226.html

We know that to do nothing could be catastrophic. I may not live long enough to see how bad it will become, but my grandchildren my suffer due the inaction of this generation.

JAFF

07-05-2023, 10:02 PM

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/astonishingly-low-cash-trump-s-election-lies-leave-swing-state-republicans-effectively-broke/ar-AA1dtEfJ?cvid=79d2ba2c6a3e4899838107168baf12c7&ei=20

Racehorse

07-06-2023, 09:30 AM

That is the point. We dont know, lets go figure it out.

We do know a lot about physics, geology and chemistry. These concepts have LAWS that are considered universal and accepted as true.

Svante Arrhenius In the in the early 1900s suggested CO and C02, were causing a rise in global temperature. He was one of the early recipients of a Nobel Prize in chemistry. He predicted the trend what we are experiencing now.

We know from the fossil record and minerals in the rock how the environment has changed between the 5 extinction events that have occurred. From the last 120 years of charting the change in CO2 and temperature we get this.

https://zfacts.com/zfacts.com/p/226.html

We know that to do nothing could be catastrophic. I may not live long enough to see how bad it will become, but my grandchildren my suffer due the inaction of this generation.
Did he also predict the cold 1970s? I have my doubts about these predictions, because they often predict the opposite of a previous generation.

Lov2fish

07-06-2023, 10:30 AM

Did he also predict the cold 1970s? I have my doubts about these predictions, because they often predict the opposite of a previous generation.

Earths temperatures are cyclical. They always have been, and always will be. Every time one of these prognosticators are wrong they move the goal post to try and fit their unknown guess.

Racehorse

07-06-2023, 11:52 AM

Earths temperatures are cyclical. They always have been, and always will be. Every time one of these prognosticators are wrong they move the goal post to try and fit their unknown guess.

Kind of like...Someone put that in place for some reason.

JAFF

07-07-2023, 08:34 AM

Earths temperatures are cyclical. They always have been, and always will be. Every time one of these prognosticators are wrong they move the goal post to try and fit their unknown guess.

Rising ocean levels, decreasing ice caps, receding glaciers, expanding deserts, are not cycling, they are trending.

Lov2fish

07-07-2023, 09:51 AM

Rising ocean levels, decreasing ice caps, receding glaciers, expanding deserts, are not cycling, they are trending.

Except none of that shit is happening. Quit being sucked in by every fucking bs story CNN puts out.

JAFF

07-07-2023, 03:12 PM

Except none of that shit is happening. Quit being sucked in by every fucking bs story CNN puts out.

https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/sea-level/

https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/hazards/sealevelrise/sealevelrise-tech-report.html

https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/projects/climate-change-evidence-causes/question-14/

https://ocean.si.edu/through-time/ancient-seas/sea-level-rise

https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/carbon-dioxide/

https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/carbon-dioxide-now-more-than-50-higher-than-pre-industrial-levels

https://public.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/carbon-dioxide-levels-continue-record-levels-despite-covid-19-lockdown

This one is surprising, but it makes sense due to higher cocentrated solutions move toward low cocentrations

https://www.epa.gov/arc-x/climate-adaptation-and-saltwater-intrusion#:~:text=Water%20resources%20along%20the% 20coasts,water%20sources%20of%20drinking%20water.

Stop listening to fox news. They are a Mina bird for those who cant think for themselves

JAFF

07-07-2023, 03:29 PM

https://www.breakingbourbon.com/review/old-grand-dad-bonded-bourbon

If you are a whiskey drinker, look for this. Its really good. If you dont know about Bottle and Bond, it means its a minimum 50% alcohol, where most second self bourbons are 40 %.

Best part, you can purchase this for under $30. I live in a small town, and the local liquor store is selling it for $28.

Second Best part, if you like bourbon, you want to try this. Its better than Buffalo Trac and damn near as good as Blantons. If you have ever wanted to try bourbon, start with this, a couple of ice cubes and one shot.

Racehorse

07-07-2023, 05:00 PM

You really are full of shit, aren't you?

Racehorse

07-07-2023, 05:26 PM

JAFF

07-07-2023, 05:32 PM

You really are full of shit, aren't you?

Facts are very inconvenient for you. Support your argument with verifiable data.

JAFF

07-07-2023, 05:34 PM

This explains most of your posts.

You should have a drink, to unclinch your colon

JAFF

07-07-2023, 05:37 PM

https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/07/politics/dc-bar-rudy-giuliani/index.html

Attorney disciplinary committee recommends Rudy Giuliani be disbarred for 2020 election legal work

JAFF

07-07-2023, 07:49 PM

Nearly half of the tap water in the US is contaminated with ‘forever chemicals,’ government study finds

https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/05/health/pfas-nearly-half-us-tap-water-wellness/index.html

Makes me feel better having a freshwater well

JAFF

07-10-2023, 01:05 PM

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-is-unelectable-says-3-6-million-ad-campaign-tied-to-influential-group/ar-AA1dG34L?cvid=f180f55321224942a343ce24022609f7&ei=9

JAFF

07-10-2023, 01:18 PM

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/who-s-going-to-work-migrant-workers-flee-florida-as-desantis-new-anti-immigrant-law-takes-effect/ar-AA1dnyg0?cvid=380da32b329a4bc8b4245f9f77414e35&ei=16

And states like Indiana will turn a blind eye because the farm people need those migrant workers. White people wont work those jobs, not even for $25/hr.

For as far right as Indiana is, it has never bother Republicans that a large portion of the restaurant owners hire undocumented people so they can save money on pay and benefits, as long as the customers are happy.

Racehorse

07-10-2023, 01:18 PM

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-is-unelectable-says-3-6-million-ad-campaign-tied-to-influential-group/ar-AA1dG34L?cvid=f180f55321224942a343ce24022609f7&ei=9

No shit!

JAFF

07-11-2023, 08:43 AM

https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/10/politics/gal-luft-charged-arms-trafficking/index.html

And he is a fugitive.

Do I think Hunter Biden is innocent? No. I think the republicans in congress are so stupid they couldnt indict a ham sandwich.

JAFF

07-12-2023, 02:58 PM

Racehorse

07-12-2023, 05:39 PM

https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/12/business/farmers-insurance-florida/index.html

This is a data driven decision, they cant over come the unbalance of risk vs reward. More than likely, other business will jack up their rates

Better figure out a way to be self-insured. Relying on someone else to foot the bill is not a wise way to go about your business.

JAFF

07-12-2023, 09:09 PM

Better figure out a way to be self-insured. Relying on someone else to foot the bill is not a wise way to go about your business.

Self insured? You use insurance to cover the cost of a car, home or death because you dont have $250,000 in the bank to cover a catastrophic loss.

Farmers insurance is losing money in California due to fire and floods in Florida. They are looking at recent losses and weather trends and their numbers are telling them California and Florida are bad risks.

People dont like to hear about climate change, but here it is, and the insurance companies have the data to back it up.

Racehorse

07-13-2023, 11:45 AM

Self insured? You use insurance to cover the cost of a car, home or death because you dont have $250,000 in the bank to cover a catastrophic loss.

Farmers insurance is losing money in California due to fire and floods in Florida. They are looking at recent losses and weather trends and their numbers are telling them California and Florida are bad risks.

People dont like to hear about climate change, but here it is, and the insurance companies have the data to back it up.

I am saying that insurance is helpful, but there is no guarantee it will be there forever.

JAFF

07-13-2023, 12:14 PM

I am saying that insurance is helpful, but there is no guarantee it will be there forever.

Yes.

JAFF

07-15-2023, 03:03 PM

Trump campaign calls Iraq veteran ‘lily-livered’

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4098094-trump-campaign-calls-iraq-veteran-lily-livered-for-flipping-to-desantis/

JAFF

07-16-2023, 02:59 PM

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/firefighters-are-leaving-the-u-s-forest-service-for-better-pay-and-benefits/ar-AA1dWvV7?cvid=1c75c740b649479eb3d2a3d8ea666520&ei=8

JAFF

07-16-2023, 03:26 PM

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ocean-heat-around-florida-is-unprecedented-and-scientists-are-warning-of-major-impacts/ar-AA1dLunH?cvid=fc3040413601400a928b1197d74b8a65&ei=27

Coral reefs are the base for the aquatic food chains and species cycles.

What we may experience will be greater storms in the gulf. Hurricanes are fed by the warm water of the gulf. Insurance companies dont care about coral, they are definitely scared shitless by bigger hurricanes.

JAFF

07-17-2023, 06:57 AM

Space photos show over 1 trillion gallons of water flooding crop fields in California, and it could mean higher food prices

https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/space-photos-show-over-1-trillion-gallons-of-water-flooding-crop-fields-in-california-and-it-could-mean-higher-food-prices/ar-AA1dVQCX?cvid=b421de3736f745cebeddbb250c6cc1c7&ei=38

Lov2fish

07-17-2023, 08:01 AM

Facts are very inconvenient for you. Support your argument with verifiable data.

Temps have stayed consistent for the last 15 years. Same amount of ice caps as before. Ocean levels have not risen. Every time a temp record is broken it is always 75-100 year old record. What caused global warming then? Oh yea, moved the goal post, climate change since the fucking earth isn't warming?

You are the most gullible fucking liberal I have come across in quite sometime, and that is saying something. Y'all believe so much shit that just isn't so.

JAFF

07-17-2023, 10:00 AM

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-sea-level

https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/sea-level/

https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Space_for_our_climate/Clearest_evidence_yet_of_polar_ice_losses

https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-ice-sheets

https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/12/us/florida-ocean-heat-coral-bleaching-climate/index.html

Racehorse

07-17-2023, 01:31 PM

We really need a HAHA button for Jaff's posts.

bigalbert

07-18-2023, 12:32 PM

JAFF we’re a day closer to Jesus coming back
Get ready

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

JAFF

07-18-2023, 04:03 PM

JAFF we’re a day closer to Jesus coming back
Get ready

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Been ready

omahacolt

07-22-2023, 11:20 AM

JAFF we’re a day closer to Jesus coming back
Get ready

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

if that were the case, it isn't, a lot of people are going to be surprised that he doesn't approve of their behavior.

a lot of so called "good christians" are garbage people.

thankfully for those people, religion is bullshit

Racehorse

07-22-2023, 12:42 PM

if that were the case, it isn't, a lot of people are going to be surprised that he doesn't approve of their behavior.

a lot of so called "good christians" are garbage people.

thankfully for those people, religion is bullshit

I agree with the first line. There are many people who profess christianity, but forget the major tenets of the religion.

JAFF

07-22-2023, 07:48 PM

I agree with the first line. There are many people who profess christianity, but forget the major tenets of the religion.

Forgiveness is usually the last thing on the list of the far religious (you pick the group)

Racehorse

07-22-2023, 09:27 PM

Forgiveness is usually the last thing on the list of the far religious (you pick the group)

Far religious? What does that mean? In my opinion, the further you go with christianity, the more forgiving you are called to be.

JAFF

07-22-2023, 10:54 PM

Far religious? What does that mean? In my opinion, the further you go with christianity, the more forgiving you are called to be.

Its been my experience, the big talkers about their faith come up short when it comes to putting it to use. The Christians I have respect for dont talk about faith, they are too busy doing their faith.

Racehorse

07-23-2023, 08:59 AM

Its been my experience, the big talkers about their faith come up short when it comes to putting it to use. The Christians I have respect for dont talk about faith, they are too busy doing their faith.

I can accept that, to an extent.

JAFF

07-25-2023, 05:34 PM

Morgan Stanley raises economic growth forecast, citing Biden infrastructure ‘boom’

https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/morgan-stanley-raises-economic-growth-forecast-citing-biden-policy-boom

Racehorse

07-25-2023, 07:17 PM

Morgan Stanley raises economic growth forecast, citing Biden infrastructure ‘boom’

https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/morgan-stanley-raises-economic-growth-forecast-citing-biden-policy-boom

.6% to 1.3%. That doubled, but it was atrocious before, and 1.3% is still sucky, given that prices of goods people need for every day living are rising at a much quicker pace.

JAFF

07-26-2023, 05:40 PM

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/incandescently-stupid-former-dhs-official-says-he-had-to-dumb-down-classified-memos-for-trump/ar-AA1eo7P8?cvid=bb6edbd30ce647388d0b5838fc1eb0db&ei=25

iles Taylor, who served as chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security under Donald Trump, shared how he often had to oversimply national security reports for the former president.

Related video: In an audio clip, Trump says he has 'highly confidential' document (WION)

Pause

Current Time 1:52
/
Duration 7:49
QualitySettings
Captions
Fullscreen
WION
In an audio clip, Trump says he has 'highly confidential' document
Unmute
View on Watch

"This fifty-page memo that we would normally give to any other president about what his options are is something Trump literally can't read. The man doesn't read. We've gotta boil this down into a one-pager in his voice," Taylor told podcast host Brett Meiselas on Tuesday. "And so I had to write this incandescently stupid memo called something like, 'Afghanistan, How to Put America First and Win.' And then bullet by bullet, I summed up this highly classified memo into Trump's sort of bombastic language because it was the only way he was gonna understand," Taylor added. "I mean, I literally said in there, 'You know, if we leave Afghanistan too fast, the terrorists will call us losers. But if we wanna be seen as winners, we need to make sure the Afghan forces have the strength to push back against these criminals.' I mean, it was that dumb and that's how you had to talk to him."

JAFF

07-27-2023, 04:36 PM

Webb telescope spots water in a nearby planetary system

https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/27/world/webb-telescope-water-planetary-system-scn/index.html

Its a big deal.

Racehorse

07-27-2023, 04:53 PM

Link does not work.

JAFF

07-27-2023, 05:45 PM

Link does not work.

Try it now,

https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/27/world/webb-telescope-water-planetary-system-scn/index.html

JAFF

07-28-2023, 10:29 AM

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/so-much-worse-legal-experts-say-new-trump-indictment-reads-just-like-organized-crime-activity/ar-AA1etRga?cvid=5fefb9fc3ea74181a7084291391f1a4a&ei=13

Former President Donald Trump and two of his aides were hit with new charges in the Mar-a-Lago documents case on Thursday.

A grand jury in South Florida returned a superseding indictment adding four charges to the prior indictment against Trump and aide Walt Nauta. Another aide, Carlos De Oliveira, the Mar-a-Lago head of maintenance, was also added to the obstruction conspiracy charged in the original indictment.

Liz Claiborne Womens Scoop Neck Short Sleeve Blouse | Green | Womens X-Large | Shirts + Tops Blouses
Liz Claiborne Womens Scoop Neck Short Sleeve Blouse | Green | Womens X-Large | Shirts + Tops Blouses
Ad
LIZ CLAIBORNE
The indictment alleges that De Oliveira told another employee that "the boss" wanted the server with Mar-a-Lago surveillance footage deleted and asked how long the footage was stored.

"What are we going to do?" he allegedly said.

The alleged exchange came after Trump's team received a subpoena for the security footage, according to the indictment.

The new indictment charges Trump with two new obstruction counts and with allegedly possessing the classified document he was heard discussing in an audio recording of a meeting at his Bedminster, N.J. golf club. Trump in the audio bragged that he had a classified Iran war plan that he could not show others because he hadn't declassified it. He has since denied that he was in possession of the document.

But the new indictment alleges that he did have it and that it was marked "TOP SECRET" and involved a "Presentation concerning military activity in a foreign country."

Trump and Nauta pleaded not guilty to the earlier charges against them.

National security attorney Mark Zaid said the indictment "reads like organized crime activity," citing the "compelling" text messages and video footage cited in the document.

Former Manhattan prosecutor Karen Friedman Agnifilo told CNN that the indictment "reads like a spy novel."

"That's what you would do. You would try to… wipe out the video footage," she said. "I mean, it's just astonishing that this is what Trump wanted to do! He wanted to destroy evidence of a crime! I mean, that's really what this is."

CNN legal analyst Elliot Williams said that the timeline laid out by the indictment is "devastating."

"They start communicating about what the boss' wishes are and immediately took steps to delete this footage," he said Friday. "All of that is pretty lock, stock and barrel evidence of obstruction of justice."

Fellow CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Elie Honig argued that the charge related to the Iran document was the "single most important" part of the indictment.

"Those papers he was shuffling, yes, they were classified documents, they're related to war plans, and DOJ has that document. That is now a new charge in this indictment," he said.

Lov2fish

07-28-2023, 09:44 PM

Now that has value worth reading. Being somewhat of a space nerd I waited anxiously until the first pics came back from Webb. Post more of this and less politics.

Lov2fish

07-28-2023, 09:47 PM

JAFF

07-29-2023, 10:24 AM

You can replace Trump's name with any politician in the last 100 years and nobody would know the difference. You gotta quit letting that dude kick bb's around the inside of your cranium. Its not healthy.

Ok, so name another American President has been charged with 37 felonies?

Name another President has been caught on tape planning to hide the evidence of his crimes? Easy, Nixon. For conspiracy.

Facts are a problem for you.

JAFF

07-29-2023, 12:19 PM

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/democrat-weighs-in-on-alien-bodies-says-nsa-can-t-keep-basic-secrets/ar-AA1ewubp?cvid=b928f5817c774d77aa1362613ec094b3&ei=7

My favorite part

"Still waiting for any whistleblower to disclose the address of where the aliens are," Lieu said in his tweet. "Also, why are aliens always showing up in America?"

Why are they showing up in America? They must have seen “Hamilton”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1izVfVpBwE

Lov2fish

07-29-2023, 01:04 PM

Ok, so name another American President has been charged with 37 felonies?

Name another President has been caught on tape planning to hide the evidence of his crimes? Easy, Nixon. For conspiracy.

Facts are a problem for you.

You have not paid attention to history. As much as I don't like Trump, he was exposing some of the pay to play shit that goes on everyday in Washington so he was marked. He just wasn't sharp enough to hide his own pay for play schemes.

omahacolt

07-29-2023, 01:11 PM

You can replace Trump's name with any politician in the last 100 years and nobody would know the difference. You gotta quit letting that dude kick bb's around the inside of your cranium. Its not healthy.

deflect and play the whatabout game

never actually acknowledge a republicans shortcomings or misdeads. or in this case treason and felonies.

Colts And Orioles

07-29-2023, 03:16 PM

You have not paid attention to history. As much as I don't like Trump, he was exposing some of the pay to play shit that goes on everyday in Washington so he was marked. He just wasn't sharp enough to hide his own pay for play schemes.

o

In terms of serious felonies committed by the person sitting in the Oval Office, Donald Trump is similar to Richard Nixon, which puts the 2 of them in very rare company regarding the criminality of a US President.

That said, Trump and Nixon are/were essentially no better and no worse than any other President before them or since ...... all of the decisions that each and every United States President has made throughout history are the product of a much larger structure which promotes capitalism, demonizes socialism, and is completely in bed with THE TRUE OWNERS of this country ...... the multi-billionaires, the big businesses, the oil companies, etc.

As the late, great George Carlin pointed out, the politicians are there just to give you the illusion that you have some control over what happens when you pull a lever at the voting booth every 4 years ...... you don't have ANY control over any of the important decisions regarding what goes down in our society, as it matters not one bit whether a liberal Democrat is sitting in the Oval Office or a conservative Republican. You may as well be pulling your own dick as pulling that voting lever every 4 years, because the meaning of the 2 acts are essentially the same.

o

JAFF

07-29-2023, 08:31 PM

Now that has value worth reading. Being somewhat of a space nerd I waited anxiously until the first pics came back from Webb. Post more of this and less politics.

I will post what ever I think is relevant and you are not required to read them. I will quote Vonnegut, “you can take a flying fuck at a rolling donut”, if you dont like it.

Lov2fish

07-30-2023, 10:42 PM

I will post what ever I think is relevant and you are not required to read them. I will quote Vonnegut, “you can take a flying fuck at a rolling donut”, if you dont like it.

Well that escalated quickly. You sure you want to go there? I don't think you're equipped for this.

JAFF

08-01-2023, 05:54 PM

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/live-blog/trump-live-updates-grand-jury-2020-election-probe-arrives-courthouse-rcna96825

A conspiracy to defraud the United States "by using dishonesty, fraud and deceit to obstruct the nation’s process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election," according to the special counsel's office.

A conspiracy to impede the Jan. 6 congressional proceeding at which the collected results of the presidential election are counted and certified.

A conspiracy against the right to vote and to have that vote counted.

Obstruction of, and attempt to obstruct and impede, the certification of the electoral vote.

Only Trump is named, the others have a chance to tell the truth and not spend their golden years in a Federal Correction facility.

6 people not named, giving them time to flip and tell the truth

JAFF

08-01-2023, 07:07 PM

Estate of Henrietta Lacks reaches settlement with biotech company for nonconsensual use of her cells in medical research

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/01/us/henrietta-lacks-thermo-fisher-scientific-settlement/index.html

The family of Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman whose cells have been used for scientific research for decades, reached a settlement Tuesday with the biotech company Thermo Fisher Scientific, the family’s attorneys said.

Lacks’ family filed a federal lawsuit in 2021 against the company, arguing it is knowingly profiting from Lacks’ tissue sample and cell line.

In 1951, Lacks was diagnosed with cervical cancer and had tissue taken from her cervix without her consent during a procedure at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. Lacks died later that year from the cancer at the age of 31.

Artist Bryan Cobbs, left, and sculptor Larry Bechtel stand in front of a preliminary sketch for the Henrietta Lacks statue in Roanoke, Virginia.
Henrietta Lacks statue will replace Robert E. Lee monument in Roanoke, Virginia
The sample was later used to create a human cell line that can reproduce itself outside of the body, which is now known as HeLa cells.

The cells have been used to develop the polio vaccine, in vitro fertilization, gene mapping, advancements in cancer treatment, AIDS research, cloning and stem cell studies, CNN previously reported.

The family and the company reached a “confidential settlement” outside the court, the Lacks’ attorneys told CNN.

At a news conference Tuesday, family members and their attorneys said the settlement will help them in their efforts to keep Lacks’ legacy alive.

“On her 103rd birthday, we got justice,” said Alfred Lacks-Carter, Jr., Lacks’ grandson.

Attorney Ben Crump, second from left, walks with Ron Lacks, left, Alfred Lacks Carter, third from left, both grandsons of Henrietta Lacks, and other descendants of Lacks, whose cells have been used in medical research without her permission, outside the federal courthouse in Baltimore, Monday, Oct. 4, 2021. They announced during a news conference that Lacks' estate is filing a lawsuit against Thermo Fisher Scientific for using Lacks' cells, known as HeLa cells.
Estate of Henrietta Lacks sues biotechnical company for nonconsensual use of her cells
Ben Crump, one of the attorneys representing the family, said he hopes the settlement will help to further educate others about Lacks’ legacy.

“This Black woman gave so much to the world, it’s good to give her a present back on her birthday,” Crump said.

Thermo Fisher told CNN in a statement it was “pleased” a settlement was achieved outside of court and declined to provide further comment on the case.

CNN has reached out to The Johns Hopkins Hospital for comment on the settlement. The Baltimore hospital was not named in the lawsuit but has previously said Lacks’ tissue sample would not have been taken without her consent for use in scientific research today.

Its a big deal, your body is your property and parts cannot be used without your consent and have profit made without compensation. While what was done with her cells has had an enormous impact on the health care around the world, it was done without consent of the family.

This is just another example of big business treating minorities poorly because they can.

JAFF

08-01-2023, 09:46 PM

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/pence-took-notes-on-everything-and-they-re-key-to-trump-s-new-indictment/ar-AA1eF5ig?cvid=cad6a22b35174b6b94886faa26442466&ei=18

Then-Vice President Mike Pence took “contemporaneous notes” of his meetings with Donald Trump leading up to Jan. 6, according to a new federal grand jury indictment lodged against the former president on Tuesday which reveals Trump's continual efforts to pressure Pence into rejecting electoral votes.

Everything Must Go Today
Everything Must Go Today
Ad
CΟSΤCΟ
Citing the notes as evidence underpinning its case, the 45-page indictment reveals Pence took the notes after conversations with his boss in the weeks leading up to the Capitol riots, as Trump attempted to enlist him for help.

“As the January 6 congressional certification proceeding approached and other efforts to impair, obstruct and defeat the federal junction failed, the Defendant sought to enlist the Vice President to use his ceremonial role at the certification to fraudulently alter the election results,” the indictment says.

It alleges Trump and one of his co-conspirators “knowingly made false claims of election fraud” in a meeting on Jan. 4, 2021.

In that meeting, Trump asked Pence to reject or challenge legitimate electors for Democrat Joe Biden from seven states, rather than count them. The indictment claims Trump deliberately excluded his White House counsel from the meeting because lawyers had already pushed back on the idea.

“Bottom line ― won every state by 100,000s of votes,” Trump said at the time, according to Pence.

Related video: Donald Trump indicted in connection to Jan. 6 probe (MSNBC)

Play

Current Time 1:27
/
Duration 1:35
Quality Settings
Captions
Fullscreen
MSNBC
Donald Trump indicted in connection to Jan. 6 probe
Unmute
View on Watch

More videos
Donald Trump’s third indictment explained
Dailymotion/Dailymotion
Donald Trump’s third indictment explained
2:15
Trump Indicted In Special Counsel's 2020 Election Interference Probe
Newsweek/Newsweek
Trump Indicted In Special Counsel's 2020 Election Interference Probe
0:57
In another, according to the notes, Trump also falsely told Pence on Dec. 29, 2020, that the Department of Justice was “finding major infractions.”

Then, on Jan. 1, the President told Pence he was “too honest” in a phone call berating the Vice President for opposing a lawsuit that would reject Biden’s presidency. Pence had told Trump that there was no constitutional basis for such authority and that it was improper; among just a number of pushbacks by Pence at the time.

In a statement Tuesday night, Pence said “today’s indictment serves as an important reminder: anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be the President of the United States.”

Pence added he will “have more to say” after reviewing the indictment, echoing special counsel Jack Smith’s earlier comments Tuesday night that Trump is “entitled to the presumption of innocence.”

CBS News’ Robert Costa described Pence on the air as a “central, crucial key witness in this investigation,” adding “he could end up being the most important witness in this case.”

“He can speak to possible criminal intent. By Pence detailing what Trump said... Pence is someone who was weaponized at the end of the presidency for Trump, and to have him cooperating with the investigation gives the special counsel an eyewitness account who is not a lawyer or some Trump functionary.”

JAFF

08-02-2023, 07:46 PM

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/02/opinions/trump-enormous-stakes-third-indictment-gerhardt/index.html

IF you bother to read this, is lays out the present situation and how deep the hole is for donnie

omahacolt

08-03-2023, 05:08 PM

everyone knows trump is guilty

we watched it all on live tv. some people just don't care.

JAFF

08-05-2023, 01:41 PM

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/oregon-ends-ban-on-self-service-gas-pumps-after-72-years-confused-motorists-turn-to-how-to-guides-and-station-attendants-union-slams-the-change-as-blatant-cash-grab/ar-AA1eQ00Q?cvid=5abb325e81794a6a9afe3a036e3e4530&ei=10

Leaving only New Jersey in the past.

AlwaysSunnyinIndy

08-05-2023, 05:45 PM

When I saw Oregon in the title - I thought the article was going to be about Oregon joining the Big Ten Conference.

JAFF

08-06-2023, 07:57 AM

When I saw Oregon in the title - I thought the article was going to be about Oregon joining the Big Ten Conference.

Lol. I was a pump jockey during my college summers. Made good money, worked many graveyard shifts, which payed more.

Racehorse

08-06-2023, 08:41 AM

Lol. I was a pump jockey during my college summers. Made good money, worked many graveyard shifts, which payed more.

I don't see how you working the night giving hand jobs is relevant to this discussion, but carry on.

JAFF

08-09-2023, 06:39 AM

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/08/us/politics/trump-indictment-fake-electors-memo.html

Internal memo explains the plot to overthrow the government

The House Jan. 6 committee’s investigation did not uncover the memo, whose existence first came to light in last week’s indictment.

Share full article

380
Former President Donald J. Trump gestures with his hand. He is wearing a dark suit and red tie.
A scheme to use false electors to keep Donald J. Trump in power was perhaps the most sprawling of the various efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

Maggie HabermanCharlie SavageLuke Broadwater
By Maggie Haberman, Charlie Savage and Luke Broadwater
Aug. 8, 2023
A lawyer allied with President Donald J. Trump first laid out a plot to use false slates of electors to subvert the 2020 election in a previously unknown internal campaign memo that prosecutors are portraying as a crucial link in how the Trump team’s efforts evolved into a criminal conspiracy.

The existence of the Dec. 6, 2020, memo came to light in last week’s indictment of Mr. Trump, though its details remained unclear. But a copy obtained by The New York Times shows for the first time that the lawyer, Kenneth Chesebro, acknowledged from the start that he was proposing “a bold, controversial strategy” that the Supreme Court “likely” would reject in the end.

But even if the plan did not ultimately pass legal muster at the highest level, Mr. Chesebro argued that it would achieve two goals. It would focus attention on claims of voter fraud and “buy the Trump campaign more time to win litigation that would deprive Biden of electoral votes and/or add to Trump’s column.”

The memo had been a missing piece in the public record of how Mr. Trump’s allies developed their strategy to overturn Mr. Biden’s victory. In mid-December, the false Trump electors could go through the motions of voting as if they had the authority to do so. Then, on Jan. 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence could unilaterally count those slates of votes, rather than the official and certified ones for Joseph R. Biden Jr.
ADVERTISEMENT
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

While that basic plan itself was already known, the document, described by prosecutors as the “fraudulent elector memo,” provides new details about how it originated and was discussed behind the scenes. Among those details is Mr. Chesebro’s proposed “messaging” strategy to explain why pro-Trump electors were meeting in states where Mr. Biden was declared the winner. The campaign would present that step as “a routine measure that is necessary to ensure” that the correct electoral slate could be counted by Congress if courts or legislatures later concluded that Mr. Trump had actually won the states.
FRAUDULENT ELECTORSRead the previously unreported memo from Dec. 6, 2020.
It was not the first time Mr. Chesebro had raised the notion of creating alternate electors. In November, he had suggested doing so in Wisconsin, although for a different reason: to safeguard Mr. Trump’s rights in case he later won a court battle and was declared that state’s certified winner by Jan. 6, as had happened with Hawaii in 1960.

Takeaways From Trump’s Indictment in the 2020 Election Inquiry

Card 1 of 5
Four charges for the former president. Former President Donald Trump was charged with four counts in connection with his widespread efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The indictment was filed by the special counsel Jack Smith in Federal District Court in Washington. Here are some key takeaways:
The indictment portrayed an attack on American democracy. Smith framed his case against Trump as one that cuts to a key function of democracy: the peaceful transfer of power. By underscoring this theme, Smith cast his effort as an effort not just to hold Trump accountable but also to defend the very core of democracy.
Trump was placed at the center of the conspiracy charges. Smith put Trump at the heart of three conspiracies that culminated on Jan. 6, 2021, in an attempt to obstruct Congress’s role in ratifying the Electoral College outcome. The special counsel argued that Trump knew that his claims about a stolen election were false, a point that, if proved, could be important to convincing a jury to convict him.
Trump didn’t do it alone. The indictment lists six co-conspirators without naming or indicting them. Based on the descriptions provided, they match the profiles of Trump lawyers and advisers who were willing to argue increasingly outlandish conspiracy and legal theories to keep him in power. It’s unclear whether these co-conspirators will be indicted.
Trump’s political power remains strong. Trump may be on trial in 2024 in three or four separate criminal cases, but so far the indictments appear not to have affected his standing with Republican voters. By a large margin, he remains his party’s front-runner in the presidential primaries.
But the indictment portrayed the Dec. 6 memo as a “sharp departure” from that proposal, becoming what prosecutors say was a criminal plot to engineer “a fake controversy that would derail the proper certification of Biden as president-elect.”

“I recognize that what I suggest is a bold, controversial strategy, and that there are many reasons why it might not end up being executed on Jan. 6,” Mr. Chesebro wrote. “But as long as it is one possible option, to preserve it as a possibility it is important that the Trump-Pence electors cast their electoral votes on Dec. 14.”
ADVERTISEMENT
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Three days later, Mr. Chesebro drew up specific instructions to create fraudulent electors in multiple states — in another memo whose existence, along with the one in November, was first reported by The Times last year. The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot also cited them in its December report, but it apparently did not learn of the Dec. 6 memo.

“I believe that what can be achieved on Jan. 6 is not simply to keep Biden below 270 electoral votes,” Mr. Chesebro wrote in the newly disclosed memo. “It seems feasible that the vote count can be conducted so that at no point will Trump be behind in the electoral vote count unless and until Biden can obtain a favorable decision from the Supreme Court upholding the Electoral Count Act as constitutional, or otherwise recognizing the power of Congress (and not the president of the Senate) to count the votes.”
Image
Election workers wearing neon yellow vests and masks handling bins full of ballots.
Election workers counting ballots in Pennsylvania, one of the states Mr. Chesebro mentioned in his memo, in 2020. Credit...Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

Mr. Chesebro and his lawyer did not respond to requests for comment. A Trump spokesman did not respond to an email seeking comment.

The false electors scheme was perhaps the most sprawling of Mr. Trump’s various efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. It involved lawyers working on his campaign’s behalf across seven states, dozens of electors willing to claim that Mr. Trump — not Mr. Biden — had won their states, and open resistance from some of those potential electors that the plan could be illegal or even “appear treasonous.” In the end, it became the cornerstone of the indictment against Mr. Trump.
ADVERTISEMENT
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

While another lawyer — John Eastman, described as Co-Conspirator 2 in the indictment — became a key figure who championed the plan and worked more directly with Mr. Trump on it, Mr. Chesebro was an architect of it. He was first enlisted by the Trump campaign in Wisconsin to help with a legal challenge to the results there.

Got a news tip about the courts?If you have information to share about the Supreme Court or other federal courts, please send us a secure tip at nytimes.com/tips.
Prosecutors are still hearing evidence related to the investigation, even after charges were leveled against Mr. Trump, according to people familiar with the matter. The House committee last year released emails its investigators obtained showing that Mr. Chesebro had sent copies of the two previously reported memos, one from Nov. 18 and another from Dec. 9, to allies in the states working on the fake electors plan.

But he did not attach his Dec. 6 memo to those messages, which laid out a more audacious idea: having Mr. Pence take “the position that it is his constitutional power and duty, alone, as president of the Senate, to both open and count the votes.” That is, he could resolve the dispute over which slate was valid by counting the alternate electors for Mr. Trump even if Mr. Biden remained the certified winner of their states.

Mr. Chesebro, who is described as Co-Conspirator 5 in the indictment but has not been charged by the special counsel, addressed the second memo to James R. Troupis, a lawyer who was assisting the Trump campaign’s efforts to challenge Mr. Biden’s victory in Wisconsin.
Editors’ Picks

How You Should Change Your Workout Once You Hit 40
I’ve Listened to This Breakup Song a Million Times
Audio Stories are Redefining Pleasure for Women
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

By the next day, the indictment said, Mr. Chesebro’s memo had reached Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer.
Image
John Eastman, left, and Rudolph W. Giuliani, on a stage in front of the White House.
John Eastman, left, and Rudolph W. Giuliani, are both listed as co-conspirators in prosecutors’ indictment.Credit...Jacquelyn Martin/Associated Press

According to the indictment, Mr. Giuliani, who is referred to as Co-Conspirator 1, spoke with someone identified only as Co-Conspirator 6 about finding lawyers to help with the effort in seven states. An email reviewed by The Times suggests that particular conspirator could be Boris Epshteyn, a campaign strategic adviser for the Trump campaign who was paid for political consulting. That day, Mr. Epshteyn sent Mr. Giuliani an email recommending lawyers in those seven states.

A Guide to the Various Trump Investigations
Confused about the inquiries and legal cases involving former President Donald Trump? We’re here to help.
Key Cases and Inquiries: The former president faces several investigations at both the state and the federal levels, into matters related to his business and political careers. Here is a close look at each.
Case Tracker: Trump is at the center of four criminal investigations. Keep track of the developments in each here.
What if Trump Is Convicted?: Will any of the proceedings hinder Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign? Can a convicted felon even run for office? Here is what we know, and what we don’t know.
As he had done in the earlier memo, Mr. Chesebro cited writings by a Harvard Law School professor, Laurence H. Tribe, to bolster his argument that the deadlines and procedures in the Electoral Count Act are unconstitutional and that state electoral votes need not be finalized until Congress’s certification on Jan. 6. Mr. Chesebro had worked as Mr. Tribe’s research assistant as a law student and later helped him in his representation of Vice President Al Gore during the 2000 election.

Calling his former mentor “a key Biden supporter and fervent Trump critic,” Mr. Chesebro cited what he described as Mr. Tribe’s legal views, along with writings by several other liberals as potential fodder for a messaging strategy. It would be “the height of hypocrisy for Democrats to resist Jan. 6 as the real deadline, or to suggest that Trump and Pence would be doing anything particularly controversial,” he wrote.

But in an essay published on Tuesday on the legal website Just Security, Mr. Tribe said Mr. Chesebro’s Nov. 18 memo “relied on a gross misrepresentation of my scholarship.”
ADVERTISEMENT
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

For one, Mr. Chesebro quoted a clause from a law review article by Mr. Tribe about Bush v. Gore as support for the idea that the only real legal deadline is Jan. 6. That was taken out of context, Mr. Tribe wrote, saying he was only narrowly “discussing the specifics of Florida state law.” Mr. Chesebro, by contrast, made it sound as if he was putting forward “a general proposition about the power of states to do what they wish regardless of the Electoral Count Act and independent of the deadlines set by Congress,” he added.
Image
The House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 sits below a projection displaying a tweet from Mr. Trump.
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot cited two memos from Mr. Chesebro in its December report, but apparently did not learn of the Dec. 6 memo.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

For another, Mr. Chesebro cited a constitutional treatise in which Mr. Tribe wrote that a past Congress cannot bind the actions of a later Congress, which Mr. Chesebro used to buttress his proposal that parts of the Electoral Count Act are unconstitutional. But Mr. Tribe wrote that what he meant was Congress can pass new legislation changing such a law.

The indictment also accuses Mr. Trump and his unindicted co-conspirators of acting with deception in recruiting some of the fraudulent electors. That included telling some of them that their votes for Mr. Trump would be used only if a court ruling handed victory in their state to Mr. Trump.

The Dec. 6 memo dovetails with that approach. Mr. Chesebro wrote that Mr. Pence could count purported Trump electors from a state as long as there was a lawsuit pending challenging Mr. Biden’s declared victory there. But he also proposed telling the public that the Trump electors were meeting on Dec. 14 merely as a precaution in case “the courts (or state legislatures) were to later conclude that Trump actually won the state.”
ADVERTISEMENT
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Mr. Chesebro also suggested he knew that even that part of the strategy would draw blowback.

“There is no requirement that they meet in public. It might be preferable for them to meet in private, to thwart the ability of protesters to disrupt the event,” he wrote, adding: “Even if held in private, perhaps print and even TV journalists would be invited to attend to cover the event.”

JAFF

08-10-2023, 04:11 PM

Govt should hold the Sackler family by the ankles and shake the last nickel out of those aholes.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/supreme-court-blocks-oxycontin-maker-s-bankruptcy-deal-that-would-shield-sackler-family-members/ar-AA1f6CnS?ocid=windirect&cvid=66ca02ab1464444d9f1858d872bbb0d0&ei=11

JAFF

08-11-2023, 08:37 AM

https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2023/08/11/lahaina-hawaii-maui-wildfire-bill-weir-vpx.cnn

Its mind blowing. Drought in Hawaii. It looks like a California forest fire.

JAFF

08-11-2023, 11:31 AM

Trump's 1st amendment rights are 'not absolute,' judge says in hearing

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-s-1st-amendment-rights-are-not-absolute-judge-says-in-hearing/ar-AA1f8Z0m?cvid=a0acc592d9a549109e444401693f0bef&ei=20

Lov2fish

08-11-2023, 03:47 PM

JAFF

08-11-2023, 04:25 PM

Everyone's first amendment rights are absolute. The constitution is absolute, period. The document was created to restrain government from infringing on citizens. It was never for government to grant you shit. People that believe the shit liberal judges spew out are fucking morons and deserve everything that comes their way. The dumbing down of this country is nearly complete.

No, its not. Lying to govt officials is NOT covered by the first amendment. Lying to cover a crime is not covered by the 1st Amendment.

If you get together with several associates and agree to repeat the same lie to officials to cover crime, is a conspiracy and is not covered by the first amendment. It’s really not that hard. If you really don’t understand how the government works or how the legal system works, you shouldn’t pretend to be a lawyer.

Racehorse

08-11-2023, 04:30 PM

That is very sad.

JAFF

08-11-2023, 05:02 PM

That is very sad.

Surrounded by water, cant use it to put out the fire. Just watch, in a couple of months an el nino will drop 5 in of rain.

JAFF

08-11-2023, 06:51 PM

https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-probes-latest-news-08-11-23/index.html

In a hearing Friday, US District Judge Tanya Chutkan set the tone for how she will preside over the 2020 election subversion case against former President Donald Trump.

Chutkan kicked off the hearing – the first in the case before her and one that took place in her courtroom at DC federal courthouse – noting that while Trump’s rights as a criminal defendant would be protected, his First Amendment right to free speech was “not absolute.”

The hearing focused on what limits would be placed on how the former president can handle the evidence prosecutors will be turning over to him.

“In a criminal case such as this one, the defendant’s free speech is subject to the rules,” she said.
The judge closed the hearing with a promise that the case would advance like any normal proceeding in the criminal justice system, but warned that the more “inflammatory” statements were made by a party, the quicker she would need to move toward a trial to preserve a fair jury.

“It is a bedrock principle of the judicial process in this country,” she said, while quoting precedent, “that legal trials are not like elections, to be won through the use of the meeting hall, the radio and the newspaper.”

“This case is no exception,” she said.

Over the course of the proceedings, she expressed some skepticism to the arguments made by the office of special counsel Jack Smith, siding with Trump on at least a few matters related to the protective order over evidence that was the subject of Friday’s hearing. Addressing a submission from the government that she refused to let be filed under seal, she also emphasized a need for public transparency into the docket.

The hearing, roughly an hour and 40 minutes long, was the first in the case before Chutkan. She has already shown a habit of responding quickly and tersely on the docket to debates between the parties over scheduling. An Obama appointee and former public defender who has overseen several cases regarding the events of January 6, 2021, Chutkan has been outspoken about the harm the US Capitol attack caused to American democracy.

Chutkan later issued a protective order barring Trump from publicly disclosing sensitive information in the case.

Trump pleaded not guilty to four criminal charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election last week, and the judge cautioned lawyers for Trump, who did not attend the hearing, about any public statements by their client that could possibly intimidate of witnesses.

That is why a judge can limit someones speech.

JAFF

08-11-2023, 07:00 PM

LOL

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-constitutional-case-that-donald-trump-is-already-banned-from-being-president/ar-AA1f9IR1?cvid=318a6ca5e319484fb140a70776702484&ei=7

Two conservative legal scholars, members of the Federalist Society in good standing, have just published an audacious argument: that Donald Trump is constitutionally prohibited from running for president, and that state election officials have not only the authority but the legal obligation to prevent his name from appearing on the ballot.

Kroger® Frozen 100% Apple Juice Concentrate 12 Fl Oz
Kroger® Frozen 100% Apple Juice Concentrate 12 Fl Oz
Ad
Kroger
The legal paper, authored by University of Chicago professor William Baude and University of St. Thomas professor Michael Stokes Paulsen, centers on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment — a provision that limits people from returning to public office if they have since “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” or “given aid or comfort” to those who have. Baude and Paulsen argue that this clearly covers Trump’s behavior between November 2020 and January 2021.

“The most politically explosive application of Section Three to the events of January 6, is at the same time the most straightforward,” Baude and Paulsen write. “Former President Donald J. Trump is constitutionally disqualified from again being President (or holding any other covered office) because of his role in the attempted overthrow of the 2020 election and the events leading to the January 6 attack.”

The consequences of this argument are astonishing. On Baude and Paulsen’s read, Section 3 is “self-executing” — meaning it does not require an act of Congress to enter force and binds those public officials in the position to act on its dictates. Basically, if a single official anywhere in the US electoral system finds their constitutional analysis compelling, Baude and Paulsen urge them to act on it.

“No official should shrink from these duties. It would be wrong — indeed, arguably itself a breach of one’s constitutional oath of office — to abandon one’s responsibilities of faithful interpretation, application, and enforcement of Section Three,” they write.

As a matter of law, I find their arguments quite compelling. If you look at Section 3 in light of the historical evidence and how restrictions on eligibility for office work elsewhere in the Constitution, it’s hard to disagree with Baude and Paulen’s application of its text to Trump.

But as a matter of politics, encouraging state election officials to go rogue and kick Trump off the ballot is a recipe for disaster. And that disconnect, between what the law says and the practical barriers to implementing it, speaks to some deep problems in American democracy that led to Trump’s insurrection in the first place.

The (very strong) argument that Trump is ineligible for office

Baude and Paulsen’s paper, set to be published in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, focusing on plain-language readings on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment and the way its key terms were used in political discussion around the time of enactment.

To get what they’re trying to do, it’s worth reading the text of Section 3 in full:

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Using historical and dictionary sources, Baude and Paulsen establish clear definitions for key terms. “Insurrection” and “rebellion,” in their view, “cover pretty much the entire terrain of large-scale unlawful resistance to government authority.” To have “engaged in” such conduct, they claim, means being “actively involved in the planning or execution of intentional acts of insurrection or rebellion” or “knowingly provided active, meaningful, voluntary, direct support for, material assistance to, or specific encouragement of such actions.”

If this interpretation is correct, then the legal case against Trump is fairly straightforward — all established by facts in public reporting, evidence from the January 6 committee, and the recent federal indictment.

In this well-known story, Trump was “actively involved” in an extralegal scheme to send fake electors to the Congress, and urged the vice president to unlawfully accept these fake electors over the real ones and crown Trump president. In service of his scheme, he provided “direct support for” and “specific encouragement” of the mob that ransacked the Capitol on January 6 in his speech, his tweets, private statements, and refusal to take actions (like calling in the National Guard) that could have stopped the mob.

“The bottom line is that Donald Trump both ‘engaged in’ ‘insurrection or rebellion’ and gave ‘aid or comfort’ to others engaging in such conduct, within the original meaning of those terms as employed in Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment,” Baude and Paulsen write. “If the public record is accurate, the case is not even close.”

Normally, this kind of argument feels like a purely abstract exercise. Maybe there’s a strong case that Trump running for president is unconstitutional, but who’s actually going to stop him?

The answer, according to Baude and Paulsen, is literally anybody in a legal position to do so.

JAFF

08-11-2023, 08:36 PM

House Republicans are furious about Hunter Biden special counsel

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/house-republicans-are-furious-about-hunter-biden-special-counsel/ar-AA1fa56l?cvid=8a1f01204d3a4d999ed4725b3dc834f0&ei=15

Republicans in Congress railed against Attorney General Merrick Garland's decision to appoint David Weiss as special counsel to oversee the criminal investigation of Hunter Biden.

Special counsels are not required to keep Congress updated on the status of their work, leading to fears that the move would effectively halt congressional probes of the president's son.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy warned that the special counsel should not be used to "whitewash" the Biden family,

WASHINGTON — After more than two years of demanding that the Justice Department appoint a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden, Republicans in Congress finally got their wish on Friday. And they were furious.

Reactions from the GOP began pouring in within minutes of Attorney General Merrick Garland's announcement on Friday of a special counsel to oversee the criminal investigation of President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden.

"If Weiss negotiated the sweetheart deal that couldn't get approved, how can he be trusted as a Special Counsel?" House Speaker Kevin McCarthy tweeted shortly after the announcement.

McCarthy said the decision to appoint David Weiss, a federal prosecutor in Delaware who was assigned by former President Donald Trump to lead the criminal investigation into Hunter Biden, "cannot be used to obstruct congressional investigations or whitewash the Biden family corruption."

Special counsels occupy a unique position within the legal system. They traditionally operate outside of the Justice Department's chain of command and the congressional oversight that accompanies it. Special counsels are required to produce final reports on the results of their investigations for the attorney general, but they are not required to keep Congress or the Justice Department updated on the status of their work.

The appointment of the special counsel came as Republicans in Congress ramp up political attacks and investigations of the Biden family ahead of the 2024 election. Republicans argued that a special counsel probe would effectively draw a curtain around evidence they are seeking.

The plea agreement called for Biden to plead guilty to two counts of failing to pay his taxes in return for prosecutors recommending a sentence of probation and the dismissal of a separate gun charge in two years. The deal was scrapped earlier this month after a judge determined the agreements contained "some atypical provisions."

"The fix is in," said a PAC backing former President Donald Trump, Make America Great Again Inc.

"David Weiss cut Hunter Biden an unprecedented plea deal that attempted to give Joe Biden's corrupt son blanket immunity," MAGA Inc. Spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

"Now, Merrick Garland expects us to trust Weiss to be the Special Counsel that finally brings Hunter Biden to justice," said Leavitt.

A White House spokesperson referred CNBC to the Justice Department, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee jointly looking into the federal probe of the younger Biden's taxes, also accused the DOJ of a "Biden family coverup."

"Let's be clear what today's move is really about," Comer said in a statement. "The Biden Justice Department is trying to stonewall congressional oversight as we have presented evidence to the American people."

A spokesman for Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, the House Judiciary Committee chairman who has taken the lead on investigating the federal probe of Hunter Biden, said Weiss "can't be trusted."

"This is just a new way to whitewash the Biden family's corruption," said Russell Dye, a spokesman for Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, the House Judiciary Committee chairman who has taken the lead on investigating the federal probe of Hunter Biden.

Dye said the committee still expects the Justice Department to fully cooperate with Republicans' investigation into Hunter Biden's plea deal, "including not interfering with the 11 transcribed interviews" that have been requested.

Moreover, Weiss' previous offer to appear before the committee this fall is still presumed to be valid, said Dye. As of Friday, the panel had not received anything from DOJ "indicating it is no longer willing to do so."

Lov2fish

08-11-2023, 09:15 PM

https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-probes-latest-news-08-11-23/index.html

That is why a judge can limit someones speech.

Just cause the fucker says it doesn't make it so.

Lov2fish

08-11-2023, 09:20 PM

This has merit and it may but there is law applied first. He has to be convicted of insurrection first. Right now he has the same constitutional protection as anyone pre-trial. Kudos to those guys for actually understanding most of what they read. Right now he is accused of insurrection and not adjudicated.

JAFF

08-11-2023, 11:02 PM

Just cause the fucker says it doesn't make it so.

Perjury is a crime. Not protected by free speech. Slander, while not a crime, is defamation and can lead to a lawsuit, not protected by free speech.

bigalbert

08-12-2023, 09:12 AM

bigalbert

08-12-2023, 09:34 AM

We are on dangerous ground. Ultimately what it boils down to is the end game for Satan and his liberal army. Silence the good news.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20230812/5e65f5bc6ffad930f1a620a36339828a.jpg

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

JAFF

08-12-2023, 09:35 AM

So you would agree then that all those Dem congressmen and senators should be charged and muzzled for spewing the hatred against Trump and be held responsible for burning down the cities neighborhoods

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Did you miss the part where Trump started a riot to overturn the election?

https://www.npr.org/2021/02/10/966396848/read-trumps-jan-6-speech-a-key-part-of-impeachment-trial

Trump is the only person who has called for violence.

omahacolt

08-12-2023, 04:11 PM

omahacolt

08-12-2023, 04:14 PM

We are on dangerous ground. Ultimately what it boils down to is the end game for Satan and his liberal army. Silence the good news.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

you are literally retarded. and acting like you are an actual religious person is hilarious. 100% guarantee jesus would fucking hate you

JAFF

08-12-2023, 05:21 PM

you have the right to free speech. but there are consequences to what you say.
legally, there are things you aren't allowed to say. you know this. i don't know why this is so hard.

He is not interested in facts and the law.

Lov2fish

08-12-2023, 05:44 PM

He is not interested in facts and the law.

I know more about law than you ever will, shut up and sit down.

Unless the judge ordered an official gag order (I am not following the case cause I don't give a shit) so not sure if he did or didn't

(. If no gag order is issued than yes he is violating his 1st. amendment rights, like it or not.

(. If a gag order was officially ordered than fuck Trump, let him deal with the fuckup he created.

JAFF

08-12-2023, 06:19 PM

I know more about law than you ever will, shut up and sit down.

Unless the judge ordered an official gag order (I am not following the case cause I don't give a shit) so not sure if he did or didn't

(. If no gag order is issued than yes he is violating his 1st. amendment rights, like it or not.

(. If a gag order was officially ordered than fuck Trump, let him deal with the fuckup he created.

Oh please, there are rules for human interaction.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/07/trump-gag-order-is-likely-given-his-online-attacks-pence-jack-smith-legal-experts-say.html

Here since you arent paying attention to a national crisis

Lov2fish

08-12-2023, 06:30 PM

Oh please, there are rules for human interaction.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/07/trump-gag-order-is-likely-given-his-online-attacks-pence-jack-smith-legal-experts-say.html

Here since you arent paying attention to a national crisis

Your fucking crisis has nothing to do with the constitution. Not one fucking judge sitting right now deserves the privilege to decide what is constitutional and what is not. Stupid fuckers like you, and judges who think they can do whatever they want make me so fucking happy I never took the bar. Dumb asses like you who do not understand one fucking thing about the constitution, and useless judges who only pervert it. Back to my original statement. The dumbing down of this country is reaching the apex of fruition, and it appears you're leading the charge.

JAFF

08-12-2023, 06:32 PM

Your fucking crisis has nothing to do with the constitution. Not one fucking judge sitting right now deserves the privilege to decide what is constitutional and what is not. Stupid fuckers like you, and judges who think they can do whatever they want make me so fucking happy I never took the bar. Dumb asses like you who do not understand one fucking thing about the constitution, and useless judges who only pervert it. Back to my original statement. The dumbing down of this country is reaching the apex of fruition, and it appears you're leading the charge.

Go have a drink, get over yourself

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/07/trump-gag-order-is-likely-given-his-online-attacks-pence-jack-smith-legal-experts-say.html

bigalbert

08-12-2023, 10:09 PM

you are literally retarded. and acting like you are an actual religious person is hilarious. 100% guarantee jesus would fucking hate you

Actually Jesus would have came to my house. He came for sinners.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

bigalbert

08-12-2023, 10:10 PM

This is literally election interference

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

bigalbert

08-12-2023, 10:12 PM

Did you miss the part where Trump started a riot to overturn the election?

https://www.npr.org/2021/02/10/966396848/read-trumps-jan-6-speech-a-key-part-of-impeachment-trial

Trump is the only person who has called for violence.

Goodness you live in a bubble. I’ve seen the videos. Do a little googling on Twitter

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

JAFF

08-13-2023, 03:21 AM

Goodness you live in a bubble. I’ve seen the videos. Do a little googling on Twitter

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Twitter? Nothing smart happens there.

JAFF

08-13-2023, 04:19 AM

Maui fires not just due to climate change but a ‘compound disaster’
The fires were a textbook case of many different agents acting together

By Scott Dance
August 12, 2023 at 9:47 a.m. EDT

Wildfire devastation outside Lahaina, Hawaii, on Thursday. (Rick Bowmer/AP)

Comment
As scientists weigh the influence climate change may have had in fueling Hawaii’s wildfires, there isn’t one standout factor they point to. Rising temperatures likely contributed to the severity of the blaze in several ways. But global warming could not have driven the fires by itself.
Want to know how your actions can help make a difference for our planet? Sign up for the Climate Coach newsletter, in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday.

Maui is facing a compound disaster, where many different agents acted together to make the fires so horrific. As human influences on the climate and environment grow, the risk of these disasters is escalating.
Hawaii utility faces scrutiny for not cutting power to reduce fire risks
Recent floods in China, fires in Greece and deadly heat in the Southwest U.S. are other recent examples of how extreme weather, human-caused climate change and changes to the local environment can converge in devastating fashion.

A survivor of the Lahaina, Hawaii wildfire describes how the inferno engulfed homes, as people 'burned alive.' Days later, relief supplies were trickling in. (Video: Zoeann Murphy, Jon Gerberg/The Washington Post)
“If you add together a whole bunch of influences, that’s how you get a disaster,” said Jeff Masters, a meteorologist for Yale Climate Connections. “No one thing makes it happen.”

The links between human-caused climate change and fires are well-established. Global warming means plants can more easily dry out, because warmer air hastens the evaporation of water. As the air sucks more moisture from the land, fire risks are increasing.

Wildfires across Hawaii have killed more than 50 people, displaced hundreds of families and trapped thousands of tourists. These maps show where the wildfires are burning. As blazes continue, follow live updates.
End of carousel
Hawaii is, on average, two degrees warmer than it was in 1950, according to state climate data. Scientists said that likely provides the strongest connection between humans’ fossil fuel consumption, which emits greenhouse gases that warm the planet, and the likelihood of fires in Hawaii and elsewhere.
In photos: The scene as deadly wildfires devastate parts of Hawaii
Rising temperatures have also intensified the heat that has baked the Southwest this summer — and which sent hot, dry air toward Hawaii this week. And climate change is helping to strengthen hurricanes like the one that passed south of the islands this week, probably increasing the strength of winds that fanned the flames.

But scientists have also prominently mentioned the role of non-climate influences in the intensity of the firestorm, such as the introduction of highly combustible nonnative plants, as well as weather patterns that happen naturally.
What we know about the cause of the Maui wildfires
Among factors that made the fire so destructive — severe winds and ongoing drought — the influence of climate change appears indirect, at best.
As wind sent fires spreading out of control Tuesday, many meteorologists pointed out that Hawaii found itself between a strong area of high pressure over the North Pacific and Hurricane Dora, a cyclone that rapidly intensified into a major Category 4 storm. That pressure difference meant Hawaii was in the middle of winds flowing intensely from high pressure to low, gusting over the islands like air being released from a balloon at more than 80 mph in some spots.

A Hawaii Army National Guard Chinook drops buckets of water on wildfires on Maui on Wednesday. (Andrew Jackson/AFP/Getty Images)
Research has shown more tropical cyclones have rapidly intensified in recent decades, and that those rates of intensification have accelerated. Warmer temperatures provide more energy for storms.

But some immediate analyses of the winds observed in Hawaii have found Dora’s presence may have only increased the gusts’ speed by about 5 mph, Masters said. The high pressure — aided by a flow of hot, dry air from the Southwestern U.S. into the Pacific — could have been enough to stir damaging winds on its own.

The hurricane and its intensity were “certainly not the main effect” fueling the fires, Masters said, though its presence could have contributed to the disaster.
After five hours in ocean, Maui fire survivor is ‘blessed to be alive’
As for the drought conditions that covered more than a third of Maui County, where the most destructive fires burned, there is no direct sign that they are the product of climate change, said Abby Frazier, an affiliate faculty member at the University of Hawaii now based at Clark University

While there is a long-term trend of declining precipitation in Hawaii, there isn’t enough evidence to suggest that is the product of anything besides normal climate patterns and fluctuations in the Pacific, she said. Precipitation patterns there are heavily influenced by El Niño, which returned in June, and by a longer-term pattern known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.

El Niño is known for bringing drier winters, but its arrival doesn’t explain the current conditions, Frazier said. In the summer, it can bring more precipitation than normal because of increased tropical cyclone activity, she said.
“We can’t officially say it’s climate change that’s causing all this drying,” Frazier said. “Natural variability is just so strong in Hawaii.”

Smoke blows across the slope of Haleakala volcano on Maui, Hawaii, as a fire burns in Maui's upcountry region on Tuesday. (Matthew Thayer/AP)
That is not to say human activity didn’t directly contribute to the fires in ways that don’t involve the climate.
They are increasingly spreading by burning invasive and fire-prone grasses brought to the islands for ornamental use or for cattle grazing. As agricultural activity has declined on the islands, the grasses have spread across fields that were once regularly watered and maintained, said Alison Nugent, an associate atmospheric scientist at the University of Hawaii’s Water Resources Research Center.

“Over the last few decades those managed agriculture lands have progressively become more and more unmanaged,” Nugent said. “There’s grassland right next to very expensive houses.”
The wildfire risks that introduces demonstrate that “it’s more than climate change,” Masters said. “Humans are messing with the system.”
As long as that continues, he said, “We should expect these sorts of catastrophes to increase.”
These maps show where wildfires are burning in Hawaii
Clay Trauernicht, a fire researcher at the University of Hawaii, said he and others concerned about wildfire risks have for years been working to raise awareness about the importance of better managing the grasses and taking other efforts to harden homes.
He said he hopes the devastation on Maui is enough to spur action so that the fires’ burden isn’t left solely to firefighters.
“We don’t have to be at the mercy of these weather events, but the way we’re operating right now, we are,” Trauernicht said. While climate change is a global problem, the grasses are a local one. “This is a thing we can manage.”

This is a good example of a lot of little things add up. This fire was years in the making.

JAFF

08-14-2023, 03:13 PM

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4150975-ted-cruz-calls-hunter-biden-special-counsel-appointment-camouflage/

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said Sunday he thinks the appointment of special counsel David Weiss, the U.S. attorney in Delaware, in the Hunter Biden investigation is “camouflage” and a “cover-up.”
“This appointment is camouflage, and it’s cover-up. I think it’s disgraceful,” Cruz said in an interview with Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo on her show “Sunday Morning Futures.” “Listen, David Weiss was the U.S. attorney hand-picked to lead this investigation, who spent the last five years covering it up. David Weiss, who was personally selected by the two Democrat senators from Delaware, Sens. Tom Carper and Chris Coons.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland announced last week he will be appointing Weiss as special counsel to oversee the investigation into the alleged tax and gun crimes of President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden. The appointment came as a pending plea deal for the president’s son appeared to be falling apart.
“The investigation [into Hunter Biden] has gone nowhere, other than to protect Hunter Biden and Joe Biden,” Cruz said.
Cruz is among numerous Republicans who have criticized the appointment, pointing to claims from two IRS whistleblowers that Weiss was blocked from seeking special counsel status, which both Weiss and the Department of Justice have repeatedly denied.
“They [two IRS whistleblowers] said they’d never seen an investigation like this in their time in law enforcement,” Cruz said, citing the whistleblowers’ claims that Weiss “protected the Biden family.”
California secures settlement with SoCalGas over ‘misleading’ claims that natural gas is ‘renewable’
Reuters clarifies premature report on Georgia Trump indictment
“The result of all that is that David Weiss was either an active participant in covering up this criminality and protecting Joe Biden in engaging in obstruction of justice,” Cruz said. “That’s option one. … Option two, he wasn’t the driver — he was just complicit.”
Cruz went on to call the choice of Weiss as special counsel “wildly inappropriate,” saying that a special counsel should be investigating Garland for whether he lied under oath to Congress when questioned by Cruz. The Texas senator said a special counsel should also investigate uncorroborated allegations of the Biden family’s corruption and bribery while Biden served as vice president.

“That is bribery; it’s not a little gun charge on Hunter,” Cruz said. “It is bribery of the president of the United States, is what these allegations are. And this special counsel, he ain’t going to do anything to get to the bottom of that.”

JAFF

08-16-2023, 05:54 AM

Trump stiffed his alleged co-conspirators, whose false claims brought in $250 million

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-stiffed-his-alleged-co-conspirators-whose-false-claims-brought-in-250-million/ar-AA1fjvEa?cvid=6cf47146b76e49ab922784008b194439&ei=18

Life long grifter.

JAFF

08-17-2023, 05:19 PM

The Gulf Coast is used to storms, the west coast, not so muc

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/17/weather/tropical-storm-hilary-thursday/index.html

JAFF

08-17-2023, 05:26 PM

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/16/americas/canada-northwest-territories-wildfires-thursday/index.html

They dont have enough people to control this fire. Too much square miles and not enough firefighters

JAFF

08-18-2023, 10:14 AM

Update 8/18

Looks as if it will make landfall early Friday. It could get as far to the northern boarder of Nevada.

Good news, the ocean gets colder the further it gets north. The good and bad is that California/Nevada/Arizona could get 2-3 years of rain, only its going to happen in 2-3 DAYS. Anyone inland and in low elevation may need to seek higher ground

I want to see the water level of Lake Meade after the storm.

Racehorse

08-18-2023, 06:34 PM

The West could use some help to keep fires from having a good run, but hurricanes are a tricky way to get it.

JAFF

08-19-2023, 09:14 AM

The West could use some help to keep fires from having a good run, but hurricanes are a tricky way to get it.

Mudslides are just a byproduct of the drought, all that rain on sleep mountain sides with less foliage. The plants are dead from lack of rain or due to fires.

The region needs the rain, but all at once? One year of rain in 2 days.

JAFF

08-21-2023, 07:32 AM

Cherry on top, they just had a minor earthquake

SORT BY

25 New Updates
8 hr 41 min ago
Magnitude 5.1 earthquake shakes Southern California
From CNN’s Cheri Mossburg
As Southern California braced for a highly unusual summer storm Sunday afternoon, residents were struck by a much more familiar phenomenon: a magnitude 5.1 earthquake, according to the US Geological Survey.

The epicenter of the quake was in Ojai, between Santa Barbara and Ventura, and it occurred along the Sisar fault, USGS data showed.

There were no immediate reports of damage, the Ventura County Sheriff said in a social media post. County aviation units later reported no damage after flying over the Lake Casitas and Matilija dams and the city of Ojai.

Shaking was felt throughout Los Angeles and surrounding communities, according to a USGS tool that allows residents to self-report their experience.

There were no initial reports of injuries or structural damage in Los Angeles, according to the city's fire department. First responders from all 106 stations are in "earthquake mode," surveying their areas and looking for damage to power lines, transportation infrastructure, apartment buildings and large gathering sites.

About 50 miles away in Valencia, the quake felt like a slow roll, lasting about 20 seconds. Residents reported a slow-rolling effect in the Hollywood area, as well.

At least two aftershocks — measuring 3.1 and 3.6 — followed the initial quake.

Earthquake expert Dr. Lucy Jones said it appears to have been preceded by a small foreshock sequence that began Saturday morning.

USGS seismic reports are preliminary and are sometimes adjusted.

JAFF

08-22-2023, 06:18 PM

Trump has yet to help his Georgia co-defendants with their legal bills, a risky test of their loyalty

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/22/trump-co-defendants-in-georgia-face-massive-legal-bills.html

JAFF

08-22-2023, 07:04 PM

JAFF

08-22-2023, 07:10 PM

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/22/politics/fulton-county-bail-explainer-trump-election-case/index.html

JAFF

08-23-2023, 08:01 AM

Attorney: Lawyers begging for cash should have "expected" Trump to throw them under the bus

https://www.salon.com/2023/08/22/attorney-lawyers-begging-for-cash-should-have-expected-to-throw-them-under-the-bus/

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-has-yet-to-help-his-georgia-co-defendants-with-their-legal-bills-a-risky-test-of-their-loyalty/ar-AA1fDiUw?cvid=29a53f6dfce64830ba815768f1216ed2&ei=33

JAFF

08-26-2023, 03:45 PM

Racehorse

08-26-2023, 05:24 PM

There is no normal

A severe drought is affecting the Panama Canal. That’s not a good sign for supply chains — or your holiday shopping

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/26/economy/panama-canal-supply-chain/index.html

As if the supply chains were in good shape as it is. I wonder if it will continue to drop, since the ocean levels are allegedly rising. It seems the water from each side would fill in the canal, unless I am missing something.

How far above sea level is the lowest point in the center of the canal?

Racehorse

08-26-2023, 05:38 PM

Google is my friend. The canal is an interesting subject to read about.

JAFF

08-26-2023, 06:19 PM

As if the supply chains were in good shape as it is. I wonder if it will continue to drop, since the ocean levels are allegedly rising. It seems the water from each side would fill in the canal, unless I am missing something.

How far above sea level is the lowest point in the center of the canal?

Its the level of the lakes between the oceans. You can let the ocean salt water in, and kill the fish and the plants and create a man made disaster with the lakes along with whatever is going on in the oceans.

Its osmosis, the movement of water across a membrane. Its way ocean fish cant survive in salt water, same with plants. Panama still relies on the lakes for fresh water to drink and fish to eat.

Racehorse

08-27-2023, 09:28 AM

Its the level of the lakes between the oceans. You can let the ocean salt water in, and kill the fish and the plants and create a man made disaster with the lakes along with whatever is going on in the oceans.

Its osmosis, the movement of water across a membrane. Its way ocean fish cant survive in salt water, same with plants. Panama still relies on the lakes for fresh water to drink and fish to eat.

Like I said, Google is my friend. I read up on it, but you feel the need to condescend. No wonder people dislike you.

JAFF

08-27-2023, 03:38 PM

Like I said, Google is my friend. I read up on it, but you feel the need to condescend. No wonder people dislike you.

Go look in a mirror, and your original response

JAFF

08-27-2023, 03:46 PM

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/24/world/emperor-penguin-breeding-antarctic-sea-ice-climate/index.html

‘Catastrophic’ loss: Huge colonies of emperor penguins saw no chicks survive last year as sea ice disappears

Racehorse

08-27-2023, 05:41 PM

Go look in a mirror, and your original response

My original response was filled with questions, because I did not know the answer. No condescension there. Legitimate questions. Knowing you would just give a snarky reply, I went to Google to find the answers, and then came back to say I learned interesting stuff about the canal. Then you came in hours later, and said your shitty reply.

Let me add that you post nothing positive in this section of the forum, just doom and gloom. The world is not as bad as you are pretending.

JAFF

08-27-2023, 07:45 PM

My original response was filled with questions, because I did not know the answer. No condescension there. Legitimate questions. Knowing you would just give a snarky reply, I went to Google to find the answers, and then came back to say I learned interesting stuff about the canal. Then you came in hours later, and said your shitty reply.

Let me add that you post nothing positive in this section of the forum, just doom and gloom. The world is not as bad as you are pretending.

I post news stories or scientific reports with data, to support what is occurring. I wish there was better news. There only one planet, there are no life boats.

Racehorse

08-28-2023, 07:22 AM

I post news stories or scientific reports with data, to support what is occurring. I wish there was better news. There only one planet, there are no life boats.

Doom and Gloom is all you are selling.

JAFF

08-28-2023, 09:35 AM

Doom and Gloom is all you are selling.

People told Noah the same thing. We are going to need bigger boat.

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/Arrhenius/arrhenius_3.php#:~:text=By%201904%2C%20Arrhenius%2 0became%20concerned,made%20the%20suggestion%20that %20an

https://www.globalchange.gov/browse/multimedia/global-temperature-and-carbon-dioxide

I am not worried for myself, I have children and grand children. If I and thousands of people smarter than me are wrong, I can live with it. IF the scientists are right, its a global catastrophe and it will be to late to save our world.

JAFF

08-28-2023, 03:52 PM

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/i-was-just-following-orders-ex-prosecutor-calls-out-trump-co-defendants-for-using-nazi-defense/ar-AA1fTFGE?cvid=a3b550b53fe64b9daa0263711bdd071f&ei=9

Donald Trump Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Donald Trump Joe Raedle/Getty Images
© Provided by Salon
Three defendants facing charges alongside Donald Trump in a sprawling Fulton County racketeering indictment are pointing their fingers at the former president and his campaign for their role in the fake electors scheme, signaling that they may be willing to cooperate with the prosecution in attempts to score a "sweetheart deal," according to legal experts.

Shop ring gutter mount - Amazon.com Official Site
Shop ring gutter mount - Amazon.com Official Site
Ad
www.amazon.com/electronics/camera-photo
Former Georgia GOP Chair David Shafer, former Coffee County GOP chair Cathy Latham and state Rep. Shawn Still argued in court filings last week that their actions were carried out under the guidance of the Trump campaign, according to The Wall Street Journal. The three defendants stated that when they submitted documentation claiming their ability to legitimately cast Electoral College votes for Trump, they were acting according to the campaign's instructions.

"Mr. Still, as a presidential elector, was also acting at the direction of the incumbent president of the United States," an attorney for Still argued in a court filing. "The president's attorneys instructed Mr. Still and the other contingent electors that they had to meet and cast their ballots on Dec. 14, 2020."

Latham has similarly asserted that she was acting "at the direction of the President of the United States" and so has Shafer, who contended that he "and the other Republican Electors in the 2020 election acted at the direction of the incumbent President and other federal officials."

The Georgia Republicans could also claim at trial that they acted at the direction of Trump or his close aides, which would be "bad news" for Trump, as such testimony would serve to draw the sprawling scheme alleged in the indictment more tightly together, with Trump at the top, former federal prosecutor Kevin O'Brien told Salon.

"At the same time, though, while such testimony could be a mitigating circumstance for the three defendants at sentencing, it's not a legal defense that would prevent their conviction," O'Brien said. "Each is properly charged with acting knowingly in violation of state law, especially since each held a position of responsibility either within the state Republican Party (Shafer) or within the state elections system (Latham and Still)."

Contending that they operated under the approval of the then-president and a team of his attorneys, the three Republicans are arguing that they should essentially be shielded from state prosecution, as they believed their actions were aligned with a federal role.

Shafer and a group of 15 fellow Republican electors convened at the state capitol on Dec. 14, 2020, and signed a document falsely declaring that Trump had won Georgia. Trump and his allies are now facing charges relating to their alleged roles in trying to overturn the results.

"Their individual arguments are that they were acting as federal officers performing federal duties," former San Francisco prosecutor Lateef Gray told Salon. "As such, they feel that they are immune from prosecution in state court."

Related video: Conservative lawyers argue Trump is legally disqualified from holding office (MSNBC)

Pause

Current Time 0:13
/
Duration 9:08
Quality Settings
Captions
Fullscreen
MSNBC
Conservative lawyers argue Trump is legally disqualified from holding office
Unmute
View on Watch

The defendants want their cases removed to federal court, Gray added, explaining that if this happens, they would then likely argue that they are immune from prosecution because they were acting "under color of their federal positions," meaning they were doing what their federal positions allow them to do.

There's no defense to a "blatantly illegal action," like falsely passing oneself off as duly elected presidential electors, who say that Trump directed or asked them to do it, O'Brien said. "They should have known better."

Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani agreed and said that "this is essentially the 'Nazi defense' of 'I was just following orders.'"

"Legally, you can't just direct someone to break laws," Rahmani said. "On the other hand, if the most powerful person in the free world, or their attorney, is telling you to do something, you'll probably do it. So this comes down to a question of whether jurors buy their argument. The legal term is mens rea, or 'guilty mind.' If the defendant persuades the jury that they genuinely thought they were doing something lawful, there isn't a basis for criminal liability."

Former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and a former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark have also asked for their charges to be moved to federal court.

But neither of them have strong enough arguments to move their cases to federal court, especially the false electors, Mai Ratakonda, an attorney at the election rights group States United Democracy Center, told Salon.

"I don't really see their attempts to remove the federal court being successful," Ratakonda said. "If a federal court judge decides that one or more of these co-defendants could have their trials moved to federal court, [this would raise the question of] does only that defendant get to move their case to federal court, or does the entire case against all of the defendants get moved to federal court?"

If the case is moved to federal court, the defendants could benefit from drawing a jury pool from more rural and conservative parts of Georgia, rather than predominantly liberal Fulton County. There's also the possibility of drawing a federal judge who Trump appointed.

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

The defendants in the Georgia election interference case are accused of pressuring elected officials into overturning Trump's defeat, arranging for individuals to declare him as the president through false "electors" in Georgia, tampering with voting machines and engaging in various actions aimed at undermining democracy, according to the indictment. These efforts were allegedly taken in an attempt to maintain Trump's presidency, despite his loss to President Joe Biden in the election.

But if one of the co-defendants decides to cooperate with the prosecution, they are likely to get "a sweetheart deal," meaning their charges will be "dismissed or minimized" in exchange for providing testimony against their co-defendants, Gray said.

That is the strategy that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is employing here, Rahmani said.

"Willis took the 'kitchen sink' approach, indicting 19 co-conspirators with RICO charges, putting maximum pressure on them to flip and cooperate," Rahmani said. "She doesn't want to try 19 people at once. With all of these defendants, there's no way the case is going to trial before November because they're going to raise all kinds of issues. The more defendants, the more difficult a case becomes."

He added that in Georgia, "it's a 'prisoner's dilemma' situation." While It's best for all of the defendants to collectively stick together with none of them flipping, individually, it's better for each person to cooperate. And "usually, the ones who cooperate first get the best deal."

Racehorse

08-28-2023, 05:20 PM

People told Noah the same thing. We are going to need bigger boat.

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/Arrhenius/arrhenius_3.php#:~:text=By%201904%2C%20Arrhenius%2 0became%20concerned,made%20the%20suggestion%20that %20an

https://www.globalchange.gov/browse/multimedia/global-temperature-and-carbon-dioxide

I am not worried for myself, I have children and grand children. If I and thousands of people smarter than me are wrong, I can live with it. IF the scientists are right, its a global catastrophe and it will be to late to save our world.
If God wants us spared, He will make it happen. He is in control, not us.

omahacolt

08-29-2023, 10:01 PM

If God wants us spared, He will make it happen. He is in control, not us.

or he doesn't exist and it is a story you were brainwashed to believe since you were a child.

i will never understand how anyone can say god is in control and look around see the injustice in the world. if that is gods plan, he is a shitty architect. and fuck him. giant piece of shit that guy is

Colts And Orioles

08-30-2023, 03:54 PM

Or, he doesn't exist, and it is a story you were brainwashed to believe since you were a child.

I will never understand how anyone can say that God is in control and look around see the injustice in the world ...... ) if that is God's plan, he is a shitty architect. ) And fuck him. Giant piece of shit, that guy is.

o

“Something is wrong here ...... war, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best that God can do, I am not impressed. Results like these do not belong on the résumé of a Supreme Being. This is the kind of shit you'd expect from an office temp with a bad attitude. And just between you and me, in any decently-run universe, this guy would've been out on his all-powerful ass a long time ago.”

GEORGE CARLIN, 1999

o

JAFF

09-01-2023, 08:27 AM

‘Trump isn’t funding any of us’: Co-defendants in Georgia case are struggling with mounting legal bills

They do his bidding, and he isnt helping with legal costs. Typical Trump grift.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/01/politics/cash-crunch-trump-georgia-co-defendants-legal-bills/index.html

JAFF

09-04-2023, 07:59 PM

https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2023/09/04/gender-reveal-airplane-crash-mexico-cprog-ldn-vpx.cnn

It seems there is some kind of contest to see how many people can get hurt or killed while announcing a pregnancy.

JAFF

09-06-2023, 01:08 PM

https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/06/politics/e-jean-carroll-trump-defamation-lawsuit/index.html

JAFF

09-08-2023, 11:06 AM

Its a pdf. It is amazing.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23941366-jim-jordan-letter

JAFF

09-16-2023, 08:19 PM

https://www.cnn.com/travel/france-ski-resort-closes-la-sambuy-climate-scn/index.html

JAFF

09-17-2023, 09:32 PM

https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/17/politics/trump-election-results-decision/index.html

CNN
—
Former President Donald Trump said that he received counsel from numerous people shortly after the 2020 election but that it was his decision to push the false claim he won the presidency and try to overturn the results.

“It was my decision, but I listened to some people,” Trump told NBC’s “Meet the Press” in an interview that aired Sunday.

Trump has been indicted over his efforts to subvert the 2020 election results. He has pleaded not guilty in all cases and denied any wrongdoing.

A central premise of special counsel Jack Smith’s case, according to his indictment of the former president, is that Trump knew the election claims he was making were false after being told by close aides that he had lost but disseminated them anyway to make them appear legitimate – all in service of an alleged criminal conspiracy.

“I was listening to different people, and when I added it all up, the election was rigged,” Trump told Kristen Welker in the interview, again pushing the false claim as he seeks the 2024 Republican nomination for president.

“You know who I listen to? Myself. I saw what happened,” Trump said.

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump arrives at the Monument Leaders Rally hosted by the South Dakota Republican Party on September 08, 2023 in Rapid City, South Dakota.
Trump says he supports mental competency tests for presidency amid concerns over age
The former president said he didn’t listen to his attorneys who told him he lost the election because he didn’t respect them.

“You hire them, you’ve never met these people, you get a recommendation, they turn out to be RINOs (Republicans in name only), or they turn out to be not so good. In many cases, I didn’t respect them,” Trump said. “But I did respect others. I respected many others that said the election was rigged.”

Following his election loss, Trump tried multiple avenues to overturn the election results. He pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and another official to “recalculate” the numbers and “find” enough votes to let him win.

Trump’s campaign also tried to install fake GOP electors in seven swing states.

Lov2fish

09-17-2023, 09:59 PM

You have the right to remain silent, but some lack the discipline to do so. This is never more true than with a narcissist. They just can't pass up an opportunity to pound their own chest.

JAFF

09-18-2023, 07:59 AM

You have the right to remain silent, but some lack the discipline to do so. This is never more true than with a narcissist. They just can't pass up an opportunity to pound their own chest.

No wonder he goes through lawyers like shit through a goose

JAFF

09-19-2023, 03:32 PM

Witness testimony disputes IRS whistleblower allegations in Hunter Biden probe as Republicans begin impeachment inquiry

Washington
CNN
—
New testimony from a number of FBI and Internal Revenue Service officials casts doubt on key claims from an IRS whistleblower who alleges there was political interference in the federal criminal investigation of Hunter Biden’s taxes.

According to transcripts provided to CNN, several FBI and IRS officials brought in for closed-door testimony by House Republicans in recent days said they don’t remember US Attorney David Weiss saying that he lacked the authority to decide whether to bring charges against the president’s son, or that Weiss said he had been denied a request for special counsel status.

Those twin claims, made by IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley, form the basis of Republican accusations that the Justice Department’s investigation into Biden’s taxes was tainted by political influence and that Weiss and Attorney General Merrick Garland tried to protect Hunter Biden in the investigation.

The new testimony comes as House Republicans begin an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden and his family, potentially undercutting one element of that effort.

At issue is an October 2022 meeting between prosecutors and case agents working on the Hunter Biden investigation. Shapley alleges that during that meeting, Weiss, the then-US attorney for Delaware, told participants that he was “not the deciding person” on whether Hunter Biden was charged, according to Shapley’s notes from the meeting. House Republicans have taken that to mean Weiss was not in charge of his own investigation, and was deferring to a higher authority.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy speaks during a media availability to announce an impeachment inquiry into President Biden at the Capitol on September 12.
Fact-checking McCarthy's claims while launching Biden impeachment inquiry
In addition to Shapley and Weiss, there were five others in that meeting, three of whom have recently testified to the Republican-led congressional committees now spearheading the impeachment inquiry.

While the witnesses disputed Shapley’s key allegations from that meeting, they acknowledged Weiss was having trouble finding a venue to bring charges against the president’s son, as US attorneys from other states rejected partnering on the case. They also expressed frustration with the pace of the probe, which at that point had been ongoing for roughly four years.

In June, Weiss reached a plea deal with Hunter Biden on tax and gun charges. But the deal fell apart amid scrutiny from a judge, and Weiss subsequently requested special counsel status. Last week, Hunter Biden was indicted on the gun charges.

Republicans are expected to pepper Garland with questions about Weiss’ plea agreement and special counsel status when he appears before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.

The Republican-led House Oversight Committee, which has been investigating Hunter Biden’s business dealings, is planning its first impeachment inquiry hearing next Thursday.

‘He didn’t say that’
Attorneys for Shapley have argued that he took contemporaneous notes of the October 2022 meeting and that he sent an email to his supervisors memorializing the meeting after it happened, while others in the room did not do so.

Shapley, a 14-year IRS veteran who oversaw parts of the Hunter Biden probe, alleged in testimony to Congress there was political interference in the investigation. He and the entire IRS team were later removed from the probe as Weiss neared a charging decision.

“I am alleging, with evidence, that DOJ provided preferential treatment, slow-walked the investigation, did nothing to avoid obvious conflicts of interest in this investigation,” Shapley told lawmakers in his closed-door testimony in May.

IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley, left, and Joseph Ziegler testify in July to the House Oversight Committee about alleged meddling in the Justice Department's investigation of Hunter Biden
IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley, left, and Joseph Ziegler testify in July to the House Oversight Committee about alleged meddling in the Justice Department's investigation of Hunter Biden
Leah Millis/Reuters
In letters to the House Judiciary Committee, Weiss has pushed back on Shapley’s allegations, including that he was denied special counsel status in October 2022. Weiss wrote that he had not even asked for a special counsel designation at that point, and that he had discussions with the DOJ about filing charges outside of his district.

In their recent testimony, the other FBI and IRS officials in the October 2022 meeting have supported Weiss’s version of events on several key points of contention, particularly his allegation that Weiss said he was “not the deciding person” on whether to bring charges.

“I do not remember – I don’t – he didn’t say that. In my recollection, if he would have said that, I would have remembered it,” Thomas Sobocinski, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Baltimore field office, told the committee.

“I do not recall that ever being said,” said Darrell Waldon, who was previously Shapley’s boss as the IRS special agent in charge of the Washington, DC, field office overseeing criminal investigations.

“I don’t remember him saying that,” said Ryeshia Holley, an assistant special agent in charge with the FBI, who added she thought Shapley may have been confused or misunderstood what transpired at the meeting.

Last week, CNN and others reported on Sobocinski’s testimony, which prompted Shapley’s attorneys to dispute his recollection of the October 2022 meeting.

“Mr. Sobocinski apparently acknowledged that he took no notes in the meeting, nor did he document it in any contemporaneous fashion afterwards,” attorney Mark Lytle and Tristan Leavitt, president of Empower Oversight, a nonprofit group that represents whistleblowers, wrote in a letter to the House Judiciary Committee. “By contrast, [supervisory special agent] Shapley took notes during the meeting.”

Shapley alleged Weiss requested Special Counsel status in 2022 and was denied
When emailing his supervisor about the October 2022 meeting later the same day, Shapley claimed that Weiss stated he requested special counsel authority, and that the Justice Department “denied his request and told him to follow the process.”

Waldon responded to the 2022 email at the time by saying, “thanks, Gary. You covered it all.”

But when pressed by committee investigators earlier about it this month, Waldon said, “I agreed that he covered it all, but, in terms of the word ‘special counsel’ being requested, I don’t recall those words being used.”

Both Holley and Sobocinski also said they did not remember Weiss bringing up any discussion of special counsel authority during the meeting.

Since, Shapley’s allegation came to light in June, Weiss has told Congress that he had never requested special counsel status, but rather explored becoming a “special attorney” under a different statute.

After Hunter Biden’s plea deal fell apart, Weiss did request and was granted special counsel status. Weiss has offered to testify to Congress, but securing that testimony is more difficult now that he is a special counsel overseeing the ongoing criminal probe.

While the testimony from the trio of FBI and IRS officials complicates the allegations from the IRS whistleblower, it’s not the final word on the matter in the House GOP probe. Congressional investigators have also heard from Waldon’s supervisor, Michael Batdorf, who was not in the October 2022 meeting, and a source tells CNN they’ve subpoenaed two more officials from DOJ’s tax division involved in Hunter Biden’s criminal case: Mark Daly and Jack Morgan.

Witnesses agreed with some of Weiss’ assertions
Though they contested Shapley’s claims that Weiss said he had been denied special counsel status, they did confirm that Weiss said he had been rejected when he tried to partner with US attorneys in Washington, DC, and California in order to bring a potential case there.

But the other officials contended that didn’t mean Weiss couldn’t bring a case there if he chose.

“I believe Mr. Weiss said that the case was presented and they did not agree to join or take on the case,” Waldon said of a discussion about the US attorney in Washington, DC, adding that he didn’t take it to mean a case couldn’t be brought there.

US Attorney David Weiss speaks during a press conference on May 3, 2018, at his district office in Wilmington, Delaware.
US Attorney David Weiss speaks during a press conference on May 3, 2018, at his district office in Wilmington, Delaware.
Suchat Pederson/The News Journal/AP
“I didn’t understand that, that the case was declined – just that they were not going to be a partner on the case,” Waldon added. “The case was still able to move forward.”

Shapley also said that Weiss disclosed at the meeting he was not planning on bringing charges over Hunter Biden’s tax years of 2014 and 2015, due to the statute of limitations expiring.

The FBI and IRS officials said they had no reason to dispute Shapley’s assertions on the tax years, which cover Hunter Biden’s time on the board of Ukrainian energy firm Burisma, a key part of House Republicans’ allegations surrounding Hunter Biden’s business dealings.

“I remember overall charges for being a conversation in the sense that that is something that they are still deciding,” Holley said. “I don’t remember if it was stated at this meeting that that was not – those tax years were not going to be charged. I just know that, again, those tax years and others were part of the overall discussions.”

Testimony on Shapley’s character and recollections
Holley said her experience working with Shapley was “very limited,” but she did not have any reason to believe he lied.

“I have no reason to believe that Mr. Shapley is not being truthful. But at the same time, my understanding and recollection is different than his as noted in this document,” Holley said.

Instead, Holley told committee investigators she believes Shapley was confused about what transpired in the meeting.

“Of my understanding, as well as my recollection of the meeting, I definitely think there is either some confusion or misunderstanding in things that were communicated,” Holley said.

Waldon told the panel that he recommended to Batdorf that Shapley be removed from the case. Waldon said that Weiss told him after the October 2022 meeting that he would “not be talking with Mr. Shapley henceforth, as they were going through their deliberative process.”

“Before I left the special agent in charge position, in February, I recommended to Mr. Batdorf that Gary Shapley be removed as the [supervisory special agent] from the Hunter Biden investigation, primarily due to what I perceived to be unsubstantiated allegations about motive, intent, bias” Waldon said.

“When I left, Mr. Shapley was still on the case, and as I understand it, was on it until May. So in my mind, my recommendation was just that, a recommendation,” he said.