Related Video: Trump claims he wasn’t referring to clerk when he violated fraud trial gag order
Donald Trump has launched a fresh attack on the judge and court clerk in his New York civil fraud trial – just hours after a court filing stated his prior attacks had led to them being “inundated” with violent threats.
In what was bizarrely named a “Happy Thanksgiving” post on Truth Social, the former president unleashed once again on what he described as “the Racist & Incompetent Attorney General of New York State, Letitia “Peekaboo” James”, “the Radical Left Trump Hating Judge, a “Psycho,” Arthur Engoron” and “his Politically Biased & Corrupt Campaign Finance Violator, Chief Clerk Alison Greenfield”.
Hours earlier, a court security official said Mr Trump’s violation of his fraud trial gag order led to Justice Arthur Engoron and his staff facing hundreds of “serious and credible” threats.
Captain Charles Hollon wrote: “When Mr Trump violated the gag orders, the number of threatening, harassing and disparaging messages increased.”
Many of the threats were antisemitic and came by phone, text, email, and social media, with transcriptions of voicemails delivered to Judge Engoron’s law clerk amounting to 275 pages. The scale of the threats is part of a filing to oppose the pause of the gag order.
Cassidy Hutchinson gives dire warning about another Trump presidency
“If Donald Trump is elected president again in 2024, I do fear that it will be the last election where we’re voting for democracy because if he is elected again, I don’t think we’ll be voting under the same Constitution,” Ms Hutchinson told Jen Psaki onInside with Jen Psaki.
Now she’s warning voters to choose wisely next year, should the election be another matchup between President Joe Biden and Mr Trump.
Oliver O’Connell23 November 2023 11:30
Jimmy Kimmel rips Marjorie Taylor Greene for her ‘dumbest idea yet’ in new book
On Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Tuesday night, Mr Kimmel gave viewers a hilarious run-down of its contents as he mocked the lawmaker saying “it’s the first book she’s ever written or read”.
“Speaking of Christmas in hell, Marjorie Taylor Greene released a book today. It’s the first book she’s ever written or read, and it’s called MTG, it’s got a little bit of everything,” he said.
Martha McHardy has the story.
Oliver O’Connell23 November 2023 10:00
Full story: Trump’s fraud trial court flooded with credible death threats and antisemitic abuse
A flood of credible death threats and antisemitic messages have inundated the judge and court staff overseeing Donald Trump’s fraud trial in New York, according to the court’s top public safety officer.
Judge Arthur Engoron and his clerk received “hundreds of threats, disparaging and harassing comments and antisemitic messages” that followed the former president’s harassment, according to a court filing to support a gag order that blocks Mr Trump from attacking the court’s staff.
Transcriptions of threatening voicemails after Mr Trump first targeted Judge Engoron’s chief clerk fill more than 275 single-spaced pages, according to Wednesday’s filing.
The threats against them are “serious and credible and not hypothetical or speculative,” according to the filing from Charles Hollon, an officer-captain with the court’s Department of Public Safety assigned to a judicial threats unit.
“You should be executed,” one message reads.
Alex Woodward has been following the trial for The Independent and filed this report.
Oliver O’Connell23 November 2023 09:15
Speaker Johnson calls abortion ‘an American Holocaust’ in resurfaced video
Don’t expect a GOP heel-turn on the issue of abortion any time soon – at least not while Mike Johnson is one of the highest-ranking Republicans in Washington.
While the party has suffered repeated defeats on the issue of reproductive rights in the past two years, the right has shown no signs of abandoning its support for sharp restrictions on the availability of abortion procedures in the US. In some cases, many still support a total ban on the practice.
That radical belief is shared by only a fraction of the US population — 37 per cent, according to a Pew poll last year — but one of the most radical opponents of abortion rights in the Republican Party is now the head of its caucus in the lower chamber of Congress. A new deep dive into his political past from CNN’s KFile has revealed that Mr Johnson recently referred to the practice as an “American holocaust”.
The comments reported by CNN were made last year on a DC-based radio show. In the same interview, he accused Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest provider of reproductive health services, of viewing Black Americans as “prey”.
Oliver O’Connell23 November 2023 08:30
Cohen says Trump’s latest subpoena is effort to ‘harass, intimidate, and retaliate’ against him
Donald Trump’s former fixer and lawyer Michael Cohen has asked a Manhattan judge to quash an “wildly overbroad” subpoena issued as part of the former president’s criminal hush money trial, The Messenger reports.
Mr Cohen’s request is also backed by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who has also asked New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan to reject the subpoena on similar grounds.
“The subpoena issued to Mr Cohen is an obvious and blatant act of witness intimidation, and merely the latest incident in a years-long pattern of harassment and retaliation by defendant Trump,” the 33-page motion from Mr Cohen’s lawyers states.
Both Mr Cohen and the DA’s office note that the former president sued Mr Cohen for $500m before backing down and withdrawing the lawsuit.
The DA says the Trump camp’s aim is to gather evidence for if he ever were to refile the suit.
“Ever since Mr Cohen accepted criminal responsibility for his actions including actions taken on behalf of, at the direction of, and in coordination with Defendant Trump — and began providing information to authorities in numerous investigations of Defendant Trump and his various business entities, Defendant Trump has repeatedly abused the judicial system in an effort to silence Mr Cohen,” attorney Danya Perry wrote on behalf of her client, Mr Cohen.
Here’s the latest on the hush-money case regarding the creation of falsified business records for reimbursing Mr Cohen for payments to silence porn star Stormy Daniels concerning her alleged affair with Mr Trump.
Oliver O’Connell23 November 2023 06:30
Trump doctor touts former president’s ‘excellent’ health following ‘weight reduction’
Donald Trump is in “excellent” health, according to a note he shared on Monday on social media, as both he and his potential 2024 opponent Joe Biden face continued questions about their age and mental fitness for the White House.
“I am pleased to report that President Trump’s overall health is excellent,” the former president’s physician, Bruce Aronwald, wrote in a letter Mr Trump shared on Truth Social. “His physical exams were well within the normal range and his cognitive exams were exceptional.”
The letter added that Mr Trump was showing improved results on certain tests, likely because of “weight reduction.”
You may recall this news item from Mr Trump’s surrender to the Fulton County Jail earlier this year:
Oliver O’Connell23 November 2023 04:30
2024 presidential debate dates and venues announced
The news was announced by the nonpartisan, nonprofit Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) on Monday.
The first debate will take place on 16 September at Texas State University in San Marcos. It will be followed by the second at Virginia State University in Petersburg on 1 October.
The final debate will take place just over a week later at The University of Utah, in Salt Lake City, on 9 October.
Mike Bedigan has further details.
Oliver O’Connell23 November 2023 03:30
Trump’s former White House counsel delivers withering takedown of ex-president
There are a significant number of former Trump administration officials, staffers, and aides who have become vocal critics of former president Donald Trump, his 2024 campaign, and the prospect of him returning to the White House.
They are running against him (Chris Christie, Nikki Haley, Mike Pence), are testifying against him (Cassidy Hutchinson, Bill Barr), or are more than willing to eviscerate him on cable news (John Bolton, Chris Christie, Bill Bar, Cassidy Hutchinson, Olivia Troya, Stephanie Grisham, etc…).
The Washington Post asked in an article earlier this week whether their declarations that he shouldn’t be president would make a difference, and tapped former White House counsel Ty Cobb, who defended Mr Trump during the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Once a loyal soldier for the former president, he gave this withering quote in the Post article saying it was imperative that people vote against him:
“He has never cared about America, its citizens, its future or anything but himself. In fact, as history well shows from his divisive lies, as well as from his unrestrained contempt for the rule of law and his related crimes, his conduct and mere existence have hastened the demise of democracy and of the nation,” Cobb wrote in an email. “Our adversaries and our allies both recognize that even his potential reelection diminishes America on the world stage and ensures continued acceleration of the domestic decline we are currently enduring. If that reelection actually happens, the consequences will extinguish what, if anything, remains of the American Dream.”
Oliver O’Connell23 November 2023 02:30
Fani Willis makes Trump courtroom debut
Harrison Floyd, the leader of Black Voices for Trump, has “engaged in a pattern of intimidation” against his co-defendants and witnesses since he was released on bond in August, according to the Fulton County District Attorney’s office.
But following a three-hour hearing on Tuesday, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee declined to send Mr Floyd back to jail and directed the parties to draft an order that reels in his public statements.
Oliver O’Connell23 November 2023 01:30
ICYMI: Trump’s Truth Social sues 20 media outlets over financial loss reports
Donald Trump’s Truth Social platform has filed a lawsuit against 20 media organisations for making what it claims to be defamatory statements about the company’s financial losses.
In the lawsuit, filed in the 12th Judicial Court of Sarasota County, Florida, on Monday, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) accuses the “reckless and malicious” outlets of falsely reporting that the company had lost $73m since its launch.
The company claims that the “false reporting” was part of a “seemingly coordinated effort to destroy TMTG and Truth Social”.
“This case is about an unprecedented and seemingly coordinated media campaign, by no less than 20 major media outlets, to attack Trump Media & Technology Group (“TMTG”) and its social media platform, Truth Social, by falsely reporting that TMTG had lost $73 million,” the lawsuit reads.
“This number was an utter fabrication. Each defendant, in apparent coordination, reported the exact same false number within approximately 24 hours of one another, each citing to a public Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) filing, in which the mystery $73 million loss appears nowhere.”
Oliver O’Connell23 November 2023 00:30