Category Archives: Donald Trump

DeSantis pleads with Florida Congress members to stop endorsing Trump

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Governor phones representatives, dismayed that four members of delegation have backed former president for 2024 nomination

The soft launch of Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign appears to be stuttering further after a report emerged claiming Florida’s Republican governor was calling members of the state’s congressional delegation to persuade them to stop endorsing Donald Trump.

DeSantis has yet to formally declare his pursuit of his party’s 2024 nomination, but has seen an erosion in recent weeks of his formerly strong support, with Trump pulling further ahead in polling.

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Viktor Orbán’s support for Trump seems to wane as ally meets with DeSantis

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Hungarian PM previously backed Trump but meetings between Katalin Novák and DeSantis camp suggest he’s hedging his bets

Hungary’s far-right prime minister, Viktor Orbán, one of Donald Trump’s biggest international supporters, has made overtures in recent weeks to Ron DeSantis and one of the Florida governor’s key billionaire backers.

Orbán has repeatedly voiced strong support for Trump’s policies and political style even long after the former president left the White House. But meetings between a key Orbán ally and the DeSantis camp suggest the Hungarian leader is hedging his bets amid uncertainty over Trump’s electoral prospects.

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Senate calls on supreme court chief justice to investigate Clarence Thomas’s ‘gift’ trips – as it happened

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Judiciary committee will review supreme court justice’s undeclared luxury travel with Republican mega-donor Harlan Crow

Donald Trump is trying to prevent his former vice-president, Mike Pence, from testifying to the grand jury investigating the January 6 insurrection, NBC News reports:

Earlier this month, Pence decided to drop his legal challenge to the subpoena from special counsel Jack Smith, who is investigating the insurrection at the Capitol in addition to Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the classified documents discovered at Mar-a-Lago.

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Trump ‘dug himself a hole’ on classified documents and role in January 6 – Barr

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Ex-attorney general says former president has ‘penchant for engaging in reckless behavior’ and why he’s facing indictments

Donald Trump “has a penchant for engaging in reckless and self-destructive behavior” and is facing a serious threat of a federal indictment over his handling of classified documents and his supporters’ deadly January 6 attack on the US capitol, his former attorney general William Barr said on Sunday.

“He’s dug himself a hole on the documents and also on the January 6 stuff,” Barr said of the former president during an interview on ABC’s This Week. “That was reckless behavior that was destined to end up being investigated. So it doesn’t surprise me that he has all these legal problems.”

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Trump lawyer says he aims to get hush money case dismissed before trial

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Jim Trusty, on ABC’s This Week, said the ex-president’s team will file ‘robust motions’ before the case even reaches its trial stage

While Donald Trump launches verbal attacks against the prosecutor and judge overseeing his criminal charges in connection with hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels, an attorney for the former US president has said his main focus is on legal maneuvers aiming to get the case dismissed long before a trial jury is ever seated.

Jim Trusty appeared on Sunday on ABC’s This Week and argued that “there’s a lot to play with” when examining whether New York state prosecutors waited too long to secure an indictment against Trump and if the ex-president intended to commit any crimes with the payments at the center of the case.

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Fox News settles lawsuit with Venezuelan over election vote-rigging claims

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Majed Khalil took Murdoch broadcaster to court after presenter Lou Dobbs accused him of ‘orchestrating a non-existent scheme to fix the election’

Fox News has announced a settlement with a Venezuelan businessman, Majed Khalil, ending a defamation case in which Khalil said he was falsely accused on air of helping to rig the 2020 US presidential election against Donald Trump.

It comes with jury selection set to begin on Thursday ahead of a separate trial in Dominion Voting Systems Corp’s $1.6bn defamation lawsuit against Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corp, over their coverage of debunked election-rigging claims.

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Trump reportedly seeks 2024 campaign role for far-right activist Laura Loomer

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Ex-president has told aides to hire failed congressional candidate and anti-Muslim campaigner, New York Times reports

Donald Trump has told aides to hire the far-right anti-Muslim activist and failed congressional candidate Laura Loomer for a role in his campaign to return to the White House in 2024, the New York Times has reported.

Citing four anonymous sources, the Times noted that Loomer, 29, attended Trump’s speech at Mar-a-Lago in Florida on Tuesday night, an angry rant delivered hours after the former president pleaded not guilty to 34 felony charges in New York over hush money payments, including to the porn star Stormy Daniels.

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‘The king has been dethroned’: Stormy Daniels speaks on Trump indictment

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The adult film star sat down with Piers Morgan for 1.5 hours, saying the former president should be ‘held accountable’

In her first major interview since Donald Trump’s indictment, Stormy Daniels has said that while she wants the former president to be “held accountable” she doesn’t believe he should go to prison.

“I don’t think that his crimes against me are worthy of incarceration. I feel like the other things that he has done, if he is found guilty, absolutely,” Daniels, 44, said in an interview with Fox Nation’s Piers Morgan released on Thursday.

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Trump drawing to be first New Yorker cover featuring courtroom sketch

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Jane Rosenberg was one of three permitted sketch artists during the hearing involving the ex-president on Tuesday

The next cover of the New Yorker will feature a drawing of Donald Trump at his arraignment on felony charges this week – the first time a courtroom sketch has graced the cover of the famous magazine.

Jane Rosenberg was one of three permitted sketch artists during the hearing involving the former president at the Manhattan criminal courthouse on Tuesday.

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Mike Pence will not appeal order to testify to January 6 grand jury

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Decision clears way for former vice-president to appear before panel looking into 2020 election interference and Capitol attack

The former vice-president Mike Pence will not appeal an order compelling him to testify in the US justice department investigation of Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election, attempts which culminated in the deadly January 6 attack on Congress.

The order was handed down last week. A spokesperson for Pence announced the decision on Wednesday, clearing the way for Pence to appear before a grand jury in Washington.

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Mike Pence will comply with subpoena to testify before January 6 grand jury – as it happened

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Former vice-president will not fight a judge’s order compelling him to appear before a special grand jury

Moira Donegan writes for the Guardian today that Trump isn’t the ringmaster he once was, but we’re still watching his show:

Will the criminal charges be good for Trump? Trump seems to think so, or at least that’s what he’s trying to project to the public. He raised a lot of money for his third presidential bid over the five days between his indictment and his arraignment: $7m, according to campaign officials. And as he was inside the courthouse being charged, his campaign sent out a fundraising email, asking supporters to purchase tee shirts featuring a fake mug shot of the former president, along with the words “NOT GUILTY.” They cost $47 a piece.

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‘I’ll always support him’: Republicans back Trump as he faces charges

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Many on the right liken the legal battle to an attack on democracy itself and have made threats to the district attorney

To Republicans across the US, the charges unveiled in a New York courtroom against Donald Trump were not just the start of the latest legal battle in the life of a man who has known no shortage of them, but an attack on democracy itself.

“Today is the day of the real insurrection,” tweeted Mark Levin, the conservative radio host whom Trump reportedly dined with after the indictment was announced last week.

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Trump campaign tries to cash in on arrest with fake mugshot T-shirt

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Meanwhile, Stormy Daniels sells ‘#TeamStormy’ gear and sellers flood eBay and Etsy with novelty merch

On a day of non-stop news alerts offering minute-by-minute updates on Donald Trump’s arraignment, subscribers to Trump’s mailing list received one more breaking alert: “NEW ITEM, MUGSHOT.”

An email sent to Trump supporters showed merchandise in the former president’s official store: a plain white T-shirt featuring a clearly doctored photo of the former president getting booked. A fake chart behind him gave his height as 6ft 5in. Underneath his photo were the words “NOT GUILTY”, printed in big block letters.

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Trump vents grievances against criminal charges from the safety of Mar-a-Lago

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The former president appeared subdued in New York, only to return to his campaigning, inflammatory ways hours later in Florida

Simmering with anger and defiance, Donald Trump returned to the safe space of Mar-a-Lago and his loyal supporters on Tuesday night, seeking to turn his status as an accused criminal into a political war cry.

The former president ignored a plea from the judge in the case to refrain from inflammatory rhetoric, even launching a broadside at the judge’s daughter over her political connections.

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Trump addresses indictment in brief – as it happened

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This blog is now closed. You can read our full story on Trump’s arraignment here.

After listing off a number of grievances, attacking those involved in the multiple investigations and criminal cases against him, and rambling a number of of-repeated falsehoods about the 2020 elections, he walked off stage.

The speech was in many ways a standard performance, but shorter.

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Trump indictment live: former president set to appear in New York courthouse in hush money case

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The first former US president to face criminal charges will appear in court at about 14.15ET (18.15 GMT / 19.15 BST)

The Hill this morning is carrying some quotes from Vin Weber, a Republican strategist and former member of the House Republican leadership. Weber is warning that the indictment of former president Donald Trump sets a dangerous precedent.

He argues that the impeachment of Bill Clinton lowered the bar for what might be considered an impeachable offence, and that the Stormy Daniels hush money case is doing the same, and risks people attempting political prosecutions of their opponents in the future. He said:

I think it’s bad for America, bad for the Republican Party and it’s bad for the political system in our country. Once you start down this path, there’s no way you’re going to reverse it. That’s what we saw with impeachment.

We’re going to see political prosecutions brought, some of them for meritorious reasons, some of them to advance the careers of the prosecutors. But all of this is harmful to America and our political process.

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Trump arrives in New York City ahead of Tuesday court appearance

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Ex-president departed Florida around midday and is expected to appear at the Manhattan courthouse Tuesday afternoon

Donald Trump arrived in New York City on Monday, a day before he is due for a hotly anticipated court appearance where he’ll respond to the first ever criminal indictment filed against a former American president.

At about 2.15pm ET on Tuesday, he will appear at the courthouse where a grand jury convened by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg handed down its indictment last week, to learn the exact details of which laws he is alleged to have broken. At his arraignment, he is expected to be photographed and fingerprinted, but will not be handcuffed per an agreement his legal team reached with Bragg, Trump’s attorney Joe Tacopina said last week.

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Donald Trump expected to fly to New York for tomorrow’s court appearance – live

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Former president to be arraigned on Tuesday in hush money case brought by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg

Donald Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba has made a prickly appearance on CNN’s This Morning, insisting that a mugshot of her boss, something usually required of all defendants when they are arraigned in New York district court, would be merely “theatrics”.

Habba told host Don Lemon:

Mugshots are for people so that you recognize who they are. He’s the most recognized face in the world, let alone the country, right now, so there’s no need for that.

I’m not in a deposition right now and I’m not going to continue this conversation.

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Trump lawyer hopes Tuesday’s court hearing will stay ‘painless and classy’

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Joe Tacopina says former president plans to plead not guilty to charges stemming from hush money payments to Stormy Daniels

An attorney for Donald Trump has said he hopes the proceedings can stay “painless and classy” at the court hearing scheduled for Tuesday where the former president plans to plead not guilty to charges filed against him after an investigation into hush money payments to adult film actor Stormy Daniels.

Joe Tacopina told CNN’s State of the Union show on Sunday that many of the particulars of the arraignment set for Tuesday were still “very much up in the air” besides the fact that the ex-president would “very loud and proudly say not guilty”.

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Mar-a-Lago events suspended as Trump huddles with ‘shaken’ advisers

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Former president prepares for New York court appearance at Florida resort after news of indictment caught him by surprise

Weekend events at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, were suspended on Friday as the former president was “huddling” with his attorneys after being blindsided by the grand jury indictment handed up against him after payments to the porn star Stormy Daniels.

Trump, the New York Post reported, is meeting with advisers who were said to be “shaken” by the news of dozens of criminal charges related to a $130,000 payment given to Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Gregory Clifford.

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