Former US president’s ‘body man’ appears in Miami court on charges relating to classified documents found at resort
Walt Nauta is facing six federal charges, including conspiracy to obstruct justice, corruptly concealing a document or record, and making false statements.
That’s fewer than the 37 federal charges Donald Trump is facing, but both men are named in the indictment brought last month by special counsel Jack Smith. You can read it below:
Continue reading...Former New Jersey governor speaks out after bizarre video from Florida’s governor and ‘juvenile’ nicknames from the ex-president
An escalating feud between the two main rivals for the Republican presidential nomination is akin to a “teenage food fight”, another challenger, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, said on Sunday.
He made the comment after the campaign of Ron DeSantis, the rightwing Florida governor who has slipped in the polls to Donald Trump, released a “homophobic” video attacking the former president for his previous support of the LGBTQ+ community.
Continue reading...2024 presidential hopeful schedules event in competition with Donald Trump speech to Republican women
Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign is struggling in the crucial state of New Hampshire and may have made the situation worse by scheduling an event on Tuesday in competition with a speech by Donald Trump to Republican women, prompting one prominent strategist to call the move “stupid”, Politico reported.
“It’s the worst strategic move he has exhibited thus far,” the New Hampshire Republican strategist, Mike Dennehy, told the website. “It’s just stupid, actually. You don’t take on the New Hampshire Federation of Republican Women.”
Continue reading...Ex-president lashes out at prosecutors and tells conservative audience that his two indictments are a ‘great badge of courage’
Republicans’ enduring loyalty to Donald Trump was on vivid display at a conservative conference this weekend, convened just two weeks after the former president was indicted on 37 federal charges related to his alleged mishandling of classified documents.
Addressing this year’s Road to Majority conference Saturday, Trump lashed out against federal prosecutors, who have accused the former president of intentionally withholding classified documents from authorities and obstructing justice in his efforts to keep those materials concealed. Trump, who could soon face additional charges in Washington and Georgia, told the friendly crowd that he considered each of his two indictments so far to be “a great badge of courage” as he ran to unseat Democratic incumbent Joe Biden.
Continue reading...Former president says he considers the two indictments a ‘great badge of courage’ during a speech at the Road to Majority conference
Donald Trump has derided the substantial federal charges against him, downplaying the numerous legal threats he faces while attacking Joe Biden for allegedly having “weaponized” the department of justice for political gain.
Speaking on Saturday at the Road to Majority conference in Washington, hosted by the right-wing evangelical Faith and Freedom Coalition, Trump said he considered each of the two indictments he has received so far to be a “great badge of courage”.
Continue reading...Supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade sparked a slew of state-level restrictions but anti-abortion stance has proved a vote-loser
In the months since the supreme court voted to overturn Roe v Wade last year, the effects of the court’s decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization have become clear. Over a dozen states across the country have passed legislation limiting or outright banning access to abortions, severely restricting reproductive rights for millions of people and threatening to imprison abortion providers.
But as Republicans have pushed through these bills, voters have also taken every opportunity to rebuke them in elections – leading to defeats in midterms and emerging as one of the GOP’s largest vulnerabilities.
Continue reading...Former vice-president calls for federal 15-week ‘minimum’ ban in contrast to Trump who suggested issue cost party votes
Speaking one year since the US supreme court removed the federal right to abortion, Mike Pence said candidates for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination should stand firm on the electorally unpopular issue and take a hard line on bringing in national limits.
“For me, for our campaign, we’re going to stand where we’ve always stood, and that is without apology for the right to life,” the former congressman, Indiana governor and vice-president to Donald Trump told Politico.
Continue reading...Former CIA officer and Texas congressman pitches himself as moderate alternative to current crop of primary contenders
Former Texas congressman Will Hurd, a onetime CIA officer and fierce critic of Donald Trump, announced on Thursday that he’s running for president, hoping to build momentum as a more moderate alternative to the Republican primary field’s early front-runner.
Hurd, who made the announcement on CBS Mornings, served three terms in the House through January 2021, becoming the chamber’s only Black Republican during his final two years in office. He said in a video launching his White House bid that the “soul of our country is under attack,” reminiscent of Democrat Joe Biden’s slogan about the 2020 race being a “battle for the soul of the nation.”
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More Republicans are condemning Hunter Biden’s plea deal.
New York representative Elise Stefanik released a statement on the plea deal, calling out “a two-tiered system of justice” that purportedly benefited Biden.
Continue reading...Half of all Tory voters take a dim view of the former prime minister whereas the ex-president has a strong Republican support
There are two very big differences between the situation confronting Boris Johnson and that facing the man with whom he is frequently compared, Donald Trump – namely, popularity and context.
Johnson is weaker than Trump. First, because he is less popular with Conservative voters than Trump is with his Republican supporters. About half of 2019 Conservative voters disapprove of Johnson’s performance in office. And at the time he left office, 40% or more rated him as untrustworthy, dishonest and/or incompetent.
Continue reading...President enlists support of union members against GOP tax cuts for the wealthy at first political rally of 2024 re-election campaign
At his first political rally since announcing his re-election campaign for president in April, Joe Biden told a crowd of labor union supporters: “Wall Street didn’t build America – you did.”
“If the investment bankers of this country went on strike tomorrow, no one would notice,” Biden said on Saturday during a speech which alluded to his blue-collar childhood roots in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Renewing his longstanding vocal support for labor unions, he continued: “If this room didn’t show up to work tomorrow, the whole country would come to a grinding halt, so tell me – who matters more in America?”
Continue reading...Former president notes tendency among Republican candidates to gloss over effects of racism, prompting pushback from both
Barack Obama has criticized two Republican presidential hopefuls, the South Carolina senator Tim Scott and the former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, over their stances on race relations in America.
On a podcast interview, Obama, who became the first Black US president when he was elected in 2008, said that while presenting a hopeful message on race relations was important, “that has to be undergirded with an honest accounting of our past and our present”.
Continue reading...US attorney general praises Smith’s independence and accountability; Republican senators step up threats over Trump charges
Joe Biden has refused to publicly comment on the federal charges leveled against his predecessor Donald Trump over allegedly hoarding government documents from his time in the White House, and Politico reports the president has also instructed Democratic party offices to do the same.
While many top Democratic lawmakers have condemned the allegations against Trump, neither Biden nor top officials at the White House or his re-election campaign have spoken out about the indictment and his arraignment in Miami yesterday. Politico reports that some Democrats – none of whom would allow their names to be used – believe the strategy is a missed opportunity to cast Trump as reckless and boost Biden’s re-election chances.
Biden has privately told aides that he is disgusted by Trump’s behavior but is adhering to his promise that the Department of Justice would have independence from the White House. The DNC, meanwhile, has advised members of Congress seeking guidance on what to say that they should not comment on the Trump probes if they are speaking publicly in their role as Biden campaign surrogates.
While Biden has framed his stance as in line with longstanding tradition, it is not uncommon for presidents to occasionally weigh in on ongoing criminal investigations. Biden has at times done so himself – including weighing in before the verdict was announced in the 2021 trial of the white Minneapolis police officer who killed George Floyd.
Continue reading...Former US president arrives in New Jersey after indictment hearing in Miami over classified documents
Meanwhile in Washington, Donald Trump’s allies in Congress are vowing to do all they can to help him fight Jack Smith’s prosecution.
Here’s the judiciary committee’s Republican chair Jim Jordan hinting to CNN that he may demand testimony from Smith, the special counsel appointed by attorney general Merrick Garland specifically to handle the investigations into Trump:
Continue reading...Former US president lands in Miami ahead of court appearance on Tuesday; Miami officials detailed security measures in press briefing
The White House said Joe Biden will not be under anesthesia during his root canal today, meaning the 25th amendment won’t be invoked.
Ratified in 1967, the amendment is one of the most recent additions to the constitution, and outlines the procedure for the vice-president to temporarily assume the president’s duties at the chief executive’s request. In November 2021, Biden used its authority to hand power to Kamala Harris while he underwent a colonoscopy.
Continue reading...Indictment accuses former president of risking national security, foreign relations, safety of US military and intelligence gathering
The US senate judiciary committee chairman, Dick Durbin, has said the investigation led by special counsel Jack Smith should be allowed to continue “without interference”.
In a statement on Friday, Durbin added that Donald Trump “should be afforded the due process protections that he is guaranteed by our constitution, just like any other American”.
I think before the sun sets today, the attorney general of the United States should be standing in front of the American people, should unseal this indictment, should provide the American people with all the facts and information here.
And the American people be able to judge for themselves whether this is just the latest incident of weaponization and politicization at the justice department or it’s something different.
Continue reading...Ethics expert says ex-New Jersey governor must answer questions over George Gilmore, pardoned on Trump’s last day in office
A leading US ethics expert said the former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who this week launched a presidential campaign aimed at taking down Donald Trump, owes the American public an explanation of why and how he secured a pardon for a powerful New Jersey Republican, issued on Trump’s last day in the White House.
“We just don’t know the answer to that,” Noah Bookbinder, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew), said. “And I think we should.”
Continue reading...Former US vice president says was proud to stand by Trump but goes on to criticise attempts to overturn election result in Iowa campaign launch
We’re about an hour away from Mike Pence’s campaign launch in Iowa, and a CBS News reporter at the event noticed something telling in his campaign’s arrangements for the media.
As noted below, the password for the wifi provided to journalists seems to be a reference to Pence’s refusal to go along with Trump’s demand that he block Congress’s certification of Joe Biden’s election win on January 6:
Continue reading...Pence says Trump ‘demanded I choose between him and the constitution’ and that someone like that ‘should never be president again’
Mike Pence officially announced he is running for the Republican presidential nomination in a video posted early Wednesday and formally addressed a crowd of supporters in Ankeny, Iowa, on Wednesday afternoon.
In his speech, the former Indiana governor chastised Donald Trump for his “reckless” actions on 6 January 2021, took swipes at Joe Biden and singled out “enemies of freedom” around the world, including a three-second frame of Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, and China’s president, Xi Jinping, in the video.
Continue reading...Pugilistic politician joins Republican primary with singular focus – to take the fight to Donald Trump
The former New Jersey governor Chris Christie announced his bid for for the Republican presidential nomination at a New Hampshire town hall.
In an unconventionally contrite speech, Christie said: “I can’t guarantee you success in what I’m about to do. But I guarantee you that at the end of it. You will have no doubt in your mind, who I am and what I stand for and whether I deserve it.”
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