Trump Corruption

The Messenger reports: A spokesperson for former President Donald Trump slammed claims that he regularly had sex with a woman at Jeffrey Epstein’s Manhattan mansion as “simply false” on Monday. “These baseless accusations have been fully retracted because they are simply false and have no merit,” Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump, said in a statement. In one undated email …

The Associated Press reports: A judge late Saturday said former President Donald Trump’s lawyers can’t present legal arguments to a jury assessing damages at a defamation trial on a jury’s conclusion last year that he didn’t rape a columnist in the mid-1990s. U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan made the determination in an order in advance of a Jan. 16 …

CNN reports: Former President Donald Trump is seeking to have the sweeping criminal conspiracy case against him in Georgia thrown out by arguing he is protected from prosecution under presidential immunity. Trump’s immunity claims in the Georgia case, filed on Monday as part of a motion to dismiss state-level criminal charges against the former president, are similar to those argued …

The Hill reports: Democratic lawmakers are leery about the prospect of President Biden debating former President Trump, fearing that putting the two on stage together would only elevate the likely GOP nominee. Trump has skipped every Republican presidential primary debate thus far but says he’s eager to debate Biden. Democratic lawmakers, however, are not relishing that scenario. “I would think …

Posted last night to Trump’s Truth Social account: I will be attending the the Federal Appeals Court Arguments on Presidential Immunity in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. Of course I was entitled, as President of the United States and Commander in Chief, to Immunity. I wasn’t campaigning, the Election was long over. I was looking for voter fraud, and finding it, …

From the New York Times editorial board: As president, he wielded power carelessly and often cruelly and put his ego and his personal needs above the interests of his country. Now, as he campaigns again, his worst impulses remain as strong as ever — encouraging violence and lawlessness, exploiting fear and hate for political gain, undermining the rule of law …

ABC News reports: Special counsel Jack Smith’s team has uncovered previously undisclosed details about former President Donald Trump’s refusal to help stop the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol three years ago as he sat watching TV inside the White House, according to sources familiar with what Smith’s team has learned during its Jan. 6 probe. Many of the exclusive …

“I didn’t like it when Ronald Reagan suggested it because we didn’t have the technology. We do have the technology now, and we’re going to build a giant dome over our country to protect us from a hostile source. And I think it’s a great thing, and it’s going to all be made in the United States. And that’s something …

The Associated Press reports: Trump spent much of the day assailing Biden, casting him as incompetent and the real threat to democracy. But he also attacked fellow Republicans, including the late Sen. John McCain of Arizona, whose “no” vote derailed GOP efforts to repeal former President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law. “John McCain, for some reason, couldn’t get his arm …

Chicago’s PBS affiliate reports: Republican Donald Trump didn’t submit a state loyalty oath that candidates in Illinois have been signing for more than a half century that asserts they won’t “advocate the overthrow of the government” — a pledge that holds new resonance on the third anniversary of the Jan. 6th insurrection. That’s a departure his presidential campaign is not …

“They’re saying, ‘Oh, Trump owns the Supreme Court, he owns it. He owns it. If they make a decision for him, it will be terrible. It’ll ruin their reputations. He owns the Supreme Court. He put on three judges. He owns the Supreme Court. If they rule in his favor, it will be horrible for them. And we’ll protest at …

“Crooked Joe is staging his pathetic pathetic fearmongering campaign event in Pennsylvania today. Did you see him? He was stuttering through the whole thing. He’s going, “ba da da da he’s a threat the democracy.’ They’ve weaponized government and he’s saying I’m a threat to democracy. “Joe Biden’s record is an unbroken streak of weakness, incompetence, corruption and failure. Other …

The Associated Press reports: New Mexico’s top prosecutor said Friday that the state’s five Republican electors cannot be prosecuted under the current law for filing election certificates that falsely declared Donald Trump the winner of the 2020 presidential race. However, Democratic Attorney General Raúl Torrez is making recommendations to state lawmakers that he says would enhance the security of the …

The Hill reports: The Supreme Court agreed to take up whether former President Trump can be disqualified from appearing on Colorado’s ballot over his actions surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, setting up a historic case that could upend the presidential election. The justices’ order sets the case up to be heard at a speedy pace, with oral arguments …

Posted to Trump’s Truth Social account: Ron DeSanctimonious has one minor flaw against the Democrats — He has ZERO personality. If I didn’t endorse him, he would have finished, during the Primary, at 3%. NO LOYALTY! Bobblehead is now in third place, Jeff Roe has taken all of his money and quit, and he should get on a plane and …

The New York Times reports: The New York attorney general on Friday asked that the judge who had overseen the civil fraud trial of Donald J. Trump to penalize the former president about $370 million, saying the trial had demonstrated that he had gained that amount through unlawful conduct. The sum was well over the $250 million that the attorney …

The Messenger reports: “God Made Trump,” a new nearly three minute ad from former President Donald Trump’s campaign claims. “And on June 14th, 1946, God looked down on his planned paradise and said ‘I need a caretaker,’ so God gave us Trump,” the narrator says in the same style that the Book of Genesis in The Bible is written, while …

Chicago’s NPR affiliate reports: Five voters formally objected to former President Donald Trump’s newly-filed state nominating petitions Thursday, citing his role fomenting the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in 2021 and now adding Illinois to the national debate about Trump’s legal status as a presidential candidate. The objectors believe Trump is disqualified as a presidential candidate and want the State …

Bloomberg News reports: Donald Trump accused Special Counsel Jack Smith of violating a court order that put the former president’s election-interference prosecution on hold while he appeals a ruling that struck down his immunity defense. In a filing Thursday in Washington, Trump’s lawyers argued that Smith and his team wrongfully ignored a stay of the case by continuing to file …

Yahoo News reports: Donald Trump’s businesses received nearly $8 million in payments from foreign governments while Trump was president, according to new research by Democrats on Capitol Hill. Unlike Republicans in their effort to pin corruption on President Joe Biden, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have receipts — more than 400 pages of them — showing payments to Trump’s …