This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg has launched his arguments in his "hush money" payments trial against President Trump. He's alleging conspiracy, election interference, and all sorts of other felonies in the case now being heard by a jury in the ultra-leftist and avowedly anti-Trump enclave of New York City.

But it's all based on "hocus-pocus," explains an analysis from respected legal commentator Gregg Jarrett.

He's a Fox News legal analyst and commentator.

"Hocus-pocus is a meaningless distraction or illusion that is intended to fool. That neatly summarizes District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against Donald Trump," Jarrett explained. "The D.A. hopes to snooker a Manhattan jury into convicting the former president with a bag of legal tricks."

And he warns such "chicanery" might even work in New York, a "Trump-hating venue."

He explained the "sleight of hand" appeared immediately during opening arguments, presented for the prosecution by Matthew Colangelo, who was Joe Biden's pick at the DOJ.

Colangelo claimed the case is "about a criminal conspiracy," but Jarrett pointed out it's not.

"The word 'conspiracy' can be found nowhere in Bragg’s indictment. It’s not there because there was no criminal conspiracy. But that didn’t stop the prosecutor from deceiving the jury by arguing about an uncharged crime. Like a skilled magician, he hopes his pretense will fool them. "

Then Colangelo slipped in another canard.

"More than once, he accused Trump of 'election fraud,' conveniently ignoring the fact that the Federal Election Commission examined Trump’s payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and determined there was no fraud because the money conferred did not qualify as a campaign donation. Federal prosecutors who investigated reached the same conclusion. So did Bragg’s predecessor. There was no crime."

Jarrett also noted Colangelo ignored the fact non-disclosure agreements are "perfectly legal and routine."

"None of this stopped the prosecutor from informing the jury that all of this constitutes 'an illegal conspiracy to undermine a presidential election.' Like most illusions, it seems plausible on the surface. But wait. Let’s check the indictment again. Every single one of the 34 charges against Trump took place in 2017. You’ll note that this is after the 2016 election," Jarrett pointed out.

Trump's defense informed the jury that election "influence" has been going on for centuries: "It's called democracy."

"Trump had nothing to do with the bookkeeping or the 34 invoices reflecting the same number of charged counts. He assigned his lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen, to resolve the demands for money, which he did. Cohen booked the cost as legal services and expenses, which they were," the commentary said.

Bragg "accuses Trump of 'conspiring to influence the 2016 presidential election' without recognizing the obvious hypocrisy. It is Bragg, himself, who is guilty of election interference in 2024 by bringing a legally absurd case designed to take Trump off the campaign trail while his opponent, Joe Biden, freely blankets key states in advance of the November balloting."

A report at Just the News this week pointed out how justices on the U.S. Supreme Court now are concerned about "the increasing prevalence of political prosecutions in the United States."

The report noted two justices cited "the apparent contradictions in the Biden administration’s selective enforcement of certain provisions against January 6 protestors. The high court’s ruling in this case may have implications for Trump too. He is charged with the same crime, obstructing an official proceeding in one of his federal cases."

Trump has described the latest Democrat attacks as lawfare that continues the attacks that started even before he was president.

"They had the Mueller hoax, the Mueller report and that came out, no collusion after two and a half years…that was set up by Hillary Clinton and the Democrats," he has said.

"But this is what they do. This is what they do so well, if they would devote their energies to honesty and integrity, to be a lot better for our country, they could do a lot better," he added.

Just the News noted celebrity lawyer and Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz., a longtime leftist, said he sees "partisan purposes" in the prosecution of Trump.

"I just don't understand what the crime is. And I've been doing this for 60 years, I have more experience than all the prosecutors combined, in this case, in terms of teaching, writing, and litigating criminal cases. And if I can't even find the crime, you know, what they say the crime is, it's a misdemeanor, that was expired under the statute of limitations a long time ago. And they turned it into a state felony by saying that the purpose of the misdemeanor was to violate a federal felony, which the federal government didn't go after," he told Just the News.

"[If] the defendant's name weren't Donald Trump, and he wasn't running for president, no sane prosecutor in a million years would ever bring this case, and none has in the nearly, you know, 200 whatever years of American history, this is a first and it's a terrible mark on the American justice system,": he added.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is running for president as a third-party candidate this year.

But he long has been a prominent Democrat party leader. As have many of his family members, including his father, Robert F. Kennedy, who was the nation's attorney general, and his uncle, John F. Kennedy, who was president.

He's been active in environmental fights, battled misinformation about vaccinations, leads Children's Health Defense, and takes part in water, renewable energy, and indigenous population issues.

Now he's turned blunt on the issue of the threat to democracy, a charge that Joe Biden and other leaders of the Democrat party have been lobbing at President Donald Trump for years already.

It's not Trump who is the greater threat, it's Biden, Kennedy said.

It's in a report at the Washington Examiner that he explains.

"I can make the argument that President Biden is the much worse threat to democracy, and the reason for that is President Biden is the first candidate in history — the first president in history that has used the federal agencies to censor political speech, so to censor his opponent," he explained, "He’s weaponizing the federal agencies. Those are critical threats."

His comments came in an interview on CNN. He suggested both Biden and Trump have said the election of the other would bring the destruction of democracy.

Neither is correct, Kennedy said, but Trump's statements have more weight.

The idea that Trump is a threat, he said, comes from the January 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, when a protest turned violent as dozens of people vandalized the building.

He explained, "But the question was, who is a worse threat to democracy? And what I would say is … I’m not going to answer that question. But I can argue that President Biden is because the First Amendment, Erin, is the most important."

He said he would not "defend" Trump regarding the riot, which was "appalling."

The protesters that day were objecting to what they perceived as a stolen presidential election. There were at least two undue influences on the vote at that time, including the $400 million plus that Mark Zuckerberg handed out to elections officials who largely used it to recruit leftist voters.

Never before in American elections had such an amount been injected into the decision – outside of election funding procedures.

Then, too, was the FBI's decision to interfere, with its warning to media corporations that they needed to suppress accurate reporting about Biden family scandals uncovered in the laptop computer abandoned by Hunter Biden. Later polling showed had that information has been reported ordinarily, enough Biden voters would have withheld their support that Biden almost certainly would have lost.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

There have been, in recent years, several agendas that all work toward the same goal: Reparations.

That would be mandatory payments by the government or other institutions, like churches, to atone for the slavery that happened in America generations ago.

The goal is to take money from people who never owned slaves essentially to give large cash awards to those who never were slaves.

Now a Democrat in California is calling for new taxes on gold, cotton, tobacco, and other "slave" goods, to give to African Americans for homes and schools.

It is the Daily Mail that has outlined the proposal from Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer, calling for reparations for black Californians.

The state already has had a report from a Reparations Task Force, on which Jones-Sawyer served.

He wants, starting in 2025, for those who buy "gold bullion and gold coins" to pay a special tax at the point of purchase, a tax that also would apply to those to buy "tangible property made in whole or in part from cotton, or tobacco products."

Also those buying, "wine, olives, cane sugar, granulated sugar, rice, and coffee beans."

The rate hasn't been established in the proposal, but all the cash would run into a "Reparations Fund" to give to African Americans.

The reparations plan is part of a long list of about a dozen ideas.

"Reparations campaigners say it's time for America to repay its black residents for the injustices of the historic Transatlantic slave trade, Jim Crow segregation, and inequalities that persist to this day," the report said.

Black lawmakers in Washington already have floated the eye-watering total of "at least $14 trillion" they want.

One complication that has appeared in such discussions is that sometimes it was blacks who owned other blacks during the time of slavery in America.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

Democrats have orchestrated a full-scale war on President Donald Trump, taking him into court on a wide range of classified papers, business dealings, and speech issues, aiming to make sure he cannot beat Joe Biden in the 2024 presidential election.

Now Al Franken, the ex-senator who left Congress in a sex scandal, has offered a morbid desire.

He wants Trump to testify in court in the cases, and he wants to see a Bible "burst into flames" when Trump touches in while being sworn in.

The comment came during an interview with Jen Psaki, a former Barack Obama spokeswoman, who now appears on the leftist MSNBC.

She was asking him about the Democrats' schemes to try to take Trump down – even remove him from the 2024 ballot and deprive voters of an opportunity to make their own choice.

She said, "As you're watching this, and you see all the different messages the Democratic party is throwing at him there's a lot of material there, there's no question, there's (sic) the legal cases, obviously his threat to abortion rights, (and) the threat to the Affordable Care Act. What should people be doing? There's (sic) almost too many to pick from. What is the right approach, in your view."

The expert opinion she was seeking, according to RedState.com, was from a comedian and former senator who quit Congress amid accusations from multiple women that he groped and forcibly kissed them.

Franken has said he remembers those encounters differently.

Franken's response to Psaki?

I think that as these cases unfold, and thank God, we actually have one coming to trial. I think it'll be very clear. You started your show talking to Michael Cohen. I think it's pretty clear that this case was exactly that, a hush-money case. You know I'm looking forward to – I don't know whether he will testify, I know his lawyers know that he lies a lot, but I hope he testifies because when he puts (his) hand on the Bible, I want to see it burst into flames.

RedState explained that Franken, a "disgraced" former senator, actually suffers from "Stage 4 Trump Derangement Syndrome," and turned to MSNBC to "sneer" about Trump.

The report added a note that Psaki refused to ask Franken questions about "the Biden Family Business, the multitudinous lies Joe Biden has told about it and the strong sworn testimony of former Hunter Biden business partner, Tony Bobulinski."

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

Former network anchor Keith Olbermann just days ago responded to a Biden campaign comment that "Trump says he has been treated worse than Abraham Lincoln, who was assassinated," with "There's always the hope."

Now he references the IQ of a halibut and says everyone should have known that he wanted Trump to be "convicted" and eventually die in prison.

Olbermann's original social media posting responding to Biden's "assassination" reference now has been concealed by social media, too.

All of which has prompted a commentary at RedState to note that Olbermann "keeps providing for the right-wing commentariat."

He soon "backtracked," the report said, "claiming he meant that he hopes Trump dies in prison because I guess Olbermann thinks that's a more sane and normal response to one's political opposition."

The editorial explained, "I'm not sure exactly what he thought Trump should be convicted of nine years ago in 2015 given there were no indictments of the now-former president at the time nor any evidence of wrongdoing. That's too deep of a thought to waste on Olbermann's rantings, though. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, i.e. that did want Trump to be 'convicted' and to 'die in prison' back in 2015."

But the comments are "crazy."

"Americans live in a country full of people who truly believe their political opponents should be killed for disagreeing with them. Worse, they've convinced themselves that such a position is righteous. After all, when you aren't just instituting policy but are 'protecting democracy' from 'fascists,' pretty much anything is on the table. In their minds, there won't be a country left if they don't do whatever it takes to retain power," the commentary said.

It explained Olbermann and "the millions of other deranged leftists" would readily throw anyone in disagreement in "gulags."

"They have no boundaries because, in their minds, they are saving the country."

The writer warned, "That's a dangerous place to be, and it's one every politically active American needs to be wary of. If Trump wins in November, the country will not turn into a fascist state. If Biden wins, the country will not cease to exist. No matter the outcome, we will all still be here talking about it. Politics is important, but it's not that important, and the moment a person loses touch with that reality, really bad things can happen."

The author then defined Olbermann's problem, and the problem for others similarly situated.

"They don't believe in God. They don't have families to go home to. That leaves them deriving their purpose from an ever-escalating delusion of 'defending democracy.' What does Olbermann have other than shouting like a lunatic on social media about killing his political opponents?"

Olbermann is a "warning," it explained.

"There's a difference between caring about politics and making it the very foundation of one's worth and being. A person who does the latter is teetering on the edge, and it's a long way down."

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

A prominent family values organization is praising a move by attorneys general from many states to challenge YouTube's pro-abortion bias.

"I'm so glad law enforcement is calling out YouTube for its obvious pro-abortion bias against pro-life videos," explained Jennifer Roback Morse, the chief of the Ruth Institute, a global nonprofit that leads efforts to defend the family.

Previous reports document that 16 state attorneys general are calling out YouTube for "misleading” informational posts on abortion videos, warning that the platform is putting women in danger by minimizing the risks of chemical abortions.

"Your bias against pro-life and pro-woman messages is un-American; inconsistent with the liberties protected by the First Amendment; and, in this case, illegal,” the attorneys general said in the letter, first obtained by The Daily Signal. “It must stop.”

The move is being led by Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird and also was joined by officials from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

Morse explained, "At the Ruth Institute, we’re no stranger to those blue boxes under our YouTube videos, giving 'abortion health information.' Since we often interview pro-life activists, we see those obnoxious boxes frequently."

She cited YouTube's "false" information that a chemical abortion is done "by a licensed healthcare professional."

"This is false," Morse said. "Chemical abortions are performed, not by a doctor, but by the pregnant woman herself, often at home, alone, and with no idea what’s about to happen to her."

She explained, "The same people who have scared us for years over 'do-it-yourself home abortions' with coat-hangars seem utterly indifferent to the suffering of women from 'do-it-yourself home abortions' with minimally regulated pharmaceuticals."

A video on the topic documents that about one in 25 of all women who take abortion chemicals end up in an emergency room.

Bird, in an interview with The Daily Signal, explained, "Women deserve to know the truth about the dangers of chemical abortion pills. For YouTube to attach deceptive labels to videos of women sharing their testimonies after suffering from at-home abortion drugs is a disservice to women everywhere. YouTube must end its blatant misinformation campaign that puts women at risk and quit targeting pro-life messages."

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

Desperate to derail former President Donald Trump's candidacy back in 2016, Democrats used a bogus dossier created by a former British spy to convince voters Trump was "colluding with the Russians" to win the election.

Although Trump ultimately won, the investigation triggered by the allegations made in the now-debunked dossier exerted a hugely negative impact on the first three years of his presidency.

Then, when the New York Post broke the Hunter Biden laptop story just a few weeks before the November 2020 presidential election, raising concerns that then-candidate Joe Biden had been involved in his son's foreign influence-peddling business, Democrats teamed up with Big Tech and the media to suppress the story. This was followed up by a letter signed by 51 former intelligence community leaders who claimed the laptop story had all the hallmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign. But as is now known, that utterly false letter had secretly been instigated by then-Biden campaign adviser and current Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

The letter proved key to Biden's victory. Just days after it was published, Biden used it to effectively shut down Trump when he raised the topic in their final presidential debate.

Although Russian President Vladimir Putin recently said he would prefer a Biden win in November, Democrats are turning once again to a contrived Russian disinformation campaign to discredit the House Republicans' Biden impeachment inquiry.

Last summer, Republicans released a June 2020 FBI FD-1023 report in which a confidential human source, or CHS, alleged that Joe Biden and his son Hunter each accepted $5 million bribes from Ukrainian oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky, the founder of the notorious energy conglomerate Burisma Holdings, in exchange for policy intervention on his company's behalf. It was an explosive revelation but was just one piece of the treasure trove of evidence that House investigators have collected over the past year.

Then almost two weeks ago, on Feb. 15, Special Counsel David Weiss's office announced it had arrested Alexander Smirnov, an FBI informant since 2010, for "making a false statement" to the FBI and "creating a false and fictitious record."

In a subsequent court filing, the Weiss team enumerated Smirnov's extensive "contacts with Russian officials who are affiliated with Russian intelligence services" and claimed they were "not benign." The filing also stated he "has had such contacts recently."

Following his arrest, Smirnov was released with an ankle monitor, and then rearrested last Thursday at his lawyer's office in downtown Las Vegas and transferred to a California jail, where he will remain in custody until his trial. Prosecutors convinced the judge that Smirnov represented a flight risk.

According to the New York Times, Smirnov was rearrested because Weiss's prosecutors "grew alarmed after a search of the $980,000 condo where he has lived for the past two years revealed nine handguns."

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

The U.S. House already is in deep into an investigation into whether Joe Biden should be impeached.

The case against the Democrat so far largely circles around his alleged corruption – his family's influence-peddling schemes in which access to Joe Biden, as vice president and then president, was the commodity and tens of millions of dollars that flowed to the Biden family from some of America's harshest enemies was the cost.

Now those allegations may not be the only grounds considered for impeaching Biden, whose mental fitness was confirmed as diminishing in a government report just days ago.

That special investigation found he likely broke federal law by deciding to take and keep classified documents, but the special counsel said he wasn't recommending charges because a jury likely would view Biden as an elderly man with diminished capacity and would be unlikely to convict.

That government report noted Biden couldn't remember clearly when he was vice president.

But that's far from the only issue on which Biden could face impeachment charges, another being his decision to open America's southern border and allow in millions of illegal aliens.

A report from Just the News explains that issue, too, could become grounds for impeaching Biden.

"I think that's certainly something that should be considered, look, this has just spiraled out of control," charged U.S. Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., head of the House Oversight Committee.

The issue is coming to a head just now because the House this week impeached Biden's Homeland Security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas.

The impeachment resolution against Mayorkas contains articles relating to his "breach of trust" as well as a "willful and systematic refusal to comply with the law."

Congressional reports confirmed Biden has released into the United States millions of illegal aliens, including some who may be terrorists.

The impeachment resolution passed the House 214-213, but chances for a trial in the Senate remain unlikely as Democrats control that body and are ill-prepared to allow a full debate about Biden's failed border scheming.

The House has appointed impeachment managers if such an event develops, but that alone wasn't enough for Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., chairman of the Republican Study Committee.

He said the border crisis needs to be addressed during the impeachment investigation.

Rep. Ben Cline, R-Va., said, "The buck stops with Joe Biden and all of the reasons that you're impeaching Secretary Mayorkas are doubly important to impeach Joe Biden: the border, the corruption, what this president has done."

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

President Donald Trump has been the poll leader for the Republican nomination for president in 2024, by large numbers, for a long time. He's even leading polls among all those from both parties seeking the presidency this year.

But the race is not protected from surprises, which could happen in New Hampshire since 40% of the voters there are unaffiliated, and they can vote in the GOP primary.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a longtime critic of Joe Biden's COVID adviser, Anthony Fauci, says the ex-director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is on record saying that the "risk" from the extremely dangerous bat virus gain-of-function research at the Chinese government lab in Wuhan was worth it, even if a pandemic ensued.

And that, Paul charged, makes Fauci likely "responsible for probably more deaths" than anyone else in the medical world.

The comments were documented in a report at Real Clear Politics and came during an interview with Fox's Maria Bartiromo.

The senator's comments:

Well, the problem is, is that the Chinese have destroyed any kind of reputation they had. I mean, we can no longer believe any kind of pronouncements from them, which makes us suspicious. Right now, there's a host of disease affecting young people, respiratory disease and pneumonia, in China, and they tell us, well, there's nothing to see here.

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