Jack Smith's attempt to damage Donald Trump's electoral chances with an "October surprise" legal filing could backfire on Democrats, conservative legal analyst Jonathan Turley warned.
In a column for the Hill, Turley blasted Smith for releasing evidence against Trump just weeks before Election Day.
If voters re-elect Trump, Smith will likely never have the chance to bring Trump to trial over January 6th, Turley said. So instead, Smith is bringing his case directly to the voters, in violation of legal norms.
Smith was unable to speed the trial along despite having a sympathetic judge, Tanya Chutkan, who has consistently ruled in Smith's favor, Turley noted.
Last week, Chutkan and Smith jointly released a 165-page legal filing full of evidence against Trump. Turley condemned the move as "premature" and politically motivated.
"If voters reelect Trump, then neither Chutkan nor Smith will likely see a jury in the case," Turley added. "This is why they must convict Trump now in the public eye or else admit to an effective acquittal by plebiscite."
Smith is "making his closing election argument to voters because he knows that the 2024 election will be the largest jury verdict in history," Turley said.
While Smith appears determined to tip the scales against Trump, the political timing of Smith's "October surprise" could have the opposite effect, Turley warned.
"Their timing could well backfire. The weaponization of the legal system is central to this election, including the role of the Justice Department in pushing the debunked Russia-collusion allegations from the 2016 race," Turley wrote.
Smith's "October surprise" has faced criticism across the political spectrum. CNN legal pundit Elie Honig, who is normally aligned with the left, accused Smith of violating the norms of the legal profession to take a "cheap shot" at Trump.
"Smith has essentially abandoned any pretense; he’ll bend any rule, switch up on any practice — so long as he gets to chip away at Trump’s electoral prospects," Honig wrote in a column for New York magazine.
Meanwhile, Turley quipped that Smith's "October surprise" is not surprising, but consistent with Smith's relentless, politically driven approach to prosecuting Trump.
"For years, Smith has been unrelenting in his demands for a trial before the election," Turley wrote.
"Smith never fully explained the necessity of holding a trial before the election beyond suggesting that voters should see the trial and the results — assaulting the very premise of the Justice Department’s rule against such actions just before elections."
Former first lady Melania Trump's upcoming memoir is already making headlines, as she used the opportunity to open up about her otherwise private family life, especially concerning her son, Barron Trump.
Many on the left have dialed in on Barron Trump since he turned 18 earlier this year, and some, including Rosie O’Donnell and other rabid, anti-Trump celebrities have suggested that the teenaged Trump is on the autism spectrum
They're downright nasty about it, too.
Melania Trump addressed those claims and others in her upcoming book, which is already smashing presale records online.
The former first lady's book will hit the physical and virtual shelves on Tuesday and according to media outlets that have reviewed advanced copies, shines a whole new light into the family of former President Donald Trump.
She opened up about the controversy regarding the autism claims that went viral due to a tweet from O'Donnell that meant to give the appearance of being sympathetic.
"Barron Trump Autistic? If so - what an amazing opportunity to bring attention to the AUTISM epidemic," O'Donnell wrote at the time, sending the internet into a total meltdown as a result.
She had attached a video link of a video attempting to prove that Barron was autistic.
Melania, and millions of others, saw right through the former "The View" host's messaging, which was clearly meant to attack Barron Trump, who was only 10 years old at the time.
“I was appalled by such cruelty,” Melania wrote in her new book. “It was clear to me that she was not interested in raising awareness about autism. I felt that she was attacking my son because she didn’t like my husband.”
Understandably, the former first lady was appalled by the video of her young son, whose privacy she guarded fiercely.
“Someone had painstakingly compiled the footage and added captions like, ‘His hands are moving erratically and aren’t touching each other. Then he was spotted making strange movements in his seat, typical of children with autism.’”
Melania wrote, "There is nothing shameful about autism (though O’Donnell’s tweet implied that there was), but Barron is not autistic."
The former first lady and super model also called out the left's violent rhetoric about her husband and family, blaming it for the two attempts on her husband's life. And she's not wrong.
The anti-Trump left and right are scared to death about the former president winning in November and they're ready and willing to spread as much negative propaganda as possible to stop him.
According to Breitbart, Atlantic contributor George Conway, who's afflicted with one of the worst cases of Trump Derangement Syndrome, made some of the most ridiculous statements possible in recent days.
During a recent interview on MSNBC’s "Alex Wagner Tonight," Conway invoked Adolf Hitler when describing the former president.
The two were discussing Trump's response to the Biden administration's response -- or lack thereof -- to the devastation left by Hurricane Helene.
The discussion between Wagner and Conway quickly devolved, which was not surprising to anyone.
"You’re a student of Trump’s strange psyche. What does the clearly confessional nature of these accusations tell you about, I don’t know, where his head is at right now?” Wagner said.
Conway responded, "Well, you know, you’re absolutely right. It’s a form of projection. He attributes to others motives that he himself has. But it’s more than that."
He continued into the Hitler stuff, which was beyond ridiculous
“The words that came to mind when I read about this controversy today is the große Lüge. That is German. I don’t speak German so forgive my pronunciation. But große Lüge is big lie, it means big lie. It was a phrase coined by Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf in 1925 for a propaganda technique by which you tell as big a lie as possible so that people will believe bigger lies," he said.
Conway added, "They will believe bigger lies more than they believe smaller lies because they simply think it’s impossible for anybody to have the temerity to tell such an amazingly large lie. But Donald Trump does that as a matter of course. He’s a pathological liar and a sociopath."
Conway described Trump's rhetoric as "cancer."
"His lies about the supposedly stolen election in 2020 were große Lüge. This is what he does and it is why he’s a cancer on the American political life that must be removed once and for all," Conway added.
As Trump continues to hold steady and gain momentum in the lead-up to the election, especially thanks to his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, liberals like Conway will say whatever they want without consequence.
Only time will tell if it works. d
Nancy Pelosi's betrayal of Joe Biden opened a deep rift that doesn't show any signs of healing, as Biden and his wife "Doctor Jill" largely withdraw from the national spotlight following his humiliating decision to end his re-election bid.
As the presidential matchup between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris enters the final stretch, Jill Biden "has largely withdrawn from campaign events, and Harris' team hasn't pushed for her to do them," Axios reported.
Jill Biden had been a highly active surrogate for her husband's re-election bid, traveling from state to state as speculation bubbled over his mental fitness.
Following a disastrous debate performance on CNN, Joe Biden was unceremoniously pressured to end his re-election bid by his longtime friend, Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.).
Supported by his tight-knight family, Biden initially resisted pressure to drop out, but changed his mind after Pelosi threatened to go public with her concerns about his political viability, the Daily Mail reported.
The strong-arming destroyed a decades-old relationship, leaving Biden and his wife deeply resentful.
Biden didn't linger at the Democratic National Convention in August, where he suffered the indignity of having his speech bumped out of primetime. His wife gave a brief speech, lasting just five minutes.
As Biden faces the end of his presidency, his wife has been more visible at government events, including a recent Cabinet meeting that she hosted, stoking further speculation about who is running the country.
Jo Biden "hasn't scheduled public events in 43 of the 75 days since he dropped his re-election bid," and Kamala Harris has brought him to just one campaign event, Axios reported.
The lame-duck president is faced with a host of crises, including mounting tensions in the Middle East and a devastating hurricane in the American Southeast that has become the deadliest since Katrina in 2003.
In a surprise, Joe Biden showed up to the White House briefing room for the first time on Friday to take questions from reporters. There, Biden touted a new jobs report and seemingly sabotaged Harris' attempts to distance herself from his unpopular legacy.
"I’m in constant contact with her. She’s aware. We’re singing from the same song sheet," Biden said. "She helped pass all of the laws that are being employed now, she was a major player in everything we’ve done."
Donald Trump's former lawyer-turned-enemy, Michael Cohen, wants the Supreme Court to let him sue Trump for alleged government retaliation during the Trump administration.
Cohen claims that he served part of his federal prison sentence in solitary confinement because he criticized Trump in a tell-all book.
In 2018, Cohen pled guilty to tax evasion, campaign finance charges, and lying to Congress. He was sentenced to three years in prison, serving over a year in jail before getting released to home confinement during COVID.
But Cohen wasn't out long before he was brought to solitary confinement, where he spent 16 days.
The government accused Cohen of rejecting terms of his release, but Cohen has accused the Trump administration of political persecution.
A federal judge ruled that Cohen faced "retaliation" and ordered him released, but Cohen continued to press the matter, suing Trump and his Justice Department for damages. An appeals court in January found that Cohen could not claim damages under the law, leading him to petition the Supreme Court.
"The issue is whether the government can revoke a prisoner's approved release to home confinement as punishment for his speech criticizing the president and to prevent further such speech," his lawyer, Jon-Michael Dougherty, wrote in a Supreme Court brief.
Cohen has accused Trump of weaponizing the government against him, echoing a charge Trump has levied at Democrats in a host of criminal and civil cases.
"It is about the exercise of a type of power with which the Founders were well-acquainted and against which they fought a war for independence," Cohen's lawyer wrote. "It involves the sitting President personally and unlawfully intervening to hold a United States citizen in prison for criticizing him."
Despite his criminal past, Cohen resurfaced as the star witness in Trump's "hush money" criminal trial this year. Trump was convicted of "falsifying business records" for labeling reimbursement checks to Cohen - who paid $130,000 to Stormy Daniels - as legal fees.
During the trial, Trump's lawyers painted Cohen as an aggrieved witness with a financial stake in Trump's destruction. Cohen faced scrutiny at the time for blasting Trump in paid TikTok videos.
Cohen celebrated the verdict, which Trump has sought to overturn, citing the Supreme Court's historic immunity ruling. Trump's sentencing in the case has been delayed until after the presidential election.
As he seeks the presidency, Donald Trump is doubling down on another campaign of his - as he revives his fight for baseball legend Pete Rose to be accepted to the Hall of Fame.
In a social media post, Trump called for Rose's decades-old ban from the Hall of Fame to be lifted in light of his death Monday.
"The GREAT Pete Rose just died. He was one of the most magnificent baseball players ever to play the game. He paid the price! Major League Baseball should have allowed him into the Hall of Fame many years ago," Trump wrote Monday on Truth Social. "Do it now, before his funeral!"
Rose, the all-time hits leader in Major League Baseball, died in Las Vegas from heart disease on Monday. He was 83.
Over the course of his playing career, mainly with the Cincinnati Reds, "Charlie Hustle" became a baseball icon thanks to the relentless drive he displayed on the field.
He won Three World Series, two with the Reds and one with the Philadelphia Phillies, and his hits record of is the greatest ever.
Widely considered one of the greatest baseball players ever, Rose was permanently barred from the sport over a gambling scandal that emerged in the late 1980s, and later led to his permanent exclusion from the Hall of Fame.
Rose eventually admitted to betting on the Cincinnati Reds while he managed the team, but he was never found to bet against them.
Over the years, Trump has advocated for Rose, arguing he paid his dues and should be honored for his achievements.
In a 2020 post, Trump wrote, "Pete Rose played Major League Baseball for 24 seasons, from 1963-1986, and had more hits, 4,256, than any other player (by a wide margin). He gambled, but only on his own team winning, and paid a decades long price."
While it's unclear if Rose's death will have any impact on his Hall of Fame status, "Charlie Hustle" is being mourned as a legend all the same.
"Major League Baseball extends its deepest condolences to Pete Rose’s family, his friends across the game, and the fans of his hometown of Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Montreal and beyond who admired his greatness, grit and determination on the field of play. May he rest in peace," the league wrote.
Kamala Harris said she suffered from insomnia after Joe Biden offered her his stunning endorsement to be president.
Biden's decision to drop out and endorse his vice president shook up the 2024 election, and apparently kept Harris up all night.
“From the time that the president called me and told me he wasn’t running, I mean, it’s just like everything was in speedy, speedy motion, and I was not sleeping so well,” she told the podcast All The Smoke.
As a result of her restlessness, Harris was sleep-deprived when she made the "gut" decision to pick an obscure Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, as her running mate.
“And that one morning I just, I mean, I had, I don’t know, a few hours’ sleep — and I, you know, I like to sleep. I just got up,” she said. “I was like — so I just went out and got a pork roast and started marinating it.”
“And my family were all going to be in town, so they were very happy about the whole situation, but I just got up and started — everybody’s asleep, I just got up and started cooking,” she added.
Harris has made some revealing comments about coping with adversity, confessing to eating a large bag of Doritos on the night her now-rival Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election.
With her awkward attempts to relate to voters, Harris instead be feeding doubts about her readiness for the rigors of the presidency.
Harris has been running an unusually sheltered campaign, drawing scrutiny even from the New York Times, which has endorsed her as "the only patriotic choice."
In a recent article, the Times acknowledged that televised interviews are one of Harris' weak points and pointed out her visible "nervousness" during these events, where she tends to dodge direct questioning with rambling "word salad" answers.
President Trump has repeatedly mocked Harris as out of her depth, recently labeling her "mentally disabled."
Trump - who is seeking re-election after surviving two assassination attempts as Democratic prosecutors attempt to bankrupt him and put him in jail - has shared a stoic outlook on dealing with life's turns of fortune.
“If you care too much, you tend to choke. And in a way, I don't care. It's just, you know, life is life," he said in May.
The White House sent emails to millions of American seniors crediting Kamala Harris with "historic" Medicare reforms, part of a broader effort by the Biden-Harris administration to secure re-election using resources funded by the taxpayer.
The Health and Human Services email was received by potentially millions of voters enrolled in Medicare, which is used by 66 million people.
The email - which features the presidential seal on top - touts Kamala Harris' role in casting the tie-breaking vote for the Inflation Reduction Act, which passed Congress along partisan lines.
On the surface, the e-mail is an innocuous effort to inform enrollees about changes to Medicare part D, which covers prescription drugs.
"Because Medicare benefits are getting stronger, it is more important than ever to look at your drug coverage for 2025 during Medicare Open Enrollment and make sure you are enrolled in the Medicare Part D plan that is best for you," the email said.
However, the message is a thinly veiled campaign advertisement that credits Vice President Harris with "historic changes to Medicare that are lowering health care costs."
“These historic reforms are a result of the Inflation Reduction Act that I signed into law and that Vice President Harris cast the tie-breaking vote to secure,” the email, written in the voice of Joe Biden, reads.
"Vice President Harris and I believe that health care should be a right, not a privilege," the email says.
Despite the blatant partisan boosterism in the e-mail, the message ends with, "This message is paid for by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It was created and distributed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services."
It is against Federal Election Commission (FEC) rules to use government resources for campaign purposes, but the rules haven't stopped Democrats from adopting a "whole of government" approach to staying in power.
Indeed, the Medicare email is modest compared to some of the more flagrant campaign efforts of this administration.
In what many saw as blatant meddling from a foreign power on behalf of a domestic political party, Ukraine's president recently met with top Harris surrogates like Democratic governor Josh Shapiro at a munitions factory in Pennsylvania, a key battleground state.
The federal government transported president Volodymyr Zelensky on an Air Force Jet to the factory in Scranton, which is also Joe Biden's hometown.
As the seemingly neverending war between Russia and Ukraine continues to unfold, reports of a recent Russian strike revealed that a high-ranking Ukrainian official had been killed as a result.
According to regional news sources, Russia launched two airstrikes on villages in eastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region over the weekend, resulting in the death of multiple people, including a Ukrainian Supreme Court judge.
A Russian drone reportedly struck the Supreme Court judge's vehicle while he was delivering humanitarian aid to local villagers.
The Ukrainian Supreme Court identified the deceased person as judge Leonid Loboyko.
Three women were in the vehicle with Loboyko when the Russian drone fired a missile at it. They were transported to a local hospital for treatment.
Loboyko, who was described by the country's Supreme Court as a "kind, wise, and compassionate person," worked in Ukraine's Criminal Cassation Court.
Russians killed Leonid Loboyko, a Supreme Court judge, by striking his car with an FPV drone in Kozacha Lopan, Kharkiv region. pic.twitter.com/052yS1BFcE
— UABrave (@Leowizzs) September 28, 2024
The airstrikes on the village killed others and heavily damaged property, according to the sources.
The outlet noted:
Three more men were killed and six people were injured in a separate strike on the nearby village of Slatyne several hours later, the Prosecutor’s Office said, with a shop, houses, and an educational institution all reportedly damaged by guided aerial bombs in the attack.
It added:
The Prosecutor’s Office announced it had opened investigations into both attacks for premeditated murder and the violation of the laws and customs of war, and that law enforcement agencies were taking “all possible and appropriate measures to document the war crimes committed by Russian forces”.
It was announced that the deadly attack came in the wake of another Russian drone attack on a hospital in the capital of Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region.
That attack resulted in numerous injuries and the death of at least 10 people, according to Ukrainian officials.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky slammed Russia for launching attacks on targets that include large numbers of civilians.
Zelensky is fresh off his trip to America where he managed to wrangle mountains more of military aid and weapons from the United States to continue fighting the Russian military.
Vice President Kamala Harris took a trip to the border on Friday in a ridiculous attempt to act as though she cares about the southern border crisis.
According to reports, Harris attempted to turn the tables on former President Donald Trump by pointing out that he "tanked" a border security bill earlier this year, as if that's what has contributed to the chaos and crisis at the southern border.
For a majority of her term as President Joe Biden's "border czar," Harris has stood back and watched as the immigration crisis has spiked to unprecedented numbers.
Many have pointed out that now that the election is near, and the immigration issue is at the top of the issues that voters face in November.
Prior to Harris' trip to the border, former President Trump had plenty to say about Harris' visit.
"After almost four years, Border Czar Kamala Harris has decided, for political reasons, that it’s time for her to go to our broken Southern Border," he said on X.
"What a disgrace that she waited so long, allowing millions of people to enter our Country from prisons, mental institutions, and criminal cells all over the World, not just South America, many of those coming are terrorists, and at a level never seen before!"
After almost four years, Border Czar Kamala Harris has decided, for political reasons, that it’s time for her to go to our broken Southern Border. What a disgrace that she waited so long, allowing millions of people to enter our Country from prisons, mental institutions, and…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 25, 2024
Trump continued, "She’s trying to con the public like she did a good job at the Border when, in fact, she has destroyed the very fabric of our Nation allowing 21 Million people in from places unknown."
The former president reminded his followers that a border wall was his idea.
"When Kamala is seen at the Border on Friday, she will pass Hundreds of Miles of Wall that was built by TRUMP, and it is Wall that WORKS! When she speaks, be advised that this woman has allowed more than 21 million people into our Country, totally unvetted, and from places unknown," Trump wrote.
Social media users weighed in on Trump's post, pointing out that Harris has been against taking border action since arriving in office.
"It’s all a facade. Just a couple months ago she announced a plan to release every illegal criminal immigrant from detention facilities 'on day one,'" one X user wrote.
Another X user wrote, "Kamala Harris is the Open Border Czar. She is a traitor to America for allowing 21 million invaders to storm our country and take over our social services, housing and soon to be another rigged election by having them vote. These people should all be tried for treason."