Concerns have been expressed by legal experts regarding the ability of prosecutors to persuade a jury to find Donald Trump guilty in the Stormy Daniels trial.
Numerous authorities have cited the absence of conclusive evidence to support the claim that Trump committed election fraud, as Newsweek reported.
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Trump, has become the first former president to appear in a criminal proceeding in the history of the United States.
Upon being charged with the 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, he entered a not-guilty plea.
DA's Case
The Manhattan District Attorney is determined to establish proof that Trump paid or discussed paying two women prior to the 2016 presidential election so that they would not reveal alleged affairs with him, thus attempting to sway voters' perceptions of his character. Both women's affairs are denied by him.
Tuesday in the New York Times, Jed Handelsman Shugerman, a legal professor at Boston University, stated that Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg committed a "historic error" by accepting the case.
Writing with the inconclusive headline, "I Thought the Bragg Case Against Trump Was a Legal Embarrassment. Now I Think It's a Historic Mistake," Handelsman Shugerman noted that there are no glaring instances of election fraud in the case.
The Allegations
"Their vague allegation about 'a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election' has me more concerned than ever about their unprecedented use of state law and their persistent avoidance of specifying an election crime or a valid theory of fraud," he wrote.
"As a reality check, it is legal for a candidate to pay for a nondisclosure agreement. Hush money is unseemly, but it is legal," Handelsman Shugerman wrote.
"The election law scholar Richard Hasen rightly observed, 'Calling it election interference actually cheapens the term and undermines the deadly serious charges in the real election interference cases.'"
This refers to an April 14 opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times by law professor Richard Hasen of the University of California, Los Angeles, who argued that the case devalues legitimate election interference cases.
The Analysis
"Although the New York case gets packaged as election interference, failing to report a campaign payment is a small potatoes campaign-finance crime," Hasen wrote.
"Any voters who look beneath the surface are sure to be underwhelmed. Calling it election interference actually cheapens the term and undermines the deadly serious charges in the real election interference cases."
Greg Germain, a law professor at Syracuse University in New York, stated to Newsweek that it has not been established that Trump's actions were unlawful in Bragg's opening statement.
Germain pointed out "the DA has never explained what law would make the hush money payments to Stormy Daniels illegal."
In an interview tirade, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asserted that Trump intends to "kill" and "imprison his opposition" while pleading with voters to disregard the age of President Joe Biden.
Clinton, 76, who was defeated by Trump, 77, in the 2016 presidential election, was interviewed by Marc Elias on the Defending Democracy program, where she provided her analysis of the 2024 election, as The Daily Mail reported.
Despite his advanced age, she maintains her support for the " effective and compassionate" incumbent Biden, over Trump in their rematch, on the grounds that Biden "wants to maintain our Democracy."
Clinton believes Trump, conversely, would be an autocrat similar to Vladimir Putin or a dictator like Kim Jong Un, in addition to being "old," as she described it.
"Trump was just gaga over Putin because Putin does what Trump would like to do: Kill his opposition, imprison his opposition, drive journalists and others into exile, rule without any check or balance," she said.
"That's what Trump really wants," she added. "Those are the people he is modeling himself after, and we've been down this road in our, you know, world history. We sure don't want to go down that again.'"
Clinton spoke to her belief about the contrast between Biden with Trump, saying that the former "wants to maintain our democracy, he will abide by the results of a fair and free election."
"They say Joe Biden is old. I say you're right. Joe Biden is old, he's also effective, compassionate, he cares about people," she added.
"Donald Trump is old and he has 91 federal criminal indictments against him," she said.
A Trump campaign spokesman issued the following statement to the Washington Examiner, asserting that Clinton's comments were delusional.
"Hillary continues to suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome and can't seem to accept the results of the 2016 election.
"So she is now trying to tell herself lies, in addition to trying to gaslight the American people, into believing her own warped and perverted views."
However, poll after poll has demonstrated that Biden's age causes more concern among Americans than Trump's. Early April found that only 38% of prospective 2024 voters believe Biden will be alive at the end of another four-year term, according to an exclusive DailyMail.com poll.
This means that Vice President Kamala Harris has an equal chance of succeeding Biden in January 2029, assuming he is re-elected.
Additionally, 36% of likely voters hold the belief that Harris will secure the presidency by the end of his term. The exact same percentage that Biden believes he will hold the position. The outcomes demonstrate that the age of the 81-year-old president will significantly influence the electorate's selection of the commander-in-chief for the upcoming four years on November 5.
The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear a case from failed gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake that voting machines in Arizona were "wrongly certified for use" in the 2022 election.
The case was dismissed by the lower court, but Lake's attorneys argued that it has never been heard on the merits because the lower courts said Lake lacked standing "to assert an injury."
“We are obviously disappointed that the U.S. Supreme Court decided not to review the decisions of the Arizona district court and the Ninth Circuit, and order that our challenge to the 2022 election procedures be heard on the merits,” a Monday statement from Kurt Olsen, one of Lake’s attorneys, said.
Lake did not comment directly on the Supreme Court's decision, but did repost a sarcastic comment from an independent journalist that the court didn't consider an election integrity case worthwhile "during another crucial presidential race."
“The Supreme Court of the United States did not believe that the issue of election integrity was worth the court's time during another crucial presidential race.” https://t.co/kwdgdwfskp
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) April 22, 2024
Lake has been outspoken about her belief that she actually won her race in Arizona even though it wasn't actually all that close.
She took a page out of Former President Donald Trump's election playbook, except that he has a much more valid case than she does about why the election might not have been fair or accurate.
Lake is now running for Senate in Arizona against Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ).
No doubt she will make a big stink if she loses (again).
Trump endorsed Lake in the governor's race and is also endorsing her for Senate.
She was a top candidate for vice president on Trump's ticket this fall, but she may not accept if it's offered because of the Senate race.
She'd be a decent candidate because she has been popular and Arizona is a swing state that she could presumably deliver to Trump if she ran on the ticket.
She lost some of her luster after losing the governor's race, but she remains fairly popular with voters.
Most of Trump's other top VP picks are from solidly Republican states, which won't give much of a boost the way a swing state candidate would.
Protesters from climate activist group Climate Defiance disrupted a speech by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) on Thursday at the Bryce Harlow Foundation gala and awards dinner, and several of them tumbled off the stage during the scuffle that ensued.
The chaos was captured on video and Climate Defiance posted it on their X page, seemingly elated to have shut down the speech.
Wild video from Lisa Murkowski event.
Bodies go flying as Climate leftists try to take over.pic.twitter.com/rE69AEJOGi
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) April 22, 2024
Murkowski is regarded as a moderate Republican and not the type of lawmaker climate activists would normally target.
She is from the state of Alaska, however, which means she necessarily supports fossil fuel production. The climate group defines itself as "resisting fossil fuel production" on its X profile, and it also posted a statement about its actions.
"We just shut down a gala honoring U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski. Murkowski is a murderer. She incinerates us to enrich her cronies. As Chevron's top lobbyist gave her an award, we stepped in and stopped the ceremony," Climate Defiance said in a social media post. "Respect us or expect us."
The Bryce Harlow Foundation gala intended to reward "contributions to business-government relations," and Murkowski was making remarks after accepting an award in that vein.
Climate Defiance seemed proud of the chaos it created, even though its members ended up dumped unceremoniously off the stage and were not really able to complete the disruption they no doubt intended.
Murkowski didn't comment about the disruption.
It called Murkowski an "ecocidal pyromaniac" for her support of the Willow Project, a massive oil drilling project in Alaska that the group has called "cruel and barbaric beyond description."
According to Fox Digital, the activist group was invited to a private meeting with President Biden's senior clean energy czar John Podesta in December despite its disruption of White House events including such senior officials as senior White House officials, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.
After the meeting with Podesta, the group posted a letter it shared with him on social media.
"Thank you for taking the time to meet with us today," the group wrote. "We appreciate your willingness to heed our deeply-held concerns. Echoing the voices of millions of Americans, we write to you in the eleventh hour of the greatest threat that humanity has ever faced: planetary and societal collapse due to the continued burning of fossil fuels."
"We urge you to wield your utmost authority to implement a swift end to any federal support for new fossil fuel infrastructure. Both the urgency of this action and the severe consequences of further delay cannot be overstated," it continued. "Climate Defiance recognizes your commitment to climate action and commends you on your vital work developing and implementing the Inflation Reduction Act."
Former President Donald Trump's New York trial has grabbed the attention of the nation and one man took advantage of that to spread his message.
Activist Max Azzarello shocked Americans by setting himself on fire outside Trump's trial, much like the actions of a U.S. servicemember who set himself on fire outside of the White House in order to protest Israel's war on the terrorist organization Hamas.
Azzarello later died from the severe burns he sustained but his drastic act has prompted many to look into his motivations.
As it turns out, Azzarello is an activist and writer and has a Substack page titled "The Ponzi Papers," where he discusses the U.S. Government and what he believed was an impending fascist coup that both Trump and President Joe Biden are in on.
His last article was titled, "I have set myself on fire outside the Trump Trial." He believes that the government's incredible power and centralized control have created the perfect circumstances for the rise of a totalitarian regime.
Many initially assumed that Azzarello was yet another unhinged activist much like the last activist who self-immolated to make a political point.
However, Azzarello's writings contain ideas that the average American may find pressing and relevant.
One paragraph from his substack read, "Both parties are run by financial criminals whose only goals are to divide, deceive, and bleed us dry. They divide the public against itself and blame the other party while everything gets worse and more expensive and handful of people take all the money."
These are the same ideas that many conservatives have been sounding the alarm about for years. The power that the federal government holds is immense and ideological actors have already abused that power to push a totalitarian agenda.
Americans have watched the deep state and the elite abuse their rights for years and there is no sign of things getting better. Trump's trial is a great example of the weaponization of the government by political actors that Azzarello wrote about.
No doubt, Azzarello chose to carry out his act of protest in close proximity to Trump's trial to call attention to what is happening. While it's clear Azzarello had become irrational and delusional, he holds the same fears that many Americans hold.
While the merits of Azzarello's ideas can be debated endlessly, one thing is clear; political mania and despair are on the rise and it will only get worse.
The 2024 presidential election is months away and the polarization and vitriol will only get worse from here. Trump's resurgence and domination of President Biden on the campaign trail has made Democrats desperate and their predictions of doom and disaster are only feeding hysteria.
Things could get very ugly and the nation will be more divided than ever thanks to the Democrat Party and the system that they prop up.
As the trial of former President Donald Trump in New York commences, fears of a mistrial are growing among Democrats.
Jury selection is now complete in Trump’s hush money trial with twelve jurors and six alternates having been selected. The trial's opening statements are set to begin Monday which will finally launch the most anticipated trial in modern history.
Prosecutors are counting on a jury comprised of people from Manhattan to give them an edge.
However, there are growing fears that one juror could be the difference maker that would result in a mistrial.
Politico cited the case of Timothy Shea, who was charged with fraud alongside former Trump advisor Steve Bannon. In that trial, which was also held in Manhattan, one juror called the case a “government witch hunt" leading to a mistrial.
All Trump needs is for one juror to force a mistrial and that will lead to a massive delay that potentially will push out Bragg's indictment past November's presidential election.
Interestingly, that juror argued that the government brought the case against Shea and Bannon in a blue state like New York to secure a conviction.
This is a factor that Bragg and Democrats are the most worried about. Conservatives are well aware that Trump can't get a fair trial in such a liberal area being as Trump is public enemy number one to Democrats.
Everyone knows that the trial isn't fair even if Democrats insist that this is a sacred movement to defend democracy and hold Trump accountable.
Bragg has staked his entire career on prosecuting Trump and should he fail the consequences will be dire. A mistrial and delaying the trial until after the election in November means the case will be effectively dead and Biden won't have the ammunition a Trump conviction would give him.
Furthermore, a mistrial and further extension of this entire situation only makes Trump look better as more Americans will see that this trial is a sham trial meant to punish a political opponent.
Alvin Bragg has rocketed to national notoriety due to his indictment of Trump. However, the expectations are high and the scrutiny that indicting Trump brought has left Bragg exposed and vulnerable.
Trump's lawyers have taken advantage of Bragg's soft-on-crime policies to attack the case against Trump. Bragg regularly lets violent felons walk free to terrorize the public and yet is trying to upgrade a misdemeanor to a felony to take down the leading presidential candidate.
Bragg's indictment, like the other indictments, is all political and there will be consequences for this should Trump win the election in November.
Former Republican Rep. and gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin is claiming that the state of New York may be up for grabs in the 2024 presidential election because of the "abuse" of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
He thinks the hush money trial is helping former President Donald Trump and that Trump can capitalize on public opinion that he is being railroaded.
“So when I ran in 2022, what I was saying was if I get less than 30% in New York City, I can’t win; if I get more than 35% in New York City, it becomes difficult to lose,” Zeldin said on Fox News on Thursday.
He thinks Trump could use the same math to campaign with different affinity groups that are already moving toward him as voters.
“President Trump can get inside of all these different communities over the course of the next several weeks and get his support up,” Zeldin said. “The Asian community, the Hispanic community, the Black community, and others are only moving towards him.”
Trump has said that he thinks Blacks in particular understand that law enforcement and the judicial system are targeting him because they don't like his candidacy.
“I think that’s why the black people are so much on my side now,” Trump said at a February campaign event in South Carolina. “Because they see what’s happening to me happens to them.”
Polls don't really support Zeldin's claims, at least nationwide. 83% of Blacks said that the charges against Trump were appropriate, and 12% said they would vote for him.
Zeldin also pointed to the impact of third-party candidates like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the election.
“One additional point to add is that RFK Jr. is on the ballot,” Zeldin said. “When I ran in 2022, it was a head-to-head battle with Kathy Hochul. In 2024, with a Kennedy on the ballot as well, President Trump doesn’t even have to get to 30% in order to put New York state in play.”
Nationwide polling shows Trump winning both with and without Kennedy in the race.
With Kennedy in the race, Trump gets 44% to Biden's 40%, with 8% going to Kennedy. Without Kennedy, Trump has 46% and Biden 43%.
There is still plenty of time for those numbers to change, and I'm sure Democrats have lots of tricks up their sleeves.
But unless they replace Biden with a much better candidate before the election, the only real question is who will be more competent in leading the U.S. for the next four years. No matter how you look at it, that isn't Biden.
A top assistant to Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) was killed in a hit-and-run car accident in Washoe County, Nevada, and an illegal alien is now suspected of being responsible for the death.
An illegal alien named Elmer Rueda-Linares, who is 18 years old, has been taken into custody by the Washoe County Sheriff's Office and faced charges in connection with the death of Kurt Englehart, who was 38, as Breitbart News reported.
Englehart was a father and a state senior assistant to Cortez Masto.
According to the allegations made by the police, Rueda-Linares was behind the wheel when he collided with Englehart on April 6 and then fled the scene.
Rueda-Linares was nowhere to be found when the police arrived, but Englehart was discovered dead inside his vehicle after the investigation.
Rueda-Linares was first charged with hit-and-run, which is a felony offense; however, the charges have been reduced to a single charge of failing to stop at the site of an accident.
Questions have arisen about why an offense as egregious as hit-and-run, resulting in the death of an American citizen, would be downgraded, particularly in the case of a person who entered the country illegally.
In a report that was published on Wednesday, the Reno Gazette-Journal said that Reuda-Linares is an illegal alien who had recently arrived at the southern border of the United States and was then released into the interior of the country.
On April 8, federal officers placed an immigration detainer — or “ICE hold”— on Rueda-Linares, who is being held at Washoe County Jail, the Department of Homeland Security told the RGJ in a statement Tuesday.
[Emphasis added]
…
“Rueda entered the United States March 12, 2021, at or near the Rio Grande City, Texas, Port of Entry without inspection by an immigration official,” DHS said. “United States Customs and Border Protection arrested him, and he was later released on his own recognizance June 22, 2021.”
Additionally, during the same month that Rueda-Linares crossed the southern border, Cortez Masto stated to MSNBC that "There are no open borders" and that any suggestion to the contrary is "misinformation."
CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, March 2021: "there's no open borders."
FACT: There have been 4.4 million illegal crossings since Biden took office, including 850,000 "gotaways" who have crossed the border and escaped into the U.S. pic.twitter.com/9j9OhiY0pt
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) September 22, 2022
An obituary for Englehart describes him as a "skilled political strategist" who not only worked for Cortez Masto but also for the presidential campaign of former President Barack Obama to win the election in 2012.
“Kurt loved reading, history, philosophy, dystopian worlds, rural America, and playing League of Legends and World of Warcraft, where he forged many important friendships,” Englehart’s obituary stated.
Rueda-Linares is still being held in the Washoe County Jail on a bail of one hundred thousand dollars, and he is scheduled to appear in court this week.
Conservative Supreme Court justices appeared broadly sympathetic on April 16 to a former police officer accused with violating an accounting reform legislation after entering the United States Capitol for four minutes on January 6, 2021.
The case is being keenly followed because the Supreme Court's ruling might impact hundreds of Jan. 6 prosecutions, including the Jan. 6 case against former President Donald Trump, as The Epoch Times reported.
Following the Capitol breach on January 6, 2021, Joseph Fischer of Jonestown, Pennsylvania, was indicted for several counts, including obstructing an official process under Enron-era obstruction law, 18 U.S. Code Section 1512(c). Convictions under this clause can result in 20 years in prison.
The Statute in Question
The wording of 1512(c) focuses on documentation and making it available for official processes.
Section 1512(c) states: “Whoever corruptly (1) alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding; or (2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.”
The indictment relates to the alleged obstruction of legislative certification of the 2020 presidential election results, which set the way for President Joe Biden's inauguration two weeks later.
Fischer claims that he was wrongfully accused under Section 1512(c), a provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act aimed at combating Wall Street malfeasance.
The legislation followed fraud-related crises at Enron Corp. and other big firms.
Previous Legal Application
Enron used questionable accounting procedures to conceal declining profitability and overstate earnings, and its workers allegedly began destroying papers when they knew that indictments were on the way.
Some of the defendants who arrived at the Capitol after Congress was evacuated on January 6, 2021, were charged with impeding an official proceeding.
Several defendants have unsuccessfully contended at trial that they couldn't have obstructed Congress because they arrived at the Capitol after legislators had left.
Fischer claims he left the complex before Congress attempted to certify the election and was in Maryland at the time of the security breach.
Fischer's Defense
Legal experts, including Fischer's defense counsel, have criticized the Biden administration for using the law against defendants, including former President Donald Trump, claiming it is an unsuitable vehicle for prosecution.
Lawyers claim that the accounting reform law under which Fischer and others have been prosecuted is being utilized by the Department of Justice to prosecute people who were exercising their First Amendment right to challenge the congressional certification of election results.
During oral arguments on April 16, Fischer's attorney, Jeffrey Green, argued that the Biden administration erred in charging his client under 1512(c), which was supposed to be used primarily for evidence tampering.
He stated that Congress passed the provision to prevent evidence destruction.
“The January 6th prosecutions demonstrate that there are a host of felony and misdemeanor crimes that cover the alleged conduct,” the lawyer said. “A Sarbanes-Oxley-based Enron-driven evidence tampering statute is not one of them.”
Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) said in an exclusive Breitbart interview published Monday that the "prejudiced" trial Democrats are spearheading against former President Donald Trump has been driving Black voters--men and women--to the GOP in search of "justice."
“There’s no doubt that when you see a nearly 75 percent increase in black men wanting to support President Trump, that’s not an insignificant increase,” Scott said. “That is a gargantuan step in the right direction. Why? Because the Democrat stronghold on power is being broken by people who say, ‘This isn’t fair, and I want an America that is fair, and if they will do it to him, they will do it to me.’"
Scott noted that Black women have moved from 2.5% support of Trump to 11%, which is a staggering 300% increase, even if it's a smaller overall number.
Scott also named several areas in which Americans did much better under Trump than under Biden.
"This is all the case not simply because of the desire for a strong, powerful, fair justice system, but when you ask the age-old question of, ‘Am I better off under four years of Trump or better off under four years of Biden?’ the answer is unequivocal economically better off under Trump," he argued. "Our country was better off in terms of safety under Trump. Fentanyl that’s ravaging communities, better off under Trump. There’s no statistic that matters to people—black people, white people, Asians, Hispanics, women, or men—there’s no statistic where you’re not better off under Trump than under Biden.”
Scott also said that the trial would not be happening if Trump weren't running for president.
Jury selection began on Monday with the disqualification of at least 50 jurors. No jurors were selected on that day.
“I think of it as election engineering,” Scott said. “They’re literally trying to engineer the results they want by keeping President Trump off the campaign trail. Frankly, it’s an assault on American justice.”
Scott said he doesn't think Trump will get an impartial jury in Manhattan.
“No is the simple answer,” Scott said when asked if he thought the jury would be fair. “I do not believe it. Frankly, I believe Bragg—the prosecutor—is not looking for a fair trial. He’s not looking for justice. He’s not looking for Lady Justice to maintain a blindfold. They have been prejudiced this entire time in this entire process; so the one thing you cannot expect is justice to be served.”
Scott also blasted Judge Juan Merchan for denying a Trump request to be absent from the trial on May 17 to attend his son Barron's high school graduation in Florida.
Trump is required to be present whenever court is in session, and the trial is expected to take six to eight weeks.
“It’s unprecedented and unbelievable and undeniable that stopping a dad from going to his son’s graduation is simply wrong, ridiculous, and un-American,” Scott said.
They’re trying to punish him not through the legal system but by using the legal system as a sledgehammer against him and his family," he added.
Merchan apparently deferred a ruling on whether to have court be in session on May 17 until it becomes clear whether the case will go on that long.