Former President Donald Trump's attorney, Alina Habba, believes her client is being prosecuted because Democrats "can't beat him in the polls," Breitbart reported. Habba made these remarks from the steps of the New York State Supreme Court Building in Manhattan, where Trump's hush money case is underway.
Trump is juggling four separate cases while campaigning for the 2024 presidential election, and Habba told reporters this is no accident. "The fact that we have two courts, not one — criminal and civil — being used against one man because they cannot beat him in the polls is a disgrace to the American judicial system," the lawyer and spokesman for Trump said.
The former president was the subject of a civil case brought in New York prior to his criminal trial. “You should not have two teams of lawyers here today. You should not even be here today, because he did nothing wrong. It is the epitome of a witch hunt,” she told reporters.
Trump and his legal team have been forced into an unprecedented dilemma caused by several cases that cropped up only when he became a candidate for the 2024 presidential election. The first was a prosecution from Democrat New York Attorney General Letitia James in an attempt to bankrupt the former president.
Habba said she had to make her way over from the other New York court where Trump had to post a $175 million bond. This was the penalty imposed after a civil court found him guilty of misrepresenting the value of his assets to obtain loans.
New York Judge Arthur Engoron originally demanded $454 million dollars in penalties despite the fact that the loans had long ago been paid off and no damage was done to any party. The judge accepted the lower bond amount on Monday following an appeal.
During her impassioned remarks to reporters, Habba slammed Engoron for implying that Trump's money "isn’t green enough" after the judge disputed the type of bond that was used."We wasted time," Habba said.
"The judge said he thought money market accounts go down under the amount. He doesn’t understand basic principles of finance," she charged. According to Forbes, these financial instruments indeed "aren’t subject to the ups and downs of the stock market."
Although Democrats may be cheering this effort to thwart Trump's presidential bid, Habba pointed out that these legal proceedings indicate a grave issue in the judicial system. "I am sick of coming in front of the press and saying this, but you have to because you people need to understand what is going on," Habba said.
"God forbid you put an accounting thing in for ‘legal counsel.’ … Because they’re afraid of 2024," the attorney charged.
"And you know what? They should be because the American people are not stupid. They see what’s going on," Habba added.
Habba is correct that Democrats are desperate as President Joe Biden has been trailing in the polls. Even as USA Today celebrated the fact Biden is now at 44% support compared to Trump's 46%, that lead is still quite significant considering what the left has thrown at Trump.
As the incumbent against a candidate who already lost his reelection, Biden should be several points ahead of Trump, especially in light of his legal woes. However, the American people are smart enough to see through what is happening, and they certainly won't forget before November's election.
Republican lawmakers led by Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL) are seeking to ban displays of foreign flags from the House chamber after Democrats triumphantly waved Ukrainian flags amid the passage of an aid bill to Ukraine.
“Watching American representatives pass out & wave Ukrainian flags in the United States House of Representatives chamber infuriated me,” Cammack said on X. “If there is one room in our country that should only have the American flag present, it is this room.”
The House is in recess until April 29, but Cammack said her office was drafting the text "as we speak."
Several Republican lawmakers were visibly upset about the display.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) told Democrats to “put those damn flags away” during the vote.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) reprimanded them as well.
“These are not normal times here in the House or around the world as we all know,” Johnson said. “I just want to say simply what I think most people around the country understand and agree, we should only wave one flag on the House floor. And I think we know which flag that is.”
The bill is likely to have several co-sponsors if and when it does make it to the floor, based on comments made by other Republicans.
“Shouldn’t have any other flag but the American flag on the House floor,” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) said. “That’s ridiculous. … It’s inappropriate. It’s just lack of order.”
Other Republicans were more interested in blasting Johnson for allowing the vote on the $90 billion aid package to Ukraine, Israel and other foreign powers in the first place without getting approval for securing the U.S. border.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) filed a motion for Johnson's removal.
“I don’t care if the speaker’s office becomes a revolving door,” Taylor Greene said after the vote.
Johnson may have to rely on Democrat support to stay in power, something Democrats previously offered for Johnson allowing a vote on the bill.
For now, Johnson is probably safe in the Speaker role, which is a good thing for Republicans if they want to maintain their majority after the election.
Former President Donald Trump has made no secret of the disdain he has for the prosecutions he is currently facing, but last week, he took particular aim at one aspect of the New York hush money trial that recently commenced in earnest.
As the Post Millennial reports, Trump blasted the gag order imposed on him by Judge Juan Merchan and expressed his belief that he should be immediately freed from all restrictions on his speech.
Prior to entering the courtroom in Manhattan on Friday morning, Trump spoke to the media about what he believes is the court's unfair approach to him and his case.
“As you know, I've been saying for a long while this is a rigged trial, it's coming from the White House. They have White House, DOJ people in the trial, in the D.A.'s office, representing the D.A. because he's probably not smart enough to represent himself,” Trump began.
Declaring the proceedings a “rigged case,” the presumptive GOP presidential nominee lamented that “instead of being in Pennsylvania or Georgia or North Carolina or a lot of other places today, I'm sitting at a courthouse all day long.”
It was then that he turned specifically to the gag order placed on him earlier in the proceedings, saying, “The gag order has to come off. I should be allowed to speak.”
“Every time I come out to speak to you, I want to be open because we did absolutely nothing wrong,” Trump told assembled journalists, adding that he has seen dozens of opinions from legal experts indicating that there is no basis for the charges brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
“They've taking away my constitutional rights to speak and that includes speaking to you. I have a lot to say to you and I'm not allowed to say it and I'm the only one, everyone else can say whatever they want about me,” Trump complained.
However, not only are prosecutors on Bragg's team not amenable to lifting the gag order, they have asked that Trump be sanctioned for what they say are his repeated violations of the restrictions placed upon him by Merchan, as the New York Post notes.
On Tuesday, prosecutors asked Merchan to fine Trump $3,000 and to threaten him with jail time if he continues making what they said were disparaging comments about witnesses in the case.
Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen and adult entertainer Stormy Daniels were, according to prosecutors, the targets of the aforementioned violations.
Attorneys for Trump are expected to submit a response to the allegations and the prosecution's request, and a Tuesday morning hearing in front of Merchan is scheduled to achieve resolution on the matter.
Though the prospect of jail time is not something anyone would relish, some observers believe that the optics of Trump being put behind bars simply for speaking his mind could be a boon to his campaign.
Whether Merchan will grant the prosecution's wishes or err on the side of leniency toward Trump in this highly sensitive area, only time will tell.
House Democrats introduced a bill Friday that would strip former President Donald Trump of Secret Service protection if he's convicted, JustTheNews reported. Trump is facing four criminal prosecutions.
The legislation is titled "Denying Infinite Security and Government Resources Allocated toward Convicted and Extremely Dishonorable (DISGRACED) Former Protectees Act." It denies Secret Service protection to officials who are convicted of a felony that comes with a penalty longer than one year.
The former president currently faces four criminal trials brought by his political enemies. The first to make it to court is the alleged hush money case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, which began on April 25.
Regardless of the outcome of the New York case, two other trials come from federal indictments filed by special counsel Jack Smith. The fourth criminal trial is a Georgia election interference case brought against Trump by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
This legislation that codified political injustice was introduced by Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), the Washington Examiner reported. He has been on a crusade against Trump as the Jan. 6 committee chairman.
The rationale from Thomas was that Secret Service protection might result in "special treatment" in prison. "It is regrettable that it has come to this, but this previously unthought-of scenario could become our reality," Thompson complained.
"Therefore, it is necessary for us to be prepared and update the law so the American people can be assured that protective status does not translate into special treatment —and that those who are sentenced to prison will indeed serve the time required of them," he said. This is the same lawmaker who called an "election integrity" event a "sham."
While Trump's name doesn't appear in the legislation, the fact sheet said that his "unprecedented 91 felony charges in Federal and State courts across the country have created a new exigency that Congress must address." Some experts believe Trump has a good chance at a conviction, though it's unclear what might happen on appeal.
Still, if the law is passed and indeed applies to Trump, it would remove protections from a former president and current presidential candidate. Unfortunately, the chances of that happening are looking better by the day.
Joe Tacopina, who left Trump's legal team in January, said he believes that it is "absolutely" possible that Trump could be convicted in any of his trials, Fox News reported. "Is it possible? Absolutely," Tacopina said in an interview shortly after leaving the team.
"You have a jury of twelve who’s going to ultimately decide this. Do I think there’s a political bent to some of this, the way it’s gone about it? Yes, I do," the attorney continued.
"Do I think these cases are invalid cases? Look, a grand jury voted to indict. You can’t say there’s no way he’ll get convicted or no way he’ll be sentenced. You just can’t say that," Tacopina added.
Even if Trump is convicted, it's still unknown whether they will hold up in appeal. Although his cases have gone forward with problems like a judge whose daughter made money off of bashing Trump or a district attorney with questionable morals and motivations, there's a chance any convictions could be overturned on appeal.
At the very least, this legislation is just another maneuver in a game to knock Trump out of the 2024 presidential election. At worst, it is a move that could purposely put a former president's life needlessly in danger, and that's disgraceful.
President Joe Biden could cost American taxpayers another $750 billion with his latest student loan handout, Fox Business reported. This attempt follows a previous loan forgiveness effort struck down by the Supreme Court.
The proposal was announced last week as another attempt to ram through a plan to cancel student debt. The Department of Education said it would apply to as many as 30 million borrowers and proposed a modest cost estimate of $150 billion.
A more realistic assessment from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget finds it could be at least triple that amount. The official Education Department estimate doesn't take into account cases where the Secretary of Education would cancel debt anyway, such as default and hardship cases.
"Including this provision, we estimate the plan could cost $250 billion to $750 billion, depending on how the additional cancellation is designed," the CRFB found. An estimate from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania similarly found that the cost could balloon as high as $559 billion.
The loan forgiveness plan has several details that make it a costly endeavor. One troublesome provision includes debt cancellation for those who have a nebulously-defined "hardship" to bear.
"It is unclear how the Administration will define hardship, but they discuss 16 possible criteria such as other consumer debt, age, and health care or housing expenses and also declare hardship could be defined based on ‘any other indicators of hardship identified by the Secretary,"’ the report said. Some are also granted loan forgiveness if they're in danger of defaulting.
"In assessing default risk, the rule allows for cancellation for those with an 80 percent likelihood of default, as determined by the Secretary. Importantly, over $150 billion of debt is currently in default (and loans in default generally have around a 70 percent recovery rate)," the CRFB also found.
Another provision would grant full cancellation to those who have been paying their undergraduate loans for more than 20 years and 25 years for graduate education, NBC News reported. People who didn't even apply for forgiveness would also be granted it.
The people who chose their majors poorly would also receive loan forgiveness under this new plan. Borrowers who attended schools or programs that have low financial returns would also be eligible to receive the government handout.
This latest proposal is a continuation of Biden's previous defiance in the face of the Supreme Court's decision. During his remarks on June 30, Biden promised to "stop at nothing" to make student loan forgiveness happen.
"I believe that the Court’s decision to strike down our student debt relief plan is wrong, But I will stop at nothing to find other ways to deliver relief to hard-working middle-class families. My Administration will continue to work to bring the promise of higher education to every American," Biden said.
So far, Attorney General Andrew Bailey has already promised to sue Biden for attempting to run roughshod over the court. "Joe Biden is trying to unabashedly eclipse the Constitution with his attempt to 'cancel' student loan debt. The rule of law means something in this country, @POTUS. See you in court," Baily wrote on April 8 when Biden first spoke about his new proposal.
Joe Biden is trying to unabashedly eclipse the Constitution with his attempt to “cancel” student loan debt.
The rule of law means something in this country, @POTUS.
See you in court.
— Attorney General Andrew Bailey (@AGAndrewBailey) April 8, 2024
Biden is continuing to push for student loan forgiveness because he needs the youth vote to get reelected. This amounts to buying votes, but the president has no shame in doing just that even if it means defying the Supreme Court.
Actor Hugh Grant has taken a settlement in his civil case against The Sun tabloid, Deadline reported. The Notting Hill actor sued the Rupert Murdoch-owned outlet over violation of privacy but reluctantly took the payout that would end the case.
Grant and others, including Prince Harry, sued News Group Newspapers over their newsgathering practices. The lawsuit alleges those tactics included hiring private investigators to break into Grant's home and placing wiretaps on his phones.
The Paddington 2 actor's case was allowed to proceed in the High Court of London earlier this year. However, Grant believes he was forced into a settlement because of the laws of the UK and said as much in a post on X, formerly Twitter, Wednesday.
For anyone who has been interested in my lawsuit against the Sun, the news is that I’ve had to settle my claim out of court before it gets to trial. A 🧵…
— Hugh Grant (@HackedOffHugh) April 17, 2024
The Four Weddings and a Funeral actor shared the dilemma he faced while seeking justice. "I don’t want to accept this money or settle," Grant wrote in the post.
"I would love to see all the allegations that they deny tested in court. But the rules around civil litigation mean that if I proceed to trial and the court awards me damages that are even a penny less than the settlement offer, I would have to pay the legal costs of both sides," the 63-year-old actor continued.
"My lawyers tell me that that is exactly what would most likely happen here. Rupert Murdoch’s lawyers are very expensive," Grant explained.
"So even if every allegation is proven in court, I would still be liable for something approaching £10 million in costs. I’m afraid I am shying at that fence," he added. Grant said that Murdoch used a similar tactic to "settle over 1,500 claims" to keep the issues out of court.
Despite admitting that he's been beaten for now, Grant promises that he will continue to strive for justice. "Murdoch’s settlement money has a stink, and I refuse to let this be hush money," Grant wrote.
Grant was the victim of wiretapping and has been an outspoken advocate for the truth ever since. "I have spent the best part of 12 years fighting for a free press that does not distort the truth, abuse ordinary members of the public or hold elected MPs to ransom in pursuit of newspaper barons’ personal profit and political power," Grant continued in his post.
"So this money will repurposed via groups like Hacked Off into the general campaign to expose the worst excesses of our oligarch-owned press," Grant promised. Prince Harry has also doggedly pursued the tabloid journalists who have potentially broken laws while pursuing a story.
The royal Spare has been involved in several lawsuits against the media, including one against the Mirror Group Newspapers that yielded a substantial settlement. Singer Elton John will similarly have his day in court against the Daily Mail publishers.
In the past, any time celebrities would complain about the price of fame, it often fell on deaf ears as they led charmed lives. However, the allegations from Grant, Prince Harry, and others go beyond the average photographer hiding in bushes or interrupting dinner at a restaurant.
If true, these news outlets broke the law just to get the scoop on a celebrity. These practices are abhorrent and deserve to be punished accordingly.
The Institute for Energy Research found that President Joe Biden has acted against the fossil fuel industry over 200 times in his presidency, JustTheNews reported. His attacks on domestic production of gas and oil come at a time when energy prices are on the rise.
"President Biden and Democrats have a plan for American energy: make it harder to produce and more expensive to purchase," the analysis for the report began. "Since Mr. Biden took office, his administration and its allies have taken over 200 actions deliberately designed to make it harder to produce energy here in America."
Biden's agenda has cut off domestic energy at the knees while prices soar. Many believe that he has put radical environmentalism ahead of the American people.
The president has also jeopardized the safety of the American people by making the nation dependent on foreign nations, many of which have an adversarial relationship with the U.S. Biden has implemented some of the worst policies that have devastating effects.
Biden has been chipping away at domestic energy production in a very deliberate way. One of his first acts as president was to nix the KeystoneXL Pipeline project.
From there, he imposed a moratorium on leasing the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for natural gas and oil drilling. Biden similarly revoked other leases on public lands and certain off-shore operations.
The president also rolled back former President Donald Trump's initiatives that made it easier for companies to drill by cutting red tape. Then, when prices increased, Biden blamed the natural gas and oil companies despite his role in it.
Just before the midterm elections, Biden proposed taxing the companies to death to punish them for these increases that came from him turning the screws on the industry. Last month, the administration proposed another tax hike of over $110 billion on coal and natural gas.
Republicans have pushed back against Biden's assault on the fossil fuel industry. Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) led the way as he and 24 senators brought to light their "grave concern" about Biden's "continued hostility towards American energy production" but it might come too late.
Biden's war on certain sectors of the energy industry is more than just economic. By attacking domestic energy production, the president continues to create a situation where the U.S. is increasingly dependent on foreign nations.
The president has decided against restocking the Strategic Petroleum Reserve with inventory from the U.S. at a time when it's depleted. This impacts wartime readiness but also sends a clear signal that he prioritizes "the green agenda ahead of our families and our national security," Daniel Turner, Founder and Executive Director for Power The Future, said.
Moreover, this is happening following Iran's attack on Israel and when "the world and our allies need a strong America that is fully utilizing our energy strength. Instead, the only things Joe Biden wants to strengthen is Iranian oil and Washington’s tax revenue," Turner said.
Meanwhile, American companies pay higher prices than Iranian oil companies, whose exports reached $35 billion over the last 12-month period. Had it not been for this imbalance, Iran would have actually ended in a $16.8 billion trade deficit.
Biden has initiated a war on domestic gas and oil production that has decimated the stateside industry. What's most troubling is that even as Americans suffer, Biden shows no signs of stopping there.
A thread of 2011 emails revealed that President Joe Biden's niece, Casey Owens, provided tips that would later lead to Hunter Biden's investments in China, Fox News reported. This underscores the fact that the Biden family was intertwined with affairs in China while Joe Biden was vice president.
The emails follow a speech where Biden spoke of a "rising China" and how it was "a positive, positive development, not only for China but for America…" During those same remarks, he boasted about Owens, the daughter of his sister Valerie, who was serving in the Obama administration Treasury Department.
The then-vice president said Owens, "who graduated from Harvard not too long ago," had "studied Chinese and went and lived in China and is now devoted to making sure the relationship gets better and better." Meanwhile, Owens was helping out Hunter Biden, her cousin and Joe Biden's son.
Owens worked as a special assistant for the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue at the Treasury Department under Obama. She made time to email Hunter Biden and his then-business partner about an opportunity with China's largest sovereign wealth fund, China Investment Corporation.
"FYI on recent CIC investment conference at a resort in Sanya, on Hainan Island, over the weekend of March 27-28," Owens wrote to Hunter Biden and Eric Scherwin on April 12, 2010. She traveled to Beijing the following month with former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's delegation.
Other members of the Biden family also had strong ties to the communist nation. Casey Owens' father, John "Jack" Owens, reached out to Hunter Biden to help get his telemedicine company's license to do business in China "secured very quickly."
Jack Owens was in a tough spot as his MediGuide Insurance Services International and MediGuide America were at a crucial point where he would need the license to "seal this deal" in China. "Time pressures are very tight, plus the fact that we do not yet have one has caused a slight credibility bump in the company's mind," Jack Owens wrote.
"This all translates into a need for a Business License, and one secured very quickly," he added. Jack Owens lamented that it was "taking an inordinate time" that they "just do not have" to get one.
Even if Hunter Biden didn't deliver on his uncle's request, there's proof in his emails that he tried using his connections and powerful name. "See email below. It's from my Uncle Jack," the younger Biden wrote to two influential men.
"Is there a way we can help him expedite this? Time is of the essence here," Hunter Biden said in his email to Thornton Group Chairman James Bulger and businessman Michael Lin.
Notably, Bulger is the nephew of crime boss Whitey Bulger while Lin has ties to the Chinese Communist Party. Both men had been instrumental in Hunter Biden's first visit to China in April 2010, but it's unclear whether they were able to help Hunter Biden's cause.
Still, trading on the Biden name and influence has been part of the deal for years in the family. Hunter Biden famously included his father during business calls, often putting him on speaker phone in the middle of meetings with the intent of showing how close he had the then-vice president's ear, Fox Business reported.
There is mounting evidence that the Biden family is corrupt and used Joe Biden's position to their advantage. Troublingly, that seems to have extended to activity in China, a communist nation that is also America's adversary.
President Joe Biden allowed UN sanctions on Iranian missile procurement to expire five months before it launched more than 300 of them at Israel in retaliation for a strike on its embassy in Syria last weel that killed seven IRGC terrorists.
The sanctions expired on October 18, 2023, giving Iran five months to expand its drone and missile development before the attack.
The expiration date came from the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal, which was entered into by Biden's Democrat predecessor Barack Obama and re-entered by the U.S. after former President Donald Trump withdrew from it during his presidency.
The expiration was supposed to be contingent on Iran following the terms of the deal, but it has not even pretended to do so.
As recently as November, Iran threw International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors out and didn't let them inspect its enrichment of uranium.
There have been repeated reports from the IAEA that Iran has been enriching uranium in quantities to make a nuclear bomb rather than for energy production, as it has claimed.
But Biden seemed content to let Iran get away with doing so, and did not reinstitute any meaningful sanctions or even call for it as part of the UN.
Limited sanctions against certain groups were instituted, but did not pertain to missiles or drone strikes.
In addition, Iran has been linked to the attacks by Hamas on Israel, giving material funding and weapons to Hamas that allowed it to attack Israel.
Where did Iran's money come from?
Not directly from the U.S., as some have claimed, but indirectly through oil sales of about 700,000 barrels a day that the U.S. has allowed since 2022, when Saudi Arabia said it would not increase production.
That amounts to billions of dollars a year going into Iran's pockets, helping it fund Hamas and get more missiles.
It seems as though the U.S. has been very much a part of the problem when it comes to Iran and may have even enabled Iran to fund Hamas in opposition to Israel, whom we say we support.
It's a very tangled web, and it's not too far off to say that the U.S. is helping to facilitate both sides of this war effort, which is the last think we should be doing.
Though she has taken an unusually active role in her husband's administration, the current first lady is poised to leave D.C. amid a worsening global crisis that could leave the president reeling.
In what some might suggest is rather bad timing for President Joe Biden, his wife, Jill, who many believe is a driving force behind the decisions he makes, is poised to travel to North Carolina to tout educational initiatives, as the Charlotte Observer reports.
Heading to the Tar Heel state on Monday, Mrs. Biden will first stop at Pitt Community College in Winterville to laud programming a press release said is “transforming the high school experience and unlocking new pathways to career opportunities for students.”
From there, the first lady will head to Greensboro for a visit to Guilford Technical Community College for a roundtable talk with area educators, students, and leaders.
Notably, Montgomery County Schools was awarded $1.4 million through a Biden administration program that aimed to invest $25 million in career-connected learning initiatives nationwide, something his wife is certain to mention on Monday.
Though Mrs. Biden's trip is surely viewed as a critical part of her husband's campaign outreach to the state of North Carolina, it comes at a time of intense pressure on the administration and one in which the president may wish to have his closest confidante nearby.
Spiraling tensions in the Middle East between Israel and Iran reached such a fever pitch over the weekend that President Biden was forced to cut short his weekend beach getaway in Delaware and return to the White House for emergency meetings, as the Daily Mail reported.
As reports of Tehran's plans to launch missiles toward Israel began to grow more serious, Biden departed for D.C. in order to hold meetings with his national security team as well as with officials in Tel Aviv.
True to its warnings, Iran proceeded with plans to launch drone and missile attacks toward Israel, most of which were successfully intercepted by the Israeli military and its allies, as NBC News noted.
Though Washington assuredly breathed a collective sigh of relief that the attack did not inflict significant damage or casualties, that is not to say that the danger of a perilous escalation of hostilities has passed.
As NBC News noted separately, many top officials inside the administration are concerned that Israel may initiate a harsh and hasty response to Iranian aggression that could prompt a widespread expansion of the conflict.
A senior administration official told NBC News that the president made it clear to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that his country should not launch a retaliatory strike on Iran and that if it did so, the United States would not be offering support.
Even so, one Israeli official told the outlet, “Israel is going to consult with all its partners but ultimately, it's Israels' decision as to what the response will be. Israel cannot allow such a large attack over Israel without some kind of response, be it small or large. It's up to the war cabinet to decide now.”
Given what some suggest are his rapidly declining cognitive and decision-making skills, this appears to be precisely the sort of scenario when Joe Biden most relies on his wife, and her absence – albeit a short one – could add to the tension currently gripping the Oval Office.