Fully embracing anarchy, Democrat leaders in Chicago, a sanctuary city; and in Illinois, a sanctuary state, are using every possible method to thwart federal immigration authorities from removing illegal aliens and curtailing rampant crime there.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson issued an executive order Monday creating an ICE Free Zone, preventing ICE from using city property, such as parking lots, as staging areas, or for enforcement actions. City agencies are directed to use physical barriers like locked gates to limit access to city property, and report to the mayor any attempted use of city property for immigration enforcement. Chicago taxpayers will fund a city-wide distribution of “Know Your Rights” materials for employees, tenants, and security staff, training them to deal with federal agents wishing to use city property.
Gov. JB Pritzker announced the state filed a lawsuit Monday seeking a temporary restraining order to block President Donald Trump from using Illinois and Texas National Guard troops to manage crime in Chicago.
“Illinois is going to use every lever at our disposal to resist this power grab and get (DHS Sec. Kristi) Noem’s thugs hell out of Chicago,” Pritzker said in a Monday afternoon press conference. He also said several times that Texas troops should, “stay the hell out of Illinois.”
Over the weekend, Oct. 4, Border Patrol agents were conducting a patrol in Chicago when their vehicle was rammed by other vehicles and they were boxed in by 10 cars, according to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) statement.
“The officers exited their trapped vehicle, when a suspect tried to run them over, forcing the officers to fire defensively,” the statement said. “One of the drivers who rammed the law enforcement vehicle was armed with a semi-automatic weapon. Law enforcement was forced to deploy their weapons and fired defensive shots at an armed U.S. citizen who drove herself to the hospital to get care for wounds.”
An angry crowd gathered around ICE agents and instead of offering back up assistance, Chicago Police offers on the scene left, according to DHS, and those on the way were instructed to stage blocks away, leaving ICE on its own, according to reporting from FOX News.
The Chicago police chief needs to be handcuffed and arrested for NOT helping Ice agents https://t.co/2unKCu0kY2
This incident alone underscores how out of control crime is in Chicago. It is not every city where goons feel comfortable ramming a law enforcement vehicle and surrounding it. There were 22 shootings in Chicago over the weekend. Yet local officials insisted that crime is down, and federal help is not wanted or needed.
During the press conference, Johnson spoke of people showing up to “organize, to build the resistance.”
“It’s going to take everything, litigation, executive orders, legislation, and I believe, most importantly, the people of this city and county, the state, and throughout the country, pushing back against tyranny,” Johnson said.
Reporters asked provocative questions such as what measures officials are willing to take if they don’t win in court, and are they calling for a civil war?
Pritzker said the federal government is “creating an environment in which they’re inciting people to do something more than just peacefully protest.” And he fearmongered, claiming federal officials were “firing at people who are doing nothing more than yelling” and “saying what they believe, or holding signs.” He makes it sound like calm people are just standing around getting shot by the federal government, totally unprovoked, and in the same press conference people were urged to “organize” and “build a resistance” against Trump. The politicians are trying to whip the public up into a frenzy.
Pritzker planned on going to court before Trump called up the National Guard. His legal team has been working, “for weeks,” he said, writing the case that was filed Monday, in anticipation of the arrival of federal troops.
Pritzker is also upset that the U.S. Border Patrol has been sent to the city.
“They have declared that the border is at the shores of Lake Michigan. That is why they’re allowed to operate now, or at least why they’re being told they’re allowed to operate in the city of Chicago. That doesn’t seem right to me,” Pritzker said. He said as far as he knows, the border is on the other side of Lake Michigan.
Beth Brelje is an elections correspondent for The Federalist. She is an award-winning investigative journalist with decades of media experience.
The Department of Justice official who signed off on $2 million in taxpayer-funded payments to disgraced Russia collusion hoax participants left the Department of Justice to help lead the “legal resistance” to President Donald Trump and other duly elected Republicans, new records reviewed exclusively by The Federalist reveal.
FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok and his mistress, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, sued the Department of Justice over the release of messages detailing their role in pushing the Clinton campaign’s Russia collusion hoax. They said the release of the messages that were written using government resources violated their privacy. The Biden administration rewarded the duo with lucrative payouts. Strozk received $1.2 million in taxpayer funds while Page received an $800,000 settlement.
“[W]e have identified Brian Netter, Deputy Assistant Attorney General as the individual that approved the settlement agreements,” a DOJ official told the Center to Advance Security in America, which had filed a Freedom of Information Act request in 2024, when the payouts were publicly announced. Netter was the deputy assistant attorney general for the Federal Programs Branch during the term of President Joe Biden.
Netter currently serves as the legal director at Democracy Forward, a Democrat Party-affiliated group launched in 2017 to fight President Trump with lawfare. The group brags that it took Trump to court more than 100 times in his first term in office. It has continued its use of the courts to win political battles into his second term in office. “Liberal Legal Group Positions Itself as a Top Trump Administration Foe,” touted The New York Times last November.
Marc Elias, the attorney known for his work damaging the integrity of both the 2016 and 2020 elections, chairs the board of Democracy Forward. Elias, as the Clinton campaign general counsel, signed the checks for her campaign’s Russia collusion hoax. To hide the Russia collusion hoax’s origins, the funding was fraudulently run through Elias’s law firm as “legal services.” Clinton was fined only $113,000 for the false claims she made to hide her role. Elias also ran Democrats’ legal effort to destabilize the 2020 elections with the sudden expansion of unsupervised mail-in balloting operations staffed by Democrat-run nonprofit groups.
Other current and recent board members of Netter’s group include former Clinton campaign manager John Podesta, former Biden Chief of Staff Ronald Klain, Kamala Harris’ sister Maya Harris, and former leader of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Mindy Myers.
Netter worked for Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice from 2021 through early 2025. He opposed then-former President Trump’s motion for a preliminary injunction to block National Archives releases to the January 6 committee, a lawfare committee comprised only of members appointed by then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
Netter married Democrat lawyer and activist Karen Dunn in a ceremony officiated by Garland in 2009. Dunn, who played a key role in the Hillary Clinton campaign and was widely considered a likely White House Counsel if Hillary Clinton won her 2016 presidential campaign, specializes in Democrat debate preparation. She co-led President Barack Obama’s presidential debate preparation team for his re-election campaign and led presidential debate preparation for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Kamala Harris in 2024. In 2020, she led the preparation of Kamala Harris for the vice presidential debate.
Dunn started a law firm with Jeannie Rhee, one of the attorneys who worked on perpetuating the Russia collusion hoax through the Robert Mueller special counsel investigation. The firm hired Mueller alumnus Rush Atkinson as well.
Dunn clerked for Garland when he was on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for Justice Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court. Netter also clerked for Breyer and Judge Judith Rogers on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Congressional overseers were upset by the reward given to the hoaxers and demanded to know who signed off on them. They were thwarted by officials who said they didn’t know who had authorized the payments, and declined to respond to Congressional inquiries to find out.
“The American people are rightly concerned about the Biden Administration’s targeting of conservatives while their political allies were given special treatment,” said James Fitzpatrick, director of the Center to Advance Security in America. “These settlements are a prime example of the outrageous abuse of power endured by the American people under Joe Biden.”
Netter did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.
President Donald Trump announced Friday he is ordering two nuclear submarines to be positioned near Russia after “provocative statements” from former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
“Based on the highly provocative statements of the Former President of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, who is now the Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, I have ordered two Nuclear Submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions, just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that,”Trump wrote on his Truth Social page. “Words are very important, and can often lead to unintended consequences, I hope this will not be one of those instances. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
After Trump on Monday said he was reducing a deadline for Russia to agree to a Ukraine peace settlement from 50 days to 10 or 12 days, Medvedev wrote on X that Trump was playing “the ultimatum game” and that such an approach could lead to war.
Alert: Trump Reacts as BRICS Moves Closer to Eliminating the U.S. Dollar… See Here
Medvedev said in a post on the Telegram platform Thursday cautioned Trump to keep in mind “his favorite films about the ‘walking dead,'” and referred to the Soviet Union’s system for launching a last-ditch, automatic nuclear strike. It was not clear whether his comment referred to the apocalyptic American TV show “The Walking Dead.”
The Pentagon typically doesn’t announce the deployment of nuclear submarines because they are often on secret missions surveilling Russian and Chinese submarines, Politico reported.
Trump did not say whether he is positioning submarines that are capable of launching nuclear strikes.
Resisting tremendous pressure from the Trump administration, the Federal Reserve held its key interest rate steady on Wednesday as two of President Donald Trump’s appointees dissented from the decision and voted for cuts.
Wednesday’s meeting reportedly marks the first time in more than 30 years that two members of the Fed’s seven-member Board of Governors voted against a rate decision at the central bank.
Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman and board member Christopher Waller “preferred to lower the target range for the federal funds rate by one quarter of a percentage point at this meeting,” according to the Fed’s policy statement.
In announcing its decision, the Fed said that while economic growth had moderated in the first six months of 2025, inflation remained “somewhat elevated.”
Fed Chair Jerome Powell voted to keep rates unchanged, as did three other board members and the five Fed regional bank presidents who currently sit on the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). Board member Adriana Kugler was absent from the meeting and did not vote.
Trump has been increasingly incensed by Powell’s refusal to lower rates in recent weeks. At one point, the president was threatening to oust the Fed chairman before his term expires, though the legality of such a plan was unclear. Last week, however, Trump appeared resigned to waiting until next May, when Powell’s four-year term is up, to appoint a new chair.
“I think he’s done a bad job, but he’s going to be out pretty soon anyway,” the president said at an event that aired live on Newsmax and the Newsmax2 free online streaming platform. “In eight months, he’ll be out. But I call him ‘Too Late.’ He’s too late all the time. He should have lowered interest rates many times. Europe lowered their rate 10 times. We lowered ours none, and it’s causing a problem for people that want to buy a home.”
With the Fed’s next meeting scheduled for September, the question now becomes whether the central bank will make cuts then.
“The next two months’ data will be pivotal and we see a path to a resumption of the Fed’s easing cycle in the autumn should tariff inflation prove more modest than expected or the labor market show signs of weakness,” Ashish Shah, a chief investment officer at Goldman Sachs, said in a note to clients after the decision was announced on Wednesday.
Nicole Weatherholtz, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.
POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE: Tulsi GOES OFF on Barack Obama – Says Obama Criminally Implicated (VIDEO)
By Jordan Conradson – The Gateway Pundit – July 23, 2025
ODNI Tulsi Gabbard made a surprise appearance in the White House press briefing room after she released the second batch of previously undisclosed documents on Wednesday morning that include more proof that Barack Obama directly gave the order to publish Russia Collusion hoax knowing there was no proof to back it up. Wednesday’s document release followed Friday’s document dump by ODNI Tulsi Gabbard of a declassified December 2016 presidential briefing revealing Barack Obama knew the Trump-Russia collusion narrative was a hoax Tulsi went off on Barack Obama for covering up the blackmail Putin had on Hillary Clinton… READ MORE
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, Elon Musk, and President Trump.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Wednesday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials arrested an illegal alien who allegedly wrote a letter in which he threatened to kill President Donald Trump. On May 21, an ICE field intelligence officer received a handwritten letter in the mail allegedly from Ramon Morales Reyes, 54, a Mexican national who entered the U.S. illegally at least nine times between 1998-2005. The next day, Reyes was arrested.
“Thanks to our ICE officers, this illegal alien who threatened to assassinate President Trump is behind bars,” Noem said in a statement, which included a copy of the letter allegedly written by Reyes and details of his arrest. “This threat comes not even a year after President Trump was shot in Butler, Pennsylvania, and less than two weeks after former FBI Director [James] Comey called for the President’s assassination.”
Noem was referring to a now-deleted Instagram post by Comey of a photo of seashells arranged on a beach to form the numbers “86 47” — a combination many interpreted as a coded call for violence against President Trump.
“All politicians and members of the media should take notice of these repeated attempts on President Trump’s life and tone down their rhetoric,” Noem said. “I will continue to take all measures necessary to ensure the protection of President Trump.”
Reyes’ criminal record includes arrests for felony hit and run, criminal damage to property and disorderly conduct with a domestic abuse modifier, DHS said. He is in ICE custody at Dodge County Jail in Juneau, Wisconsin, pending his removal proceedings.
The letter stated, “We are tired of this president messing with us Mexicans – we have done more for this country than you white people – you have been deporting my family and I think it is time Donald J. Trump get what he has coming to him. I will self deport myself back to Mexico but not before I use my 30 yard 6 [rifle] to shoot your precious president in the head – I will see him at one of his big rally’s.”
James B. Comey posted on Instagram a photo of seashells arranged to read “86 47,” which could be interpreted as a threat against the 47th president. Comey has since denied that he intended violence; nonetheless the Secret Service is reportedly investigating. This posting may have been a lapse of judgment on Comey’s part or something more nefarious.
Comey’s conduct in this instance, however, fits well with his previous anti-Trump behavior and demonstrably poor judgment. His judgment has been a serious concern for many of us who were proud to serve in the FBI and care about the bureau’s credibility and reputation. In his book and elsewhere, he described the sole origin of the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation of Trump’s first presidential campaign as based on a report “from an allied ambassador” of an encounter in London between a Trump adviser and “a Russian agent.”
That’s Comey’s characterization of George Papadopoulos’ meeting with Joseph Mifsud, a pan-European academic. Mifsud told the then-Trump aide the Russians had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton. Comey has piously huffed that it would have been “dereliction” not to proceed with a counterintelligence investigation based on that report. But to proceed with such an intrusive investigation on so little was an abuse.
A secondhand rumor should never be enough to justify opening a counterintelligence investigation of any American, much less a presidential candidate. This off-handed conversation initiated a counterintelligence case that disrupted Trump’s first term as president. Like directors before him, Comey should have said, “We need more probable cause” before moving forward with an investigation.
In the encounter Comey cited, there was no mention of emails. Only after the WikiLeaks disclosures was an assumption made by both Australian High Commissioner Alexander Downer, Comey’s “allied ambassador,” and Papadopoulos, that the “dirt” was in Hillary’s emails.
Comey’s indignant complaints about Trump are an effort to distract from the dangerous and faulty decisions made on his watch. His initiation of the counterintelligence investigation against Trump was an error of historical proportions.
Comey has tried to justify the spying — electronic surveillance — of Carter Page, a U.S. citizen, by writing that a federal judge granted “permission.” We now know the FISA Court was seriously misled by Comey’s FBI.
Comey grossly usurped the prosecutor’s role in virtually declining prosecution in the Clinton email investigation. That usurpation was spelled out in Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein’s memo justifying Comey’s firing. Comey also had further muddied the waters by announcing the reopening of the Clinton email investigation just days before the 2016 election.
Comey tried to deflect from his responsibility in the Russian collusion fiasco by claiming it all happened “seven layers below” him. That is simply not true. The deputy assistant director for counterintelligence, Peter Strzok, drafted and signed out the communication initiating that probe. Strzok’s texts demonstrate he answered to Andrew McCabe, who was deputy director and Comey’s direct report. It was McCabe who set up the interview to entrap General Michael Flynn, and it was Strzok who conducted the interview. These people were not seven layers down from Comey. They were his inner circle, mere steps away from him on the seventh floor of the J. Edgar Hoover Building.
It was Comey himself who wrote a memo of his initial conversation with President-elect Trump and then leaked it. He, and only he, did that. What was he thinking? Here was the FBI director trying to incriminate the president.
Throwing everyone else under the bus, Comey claimed that FBI procedures failed him. But it was Comey who signed three of the four applications for FISA coverage on Carter Page. And it was Comey who set the tone by declining to brief the Congressional Gang of Eight about this significant counterintelligence investigation. When Comey served as FBI director, he led the investigation of one or more American citizens without sufficient basis. The lack of justification for initiating these investigations is what truly matters.
The former FBI director may or may not be charged for this seashell threat on the president’s life, but James Comey will be condemned by history as the worst FBI director for the damage he has done to the FBI and our country.
Thomas J. Baker is an international law enforcement consultant. He served as a FBI Special Agent for 33 years in a variety of investigative and management positions facing the challenges of crime and terrorism. He is the author of “The Fall of the FBI: How a Once Great Agency Became a Threat to Democracy.”
Data released Tuesday shows that egg prices dropped 12.7 percent last month — the “biggest monthly decline since 1984.” The report follows weeks of President Donald Trump telling Americans that egg prices were falling — welcome news after the cost of eggs rose for 17 out of the past 19 months, according to CNN. But the left-wing legacy outlet is scrambling to process the eggcellent news.
CNN’s David Goldman wrote Tuesday that “For months, President Donald Trump has falsely claimed that egg prices are tumbling. It wasn’t true then, but it’s true now.”
Goldman continues:
“Despite Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins’ far more conservative estimate that egg prices would normalize in the summer, Trump last month said, ‘as you know, the cost of eggs has come down like 93, 94% since we took office.’ Those percentage declines Trump stated are not close to accurate – but we now know that consumer egg prices were, indeed, falling sharply when Trump made those remarks (the Consumer Price Index data wasn’t out yet to confirm or deny Trump’s claims).”
CNN admits egg prices “were, indeed, falling sharply when Trump made those remarks,” but a few sentences later bizarrely still claims the “timing of his claim” was wrong.
Translation: Trump said something that turned out to be true (egg prices fell), but because we didn’t have the same data at the exact moment Trump said it, he was wrong.
That’s one of the propaganda press’ favorite things to do: dismiss or discredit the truth but then claim credit for discovering it themselves later and grant permission to everyone else to acknowledge it. Goldman’s piece is hardly an outlier. It’s the norm. Take the propaganda press’ coverage of Joe Biden’s cognitive decline. CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’ Alex Thompson are awaiting the release of their new book Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, which details Biden’s decline over four years. The excerpts released thus far read more like a confessional of sins long known to anyone with a set of eyes and ears.
But the book and discussions amongst the left are all happening well after Tapper and the legacy media themselves engaged in the cover-up. The media decided that Biden wasn’t cognitively declining and essentially painted anyone who questioned the narrative as a far-right “conspiracy theorist” not acting “in good faith.”
The examples are endless. But now that Tapper, Thompson, and the rest of them can make a few bucks off telling the truth, they’re willing to do it.
Or take the coverage of masks during Covid. The New York Times’ Zach Montague said in September 2020 it was a “dangerous assertion” to state that wearing masks during the pandemic had “little to no medical value.” Fast forward just over two years when Bret Stephens, writing for The Times, declared, “The Mask Mandates Did Nothing. Will Any Lessons Be Learned?” Stephens highlighted a report that found there was “no evidence” masks made “any difference.”
To be clear, it was a “dangerous assertion” to say masks did nothing until the propaganda press decided it was okay to make that same assertion. As the Federalist’s Elle Purnell wrote, outlets like the New York Times “played a significant role in defending the officially sanctioned [Covid] narrative” and “chok[ed] dissent.”
And then, of course, there’s the alternative — where something is true until the media says it no longer is, like the case of the propaganda press running cover for Kamala Harris’ devastating management of the border as vice president.
As The Federalist’s Jordan Boyd wrote last year, “Years after acknowledging and even praising President Joe Biden for naming Vice President Kamala Harris ‘border czar,’ corporate media claimed the presumptive 2024 Democrat nominee was never charged with overseeing the logistics of the record-breaking invasion.”
In each case, one pattern remains the same: The truth never changed, only the media’s willingness to acknowledge it. Whether it’s egg prices, Biden’s cognitive decline, mask mandates, or who was in charge of the southern border, the facts don’t seem to matter to the propaganda press.
Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2
When Elon Musk announced in February that there were 10 million Social Security numbers belonging to holders apparently aged 120 years and older, instead of acknowledging the great potential for fraudulent activity, the corporate media downplayed the concerns. They insisted that Social Security fraud is “not very common” and maligned the Trump administration’s efforts to purge the federal government of waste and abuse. However, multiple instances of Social Security fraud confirmed in April alone are a reminder that the system has enabled abuse for years.
According to the Social Security database, these are the numbers of people in each age bucket with the death field set to FALSE!
Maybe Twilight is real and there are a lot of vampires collecting Social Security 🤣🤣 pic.twitter.com/ltb06VX98Z
In late March, DOGE announced that, following a “major cleanup” of records, 9.9 million number holders listed with ages 120 years and older “have now been marked deceased.” (While people do live past 100, the oldest person who ever lived in modern times was Jeanne Louise Calment, of France, who died in 1997 at 122 years old.)
Corporate media and so-called experts have claimed that the listed ages of these centenarian number holders may be the result of “coding quirks” in the system and that efforts to mark these number holders as deceased could lead to more errors. But this does not change the fact that unused Social Security numbers marked as live are ripe for fraud.
What can you do with a spare Social Security number? You could register to vote again or sign up for social welfare, like housing, health insurance, cash assistance, and SNAP. Noncitizens can get a job, and of course, collect Social Security retirement or disability benefits.
Last month, a White House fact sheet, citing an inspector general report from 2024, noted how “The Social Security Administration made an estimated $72 billion in improper payments between 2015 and 2022.”
Social Security Fraud Is Alive And Well
Last week, Wendy Stone of Rochester, New York, pleaded guilty to “conversion/unlawful conveyance of government money, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine,” according to U.S. Attorney Michael DiGiacomo’s office.
Back in 2022, Stone went to the home of an acquaintance and found that person had died a few days earlier. Stone didn’t report the death to authorities. Instead, she moved the body to the basement of the home, stuffed it in a storage bin, and covered it in bleach, occasionally topping off the bleach to keep the body covered. It remained there from December 2022 to September 2023, the DOJ release explains. Stone, 63, “improperly collected” $7,900 of the victim’s Supplemental Security Income money, which is administered by the Social Security Administration, and used the victim’s Social Security number “to activate a new debit card.” Stone also later falsely claimed the victim lived with her to receive $1,070 in SNAP benefits, according to the release.
On April 9, Mavious Redmond of Austin, Minnesota, pleaded guilty to committing Social Security fraud for 25 years, roughly half her life. Redmond, 54, “collected more than $360,000 in Social Security payments intended for her mother,” who died in 1999, the DOJ said in an April 14 release.
“On multiple occasions, Redmond impersonated her deceased mother to keep her fraud scheme going,” reads the statement from Acting U.S. Attorney Lisa D. Kirkpatrick’s office. “For example, on June 4, 2024, Redmond personally visited the SSA office, posing as her deceased mother, and submitted a fraudulent SS-5 Application for Social Security Form using her mother’s name, date of birth, Social Security number, and forging her deceased mother’s signature.”
Deborah Bailey, 68, from Piscataway, New Jersey, pleaded guilty to theft of public money after claiming her dead mother’s Social Security retirement money for eight years after her death. After Bailey’s mom died in 2016, she didn’t tell the Social Security Administration, and an investigation revealed she withdrew more than $150,000 “in retirement benefits” from her mom’s bank account between 2016 and 2024. She faces sentencing in August, according to a DOJ release from U.S. Attorney Alina Habba’s Office.
Reynaldo Martinez of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, admitted togetting his mitts on 40 SNAP cards using “stolen identities and stolen or fraudulent Social Security numbers.”
“Court documents reflect that Martinez appeared in person at multiple Rhode Island Department of Human Services offices and filed applications for SNAP benefits,” according to a DOJ release from April 2. “He did this by presenting fraudulent drivers’ licenses in various names but depicting his own photograph, and using Social Security numbers assigned to others, including that of a deceased individual, living adult citizens, and at least one juvenile.”
He admitted to receiving more than $33,000 in SNAP free food benefits. Martinez also admitted to cashing “altered” U.S. Treasury checks, which can be tax refunds, Social Security, or other benefits. Martinez pleaded guilty and will be sentenced in July, according to the DOJ. He was arrested and convicted multiple times in the past on other fraud and criminal charges, “dating back to 2012.”
Still, the desperate media really want the Trump administration to stop looking for fraud.
Last week, President Trump signed a memorandum aimed at “preventing illegal aliens from obtaining Social Security Act benefits.” Without missing a beat, Axios’ Jason Lalljee wrote under the headline: “Trump aids Musk’s Social Security fraud hunt, despite lack of evidence.”
But while the media cry about Trump eradicating fraud, and protesters key Teslas to punish Musk over DOGE findings, there are plentiful examples of Social Security fraud. The above are just a few admissions from April alone.
Not every mismarked 150-year-old Social Security number is connected to fraud, but for those and others that are, one person can bleed years of funding from the program, threatening its solvency and the security of those who truly need it.
Beth Brelje is an elections correspondent for The Federalist. She is an award-winning investigative journalist with decades of media experience.
The Supreme Court’s continuing failure to define lower courts’ authority is wreaking havoc on the reputation of the courts — and our constitutional order.
The Supreme Court has interceded six times in less than three months to rein in federal judges who improperly exceeded their Article III authority and infringed on the Article II authority of President Donald Trump. Yet the high court continues to issue mealy-mouthed opinions which serve only to exacerbate the ongoing battle between the Executive and Judicial branches of government. And now there is a constitutional crisis primed to explode this week in a federal court in Maryland over the removal of an El Salvadoran — courtesy of the justices’ latest baby-splitting foray on Thursday.
On Thursday last, in Noem v. Garcia, the Supreme Court issued a short two-page order on President Trump’s application asking the justices to vacate an injunction issued by Maryland federal judge Paula Xinis. That injunction, issued on April 4, 2025, ordered the Trump Administration “to facilitate and effectuate the return of Plaintiff Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to the United States by no later than 11:59 PM on Monday, April 7, 2025.” The lower court further held that the “preliminary relief is issued to restore the status quo and to preserve Abrego Garcia’s access to due process in accordance with the Constitution and governing immigration statutes.”
After the Fourth Circuit refused to stay Judge Xinis’ order, the Trump Administration filed an application with the Supreme Court seeking an immediate stay followed by vacatur of the injunction. In its application, the Trump Administration acknowledged that Garcia had been wrongly removed to El Salvador, agreeing that there was an order barring Garcia’s return to his native homeland. However, the Trump Administration stressed that the order also concluded Garcia, as an alien illegally present in the United States, was subject to removal under federal law — just not to El Salvador. The immigration judge also rejected Garcia’s petition for asylum and for withholding of removal under CAT, or the Convention Against Torture. The Board of Immigration Appeals upheld those decisions.
Further, while Garcia had been wrongly removed to El Salvador, the Trump Administration argued that Judge Xinis lacked the authority to order him to “facilitate and effectuate” Garcia’s return. First, it was not for a federal judge to tell the Executive branch how to engage in diplomatic relations. And second, the president lacks the ability to control a foreign sovereign, making it impossible for him to “effectuate” Garcia’s return to the United States. Finally, Judge Xinis’ order improperly directs the Trump Administration to admit Garcia even though he is a member of MS-13, which has been designated a terrorist organization.
Chief Judge John Roberts granted the Trump Administration an administrative stay, thereby nixing the April 7, 2025 deadline for the president to have “effectuated” Garcia’s return to the United States. Then on April 10, 2025, the Supreme Court entered an order stating the Trump Administration’s “application is granted in part and denied in part, subject to the direction of this order.”
But what precisely were those directions? Well, first, there was the deadline, which had already come and gone, and so the Court stated: “[T]he deadline imposed by the District Court has now passed. To that extent, the Government’s emergency application is effectively granted in part and the deadline in the challenged order is no longer effective.”
The Supreme Court then said that “[t]he rest of the District Court’s order remains in effect but requires clarification on remand.” Here, the high court explained what parts of the lower court order it believed proper, namely to “require the Government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.” However, “[t]he intended scope of the term ‘effectuate,” the Supreme Court explained, is “unclear, and may exceed the District Court’s authority.” The Supreme Court ended by stating “[t]he District Court should clarify its directive, with due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.” But “the Government should be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps,” the Supreme Court added.
What exactly does any of that mean?
To Judge Xinis it meant she merely needed to clarify what “effectuate” means. But rather than do that, the Barack Obama appointee just dropped that directive from her injunction, amending her order “to DIRECT that Defendants take all available steps to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia to the United States as soon as possible.”
She further directed the Trump Administration to file “a supplemental declaration from an individual with personal knowledge, addressing the following: (1) the current physical location and custodial status of Abrego Garcia; (2) what steps, if any, Defendants have taken to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s immediate return to the United States; and (3) what additional steps Defendants will take, and when, to facilitate his return.”
Late Thursday, Judge Xinis ordered the Trump administration to file that declaration by 9:30 a.m. on Friday, even though the Supreme Court’s order only dropped Thursday evening around 7:00 p.m. The Maryland-based federal judge then denied the government’s motion for extension of time until Tuesday to file the declaration, but she gave them an additional two hours.
Unsurprisingly, 11:30 a.m. came and went without the declaration being filed. Soon after, the Trump Administration filed a response to the court’s amended injunction, noting it was “unable to provide the information requested by the Court on the impracticable deadline set by the Court hours after the Supreme Court issued its order.” The government’s response continued:
“Defendants are not in a position where they ‘can’ share any information requested by the Court. That is the reality. Defendants received the order late in the evening last night. They are reviewing the order and actively evaluating next steps. It is unreasonable and impracticable for Defendants to reveal potential steps before those steps are reviewed, agreed upon, and vetted. Foreign affairs cannot operate on judicial timelines, in part because it involves sensitive country-specific considerations wholly inappropriate for judicial review.”
Rather than re-evaluate her position, Judge Xinis doubled down, finding “Defendants have failed to comply with this Court’s Order,” and stating, “Defendants made no meaningful effort to comply.” She then entered a further order requiring the Trump Administration to file daily, on or before 5:00 p.m., “a declaration made by an individual with personal knowledge as to any information regarding: (1) the current physical location and custodial status of Abrego Garcia; (2) what steps, if any, Defendants have taken to facilitate his immediate return to the United States; (3) what additional steps Defendants will take, and when, to facilitate his return.”
Judge Xinis added that if plaintiffs wanted any additional relief, they should file a motion by Saturday at 5:00 p.m. Garcia’s attorneys filed the suggested Motion on Saturday, asking the court to grant “three additional types of relief.”
First, the El Salvadoran’s lawyers asked the Court to order the government to, by end of day on Monday: (a) request “its agents and contractors release Abrego Garcia from custody in El Salvador pursuant to the contract or arrangement providing for his detention there at the Government’s direction; (b) dispatch personnel to accompany Abrego Garcia upon his release from [the El Salvadoran prison] to ensure his safe passage to the aircraft that will return him to the United States; (c) [p]rovide air transportation for Abrego Garcia to return to Maryland, because he may not be in current possession of sufficient identification to board a commercial flight; and (d) “[g]rant Abrego Garcia parole” and “prepare all paperwork and forms required to allow him to reenter the United States.”
Second, Garcia’s attorneys asked for the Court to grant their client discovery including production of the Trump Administration’s contract with El Salvador concerning detentions at the prison. The illegal alien’s attorneys further requested the court direct the Trump Administration to produce witnesses for the hearing scheduled for Tuesday. Specifically, Garcia’s attorneys wanted to question representatives from the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the Department of State, concerning: “(i) Abrego Garcia’s current physical location and custodial status; (ii) what steps, if any, the Government has taken to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States; (iii) whether the Government has informed officials at CECOT that it wishes Abrego Garcia to be released into U.S. custody; and (iv) what, if any, additional steps the Government intends to take, and when, to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return.”
Finally, the plaintiff’s attorneys requested the court order the government to show cause why they should not be held in contempt for violating the Court’s command that they file a declaration by Friday at 11:30 a.m.
Shortly after Garcia’s motion hit the docket, the Trump Administration filed its first required daily declaration. That declaration attested that, based on official reporting from our Embassy in San Salvador, “Abrego Garcia is currently being held in the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador.” “He is alive and secure in that facility,” the declaration continued, adding: “He is detained pursuant to the sovereign, domestic authority of El Salvador.” The second daily declaration, filed yesterday, stated the government’s declarant had nothing to add to those facts.
Judge Xinis has not yet ruled on the plaintiff’s motion, but given her refusal to respond reasonably to the Trump Administration’s request for an extension of time to file the declaration, her utter failure to show any deference to the Trump Administration’s handling of foreign affairs, and that the declarations said nothing of efforts by the Trump Administration to obtain Garcia’s release from prison, it seems likely she will grant Garcia much of what he requests.
Yet, those requests, as the Trump Administration pointed out yesterday in its response brief, directly infringe on the president’s Article II authority. “The federal courts have no authority to direct the Executive Branch to conduct foreign relations in a particular way or engage with a foreign sovereign in a given manner,” the Trump Administration wrote. Rather, “[t]hat is the ‘exclusive power of the President as the sole organ of the federal government in the field of international relations.’”
While the Supreme Court has declared that “[s]uch power is ‘conclusive and preclusive,’ and beyond the reach of the federal courts’ equitable authority,” given her orders to date, Judge Xinis is unlikely to stand down. Rather, expect the Obama appointee to enter another scathing order demanding details and actions. But with its core executive powers at stake, the Trump Administration cannot comply.
The justices should have foreseen this standoff and defused the situation last week by clearly defining the limits of the lower court’s authority. The Supreme Court’s continuing failure to do so is wreaking havoc on the reputation of the courts — and our constitutional order.
Margot Cleveland is an investigative journalist and legal analyst and serves as The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. Margot’s work has been published at The Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator, the New Criterion, National Review Online, Townhall.com, the Daily Signal, USA Today, and the Detroit Free Press. She is also a regular guest on nationally syndicated radio programs and on Fox News, Fox Business, and Newsmax. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. Cleveland is also of counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland where you can read more about her greatest accomplishments—her dear husband and dear son. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.
President Donald Trump pointed out Monday on his Truth Social account that the war between Russia and Ukraine began during President Joe Biden’s administration.
“The war between Russia and Ukraine is Biden’s war, not mine. I just got here, and for four years during my term, had no problem in preventing it from happening,” Trump wrote, adding that he “had nothing to do with this war” but is working “diligently to get the death and destruction to stop.”
“If the 2020 presidential election was not rigged, and it was, in so many ways, that horrible war would never have happened,” he continued. “President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy and Crooked Joe Biden did an absolutely horrible job in allowing this travesty to begin. There were so many ways of preventing it from ever starting. But that is the past. Now we have to get it to stop, and fast. So sad!”
On 60 Minutes Sunday, Zelenskyy called on Trump to support Ukraine.
“President Trump, being a strong president of a strong country, must be on Ukraine’s side,” Zelenskyy said. “I think it is wrong that America wants to be neutral.”
Zelenskyy also warned Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ultimate goal could result in a World War.
“If we do not stand firm, he [Putin] will advance further,” Zelenskyy told CBS News. “It is not just idle speculation; the threat is real. Putin’s ultimate goal is to revive the Russian empire and reclaim territories currently under NATO protection. Considering all of this, I believe it could escalate into a world war. There won’t be a safe place, there won’t be a safe place for [anyone].”
Protests against President Donald Trump’s administration have been cropping up nationwide. They appear to have two things in common — gray hair and a lack of energy. Are Americans supposed to believe these are organic? Or are they organized by left-wing groups to undermine Trump’s administration?
Now the answers to those questions are becoming clear. The “Hands Off” protests of April 5 and earlier anti-Tesla protests were supported by a coalition of powerful leftist groups, including The Indivisible Project, and organized through Mobilize America — which was initially founded as a Democrat PAC. Now leftist organizers are planning more demonstrations across America for the socialist holiday May Day.
The ‘Hands Off’ Protests
Leftists gathered in cities across America to protest Trump’s administration on April 5. As images of the events streamed in from across the web, something soon became clear — many of the protestors were elderly.
Anti Trump protest in Charles Town, WV. About 200 people, not paid protestors, but the median age appears to be about 70. pic.twitter.com/ygFoKa8Ybn
Whether disaffected boomers, one-time hippies, or former bureaucrats, these were people with extra time on their hands. This was not lost on far-left activists, who used Mobilize America — a “volunteer management platform and network that connects left-wing organizations, campaigns, and activists,” according to InfluenceWatch — to stage the Hands Off protests, apparently attempting to subvert confidence in the Trump administration.
Hands Off is tied to the Indivisible Project, which launched in 2016 to help leftists “Resisting the Trump Agenda,” according to InfluenceWatch. Indivisible is listed among Hands Off’s “partners,” and the group’s website directs users to various Hands Off materials. Hands Off directs “general inquiries” to an Indivisible.org email address. When The Federalist asked about this, Indivisible Project Chief Campaigns Officer Sarah Dohl said the address online was a “typo.”
“Hands Off is a campaign, not an organization,” according to Dohl. She called it a “broad coalition effort,” pointing to “nearly 200 partner organizations.” According to Dohl, Indivisible provided Hands Off participants with content, toolkits, and “digital infrastructure.”
“We were proud to help build the Hands Off website and provide early infrastructure to get the campaign off the ground,” Dohl said. “The site and campaign are now supported by many different groups, not just Indivisible.”
A host of leftist groups “partner[ed]” in the Hands Off protests, including the anti-religious freedom Human Rights Campaign, leftist League of Women Voters, far-left Our Revolution, radical environmentalist group Greenpeace, and anti-Trump Women’s March. Left-wing union giants AFL-CIO, American Federation of Teachers, National Education Association, Service Employees International Union, and United Auto Workers also supported the demonstrations.
Indivisible provided graphics and messaging to protestors, even suggesting wording for their signs and offering to reimburse groups up to $200 worth of expenses for each protest — though Dohl previously told The Daily Signal the group does “not pay protestors.”
An Indivisible document online guides demonstrators on “Tesla Town Halls,” specifically “how to plan a Tesla protest” and “executing your Tesla protest.” It listed grievances with Trump’s administration, including alleged “economic terrorism.”
“The idea of ‘Tesla Town Halls’ was one of several suggestions we offered as part of our early February congressional recess guidance — alongside more traditional options … ” Dohl said. As The New York Post reported, Indivisible also backed the “Musk or Us” protest during Congress’s March recess, encouraging the use of messages such as “Fire Elon Musk” and “GTFO Musk.”
Another main group behind the anti-Musk town hall protests was MoveOn, as The Washington Free Beacon reported. MoveOn is listed among the “partners” of the Hands Off protests.
Despite the burning Tesla graphic, Indivisible included a disclaimer in its document about a “commitment to nonviolent action.” The group recommended protesting “during business hours when foot traffic is high,” and focusing on “Tesla showrooms, factories, and dealerships.”
“Indivisible was not the central organizer of the Tesla day of action. … Some local groups chose to participate and did so peacefully,” Dohl said to The Federalist.
In the protest guidance document, Indivisible told anti-Tesla demonstrators to register their event with Mobilize America — the same group used to organize Tesla Takedown and Hands Off demonstrations. Dohl called Mobilize a “widely used events platform.”
“Like many other organizations, we use it to share volunteer opportunities and amplify partner events,” Dohl said. “There’s nothing unusual about that — it’s just a tool.”
Plotting May Day Protests
The Hands Off website hosts a link to the May Day National Day of Action. “This is a war on working people — and we will not stand down,” the May Day webpage reads. Itlinks to a “May 1st National Day of Action Host Toolkit,” featuring the popular Marxist iconography of the raised fist. The guide provides demonstrators with things like “sample social media posts,” a “sample email,” and even a “sample message frame” to “[a]lign your message with the broader movement,” even providing specific wording.
The guide tells organizers to register their event with Mobilize America to enable radical activists to “push out your event and help recruit attendees.” The document gives “[f]ull credit to Hands Off and Indivisible for sharing a sample toolkit we are building from.”
Dohl told The Federalist her group “isn’t involved in planning May Day actions directly, and our understanding is that plans are still coming together across the coalition.”
“[W]e expect to see mobilizations happening throughout the spring,” Dohl said.
The left-wing Action Network is also involved, hosting a map of the May Day events and description that declares, “We will not be intimidated by Trump, Musk, or their billionaire backers. … Their time is up. And May Day is just the beginning.” According to InfluenceWatch, Action Network “emerged during the Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011.” It also helped organize the anti-Keystone XL pipeline protests, the anti-gun March for Our Lives, and the anti-Trump Women’s March. Some Tesla Takedown “global day of action” organizers used Action Network to plot anti-Tesla demonstrations on March 29.
According to an online map, the May Day protests are planned for the coming weeks in major cities across the country.
Follow the Money
Indivisible was “founded by two left-wing activists” in 2016 to oppose the Trump agenda, according to InfluenceWatch. The infamous Tides Foundation, a leftist dark money giant that sponsored pro-Hamas protests on college campuses last spring, is a “funding partner” to Indivisible’s 501(c)(3) branch. LinkedIn co-founder and Democrat megadonor Reid Hoffman, who said he wished he had made Trump a “martyr” before last summer’s assassination attempt, has also contributed to Indivisible.
Mobilize America initially began as a Democrat PAC and received thousands from Democrat sources, according to InfluenceWatch. But Federal Election Commission filings listed the PAC as “terminated” in fiscal year 2019-2020. And, as Capital Research Center Investigative Researcher Parker Thayer pointed out, Mobilize’s privacy policy shows the group was listed as part of Bonterra LLC as of February 2023. Bonterra provides various left-wing volunteer and fundraising services.
The Federalist also contacted Hands Off and Mobilize, but they did not comment in time for publication.
Logan Washburn is a staff writer covering election integrity. He is a spring 2025 fellow of The College Fix. He graduated from Hillsdale College, served as Christopher Rufo’s editorial assistant, and has bylines in The Wall Street Journal, The Tennessean, and The Daily Caller. Logan is from Central Oregon but now lives in rural Michigan.
The unhinged left, fueled by Trump Derangement Syndrome and seething hatred for Elon Musk, is trending more violent, according to a new study that finds political violence targeting President Donald Trump and his billionaire adviser is “becoming increasingly normalized.” The report, produced by the Network of Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) in partnership with Rutgers University’s Social Perception Lab, finds a broader “assassination culture” appears to be “emerging within segments of the U.S. public on the extreme left, with expanding targets now including figures such as Donald Trump.”
Less than a year after assassination attempts on then-presidential candidate Trump and the literally explosive violence against Musk’s Tesla electric vehicles, it’s no secret that leftists are ratcheting up violent rhetoric and actions. The more troubling trend is that an “assassination culture” isn’t just coming from the “fringe” left.
“These attitudes are not fringe — they reflect an emergent assassination culture, grounded in far-left authoritarianism and increasingly normalized in digital discourse,” states the report, titled, “Assassination Culture: How Burning Teslas and Killing Billionaires Became a Meme Aesthetic for Political Violence.”
“The reports found widespread justification for lethal violence — including assassination — among younger, highly online, and ideologically left-aligned users,” the authors of the latest study write.
On Friday, a California man reportedly“angry with pharmacies” was arrested on charges of murdering a Walgreens employee just days after the Luigi Mangione Act was filed with the state. ABC 30 reported that Erick Velazquez, the victim, was not a pharmacist, and was a respected husband and father of two.
Source: NCRI data
NCRI accessed the violence zeitgeist with original survey data and open-source intelligence analysis to determine “how normalized and justified violence against the administration has become in public discourse.”
“The findings signal a threat to political stability and public safety,” the reports warns.
Here are some of the troubling numbers, according to the report:
Murder Justification: 31% and 38% of respondents stated it would be at least somewhat justified to murder Elon Musk and President Trump, respectively. (These effects were largely driven by respondents that self-identified as left of center, with 48% and 55% at least somewhat justifying murder for Elon Musk and President Trump, respectively, indicating significantly higher justification for violence against these figures.)
Property Destruction: Nearly 40% of respondents (39.8%) stated it is at least somewhat acceptable (or more) to destroy a Tesla dealership in protest.
Psychological/Ideological Correlations with Assassination Culture: These beliefs are highly correlated with one another, as well as with the justification of the murder of the UnitedHealthcare CEO and hyper-partisan left-wing ideology. (This suggests that support for violence is part of a broader assassination culture, underpinned by psychological and ideological factors.)
Interestingly, the report finds liberal social media platform BlueSky “plays a significant and predictive role in amplifying radical ideation.” BlueSky has seen its new user numbers surge since November’s election, according to the leftist publication The Guardian. Curiously, the “great X-odus” has been driven by liberals “seeking to escape Elon Musk’s X amid warnings from anti-hate speech campaign groups and the EU about misinformation and extremism on the platform,” The Guardian asserts.
NCRI also found that users are increasingly tying the “memification” of Mangione with calls for political violence against Trump, Musk and others, “reflecting the growing cyber-social presence of assassination culture.” Mangione supporters have been using a meme of the Luigi character from the Super Mario Brothers video game/movie franchise as a symbol of political violence. Some of the threats echo the “Deny, Defend, Depose” mantra inscribed by Mangione on the shell casing that killed Brian Thompson, according to the report.
Source: NCRI data
‘We Will Gut You’
In February, law enforcement officials charged 28-year-old David Allen June Cherry of southern Indiana with felony intimidation after police say he posted online multiple violent threats against Elon Musk, including that Cherry would “gut” the close adviser to President Donald Trump.
“You’ve broken the law. You’re on the hit list,” Cherry allegedly declared on the Musk-owned social media platform X, to a Musk post, according to an affidavit.“You’re robbing American people. We will gut you and parade your corpse in the streets,” the leftist allegedly menaced Musk a short time later.
Indiana State Police tracked Cherry at his job at Batteries Plus and arrested him, according to news accounts. Detectives reportedly seized an AR-15-style rifle, a handgun, ammunition and a ballistic vest at his Palmyra home, according to Fox7.
Cherry, who reportedly runs an online business selling anti-Musk merchandise — including an “anti-oligarch” patch with what appears to be an image of a raised-arm Musk in cross-hairs — told officials he merely wanted to make his posts “edgy” to spur social media reactions, and that he meant Musk no harm. He was released on $2,500 bond and faces the potential of six years in prison on the felony counts while he continues his hate campaign against the billionaire founder of Tesla and SpaceX. His trial is set for August, according to court records.
Southern Indiana man arrested after allegedly posting threats towards Elon Musk on X https://t.co/URy7n3vnxu
Cherry appears to be celebrating his alleged intimidation game on his Red Pawn Dynamics page.
“Let it be known that Red Pawn scared the richest man on the planet. What a giant p*ussy,” the webpage boasts.
His GoFundMe page has raised $4,500 of a $15,000 goal, supposedly for legal fees and to get his car out of impound. His supporters claim the First Amendment protects Cherry’s speech and that he is being persecuted because “his opinion was about a billionaire.”
‘Too Far Down the Deep End’
Musk reportedly has been the target of a growing number of threats over his leadership role in Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency and his pledge to trim $2 trillion a year from the bloated, wasteful and fraud-plagued federal budget. A Tennessee man reportedly upset with Trump and Musk was arrested on charges of assembling explosives to “burn down” Musk’s artificial intelligence data facility in Memphis. Ethan Paul Early, 25, told police that his friends talked him out of going through with the plan. He said had gotten too wrapped up in politics and had gone “too far down the deep end,” according to the affidavit, KBTX reported.
A recent Fox News analysis found that there have been more than 50 reported targeted attacks on Tesla EVs, dealerships and charging stations in the U.S., and at least 17 internationally.
“The incidents range from minor vandalism, such as keying or graffiti, to more extreme cases like arson and drive-by shootings allegedly targeting Tesla vehicles,” the news outlet reports.
Trump, who was shot and narrowly escaped being assassinated at a Pennsylvania campaign rally in July, is a constant target of threats from members of the unhinged left. On Friday, Jupiter, Florida, police arrested Glen DeCicco on charges of making written threats on his Facebook page a to kill Trump. “The Jupiter Police Department worked in coordination with the United States Secret Service throughout the investigation,” the press release states.
‘Real-World Escalation’
The NCRI report on the growing assassination culture notes support for such political violence on the right, but the prevalence is not nearly as large.
“This report points to disturbingly high levels of support for political violence, particularly targeting President Donald Trump and Elon Musk,” the authors write. “Across survey responses, nearly one-third of respondents—and a significantly higher share of left-leaning respondents—expressed some degree of justification for acts of lethal violence.”
While threats and acts of violence rise on the left, the silence from Democrats in power is deafening. But we’ve seen this movie before. Spoiler Alert: It doesn’t end well for a lot of innocent people. Attorney General Pam Bondi has rightly called the spate of attacks against Tesla “nothing short of domestic terrorism,” because that’s what it is. Just like the myriad acts of domestic terrorism by the left during the Black Lives Matter riots at the end of Trump’s first term.
“For the last five years, the violent left has run rampant with few consequences for the chaos it has sown,” Karol Markowicz recently wrote in the New York Post.
The NCRI report includes a stark warning.
“Unless political and cultural leadership explicitly confronts and condemns this trend, NCRI assesses a growing probability of real-world escalation,” the report concludes. “Given the current economic volatility and institutional distrust, the online normalization of political violence may increasingly translate into offline action.”
Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.
Below is my column in The Hill on the President stating that he is not joking about pursuing a third term. The statement lit up the media. However, it works better as a jump scare for liberals than a credible claim for the courts.
Here is the column:
The late Justice Antonin Scalia famously said that Congress does not “hide elephants in mouseholes.” His point was that courts are skeptical of using minor provisions in a statute to achieve sweeping new legal changes.
The challenge of stuffing an elephant into a mousehole came to mind this week after President Donald Trump said that he is “not joking” about considering a third term and that experts told him it is possible under the Constitution.
One often has to take such moments with a heavy dose of skepticism from a president who clearly relished handing snake-in-a-can soundbites to the media just to watch the resulting screams. If so, he was not disappointed. The media went into renewed vapors as commentators pronounced, yet again, the death of democracy.
However, given the president’s statement, it is important to be clear about the basis for this theory, which has long been something of a parlor game for law professors on how a president might be able to circumvent the two-term limitation imposed by the 22nd Amendment.
Let’s start with the language. Ratified in 1951, the amendment was passed ironically by Republicans who were reacting to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s decision to break from the tradition of two-term presidencies by seeking a third term. The intent was clear. They believed that serving more than two terms exposed the country to the danger of a politician occupying the office for life or prolonged periods. To prevent that, the amendment states:
“No person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice, and no person who has held the office of president, or acted as president, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected president shall be elected to the office of the president more than once.”
Notably, the language includes those who were not necessarily elected to the office but “held” the office for more than two years (presumably through succession to the office due to a vacancy).
Few seriously doubt the intent of the amendment to prevent any person serving a third term to force a change of leadership in the nation. That is when the mousehole comes in. The amendment refers to a person being “elected.” Thus, some advocates claim that the amendment does not prevent a president from “serving” a third term — only being “elected” to such a term.
This strained interpretation would mean that the drafters were solely aggrieved by the thought of someone running for the office and not serving in the office. There is no compelling historical support for that interpretation.
Under this interpretation, a two-term president could engineer a third term by running for vice president and having the elected president then resign after the inauguration. The problem with this tactic is another amendment. The 12th amendment states that “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.”
Trump could not run for vice president because he is ineligible to be president. Accordingly, he would likely be barred from many state ballots from running for vice president.
Yet, there is an even smaller mousehole. Trump could have two people run for president and vice president as stand-in officeholders while he could engineer his election as Speaker of the House of Representatives. After the election, they could both resign, and Trump would be third in the line of succession. Putting aside the considerable level of faith in both the president and vice president resigning, the maneuver would make a mockery of the constitutional design behind the amendments.
It would also make leading Republican candidate’s mockeries as types of “mini-mes” for Trump. Even the debate of such a maneuver before the election would demean figures like Vice President J.D. Vance as mere cutouts in a Constitutional sleight-of-hand.
The fueling of this talk also works in favor of those politicians and commentators who continue to claim that Trump is an autocrat committed to the destruction of the American democracy. It suggests that Trump is open to trashing constitutional traditions or language to achieve prolonged power. In fairness to those advocating this theory, this is not an assault on democracy or a call for tyranny. It is an effort to use clever interpretations of the Constitution to allow for a third term. Voters would be aware of this maneuver when going to the polls (which is doubtful), and courts would have to uphold the interpretation (which is even more doubtful).
In the end, the powder is not worth the prize in raising this prospect. President Trump has carried off the political comeback of the century. His administration is set to make history with sweeping changes that continue to garner considerable support among the public. This claim will only undermine that legacy, and the support needed to achieve it.
Jonathan Turley is a Fox News Media contributor and the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage” (Simon & Schuster, June 18, 2024).
Think about the three people who affected you the most growing up. For a lot of us, I’d bet at least one is a teacher or coach. It speaks to the influence and importance schools can have on our lives and education. Teachers are difference makers who help us, as parents, educate and develop our kids. But just as we don’t need Washington to tell parents how to parent, we don’t need federal bureaucrats telling our schools how to teach. Many classroom decisions are best left up to our leaders at the local level.
Last week, the Trump administration, under the leadership of Education Secretary Linda McMahon, announced it is following through with a campaign promise to rethink the size and scope of the Department of Education. I think it’s beyond time to return those powers and decisions to the states and restore local control, giving families more freedom.
Since the Department of Education was formed as a standalone department in 1980, we’ve seen its budget and workforce bloat — but we haven’t seen improved outcomes for students, parents, or teachers. We clearly aren’t getting what we’re paying for.
For a decade, I served on the Board of Regents for the University of Nebraska system, getting into the weeds of education policy and decision making for our state. One of the philosophies I brought with me from that experience into the governor’s office is that we need more accountability in government.
Just like a teen staring at a phone screen, too often the U.S. Department of Education’s bureaucracy has been distracted from its mission, and American education has suffered for it. We can’t predict the future, but we have to change something. Our kids’ education is too important for us to keep pursuing mediocre results that cost us billions.
For starters, American taxpayers shouldn’t be funding controversial culture wars through our schools. We should expect that our investment will be spent on teaching kids the essentials: math, reading, science, and civics.
There is a simpler, better path forward. By sending education back to states, we let those nearest to the student have the biggest influence. This is a pro-kid, pro-parent, pro-teacher, pro-school position. No matter the style of schooling families choose — public, private, homeschool, or hybrid — our lessons should be focused on helping our youth succeed, and you don’t need federal government mandates to do that.
In Nebraska, I know the type of people who serve in our schools. Our teachers devote their lives to our kids. We’re human, and we’re not going to get things right 100 percent of the time, but I’m confident in our ability to lead and ensure we’re addressing the needs of our students, teachers, and schools.
Because technology and research constantly change the way we learn, educators must be able to move fast in the classroom in ways some faraway cubicle worker in Washington can’t. Teachers and administrators are closer to the action and better prepared for this type of work.
In my state, we’re leading by making localized decisions: We’re rethinking how we invest and fund K-12 schools, raising awareness and doubling down on special education opportunities, and working with students and schools to ban the distraction of cell phones bell-to-bell.
Secretary McMahon’s stated goal is to make the state of education in America “freer, stronger, and with more hope for the future.” That’s a mission all of us should be able to get behind because there’s no politics in it.
Let’s focus more on how to help the teacher in the classroom who is giving our kids this week’s spelling test. Let’s figure out ways to better support dynamic, inspiring lessons. Let’s support the guidance counselor who is helping our students navigate adolescence while they make big, life-long decisions.
Let’s let our country’s kids — and education — reach the world-changing potential they have. That should be the American tradition. The Department of Education just needs to get out of the way.
President Trump was elected with a mandate — a mandate to rethink the core assumptions of Washington, D.C., that have led this country to disaster after disaster. A mandate to put America first instead of last. To fulfill his mandate, the president needs to be able to make the appointments of his choosing without being sabotaged by the members of his own party that he carried to victory in November.
Yet right now, a fight has broken out over the nomination of Elbridge Colby to be undersecretary of defense for policy, the top strategy official at the Pentagon. Make no mistake: This is a make-or-break moment for whether Donald Trump’s America First foreign policy will succeed — or even happen. Colby is being attacked precisely because his opponents recognize he is the most effective and able person to put Trump’s America First approach into effect. He must be confirmed and empowered.
Who is Colby? Colby has an establishment background. But don’t be fooled: He has been arguing against the disastrous Bush-Cheney foreign policy regime since he was in college. Colby instead embraces a foreign policy of genuine peace through strength, one that avoids wars while protecting our authentic interests, gets our allies to do their part, and focuses on the top threats to Americans rather than irrelevant distractions.
Look back over Colby’s written record, and you will see that he was arguing for Trump’s America First approach long before it was popular — in fact, before Trump himself even arrived on the political scene. Colby paid the price for his advocacy, repeatedly losing out on high-powered jobs he could have easily received if he’d been willing to play along with the D.C. consensus.
Colby served Trump loyally and ably at the Pentagon during his first term, producing the landmark defense strategy shift that refocused the Defense Department on China, a central Trump goal. As great America First conservatives like Tucker Carlson and Jim Banks point out, Colby’s acclaimed book The Strategy of Denial is a guidebook for how to put an America First foreign policy into practice. Indeed, a Politico profile of him in 2023 was literally titled, “Elbridge Colby Wants to Finish What Donald Trump Started.” Even when almost every other foreign policy expert lambasted President Trump, Colby never did, enthusiastically and publicly supporting Trump in his historic 2024 campaign.
So why is Colby being attacked? The fact is, despite what they say in public, many Republican politicians want to frustrate President Trump’s attempt to change American foreign policy. They want to revive the disastrous foreign policy of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Mitch McConnell. These America Last Republicans think they can manipulate President Trump and his top officials the same way they tried to do in his first term.
They don’t even deny it. For instance, one anonymous senator recently said: “I think Tulsi Gabbard is flawed, but [is] she going to be harmful? No, because I think that there are going to [be] enough strong intelligence people around her.” GOP senators openly plan to tout Trump’s goals in public, then sabotage them in private. That same anonymous senator also said: “When it comes to those nominees below the Cabinet who may be less on people’s radar, who will be able to facilitate things, that’s where I think it can be dangerous.”
And that’s precisely why they see Colby as such a threat. He is so effective, so knowledgeable, and so genuine in his conviction for an America First foreign policy that he cannot be manipulated or controlled. Colby will actually do what the American people have given President Trump a clear mandate to do, and for that reason, the D.C. blob must stop him.
Colby’s nomination is a fork in the road not just for President Trump and his administration but for the country. If Colby is scalped by the secret cabal of bitter-ender neoconservatives, it will cut the legs out from under President Trump’s America First foreign policy, and it will chill any other nominees who follow in Colby’s wake.
People are watching to see whether President Trump’s administration will deliver real change, putting Americans first and ending the endless wars. If committed and loyal stalwarts like Colby are allowed to be taken down by those who want to return to the era of Dick Cheney, then it would be a disaster for the country — and supporters of the president will remember who was responsible.
Charlie Kirk is the founder and CEO of Turning Point USA, and host of The Charlie Kirk Show, a nationally syndicated radio show and one of the most listened to conservative podcasts in the country.
Jordan’s King Abdullah II on Tuesday told President Donald Trump that his country would take in approximately 2,000 sick children from the war-torn Gaza Strip as Trump pushed his plan to take over the territory while permanently relocating Palestinians.
Speaking at the White House, Abdullah added that Egypt would present a proposal on how countries in the region could “work” with Trump on the plan, despite Arab nations and the Palestinians having rejected it outright.
“I think one of the things that we can do right away is take 2,000 children, cancer children who are in a very ill state, that is possible,” Abdullah said as Trump welcomed him and Crown Prince Hussein in the Oval Office.
Trump called it a “beautiful gesture” and said he didn’t know about it before the Jordanian monarch’s arrival at the White House.
Trump meanwhile backed down on a suggestion that he could withhold aid for Jordan and Egypt if they refused to take in more than two million Palestinians from Gaza.
“I think we’ll do something,” he said. “I don’t have to threaten that, I do believe we’re above that.”
Trump announced last week a proposal for the U.S. to “take over” Gaza, envisioning rebuilding the devastated territory into the “Riviera of the Middle East” – but only after resettling Palestinians elsewhere, with no plan for them to return.
Jordan’s Abdullah was repeatedly pressed by reporters on whether he supported the plan, but said only that Egypt was producing a response and that Arab nations would then discuss it at talks in Riyadh.
“The president is looking at Egypt coming to present that plan … (then) we will be in Saudi Arabia to discuss how we should work with the president and with the United States,” Abdullah said.
“The point is, how do we make this work in a way that is good for everybody.”
The meeting came as the Gaza ceasefire appears increasingly fragile, after Trump warned on Monday that “all hell” would break out if Hamas fails to release all hostages by Saturday.
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday said Israel would resume “intense fighting” in Gaza if Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists did not meet the deadline. Trump said he doubted that Hamas would abide by the ultimatum.
“I don’t think they’re going to make the deadline personally. I think they want to play a tough guy, but we’ll see how tough they are,” Trump said.
But he played down the risk of a longer threat to efforts to create a lasting peace between Israel and Hamas.
“It’s not going to take a long time when you know bullies,” he added, referring to Hamas.
The Jordanian king and crown prince earlier met Trump’s National Security Advisor Mike Waltz.
Senators are looking for excuses over reasons to refuse President Donald Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard — a combat veteran who previously served as a Democrat congresswoman from Hawaii and now faces character assassination.
Gabbard, who is meeting with lawmakers on Capitol Hill Thursday afternoon, committed two crimes that now threaten to derail her confirmation: leaving the Democrat party and campaigning against the interventionist impulses of the deep state war machine.
After Democrats fought to delay her way forward, Semafor reported Wednesday that Gabbard’s nomination was “on shaky ground” within the GOP. According to the outlet, Republicans are “particularly hesitant” about previous statements from Gabbard “that some have read as too warm toward Vladimir Putin and former Syrian regime leader Bashar al-Assad.” The piece goes on to note that Gabbard met with Assad in 2017 and highlights her criticism of “some intelligence-gathering tools” — such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) used to execute the Russia hoax.
One anonymous GOP Senator told Semafor that “[t]here are very serious concerns by enough members to put her nomination in jeopardy.” Another anonymous GOP senator told the outlet that Gabbard still “has a lot of questions to answer.”
Apparently, both senators have some research to do. If meeting with Assad is disqualifying, then why did the Senate confirm 94 to 3 to confirm Secretary of State John Kerry in 2013? Kerry met with the Syrian president while serving as a senator from Massachusetts in 2006. Were either of the anonymous senators who are now apparently critical of Gabbard’s meeting in office 12 years ago? Did they vote to confirm Kerry as the nation’s chief diplomat? If they were previously in the House, did either complain when then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi met with Assad over President George W. Bush’s objections a year later?
Or is Gabbard’s meeting now suddenly a problem because, under President Trump, engaging with overseas adversaries is an effective strategy to keep the peace, and neocons in Congress are allergic to world peace?
Lest lawmakers truly believe Gabbard is a champion for the since-dismantled Assad regime, any honest examination of her past comments suggests otherwise. In 2019, Gabbard was asked in an NBC interview whether she believed the ex-Syrian dictator was a “good person.”
“No, I don’t,” she said.
But the story in Politico on Gabbard’s comments at the time focused on her refusal to explicitly condemn Assad as a “U.S. adversary.”
“My point is that whether it is Syria or any of these other countries, we need to look at how their interests are counter to or aligned with ours,” she said.
How radical that a member of Congress might offer a sobering analysis of the realities in the Middle East. When Assad’s regime finally did fall in December, the rebel coalition to take over was essentially run by ISIS and al-Qaida, two groups whose interests generally run counter to the nation they repeatedly want to bomb. Acknowledging there are no good guys in a fight doesn’t make someone an ally to one or the other.
Gabbard predicted what would ultimately happen in Syria during an interview with CNN nearly a decade ago. She noted how the Syrians she met with during her 2017 visit acknowledged that “[t]here [were] no moderate rebels” attempting to overthrow Assad.
“The Syrian people recognize, and they know that if President Assad is overthrown, then Al-Qaida or a group like Al-Qaida … will take charge of all of Syria,” she said.
If anything, Americans should feel safer with a director of national intelligence who can accurately foresee what might happen in global affairs.
Semafor cited “two people close to the White House” reportedly “still behind” Gabbard. According to the outlet, one of these sources said the “concerns” about Gabbard are “not people trying to put a knife in Tulsi,” but that “there’s a problem, and nobody can figure it out.”
What these anonymous senators and other opposition are obviously trying to figure out is how to sink Gabbard’s nomination before her scheduled hearing on Jan. 30.
Gabbard, a nearly two-decade veteran, a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, and a long-time critic of America’s forever wars is no rookie competing against deep state smear campaigns. Last year, the former Democrat congresswoman was the subject of surveillance under a counterterrorism program within the U.S. Federal Air Marshals Service (FAMS). Gabbard came under surveillance just “one day after she criticized the Biden Administration” on Fox News, according to a letter from the whistleblower watchdog group Empower Oversight.
Now the victim of deep state abuses may be given the keys to oversee the deep state in what would be the worst nightmare for Gabbard’s neocon opponents.
Tristan Justice is a national correspondent for The Federalist and the co-author of “Fat and Unhappy: How ‘Body Positivity’ Is Killing Us (and How to Save Yourself).” He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here. Buy “Fat and Unhappy” here.
President Donald Trump’s pick for Secretary of State Sen. Marco Rubio doubled down on his commitment to the America First foreign policy agenda during his confirmation hearing on Wednesday, despite a corporate media effort to cause a rift between him and the incoming president.
Politico published a piece one day before the hearing attempting to kiss Rubio’s role as Secretary of State goodbye before it even begins. In the gossip column masquerading as an article, Politico’s Senior Foreign Affairs Correspondent Nahal Toosi uses the alleged analysis of a dozen unnamed “current and former U.S. and foreign officials” to claim that Rubio won’t last as Trump’s Secretary of State because “the odds are high that the two will differ on policy.” Toosi also invokes Trump and Rubio’s history as presidential primary rivals in 2016 as a potential problem for the pair’s ability to strategize effectively.
The only way Rubio will survive leading the State Department, the author insists, “may be to take the punches from his internal rivals, suffer through whatever insults Trump lobs at him, stick to the lanes that are open, and simply let the State Department fade into irrelevance.”
While it’s true that Rubio and Trump ran against each other and that the former used to take more of an interventionist and neocon approach to foreign policy than he does now, a lot has changed politically and globally in the last decade. The ongoing transformation of the Republican party from an arm of the establishment to a party of and for the people, paired with the rapid rise of China’s hegemony, has pushed Trump and Rubio’s visions for the globe much closer together than they were nearly 10 years ago. Both care deeply about projecting U.S. strength to the world while keeping American tax dollars from funding endless wars.
Rubio spokesman Dan Holler told Politico that Rubio is far more focused on executing Trump’s “ambitious foreign policy agenda that will put Americans first and correct the failures of the past four years” than devoting time to corporate media’s “silly games or gossip.” Rubio confirmed to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday that his new job will center on putting America first.
“Under President Trump, the top priority of the United States Department of State will be the United States,” Rubio said in his opening statement. “The direction he has given for the conduct of our foreign policy is clear. Every dollar we spend, every program we fund, every policy we pursue, must be justified by the answer to one of three questions: Does it make America safer? Does it make America stronger? Or does it make America more prosperous?”
MARCO RUBIO: Under President Trump, the top priority of the United States Department of State will be the United States. The direction he has given for the conduct of our foreign policy is clear. Every dollar we spend, every program we fund, every policy we pursue, must be… pic.twitter.com/fPayLozf88
On Rubio’s agenda is executing Trump’s vision to curb China’s global influence, end the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas wars, and address the vast problems exacerbating the U.S. border invasion.
“In our very own hemisphere, narcoterrorists and dictators, and despots take advantage of open borders to drive mass migration, to traffic in women and children, and to flood our communities with deadly fentanyl and violent criminals,” Rubio said.
The biggest foreign threat facing the U.S. today, he told senators, is the Communist Party of China, “the most potent and dangerous, near-peer adversary this nation has ever confronted.”
“We welcomed the Chinese Communist Party into the global order, and they took advantage of all of its benefits. And they ignored all of its obligations and responsibilities. Instead, they have repressed, and lied, and cheated, and hacked, and stolen their way into global superpower status. And they have done so at our expense and at the expense of the people of their own country,” Rubio said.
RUBIO: "We welcomed the Chinese Communist Party into the global order and they took advantage of all of its benefits…
Instead they have repressed, and lied, and cheated, and hacked, and stolen their way into global superpower status." pic.twitter.com/TvGkoUvJuW
When it comes to Eastern Europe, Rubio says he echoes Trump’s desire for “people to stop dying” and for the U.S. to stop funding a conflict with no end in sight — especially when its own border is compromised.
“I think it should be the official position of the United States that this war should be brought to an end,” Rubio said. “My differences with the Biden administration throughout this process, is that they never clearly delineated what the end goal of the conflict was — what exactly were we funding? What exactly were we putting money towards? On many occasions, it sounded like however much it takes, for however long it takes — that is not a realistic or prudent position.”
Marco Rubio's answer on Ukraine is pitch perfect. First, he makes clear that America's border security MUST come first, before any funding goes to far-off battlefields. Second, he affirms President Trump's demand that the "killing must stop" and calls for an end to the war and an… pic.twitter.com/WjxhDN8uBh
Rubio’s public commitment to following through on Trump’s promises to secure the homeland and restabilize the globe suggests that, if he is confirmed, productivity is the priority, not pretend personal strife.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on X @jordanboydtx.
During his Tuesday Senate confirmation hearing, Pete Hegseth provided his best case yet on why he’s the perfect man to be President-elect Donald Trump’s defense secretary.
Speaking before the Armed Services Committee, the Army veteran noted how the “the primary charge” given to him by Trump was to “bring the warrior culture back to the Department of Defense.” He subsequently detailed how he intends to make the Pentagon into an agency “laser focused on warfighting, lethality, meritocracy, standards, and readiness.”
“The Defense Department under Donald Trump will achieve Peace Through Strength. And in pursuing these America First national security goals, we will remain patriotically a-political and stridently Constitutional,” Hegseth said. “Unlike the current administration, politics should play no part in military matters. We are not Republicans or Democrats — we are American warriors. Our standards will be high, and they will be equal (not equitable, that is a very different word).”
Since coming to power nearly four years ago, the Biden-Harris Pentagon has made implementing neo-Marxist ideologies such as “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) a top priority. These policies have undermined military readiness and contributed to the service’s ongoing recruiting crisis.
Hegseth stressed that the Defense Department must “make sure every warrior is fully qualified on their assigned weapon system, every pilot is fully qualified and current on the aircraft they are flying, and every general or flag officer is selected for leadership based purely on performance, readiness, and merit.” He further noted how, “Leaders — at all levels — will be held accountable,” and that “warfighting and lethality — and the readiness of the troops and their families — will be our only focus.”
“That has been my focus ever since I first put on the uniform as a young Army ROTC cadet at Princeton University in 2001,” Hegseth said. “I joined the military because I love my country and felt an obligation to defend it. I served with incredible Americans in Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, Afghanistan and in the streets of Washington, DC — many of which are here today. This includes enlisted soldiers I helped become American citizens, and Muslim allies I helped immigrate from Iraq and Afghanistan. And when I took off the uniform, my mission never stopped.”
The former Fox News host described the three-prong approach he and Trump will take to restore lethality and efficiency to the military. Specifically, he noted that the incoming administration will focus on bringing back the military’s “warrior ethos,” rebuilding the service’s broken infrastructure, and reestablishing “deterrence” to create peace on the world stage.
Hegseth also responded to Democrat allegations that he’s not “qualified” to serve as defense secretary. The Army veteran acknowledged that he doesn’t “have a similar biography to defense secretaries of the last 30 years,” but noted, “we’ve repeatedly placed people atop the Pentagon with supposedly ‘the right credentials’ — whether they are retired generals, academics, or defense contractor executives — and where has it gotten us?”
President-elect Trump “believes, and I humbly agree, that it’s time to give someone with dust on his boots the helm. A change agent. Someone with no vested interest in certain companies or specific programs or approved narratives,” Hegseth said.
The Army veteran reaffirmed that his “only special interest is [America’s] warfighter[s], [d]eterring wars, and if called upon, winning wars — by ensuring our warriors never enter a fair fight.” He further emphasized the importance of the military letting its troops “win” and then “bring[ing] them home.”
“Like many of my generation, I’ve been there. I’ve led troops in combat, been on patrol for days, pulled a trigger downrange, heard bullets whiz by, flex-cuffed insurgents, called in close air support, led medevacs, dodged IEDs, pulled out dead bodies, and knelt before a battlefield cross,” Hegseth said. “[T]his is not academic for me; this is my life. I led then, and I will lead now.”
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
Below is my column in the New York Post on the statement by Acting Justice Juan Merchan in the sentencing of President-elect Donald Trump. Merchan’s effort to justify the handing of the case sounded like the second defense argument made in the hearing. It likely changed few minds in the court of public opinion.
Here is the column:
This week, the sentencing of President-Elect Donald Trump saw one of the most impassioned defense arguments given at such a hearing in years . . . from the judge himself. Acting Justice Juan Merchan admitted that the case was “unique and remarkable” but insisted that “once the courtroom doors were closed, the trial itself was no more special, unique, and extraordinary than the other 32 cases in this courthouse.”
If so, that is a chilling indictment of the entire New York court system. Merchan allowed a dead misdemeanor to be resuscitated by allowing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to effectively prosecute declined federal offenses. He allowed a jury to convict Trump without any agreement, let alone unanimity, on what actually occurred in the case. Merchan ruled that the jury did not have to agree on why Trump committed an alleged offense in describing settlement costs as legal costs. Neither the defendant nor the public will ever know what the jury ultimately found in its verdict.
I once described this case as a legal Frankenstein: “It is the ultimate gravedigger charge, where Bragg unearthed a case from 2016 and, through a series of novel steps, is seeking to bring it back to life…Bragg is combining parts from both state and federal codes.”
Even liberal legal experts have denounced the case and Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) recently called it total “b—s–t.”
Now, Merchan seemed to assure this Frankenstein case that he was just like any other creature of the court. It did not matter that he was stitched together from dead cases and zapped into life through lawfare.
Merchan knows that there is a fair chance this monstrosity will finally die on appeal, and he was making the case for his own conduct. The verdict, however, is likely to last far longer than the Trump verdict. It is a judgment against not just Merchan but the New York legal system, which allowed itself to be weaponized against political opponents.
In the Mary Shelley novel, Frankenstein says “I am thy creature: I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel.”
Trump can now appeal the case as a whole. Prior appeals in the New York court system were unsuccessful, and hopes are low that the system will redeem itself. However, Trump can eventually escape the vortex of the New York court system in search of jurists willing to see beyond the rage and bring reason to this case.
Notably, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass cited Chief Justice John Roberts in his argument before Merchan, noting that Roberts recently chastised those who attack the courts. (Roberts just the night before joined liberal justices and Justice Amy Coney Barrett in refusing to stay the sentencing). Steinglass portrayed Trump as an existential threat to the rule of law.
Roberts, however, is everything that Merchan is not. You can disagree with him, but he has repeatedly ruled against his own preferred outcomes in cases, including rulings against President Trump and his campaign and Administration. For his part, Trump declined to criticize the court and declared that “This is a long way from finished and I respect the court’s opinion.”
Indeed it is. Merchan’s monster will now go on the road and work its way back to the Supreme Court. Outside of New York this freak attraction will likely be viewed as less thrilling than chilling.
The election had the feel of the townspeople coming to the castle in the movie. In this case, however, the townspeople were right about what they saw in the making of a creature that threatened their very existence. Lawfare is that monster. It threatens us all, even those who hate Trump and his supporters. Once released, it spreads panic among the public which can no longer rely on the guarantees of blind and fair justice. That includes businesses who view this case and the equally absurd civil case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James as creating a dangerous and even lawless environment. Many are saying “but for the grace of God go I” in a system that allows for selective prosecution.
In the sentencing proceeding, Merchan was downplaying his hand in creating this Frankenstein. However, the case is the fallen angel of the legal system. While heralded in court by Bragg’s office as the triumph of legal process, it is in fact the rawest and most grotesque form of lawfare. Many will be blamed as the creators of this monster but few will escape that blame, including Merchan himself.
The audio tape of President-elect Trump’s New York City sentencing hearing was released to the public on Friday, giving insight into the unprecedented conviction against a former president where Trump was ultimately sentenced to an unconditional discharge.
“This has been a very terrible experience,” Trump, who virtually attended the criminal trial sentencing hearing, told the New York City courtroom on Friday morning. “I think it’s been a tremendous setback for New York and the New York court system.”
“This is a case that Alvin Bragg did not want to bring. He thought it was, from what I read and from what I hear, inappropriately handled before he got there. And a gentleman from a law firm came in and acted as a district attorney,” the president-elect continued. “And that gentleman, from what I heard, was a criminal or almost criminal in what he did. It was very inappropriate. It was somebody involved with my political opponent.”
“I think it’s an embarrassment to New York and New York has a lot of problems, but this is a great embarrassment,” he added.
At one point, Trump, appearing virtually, leaned forward, looking at Judge Juan Merchan, and referenced the November election, suggesting that it represented a repudiation of this case.
“It’s been a political witch hunt,” Trump explained. “It was done to damage my reputation so that I’d lose the election. And obviously, that didn’t work. And the people of our country got to see this firsthand because they watched the case in your courtroom. They got to see this firsthand. And then they voted, and I won.”
Assistant District Attorney Josh Steinglass stated that there was “overwhelming evidence to support the jury’s verdict” and was critical of Trump, claiming the president-elect “has caused enduring damage to public perception of the criminal justice system and has placed officers of the court in harm’s way”with the comments he publicly made during the trial.
“I very, very much disagree with much of what the government just said about this case, about the legitimacy of what happened in this courtroom during the trial and about President Trump’s conduct fighting this case from before it was indicted, while it was indicted, to the jury’s verdict, and even to this day,” Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche said in response to the prosecution.
Former President Trump appears in court for arraignment before Judge Juan Merchan following his surrender to New York authorities at the New York County Criminal Court in April 2024. (Seth Wenig-Pool Photo via USA TODAY)
During the hearing, Merchan defended the actions he took along the way.
“The imposition of sentence is one of the most difficult decisions that any criminal court judge is called to make,” Merchan said, noting the court “must consider the facts of the case along with any aggravating or mitigating circumstances.”
Merchan reflected on the case, saying that “never before has this court been presented with such a unique set of circumstances.” The judge said it was an “extraordinary case” with media interest and heightened security but said that once the courtroom doors were closed, the trial itself “was not any more unique or extraordinary” than any other case.
Merchan acknowledged that Trump is afforded significant legal protections but argued that “one power they do not provide is the power to erase a jury verdict.”
“Sir, I wish you Godspeed as you assume the second term in office,” Merchan said at the close of the hearing.
In this courtroom sketch, Justice Juan Merchan instructs the jury at Manhattan state court in New York City on May 29, 2024, before deliberations during former President Trump’s criminal trial over charges that he falsified business records to conceal money paid to silence porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016. (Reuters/Jane Rosenberg)
Merchan’s unconditional discharge sentence means there is no punishment imposed: no jail time, fines or probation. The sentence also preserves Trump’s ability to appeal the conviction.
“After careful analysis, this court determined that the only lawful sentence that permits entry of judgment of conviction is an unconditional discharge,” Merchan said Friday. “At this time, I impose that sentence to cover all 34 counts.”
Trump’s team said in court that they will appeal the conviction, and he will be sworn in as the 47th president of the United States on Jan. 20.
Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
Andrew Mark Miller is a reporter at Fox News. Find him on Twitter @andymarkmiller and email tips to AndrewMark.Miller@Fox.com.
President-elect Trump on Monday reiterated his suggestion that Canada should become the 51st U.S. state, just hours after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his plan to resign.
“Many people in Canada LOVE being the 51st State. The United States can no longer suffer the massive Trade Deficits and Subsidies that Canada needs to stay afloat. Justin Trudeau knew this, and resigned,”Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“If Canada merged with the U.S., there would be no Tariffs, taxes would go way down, and they would be TOTALLY SECURE from the threat of the Russian and Chinese Ships that are constantly surrounding them. Together, what a great Nation it would be!!!” he added.
Sources told Fox News in December that Trump brought up the merger idea to Trudeau in person when the pair met at Mar-a-Lago in late November.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with President-elect Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Florida in late November to discuss topics like the economy, illegal immigration and a proposed 25% tariff. (Justin Trudeau X)
Trudeau jetted to Trump’s Florida residence unannounced that month after the president-elect threatened to impose sweeping tariffs on Canadian products. Trump is warning of 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico over failures by both nations to curb the flow of illegal immigrants and illicit drugs from those countries into the U.S.
“We discussed many important topics that will require both countries to work together to address, like the fentanyl and drug crisis that has decimated so many lives as a result of illegal immigration, fair trade deals that do not jeopardize American workers and the massive trade deficit the U.S. has with Canada,” Trump wrote on Truth Social at the time.
Trudeau announced earlier this morning that he will resign as prime minister and as the leader of Canada’s Liberal Party.
Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks with media outside Rideau Cottage on Monday, Jan. 6, in Ottawa. (AP/Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)
“I intend to resign as party leader, as Prime Minister, after the party selects its next leader through a robust nationwide competitive process,” Trudeau said in a Monday morning address. “Last night, I asked the president of the Liberal Party to begin that process. This country deserves a real choice in the next election, and it has become clear to me that if I’m having to fight internal battles, I cannot be the best option in that election.”
Trudeau, who has led Canada for nearly a decade, has been grappling for months with significant drops in his approval ratings over mounting frustration relating to issues like the soaring cost of living and rising inflation.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump delivers remarks during a campaign rally at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre on Oct. 15, 2024 in Atlanta, Georgia. Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on Canada. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
The long-time prime minister saw an increase in calls for his resignation — from at least seven Liberal Members of Parliament as well as opposition party leaders — following the abrupt departure of his finance minister, Chrystia Freeland, who wrote a scathing letter of resignation mentioning Trudeau’s handling of certain economic policies as well as the threats levied by Trump.
Fox News’ Michael Dorgan, Caitlin McFall and Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.
They say the U.S. presidency is the loneliest job in the world. Maybe the second-loneliest gig is that of Cabinet secretary in President Joe Biden’s administration.
A piece published Thursday in the Wall Street Journal pulls from dozens of sources who say Biden’s inner circle of trusted aides increasingly kept contact with the president at a minimum, including the people he should have depended on most to consult and advise for the good of the nation.
The president who has spent a good chunk of his term out of the office apparently was not all that keen on meetings with his Cabinet secretaries. In fact, Biden may have met more often with his criminal son’s sketchy clients than he has with his administration’s top managers.
‘Hide the President’s True Condition’
Joe Biden was such a political liability that his handlers hid him away during the 2020 presidential campaign. The man campaigned from his Delaware basement through the brunt of the election year. The cloistered strategy wasn’t as much about protecting the feeble geezer from Covid as it was designed to prevent American voters from seeing what a physical and mental mess Biden really was.
Even the Pravda Press, which was openly rooting for — and covering for — the Democrat gaffe machine, was forced to report on Biden’s bunker campaign.
“Over the past six weeks, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has been running his campaign from his Delaware basement,” CBS News reported in April of 2020, showcasing a fluff piece from The New York Times about how team Biden was attempting to “keep his campaign relevant during the pandemic.”
The occasional programmed Zoom calls notwithstanding, keeping Biden “relevant” (or electable), meant keeping him hidden — literally underground.
That limited contact strategy has defined the octogenarian’s presidential tenure. Biden has held the fewest number of press conferences and media interviews of any president since Ronald Reagan’s first term, and it isn’t close, Axios reported in late June. The publication at the time noted that Biden was about to sit for a “rare interview with ABC News” … “amid growing concern about his age and acuity — and accusations that his inner circle has taken pains to hide the president’s true condition from public view.”
Quaintly, back then Axios and its corporate media bedfellows were still trying to convince Americans not to believe their lying eyes, that there were “two Bidens”: the 81-year-old who had recently froze up like so much freezer peas in his debate with former President Donald Trump, and the virile campaigning Joe.
‘Wouldn’t be Welcome’
It turns out, Biden wasn’t just hiding from voters. He was ducking his own Cabinet.
“Interactions between Biden and many of his cabinet members were relatively infrequent and often tightly scripted. At least one cabinet member stopped requesting calls with the president, because it was clear that such requests wouldn’t be welcome, a former senior cabinet aide said,” reports The Wall Street Journal in a piece headlined, “How the White House Functioned With a Diminished Biden in Charge.”
The story further noted that “cabinet members — including powerful secretaries such as Defense’s Lloyd Austin and Treasury’s Janet Yellen — were infrequent or grew less frequent. Some legislative leaders had a hard time getting the president’s ear at key moments, including ahead of the U.S.’s disastrous pullout from Afghanistan.”
To all the Dems freaking out about Elon "running the country," Biden is currently president and no one knows who's running the country.
Like other aging, cognitively diminished seniors, Biden had his “good days, and bad days,” one former aide told the publication. The president has routinely gotten a pass from fellow Democrats and corporate media on his memory lapses, mumbled and jumbled answers to questions, and outright lies. Remember, Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report detailing Biden’s possession and mishandling of classified documents recommended the president not be prosecuted because a jury might well see him as a “sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.”
Meeting with the ‘Big Guy’
But as The Federalist has reported, said “well-meaning elderly man” is alleged to have interacted with Hunter Biden’s suspect clients “countless times.” Devon Archer, the younger Biden’s former business associate, testified before a congressional committee last year that Hunter put his father, vice president at the time, on speakerphone nearly two dozen times while talking to overseas business contacts. Archer discussed Hunter’s involvement on the board of Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings and the hefty checks it wrote to a guy seemingly unqualified for the job. Archer and others have alleged Burisma and other “clients” were paying for the Biden “brand.” Aka, access to the vice president.
“Burisma would have gone out of business if ‘the brand’ had not been attached to it,” the New York Post reported, quoting from a readout from panel Republicans.
“Archer talked about the ‘big guy’ and how Hunter Biden always said, ‘We need to talk to my guy,’ ‘We need to see when my guy is going to be here,’ and those types of things,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) told reporters as he left the deposition in July 2023.
There were many more interactions between Vice President Joe Biden and his son’s other business associates, according to the laptop that the Deep State and the accomplice media long claimed did not exist. As The Federalist’s Tristan Justice reported:
Biden reportedly met with Ukrainian, Russian, and Kazakhstani business partners at a famous D.C. establishment in 2015. The meeting, arranged by Hunter, took place at one of Georgetown’s most famous restaurants, Café Milano… Vadym Pozharskyi, an executive at the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, thanked Hunter for the introduction to his father.
“Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together,” Pozharskyi wrote in an email released by the New York Post weeks before the 2020 election.
And visitor logs show Hunter Biden’s business pals paid a call on the White House at least 80 times while Biden was VP, Fox News reported. A meeting with the elder Biden at the time involved Chinese businessmen tied to a firm that Hunter Biden had invested in.
Earlier this month, the president issued a sweeping, unprecedented pardon of his multi-felon son, not merely for the serious crimes for which he was found guilty but for crimes that he may have committed during his salad days with Burisma and the other business associates seeking access to the “Big Guy.”
The Disaster of Absence
As president, Biden has held just nine full Cabinet meetings, the Wall Street Journal reported. The numbers include three such sessions in 2021, two in 2022, three in 2023 and only one this year. By comparison, President Barack Obama led 19 Cabinet meetings and President Donald Trump called 25 in their first terms, the Journal noted, using data obtained by former CBS News reporter Mark Knoller.
While White House officials have disputed Biden’s distance and decline, the cloistering of the cognitively slipping president appears to have contributed to some disastrous consequences.
Rep. Adam Smith, a Washington Democrat who chaired the House Armed Services Committee in 2021, told the Wall Street Journal that he was shut out of conversations with the president leading up to the administration’s debacle of a withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“I was begging them to set expectations low,” Smith, who had misgivings about how the operation would go, told the publication.
The Journal reported that “[f]ormer administration officials said it often didn’t seem like Biden had his finger on the pulse.” Many of us have often been left wondering if the president has had a pulse at all.
Witness accounts and his degenerate son’s own emails suggest Biden had plenty of vim and vigor when it was time to talk about corrupt financial deals. It was the business of protecting and leading America that he seemed disinterested in during his historically awful presidential term.
Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.
In March the Republican-led House passed H.R. 3391, which would continue funding research of pediatric diseases like childhood cancer. The legislation never went anywhere in the Senate under the leadership of Democrat Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. But now Democrats are trying to use sick kids with cancer as leverage to pass 1,500-plus pages of pork.
On Wednesday Speaker Mike Johnson unveiled a 1,500-page so-called “continuing resolution” that was really nothing more than a stuffed omnibus bill that included money for censorship, sweetheart deals for Congress, and other unnecessary expenditures. Almost immediately the pork-stuffed “continuing resolution” was rebuked by millions of Americans, including President-elect Donald Trump and incoming co-director of the Department of Government Efficient (DOGE) Elon Musk.
Following public pressure, the House released a trimmed-down version (116 pages) on Thursday. That measure funds the government through March 14. The new version keeps the $110 billion in disaster relief and farmer assistance from the original bill and suspends the debt ceiling for two years. The new version also removed the funding for childhood cancer.
And suddenly — after H.R. 3391 has collected dust in the Senate under the leadership of Schumer for months –Democrats are outraged about funding for pediatric cancer research.
The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote that after “pediatric cancer research advocates spent years” working to get funding, “Elon began tweeting.” Elon “killed the budget deal,” according to Stein, and with it funding for childhood cancer research.
Hawaii Democrat Sen. Brian Schatz posted on X: “F-ck cancer. Especially pediatric cancer. These people want to punish these precious little kids to pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest corporations in human history.”
Pod Save America host Jon Favreau blamed Musk: “Congrats to Elon Musk for giving the people what they want: less funding for child cancer research.”
But where was the condemnation from Favreau or Schatz or Stein when Schumer sat on H.R. 3391? Why haven’t they begun pressuring Schumer to do something with the legislation he already has?
If the only time you come out swinging in defense of funding for childhood cancer research is when you can use it to smear your political opponents and push through pork spending, but you stay silent when your own party sits on the legislation (after Republicans passed it), you’re not the good guy. You’re a hypocrite using sick children as leverage to further your pet projects.
Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2
Today, the Georgia Court of Appeals disqualified Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her team in the prosecution of President-elect Donald Trump. The final collapse of the House of Willis came after months of her spending enormous amounts of time and money to try to stay at the lead of the high-profile case. Lawfare holds little value unless you are the lead warrior.
For over a year, some have criticized Willis for her refusal to recuse herself. When her hiring of her former lover was first disclosed, Willis could have done the right thing for her office, the case, and the public. She could have recused herself and may have preserved her office’s ability to continue with the case.
She was then given a further opportunity to do the right thing by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee who disqualified her former lover, Nathan Wade, and found an “appearance of impropriety.”
He, however, left it up to Willis to recuse herself after criticizing her conduct. Some of us noted that the finding did not jive with the order. If there was an “appearance of impropriety,” it would obviously continue with Willis remaining at the lead in the case. However, Willis let the case go dormant and committed her office to the fight to preserve her role. Now, the appellate court has forced her off the case and ordered a new office to take over any prosecution. The court ruled that
“[a]fter carefully considering the trial court’s findings in its order, we conclude that it erred by failing to disqualify DA Willis and her office. The remedy crafted by the trial court to prevent an ongoing appearance of impropriety did nothing to address the appearance of impropriety that existed at times when DA Willis was exercising her broad pretrial discretion about who to prosecute and what charges to bring.”
The court admitted that Willis had forced the hand of the court by her refusal to do the right thing in the lower court. It recognized that “an appearance of impropriety generally is not enough to support disqualification, this is the rare case in which disqualification is mandated and no other remedy will suffice to restore public confidence in the integrity of these proceedings.”
Accordingly, it reversed McAffee and found that if “the elected district attorney is wholly disqualified from this case, ‘the assistant district attorneys — whose only power to prosecute a case is derived from the constitutional authority of the district attorney who appointed them — have no authority to proceed.’”
The opinion made clear that these cases cannot become the vanity projects of prosecutors. They are expected to do the right thing, even when the right thing does not come easily personally or politically.
The center of the case now shifts to another prosecutor who will have to decide whether it wants to continue the case and what (and who) to prosecute.
As I have previously written, the Georgia case has viable crimes against others for offenses such as unlawful entry into restricted areas. The case against Trump was deeply flawed. It read like a legal version of six degrees from Kevin Bacon. As my friend and fellow analyst Andy McCarthy noted, this is the first racketeering case that any of us have seen where the strongest connection between the parties was being named in the charging documents.
A new prosecutor should drop the Trump charges and end this ridiculous lawfare enterprise. If not, the case will likely collapse by its own weight due to the attenuated racketeering theory or other legal problems, including the use of evidence barred under the recent presidential immunity decision.
In the end, Willis was reelected by the voters of Atlanta who clearly accepted or supported the weaponization of the criminal justice system to target political opponents. The millions spent in the case were just treated as a cost of doing the business of lawfare.
Hopefully, a new prosecution office will restore a modicum of integrity to the Georgia legal system. It is now time to end this circus as the ringmaster leaves the center ring.
Below is my column on Fox.com on the settlement of ABC News of the defamation case brought by President-elect Donald Trump. The settlement has enflamed many on the left as well as reportedly some at ABC News. However, ABC likely saw this as a no-win situation as it faced potentially embarrassing depositions.
Added by WhatDidYouSay.org
Here is the column:
The late Richard J. Daley famously declared that “we as Democrats have no apologies to make to anyone.”
That doctrine seems still to be alive and well with many in the party when it comes to President-elect Donald Trump. After ABC News and its anchor George Stephanopoulos apologized to Trump this week to settle a defamation lawsuit, many Democrats were apoplectic.
Marc Elias, the controversial lawyer involved in the funding of the infamous Steele dossier by the Clinton campaign, denounced ABC News for bending a knee to Trump. He then trolled for contributions for his own organization as “unapologetically pro-democracy.”
Of course, ABC was not apologizing for advancing democracy but for alleged defamation. The network and the anchor expressed “regret” for stating that Trump was found “liable for rape” in a New York civil case. (The jury found that Trump had sexually abused and defamed E. J. Carroll). While Trump was never convicted of rape, Stephanopoulos repeated the claim ten times in his interview with Re. Nancy Mace, (R., S.C.).
What made the settlement interesting is that ABC was previously relying on the statements of the judge in the New York case, Judge Lewis Kaplan, who declared that the charge of rape was “substantially true…as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.’”
Stephanopoulos played up his defiance of Trump with CBS’s late-night host Stephen Colbert. To the delight of Colbert, who regularly attacked Trump on his show and openly supported both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, Stephanopoulos proclaimed that he wouldn’t be “cowed out of doing my job because of a threat.” He added, “Trump sued me because I used the word ‘rape,’ even though a judge said that’s in fact what did happen. We filed a motion to dismiss.”
So what happened?
Well, two things and both are related to the timing of the settlement.
First, the settlement came just before ABC and Stephanopoulos were to be called for depositions, as ordered by U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisette M. Reid. That discovery was likely to prove more embarrassing for the network than it would Trump and could have revealed internal messages on the controversy.
The danger is on full display in another courtroom where CNN has been losing critical motions in a defamation case where punitive damages could result. Anchor Jake Tapper and CNN are being sued by Navy veteran Zachary Young after falsely suggesting that he and his organization were exploiting desperate Afghan refugees. Discovery uncovered malicious and unprofessional emails from producers promising to “nail” Young and making the segment his “funeral.” Disney was not eager to put its matinee personality, Stephanopoulos, through a similar meat grinder.
Second, the settlement occurred after an election in which Trump won the trifecta of the White House, Congress, and the popular vote.
Like most media, ABC was known for its unrelenting attacks on Trump and favorable coverage toward his opponents. The network’s iconic show, The View, has become an unhinged, partisan rave session against Trump, Republicans, and the majority of American voters. The show’s hosts now regularly read retractions or corrections to blunt allegedly defamatory screeds from its hosts. It has gotten to the point that the ABC General Counsel may soon need a chair at the table.
Disney is trying to adopt a more neutral stance after years of opposition for its stances on political issues and accusations of ultra-woke products. It is still struggling to appeal to over half of the country, including the most recent controversy involving the star of its soon-to-be-released remake of Snow White.
After the election, actress Rachel Zegler declared herself “speechless” over the results. That would have been a welcomed state for Disney, but the actress then found her voice in the most polarizing way, publicly praying “May Trump supporters and Trump voters and Trump himself never know peace.” Zegler was clearly miscast in the film. It was the evil Queen that was supposed to harken “a blast of wind to fan my hate.”
On top of these controversies, ABC News was attacked by many over its handling of the Trump debate with Vice President Kamala Harris and it’sbiased “fact-checking.” With networks like MSNBC and CNN in a ratings and revenue free fall after the election, Disney clearly wants to start fresh with the new administration. Both are facing possible sales at potentially bargain basement prices. The media echo chamber against Trump failed spectacularly in this election. With record levels of distrust of mainstream or legacy media, the public has increasingly shifted to new media.
In the meantime, Trump has been running the table on lawfare with the dismissal of the two federal cases and a victory on presidential immunity in the Supreme Court. The Georgia prosecution is falling apart over the conduct of the prosecutors rather than that of the defendant. The New York civil case faced a highly skeptical court over the grotesque award against Trump and his corporation. Even Democratic politicians like Sen. John Fetterman (D., Pa.) now feel comfortable admitting publicly that the New York hush money prosecution was “bullsh*t.”
For many politicians and pundits, the election seemed to flip the magnetic poles of the country. We now have ABC News giving millions to the Trump Presidential Library as democratic donors move toward a boycott of the Biden President Library.
With networks like MSNBC and CNN struggling for their very existence, ABC is intent on having a chair when the music stops. While the ABC settlement may not be an admission of guilt, it is a recognition of the reality after this historic election.
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, indicated she will confirm Pete Hegseth as the next secretary of defense on Monday. The announcement marks a stark pivot for Ernst, who has been leading a behind-the-scenes effort to tank Hegseth’s nomination.
“I appreciate Pete Hegseth’s responsiveness and respect for the process,” Ernst said in a press release. “Following our encouraging conversations, Pete committed to completing a full audit of the Pentagon and selecting a senior official who will uphold the roles and value of our servicemen and women — based on quality and standards, not quotas — and who will prioritize and strengthen my work to prevent sexual assault within the ranks. As I support Pete through this process, I look forward to a fair hearing based on truth, not anonymous sources.”
The statement was issued following Ernst’s Monday afternoon meeting with Hegseth on Capitol Hill. The Iowa senator previously met the Army veteran to discuss his nomination to lead the Pentagon last week. When asked about his most recent talk with Ernst, Hegseth told reporters it “was a very good meeting,” and expressed appreciation for “her commitment to the process.”
“We look forward to working together,” Hegseth said.
Ernst has faced immense backlash throughout the past several days for refusing to support Hegseth’s nomination. Multiple sources within Trump world with direct knowledge of her efforts told The Federalist last week that Ernst has been waging an “aggressive” personal jihad against the former Fox News host. Her reported actions have included making personal calls to Trump to urge him to dump Hegseth ahead of her meeting with the Army veteran last week, and enlisting Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., to lobby Trump to replace Hegseth with Ernst.
“She’s waging a campaign to replace Pete with herself,” a Trump source familiar with her phone calls with Trump said.
Who is Sen. Joni Ernst, the Iowa Republican trying to tank Pete Hegseth’s defense secretary nomination?
A deep dive into her record reveals a pattern of repeatedly betraying her voters’ interests. 🧵1/ https://t.co/ApXej8zZyh
Hegseth has come under a barrage of unsubstantiated allegations of wrongdoing during his time working at Fox News and spearheading veteran-related nonprofit organizations. Numerous former colleagues and associates have come out stronglydisputing the accusations from anonymous sources.
A woman also previously accused Hegseth of sexual assault following a purported 2017 sexual encounter between the two.Prosecutors declined to press charges due to a lack of “proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” according to reports.
Trump reaffirmed his support for Hegseth to lead the Pentagon in Truth Social post on Friday. He also stood by the Army veteran’s nomination during his recent interview with NBC News hack Kristen Welker.
“He’s a young guy with a tremendous track record. Actually, went to Princeton and went to Harvard. He was a good student at both. But he loves the military, and I think people are starting to see it,” Trump told Welker. “I’ve had a lot of senators call me up saying he’s fantastic.”
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
Pete Hegseth has the combat leadership experience, academic pedigree, and profound love of country necessary to make our military great again. I served with him in the 34th Infantry Division and succeeded him in leading Concerned Veterans for America, and I wholeheartedly endorse his nomination to be our next secretary of defense.
President Trump knows that the Pentagon is in desperate need of reform, and the best way to accomplish that is to send a true outsider to run the show. The Make America Great Again movement has no better outsider to fix our broken military than Pete Hegseth, and he will also be a true loyalist to President Trump’s agenda.
Hegseth’s leadership will ensure our military returns to the basics of defeating our adversaries, rather than pushing a social justice agenda. Our military is in the midst of a readiness and recruitment crisis, and reform is needed fast. Hegseth and I served as infantry rifle platoon leaders in combat. Warfighters don’t have the luxury of being distracted by frivolous matters during combat operations. We focused on what I called the Big Four: shoot, move, communicate, and stop bleeding. Transgender surgeries and understanding white rage didn’t quite make the list.
I served as the executive director of Concerned Veterans for America (CVA), succeeding Hegseth, who brought this group to national prominence. Contrary to media reports based on anonymous sources, I can confirm that Hegseth was not fired. It was common knowledge within CVA that he was going to Fox News. This is nothing more than another tired media attack from an apparatus hell-bent on destroying his nomination.
The media have falsely portrayed CVA as a dysfunctional organization under Hegseth’s leadership, but the executive team and strategy I inherited from him were world-class. The proof is in the policy victories we helped President Trump deliver for veterans by reforming the Department of Veterans Affairs in 2017 and 2018.
The president agreed with our strategy. I quickly deployed the CVA grassroots army, which Hegseth built, to pressure Congress to pass these critically needed reforms. Our volunteers made thousands of citizen contacts by knocking on doors, hosting phone banks, and calling their members of Congress.
In less than six months, President Trump signed the VA Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act. This would allow the government to fire bad and underperforming VA employees, especially the ones who allowed vets to die on secret waitlists. The next summer, President Trump signed the VA Mission Act, which provided vets with a choice in their health care.
Thanks to the policy vision of Pete Hegseth and the leadership of President Trump, these reforms brought the VA into the 21st century and likely saved thousands of lives.
That is the Pete Hegseth I know — a warfighter and visionary who loves his country. He will make a tremendous secretary of defense.
Mark Lucas is the executive vice president of the Article III Project. Lucas served as an infantry officer in the Iowa Army National Guard and was awarded the Combat Infantry Badge and Bronze Star Medal in Afghanistan during the deadliest year of Operation Enduring Freedom.
US Representative Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., a member of the US Representative Jared Moskowitz D-Fla., speaks to the press after touring the shooting site at the Butler Farm Show Grounds on August 26, 2024, in Butler, Pennsylvania. (Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)
DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s plans to cut waste, fraud, and abuse within the federal government’s nearly $7 trillion budget through President-elect Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency is beginning to attract support from a notable group: Democratic lawmakers.
Democratic Florida Rep. Jared Moskowitz is the first Democratic lawmaker to join the House’s Department of Government Efficiency Caucus helmed by Republican Reps. Aaron Bean of Florida and Pete Sessions of Texas, according to a Tuesday press release.
“Today. I will join the Congressional DOGE [Department of Government Efficiency] Caucus, because I believe that streamlining government processes and reducing ineffective government spending should not be a partisan issue,” Moskowitz wrote. “I’ve been clear that there are ways we can reorganize our government to make it work better for the American people.”
The Florida Democrat is asking the Department of Government Efficiency to examine the Department of Homeland Security’s budget and has suggested that the commission recommend establishing the Secret Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency—currently under DHS control—as independent agencies, according to Moskowitz’s press release.
“For the people at DOGE, if Vivek and Elon are listening, you need to look at Homeland [Security Department],” Moskowitz said during a House Oversight Committee hearing on the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Nov. 19, where the Florida Democrat advocated for DHS reform.
Moskowitz’s Democratic colleague California Rep. Ro Khanna has also voiced support for the Department of Government Efficiency, particularly regarding the commission’s potential to trim the Department of Defense’s nearly $900 billion budget.
“Let me provide an area where there could be bipartisan collaboration. I mean—the defense budget which is nearly a trillion dollars,” Khanna told CNN’s Jim Acosta on Nov. 25 in an apparent endorsement of the efficiency department. “There has been tremendous reporting about the waste, fraud and abuse within that budget. The Pentagon hasn’t passed an audit—it has failed the last six or seven audits.”
“If they find areas of truly wasteful spending across the government, they will get support,” Khanna added.
On the other side of the Capitol, independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders echoed Khanna’s support for the Department of Government Efficiency reforming the DOD’s budget.
“Elon Musk is right,” Sanders wrote in a post on X on Sunday. “The Pentagon, with a budget of $886 billion, just failed its seventh audit in a row. It’s lost track of billions. Last year, only 13 senators voted against the Military Industrial Complex and a defense budget full of waste and fraud. That must change.”
The Republicans who joined Sanders in voting against the fiscal year 2024 national defense authorization act included Vice President-elect JD Vance and Sens. Mike Lee of Utah, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming and Mike Braun of Indiana. Most Republican lawmakers, including Republican Sen. Roger Wicker, incoming chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, advocate for increased military spending.
The Senate Department of Government Efficiency Caucus, led by Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst, currently contains no Democratic members.
The Department of Government Efficiency has no statutory authority to reform the government’s budget and is planning to collaborate with the White House Office of Management and Budget to provide cost-cutting recommendations, according to an op-ed published by Vivek and Ramaswamy in the Wall Street Journal on Nov. 20. Given that Congress appropriates the money that constitutes the president’s budget, the Department of Government Efficiency will likely need congressional support to accomplish the commission’s efforts to reduce the size of the federal government and eliminate wasteful spending.
Sanders and Khanna’s offices did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s inquiries about whether the two plan to join the House and Senate Department of Government Efficiency caucuses.
A three-judge panel on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the federal government has the authority to deport illegal immigrants even if local leaders try to impede the process. The case arose after King County Executive Dow Constantine issued an executive order in 2019 that instructed county officials to prohibit “fixed base operators” (FBO) on a county airfield from servicing flights chartered by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to deport illegal immigrants who are lawfully removable. FBO’s “lease space from the airport and provide flights with essential services, such as fueling and landing stairs,” according to the ruling.
The Trump administration sued because the order impeded ICE from enforcing the law and removing illegal immigrants. The administration argued that the order violated the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause and a World War II-era agreement that gave the federal government permission to use the King County airport.
The three-judge panel affirmed both contentions. The panel ruled that the executive order was a violation of the Supremacy Clause’s intergovernmental immunity doctrine because it “improperly regulates the way in which the federal government transports noncitizen detainees by preventing ICE from using private FBO contractors at Boeing Field.” The court also held that the executive order discriminated against the federal government by “regulat[ing] them unfavorably on some basis related to their governmental ‘status.’”
King County said it would not appeal the ruling, according to The Seattle Times.
The incoming Trump administration has vowed to solve the border crisis and deport illegal immigrants who are draining taxpayer resources, while hordes of so-called “sanctuary cities” nationwide oppose enforcement of federal immigration law and go so far as to refuse to comply with ICE authorities.
Tom Homan, dubbed the incoming “border czar,” has already warned sanctuary city officials not to resist or impede the federal government’s deportation activities.
“It is a felony to knowingly harbor or conceal an illegal immigrant from immigration authorities. Don’t test us,” Homan said.
One Democrat, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, has already vowed to mobilize police and residents “stationed at the county line” to “keep” federal immigration authorities “out” of the city. Johnston likened the hypothetical to Tiananmen Square but later tried to walk back the comparison.
Homan responded to Johnston’s open defiance, saying he is “willing to put [Johnston] in jail.”
Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2
Contrary to what corporate media want you to believe, President Donald Trump’s decision to name Kashyap “Kash” Patel as his choice to replace current FBI Director Christopher Wray is a good one — perhaps one of the best he could have made.
When Trump announced over Thanksgiving weekend that Patel was his pick to “bring back Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity to the FBI,” journos lost their minds. Some outlets framed Trump’s choice as frowned upon by the president’s aides and Republican legislators. Others publishedlists of bureaucrats who they claimed could fall prey to “Patel’s crosshairs.”for partisan reasons. Those did not compare to the hordes of corporate media coverage dedicated to tarnishing Patel and quashing his nomination.
Even before the election, the Associated Press painted Patel as a conspiracy theorist while noting how he was “poised to help lead a Trump administration.” Shortly after Trump made it official, MSNBC claimed that “Kash Patel could be Trump’s most dangerous pick yet.” The New York Times took it further by besmirching the pick as “concretely dangerous.”
In the NYT article lead, the author deems Patel “supremely unqualified to direct the nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency.” He warns that if Patel takes over, his “directorship would probably corrupt and bend the institution for decades, even if he served only a few years.”
“He wants to bend and break the bureau and weaponize it against those he sees as his political enemies and domestic critics,” the article continues, without mentioning how the FBI under Christopher Wray has done exactly that.
These descriptions of Patel suggest Trump pulled a random guy off the street to weaponize the agency on his behalf. In reality, Patel is familiar with both the bureaucracy and intelligence agencies, having worked as a U.S. Department of Justice prosecutor, the U.S. Secretary of Defense’s chief of staff, a U.S. National Security Council official, and principal deputy to the acting Director of National Intelligence. Most importantly, Patel had a front-row seat to the deep state’s ploy, aided heavily by the propaganda press, to overthrow Trump when he served as a senior aide to former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes. Patel and Nunes’ efforts to blow open the Russia collusion hoax made them victims of the DOJ’s spying and targets of a years-long corporate media smear campaign. Patel even sued multiple outlets and reporters, including the NYT, for smearing him as a criminal who acted as a “Ukraine Back Channel” for the Trump White House.
The problem with the NYT article and every other outlet fearmongering about Patel’s nomination is they refuse to acknowledge that the FBI is already corrupt to its core and weaponized beyond belief. Polling indicates that more than half of the nation, 63 percent, want to see the FBI reformed or “shut down” and “rebuilt from scratch.”
Naming another deep-state swamp creature like Wray to run the FBI would guarantee that would never happen. Nominating someone like Patel, who promises to make ridding our constitutional Republic of the people trying to destroy it priority number one, however, puts the Trump administration in a much better position to accomplish those goals.
As Patel noted in his 2024 Conservative Political Action Conference speech, he saw firsthand how the “government gangsters” in the DOJ, DOD, and FBI are “crippling” the nation by weaponizing themselves against Americans. He told The Federalist last year, after corporate media accused him of trying to “target journalists for prosecution,” that a second Trump administration would have no choice but to address the corruption swiftly and effectively.
“We’ve been saying the DOJ and FBI need [to] be fixed. We’ve been saying prosecutors and judges shouldn’t weaponize justice. We’ve been saying you shouldn’t leak information for media to rig political elections and curry favor with the American electorate. We’ve been saying it the whole time and we’ve been saying anyone that breaks the law in doing those things … should be prosecuted, whether it’s government officials, civilians, and the media,” Patel said. “Our position has never changed. We’ve been saying to use and restore the Constitution, to follow and enforce the rule of law, not to violate it. That’s what they do.”
The only reason the propaganda press oppose Patel as Trump’s FBI pick is because he is a threat to their ability to continue colluding with the deep state to advance their partisan agenda. Every new article or TV segment corporate media outlets devote to complaining and criticizing Patel’s nomination proves to the Trump team that he is the perfect man for the job.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on X @jordanboydtx.
While Hunter Biden enjoys the privileges of a sweeping presidential pardon, Rachel Powell, a Pennsylvania mother of eight, is spending the holidays locked away from the people she loves. While President Joe Biden’s corrupt son enjoys a get-out-of-jail-free card erasing a long list of felonies and potential offenses, Powell, marked as an “insurrectionist” for a property damage crime at the Capitol, languishes in a federal prison.
It’s the punctuation mark on the perversion of justice that has defined the Biden years, an era of lawlessness in which “no one is above the law” but this president, his grifting family and his constitution-ripping cronies.
Biden’s unconditional pardon of his ne’re-do-well progeny, issued as Americans were still drowsy from their Thanksgiving leftovers, covers more than a decade of felonies and sundry crimes that Hunter “committed or may have committed.” Legal experts are calling the act of absolution “unprecedented,” exceeding President Gerald Ford’s pardon of the man he succeeded, Richard Nixon, post-Watergate. Even that wide pardon only covered Nixon’s presidency — Jan. 20, 1969 to Aug. 9. 1974.
Joe Biden’s 11-year blanket pardon of Hunter is even more expansive than the pardon Gerald Ford gave to Richard Nixon in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal. pic.twitter.com/9ThNOEGyo5
The only thing surprising about Biden’s broad act of leniency gifted to his crack-addled son is that anyone is surprised by it. But Never Trumpers like Joe Walsh sound absolutely heartbroken that Biden has once again been shown to be the unrepentant liar he is after insisting on multiple occasions that he would not pardon Hunter, who faces sentencing on gun-related and tax evasion felony convictions.
“I said I would abide by the jury’s decisions, and I will do that, and I will not pardon him,” the president told ABC News’ David Muir, press puppet for the Democratic Party and their presidential candidates, in an interview in June.
After hearing that Biden is breaking his word, a dispirited Walsh sounded like a cuckolded lover.
“They’re all like that,” the Trump-hating former Republican congressman from Illinois moaned Sunday evening on MSNBC. “So, the next time any of us complain about anything Trump does, this — this pardon is just deflating. For those of us who have been out there for a few years now yelling about what a unique threat Donald Trump is, for Joe Biden to do something like this, Trump — ‘nobody’s above the law,’ we’ve been screaming.”
Walsh and his fellow Never Trumpers have joined Democrats in their full-throated support of one of the darkest chapters in U.S. history — the politically-driven witch hunts of pro-Trump protesters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. For nearly four years, Biden’s Department of Justice, led by his Javert, Attorney General Merrick Garland, in arresting, prosecuting and imprisoning hundreds of political prisoners. Like 44-year-old Rachel Powell. The Biden administration and their pals in the Pravda press continue to paint the eventual riots over a rigged 2020 election as a coordinated “insurrection” driven by their No. 1 political enemy: Donald J. Trump, the 45th and soon-to-be 47th president of the United States.
‘You’re Going to Take Eight Years of Her Life Away?’
Nearly 1,600 people have been caught up in the Biden Justice Department investigations. More than 500 people“have been sentenced to periods of incarceration,” some on an “obstruction of an official proceeding”charge tossed out earlier this year by the U.S. Supreme Court. Interestingly, the high court’s ruling found the DOJ employed an “inappropriately broad interpretation” of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
The DOJ hit Powell, who became known as the “bullhorn lady” in the press, with the obstruction charge. She also was charged with civil disorder, disorderly conduct in a Capitol building, destruction of government property, and entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon — the “ice axe and battering ram” that law enforcement officials say she used to break through a window and “breach the Capitol” as Congress convened to count the 2020 electoral votes. Powell told Newsweek that she “used the axe and the cardboard battering ram to break a window so that some in the group near the tunnel could move to open spaces,” and a bullhorn “to flag a nearby safe haven that she saw on the other side of the glass she had shattered.”
Powell is serving a nearly five-year prison sentence after D.C. District Judge Royce Lamberth threw the book at her in October 2023. Before that, Powell spent years on strict house arrest awaiting trial and sentencing.
“She had an ankle monitor. She was not allowed to leave her home,” said Cynthia Hughes, founder and president of the Patriot Freedom Project, a nonprofit organization providing support to J6 political prisoners and their families. Hughes was interviewed on an upcoming edition of The Federalist Radio Hour podcast. Her nephew, Tim Hale, spent three years in prison on J6-related, trumped up charges, including a year in solitary confinement.
Powell “missed her daughter’s wedding. She missed the birth of her two grandchildren. She couldn’t even go to a doctor appointment if one of her children needed the assistance of her mother,” Hughes added.
Powell’s youngest child was just 7 when she was sent to prison.
While Powell did damage government property, Hughes said she didn’t assault anyone or hurt law enforcement officials during the riot and she had no previous criminal record. Yet, the mother of eight received harsher treatment than many of the Black Lives Matter protesters engaged in riots that burned down government buildings, destroyed private property and brutally assaulted police.
“Yeah, she broke a window but you’re going to take eight years of her life away?” Hughes said. She’s lost her home, she lost custody of her children for a small minute. She had a terrible public defender.”
And now Powell is serving a nearly five-year prison sentence followed by 36 months of supervised release. Hunter Biden, who faced years in prison and more than $1.3 million in fines is a free man. He owes nothing. If it’s any consolation to the J6 political prisoners learning of the pardon from behind prison bars, the younger Biden says he will never forget the kindness bestowed on him by his powerful father and that he will commit himself to “helping those who are still sick and suffering.”
He remains defiant, despite his father’s forbearance.
Jerry Broussard of WhatDidYouSay.org
“I have admitted and taken responsibility for my mistakes during the darkest days of my addiction – mistakes that have been exploited to publicly humiliate and shame me and my family for political sport,” Hunter said in a statement to the press.
‘Miscarriage of Justice’
Biden defended his son and his sweeping pardon, insisting that “Hunter was treated differently” under the law. Well, welcome to the club, Hunter. The hundreds of J6 political prisoners his father’s administration has persecuted over the past four years know what disparate treatment feels like.
President-elect Trump has met with some the families of the people he has described as hostages. He has said that he would pardon a “large portion” of the people convicted on federal charges related to the Capitol riots. On Truth Social earlier this year Trump wrote that one of his “first acts as your next president” will be to “Free the January 6 Hostages being wrongfully imprisoned.”
Following Biden’s generous gift to his repugnant son, Trump asked on his Truth Social account, “Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years? Such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!”
Joe Biden didn’t just pardon Hunter for the gun crimes for which he was convicted. He pardoned Hunter for *EVERY SINGLE FEDERAL CRIME HE COMMITTED* over the last decade—including several years during which Joe Biden was VP and the entirety of Joe Biden’s presidency. pic.twitter.com/wjvwXTL8r6
The president-elect raises a good point. Trump could and should pardon the J6 political prisoners as one of his first acts in office, or at least commute sentences. He likely will stop the prosecutions and end the witch hunt that the Biden administration has carried out. But Biden should spend the last days of his shameful presidency rectifying of the bigger injustices of his time in office. He should pardon the political enemies his DOJ has prosecuted as “insurrectionists.”
He claims his disgraced boy is a victim of politics, “singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong.” Many of the protesters who showed up to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, are victims of vendetta political politics. That was wrong. It remains so.
But Biden is as political as he is corrupt. So the people locked away on political crimes will have to await deliverance from the man the Biden regime desperately tried but failed to defeat, imprison, even murder.
Trump, unlike Biden, is a man of his word, Hughes said. “He keeps his promises,” the Patriot Freedom Project founder said.
And when Trump does follow through on his promise of pardons, Democrats, Never Trumpers and their accomplice media friends will have no standing to complain.
Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.
Several Republican governors said they will help the incoming Trump administration carry out mass deportations. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox last week announced a targeted effort to aid with the deportations. Cox’s office said Utah’s public safety and corrections departments will coordinate with federal, state, and local agencies to identify and deport undocumented immigrants “who have committed crimes and pose a threat to public safety.”
“Utah will continue to welcome refugees and immigrants who enter the country lawfully, and we will continue pushing for reforms to the asylum process and for more visas to support our workforce needs,” Cox said in a statement. “We have zero tolerance, however, for those who demonstrate a threat to public safety while in the country illegally.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said on social media last week that “states and localities should be required” to assist with deportations “as a condition of receiving federal funding.”
The Texas General Land Office offered President-elect Donald Trump a 1,400-acre ranch near the southern border to assist with deportations, Axios reported. Texas, run by Gov. Greg Abbott, passed a law that allows police to arrest people for entering the country illegally, though it was declared unconstitutional.
Democrat mayors have resisted the mass deportation efforts, with Boston’s Michelle Wu and Denver’s Mike Johson saying they will not cooperate. The Los Angeles City Council passed an ordinance barring city resources or personnel from being used to help federal immigration enforcement, Axios said.
The federal government faces some logistical hurdles to pull off mass deportation, Axios said, including a large backlog in federal immigration court and facilities to house immigrants before removal.
Jack Smith, the controversial special counsel tasked with investigating former President Donald Trump’s attempts to challenge the 2020 election, has officially stepped down. His resignation comes just weeks before President-elect Trump is set to take office, sparking heated debates over the legitimacy of the cases brought against Trump and their broader implications for justice in America.
Conservative commentator Mark Levin, host of LevinTV, was quick to weigh in, calling Smith’s resignation both predictable and overdue. Levin minced no words in his criticism, declaring that Smith’s departure underscores the collapse of the legal efforts aimed at Trump. “You know why? It’s simple. He’s an unconstitutional prosecutor. Donald Trump’s going to fire his ass,” Levin said.
Levin argued that the cases against Trump were doomed from the start, pointing to internal Department of Justice (DOJ) memos and procedural violations. He highlighted the dismissal of one of Smith’s cases in Florida as a clear sign of their instability.
“These cases collapse,” Levin continued. “They should never have been brought. The case in Florida was rightly thrown out. That’s why they were in such a rush—to get these cases prosecuted and Trump imprisoned before the election.”
Levin accused the DOJ and Smith of pursuing Trump with the sole intent of derailing his political career. He claimed this approach not only violated DOJ policies but also undermined the integrity of the judicial system.
“They did everything possible to affect the election and to destroy Donald Trump’s life,” Levin asserted.
The commentator called on the incoming administration to take decisive action against those responsible for the cases. “It’s my position that the new attorney general needs to dig into this and find out who exactly was responsible for it,” Levin said. “These people need to be held accountable.”
Smith’s cases focused primarily on Trump’s efforts to challenge the 2020 election results, actions Levin described as entirely lawful and historically common.
“A candidate has every right to try and challenge an election, which means to overturn it,” Levin argued. “That’s exactly what’s going on in Pennsylvania today at the behest of Chuck Schumer with their slip-and-fall lawyer, Marc Elias.”
Levin highlighted past instances where election challenges were not only permitted but celebrated by political leaders. He cited Al Gore’s legal battle in Florida during the 2000 presidential race and efforts in Minnesota that ultimately handed Al Franken a Senate seat.
“There’s nothing criminal about challenging an election,” Levin said. “This is the first time it’s been criminalized. Encouraging a state legislature or a board of elections to act has never been treated as a crime before.”
Smith’s resignation has fueled speculation about its timing, particularly given Trump’s imminent return to power. Critics argue that Smith’s exit may be an attempt to avoid the embarrassment of being fired by the incoming administration or to shield himself from further scrutiny. Supporters of Trump see this as vindication of their belief that the legal cases against him were politically motivated and lacked substance. Levin emphasized that the abrupt nature of Smith’s departure only reinforces this narrative.
“This was never about justice,” Levin said. “It was about weaponizing the justice system against a political opponent. And now it’s falling apart.”
Smith’s resignation is part of a larger debate over the role of the justice system in political matters. Critics argue that targeting Trump for challenging the 2020 election has set a dangerous precedent, effectively criminalizing actions that were previously considered routine aspects of political contests. As Smith steps aside, attention shifts to how Trump’s incoming administration will handle the fallout. Levin and others are urging Trump’s attorney general to launch investigations into the motivations and conduct behind Smith’s cases, with some calling for accountability measures to restore public trust in the justice system.
For Trump, Smith’s resignation marks a significant victory, further energizing his supporters and reinforcing his narrative of political persecution. Yet it also raises questions about how his administration will navigate the legal and political challenges that remain.
The stage is set for a dramatic showdown as Trump prepares to re-enter the White House, with Smith’s resignation serving as a powerful symbol of the broader battles yet to come.
Disclaimer: This article discusses explicit sexual acts.
What you’re going to hear now and in the coming days from the national media is that there are “graphic” details in a police report related to an alleged sexual assault involving Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming nominee for Defense secretary. It’s certainly graphic, but the media will bet you won’t bother reading the report, which in reality looks really bad for the alleged victim and effectively clears Hegseth of criminality.
The 22-page report details an incident from seven years ago when in 2017, Hegseth, then a Fox News celebrity, attended an event for a Republican women’s group as a featured speaker. The way the media have relayed the event so far is that a woman in attendance has accused Hegseth of drugging her at an afterparty before raping her in his hotel room. Outside of the alleged victim’s admittedly incomplete recollection, none of the testimony or evidence included in the police report supports that claim. In truth, all of it indicates that the accuser lied to her husband, who was in her hotel room, while she galivanted at night with Hegseth and other attendees before voluntarily joining him in his room to have consensual sex.
The report’s events took place in early October 2017, and it includes multiple eyewitness testimonies and text message evidence of what took place before and after the alleged assault. The alleged victim is identified only as Jane Doe. After a night of moderate drinking, during which Doe says she at some point felt she may have been surreptitiously drugged, Doe said she remembered few details but that she recalled inexplicably finding herself in Hegseth’s hotel room, that he ejaculated on her body, and that she thereafter went to her own room to join an unnamed person in bed.Text messages she shared with police indicate the person was her husband and that there were other parties in the room, likely children.
Doe ended up in contact with police after she saw a medical provider to administer a sexual assault exam. The provider was required by California law to tell police of the allegation that was shared by Doe. Doe told police she didn’t recall drinking heavily that day but then later said she did and that at some point she confronted Hegseth by the hotel pool about the way he had behaved with other women that night, which she found “inappropriate.” She would also later tell police that she recalled asking Hegseth in his hotel room if he had a condom.
And that’s the exact point you know things have taken a turn out of her favor.
The rest of the report is an overwhelming refutation of that version of events. Included are text exchanges with her husband, wherein she repeatedly mentions Hegseth, but omits that she was spending time with him at the after-parties; testimonies from other women in attendance who said Doe never appeared overserved and in fact seemed completely coherent throughout; surveillance video footage that showed Doe and Hegseth walking around with locked arms; and a hotel staff member who recalled engaging Doe and Hegseth by the pool, at which time Hegseth was belligerent and Doe guided Hegseth away from the conflict.
The report ends with Hegseth’s version of events, in which he admits he only initiated sex with Doe after she took him to his room and says that the two of them repeatedly expressed reservations about the intimacy. He said that the two of them agreed the affair needed to remain secret. If there’s one corroborated piece of Doe’s story, it’s that Hegseth also recalled that she asked him if he had a condom.
— “JANE DOE stated she used a condom when she had sex with” her husband after the alleged assault. The explanation for that is redacted, but thereafter the report says, “JANE DOE stated she had a vaginal discharge and was diagnosed with bacterial vaginosis,” a condition that “can be caused by having multiple sex partners.”
— Text messages with her husband, who was at the conference, show Doe asking him if he was familiar with Hegseth, referring to him as “TDB lite” and “Mini TDB,” which appear to be meant as insults. Doe’s husband replies, “Oh you mean the man who tried to have sex with my wife?” and “Not a good first impression for Pete.”
— Doe’s husband told police it was 4 a.m. when his wife returned to their shared room. “JANE DOE arrived at their hotel room, accessed the room on her own and had used the key card reader to get in,” the report said. “JANE DOE told [her husband] that she ‘Must have fallen asleep.’ JANE DOE was apologetic.” Her husband “noticed that JANE DOE did not have a hard time walking and was not slurring her words.”
— A hotel staff member told police he encountered Doe and Hegseth at the pool and “JANE DOE placed her hand and arm on the back of HEGSETH” and “escorted him” away. The staffer described Hegseth as “very intoxicated.” By contrast, he said Doe was “not intoxicated” and in fact “standing on her own and was very coherent.”
— Of the hotel surveillance video, the report said, “The video showed JANE DOE and HEGSETH walking together, with arms locked together.”
Hegseth’s testimony also goes into detail about what happened in his hotel room, and he maintains it was consensual. No charges were ever brought, and Hegseth paid the woman a settlement fee at the time to make the drama go away.
Nobody should be left with questions about what happened here. All of the evidence indicates Hegseth was pursued by a married woman who then regretted her decision. (I’m sure the vaginal discharge didn’t help.)
Matt Gaetz, the former Florida representative and President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general, announced Thursday that he is withdrawing as Trump’s pick for the top prosecutor. Who is in consideration now for the top spot? Here are potential names floated to head the Department of Justice next.
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey was tapped by Missouri Gov. Mike Parson in 2022 to be the state’s top prosecutor after then-state Attorney General Eric Schmitt was elected to the U.S. Senate.
Bailey, an Army veteran, received his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Missouri. He then proceeded to work in the state attorney general’s office and also served as an assistant county prosecutor and a state government lawyer before joining the office of Gov. Mike Parson.
Andrew Bailey, Missouri’s attorney general, is seen during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2024. (Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Parson tapped Bailey in 2022 to be the state’s top prosecutor after then-state Attorney General Eric Schmitt was elected to the U.S. Senate.
Since becoming attorney general, Bailey has launched dozens of lawsuits against the Biden administration and sought to defend the state on a number of conservative issues.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah
Republican Sen. Mike Lee from Utah is also a name being floated for consideration. Lee is currently a high-ranking Republican in the chamber and would face a somewhat easy path to Senate confirmation, at least compared to some of the more controversial names that have surfaced previously.
Lee had previously expressed that he would not be aiming for the role, telling the Deseret News in an interview, “I have the job I want.”
Lee also told the outlet at the time that he was looking “forward to working in the next Congress and with President Trump and his team to implement his agenda and the reform agenda that Republicans have offered and campaigned on, and it’s going to be an exciting time. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah., speaks during a news conference in the Capitol on Tuesday, July 20, 2021. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Gaetz announced his decision on X early Thursday afternoon. In his post, he described his nomination as “a distraction.” Allegations of him purportedly paying underage women for sex had surfaced amid his nomination.
Trump took to social media shortly after the news broke that Gaetz would be withdrawing his name from consideration, writing on Truth Social, “I greatly appreciate the recent efforts of Matt Gaetz in seeking approval to be Attorney General. He was doing very well but, at the same time, did not want to be a distraction for the Administration, for which he has much respect. Matt has a wonderful future, and I look forward to watching all of the great things he will do!”
Gaetz had been under a monthslong investigation by the House Ethics Committee until his resignation last Wednesday from the current congressional session.
Fox News Digital reached out to Lee’s and Bailey’s offices and the Trump transition team for comment.
Fox News Digital’s Breanne Deppisch contributed to this report.
Haley Chi-Sing is a Writer for Fox News Digital. You can reach her at @haleychising on X.
UPDATE
President Elect Donald Trump has selected former Florida Attorney General, Pam Bondi to be our nation’s Attorney General.
Below is my column in The Hill on the growing calls for an organized resistance to the Trump Administration by Democratic governors and prosecutors. They may find, however, that the resistance movement this time around will be facing significant legal and political headwinds.
Here is the column:
The single most common principle of recovery programs is that the first step is to admit that you have a problem. That first step continues to elude the politicians and pundits who unsuccessfully pushed lawfare and panic politics for years. That includes prosecutors like New York Attorney General Letitia James and politicians like Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who affirmed this week that they will be redoubling, not reconsidering, their past positions.
For its part, The Washington Post quickly posted an editorial titled “The second resistance to Trump must start now.” They may, however, find the resistance more challenging both politically and legally this time around.
It is important to note at the outset that there is no reason Democratic activists should abandon their values just because they lost this election. Our system is strengthened by passionate and active advocacy. Rather, it is the collective fury and delirium of the post-election protests that was so disconcerting. Pundits lashed out at the majority of voters, insisting that the election established that half of the nation is composed of racists, misogynists or domination addicts who long to submit to tyranny.
Others blamed free speech and the fact that social media allows “disinformation” to be read by ignorant voters. In other words, the problem could not possibly be themselves. It was, rather, the public, which refused to listen.
I don’t think I could’ve said this any better. My friend Jenny spitting facts early in the morning. It’s time for the political elite in this country to realize America told you exactly how they felt on election day. This goes to the media as well. America is done with the… pic.twitter.com/v73sK7gnkF
That does not bode well for the Democratic Party. As someone raised in a liberal politically active family in Chicago, I had hoped for greater introspection after this election blowout. Ordinarily, recovery can begin with “a terrible experience” when someone hits rock bottom. After a crushing electoral defeat and the loss of the White House and likely both houses of Congress, one would think that Democrats would be ready for that first step to recovery. However, those hoping for a new leaf on the left do not understand the true addictive hold of rage.
In my recent book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I explore rage and our long history of rage politics. There is a certain release that comes with rage in allowing people to do and say things that you would never do or say. People rarely admit it, but they like it. It is the ultimate high produced by the lowest form of political discourse.
Over the course of the last eight years, the U.S. has become a nation of rage addicts. For months, Democratic leaders denounced Donald Trump and his supporters as fascists and neo-Nazis. President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and others suggested that democracy itself was about to die unless Democrats were kept in power.
Just before the election, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul called those voting for Trump “anti-American.” By Hochul’s measure, over half of the American electorate is now “anti-American.”
James is the face of lawfare. She may have done more to reelect Trump than anyone other than the president himself. She ran on nailing Trump on something, anything. In New York, she was joined by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in this ill-conceived effort. They fulfilled the narrative of a weaponized legal system. Every new legal action seemed to produce another surge in polling for Trump. Yet there James was, soon after the election, with another press conference promising again to unleash the powers of her office to stop Trump’s policies.
Then there was Pritzker, doing the community theater version of “The Avengers” and declaring, “You come for my people, you come through me.” New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) added that he too will “fight to the death” against Trump’s agenda. Rather than lower the rhetoric, these rage-addicts ran out for another hit.
Our prior periods of rage politics were largely ended by the public in major election shifts like the one this month. Things, however, are different this time around both politically and legally. The problem for the resistance is the very democracy that they claimed to be saving. Democrats lost after opposing policies supported by an astonishing share of the public at a time of deep political division. That effort included opposing voter ID laws favored by 84 percent of the public, among other things. They are now committed to opposing policies central to this election blowout, including deportations of illegal immigrants, which is favored in some polls by two-thirds of Americans.
Likewise, Democrats have already doubled down on attacks on free speech, including blaming their loss on the absence of sufficient censorship. On MSNBC, host Mika Brzezinski blamed the loss in part on “massive disinformation.” Yet, according to some polls, free speech ranked as high as second among issues on Election Day.
According to CNN, Trump’s performance was the best among young people (18-29 years old) in 20 years, the best among Black voters in 48 years, and the best among Hispanic voters in more than 50 years. Harris actually lost a bit of support with women, and Trump won handily among some groups of women.
None of that seems to matter this time. We have an alliance of political media and academic interests wholly untethered to the views of most of the public. Yet, with both houses of Congress under Republican control, the investigations and impeachment efforts that hounded Trump throughout his first term will be less of a threat in his second term. For that reason, the center of gravity of the “second resistance” will shift to Democratic prosecutors like James, Bragg and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who was just reelected. Various Democratic governors are also pledging to thwart Trump’s policies despite the results of the election.
The “second resistance” will try to use state power to oppose the very issues and policies that led to this historic political shift. That means that there will be a legal shift in the focus of litigation to inherent federal powers versus state powers. That battle will favor the Trump administration. In fairness to these Democratic politicians, they are certainly free to go to the courts, as Republicans did under Biden to argue for limitations on federal powers. But the promise of California Gov. Gavin Newsom to “Trump-proof” the state is easier to make rhetorically than it will be to keep legally.
Indeed, Trump will be able to cite a curious ally in this fight: Barack Obama. It was Obama who successfully swatted down state efforts to pursue their own policies and programs on immigration enforcement. Obama insisted that state laws were preempted in the area and the Supreme Court largely agreed in its 2012 decision in Arizona v. U.S.
Congress may even seek to tie the receipt of federal funds to states cooperating with federal mandates. For this reason, Democrats, who campaigned on the promise to end the filibuster for the good of democracy, suddenly became firm believers in that Senate rule right around 2:30 a.m. last Wednesday.
As the majority of the country walks away from the party shaking their heads, many activists are left only with their rage. Instead of reappraising the years of far-left orthodoxy and intolerance, some are calling to tear down the system or take drastic individual actions, including for women to break up with their boyfriends and husbands or to cut off their hair.
They will actually keep their rage and dump their relationships. Now that really is an addiction.
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Gov. Tim Walz lost his own Blue Earth County in Minnesota. Trump also flipped three other counties: Winona, Nicollet, and Carlton.
Trump flips four Minnesota counties, including win in Walz’s home county.
Former President Donald Trump didn’t win Minnesota in Tuesday’s election, but he delivered another shock to Democrats, flipping four counties from blue to red—including Gov. Tim Walz’s home turf, Blue Earth County. The narrow flips tightened Trump’s margin of defeat in the state to just four points—an improvement from his 7-point loss to Joe Biden in 2020. While Vice President Kamala Harris and Walz claimed victory statewide with 50.88% of the vote to Trump’s 46.66%, the results reveal a growing divide between Minnesota’s urban and rural voters. READ MORE
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Revised from 2018 and revised for 2024 Veterans Day. Our Veterans are being left in the cold while Democrat priorities have been focused on housing and feeding illegal Immigrants coming across the border by the millions. Kamala/Biden’s disastrous immigration policies are one of the main reasons Trump won.
SHAMEFUL: Biden Admin’s John Kirby Said to Ignore Afghanistan Veterans Because They Don’t Vote Democrat
By Mike LaChance – The Gateway Pundit – Sept 11, 2024
John Kirby of the Biden administration has just been caught saying something truly shameful about American veterans. He did not realize that he had hit ‘reply all’ on an email inquiry sent to his office by FOX News seeking comment on veterans and the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. Kirby’s response stated that there was ‘no use in responding’ because these veterans are not Harris voters. On the anniversary of 9/11, White House National Security Council communications adviser John Kirby dismissed the concerns of military veterans critical of the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, writing in response to a Fox News Digital press inquiry that there’s “no use” weighing in on the veterans’ views. READ MORE
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Trump supporters are rooting for Rick Scott to be the next Senate Majority Leader, hoping he can beat McConnell clones Thune and Cornyn.
KEEP THE HEAT ON: GOP Senators Feeling “Bullied” as MAGA Nation Makes Their Choice for Senate Majority Leader Crystal Clear
By Cullen Linebarger – The Gateway Pundit – Nov 11, 2024
As The Gateway Pundit reported, the Senate Republican leadership vote will take place in a closed-door session this Wednesday, November 13, 2024. The three candidates running for the position of Majority Leader are Texas Senator John Cornyn, South Dakota Senator John Thune, and Florida Senator Rick Scott. The Gateway Pundit has endorsed Scott for the position. As Jim Hoft notes, Scott is a devoted supporter of President-elect Donald J. Trump and a highly successful former businessman. He has also pledged full support for the Trump agenda and will implement recess appointments to make it easier to drain the DC Swamp while also ensuring no one sabotages Trump from the inside. For these reasons, ordinary Trump supporters, along with Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson, have endorsed Scott. READ MORE
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
Democrats are worried America elected former President Donald Trump at his worst. Republicans are celebrating that Trump is at his best.
Eight years after the Manhattan real estate mogul and reality television star shocked the world with a triumphant victory over Hillary Clinton, Trump will reclaim the White House as a veteran politician with a full term behind him.
“Figures who once hoped to act as stabilizing forces — including a string of chiefs of staff, defense secretaries, a national security adviser, a national intelligence adviser and an attorney general — have abandoned Trump, leaving behind recriminations about his character and abilities,” CNN reported. “They’ve been replaced by a cohort of advisers and officials uninterested in keeping Trump in check. Instead of acting as bulwarks against him, those working for Trump this time around share his views and are intent on upholding the extreme pledges he made as a candidate without concern for norms, traditions or law that past aides sought to maintain.”
In other words, to CNN, a second Trump term will feature a brash president without the guardrails of closet Democrats to protect them from his impulses that offend the left. But to Trump’s supporters, the presidents-elect past experience with opposition personnel is the guardrail to insulate the duly elected commander-in-chief from deep state interference. Not only will Trump be governing without “The Resistance” undermining him from within, but he’ll be governing with the right people carefully picked in the four years since he left office.
“America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate,” Trump said Wednesday morning. “I will govern by a simple motto: Promises made, promises kept.”
He knows he can’t accomplish all he wants in his final term if things go anything like his first. Trump was hamstrung for half his previous Oval Office tenure with high staff turnover and fake scandals fabricated by the Democrats alongside a hostile media. Trump’s opposition was so desperate to destroy the president they exploited a new virus to rig election rules in 2020 and launched a cascade of lawfare afterward. His triumphant comeback re-election Tuesday, won in spite of impeachment, bankruptcy campaigns, criminal convictions, and even two attempted assassinations, now has those who initiated such efforts worried about accountability branded as “retribution.” Democrats might not have worried about a potential plot for revenge had they not weaponized the federal and state governments to punish Trump for the crime of winning the 2016 election.
“If you are a commie liberal and think Trump was ‘bad’ pre-2020, take a moment and consider what a post-landslide Trump will look like after you tried to murder him on live television,” wrote Federalist CEO Sean Davis on X. “You’re going to spend the next four years regretting every thing you’ve been up to for the last five.”
Had corrupt Democrats and regime media not used a pandemic to destroy the country and rig a presidential election in 2020, Trump would be on his way out the door today.
But they couldn’t help themselves. And Trump is going to have four more years with the full knowledge of…
Trump was voted back into the White House Tuesday in an electoral landslide, giving him a public mandate to tackle the burgeoning leviathan of the administrative state. This time, the incoming president knows better than to allow the deep state to undermine his agenda supported by the voters. The lessons from his first nine years as a politician fighting criminal and civil lawfare campaigns have, as Chuck Schumer might put it, “unleashed the whirlwind,” and delivered America a commander-in-chief who will be wiser in his second term and better able to avoid the pitfalls of his first.
Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.
Below is my column in The Hill on the collapse of the lawfare campaigns against Trump. The first to go will likely be the two cases by Special Counsel Jack Smith, who became a lame-duck prosecutor at around 2:30 am last Wednesday. We are also waiting for what is likely to be a reduction or even a rejection of the Trump civil case by Attorney General Letitia James. While Democratic prosecutors are likely to continue, if not ramp up, their lawfare efforts, Trump will enter office with a fraction of the existing legal threats that have dogged him for years. For prosecutors, they are left like the ancient mariner:
Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean.
Here is the column:
Nearly two years ago, I wrote that Democratic prosecutors’ lawfare campaign against Donald Trump would make the 2024 election the single largest jury decision in history. Now that the verdict is in, the question is whether prosecutors will continue their unrelenting campaign against the president-elect and his companies.
The answer is that it may not matter.
The election reflected a certain gag sensation for a public fed a relentless diet of panic and identity politics for eight years. The 2024 election will come to be viewed as one of the biggest political and cultural shifts in our history. It was the mainstream-media-versus-new media election; the Rogan-versus-Oprah election; the establishment-versus-a-disassociated-electorate election.
It was also a thorough rejection of lawfare. One of the things most frustrating for Trump’s opponents was that every trial or hearing seemed to give Trump a boost in the polls. As cases piled up in Washington, New York, Florida and Georgia, the effort seemed to move more toward political acclamation than isolation. These cases are now legal versions of the Flying Dutchman — ships destined to sail endlessly but never make port.
If there is a single captain of that hapless crew, it is Special Counsel Jack Smith. For more than a year, Smith sought to secure a verdict in one of his two cases in Washington and Florida before the election. His urgency was seemingly shared by Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington, but by few other judges or justices.
Around 2 am, Smith became a lame-duck prosecutor. Trump ran on ending his prosecutions and can cite a political mandate for it. Certainly, had he lost, the other side would be claiming a mandate for these prosecutions.
Trump’s new attorney general could remove Smith and order the termination of his continued prosecution. That is less of a problem in Florida, where a federal judge had already tossed out the prosecution of the classified documents case, which some of us saw as the greatest threat against Trump.
In Washington, Chutkan, who proved both motivated and active in pushing forward the election interference case, could complicate matters. Under federal rules, it is up to Chutkan to order any dismissal.
In the case of former national security adviser Michael Flynn, Judge Emmet Sullivan resisted granting the dismissal sought by the Justice Department — a record that I criticized as both unusual and unwarranted.
Chutkan could run the incoming Trump administration around on any dismissal, but in the end, it should succeed in ending Smith’s ill-considered indictment. In reality, Smith was not only losing the Florida case but was likely to be reversed again in Washington due to his refusal to make sufficient changes in his indictment of Trump after the recent immunity decision by the Supreme Court.
Smith could make one last push to damage Trump in the period before the inauguration by pushing for an immunity decision from Chutkan. He would again likely find a supportive ally in Chutkan.
However, in the end, this would do little to change the fact that the Flying Dutchman will soon be without a crew or port of call.
One of the most immediate cases to resume is the prosecution in Manhattan by District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Many, including commentators like CNN’s senior legal analyst Elie Honig, have denounced that case as legally flawed and obviously politically motivated.
Judge Juan Merchan is scheduled to rule on the immunity issue by Nov. 11 and to hold a possible sentencing on Nov. 26. Merchan has shown a pronounced bias against Trump in the past, and his counsel is likely anticipating a continuation of this pattern.
Merchan could sentence Trump to jail. However, such an abusive sentencing, even a brief one, would likely trigger an expedited appeal and would likely be stayed. Trump cannot pardon himself in a state case, but the case itself is a target-rich environment of arguable legal errors that could collapse on appeal.
Another case in New York is likely to move forward now. There is a pending appeal on the massive civil case against Trump brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James. For many, James is the very face of lawfare as a prosecutor who ran on getting Trump on something, anything.
She ultimately secured another openly biased judge in Justice Arthur Engoron, who imposed an absurd, grotesque $455 million in fines and interest against Trump and his corporation. Notably, some of the judges on the appellate panel seemed to agree with that assessment, questioning not just the amount but the very use of this law in a case where there was no victim and no one lost a single dollar due to the fraud alleged.
My assumption is that the opinion is already written, held back only because of the election. It could now be issued and constitute a major change in the case. Whatever is left of that judgment, if anything, would then certainly be appealed.
Then there is the roaring dumpster fire in Georgia. An appellate court there will decide whether District Attorney Fani Willis and her office can continue prosecuting the case. If they are forced off the case, a new prosecutor must review the matter. While some criminal allegations against defendants can be established, the alleged racketeering conspiracy against Trump is legally flawed and likely to fail on appeal.
Trump will also continue to appeal civil cases such as the E. Jean Carroll case, which will linger long past the election.
Trump will not be the only defendant to see substantial changes on January 20, 2025. Trump has pledged to pardon those prosecuted over the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot. The public elected him despite that pledge and over the opposition of Democrats. That will affect hundreds and may come in the form of a mix of pardons and commutations, depending on the underlying charges.
One lingering question will be whether those who supported this lawfare will be deterred in the future. The thrill-kill politics practiced by figures like James proved costly in this election. Polls showed that many citizens have lost trust in the FBI and now view the criminal law process as being politicized in places like New York.
The next few weeks will determine whether Democratic leaders are ready for a new course in ending the lawfare.
President Biden could pardon Trump. It would be a poison-pill pardon. Trump does not need a pardon as the incoming president, but Biden could take the matter off the table by treating him as presumptively guilty. He could not only claim to have taken the higher ground (even though he ran on and promoted the prosecutions of Trump as legitimate) but use it as cover for pardoning his own son.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) could also move to pardon Trump on the New York charges. Hochul was widely criticized for calling Trump supporters (now the majority of voters in the nation) “un-American.” She could seek to make amends with a pardon.
In the end, Trump read the jury correctly. Once the lawfare was unleashed, he focused on putting his case to the public and walked away with a clear majority decision. It is unlikely that this will end all of his lawfare battles, but it may effectively end the war.
Jonathan Turley is a Fox News Media contributor and the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage” (Simon & Schuster, 2024).
Former President Donald Trump takes the stage during a campaign rally at the Santander Arena on Nov. 4, 2024, in Reading, Pennsylvania. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Philip Wegmann, a former reporter for The Daily Signal, covers the White House for RealClearNews.
WEST PALM BEACH, Florida—Donald John Trump, the 45th U.S. president, will soon become the 47th president, after he was projected to win not just the 270 Electoral College votes needed to return to the White House but also the national popular vote. His humiliation of the political elite is now complete.
The conservative Fox News channel was first to call the race for Trump while The Associated Press and the legacy television networks held off early Wednesday morning. After Pennsylvania turned red, however, even liberal MSNBC News conceded that the Republican’s lead over Vice President Kamala Harris had become mathematically insurmountable. The AP finally called the race at 5:45 a.m.
Trump is on track to become the first Republican to win a majority of the vote since George W. Bush in 2004, and he will become the first president to serve two nonconsecutive terms since Grover Cleveland in 1892. His triumph represents a wholesale repudiation of the establishment. Big business, Hollywood, the media, and both major political parties treated him as an unwelcome interloper. He delivered his rebuttal on Election Day.
A celebrity known for his starring role on a reality television show, a career in New York real estate, and a knack for showing up in the tabloids, Trump wasn’t even a “citizen politician” when he arrived on the political scene in 2015. He wasn’t a politician at all and had never run for office or been involved in party politics.
Dismissed by the commentariat as unserious, he defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016 and was impeached (but not convicted) for his troubles. Four years later, he was again declared politically unviable after he refused to accept the results of his loss to Joe Biden and his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell condemned him as “practically and morally responsible” for the Jan. 6 riot, but efforts by an increasingly obsolete cohort of GOP were singularly unsuccessful in sidelining the man.
Trump declared his candidacy immediately after the 2022 midterms, marched almost effortlessly through a crowded field of primary challengers, and secured a third consecutive presidential nomination. He did not regain his grasp on the GOP so much as he tightened his grip on that party.
“I think that we just witnessed the greatest political comeback in the history of the United States of America,” Trump running mate JD Vance said after Tuesday’s election returns rolled in. There was no exaggeration in his words.
The first time Trump won the White House, he did so as the leader of a white working-class coalition, promising those he would call in his inaugural address “the forgotten men and women” to reverse the “American carnage” brought on by deindustrialization, globalization, and unchecked immigration. The former, and now future, president did not moderate. Opponents condemned his calls for mass deportations as “racist” and his vow to root out the ill-defined “enemy within” as “fascist.”
Those denunciations ultimately had little effect. Not only did Trump maintain his support with the white working class, but he also made significant gains with both Hispanic and black voters according to early exit polls. A multiclass, multiethnic coalition returned him to power. One demographic at the center of that electorate: young men.
Tuesday’s results amount to a repudiation, not only of Harris and Biden, but also the old breed of Republicans who made common cause with corporations and harbored a neoconservative foreign policy. The most visible among them, former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, threw her support behind the Democrat. Trump’s second victory heralds a shifting political landscape that will continue sorting itself out during the presidential transition and in the four-year term to follow.
Reflecting on the breadth of his support, Trump told a crowded victory party that his winning coalition was drawn “from all quarters—union, non-union, African American, Hispanic American, Asian American, Arab American.” Surrounded by his family and campaign staff on stage, he added, “We had everybody, and it was beautiful.”
“It was,” Trump added, “a historic realignment.”
The Harris campaign had already headed to bed at that point. “Let’s finish up what we have in front of us tonight, get some sleep,” campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon wrote to her team in an email obtained by RealClearPolitics, “and get ready to close out strong tomorrow.”
The vice president had yet to concede by mid-morning Wednesday. Famous for chiding Republican men when they talked over her— “I’m speaking”—Harris sent her campaign chairman, Cedric Richmond, on stage to tell her supporters at Howard University late Tuesday that they would not hear from her. Many left in tears. Trump World was just beginning to party.
A crowd noticeably younger than the ones Trump attracted in his two previous elections had packed into the Palm Beach Convention Center hours earlier. As their champion monitored data from nearby Mar-a-Lago, they pulled up to any of the six cash bars in the main hall. The most popular beer for the thirsty “America first” voter: Modelo, a lager from Mexico.
The MAGA faithful were prepared for a long night. News networks warned that the results might not be known on Election Day or even the morning after, a message amplified by Democrats. And there was good reason to believe the race might come down to the wire: Trump and Harris were locked in a dead heat for much of the contest as a divided nation evaluated its options. But just as he used social media to sidestep gatekeepers eight years ago, Trump targeted new, younger voters, with a new medium: the Bro Podcast.
He talked about everything from aliens to artificial intelligence with Joe Rogan, host of “The Joe Rogan Experience.” He chopped it up on the Barstool Sports podcast “Bussin’ With the Boys,” hosted by former NFL football players Will Compton and Taylor Lewan. He asked Theo Von if he still uses cocaine (the comedian told the teetotaling president that the white powder “will turn you into a damn owl, homie”).
The conversations did not resemble anything like Frost v. Nixon. Podcasts are certainly much cheaper and less serious. They were instrumental, all the same, in turning out young men who are famously low-propensity voters.
Harris sought to make the race a referendum on Trump. She described him as a threat to democracy generally and an opponent of abortion rights specifically. For his part, he called illegal immigration “the biggest issue” and an inflation-addled economy “the second.”
A senior Trump adviser told RealClearPolitics it was “more like ‘Issue 1A and 1B,’ but immigration is one of them.” Either way, the economic frustrations and security fears were enough to deliver Trump a majority despite the criminal indictments and felony convictions that Democrats had hoped would throttle his candidacy. Those legal challenges made Trump the symbol of conservative martyrdom. It became visceral at the fairground in Butler, Pennsylvania, this summer when an assassin’s bullet clipped his ear. The photo of the bloody Republican pumping his fist in defiance instantly became an image for the ages.
“This is what happens when the machine comes after you,” bellowed Ultimate Fight Championship President Dana White from the main stage here Tuesday night. “He keeps going forward. He doesn’t quit. He’s the most resilient, hardworking man that I’ve ever met in my life.” Referring to Trump’s victory in the face of the challenges, White said, “This is karma.”
Whatever cosmic forces were at play, victory was not guaranteed. While Trump seemed poised to handle Biden, Harris promised to be a tougher challenge after she delivered a shot of adrenaline straight into progressive hearts. She brought in more fundraising dollars, campaigned alongside celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and Beyoncé Knowles, and turned the race into the definition of a dead heat.
Doubt crept into Republican hearts in the final days, especially after The Atlantic magazine reported that morale inside the Republican campaign was cratering. A senior Trump aide texted RealClearPolitics to say the opposite: “Morale is decidedly very high at this current moment.”
According to longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone, Democrats have only themselves to blame for what happened in this election.
“If you want to make somebody iconic, try to throw them in jail, try to bankrupt them,” said the infamous political operative. “If you want to make somebody iconic, cook up a fake hoax to justify their removal from the presidency,” he added in reference to once-en-vogue allegations that Trump was a Russian asset. “And if you really want to make somebody iconic, try to kill them.”
Stone was not alone in viewing the political attacks—and the attempts on Trump’s life, which Democrats condemned—in the same category: “All those things failed,” he said. “They just made him bigger and more powerful.”
Trump has now dispensed with three Democratic Party opponents—Clinton in 2016 and both Biden and Harris in 2024. Each opponent had the money advantage and what was billed as a much more sophisticated political apparatus. He was able to do this, some Republicans like to say, because he was on a mission from the Almighty. But despite the personal invectives against enemies and frequent calls for retribution that defined his campaign, in his victory speech the president-elect made little mention of his opponent. He was philosophical the morning of his win.
“Many people have told me God spared my life for a reason,” Trump said, “and that reason was to save our country, and to restore America to greatness, and now we are going to fulfill that mission together.”
Congressional majorities are a handy thing to have in that kind of endeavor.
The GOP picked up three Senate seats to secure the upper chamber, while control of the House of Representatives was still too close to call but within reach. The highest-ranking Republican currently in office, House Speaker Mike Johnson, joined Trump on stage. Perhaps signaling that he didn’t have patience for more intramural infighting, he thanked Johnson by name and told the crowd, “I think he’s doing a terrific job.” More work will follow.
Trump has already remade the Republican Party in his own image, greatly diminishing the interventionist and libertarian wings of the GOP in the process. He now promises sweeping tariffs, a strategic retreat from global conflicts such as the land war in Ukraine, and an incessant focus on domestic challenges—the southern border chief among them. “America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate,” he insisted. The country only needs to follow his prescription to achieve “a golden age.”
Running against him in a third election, Democrats felt they finally knew what to make of Trump. Clinton made light of his many flaws the first time. Biden defeated him during the second election by painting him as a threat to democracy. For her part, Harris attempted to split the difference.
“In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man,” she told her fellow Democrats at their Chicago convention to hearty laughter. “But the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious,” added the vice president—who is slated to soon preside over the certification of his election.
Some of the Republicans who came out to cheer Trump early Wednesday morning saw things similarly, especially the younger ones. They laughed at his unserious moments and listened earnestly to his serious warnings. One example was Caden Caouette, a Florida State University freshman who repurposed a Trump-Pence shirt by covering the name of the former vice president with a piece of masking tape with Vance written in Sharpie letters.
“These last couple of years really speak to it,” he said. “The economy has been bad, and then everybody crossing the border. A lot of work needs to get done, and Trump’s the man to do it.”
A first-time voter, Caouette stood outside the convention center just hours before his morning classes for a chance to cheer on the champion who had once again upended American politics. The podcasts, particularly the one with Rogan last month, he said, served as “a reminder” to vote because it was “not just something I could skip.”
A now certain return to the Oval Office, even for a larger-than-life figure like Trump, once seemed a stretch. In the end, it wasn’t.
Below is my column in USA Today on the controversy at NBC after Vice President Kamala Harris was given a cameo appearance on Saturday Night Live just days before the election. It was the latest push by media companies to put a thumb on the scale of the election.
Here is the column:
Will Rogers said, “Everything is funny as long as it’s happening to somebody else.”
Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign can attest to the truism after the vice president appeared on “Saturday Night Live” three days before the presidential election. Make no mistake, there is nothing funny about an apparent violation of federal law by NBC and “SNL.” With Harris and Trump locked in a close race, the appearance was a bonanza for the campaign. It also was presumptively unlawful.
Lorne Michaels said candidates wouldn’t appear on SNL
A month ago, The Hollywood Reporter quoted “SNL” creator Lorne Michaels saying it was implausible that either Trump or Harris would appear on the show given the clear federal rules: “You can’t bring the actual people who are running on because of election laws and the equal time provisions. You can’t have the main candidates without having all the candidates, and there are lots of minor candidates that are only on the ballot in, like, three states and that becomes really complicated.”
The “SNL” cast and crew appeared to take the opposite meaning from Michaels’ warning. They decided to broadcast a virtual campaign commercial for Harris and later ask for forgiveness rather than permission. The skit was hardly subtle in jettisoning comedy for sycophancy. Former “SNL” cast member Maya Rudolph, impersonating Harris, said she wished she “could talk to someone who’s been in my shoes. You know, a Black, South Asian woman running for president. Preferably from the Bay Area.”
“SNL” used a faux comedic skit to echo the Democratic presidential nominee’s campaign themes. Harris assured her doppelgänger, “I’m just here to remind you, you got this. Because you can do something your opponent cannot do. You can open doors.” Rudolph even mouthed the campaign theme for Harris, declaring, “The American people want to stop the chaos and end the drama-la.” Both then espoused their “belief in the promise of America.”
NBC lawyers were clearly among the viewers who were not laughing Saturday night. On Sunday, Trump was given a chance to speak on NBC after a NASCAR race.
FCC’s rules try to ensure equal time for candidates
Since 1934, the Federal Communications Commission’s equal-time rule has required radio and television broadcast stations to give competing political candidates the same amount of time. FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, a Republican, denounced NBC’s move as a premeditated and gross violation of the equal-time regulation. He said that the federal rules were designed for this very purpose, and that NBC discarded the rules to trawl for undecided voters for Harris, particularly young voters who have been a challenge for the vice president.
“NBC has structured this in a way that’s plainly designed to evade the FCC’s rules,” Carr told Fox News on Sunday. “We’re talking 50 hours before Election Day starts, without any notice to other candidates, as far as I can tell.”
“In the 2016 cycle, President Obama’s FCC Chair made clear that the agency would enforce the Equal Time rule when candidate Trump went on SNL,” Carr tweeted Saturday night.
So, the producers of “SNL” were not only warned by its creator as the new season began but also were warned by the FCC in 2016. They decided to ignore the warnings. On Sunday, NBC seemed to acknowledge the violation by filing an FCC notice under the equal-time provision acknowledging that it gave free exposure to Harris and Kaine − only days before voters went to the polls.
The true joke is on the public. With virtually all the news media supporting her, Harris has fielded a united front of celebrities from Hollywood to New York. By claiming that democracy is about to die, violations of FCC rules likely seem a trivial concern. To save democracy, there is little time for legal niceties.
Indeed, some Democrats appear to be morphing into the very people they are vilifying. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., appeared on “Real Time with Bill Maher” on Friday to declare that Democrats will accept the result of a Trump victory only if they believe it is a “free and fair election.”
On Maher’s show, Raskin said, “We’re not going to allow them to steal it in the states, or steal it in the Department of Justice, or steal it with any other election official in the country.”
Whether on “SNL” or “Real Time,” it is always funnier if it happens to someone else.
Yesterday, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes became the latest Democratic prosecutor to suggest a possible criminal charge against former President Donald Trump. Mayes suggested that Trump’s controversial statement on Liz Cheney going to war could constitute a criminal threat. It is absurd and Mayes knows that any such charge would collapse before any remotely objective trial judge.
The promise of a criminal investigation by Mayes may hold a type of thrill-kill enticement for voters, but it would constitute a major assault on free speech in criminalizing political rhetoric.
I have often criticized Trump for his rhetoric and particularly his personal attacks on opponents and critics. However, the question is not whether you like the Cheney comment but whether there would be any meaningful limits on criminalizing political speech.
Critics charged that some media outlets were accused of misrepresenting the comments by cutting off part of what Trump said. Drudge Report ran a banner reading “TRUMP CALLS FOR CHENEY’S EXECUTION.” It then linked to the partial quotation on MSNBC and CNN:
“I don’t blame him for sticking with his daughter, but his daughter is a very dumb individual. Very dumb, she’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? Let’s see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face.”
However, they cut off the lines that followed. Here is the whole quote with the removed lines in bold:
“I don’t blame him for sticking with his daughter, but his daughter is a very dumb individual. Very dumb, she’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK. Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face. You know, they’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building saying, oh, gee, we’ll, let’s send — let’s send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy.”
The quote is clearly a reference to Cheney going to war and how she would feel about it.
Once again, I do not like the tenor or the name-calling. However, it is most clearly not a criminal threat.
What is most striking about Mayes’s promise is that no competent prosecutor would believe that such a political statement could constitute a crime. As I discuss in my book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” people do not like to admit it, but they like the rage. It is addictive and contagious, even for prosecutors. We have been here before with Trump. After the January 6th riot, there was an overwhelming consensus that Trump could be charged with incitement. After the riot, District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine was widely praised when he announced that he was considering arresting Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Rudy Giuliani, and U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks and charging them with incitement. So what happened to that prosecution? The failure of Racine to charge Trump was not due to any affection or loyalty to the former president. It was due to the paucity of direct evidence of a crime that would hold up in court. Supporters of this theory also often cut off the quote before Trump told his followers to protest “peacefully.”
Mayes will also likely drop the matter in time with no action. The important thing was to convey to Democratic voters a desire to prosecute Trump. It is now the bona fides of every Democratic prosecutor.
Even under Counterman v. Colorado, the Supreme Court ruled that criminal threats must be based on a showing of a culpable mental state. It cannot be based merely on a claim that words are objectively threatening. At a minimum, it requires the person to recklessly disregard a substantial risk that his words could be perceived as threatening. In so holding, the Court sought to offer “‘breathing space’ for protected speech.”
The need for such breathing space is even more significant in the context of a presidential campaign. For example, after his controversial garbage comment, Biden was accused of wanting to drown Trump. He has previously spoken about beating up Trump. None of that could be reasonably viewed as actual threats.
Even some figures on the left called out the media for misrepresenting the statement. The Young Turks’ Cenk Uygur wrote “Donald Trump did not call for the execution of Liz Cheney. That is a bald-faced lie. He was making a point about how she is a chickenhawk. But also, Trump shouldn’t talk about guns being ‘trained on her face,’ especially in a time where we’re worried about political violence.”
Vox correspondent Zack Beauchamp added his objections: “Folks, Trump didn’t threaten to execute Liz Cheney. He actually was calling her a chickenhawk, something liberals said about her for ages. Look at the context — Trump is talking about giving her a weapon. Typically, people put in front of firing squads aren’t armed.”
Political analyst Jonah Goldberg retracted his comments on CNN and now admits that there was no threat by Trump.
The threat from Mayes constitutes political pandering of the worst kind. Suggesting another round of lawfare just days before the election is a disservice to her office and the citizens of Arizona.
13-1202. Threatening or intimidating; classification
A. A person commits threatening or intimidating if the person threatens or intimidates by word or conduct:
1. To cause physical injury to another person or serious damage to the property of another; or
2. To cause, or in reckless disregard to causing, serious public inconvenience including, but not limited to, evacuation of a building, place of assembly or transportation facility; or
3. To cause physical injury to another person or damage to the property of another in order to promote, further or assist in the interests of or to cause, induce or solicit another person to participate in a criminal street gang, a criminal syndicate or a racketeering enterprise.
B. Threatening or intimidating pursuant to subsection A, paragraph 1 or 2 is a class 1 misdemeanor, except that it is a class 6 felony if:
1. The offense is committed in retaliation for a victim’s either reporting criminal activity or being involved in an organization, other than a law enforcement agency, that is established for the purpose of reporting or preventing criminal activity.
2. The person is a criminal street gang member.
C. Threatening or intimidating pursuant to subsection A, paragraph 3 is a class 3 felony.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., on Monday said former President Donald Trump had promised him “control” over key public health and agriculture agencies if Trump wins the election next week. During a virtual event, Kennedy said, “the key that President Trump has promised me is control of the public health agencies, which are [Health and Human Services] and its sub-agencies, CDC, FDA, NIH, and a few others … and then also the [Department of Agriculture],”Politico reports.
Kennedy didn’t specify a particular role, such as HHS Secretary, which would likely require Senate confirmation, an outcome that could be challenging due to Kennedy’s outspoken vaccine skepticism. However, it’s possible he could influence health policy in an advisory role if an official appointment isn’t viable.
The Trump campaign has not denied Kennedy’s claims, but they call discussions about appointments “premature.” Trump’s national press secretary added that Trump wants to collaborate with “passionate voices” like Kennedy to improve food safety and fight chronic illnesses affecting children.
Trump himself suggested at his Madison Square Garden rally Sunday that he’d let Kennedy “go wild” on reforming food and medicine policies if re-elected.
Kennedy, who suspended his own presidential campaign in August and endorsed Trump, serves on the former president’s transition team.
He has been campaigning for him in crucial swing states since dropping out of the race. Kennedy is founder of Children’s Health Defense, a non-profit organization aimed at “ending childhood health epidemics by eliminating toxic exposure,” according to its website.
Christina Lewis is a member of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation.
As Americans prepare to head to the polls on Nov. 5, some voters are putting their money where their mouth is by placing bets on the election’s outcome. With less than a week left before the election, Polymarket, a betting platform and the world’s largest prediction market, gives former President Donald Trump a two-thirds chance (66.3%) of winning back the presidency. Vice President Kamala Harris has a one-in-three chance (33.8%).
Behind the overall odds of becoming president are Polymarket’s odds for Trump and Harris in the major swing states. Trump, according to Polymarket, is the favorite to win five of the six tracked swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Michigan is currently a dead heat, while Polymarket does not include North Carolina among the swing states on its webpage.
Polymarket users are placing their bets on Trump in the state of Nevada, home to the gambling mecca of Las Vegas. Currently, the betting platform has Trump with a 66% chance of winning the Silver State, while Harris has a 34% chance.
The polls, however, show the race much closer. Real Clear Polling averages show Trump winning by only 0.7 of a percentage point. Why, then, do the betting markets seem fairly confident of a Trump victory there?
For one thing, Nevada is home to one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, at 5.6%. The state’s economy is still reeling from the havoc caused by the COVID-19 lockdowns. Trump is planning to address the housing crisis and inflation when he visits the state for a rally in Henderson on Thursday afternoon.
In Arizona, Trump is seen as having a 74% chance of winning, whereas Harris has just a 26% chance. However, Real Clear Polling averages show Trump winning by 1.3 percentage points. Trump won the state in 2016 by 3.6 points, but lost to Joe Biden in 2020 by 0.3%.
Polymarket shows Trump with a 73% chance of winning Georgia, Harris with a 27% chance.
Shelby Arnette moved to Georgia four years ago and has noticed that she and her husband are receiving different political messaging that seems to be targeted at their respective genders.
“I have seen different signs and things specifically advertising toward women to vote Democrat to have reproductive rights,” Arnette said.
There’s a smaller margin between Trump and Harris in Wisconsin, according to Polymarket, with a 55% chance of a Trump victory there and a 45% chance of Harris winning the state. In 2016, Trump won the state by 0.7% but lost to Biden by 0.7% in 2020.
Polymarket shows a dead heat in Michigan, 50% to 50%. The state is still up for grabs, as Democrats are targeting women on the issue of abortion, while Trump is banking on support from the state’s autoworkers.
Trump invited a group of Arab and Muslim leaders to speak at his rally in Novi, Michigan, on Saturday.
“We as Muslims stand with President Trump because he promises peace, not war,” one speaker at the rally said. “We are supporting Donald Trump because he promised to end war in the Middle East and Ukraine. The bloodshed has to stop all over the world, and I think this man can make it happen.”
As all eyes turn to Pennsylvania, seen by many as the most important of the swing states, Polymarket shows Trump with a 62% chance of winning the state, with Harris trailing at a distant 38%. But again, Real Clear Polling averages put Trump in the lead by a much smaller margin—0.4 of a percentage point.
Pennsylvania resident Ruth Howard moved to the Keystone State from Oregon a few years ago. She said that she thinks Pennsylvania will play a pivotal role in the presidential election.
“I knew it was important to vote in [Oregon], but then coming to Pennsylvania, I feel like there’s a little more opportunity that my vote will make a difference, that it could help swing the state or politics in particular,” Howard said.
For years, many have speculated that Democrat political candidates may be filling social media with fake posts to deceive the public and make their campaigns and causes seem more popular than they are. These claims have often been dismissed, citing that Democrat voters are already more likely to be on the internet compared to their not-as-tech-savvy Republican counterparts. This would suggest that the constant flood of left-leaning content on websites such as Reddit was merely a reflection of the userbase. However, many people simply couldn’t shake the feeling that something was just off, especially in the run up to major elections. Despite my fervent belief that something was amiss, I never had any direct proof that Democrats were actively manipulating social media.
That all changed two weeks ago, when X user @jessiprincey replied to one of my posts with a screenshot from a Discord server, seemingly related to the Harris-Walz campaign:
I immediately messaged Jess, and soon received a link to the Discord server where this operation was taking place. What I’d find there went far beyond algorithmic manipulation. I discovered massive “astroturfing” campaigns operating across multiple platforms. “Astroturfing” is a political and marketing term that describes creating swarms of coordinated and/or paid messages and posts to deceptively create the illusion of support from ordinary people. Essentially, “astroturfing” is the opposite of grassroots support.
In this case, there is a team of volunteers who spam social media with posts that specifically promote Kamala. They then have other users pretend to be random individuals who just happened across the post and decided to comment. It’s no different than a shady company paying a team to write a bunch of fake Amazon reviews about their product to make it appear to be a better and more popular product than it is.
On Amazon, that might result in a product getting more sales. In a U.S. election, it could mean that the falsely advertised candidate receives more votes. This behavior is not only incredibly dishonest, but in many cases, it directly violates the Terms of Service they’ve agreed to by operating on certain social media platforms.
In part one of a three-part series, we’re going to look at how the Harris-Walz campaign has manipulated the popular website Reddit, one of the top social media sites with 500 million users, to publish campaign propaganda.
Astroturfing on Reddit
Reddit is broken into thousands of message boards on discrete topics, known as “subreddits.” The Politics subreddit and several others are being actively targeted by the Harris-Walz campaign, with notable success. Since the Reddit astroturfing operation started, it has rapidly developed an organizational structure — complete with roles for team members, spreadsheets for tracking their analytics, and “Key Messaging” to stick to when making a social media post.
I found that 126 of the top 1,000 posts in the past month on r/Politics were posted by official Harris-Walz campaign volunteers. Owning one out of every eight of all top posts in r/Politics is not an easy feat, and it doesn’t just happen. Here’s how they achieved it.
Every weekday morning, Harris for President staffers like Gabrielle Lynn post the “Daily Messaging Guidance” to the server’s Reddit channel. It usually consists of articles and data that the Harris-Walz campaign wants to boost, as well as “key messaging” that their Reddit volunteers should stick to.
On Gabrielle Lynn’s profile, you’ll find a Staff icon (the blue D), which indicates that she is a paid Democrat staffer. In this case, Gabrielle is a Harris for President staffer.
The links compiled by official Harris-Walz staffers, along with other articles submitted by volunteers, are added to a Google Spreadsheet called “Reddit Organizing.”
Kamala’s “Lead Posters” (people who have demonstrated a “cultural” knowledge of Reddit) then choose which links will resonate best with different Reddit communities. For instance, a link about “how Project 2025 impacts reproductive health” will be directed towards communities with young women as their primary user base, whereas news about Kamala’s Fox News interview “winning over swing state voters” gets directed to Reddit’s Democrat communities, and possibly to people living in swing states.
Harris-Walz campaign volunteers have created a database of more than 100 subreddits — each containing detailed information on what kind of content they permit, what topics perform the best, and any specific notes about each community, such as how much “karma” or cumulative upvotes one needs to post in each subreddit.
After their links have been collected and categorized, volunteer “Posters” will take a handful of the links provided and post them to their assigned subreddits. Kamala’s posters, however, don’t simply spam links haphazardly. They use a calculated, sequential post timing metric to avoid Reddit’s built-in spam filters. Harris-Walz campaign volunteers often discuss their ban-avoidance tactics in their Discord server, while continuing to spam Reddit with their collected links.
Once the users make their Reddit posts, they return to the spreadsheet and update it with a link to their brand-new post.
And why do they collect their post links?
They collect their Reddit links so Kamala’s volunteers can flood the post with likes and comments, thus making them appear more active. This, in turn, triggers the algorithm to make the post appear in more user timelines. Reddit’s post activity algorithm is extremely simple, and can easily be abused, which is known on Reddit as “brigading.”
How Effective is This?
While the Harris-Walz Discord server was created many months ago, the spreadsheet to track their vote manipulation on Reddit was only implemented on Oct. 4.
Over the course of 15 days, this group of volunteers, directed by official Harris-Walz campaign staff, was able to make 2,551 posts to Reddit. So far, they have received more than 5.7 million upvotes and 418,000 comments on those posts, according to their own data:
Currently, they’re posting approximately 120 unique links to Reddit per day.
However, Kamala’s volunteer data wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to know just how effective this campaign has been. So, I exported their spreadsheet and got to work.
Using their oh-so cleverly named “Please Upvote These!” spreadsheet, I filtered the information to find posts exclusively made by official Harris-Walz campaign volunteers. I found 1,728 posts created by 67 unique Harris-Walz campaign volunteers since Oct. 4, many of which received a LOT of traction in a very short time span.
I tagged each of their usernames with a “Kamala Harris Volunteer” label using a browser extension called Reddit Enhancement Suite, and went to their targeted subreddits to determine exactly how successful they’d been.
I found their primary target to be r/Politics, the largest community on Reddit for discussing U.S. politics with more than 8 million members. I sorted the top 1,000 posts of the past month, and what I discovered shocked me.
Of the top 1,000 posts on r/Politics, 126 were written by a user bearing the mark “Kamala Harris Volunteer.”
This means 12.5 percent of the most upvoted content on r/Politics came directly from volunteers of the Harris-Walz campaign.
Remember, this operation has only picked up steam in the last two weeks. On Oct. 17, eight of the 30 hottest posts on r/Politics were created by Harris-Walz campaign volunteers. That’s over 25 percent.
On Oct. 20, 13 of the 100 newest posts were created by Harris-Walz campaign volunteers.
Beyond r/Politics, they also target swing state subreddits, which tend to be a lot smaller in number and far less strictly moderated. They created a collection of swing state subreddits, including communities dedicated to their towns and cities, which streamlines the process of targeting them with Harris-Walz supplied messaging.
Because these communities are small, it’s a lot easier to get their posts to rank. In the week between Oct. 13 and the 20, 10 percent (39 of 400 posts) of top posts in their swing state collection were created by Harris-Walz volunteers, many of whom aren’t even from a swing state.
It’s safe to say that the Harris-Walz astroturfing operation has fundamentally compromised the authenticity of political discussions on Reddit. Kamala is actively ruining the internet by making her campaign look far more popular than it is in reality.
The actions, while seemingly not illegal, directly violate Reddit’s Terms of Service. The volunteers of the Harris-Walz campaign are using multiple accounts to manipulate votes …
and solicit votes from others …
in a group formed to coordinate voting:
These are all direct violations of Reddit’s content policy, which explicitly forbids the types of vote manipulation that is encouraged on the Harris-Walz volunteer Discord server.
Why is This So Effective?
For those unfamiliar with Reddit, the site tends to be very left-leaning, largely due to the biases of activist Reddit moderators. Here’s a recent example:
The following post was made by a Democrat redditor to r/Texas. The call for Democrats specifically to get out and vote was met with heaps of praise and showered with upvotes.
However, when the same text was posted but with “Democrat” and “Kamala” replaced with “Republican” and “Trump,” the post was deleted and the user banned from r/Texas.
It’s unknown if Reddit is aware of the policy violations being performed by the Harris-Walz campaign. While it’s possible that their accounts will be banned when their actions come to light, it is also entirely possible that Reddit is giving the Harris-Walz campaign free rein to violate the rules. In 2018, Reddit’s CEO Steve Huffman plainly stated in an interview with The New Yorker:
I’m confident that Reddit could sway elections. We wouldn’t do it, of course. And I don’t know how many times we could get away with it. But, if we really wanted to, I’m sure Reddit could have swayed at least this election, this once.
The author runs the popular Twitter account @reddit_lies.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Monday told voters in Pennsylvania that the “little secret” former President Trump mentioned at his Madison Square Garden rally is a get-out-the-vote strategy, not something “diabolical.”
Democrats have been in panic since Trump teased Sunday that his “little secret” with Johnson would help Republicans keep the House of Representatives come Election Day. A New York Times article suggested that in the worst-case scenario, Democrats feared Johnson would work with Trump to steal the election and stop the certification of results on Jan. 6. 2025, should Vice President Harris win.
“It’s nothing scandalous, but we’re having a ball with this. The media, their heads are exploding. ‘What is the secret?’” Johnson said Monday at an event for GOP congressional candidate Ryan Mackenzie, according to The Hill.
“It’s a thing we have about — it’s a get-out-the-vote. It’s one of our tactics on get-out-the-vote,” Johnson said in response to a voter’s question about Trump’s comment.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, speaks during a campaign event with former President Donald Trump, not pictured, at Madison Square Garden in New York on Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024. (Getty Images)
“But they are convinced,” the speaker added, jokingly rubbing his hands together like he had an evil plan.
On Sunday, Trump said his “little secret” with Johnson would help Republicans win congressional elections, but he otherwise kept tight-lipped about it.
“I think with our little secret we’re going to do really well with the House, right?” Trump said, directing his remarks at Johnson. “Our little secret is having a big impact. He and I have a little secret — we will tell you what it is when the race is over.”
His comments, delivered with a chuckle, set off a reported wave of fear and panic among Democrats who speculated that Trump could have been referring to attempts to steal the election.
Trump waves goodbye after a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 27, 2024 in New York City. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., told the Times he took Trump to mean he had a “backup plan” in case Republicans lose the election.
“There’s a lot of ability for a bad actor to mess with the Electoral College if he’s the speaker of the House,” he said. “If I’m wrong, they should say so. Trump has a lot of secrets: His medical records are secret, his taxes are secret, his phone calls with Vladimir Putin are secret. Clearly he hides a lot from the American people. Now he’s openly stated that he’s hiding something from the electorate.”
In comments to The Hill, Johnson called the rampant speculation that he and Trump were planning to break the law after the election “absolute, utter nonsense.”
Johnson said that Trump was joking about a GOP get out the vote strategy when he discussed their “little secret” at a rally at Madison Square Garden. (Getty Images)
“I’m a lifelong constitutional law attorney. We’re going to respect the law. We’re going to follow the constitution to a T,” Johnson told the outlet. “I’ve proven that over and over and over. So all this conjecture is actually hilarious to us, that people are apoplectic about this. It’s a — it’s one of our get out the vote strategies. That’s what we’re talking about. And it’s almost a tongue-in-cheek thing.”
Reached for comment, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung told Fox News Digital, “President Trump has done countless telerallies reaching millions of Americans across the country in key regions that also helps bolster Republicans in congressional races.”
In Pennsylvania, Johnson said Trump refers to this get-out-the-vote effort as their “secret.”
“It’s not diabolical,” he said, per The Hill. “It’s actually very good. It’s going to help us with the turnout. All this is blowing their minds. They just can’t — They cannot fathom that Trump and Vance have the support that they do around the country like they do from — from new demographics of people.”
Chris Pandolfo is a breaking news reporter for Fox News Digital. Send tips to chris.pandolfo@fox.com and follow him on Twitter @ChrisCPandolfo.
It was such a fun time last week watching the perpetual drama queens that make up our national news media boil with rage over two newspapers declining to issue meaningless campaign endorsements. But it also revealed something unsettling about the unhealthy degree of emotional investment they have in this race.
Will the media accept the outcome of the election if Donald Trump wins? It’s far from a foregone conclusion that they will. There’s a strong argument they didn’t the last time Trump won. Why should anyone expect them to accept it this time around?
It’s a question these homely nerds are inclined to ask every elected Republican in the shallowest way possible — some variation of, “Will you accept the outcome of this election no matter what?” (I think every restaurant server from now on should ask Jake Tapper the moment he’s seated, “Will you accept the way your food comes out no matter what? It’s a yes or no question.”)
After the appalling behavior they displayed last week, now is a very crucial time to ask them the same thing. If they were this hysterical over management at The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times deciding, there would be no endorsement of Kamala Harris this campaign cycle — the type of endorsement that hasn’t mattered for decades — how can they be expected to acknowledge a Trump victory? And if they won’t, what will it mean to the people who are still influenced by them? They will have essentially been told their elections and their government are invalid. These are the things civil wars are made of.
As silly as the media have made themselves look, they’re dead serious. That a major news publication wouldn’t throw its weight behind the non-Trump candidate means nothing to normal people, but reporters in Washington and New York aren’t normal people. Look how they talk. They say things like “Democracy dies in darkness,” and we laugh because it’s corny. But they believe in earnest it’s a sacred oath binding their entire life’s meaning to a cause: maintaining the Washington and corporate power structure to their financial benefit. To hell with everyone else.
If in 2016 the news media eagerly went along with an absurd hoax that Trump won that election in large part because he conspired with the Russian government, what won’t they say when he wins again? They just spent the past three months telling voters that up is down, black is white, and Kamala is popular. They moved on from the attempt on his life like it was a standard news cycle that had run its course.
How could we expect them to concede defeat after everything they’ve done? And yes, a Kamala defeat will be theirs, too. Her campaign is theirs.
It’s a question they’re not ready to answer because, for them, it’s unthinkable.
The pink pussycat hats. A Women’s March that drew a half-million demonstrators to the nation’s capital. Millions of other demonstrators nationwide. It was all part of the Democrats’ reaction to Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016. But this time could be different should the Republican former president prevail Nov. 5 over Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday. Trump is no longer an unknown entity and with polls so close, he has as good a chance of winning as losing, so the shock to the system of millions of Democrats will not be as intense.
More than a dozen influential progressives told the Journal they are dreading the prospect of Trump returning to power and are dismayed that half the country might see a different reality than they see. Jim Hannon, a psychotherapist and liberal organizer in Massachusetts, counseled calm in an open letter last week, noting the strength of Harris’ campaign while urging a broader perspective.
“Trump could win. So, panic then? No,” he wrote. “A Trump presidency would be awful but not the end of history.”
On a recent evening, the Journal reported, more than 200 joined a Zoom meeting titled Mass Training for Women’s Safety Teams hosted by a Women’s March veteran who noted its timing amid “escalating political violence.” Others are channeling their nerves into action by planning to attend Women’s Marches scheduled in Washington, D.C., and beyond on Saturday. In Boston, they are joining parties where volunteers fill boxes with abortion kits to mail to women in red states with strict abortion limits.
“We feel like we’re doing something,” Erin Gately, a 47-year-old physician assistant told the Journal. After Trump won in 2016, she took to the streets to protest but said this time she would focus on tangible actions such as protecting abortion rights.
Danielle Deiseroth, 28, executive director of Data for Progress, a liberal research group, told the Journal she has been talking with leaders of other progressive nonprofits about how to push back if Trump is elected. She said she anticipates progressives will look to Democrat governors as political torchbearers and Democrat attorneys general to contest Trump initiatives.
Laurie Woodward García, a South Florida activist, founded People Power United during Trump’s presidency to champion progressive causes, and, in her words, “stand up to fascism,” the Journal reported. Her bimonthly online seminars, some scheduled for after the election, explore the consequences if Trump were to enact Project 2025, a conservative policy agenda created by the Heritage Foundation from which he has distanced himself. Each session has drawn about 500 viewers.
“We’ve got to be optimistic and fight like hell,” she said.
That might be complicated by the uncertain trajectory of the Democratic Party, which would be at a generational crossroads with Barack Obama, the Clintons and President Biden all off the stage and no clear heir apparent should Harris lose.
“We’ll be in rebuilding mode,” South Carolina state Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter of Orangeburg, S.C., told the Journal.
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What Did You Say? 
Jack Smith Resigns as Special Counsel Amid Controversy Over Trump Cases
| American Patriot
Read more at https://libertyonenews.com/jack-smith-resigns-as-special-counsel-amid-controversy-over-trump-cases/
Jack Smith, the controversial special counsel tasked with investigating former President Donald Trump’s attempts to challenge the 2020 election, has officially stepped down. His resignation comes just weeks before President-elect Trump is set to take office, sparking heated debates over the legitimacy of the cases brought against Trump and their broader implications for justice in America.
Conservative commentator Mark Levin, host of LevinTV, was quick to weigh in, calling Smith’s resignation both predictable and overdue. Levin minced no words in his criticism, declaring that Smith’s departure underscores the collapse of the legal efforts aimed at Trump. “You know why? It’s simple. He’s an unconstitutional prosecutor. Donald Trump’s going to fire his ass,” Levin said.
Levin argued that the cases against Trump were doomed from the start, pointing to internal Department of Justice (DOJ) memos and procedural violations. He highlighted the dismissal of one of Smith’s cases in Florida as a clear sign of their instability.
Levin accused the DOJ and Smith of pursuing Trump with the sole intent of derailing his political career. He claimed this approach not only violated DOJ policies but also undermined the integrity of the judicial system.
Smith’s cases focused primarily on Trump’s efforts to challenge the 2020 election results, actions Levin described as entirely lawful and historically common.
Levin highlighted past instances where election challenges were not only permitted but celebrated by political leaders. He cited Al Gore’s legal battle in Florida during the 2000 presidential race and efforts in Minnesota that ultimately handed Al Franken a Senate seat.
Smith’s resignation has fueled speculation about its timing, particularly given Trump’s imminent return to power. Critics argue that Smith’s exit may be an attempt to avoid the embarrassment of being fired by the incoming administration or to shield himself from further scrutiny. Supporters of Trump see this as vindication of their belief that the legal cases against him were politically motivated and lacked substance. Levin emphasized that the abrupt nature of Smith’s departure only reinforces this narrative.
Smith’s resignation is part of a larger debate over the role of the justice system in political matters. Critics argue that targeting Trump for challenging the 2020 election has set a dangerous precedent, effectively criminalizing actions that were previously considered routine aspects of political contests. As Smith steps aside, attention shifts to how Trump’s incoming administration will handle the fallout. Levin and others are urging Trump’s attorney general to launch investigations into the motivations and conduct behind Smith’s cases, with some calling for accountability measures to restore public trust in the justice system.
For Trump, Smith’s resignation marks a significant victory, further energizing his supporters and reinforcing his narrative of political persecution. Yet it also raises questions about how his administration will navigate the legal and political challenges that remain.
The stage is set for a dramatic showdown as Trump prepares to re-enter the White House, with Smith’s resignation serving as a powerful symbol of the broader battles yet to come.
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