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Judge Questions Why Trump Was Only President Charged Over Handling of Classified Material

The judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s Florida case questioned during a Thursday hearing why he was the only president who has been charged over his handling of classified material, according to multiple reports.

During a hearing to consider various motions Trump filed to dismiss the case, Judge Aileen Cannon noted no former president had similarly faced criminal charges over the handling of classified material, according to NBC News. Trump’s attorneys brought up special counsel Robert Hur’s report finding evidence President Joe Biden willfully kept classified documents, but declining to charge him, according to CNN.

“Even with other former presidents, there was never a situation remotely similar to this one,” prosecutor Jay Bratt told Cannon, according to CNN.

When Special counsel Robert Hur appeared before the House Judiciary Committee Tuesday to defend his report, Republicans suggested there was a double standard in bringing charges against Trump but not Biden.

Special counsel Jack Smith previously cited Hur’s report in opposing Trump’s motion to dismiss based on “selective and vindictive prosecution.” (Read more from “Judge Questions Why Trump Was Only President Charged Over Handling of Classified Material” HERE)

Why Fani Failed: 3 Trump Counts Dropped Because ‘Felony’ Not Specified

The judge who threw out three criminal charges against former President Donald Trump in Georgia on Wednesday did so because District Attorney Fani Willis did not specify the felonies she said he was asking public officials to commit.

As Breitbart News noted at the time, when Willis charged Trump and 18 co-defendants, three of the counts involved allegations of “Solicitation of Violation of Oath by a Public Officer.” It was among the milder charges, with a maximum sentence of up to three years. The relevant section of the Georgia criminal code requires that the solicitation be to commit a “felony.” The problem: the original indictment is rather vague about what, in fact, that “felony” is.

Willis, like other Democrats, and members of the pundit class, are convinced that Trump’s effort to contest the election results was an “assault on democracy” and the Constitution. . .

As Judge Scott McAfee of the Superior Court of Fulton County wrote in his order dismissing the solicitation charges:

The Court’s concern is less that the State has failed to allege sufficient conduct of the Defendants – in fact it has alleged an abundance. However, the lack of detail concerning an essential legal element is, in the undersigned’s opinion, fatal. As written, these … counts contain all the essential elements of the crimes but fail to allege sufficient detail regarding the nature of their commission, i.e., the underlying felony solicited. … They do not give the Defendants enough information to prepare their defenses intelligently, as the Defendants could have violated the Constitutions and thus the statute in dozens, if not hundreds, of distinct ways.

(Read more from “Why Fani Failed: 3 Trump Counts Dropped Because ‘Felony’ Not Specified” HERE)

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Trump: Government Documents Taken ‘Legally,’ ‘Wasn’t Hiding Them’

Former President Donald Trump said on Wednesday on Newsmax TV’s “Greg Kelly Reports” that when he took government documents from the White House to Mar-a-Lago, it was done legally.

Trump said, “I was dealing with them. We were dealing fine. And then all of a sudden they raided this house. They raided Mar-a-Lago. These are corrupt people.”

He continued, “But they release Biden. What Biden did, he wasn’t protected by the Presidential Records [Act] because he wasn’t president. He took them when he was a senator.” (Read more from “Trump: Government Documents Taken ‘Legally,’ ‘Wasn’t Hiding Them’” HERE)

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Trump to Cite Lawyers’ Participation in Hush Money Payments for Key Trial Defense

Former President Donald Trump plans to argue he cannot be held responsible for the conduct at the heart of his criminal case related to hush money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels because he had lawyers involved in decisions that led to the charges.

Trump’s attorneys told a New York criminal court on Tuesday that a key part of his defense will be that he lacked an “intent to commit the conduct charged in the indictment,” according to their latest filing.

“President Trump intends to elicit these facts from witnesses … whom we expect will testify about President Trump’s awareness of counsel’s involvement in the charged conduct,” his lawyers wrote. “This is not a formal advice-of-counsel defense.”

Prosecutors from the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg allege Trump falsified the documentation surrounding payments to his ex-attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen. Trump has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him and is preparing for jury selection in the trial scheduled to start on March 25.

Trump’s counsel, led by Todd Blanche and Susan Necheles, outlined their plans to ask prosecutors’ key witness, Cohen, and other individuals who were involved in the Daniels discussions about Trump’s “awareness of counsel’s involvement.”

(Read more from “Trump to Cite Lawyers’ Participation in Hush Money Payments for Key Trial Defense” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

Paul Rips Trump for Endorsing ‘Worst Deep State Candidate This Cycle’

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) ripped former President Trump on Monday for endorsing former House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Rogers’s (R-Mich.) bid for Senate, slamming the former congressman as the “worst Deep State candidate this cycle.”

“Donald Trump just endorsed the worst Deep State candidate this cycle. @MikeRogersForMI is a never Trumper, and a card carrying member of the spy state that seeks to destroy Trump,” Paul posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

“You have to ask yourself who gives Trump this awful advice? Who’s next, John Bolton?” he asked, referring to Trump’s former national security adviser, who has become one of the former president’s harshest critics.

Trump announced Monday he is backing Rogers, who is favored to win the Republican nomination to run for the seat being vacated by retiring Sen Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.).

Rogers is also backed by the National Republican Senatorial Committee. NRSC Chair Steve Daines (Mont.) has worked closely with Trump to advance candidates favored by Senate GOP leadership to the general election. (Read more from “Paul Rips Trump for Endorsing ‘Worst Deep State Candidate This Cycle’” HERE)

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Trump Wins Delegates Needed to Become GOP’s Presumptive Nominee for Third Straight Election

Donald Trump, whose single turbulent term in the White House transformed the Republican Party, tested the resilience of democratic institutions in the U.S. and threatened alliances abroad, will lead the GOP in a third consecutive presidential election after clinching the nomination Tuesday.

With wins in Georgia, Mississippi and Washington state, Trump surpassed the 1,215-delegate threshold needed to become the presumptive Republican nominee. He’ll formally accept the nomination at the Republican National Convention in July, by which point he could be in the remarkable position of being both a presidential candidate and convicted felon. Trump has been indicted in four separate criminal investigations and his first trial, which centers on payments made to a porn actress, is set to begin March 25 in New York City.

Trump’s victory in the GOP primary ushers in what will almost certainly be an extraordinarily negative general election campaign that will tug at the nation’s already searing political and cultural divides. He’ll face President Joe Biden in the fall, pitting two deeply unpopular figures against each other in a rematch of the 2020 campaign that few voters say they want to experience again.

Trump’s victory in the GOP primary ushers in what will almost certainly be an extraordinarily negative general election campaign that will tug at the nation’s already searing political and cultural divides. He’ll face President Joe Biden in the fall, pitting two deeply unpopular figures against each other in a rematch of the 2020 campaign that few voters say they want to experience again.

Thirty-eight percent of Americans viewed Trump very or somewhat favorably in a February poll conducted by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs, compared to 41% for Biden. (Read more from “Trump Wins Delegates Needed to Become GOP’s Presumptive Nominee for Third Straight Election” HERE)

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Trump’s Driver on J6 Disputes Infamous Claim POTUS Tried to Grab Steering Wheel to Go to Capitol: Report

Former President Donald Trump’s driver disputed the infamous claim that the former president tried to grab the steering wheel from him on Jan. 6, 2021, and go to the U.S. Capitol, according to a transcript obtained by The New York Times (NYT).

Following his speech on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump reportedly entered his armored vehicle and began discussing how big the crowd was at his address. Trump then said that he wanted to go to the U.S. Capitol, the president’s driver said in an interview with House lawmakers, according to The NYT. Trump’s lead Secret Service agent Robert Engel told the president that such a move was not possible because they did not have the plans to do so, the driver told The NYT. At no point did Trump yell at the driver to go to the Capitol nor did he lunge for the steering wheel, the driver reportedly testified.

“The president was insistent on going to the Capitol,” the driver said in the transcript, according to The NYT. “It was clear to me he wanted to go to the Capitol. He was not screaming at Mr. Engel. He was not screaming at me. Certainly his voice was raised, but it did not seem to me that he was irate — certainly not, certainly didn’t seem as irritated or agitated as he had on the way to the Ellipse.”

The driver’s testimony contradicts that of Cassidy Hutchinson’s, a former White House aid to Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows. Hutchinson previously testified that she had heard that the former president had reached for the steering wheel the day of the Capitol riot. Hutchinson told House investigators that Trump had ordered his deputy chief of staff Tony Ornato and Engel to take him to the Capitol before then reaching for the steering wheel from the backseat and grabbing Engel by the clavicle.

“I did not see him reach,” the driver told investigators, The NYT reported. “He never grabbed the steering wheel. I didn’t see him, you know, lunge to try to get into the front seat at all. You know, what stood out was the irritation in his voice, more than his physical presence.” (Read more from “Trump’s Driver on J6 Disputes Infamous Claim POTUS Tried to Grab Steering Wheel to Go to Capitol: Report” HERE)

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Trump Campaigns With Laken Riley’s Parents, Biden Says ‘I Shouldn’t Have’ Called Murder Suspect ‘Illegal’

Former President Donald Trump is using his 2024 presidential bid to bring awareness to the plight of Angel Families, like the parents of Laken Riley, who was murdered allegedly at the hands of an illegal alien. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden says “I shouldn’t have” called the murder suspect “illegal.”

Over the weekend, Trump held a campaign rally in Rome, Georgia, where Angel Parents Jason Riley and Allyson Philips attended and met with the president. . .

“Biden has implemented a formal policy that illegal aliens who intrude into the United States are granted immunity from deportation,” Trump said in Rome. “Thus, when this monster showed up at our border he was set free immediately under the program that crooked Joe created.” . . .

Then, in an interview over the weekend with MSNBC, Biden suggested he regretted using the term “illegal” to describe Ibarra, but did not mention his mispronouncing of Riley’s name.

“I shouldn’t have used ‘illegal.’ It’s ‘undocumented,’” Biden said. “… I’m not going to treat any, any, any of these people with disrespect. Look, they built the country. The reason our economy is growing. We have to control the border and more orderly flow, but I don’t share his [Trump’s] view at all.” (Read more from “Trump Campaigns With Laken Riley’s Parents, Biden Says ‘I Shouldn’t Have’ Called Murder Suspect ‘Illegal’” HERE)

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Robert De Niro Panics: If Trump Wins, ‘He’ll Come Looking for Me’ (VIDEO)

Hollywood star Robert De Niro is panicking at the prospect of former President Donald Trump winning in November and reclaiming the White House, predicting that Trump “will come looking for me.”

Robert De Niro voiced his paranoid fantasy during a Friday appearance on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher.

“If he wins the election, you won’t be on the show anymore. He’ll come looking for me. There’ll be things that happen that none of us can imagine,” De Niro said.

De Niro said a Trump reelection in November would be a “nightmare.”

“We wanna live in a world that we want to live in and enjoy living in, or live in a nightmare? Vote for Trump and you’ll get the nightmare, vote for Biden and we’ll be back to normalcy,” he said during Friday’s show. (Read more from “Robert De Niro Panics: If Trump Wins, ‘He’ll Come Looking for Me’ (VIDEO)” HERE)

Biden Slammed as ‘Pathetic’ by Laken Riley’s Mother for Fumbling Murdered Nursing Student’s Name at State of the Union

The heartbroken mother of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley slammed President Biden for fumbling her daughter’s name during the State of Union speech — calling him “pathetic” for the slip.

“Biden does not even KNOW my child’s name – it [sic] pathetic!” Allyson Philips wrote Friday in response to a comment on a Facebook post celebrating the passage of the Laken Riley Act.

‘If you are going to say her name (even when forced to do so) at least say the right name!” she insisted.

The grieving mother also wrote “Amen!” underneath a comment that called Biden “a disgrace of a president.”

Biden, 81, accidentally referred to the 22-year-old nursing student – who was murdered on the University of Georgia campus two weeks ago – as “Lincoln Riley” during the speech Thursday night. (Read more from “Biden Slammed as ‘Pathetic’ by Laken Riley’s Mother for Fumbling Murdered Nursing Student’s Name at State of the Union” HERE)