DDT Faces Millions of Litigation Costs, More Revelations of Incompetency

In weekend mass shootings of at least four people, at least 6 people died and 42 injured nine cities: Chicago, Baltimore, Pensacola (FL), San Antonio, Miami, Walterboro (SC), Washington, DC, Grand Rapids (MI), and Harlem (NY).

Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) attacks in rallies and on the media are becoming more and more vicious indicating he increasingly faces more problems. He did manage to sell the lease to his Washington, D.C. hotel for $375 million: the gold letters “Trump International Hotel” have disappeared after a Miami investment group changed the venue at the Old Post Office into a Waldorf Astoria. People currying DDT’s favor paid him millions at the hotel in violation of the U.S. Constitution. 

DDT did pay D.C. $750,000 to settle a lawsuit alleging he misused nonprofit funds to benefit himself and his family by forcing the inaugural committee to overpay for event space in the hotel and misusing $1.1 million.

Lawsuits against him, are geometrically building. Once, he sued others; now they sue him.

In February, The Guardian wrote about at least 19 pending legal actions, 15 of them civil suits, against DDT: financial wrongdoings; his part in the January 6 insurrection, and his interference in the 2020 election. Eleven House members are suing DDT, his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and extremist groups Proud Boys and Oath Keepers for conspiracy on January 6. The Capitol Police and the D.C. Metro Police have sued DDT for physical and emotional injuries on that day, and the NAACP is suing DDT and the RNC for trying to overturn the Michigan election results by disenfranchising Black voters in Detroit. Legal problems may come from revelations in the House January 6 hearings, including his grift collecting $250 million in donations from his lies about a stolen election for a nonexistent “election defense fund.” Money was funneled to DDT’s business properties and DDT’s political action committee.

In Georgia, Fulton County’s DA Fani Willis is investigating whether DDT and his officials disrupted the 2020 election. Federal investigators are probing into whether DDT mishandled classified documents when he took them to Mar-a-Lago. Mary Trump is suing DDT for defrauding her out of millions of dollars from the family inheritance, and DDT is suing her and the New York Times about reporting on his taxes. E. Jean Carroll, who claimed DDT sexual assault her, filed a defamation lawsuit against him after the assault statute of limitations ran out. DDT’s former fixer and lawyer, Michael Cohen, is suing him for retaliation after he wrote a tell-all book about when he worked for DDT. An on-going class-action lawsuit from 2018 alleges DDT’s business scammed investors into supporting false or worthless business opportunities. Former tenants are suing DDT with the claim that his family hiked rents by inflating prices for appliances.

DDT and his two eldest children, Ivanka and Don Jr., will sit for depositions on July 15 in New York’s ongoing civil investigations into DDT’s businesses regarding his allegedly misvaluing assets for economic benefits. Using the similar charges, those other jurisdictions, one in New York and the other in Westchester County, are considering criminal cases.

DDT lost his appeal to remove the daily $10,000 civil contempt fine for refusal to turn over documents subpoenaed in his New York civil probe. His excuse for the failure was that he didn’t know where they were. The judge did pause the contempt fine after the lawyer detailed efforts to find the information, but DDT was still required to pay $110,000. He was also required to describe the business’s documentation retention and destruction policies as well as finish a review of five of 17 boxes in an off-site storage facility.

If DDT had not changed his residency from New York to Florida, the investigation into his business affairs would have to close in five years after it was opened. His move to Mar-a-Lago gives New York ten years for their probe.

“Law enforcement in New York has five years from the date of an alleged crime to officially file charges for most felonies, but under New York law § 30.10(4)(a)(i), that clock stops for up to five more years when a defendant is outside the state.”

DDT’s aides were amazed. “How is that legal?” they reportedly said.

Presidents are not permitted to keep gifts from foreign official, but DDT may have walked off with some of them. An investigation is more difficult because the State Department person appointed by DDT didn’t compile a list of gifts for 2020 valued at over $415 that foreign governments presented to DDT, former VP Mike Pence, and other White House officials. Some of these had been discovered at Mar-a-Lago after he moved out of the White House. The department’s inspector general said that tens of thousands of dollars in gifts are missing, including white tiger and cheetah furs from the Saudi government, illegal because of the Endangered Species Act. Upon discovery, it turned out they were fake.

In early May, a federal judge ordered the RNC to provide mass email marketing records, created in connection with DDT’s 2020 reelection campaign, to the House January 6 investigative committee. The probe is examining whether DDT’s fund-raising emails encouraged mob violence to block Joe Biden’s confirmation as president.

The company behind DDT’s social media venture, Truth Social, faces financial questions in a potentially shady venture with a dubious Chinese operation being investigated by the SEC and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) which probes issues such as insider trading. The examination will delay DDT’s deal.

In May, a San Francisco dismissed DDT’s lawsuit challenging his permanent ban from Twitter, stating free speech rights don’t apply to private companies. In July 2021, he sued Twitter, Facebook, and Google’s YouTube.

DDT also keeps losing his lawsuits against people who supposedly violate the non-disclosure agreements he forces them to sign. One loss was against a former White House aide, Omarosa Manigault Newman who wrote a less-than-flattering book about her experiences. DDT has to pay $1.3 million in legal fees to Newman. When DDT was campaigning for the 2016 election, he grabbed a worker, Alva Johnson, and allegedly kissed her on the mouth against her will. She sued, and DDT countersued on the basis of violating a non-disclosure agreement. In March, he was ordered to pay $300,000 in legal fees and expenses to Johnson. DDT also lost an enforcement against Jessica Denson. And Stephanie Winstson-Wolkoff. And his niece, Mary Trump.

Somehow, his legal expenses have drastically dropped; others, including the Republican National Committee, are picking up the tabs.

DDT’s lawyer for all these cases has trouble reading forms. On documents filed with the New York court, Alina Habba, a regular on the conservative One America News, signed the place where the judge is supposed to sign. It was a proposed Order to Show Cause on Michael Cohen in a case about DDT’s former bodyguard Keith Schiller accused of assaulting protesters in 2015 outside the Trump Tower. Habbas supposedly wanted a deposition from Cohen but didn’t want him to appear in court.

Revelations of DDT in the White House:

DDT told a top DHS intelligence analyst appointed by DDT to block reports so that they would hide Russian efforts to interfere with the 2020 U.S. elections that made him “look bad.” The analyst was told to instead focus on Chinese and Iranian interference.

DDT asked Defense Secretary Mark Esper twice about secretly launching Patriot missiles, not used on the ground, into Mexico to “destroy the drug labs” and eliminate the cartels. According to DDT, he could just deny responsibility. One presidential adviser said his job was to “talk him out of doing crazy things.” Like executing drug dealers to solve the opioid problem, stop hurricanes with nuclear weapons, and putting Chinese flags on U.S. fighter jets to bomb Moscow to turn the two countries against each other.

Esper said that DDT also wanted to shoot protesters after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020, but only “in the legs or something.” DDT also wanted to invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act to use active-duty troops against civilians.

Upset about the discovery of texts to and from former chief of staff Mark Meadows to overturn Biden’s election, DDT wanted to demand the release of “all text messages sent to and from Barack Obama’s Chief of Staff during their attempt to overturn the 2016 Presidential Election.” As a private citizen, he can’t do that, and there was no attempt to overturn DDT’s 2016 election. President Obama welcomed DDT into the White House within 48 hours of the race being called, and DDT repeated thanked the president for his graciousness. No one spied on DDT’s campaign, transition, or White House. And the transfer of power was easily done, a far different situation than the one from DDT to Biden.

DDT is in so much financial difficulties that he resorted to the internet-only Axos Financial, a savings association, to refinance his $100 million Trump Tower mortgage. He made the loan days before the Trump Organization’s auditor resigned, saying that ten years of DDT’s financial statements were not reliable. Axos specializes in loans to foreign nationals, including Russians, that may pose money laundering risks. The finance company has also been sued by two former employees claiming they were wrongfully fired because they raised questions about Axos’ practices.

January 6, 2021 Hearing – June 9, 2022

Tonight was the first of six House hearings about January 6 insurrection, in which hundreds of supporters of Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) stormed the U.S. Capitol. Before the hearing, DDT called it “the greatest movement in the history of our Country.” DDT wrote, “The Unselect Committee didn’t spend one minute studying the reason that people went to Washington, D.C…” Those watching tonight’s hearing saw a video segment in which a number of DDT’s supporters said they only did it because he asked them to go attack the Capitol. He also accused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of rejecting his offer of 20,000 National Guardsmen, another lie refuted tonight by the House investigative committee’s reporting. DDT also ranted about the “RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA HOAX” which the country’s president Vladimir Putin will undoubtedly play on his state television.

After the focus on violence and the insurrectionist plot, orchestrated by DDT, outlined in the first hearing, other hearings will describe the strategy of navigating the plot, the use of bogus electors in key battleground states, and DDT’s personal conduct in the White House on the day of the insurrection.

A GOP counteroffensive is being led by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (CA), Chair of the House GOP Conference Elise Stefanik (NY), and Jim Jordan (OH), who is still refusing to appear before the investigative committee after receiving a subpoena. Behind the scenes, DDT’s former political director and current chair of the Conservative PAC Matt Schlapp is in charge. They plan a continuation of the “big lie” conspiracy theories and false arguments in court battles for evading congressional subpoenas for their records and testimonies.

House members McCarthy, Jordan, Mo Brooks (AL), Andy Biggs (AZ), and Scott Perry (PA) have all refused subpoenas from the select committee. All plan to defend DDT with the fake argument that the committee is illegally empowered because it was not properly formed, an argument refuted by all the court rulings, including that of the U.S. Supreme Court. The select committee has been recognized not only as a valid legislative body but also as a properly formed one thanks to its binding resolution that was afforded the protocols necessary before a final vote in the full House of Representatives was held.

The GOP “strategy memo” to defend themselves includes the messages that “Democrats are the real election deniers” and that “Trump’s requests” this month to his “surrogates” should shape coverage on friendly media networks. Fox network is so friendly that it refuses to show the hearings to its two million viewers, unlike five major networks, but Tucker Carlson spent an full hour with ads, spewing lies. In the weeks after the 2020 election, Fox programming cast doubt on the election result “nearly 800 times,” according to Media Matters. Ironically, some of Fox hosts had called DDT on January 6, 2021, asking him to call off his terrorist supporters. To distract his watchers from the hearings, Fox’s Jesse Watters spent seven minutes falsely accusing President Biden and other top Democrats of leading a conspiracy to shoot Justice Brett Kavanaugh in his home.

Distraction may be difficult through the summer filled with insurrection events. In addition to the hearings throughout June, Steve Bannon goes on trial in July for his contempt charge in refusing a subpoena, and the Proud boys and Oath Keepers face seditious conspiracy charges and other allegations in July and September, respectively.

GOP Reps. Liz Cheney (WY) and Adam Kinzinger (IL) have Republican company. Former Rep. Denver Riggleman (VA), a committee adviser, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper he appreciated the lack of “partisan whining and screaming” on the investigative committee.  

At least one Republican, the former Representative for Virginia, Denver Riggleman, has thrown his support behind the hearings and then some. Riggleman has been an adviser to the committee for several months.

Tonight’s reports:

• DDT endorsed the hanging of his VP Mike Pence while the mob attacked the Capitol.
• Because DDT wanted the attack to continue, Pence had to call for help.
• DDT’s Cabinet members discussed removing him from office with the 25^th Amendment after the insurrection.
• DDT “was at the center of this conspiracy” (Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-MS) and “lit the fuse” for the attack (Rep. Liz Cheney, R-WY).
• Officer Caroline Edwards, one of over 150 officers injured in the rampage, testified about her attack, called it a “war scene.”
• DDT and his advisers “knew that he had in fact lost the election” but “spread false and fraudulent information to convince huge portions of the U.S. population that fraud had stolen the election.”
• Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA), among several other unnamed Republicans, asked for a presidential pardon after January 6.
• Then-AG Bill Barr knew DDT’s claims were false and told him that; Ivanka Trump said she respected Barr and accepted what he said.
• Documentary filmmaker Nick Quested provided extensive video of the Proud Boys, taken while he was embedded with them during the planning and the attack.
• The Proud Boys didn’t attend DDT’s speech before the insurrection but instead headed to the Capitol to surveil the area for law enforcement and start the attack.
• Insurrectionists attributed their actions to the lies and urging of DDT, shown in a video compilation.
• Jason Miller testified a campaign aide told DDT after the election he was losing the election in a preview of the next hearing.

The first hearing expertly wove together elements of over 1,000 people interviewed, thousands of hours of testimony, and tens of thousands of documents. Beginning speeches by Chair Thompson and Vice-Chair Cheney were engrossing, and video segments of interviews, including those from Barr to Ivanka Trump, supplied additional information. Both live witnesses, police officer Edwards and filmmaker Quested, were well-prepared, and video footage enhanced their testimonies. The two hours moved rapidly through the tragedy of the angry violence perpetrated on democracy.

The remaining hearings are on June 13 (Monday), June 15 (Wednesday), June 16 (Thursday), and June 21 (Tuesday) with the final one at 8:00 pm on June 23. Cheney reminded the audience that “our investigation is still ongoing.” New evidence may be revealed even during June while the hearings are underway. A summary of the past 11 months of investigation, complete with a Who’s-Who of those involved in the probe.

Mike Pence could be even more center in the investigation than DDT because he was in the middle of the planning along with his chief of staff Marc Short and counsel Greg Jacobs while attorney John Eastman presented his plan to overturn the election. Jacob and Short were also present when the Senate parliamentarian told Pence that he could not refuse to complete the tally.

Jacob, who plans to testify at the June 16 hearing, wrote that Eastman’s plan was “snake oil … wrapped in the guise of a lawyer’s advice.” He also helped Pence revise the script Pence used to preside over Congress on January 6 to signal his intent to reject Eastman’s plan. Short was so worried about Eastman’s and DDT’s plans that he warned the Secret Service on January 5, 2021, about a potential threat to Pence. He wasn’t specific about the concern, but it came from his assessment that DDT would turn against Pence. Short was with Pence on January 6 when DDT’s supporters forced them to evacuate from the Capitol to a safe location.

Pence got a whitewashing in Jonathan Last’s Atlantic article, “Mike Pence Is an American Hero.” Heroism to the Republican Last is not overturning an election, a low bar according to Jack Holmes. After four years of lying and covering for DDT, Pence developed a temporary backbone before supporting DDT. Last even wants Congress to name a building after him and President Joe Biden to give him the Medal of Freedom. Holmes wrote:

“Why must they put some respect on his name? Because he repeatedly did the absolute bare minimum we expect from anyone who holds elected office in this country—namely, that when they lose an election, they fucking leave.”

Just before the insurrection, Pence supported GOP Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue in runoff elections by claiming “doubts about the last election” and “voting irregularities.” He promised that “come this Wednesday, we’ll have our day in Congress. We’ll hear the evidence.” The “evidence” was that Loeffler and Perdue lost. He didn’t overturn the election, but he agreed with the “big lie” about election fraud. Pence’s claim was made in Georgia where DDT tried to intimidate the governor and secretary of state into stuffing the ballot box—election fraud—to make him win the state. That’s a crime.

Every accusation of “irregularity” was thrown out of court. DDT’s pick for attorney general Bill Barr said there was no election fraud. In Georgia, Pence the “hero,” was opposing a democracy reform bill that included allowing eligible people to vote in all states.

Pence’s history of lying and denying rights to women and LGBTQ people—over half the U.S. population—goes a long way back in his willingness to lie about abortion and his desire to block STIs with condoms because they are “too modern.” His refusal to allow a needle exchange while he was governor of Indiana caused a huge HIV outbreak in 2015, and his medieval attitudes cost his state tens of millions of dollars in business. A few more serious issues about Christian ideologue Mike Pence. He’s no hero, but he wants to be the next president. Scary.  

1/6 Criminal Charges Possible for DDT

While Vladimir Putin threatens to end the world, the House committee investigating events surrounding the January 6 insurrectionist is moving Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) toward criminal charges for his part in the attempted coup. According to a committee filing, DDT and a right-wing lawyer were part of a “criminal conspiracy” to overturn the 2020 presidential election. The filing is an attempt to persuade a judge to allow the panel access to emails from John Eastman, who claims attorney-client privilege.

The committee also hinted it may make a criminal referral to the DOJ using the arguments to the court as a preview to the case. Congress cannot bring criminal charges; only the DOJ can do that. One of the possible charges against DDT is obstruction because of his attempts to block Joe Biden’s certification as president. After DDT’s election loss, he communicated with state officials and “engaged in a personal campaign to persuade the public that the election had been tainted by widespread fraud,” according to the House lawyers. They cited DDT’s personal pressure on then-VP Mike Pence “to manipulate the results in his favor” and to block Congress’ vote although DDT knew he lacked sufficient legitimate electoral votes from the states.

The filing also detailed how DDT’s officials pushed back at his insistence to block the election result. DOJ leadership testified that DDT pressured them to declare the entire election “corrupt.” Eastman was also told that no Supreme Court justice would approve of his legal theories. Even DDT’s faithful adviser, said DDT had been advised “in pretty blunt terms” he was going to lose his fight. Pence, his advisers, and prominent conservative attorneys condemned Eastman’s theory as nonsensical and impossible.

The House is trying to overcome Eastman’s confidential attorney-client claim by showing his communications are about fraudulent activity, or ongoing or future crimes. One of Eastman’s available emails shows he knew people delaying the electoral count were breaking the law. A judge earlier ruled that Eastman cannot shield 19,000 emails requested by the House committee.

During the insurrection, Eastman wrote Pence’s aide that he had told DDT his vice president could not unilaterally determine the electoral college vote. Yet five hours later, he wrote the same aide, again asking that Pence stop the certification.

The second possible charge is conspiracy to defraud the United States. DDT lied about the 2020 election and therefore attempted to “interfere or obstruct legitimate Government activity” with “deceit, craft or trickery, or at least by means that are dishonest.” The committee also accuses DDT of conspiring to commit the same types of crimes as many of his followers breaching the Capitol grounds found guilty of engaging in conspiracies to interrupt Congress from its session certifying the election.

In addition, the House committee issued subpoenas to DDT’s lawyers suspected to be part of the efforts to stop certifying Biden’s presidential election. Closely involved in the scheme, DDT called the “war room” at the Willard Hotel, the location for planning to overturn the election, on January 5 to talk about ways that they could completely stop Biden’s certification. Present were the subpoenaed legal team with DDT’s former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman. Christina Bobb, One America News host, was subpoenaed because of her involvement in drafting the executive order to direct federal agencies in seizing voting machines in states that Biden narrowly won. Cleta Mitchell, also subpoenaed, participated in DDT’s phone call to pressure Georgia’s secretary of state Brad to “find” the exact number of votes to reverse his loss in the state. Other subpoenaed people also worked with the executive orders or pressure on the DOJ or state legislators to commit fraud.

The House committee has interviewed over 550 people and still wants to talk to DDT’s daughter Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr.’s girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle as well as the people they subpoenaed earlier this week. Roger Stone, DDT’s longtime friend, refuses to testify, but Danish filmmakers have footage for two years showing frank statements about his part in overturning the election. Committee members just need to watch the film, and everyone can watch A Storm Foretold, expected to be released later this year. A 90-minute period covering the height of the violence on January 6 and Stone’s conversations with DDT are missing, but he may have talked about these.

Part of the filming shows Stone pushing the “Stone Plan”—a blanket presidential pardon for himself, DDT’s congressional allies, and the America First movement for trying to overturn the election. Stone also wanted DDT to pardon other backers, including convicted mobsters, but White House counsel Pat Cipollone scuttled the idea. Wanting a pardon for what they did shows Stone realized his and conspirators’ actions were illegal.

Stone and DDT probably won’t be friends anymore. On Inauguration Day, Stone said DDT deserved to be impeached and was the “greatest single mistake in American history.” He added that federal authorities in Manhattan might prosecute DDT because he didn’t preemptively pardon himself. “A good, long sentence in prison will give him a chance to think about it, because the Southern District is coming for him, and he did nothing,” Stone said.

More details of the film here.

Eastman has already “retired” from Chapman University for his part in trying to overturn the election; now California’s state bar is investigating him for possible violations of “California law and ethics rules governing attorneys following and in relation to the November 2020 presidential election.” The probe began last September. A press release stated that “a number of individuals and entities have brought to the State Bar’s attention press reports, court filings, and other public documents detailing Mr. Eastman’s conduct.”

While the January 6 insurrectionists chanted “Hang Mike Pence,” Eastman blamed Pence for the violence when he wrote Greg Jacob, Pence’s chief counsel:

“The ‘siege’ is because YOU and your boss did not do what was necessary to allow this to be aired in a public way so that the American people can see for themselves what happened.”

Former acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal said the filing is really about DDT, not Eastman. He added that the legal brief states “there is a good faith basis to believe that Donald Trump committed felonies and this lawyer, John Eastman, helped him do it.”

One viable theory regarding DDT’s behavior, considering his past, comes from author Don Winslow. He thinks the sole goal of DDT and his allies is to stall the process by questioning the integrity of the investigation with the hopes that Republicans will take over the House this year and shut down the probe. Winslow tweeted footage from a political ad stating:

“Every single deposition that the [January 6th Committee] does from today forward will be able to be dodged by the person till after the November mid-terms, including [Kim Guilfoyle] It’s not an accident that they subpoenaed Kim Guilfoyle this late.”

Documents for the filing show that multiple witnesses and documents prove DDT was repeatedly told his election loss was real and his claims of “fraud” were based on nothing. As advisers destroyed his conspiracy theories, he made up more. It’s the behavior of someone creating false evidence to support a lie. Former DOJ official Richard Donoghue testified about DDT’s reason for trying to overthrow democracy. DDT said something like, “What do I have to lose?” Donoghue pled with DDT not to “hurt the country,” but DDT ignored him. DDT believed he would never face any consequences.

Amanda Marcotte wrote:

“Trump has been criming his entire life, and never faced anything like a serious consequence. As the New York Times has repeatedly shown in its reporting, Trump has been a massive tax fraud his whole career. He doesn’t even bother to deny it, but brags about how defrauding the government and other taxpayers is a ‘sport’ and makes him ‘smart.’ He’s been accused of sexual harassment, assault, and rape by over two dozen women. But we don’t have just their testimony to rely on to believe them, because Trump himself bragged about it on the infamous ‘grab ’em by the pussy’ tape. Even when one of his illegal schemes comes back to bite him—as happened when he was forced to settle out of court with defrauded customers of his “Trump University” grift—the consequences are insufficient to actually be felt. Hell, he’s even managed to get the Republican National Committee to pay his legal bills so that he can keep wasting his money on golf courses.”

With DDT, it’s the thrill and power of getting away with whatever he wants and putting one over on everyone else. Yet he never uses words that are likely to get him convicted. Like when he blackmailed Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelinsky, he said things such as “I would like you …” or asking him for a “favor.” In February, DDT did slip when he said that “Pence did have the right to change the outcome,” indicating his state of mind, but even that might not stick.

DDT has neither morality or ethics, just a fear of consequences.

Switch to 4G Cuts Off Electronics; DDT’s Very Bad Week

A few months ago, our cell phone server notified us the 3G phones would stop working. We updated our phones and went on our way, ignorant of other changes we need to make. The same problem applies to landlines, tablets, watches, burglar alarms—even medical devices. AT&T says it’s through with 3G on February 22. After that, landlines won’t even make calls. T-Mobile shuts down the 3G network by July 1 and Verizon, originally scheduled to shut down in 2019, in December. Sprint, purchased by T-Mobile, has a deadline at the end of March. 

Lobbyists for the alarm industry estimate 1.5 million customers need to upgrade their fire or burglar alarms, and about 500,000 people have 3G medical alert devices. The fire alarm will still go off, but it won’t notify the fire department. Zonar, providing GPS and other services for buses and trucks, said trucks not upgraded can’t be used if drivers cannot electronically log their hours, mandate by federal law. Tens of thousands of vehicles can be affected. School districts may lose the ability to locate buses, and drivers cannot use GPS for directions.

Q&A on the changeover from 3G and a list of some devices that will or won’t work after the changeover. 

On another subject, Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) is having a rough week. On Friday, he received news that multiple civil lawsuits allegedly accusing him of legal responsibility for the January 6, 2021, insurrection won’t be dismissed. The judge wrote that evidence shows DDT assembled the crowd and told them to march on the U.S. Capitol when he knew some of his audience had violent and destructive elements. The ruling also stated DDT’s tweets during the violence about then VP Mike Pence suggested a ”tacit agreement” with that violent element that forced Pence and others to flee for safety. This decision can cause another storm of subpoenas for witnesses and documents. DDT claims his rally was part of his presidential responsibilities, but the judge said he used the rally in his attempt to stay in the White House for another term. The judge stated:

“After all, the President’s actions here do not relate to his duties of faithfully executing the laws, conducting foreign affairs, commanding the armed forces, or managing the Executive Branch. They entirely concern his efforts to remain in office for a second term. These are unofficial acts, so the separation-of-powers concerns that justify the President’s broad immunity are not present here.“

The judge continued:

“President Trump’s January 6 Rally Speech was akin to telling an excited mob that corn-dealers starve the poor in front of the corn-dealer’s home. He invited his supporters to Washington, D.C., after telling them for months that corrupt and spineless politicians were to blame for stealing an election from them; retold that narrative when thousands of them assembled on the Ellipse; and directed them to march on the Capitol building—the metaphorical corn-dealer’s house—where those very politicians were at work to certify an election that he had lost.”

Multiple lawsuits by 12 Democratic congressional members and several Capitol Police officers injured by the violence accuse DDT of a civil conspiracy with such groups as the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. The judge wrote, “The President’s regular use of the word ‘we’ is notable” and gave examples. He added that sending “thousands to the Capitol” during the Capitol during the voter certification was only the idea of DDT and his campaign and not part of the planning specified in the permit.

In another loss for DDT, a judge ruled that he and his two oldest children, Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr., must testify in New York state’s civil investigation about his business because of subpoenas they were issued. Their depositions must be complete within 21 days. DDT will certainly appeal the decision. If he loses the appeal, he is left with the choices to answer questions or claim the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination, something he said only criminals do. Whatever DDT says in a civil disposition can be used against him in the criminal investigation by the Manhattan DA. In 2020, the same judge ordered DDT’s son Eric to testify after his lawyers canceled a deposition. Eric Trump invoked the Fifth almost 500 times as did Alan Weisselberg, Trump Oranization CFO.

The judge used DDT’s accountant, Mazars firing him as a client as part of the evidence for his decision. A letter from Mazars stated no one could rely on the accuracy of the company’s reports based on financial materials DDT gave the company. Revelation of Mazars’ letter came on the heels of statements from Letitia James, New York’s AG, about DDT and his business using “fraudulent or misleading” valuation of his properties for loans and tax benefits,” DDT’s golf clubs, skyscrapers and other properties to get loans and tax benefits. The judge ordered Weisselberg, charged with collecting over $1.7 million in off-the-books compensation, to sit for a limited deposition in connection with a lawsuit against DDT’s inaugural committee for gross overspending at DDT’s Washington, D.C. hotel to enrich DDT and his family.

DDT’s lawyer Alina Habba created a circus atmosphere with her behavior and accusations. She asked if she was “gonna go after Hillary Clinton for what she’s doing to my client.” Habba continued with the lie that Clinton “spied at Trump Tower in your state.” The judge replied, “The Clintons are not before me.” NPR host Peter Sagal described her behavior to the judge as “an opponent on a cable news panel.” The court clerk had to tell Habba to quit talking while the judge was speaking. Habba also accused James of “doing this because he was a former president, and because he sits on the other side of the fence.”

The investigation would disappear if he didn’t run for president, Habba claimed, and called DDT a “protected class” but couldn’t explain how, only referencing his “political speech.” The judge and the clerk pointed out that protected classes include race, religion and sex. The judge added, “He’s just a bad guy.”

Habba, a relatively inexperienced lawyer, met DDT while frequenting his Bedminster (NJ) resort. She is willing to take on lawsuits sometimes considered frivolous that high-profile attorneys won’t tackle. For example, a few months ago she sent a “demand letter” to the interim administrator of Pulitzer Prizes threatening to sue the board unless if it didn’t “strip” the New York Times and Washington Post of its 2018 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting.” Then she sued James to stop the civil investigation into DDT’ financial affairs. Habba is known for her appearances on the highly conservative network Newsmax and repeatedly calls Biden an “illegitimate president.” In a threat, she said James might soon have “a bunny boiling in a pot,” referring to an act of revenge in the movie Fatal Attraction.

In the conference before the judge, criminal defense attorney Ron Fischetti failed in his demand for “immunity for what he says, or he says nothing.” Alan Futefas, attorney for DDT’s children, also demanded grand jury immunity as witnesses.

In another possible problem for DDT, a House committee has asked the General Services Administration to terminate DDT’s lease on the Washington, D.C. hotel, citing the Mazars’ letter as evidence that information used to obtain the lease is bogus. The committee cited “new information” that he “may have submitted inaccurate financial information to the federal government to obtain this lease and that he stands to reap millions in profit from selling the lease, reinforce the serious ethical and legal concerns previously raised by the Committee.” Last year Mazars showed DDT said he lost over $70 million at the hotel while he was in the White House. DDT wants to sell the lease for $375 million, netting him at least $76 million, but cannot if the GSA terminates it.

After DDT received so much bad news—including the National Archives confirmation he had stolen top secret documents and hidden them at Mar-a-Lago—he turned to a report by John Durham, who he called Robert Durham, as a diversion. DDT’s AG Bill Barr had assigned Durham to dig up dirt on Robert Mueller’s special investigation. In two years, the only indictment was cybersecurity attorney Michael Sussmann for allegedly lying to the FBI. Durham misspoke when he said Sussmann was working for Hillary Clinton during her 2016 campaign, and a week ago the right-wingers launched into the lie that Durham had proof the Clinton’s operatives “spied on” the former president.

Durham has backed off the right-wing claims, especially after the facts show the data, available without any “spying,” appeared during the Obama era. Durham neglected to include the timeline so the GOP and conservative media made wrong assumptions. These comments didn’t stop Fox from their massive coverage, but Clinton’s speech may have helped. She indicated the Fox coverage might be described as “actual malice,” grounds for a lawsuit. Before her tweet, Fox made 219 comments about the situation in six days; afterwards the mention went to once in 11 hours. That was after DDT falsely accused Clinton of breaking into the White House and his New York apartment, saying her actions should be “punishable by death.”

DDT’s next rally, a fundraiser for David Perdue in Georgia on March 16, will try to help Perdue’s failing campaign for governor against incumbent Brian Kemp. DDT seeks revenge for Kemp not overturning the state election for DDT, but Perdue is doing poorly in both fundraising and polling. 

Just on Monday: DDT’s Finances, Sarah Palin’s Lost Lawsuit, Trucker Convoy

The rats are leaving the sinking Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) ship. His tax firm, Mazars Accounting, fired the Trump Organization as its client and stated that last decade’s statements “should no longer be relied upon.”  AG Letitia James, investigating DDT’s financial affairs for a civil suit, had already described his valuation process as often inaccurate or misleading when compared with the supporting data and documentation that the Trump Organization submitted to its accounting firm.” DDT greatly low-balled the property valuations for taxation purposes while inflating them to get loans.

Last year, James obtained DDT’s personal and corporate tax returns back to 2011. Mazars refuse finish this year’s tax returns, due February 15, 2021, including personal returns for Melania Trump and Donald Trump Jr. The taxes have unresolved information regarding the apartment of Matthew Calamari Jr., son of DDT’s security director, who was called to testify in a separate case about a tax fraud scheme for employees receiving untaxed payment including cars and apartments.

Mazars executive and accountant Donald Bender has helped prepare DDT’s financial statements since at least 2002. The company’s departure is joined by banks, law firms, and consulting firms refused to do business with the Trump Organization. The Trump Organization statement declared there were no “material discrepancies.” James’ examination of DDT’s statements to banks and insurers between 2004 and 2020, however, revealed numerous discrepancies between the properties’ condition and DDT’s assertions about them on those such as his Seven Springs estate (Westchester County, NY), his triplex in Trump Tower, his Scotland golf resort, his Westchester golf club, Trump Park Avenue in Manhattan, and his 40 Wall Street office building.

James’ office found inaccuracies in the Trump Organization statements to the IRS and General Services, holding the federal lease to DDT’s D.C. hotel. The attorney general is working with Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg in his criminal investigation. DDT’s son Eric, who oversees the Trump businesses, and the Trumps’ lawyers, claim James has a political bias.

Last fall, DDT was $1.3 billion in debt, including an additional $200 million after he left the White House. Over $730 million is owed in the next three years, part of it $100 million on Trump Tower in September 2022 and $285 on a New York skyscraper million in November 2022. Another $353 million comes due in 2023 and 2024.  By 2020, DDT was down to $93 million in liquid assets, $200 million less than in 2015, and could owe between $100 million and $300 million or more in back taxes, restitution, and penalties. None of DDT’s businesses makes a profit, and his legal fees of $1.6 million are rapidly increasing. 

DDT’s holdings may be worth $2.1 billion, but that’s about two-thirds of their value before the pandemic. Before his father died, DDT declared bankruptcy and got more millions from his father, no longer possible. His only guaranteed income is an annual pension of about $200,000 for having been elected president, and his move toward “poverty” could be dangerous for the United States. DDT’s wealth of information, especially if he’s receiving classified briefings, will be valuable to foreign governments when he seeks help from them. Without help from domestic banks, foreign loans are his only resort. His biggest need, however, would be to be elected president to regain that clout.

To divert from from attention from Mazurs’ letter that he was likely cheating on his taxes and other financial statements, DDT promoted the evidence-free claim that Hillary Clinton “spied” on him during his campaign by hacking him. He called for Clinton to be executed, and sycophant Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) echoed the call to kill Clinton for the non-existent crime. Jordan said, “We’ve never seen anything like this in history …, truly unprecedented,” failing to acknowledge that most of what DDT does is “truly unprecedented.”

Jordan also has a reason for diverting the media into a new direction: he’s been called before the House January 6 investigative committee to explain his personal role in the insurrection—another “truly unprecedented” action. Michael Edison Hayden with the Southern Poverty Law Center’s intelligence project referenced Jordan and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) when he said, “Some of these politicians sound more like 8chan posters, or Daily Stormer commenters, than leaders.” Among other inflammatory declarations, DDT failed to condemn white supremacists, promoted the extremist Proud Boys, and told January 6 insurrectionists “we love you” in his video address after the attack on the U.S. Capitol.  

DDT accused former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann of working for Clinton in his investigation into a “covert communications channel” between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank, tied to the Kremlin. Sussman actually represented Tech Executive-1. An examination of Special Investigator John Durham’s report shows no direct connection between the Clinton campaign and the Alfa Ban investigation, and Durham didn’t use the term “infiltrate” as Fox asserted.

These claims came from DDT’s former staffer Kash Patel who focuses on protecting DDT. He allegedly pushed intelligence agencies to release classified secrets, hoping to prove unfair prosecution of DDT and illegally disclosed classified information. Close to heading up the CIA, he was also suspected of controlling U.S. intelligence and military command centers to keep DDT in the White House. Patel was apppointed as Pentagon chief of staff in November 2020 and blocked President-elect Joe Biden’s transition from access to information and officials.

During the past six years, DDT has a history of non-fact accusations about being “wire tapped,” starting out with President Obama as the false perpetrator. With Patel, DDT entered another chapter.

After a decade-long battle, Sarah Palin, former Alaska governor and vice-presidential candidate, again lost her libel case against the New York Times this time when a judge plans to dismiss the lawsuit. He said she didn’t meet the high legal standard of “actual malice” in a 2017 editorial with an inaccurate claim about her and would formally issue the ruling after the jury verdict. It was the first libel suit against the NYT to go to trial almost 20 years.  Palin may appeal the ruling to a higher court. The trial had been delayed because of Palin’s positive COVID results although she ate out twice in New York restaurants during that time without wearing a mask.

The newspaper editorial connected the 2011 shooting of then-Rep. Gabby Giffords, along with the wounding of 13 others and the deaths of six, to the map on Palin’s website from her PAC showing crosshairs on several districts, including that of Giffords. After the NYT apologized for the error of the connection, a judge initially dismissed the case, but a federal court took it. The New York Times v. Sullivan case (1964) ruled that a public figure must prove an outlet operated with “actual malice” in publishing defamatory information.

The battle is not yet finished; the case could end up with the conservative Supreme Court that tends to rule against First Amendment rights. If the high court were to overturn the 1964 decision, right-wing media outlets could be in worse trouble than mainstream sources.

On the flip side, a federal judge, appointed by DDT, has ruled that federal agencies cannot base decisions on the global “social cost of carbon.” In Louisiana, James Cain stated that the guideline “directly causes harm” for state revenue from the oil and gas lease sales.

The trucker convoy in Canada to stop mandatory vaccinations for Canada-U.S. crossings is temporarily halted, and traffic again flows on Ambassador Bridge between Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit (MI) daily carrying $360 million in cargo, about 25 percent of the trade between the two countries. The seven-day blockade caused just the auto industry to face losses as high as $988 million. The cost of the blockades so far has been estimated at $300 million a day. Plants from Ford, GM, Stellantis, Honda, and Toyota have all been idled, and hundreds of thousands of workers without pay are accompanied by a shortage of new cars, once again forcing up prices.

Protesters are still choking traffic in Ottawa and crossings in Emerson, Manitoba, and Coutts, Alberta. Canada’s capital is still paying out hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional daily policing. Over half the Canadians, 53 percent, oppose the protests, and 59 percent disapprove of the truckers’ tactics. The numbers are rising as the protests continue.

Evidence of U.S. support from conservatives came after hackers found the 92,845 donors to the Christian fundraising site GiveSendGo and put them online. Vice grabbed the data: 56 percent of donors came from the U.S. although the 29 percent of Canadians outraised them, $4.3 million to $3.6 million. Hackers also diverted the website, still offline, to GiveSendDone.wtf that shows a video from Disney’s film Frozen with a statement comparing donors to insurrectionists. GiveSendGo provides a platform for extremists—the Proud Boys, QAnon followers, and families of January 6 insurrectionists in prison. A Canadian judge froze the $8.7 million from the Christian site, and the GoFundMe website was closed down after $10 million, returning all but $1 million to the donors.  

Rep. Rand Paul (R-KY) is just one GOP congressional member calling for big trucker protests in the United States to “clog things up” and incidentally destabilize the nation’s economy. Their promotion failed at the Super Bowl so now they’re hoping to blockade Biden’s State of the Union speech on March 1. The GOP, the new party of protest.  

Why DDT Had Trouble Flushing His Toilets – It’s Classified

How many ways did Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) get rid of official documents while he was in the White House? People have known for years that he illegally tore them up when they should go into the National Archives. Reports a week ago, revealed he sent them off to be burned and took more—at least 15 boxes of them and perhaps more—to his post-White House residence at Mar-a-Lago. But more information keeps leaking out.

Since that time, reports have been issued about DDT not only chewing up documents but also trying to flush them down the toilet. Years ago, he repeatedly announced at his rallies that he would have to flush toilets ten to fifteen times to get them to work. After Maggie Haberman explained DDT’s process of getting rid of important White House records in her book  Confidence Man, to be released in October, the reason is clear.  Engineers had to be repeatedly called to clear toilets. According to former White House officials, DDT is “terrified” of the discovery he tried to flush papers down a toilet. In an appearance on The View, former White House communications aide Alyssa Farah said DDT is frightened of the information in Haberman’s book. “He’s scared of that. He is mortified,” Farah said. Haberman has covered DDT since 2011.

A question is whether DDT can be convicted of any crimes, but the 15 boxes of federal materials thus far rescued have classified information, documents marked Top Secret, defined as those that “could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage” to national security if disclosed without authorization. The president of the United States can declassify information, but it has to be done before he leaves the office. Otherwise, the documents are still classified.

DDT faces another problem, serious gaps in the official White House telephone logs, especially on January 6. The House January 6 committee investigating the insurrection found few calls regarding DDT. It is common knowledge that DDT ignored appropriate channels of presidential communication by using his personal cell phone and those of his aides. Yet DDT cried “lock her up” and declared “worse than Watergate” about Hillary Clinton using a private server for email because it was more secure than the government one.  

In his attempt to defend himself, DDT returned to his accusations that the Clintons stole White House furniture and concealed 30,000 classified emails, a debunked claim. He did rant about “two legal standards, one for Republicans and one for Democrats,” correct because the Republicans are being silent about DDT’s crimes. Thank to media and governmental support for DDT, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 election was destroyed ten days before voting when the FBI and the New York Times spread the insinuation that Clinton’s emails might be on a laptop already examined. The Times was only continuing its hype of the emails story throughout the entire campaign, always claiming that her carelessness was of grave national importance. The Clinton emails story was political because of no criminal evidence; evidence clearly demonstrates DDT’s criminal behavior.

Aides found preserving records difficult because DDT preferred handwritten notes and printed documents to email correspondence. He also added calendar items without notifying proper channels and sometimes failed to have a stenographer and representative from the White House Communications Agency record interviews or videos for social media. Former White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster on Friday said National Security Council staffers had a “foolproof” system for their own record keeping, but he left the White House in 2018.

The National Archives began searching for DDT’s missing documents in May 2021 when employees noticed important items were not found such as DDT’s correspondence with Kim Jong-Un and the map that DDT altered with a Sharpie pen during Hurricane Dorian after he mistakenly said the 2019 cyclone was going to Alabama. After a failed resolution with the person designated as the records contact person, one of DDT’s impeachment defense attorneys, the archives lawyer went to another DDT attorney last fall. DDT claimed “the papers were given easily and without conflict and on a very friendly basis,” but the situation has “not been fully resolved” because DDT still has documents belonging to the Archives. The Archives told DDT’s team that it would alert Congress and the DOJ if not quickly resolved.

Aides found preserving records difficult because DDT preferred handwritten notes and printed documents to email correspondence. He also added calendar items without notifying proper channels and sometimes failed to have a stenographer and representative from the White House Communications Agency record interviews or videos for social media. Former White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster on Friday said National Security Council staffers had a “foolproof” system for their own record keeping, but he left the White House in 2018.

The job of leading the National Archives and Records Administration should be fairly peaceful—and it may have been until authoritarian Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) moved into the White House. David Ferriero, scheduled to retire in a few weeks, has had the position since 2009 in overseeing the agencies three dozen facilities across the nation that contain over 13 billion pages of documents. In a statement, Ferriero said:

“The Presidential Records Act mandates that all presidential records must be properly preserved by each administration so that a complete set of presidential records is transferred to the National Archives at the end of the administration. NARA pursues the return of records whenever we learn that records have been improperly removed or have not been appropriately transferred to official accounts.”

House Oversight Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) has initiated a probe into the 15 boxes of records obtained from Mar-a-Lago, asking for information about its contents and DDT’s actions “to destroy or attempt to destroy (presidential records), and any actions NARA has taken to recover or preserve these documents.”

NARA has asked the DOJ to look into DDT’s treatment of White House records because the National Archives has no enforcement mechanism. The person destroying government records commits a crime only if the person knows it is breaking the law. DDT knew he was breaking the law. While in the White House, its counsel Donald McGahn had explained the Presidential Records Act to DDT as had two of his chiefs of staff Reince Priebus and John Kelly. An internal 2017 memo also warned that the destruction of presidential records is a crime. Starting early in his 2016 presidential campaign, DDT accused Hillary Clinton of breaking the law by supposedly mismanaging emails.  As early as 2017, a study revealed the Times the same number of cover stories about Clinton’s emails as “all the policy issues combined in the 69 days leading up to the election.” But Fox network now largely ignores DDT’s criminal activity in contrast to how it would treat the same behavior from President Joe Biden. Public Notice’s Aaron Rupar tweeted:  

“If two prominent reporters broke news that Joe Biden was flushing documents down White House toilets, [Fox News Channel personality Sean] Hannity would anchor special Fox News coverage that would last through 2024. Trump flushing documents down WH toilets has been mentioned twice on Fox News today, once in passing.”

DDT’s last chief of staff, Mark Meadows, has worked hard to cover up DDT’s crimes. Appearing on the far-right Newsmax, his spin on the situation turned him into a whirligig. “We were very diligent in making sure that we preserved those documents, and ultimately I think the record will show that,” Meadows told Newsmax anchor Rob Schmitt. He continued:

“When the staff secretary prepares documents, actually those documents got reviewed in the West Wing, they got signed in the West Wing. The staff secretary was very diligent in making sure that those documents were preserved for the federal records. To suggest that somehow now that this should be news is just hard to imagine.”

Meadows ridiculed the notion that ripped-up papers requiring tapping back together “show some nefarious purpose.” He moved on to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) ripping up a photocopy copy of DDT’s last State of the Union speech at the end of his performance. DDT had given Pelosi the copy before he started speaking. Meadows claimed  that “those documents,” meaning the president’s speech put onto teleprompter, couldn’t be found and “somehow she got a pass.” The “documents” actually belonged to the White House because it was DDT’s speech.

Meadows also asserted that Hillary Clinton committed the real scandal in which she “destroyed documents.” DDT’s response to Pelosi’s ripping his speech in half proves he knows the law when he declared “it’s illegal” to tear up “an official document.” He concluded, “She broke the law.” Actually, she didn’t, but he did.

A warning for DDT: Patrick Garner of Cardinal Plumbing, Heating & Air in Northern Virginia said that “computer paper” caught in a toilet if DDT tries to flush it “can maintain legibility.” Maybe back to a bonfire.

DDT’s Legal Woes

Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) has a long Teflon history of slipping out of problems, both in his businesses and during his four years in the White House. He’s even contemplating a declaration for the 2024 presidential run to wriggle out of his legal problems—except he’d have to start declaring his financials. Maybe. This past week, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis called for a special grand jury to investigate DDT’s alleged election fraud in Georgia, and the House January 6 investigation committee subpoenaed DDT’s close associates, including his former personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, identified as a coordinator of fake elector certificates in five states.

House Committee:

The Supreme Court rejected DDT’s requests to keep 700 pages of his White House records about the January 6 insurrection from the committee in a decision that cannot be appealed. None of DDT’s three appointed judges dissented with the 8-1 ruling. Only Clarence Thomas disagreed. His wife, Ginni Thomas, had joined others in signing a letter declaring that the 11 Oath Keepers arrested with seditious conspiracy “have done nothing wrong.” On the day of the attack at the U.S. Capitol, she supported the violence in real time on her social media. Supreme Court justices are not subject to the judicial rule that judges must recuse themselves from cases in which their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned” or in which their spouse has “an interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome.”

The ruling did not answer the question of whether a former president can block the release of records; it just agreed with an appeals court that DDT’s claims for executive privilege over the documents “would have failed even if he were the incumbent” president. The District of Columbia appeals court upheld a lower federal court ruling that “the incumbent’s view is accorded greater weight” over former presidents. SCOTUS Justice Brett Kavanaugh disagreed that a former president cannot invoke executive privilege but that doesn’t mean “privilege is absolute or cannot be overcome.”

One document obtained by the House investigative committee is a draft executive order from December 16, 2020, for the Secretary of Defense to seize voting machines, keeping DDT in the White House after Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20, 2021. It cited a federal law for the defense secretary to “seize, collect, retain and analyze all machines, equipment, electronically stored information, and material records required for retention.” He would be given 60 days to write an assessment of the 2020 election. The author of the draft is unknown, but the position is consistent with proposals from lawyer Sidney Powell and her statements during a meeting with former national security adviser Michael Flynn, lawyer Emily Newman, and Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne.  The draft is here.

A second document is a rough draft of a speech, “Remarks on National Healing,” for DDT to deliver after the January 6 insurrection in which claimed DDT “immediately deployed the National Guard and federal law enforcement to secure the building and expel the intruders.” Yet Defense Secretary Chris Miller testified the DDT never contact him at any time to deploy the National Guard. The other comments in the draft were at odds with the statement DDT gave to his supporters 187 minutes after the insurrection began on January 6.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said DDT’s staff members are testifying against DDT to the House committee for various reasons—disgusted about his action, afraid of the investigation committee, and short on financial resources to fight criminal referrals.

District Court:

A district judge heard arguments on three cases about whether allegations of Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) and his supporters inciting the January 6 insurrection can move forward. The judge asked if DDT’s silence in not stopping them meant DDT agreed with the insurrectionists. This civil litigation is the first one to hold DDT liable after his second impeachment trial acquittal. Also considered are three lawsuits brought by Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), ten other House Democrats, and two Capitol Police Officers. Not argued yet are six other lawsuits against DDT and others for their insurrection roles.

When DDT’s lawyer suggested the judge treated DDT worse because he wasn’t a Democrat, he called that statement “inappropriate” and asked the lawyer to “avoid that.” DDT can be charged if the judge determines DDT was campaigning during the speech. The rioters’ and DDT’s alleged crimes on January 6 may be related to the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1873 against officials who intimidate people from carrying out legal duties such as the Electoral College voting for president and “finding” votes for him.

Appearing without a lawyer, Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) told the court that the White House asked him to speak at the January 6 rally. repeated his claim that speaking at the rally was an official duty, but he wore body armor while giving the speech. He also gave documents explaining his language in his speech, identified as inciting violence, was appropriate for election speeches. Brooks’ first accusation about a rigged election was his first one in 1982, but he dropped the accusation after he won.

New York Cases:

Evidence from Letitia James, New York’s AG, adds to the collection of facts about how the Trump Organization used “fraudulent or misleading” assessments of its property—golf resorts, apartment buildings, etc.—to cheat on tax benefits and loans. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is operating a separate criminal probe which has obtained DDT’s personal tax turns. Both case are filed against not only DDT but also his two sons and daughter Ivanka who are executives of the Trump Organization.

In his deposition, Eric Trump invoked the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination over 500 times, sometimes for his involvement in tax easements for the Seven Springs estate and Westchester golf club. James alleged Ivanka Trump was responsible for “misleading financial statements to be submitted to Deutsche Bank and the federal government” concerning the winning bid to lease the government-owned Old Post Office Pavilion made into DDT’s Washington, D.C. hotel. Sale of the lease could give a $100 million profit to DDT. Other properties Trump handled were DDT’s Chicago hotel, Manhattan’s condos, and Miami’s golf resort.

James’ new filing this week concerns DDT’s Manhattan skyscraper, 40 Wall Street. A lender refused to refinance its loan in 2015 because the Trump Organization’s valuation was too unbelievable. A ProPublica story explained how the occupancy, income, and expense for the loan application didn’t match the figures for city tax authorities, showing there were “two sets of books” for higher loans and lower taxes. In 2010, The Organization declared a value of the building at $601.8 million while the loan appraisal by an independent company came in at $200 million. The business employees, including DDT’s children, provided the same gross misinformation for other DDT properties. One example of DDT’s inflation was the size of his apartment in Trump Tower, which he inflated from its actual size of 10,996 square feet and a valuation of $127 million 2012 to 30,000 square feet and an evaluation of $327 million in 2015. Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg testified that the value as overvalued by $200 million “give or take.” Other details are here.

Weisselberg also couldn’t explain the financial discrepancy of the Trump International Golf Club Scotland, valued at $435.56 million in 2014, double the sum for the year before. DDT bought the property for $12.6 million in 2006 and valued it at $161 million just five years later. DDT also claimed $4.4 million and $5.5 million of UK pandemic 2020-21 support, not included in Trump companies accounts, and recorded millions of losses in 2020, citing Brexit for its problems. DDT was a strong supporter of the UK separating from the European Union because the people “took back their country.” Company accounts show that both DDT’s golf resorts owe $158 million to DDT in personal loans.

Bragg plans to depose DDT, who admitted 30 times in an earlier deposition he had lied about his financial affairs when he sued Timothy O’Brien, senior columnist for Bloomberg Opinion, for DDT’s financial information in his 2005 book, TrumpNation. The libel suit was dismissed in 2009, but no prosecutor at the time showed any interest in DDT’s potential malfeasance. James may also change her civil investigation to a criminal one. DDT, in his typical stalling fashion, has filed a lawsuit against Letitia James.    

Private Lawsuits:

DDT is defendant in at least six lawsuits, including the one from niece Mary Trump alleging he defrauded her out of her inheritance. Former DDT property tenants in New York allege he illegally raised their rents. E. Jean Carroll, who claims DDT raped her in the 1990s, is suing for defamation because the statute of limitations against her rape has run out. 

Last week, DDT’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen filed a lawsuit against DDT for retaliating against him for publishing his “tell-all” memoir, Disloyal. The suit claims DDT endangered Cohen’s life with an abrupt return to federal prison from home confinement in 2020 and seeks damages for “extreme physical and emotional harm” and violations of his First Amendment rights in the suit against DDT, federal prison officials, and former AG Bill Barr. Cohen was returned to prison after he refused to sign a document blocking him from publishing a book or speaking to the media for the rest of his sentence. Cohen stated the demand violated his free speech rights under the First Amendment, and a U.S. district court agreed with Cohen. His lawsuit concerns a corrupt U.S. president using the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the Department of Justice to retaliate against a political critic.

Disloyal turned into a best-selling book.

DDT’s habit of stiffing people by not paying his bills may come back to bite him. The Trump Organization reserved rooms at the Loews Madison Hotel for DDT’s inauguration, but 13 people didn’t show up. The company failed to pay the $49,358 hotel bill, dodged a credit collection agency, and then pushed the cost onto the nonprofit presidential inaugural committee. The D.C. attorney general Karl Racine is investigating DDT’s children in charge of the Trump Organization for misuse of funding for the committee. DDT’s employee Weisselberg audited the committee’s finances. He was indicted for criminal tax fraud in New York City before D.C. investigators could interview him under oath.

There may be many more lawsuits out there!

DDT’s Troubles Multiply

The media has spent much time and paper describing what President Joe Biden faces and largely ignoring the tribulations of Deposed Donald Trump (DDT). A few of DDT’s catastrophes:

No matter how much the Cyber Ninjas tried to cover up their failure to swing Arizona into DDT’s camp through incompetent ballot counts, the vote majority in Maricopa County came out even higher for Biden by 360 votes. DDT is still ranting about a “stolen election,” even lying to his Georgia rally audience by telling him that he won the ballot count. Other states, however, may dilute his belief if their future fake audits have the same results.

DDT needs Biden to assert executive privilege shielding DDT’s records from the House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection attempt, but Biden said his using executive privilege to conceal these records is not appropriate. The House has sent subpoenas for “all documents and communications within the White House” on that day, including call logs, schedules, and meetings with top officials and outside advisers on January 6 from several federal agencies including the National Archives. DDT said he would assert his own executive privilege, but he is no longer an executive. He has until September 30 to object to documents’ release, but the current president, Joe Biden, has final ruling on the release.

The January 6 committee has also sent subpoenas to DDT’s former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, former deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino, former adviser Steve Bannon, and Kash Patel, a former chief of staff to then-acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller who had also served as an aide to Republican Rep. Devin Nunes.

Two GOP representatives, Jim Jordan (OH) and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (CA) may also be sent subpoenas for their actions on January 6 and subsequent lies. Jordan finally admitted he talked to DDT “more than once” on the phone during the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Asked if Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) joined him on one of the calls as reported in the media, Jordan said he had to “think about it.” On the calls, Jordan and Gaetz reportedly begged DDT to call off the terrorists.

McCarthy, who tried to sabotage a congressional investigation into the Capitol attack, has flip-flopped by lying about the events of the day. Immediately after the event, McCarthy stated about DDT that “the president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters” but reversed that position by July. In September, McCarthy claims DDT has been exonerated.

DDT’s campaign secretly paid January 6 rally organizers $4.3 million by his and Jared Kushner’s funneling the funding through opaque firms and shell companies. Funding for the rally leading to the insurrection attempt may be far more because of complications in discovering the amount.   

A new court order yesterday ordered the Trump Organization to comply with subpoenas for the investigation by New York State Attorney General Letitia James and Manhattan DA Cyrus R. Vance, Jr. The business has been stonewalling the subpoenas for over a year. They are concerned whether DDT wrongly inflated his assets values to obtain mortgages while deflating them for tax advantages. In one indictment, DDT was named for writing checks to benefit family members of Allen Weisselberg, also facing tax crimes charges.

In August, Matthew Calamari Jr, Trump Organization director of security and son of COO Matthew Calamari, testified before a Manhattan grand jury to receive immunity protection. Prosecutors are examining Calamari’s unreported taxes on rent and cars provided by DDT’s company. The elder Calamari was moved to his position from being DDT’s bodyguard. Weisselberg’s ex-wife Jennifer witnessed DDT’s personal guarantee to cover expensive school costs for family members of two members instead of a raise to avoid paying taxes on the costs. DDT’s stalling in the prosecution puts the current schedule for the case in September 2022, a short time before mid-term elections.

E. Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit against DDT, on hold for a year, may continue while they wait for an appeals court decision. Attorneys for Carroll may pursue subpoenas for documents, records, and DDT’s DNA sample. Time prohibits Carroll from suing for alleged rape in the mid-1990s, but she can sue because of DDT’s defamatory remarks. He said he made these under the scope of his employment in the White House.

DDT is suing his niece, Mary Trump, and three reporters at the New York Times for $100 million about the coverage of his taxes, but the case isn’t going well. The suit accused reporters of forcing Trump to “smuggle records out of her attorney’s office and turn them over to The Times.” DDT’s new lawyer is Alina Habba, who has been a lawyer for a parking-garage company and represented one of his supporters in a complaint against Facebook.  

Legal experts pointed out serious flaws in DDT’s case composed of more invective than evidence:

1. Freedom of the Press in the constitution: Former Principal Deputy Solicitor Neal Katyal, said the lawsuit covers an old article that actually won a Pulitzer award, reporting protected by the First amendment.
2. Lack of Motive: Joyce Vance, former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, said the lawsuit seems to an act of desperation and part of DDT’s history abusing the U.S. legal system. In addition, New York’s new Slapp law could permit Trump to have fast-tracking for dismissal of charges against her, leaving DDT to pay for court and attorney fees.
3. Loser: DDT has won about one-third of the 1,300 cases he filed. The 3,500 cases in which he has been involved are primarily entered to cover failed projects and his refusal to pay his bills, even small ones.

Weisselberg resigned as the Organization’s CEO and been replaced by Donald Trump Jr. Yet DDT’s 43-year-old son lists his office address as a DDT golf course near his new Florida home, and the business is operated by a trust which is controlled by DDT. The company still has 10 hotels, 12 stand-alone golf courses, commercial and residential buildings, and a website selling Trump-branded T-shirts and candles. During DDT’s four-year term, four hotels closed, merchandising shrank, and buildings took down DDT’s name. New York may evict DDT’s company from a publicly owned golf course, and DDT’s Washington hotel is up for sale.

Without political campaigns or people wanting his favor, DDT is losing money at his private properties. The first six months of 2019 brought him $1.4 million from fundraising events; the same time in 2021 produced $350,000. Compared to 25 percent of spending in the first six months of 2019 at DDT’s hotel or restaurant, only 4 percent in 2021 was spent there with 85 percent at other properties, mostly Mar-a-Lago. Part of his loss comes from his own campaign spending no money although his campaign committees spent $1 million at Trump Organization properties between 2017 and 2019. The emolument game is over, maybe a reason DDT wants to run in 2024.

A federal judge ruled DDT’s accounting firm must give House Democrats the records of financial payments from foreign governments related to whether they paid millions of dollars to DDT’s businesses while he conducted foreign policy affecting those governments. A House committee is investigating whether DDT sold access to U.S. policy to foreign government, using the Supreme Court decision as a basis for the argument.

In August, the inspector general for the Federal Election Commission asked the agency to review its ethics policies and internal controls because senior FEC manager Debbie Chacona openly supported DDT and had a close relationship with an attorney who served as the 2016 DDT campaign’s top lawyer. Chacon oversees the office keeping unlawful contributions out of U.S. political campaigns; partisan activities on her part destroys credibility by implying preferential treatment for a candidate or party. She also took the word of the inauguration committee that no foreign nationals gave donations although they were included in its disclosure reports.  

While in the White House, DDT pardoned Ken Kurzon, Jared Kushner’s former newspaper editor and associate, for alleged cybercrimes against three people. The Manhattan DA has now charged Kurzon for cyberstalking his ex-wife by eavesdropping and criminal trespass, illegally accessing this then-wife’s communications in 2015 and 2016. Kurzon is accused of using spyware to log into his wife’s Gmail and Facebook accounts as well as anonymously sharing illegally obtained private Facebook messages. The DA indicated that DDT’s pardon might not be in effect for the recent charges because they are not federal ones.

Although Republicans appear to support everything DDT does, he lost them with his plot to remove Mitch McConnell (R-KY) from the position of Senate Minority Leader. When DDT talked to senators and allies, even Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) wouldn’t agree to the coup to replace McConnell with DDT’s choice. McConnell holds the purse strings to hundreds of millions of dollars used for senators’ reelections, but DDT, who raised $102 million for his super PAC, won’t give any money to GOP candidates.

Diversity of Census, Cult of DDT

No matter how hard Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) tried to keep racial and ethnic minorities from responding to the census, the final result reflects an increasing diversity. The two most important reasons for the census every ten years are voting districts and federal funding of $675 billion to state and local governments. DDT tried to block minorities being counted through questions about undocumented immigrants and delays in the process. Despite the lies DDT’s Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross told during his testimony before Congress, according to the Supreme Court, and the problems created by the pandemic, census takers proceeded to go door to door where people had not submitted their census forms.   

Results about the 2020 census released on Thursday, August 12:

The United States is more diverse and more multiracial than ever before with the percentage of White people shrinking for the first time in census-taking history. People of color represented 43 percent of the U.S. population, up from 34 percent in 2010, with non-Hispanic Whites dropping to 57 percent. The share of Hispanic, Latino, or multiracial grew the most.

The total population grew from about 308.7 million in 2010 to 331.4 million, a 7.35 percent increase. It is the slowest population growth since 1930-1940, dominated by the Great Depression.

The number of adults grew from 237 million in 2010 to 261 million in 2020, an increase in the share of the adult population from 76 percent to 78 percent. With the decrease of those under 18-years-old, Whites now make up only 47 percent of that age group, down from 53 percent in 2010.

In every state, the percentage of Whites dropped, and large cities are becoming majority people of color. Population growth in metro areas during the past decade grew 8.7 percent since 2010. Over half of the nation’s 3,183 counties lost population in the last decade with counties under 50,000 residents most likely to lose.

Washington was the most changed state, its non-Hispanic White population dropping 8.7 percent since 2010, but Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Nevada also had declines over 8 percent. The White states of New Hampshire, Vermont, and West Virginia dropped below 90 percent White; only Maine stayed over 90 percent non-Hispanic White.

Non-Hispanic Whites are now the minority in seven states and territories — California, New Mexico, Nevada, Texas, Maryland, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. In California, that percentage dropped to 34.7 percent, meaning the non-Hispanic White population in the state is almost down to one-third.

The shifting population means 13 states would gain or lost seats in the House of Representatives, thus needing to redraw boundaries. Changes:

• States gaining seats: Texas (2), North Carolina, Florida, Oregon, Montana, and Colorado.
• States losing seats: New York, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, California, Michigan, and West Virginia.

Niall Stanage, editor of the conservative Hill, writes about how the census may “fan the flames of nativism” (aka white supremacy) in U.S. politics, “a fire that … has burned brightly since former President Trump began his 2016 campaign with a speech maligning many immigrants.” According to Stanage, the census may support the far-right argument “that white Americans are under siege, their culture under threat from the rising numbers of immigrants and people of color.” Conservatives spread the myth that a majority non-white population will “take revenge on white people.”

The changing racial makeup of the U.S. may contribute to conservatives’ fascination with Hungary’s authoritarian rule under Viktor Orbán. Immigration, however, may not be responsible for the shrinking number of Whites. One demographer attributed the change to the opioid epidemic and the lower birthrates among millennials since George W. Bush’s Great Recession. Other reasons may come from economic hopelessness and affluence.

You can find changing demographics for where you live on this interactive map.

Meanwhile, news about the cult of DDT continues, with a rally on September 16 demanding “justice” for the January 6 insurrectionists facing prison time. Multiple people, including law enforcement, died, and another 140 police officers were wounded. Leader of the debacle is DDT’s campaign data person Matt Braynard who extolls the “American heroes” perpetrating the violent treasonous attempt to overturn the election of President Joe Biden. Braynard had raised over $700,000 in his search for “voter fraud” and was paid for helping Rudy Giuliani spread false claims about the election. 

One definition of a cult is that members cannot police their own. While sexual-assaulter DDT has escaped any charges for his crimes, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo resigned after the report about his sexual attacks. He denied them, but Democrats, his own party, have forced him out. On the other hand, Republicans chose to exonerate DDT during his impeachment trials—twice—despite his obvious guilt. Yet DDT, a possible sex-offender, called on “loser” Cuomo to resign while Republicans ignore claims of sexual impropriety of a number of GOP officials such as Reps. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) and Matt Gaetz (R-FL) as well as the Republican Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Damon Linker writes:

“The GOP has adopted an ethos of merciless bellicosity. Fighting is what counts and what gets rewarded. Sacrificing for the sake of principle is denigrated and dismissed. To resign is to give up power voluntarily. It’s therefore a choice reserved only for suckers and chumps.

“Add in the cult of personality that has accompanied this shift in moral orientation and we’re left with a party overwhelmingly predisposed to forgive transgressions of the most charismatic and politically potent members of the team. Not even overwhelming evidence of treasonous acts, and certainly not accusations of sexual misconduct and violence, is sufficient to get large numbers of Republican voters to turn on their own.

“That makes the GOP America’s party of political shamelessness. One wonders if Andrew Cuomo sometimes wishes he were a Republican.” 

Judges also continue to reject the GOP myth of a “stolen election.”  A federal judge denied appeals from DDT’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani, pro-DDT attorney Sidney Powell, and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell to dismiss Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuits against them. Lawsuits for $1.3 billion each fight the claims that Dominion rigged the 2020 presidential election for Biden. Dominion is also suing Newsmax, One America News Network (OAN), and former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne, the first two for airing false reports about Dominion switching votes from DDT to Biden and Byrne for his “stolen” election conspiracy theories. Each lawsuit is for over $1.6 billion.

Part of Dominion’s lawsuit against OAN concerns a segment from “expert mathematician” Ed Solomon who claims he discovered evidence of an algorithm-rigged result within precinct-level reporting. His prediction of this occurrence was “an exponent so large there’s not enough stars in the universe—there’s not enough atoms in the universe to explain the number.” An odd response for a mathematician, but Solomon is a convicted drug dealer serving two years in prison who had a job installing swing sets when he was interviewed. His math expertise comes from a few math classes at Stony Brook University between 2008 and 2015 with no degree. Actual experts found that different precincts can logically have the same vote shares at different times in different parts of the county.

The source of Solomon’s purported information is not known although he said he used “data from the NYT feed from PA on November fourth” and the link to the “original data sets” is dead. After Dominion demanded retractions to Solomon’s statements, OAN removed the video and story at its website but left it on the network’s video platform, Rumble Page, with the title “Smoking Gun.” Solomon has since posted YouTube videos of his election analysis, including one almost 12 hours long about the fraudulent Maricopa County (AZ) ballot count.

Far-right media network Newsmax was on a roll in 2020 when DDT became angry with Fox network’s failure to be sufficiently conservative, but this year its ratings dropped 50 percent. One theory for its failure is that Joe Biden moved into the White House, despite the conspiracy theories spread on Newsmax, and the other that the network is “incredibly dull and incredibly boring,” according to Media Matters expert on Newsmax, Jason Campbell.  

The possible arrest of Texas Democratic lawmakers bounces back and forth among courts. A district judge ruled they won’t be arrested for missing a special session focusing on anti-voting bills, but the state Supreme Court overturned the decision. Texas law enforcement was deputized this week to find missing Democrats and haul then off to the state Capitol. The Texas Senate chamber doors are locked, lawmakers must appear daily, and then must obtain permission slips each day to leave. Gov. Gregg Abbott wants a quorum for the GOP majority to push through punitive laws keeping minorities and low-income people from voting. Arrest merely means being forced to be present for the voting. Democrats plan to request a temporary injunction on August 20, in a quest for protection.

Yesterday’s “Reinstatement Day” came and went without DDT’s “reinstatement” in the Oval Office. But did he get out his Sharpies? In an odd coincidence, yesterday was also National Kool-Aid Day. August 13, which fell on a Friday, is the fourth failed reinstatement day after January 20 when Biden was inaugurated, March 4 when QAnon conspiracies believed was Inauguration Day, and June 23. 

DDT’s Life Goes Downhill

In his first rally since Joe Biden became president of the United States, Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) whined and ranted through 90 minutes of lies about being defrauded out of his re-election and his bad treatment since he lost the election on what he called his “revenge” tour. Mainstream networks avoided DDT’s rally speech although CSPAN ran it as part of his presidential campaign for 2024, and people left the rally before he was finished.

Two days after DDT delivered his lies, the Trump Organization “will be criminally charged” and “will have faced criminal charges” from an investigation by the Southern District of New York City. Charges will deal with whether taxes were paid on the company’s fringe benefits for a top executive and false valuations of properties to obtain large loans and pay small taxes.  

Prosecutors gave DDT until tomorrow afternoon to make final arguments about why DDT’s business should not face these criminal charges. The Trump Organization, controlled by a DDT-owned trust, uses a web of hundreds of individual limited liability corporations. The case against the company is moving forward because DDT’s CEO Allen Weisselberg wasn’t “cooperating.” Weisselberg went to Trump Tower while DDT was in residence. 

Since the investigation into DDT and his business, most of its longtime employees, DDT’s family members who worked there, and some of his protectors such as former lawyer Michael Cohen left. After being his fixer for decades, Cohen turned on DDT. Now DDT works at the business, mostly alone, with two assistants and a few body men. A grand jury, convened earlier this year, is to consider indictments from the investigation.

Indictments could financially destroy DDT and his family, driving DDT into bankruptcy. DDT almost may owe hundreds of millions of dollars to the IRS, and his loans of hundreds of millions of dollars to foreign banks like the Chinese are coming due soon. Even without criminal indictments of the Trump Organization, DDT’s money-making could be shut down.

Rudy Giuliani’s former lawyer, replacement for Cohen, is also in trouble: the New York Supreme Court suspended his law license, and he can not practice law at this time. He faces disbarment for making “demonstrably false and misleading statements” while pushing DDT’s multiple court cases challenging the legal 2020 election. The court called Giuliani an “immediate threat” to the public who had “directly inflamed” the tensions leading to the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. “This country is being torn apart by continued attacks on the legitimacy of the 2020 election and of our current president, Joseph R. Biden,” according to the court. 

DDT angrily attacked “the same court that would handle any appeals in any prosecution the Manhattan DA may bring against the Trump Organization or any of its principals or employees,” according to George Conway’s tweet.

Examples of Giuliani’s incompetence and dishonesty:

Told a court that voter fraud cost DDT the election before Giuliani admitted he isn’t claiming voter fraud.

Defended lies about absentee ballots by saying he sincerely believed the lies at one time.

Lied to a court about a dead boxer voting in Philadelphia.

Claimed underage Georgia residents gave President Joe Biden up to 165,000 votes when the number was zero.

Repeatedly claimed “a few hundred thousand” undocumented immigrants voted for Biden in Arizona after being told no data existed to support his statement.

Giuliani is bringing down others with him.  FBI agents searched the home of George Dickson, a marijuana entrepreneur who worked with Giuliani for financing a documentary, never completed, to present the lies about Joe and Hunter Biden’s corruption in Ukraine. Giuliani thought the film would kill Biden’s chances to be elected. Federal prosecutors are probing Giuliani’s actions for violating foreign lobbying laws when he worked with former Ukrainian government officials and Russian agents to spread lies about false allegations about Biden.

DDT has faced a few others disasters:

A Georgia Superior Court dismissed seven of nine claims in a lawsuit alleging 147,000 fraudulent ballots were cast in the Fulton County 2020 election. Two of them were argued under a different claim, but the Fulton County elections board intends to file to get those claims dismissed as well. The ballots have been legally audited three times, including one hand recount with finding no evidence of widespread fraud.

The United States AG, Merrick Garland, announced a DOJ lawsuit against Georgia for its new anti-voting laws. Garland stated Georgia’s law was intended to be discriminatory against people of color instead of doing so accidentally. The DOJ is also following anti-voting bills and laws in other states for possible more lawsuits, according to Garland. Federal prosecutors are to make voter intimidation a priority, and Georgia may end up on preclearance requirements again. As states move to strip powers from elected secretaries of state, the DOJ lawsuit plans concrete steps to protect their legal powers.

In another move, the DOJ has established a task force to deal with the growing threats against election workers. In a number of states—including Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin—intimidation and threats have resulted in these officials’ early retirement. Pennsylvania lost at least one-third of county election officials. Last May during the Pennsylvania municipal primary, new election directors with no experience or knowledge took control. Untrained staffers can make mistakes programming races into the right districts, and the ignorance can lead to lack of consistency. Some counties haven’t even replaced election directors who resigned.

But it’s not just high-profile officials. One-third of election officials don’t feel safe in their jobs, and one-fifth have received death threats related to their jobs. Garland said, “The right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy, the right from which all other rights ultimately flow.” In Georgia, new ordinances or state laws have removed or eliminated positions of members of at least ten county election boards, mostly Democrats and some people of color. Republicans have largely replaced these people.  

The DOJ also told Missouri that states cannot overturn federal laws after Republicans passed a law not to enforce federal gun laws in the state. Gov. Mike Parsons signed the bill fining any local law enforcement agency $50,000 if it enforces federal gun laws and regulations constituting “infringements” of the Second Amendment. The DOJ told Missouri the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause outweighs Parson’s measure. Missouri’s law doesn’t even refer to current federal law; GOP legislators merely passed the law in case Congress passed a law that Missouri didn’t like. Eight other states have already passed similar laws, and Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) said federal legislators should not pass any laws that any states would consider “nullifying.”

Other GOP governors are trying to keep members of Congress from supporting voting rights by lying about the proposed federal bill and their own anti-voting laws:

Florida: Ron DeSantis claimed that the laws were passed “so that someone can’t dump 100,000 votes two or three days later.” It didn’t happen, and DeSantis didn’t try to identify when his claim occurred. Sen. Rick Scott had falsely claimed in his 2018 race that “they found 95,000 votes after election night.”

Georgia: Brian Kemp claimed the new restrictions on drop boxes expanded the number, but it limits the number of drop boxes per county to “either one drop box for every 100,000 registered voters or the number of advance voting locations.” Larger counties, predominantly Black, are limited to 23 or fewer drop boxes, down from 94 in the 2020 election. Drop boxes, available only during early voting hours, are located inside. My Oregon county in Oregon has seven drop boxes, one per 5,467 voters, accessible 24 hours a day.

Arizona: Doug Ducey said no one loses their right to vote with Arizona’s new law, but the state automatically removes everyone from the early voter list, determining who receives mail ballots, if they don’t vote in a two-year cycle, removing over 100,000 Arizonans.

The Arizona ballot “fraudit” or ballot count or whatever is over after two painful months, but news about it is still available. Doug Logan, head of Cyber Ninjas running the operation, has claimed to be completely unbiased, but his possible appearance in the documentary Deep Rig belies his claims. Directed by a man whose work claims aliens were behind the 9/11 attack, the current conspiracy theorist film trying to prove the 2020 presidential election was rigged againt DDT uses Logan as the voice of “Anon.” 

The star of the film, Patrick Byrne, wrote the book used for the documentary and is working to get $2.8 million funding for the Arizona fake audit. Former Secretary of State Ken Bennett, liaison for the “fraudit,” also took part in the film. The movie showed scenes of the audit floor, including close-ups of ballots with clearly visible choices, although a journalist was thrown out of the counting site for accidentally taking a photograph of this. Some GOP lawmakers, including Senate President Karen Fann, attended the premier of the film, filled with QAnon conspiracy theories and other lies about voter fraud.