International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Karim Khan stated he is seeking arrest warrants against both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and three Hamas leaders for alleged war crimes. He accused both Netanyahu and Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant of “willful killing or Murder as a war crime,” and for “intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population as a war crime.” The Hamas warrants are for Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’ leader in Gaza; Mohammed Deif, leader of Hamas’ military wing; and Ismail Haniyeh, the group’s political leader. Khan isn’t charging Israel’s military leadership.
The Supreme Court refused to take up a challenge to Maryland’s ban on assault-style weapons, leaving the law in place. Challengers asked the high court to take the case before the 4th Circuit Court ruled on the law. The appeals court has already upheld the law once, and the Supreme Court refused to review that decision.
In another Justice Samuel Alito ethical issues, he sold his stock in Anheuser-Busch during the hate campaign connected to a boycott of Budweiser Light, possibly participating. The event was a protest against trans woman Dylan Mulvaney promotion of the product. Alito bought stock in the rival brewing company Coors owned by a conservative donors.
Republicans, including Deposed Donald Trump (DDT), continue to claim that Democrats are a failure in southern border policy, but they have turned down any bills to solve the problem. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) wrote to his colleagues that he plans to bring up the bipartisan border deal negotiated early this year back to the floor for another vote. A primary creator of the bill was Oklahoma GOP’s James Lankford with Democratic Chris Murphy (CT) and unaffiliated Kyrsten Sinema (AZ). In his letter, Schumer stated:
“The former President made clear he would rather preserve the issue for his campaign than solve the issue in a bipartisan fashion. On cue, many of our [Republican] colleagues abruptly reversed course on their prior support, announcing their new-found opposition to the bipartisan proposal.”
Republicans, however, claim they are sticking with DDT and won’t vote for it. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) supported the bipartisan border discussions until DDT opposed it; now he claims that Schumer wants to distract from Biden’s border crisis.
Nevada abortion-rights supporters state they have enough signatures to put a ballot measure on the ballot to add these rights into the state’s constitution. The 200,000 signatures are almost double the 102,362 mandated for qualification.
Even a Republican, Sen. Mike Rounds (SD), is asking South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem for a correction in her book. He denied that he had asked DDT to drop out of the presidential race in October 2016 after the Access Hollywood tape about DDT’s bragging about sexually assaulting women went public. Noem, who wants to be DDT’s vice-president, had called DDT’s comments “repulsive.”
John F. Kennedy Jr. doesn’t own the home address that he uses as his voting location. It is in foreclosure for nonpayment and missing JFK’s name in resident searches. JFK used the same Westchester County residence for his New Hampshire presidential nomination petitions in 2024 and eight other elections between 2008 and 2018. The owner is the wife of a longtime friend of JFK. Kennedy’s brother Doug said that Kennedy stays there when he is in New York.
After two months, the ship causing the Baltimore bridge to collapse, the Dali, has been refloated and is being taken back to port guided by tugboats.
DDT Trial Day 19: Prosecution for the criminal trial rested in the late morning after four weeks of testimony, 20 witnesses, and over 200 exhibits. The defense then put on its case, briefly turning the courtroom into chaos. Judge Juan Merchan admonished the second witness, Michael Cohen’s former legal adviser Robert Costello, for improper decorum when he was testifying about Cohen’s state of mind as federal investigators were closing in on him in 2018. Merchan sent the jury out of the room and cleared the press. No explanation was given when they were permitted to return a few minutes later. The press heard Merchan say to Costello:
“If you don’t like my ruling, you don’t say, ‘Jeez.’ You don’t give me a side eye. You don’t roll your eyes. You understand that?”
Merchan also pointed out that Costello can’t strike anything, that the only person able to do that is the judge. Part of the judge’s directions to Costello was not to answer when an objection is sustained. The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell stated that Costello turned as red as a “strawberry.”
Costello, a DDT ally, said several times that Cohen said DDT didn’t know about the payment to Stormy Daniels. Cohen said that he had never hired Costello but had talked with him length, giving an attorney-client privilege. Merchan told prosecutors they could cross-examine Costello on two prior inconsistent statements but would not allow “a trial within a trial” about how the pressure campaign about Costello trying to strong-arm him into his service affected Cohen.
While the jurors and press were not in the room, Merchan called Costello’s behavior “contemptuous” and told him, “If you try to stare me down one more time, I will remove you from the stand. I will strike his entire testimony. Do you understand me?” Costello asked to respond, and Merchan refused, saying, “This is not a conversation.”
Cohen also admitted that he lied about paying the technology company Red Finch $50,000 to tilt an online poll about famous businesspeople in DDT’s favor and kept $30,000 because his annual bonus had been reduced by two-thirds. Prosecution’s biggest win of the day, however, may have been in Cohen’s cross-examination about communication between DDT and his bodyguard Keith Schiller about the hush money payment. The defense declared that Cohen was lying about DDT’s awareness of the $130,000 paid to Daniels, but prosecution brought a photo supporting the time of the call when Schiller handed the phone to DDT. Although the defense lawyer fought to keep the photograph from evidence, he lost.
Earlier in the day, court officials asked Alan Dershowitz, a Fox legal analyst who defended DDT during his first impeachment, to return to his seat after he audibly told Norm Eisen, a CNN legal analyst, that he wasn’t at the trial for political reasons during an argument.
In an interview with Fox outside the courthouse, Trump’s legal spokeswoman Alina Habba said: “We know he wants to testify. He is willing, he is able, he is nothing to hide at all. He’s absolutely ready to tell the truth.” Still, she said, “he’s got to listen to his attorneys.” Third Way, a center-left group, has a five-figure digital ad buy trying to drive DDT into testifying that runs near where DDT will be. It calls him a “coward” if he doesn’t testify.
An increasing number of surrogates, DDT’s term, wearing Trumpy navy suits and red ties reciting DDT’s smears against the trial appears at the trial. DDT’s lawyer Todd Blanche erroneously calls them “members of the public. Instead of waiting hours to get into the courtroom, however, they travel with DDT, some of them in his motorcade, and enter the courthouse in a nonpublic entrance on a usually closed street. They go to the 15th floor in an elevator unavailable to the public to a “holding room” for those in DDT’s traveling party. Once inside the courtroom, they sit in DDT’s reserved 16 seats in the gallery’s front two rows. The ”public” is banned from using phones for the purpose of security, but not the surrogates. One of them, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) explained they were there to circumvent the gag order against DDT, an illegal act. On Monday, protesters gathered to shout them down, calling them “liar” and “traitor.”
Although Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson (R-LA) was not present on May 20, he appeared last week and received massive criticism for deserting his responsibility in leading he House.
The day ended with DDT’s attorneys again asking for a dismissal of the case, based only on Cohen’s testimony and DDT raging in the hallway. Costello is due to return on Tuesday. DDT said that Merchan can earn back “respect” if he dismisses the case. Merchan stated that closing arguments may begin on May 28 after the Memorial Day weekend. That gives DDT a long time to complain about not campaigning while he doesn’t campaign in his free time.
In the new YouGov poll, 52 percent believe that DDT did “falsify documents to conceal a hush money payment to a porn star,” up from 48 percent last month and 45 percent in March. Only 22 percent say he didn’t, and one-fourth don’t know. Almost half are following the trial at least somewhat closely. Only 14 percent of people think DDT didn’t have sex with Stormy Daniels, and only 17 percent don’t believe that he made a deal with National Inquiry to buy and kill bad stories about him.
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