Important Takeaways:
- On Monday, just hours after the U.S. Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling that Trump has some presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for actions taken to overturn results of the 2020 election, Trump’s attorneys sent a letter to Judge Merchan asking to him to “set aside the jury’s verdict” in his hush money case.
- The Manhattan district attorney’s office said Tuesday it would not oppose former President Donald Trump’s request to file a motion arguing that his hush money conviction should be tossed, a move that will almost certainly delay Trump’s sentencing, which is currently set for July 11.
- Prosecutors asked for two weeks to respond to the defense motion.
- “The verdicts in this case violate the presidential immunity doctrine and create grave risks of ‘an Executive Branch that cannibalizes itself,'” defense attorney Todd Blanche wrote. “After further briefing on these issues beginning on July 10, 2024, it will be manifest that the trial result cannot stand.”
- Judge Merchan has yet to rule on Trump’s request to file his motion or make any determination about the July 11 sentencing date.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of former President Donald Trump on Monday, holding in a 6-3 decision that presidents are covered by limited immunity from criminal prosecutions for actions taken while in office.
- The decision is here.
- The Court held, according to the summary of the decision:
- Under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority. And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. There is no immunity for unofficial acts.
- The Court also ruled that a president is entitled to a pretrial hearing on immunity that can be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court before a trial begins.
- This means that any trial of the former president will take place after the November 5, 2024, election.
- The case will now be remanded, and will likely result in the dismissal of some or all of the charges facing the former president in federal court in Washington, D.C., relating to the Capitol riot of January 6.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- A current president has never before debated his predecessor
- The two men are now facing off again for the presidency and this debate will mark the first time in this election campaign that millions of Americans are sitting up and paying attention.
- Unlike past debates, this one will be conducted in a cable television studio without a live audience
- The debate will also feature muted microphones for candidates during their opponent’s allotted speaking time
- This is the earliest presidential debate in modern US history – held before either candidate has become the formal nominee of their party.
- There’s another debate scheduled in September.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Diplomats and world leaders have begun to worry that Biden’s reluctance to more fully break with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could cost him the election in November.
- Their concerns have been conveyed largely behind closed doors, out of consideration not to wade too far into U.S. domestic politics.
- But the thrust is often the same: The war has furthered the perception that the world is peppered with a variety of out-of-control hot spots and, in turn, made Biden look weak among voters back home.
- They fear that it may usher in former President Donald Trump and rupture the broader diplomatic harmony Biden has worked to establish.
- European officials say they’re more vexed that Netanyahu hasn’t publicly supported the proposal, even though the U.S. says he privately agreed to it.
- Biden officials have dismissed concerns about the impact of the war on the president’s candidacy, pointing to polling showing that it doesn’t rank among voters’ top priorities ahead of the election.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that New York Judge Juan Merchan should consider former President Donald Trump’s comments about being jailed while sentencing.
- Sunday on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends Weekend,” Trump said, “I think it would be tough for the public to take, you know at a certain point, there’s a breaking point.”
- Guest host Kasie Hunt said, “Considering that the sentencing is likely to occur, just days before the start of the convention and months before he’s to be the Republican nominee in November do you think it would be dangerous for the country if Donald Trump were sentenced to jail?”
- Schiff said, “No, I don’t think it will be dangerous for the country and we have seen Trump urge mass protests outside the courthouse that never materialized. But nevertheless this is I think what Donald Trump is aiming for. This is essentially his threat that if he gets jailed time that he’s going to encourage his supporters to rise up. And we saw the very deadly results of that on January 6. So I don’t think the public is going to respond to that call. I hope we learn something from the awful experience of January 6.”
- He added, “It’s very clear what Donald trump has suggesting here. This is something I think that the judge needs to take into consideration also not to be intimidated by that threat but as a further evidence, this defendant not only doesn’t accept responsibility but is willing to endanger people, just as Trump’s willing to violate the gag order and potentially endanger witnesses or jurors or the judge himself or family members, that’s something that judge ought to be considering.”
Read the original article by clicking here.
“When once a Republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
Important Takeaways:
- Former President Trump became the first-ever former U.S. president to become a convicted felon on Thursday.
- Trump, the presumed 2024 GOP nominee, is scheduled to be sentenced on July 11, just one week before the Republican National Convention.
- His attorney Todd Blanche told CNN Trump’s legal team would “vigorously fight” with motions in the coming weeks and if unsuccessful with these, they would appeal following his sentencing.
- The appeals process is unlikely to conclude before the November election.
- Would Trump go to jail?
- Judge Juan Merchan will determine whether Trump’s punishment will include a prison sentence.
- The 34 charges are all Class E felonies — the least severe level in New York. They each carry the possibility of up to four years in prison.
- But the judge can also decide to sentence Trump to probation without prison time. That would require the former president to regularly report to a probation officer. If he commits any more crimes, Trump could then be jailed.
- Can Trump run for president as a convicted felon?
- While Trump can still run for president, it’s not yet clear if he’ll be able to vote for himself since some states have laws that limit the voting rights of a person with a felony conviction.
- Trump moved his residency to Florida after leaving the White House in 2021. According to Florida law, the ability of people with a felony conviction to vote depends on the laws in the state where they were convicted.
- “New York only disenfranchises people while serving a prison sentence, so assuming Trump is not sentenced to prison time, his rights would be restored by New York law and therefore also in Florida,” Blair Bowie, an attorney at the Campaign Legal Center said.
- “The only way he wouldn’t be able to vote is if he is in prison on Election Day,” Bowie said.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- America has gone ‘over a cliff’ with Trump’s conviction, Judge Jeanine says: ‘All smoke and mirrors’
- Fox News host Jeanine Pirro said Thursday that America has “gone over a cliff” after former President Trump was found guilty on all counts, making him the first former President of the United States to be convicted of a crime.
- “I want to believe that Americans believe in justice, and I think that in their gut, they realized that there is something that is very wrong here. We have gone over a cliff in America,” Pirro said on-air, moments after the jury found Trump guilty of falsifying business records on all counts, concluding his historic and unprecedented criminal trial. Trump pleaded not guilty to all counts.
- “This verdict is a verdict of someone who was forced to fight a 1,000-pound gorilla with both hands tied behind his back. This was a defendant for whom crimes were created, against whom a judge…was handpicked for this defendant, who denied him the ability to fight the way he needed to fight, who brought in crimes that we have never heard of in New York before, where they had dead misdemeanors that they resurrected into felonies based upon non-unanimous verdicts of crimes that are federal over which no state court or no state judge or prosecutor has jurisdiction,” Pirro said.
- “And in the end, with all this smoke and mirrors, at 34 counts, and a hooker, and a guy, [who] according to a federal judge is a serial perjurer, we have convicted a former President of the United States of America,” she continued.
- Democrats have set a dangerous precedent by doing this. They may not like life under the new rules they have created.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- The ad is part of a more aggressive strategy to seize on Trump’s record on abortion, an issue the Biden campaign sees as the most motivating one for voters in November.
- President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign launched a paid media blitz about reproductive rights in Arizona on Thursday, two days after the state’s Supreme Court upheld a near-total abortion ban dating to 1864.
- The seven-figure ad buy focuses on former President Donald Trump’s latest abortion stance
- The 30-second spot, which first aired Thursday on MSNBC, will target key young, female and Latino voters both on television and online, according to the campaign.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- In a video posted to Truth Social, Trump said the issue of abortion is about “the will of the people” and should be left up to states to decide. The 45th president touted his role in nominating the Supreme Court justices who ultimately overturned Roe v. Wade in their Dobbs decision — ending 50 years of an invented constitutional right to abortion and sending the issue back to individual states and their elected representatives.
- “My view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint, the states will determine by vote or legislation, or perhaps both, and whatever they decide, must be the law of the land,” Trump said.
- “This is all about the will of the people. You must follow your heart or in many cases, your religion or your faith. Do what’s right for your family, and do what’s right for yourself,” he continued. “Do what’s right for your children. Do what’s right for our country, and vote–so important to vote. At the end of the day, it’s all about the will of the people.”
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Christian TV evangelicals fire up Trump support with messianic message
- “This is really a battle between good and evil,” evangelical TV preacher Hank Kunneman says of the slew of criminal charges facing Donald Trump. “There’s something on President Trump that the enemy fears: It’s called the anointing.”
- Voices in Christian media are pressing message of Biblical proportions: The 2024 presidential race is a fight for America’s soul, and a persecuted Trump has God’s protection.
- “They’re just trying to bankrupt him. They’re trying to take everything he’s got. They’re trying to put him in prison,” Lance Wallnau said in October on “The Jim Bakker Show”, an hour-long daily broadcast that focuses on news and revelation about the end times. “The hand of God is on him and he cannot be stopped.”
- Some Christian media are bolstering his support by portraying him as an instrument of God’s will who faces persecution by his foes.
- The roughly 80 million Americans who describe themselves as born-again or evangelical Protestants – about a quarter of the population – have provided the bedrock for his meteoric rise, and their turnout levels this November could prove critical in a tight contest against Democratic rival Joe Biden.
- Many Christian voters credit Trump with a series of policy victories, including the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in 2022 to overturn the constitutional right to abortion after he appointed three conservative justices to the court, plus the moving of the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
Read the original article by clicking here.
