Category Archives: Donald Trump

INDIANAPOLISSo, the U.S. House of Representatives Jan. 6 Select Committee has revealed that former President Donald Trump used his baseless claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him to fleece his followers.

John Krull, publisher,TheStatehouseFile.com

Who could have predicted that a man who built his business, such as it is, by slapping his name on everything but used tissues and then selling those products, such as they are, at inflated prices would resort to yet another con when he was under pressure?

Who would have thought that a guy who ran for president primarily to restore some luster to his fading brand wouldnt leap at one more chance to bilk the faithful?

And who possibly could have seen that a fellow who spent at least a third of his time as both presidential candidate and president staying at Trump properties, thus lining his own pockets with taxpayer funds and campaign contributions, would not be able to resist one more grab at the cookie jar?

Clearly, such grasping chicanery on the part of the former president comes completely out of left field because, up until this point, nothing Donald Trump ever has done in his life would indicate that he is either greedy or mendacious.

When the history of this period is writtenpresuming the republic survives and Americans still are permitted to express themselves freely and honestlyone question will be at the center of all the studies and scholarship.

Why and how did so many Americans allow themselves to be gulled by a con artist who views them the way a rat does pieces of cheese?

I understand why so many working-class Americans turned to Trump in the first place. Their concerns werent being addressed by either political party.

Still arent, for that matter.

The traditional Republican Party always has favored the wishes of capital over the needs of labor, elevating the interests of the haves over those of the have-nots. The GOP also has a history of pitting working people against each other.

Were seeing that again now.

After years of encouraging tensions and resentments between working-class U.S. citizens and undocumented immigrants, some Republicans now have begun quietly arguing that relaxing immigration restrictions would help ease inflationary pressures.

Once again, in the GOPs world view, the burden of solving an economic problem must fall on the shoulders of working people.

Not that the Democrats cant be just as clueless. Their solution to the problems of the working class is to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour.

There are at least two problems with that.

The first is that the real minimum wage in this country now already is between $15 and $17 per hourand its likely to climb higher than that as the worldwide labor shortage deepens in the coming years. Democrats want to close the barn door not just after the horse fled but at one of the few times in history when the horse might have some power to choose which barn it likes best and under what conditions.

The second problem with the Democrats minimum-wage policy is that it isnt grounded in any recognizable reality.

How many of them would like to try to raise a family of four on $31,000 a year? Thats what 40 hours per week of $15 per hour pays for a years labor. How many Democrats in Congress and state legislatures across the country think they could build better lives for their own children and pursue the American dream on those wages?

Donald Trump became a force in Americas political life because neither party seemed to care or grasp the challenges millions of Americans faced.

In their desperation, they turned to a grifter who saw them as lemons to squeeze for the juice they might provide him.

Now, even as evidence overwhelmingly mounts that Trump has done a little but use and abuse those who gave him their devotion, many, many Americans remain faithful to the man who has misled them at every turn.

Perhaps Mark Twain said it best.

Its easier to fool people, Twain wrote, than to convince them they have been fooled.

John Krull is director of Franklin College's Pulliam School of Journalism and publisher ofTheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students. The opinions expressed by the author do not reflect the views of Franklin College.

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Donald Trump and the art of the grift | Commentary | thestatehousefile.com - The Statehouse File

A wag once said the best thing about living at the Jersey Shore is that youre so close to New York City you feel like you never need to go there.

I agree. We get our fill of the New York experience from the New Yorkers who come here.

Donald Trump for example.

Long before he went to Washington, The Donald went to Atlantic City.

There, he ripped off and shortchanged virtually everyone he did business with.

Back when Trump first flirted with a White House run in 2011, I interviewed some of the locals. They knew what to expect when The Donald moved his hustle from A.C. to D.C.

Everybody down here is rooting for him, one said. They figure hell screw the Chinese the way he screwed us. Hell probably screw some Arabs, too.

That was Seth Grossman, a lawyer who heads a conservative group called Liberty and prosperity.

Grossman liked most of what Trump did while in office. But as a strict constructionist of the Constitution, he opposed the stunt Trump tried to pull on Jan. 6 .

Any American who calls him or herself a conservative must understand and respect our Constitution, Grossman said in a post at the time. Vice-President Pence did what the Twelfth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution required him to do.

What it required him to do was count the votes, not certify them. The certification was done by the states a month earlier.

Trump couldnt change that. All he could do is give the Democrats a talking point theyll be milking for decades to come.

I keep saying Trump walked into every trap the Democrats set for him, Grossman said when I called him last week. People say he exposed those traps. Well if a soldier steps on every land mine the enemy puts out for him, hes exposing the land mines.

Which is what Trump did. Till The Donalds Jan. 6 debacle, it was the opposition that was responsible for those riots in places like Portland.

But when it comes to rioting, nothing tops the video of that mob carrying Trump banners as they knocked that policewoman unconscious while storming the Capitol. That Hang Mike Pence chant will be hard to top as well.

And theres plenty more where that came from. The Democrats will be releasing it piece by piece over the coming weeks.

They certainly dont have much else to talk about as we go into the November elections. Inflation? Gas prices? Immigration?

Trump gave them the gift that keeps on giving.

But he screwed his own followers. Trump couldnt have picked a worse jurisdiction to have his crowd go crazy, Grossman says.

The last thing youd want to do is go to Manhattan or D.C., he said. He takes his most loyal supporters and puts them at the mercy of his worst enemies in law enforcement.

Trump hasnt made a lot of friends in Georgia either. But he might need some if the Fulton County prosecutor decides to indict him.

Thats a real possibility according to lawyer Norm Eisen of the Brookings Institution.

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Eisen co-authored a 100-page study of a possible prosecution of Trump and his demand that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger find 11,780 votes, which would have made The Donald the winner by one vote.

We conclude that Trumps post-election conduct in Georgia leaves him at substantial risk of possible state charges predicated on multiple crimes, the study stated. These charges potentially include criminal solicitation to commit election fraud; intentional interference with performance of election duties; conspiracy to commit election fraud; criminal solicitation; and state RICO violations.

In a tweet on Friday, Eisen said, Lots saying last nights hearing ultimately had an audience of 1: AG Garland. NO! It was an audience of 2. Fulton Cty. DA Fani Willis was also watching, she will likely be the first to prosecute Trump, & Liz Cheney knew it.

Ironically, the only thing that could save Trump from a state indictment might be a federal indictment by Attorney General Merrick Garland. After that hearing, theres plenty of material if Garland decides to get frisky.

A lot of Republicans would profess to be appalled if that were to happen.

But if Trump were hauled off to the hoosegow, that would clear the way for some other Republican to run for president in 2024.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is the favorite of most Republicans I know.

Unlike Trump, hes young and has a clean resume. (Not like The Donald) Also unlike Trump, hes won every race hes ever run in.

Best of all, hes not from New York City.

One president from there will be quite sufficient.

ADD - EVEN HIS HOMETOWN NEWSPAPER HAS TURNED ON TRUMP

In an editorial, the New York Post says what Ive been saying for months: Donald Trump is doing more for Democrats than Republicans. Heres an excerpt::

Trump has become a prisoner of his own ego. He cant admit his tweeting and narcissism turned off millions. He wont stop insisting that 2020 was stolen even though hes offered no proof that its true.

Respected officials like former Attorney General Bill Barr call his rants nonsense. This isnt just about Liz Cheney. Mitch McConnell, Betsy DeVos, Mark Meadows they all knew Trump was delusional. His own daughter and son-in-law testified it was bull.

Trumps response? He insults Barr, and dismisses Ivanka as checked out. He clings to more fantastical theories, such as Dinesh DSouzas debunked 2,000 Mules, even as recounts in Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin confirm Trump lost.

More: Recent Paul Mulshine columns

Paul Mulshine may be reached at pmulshine@starledger.com.

Follow him on Twitter @Mulshine. Find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook and on Twitter.

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Donald Trumps New York City hustle is finally catching up with him | Mulshine - NJ.com

WASHINGTON The House Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the United States Capitol opened a landmark set of hearings on Thursday by showing video of aide after aide to former President Donald J. Trump testifying that his claims of a stolen election were false, as the panel laid out in meticulous detail the extent of the former presidents efforts to keep himself in office.

Over about two hours, the panel offered new information about what it characterized as an attempted coup orchestrated by Mr. Trump that culminated in the deadly assault on the Capitol. The panels leaders revealed that investigators heard testimony that Mr. Trump endorsed the hanging of his own vice president as a mob of his supporters descended on Congress. They also said they had evidence that members of Mr. Trumps cabinet discussed invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office.

The session kicked off an ambitious effort by the nine-member committee, which was formed after Republicans blocked the creation of a nonpartisan commission, to lay out the full story of a remarkable assault on U.S. democracy, orchestrated by a sitting president, that led to a deadly riot, an impeachment and a crisis of confidence in the political system.

Donald Trump was at the center of this conspiracy, said Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the committee. And ultimately, Donald Trump, the president of the United States, spurred a mob of domestic enemies of the Constitution to march down the Capitol and subvert American democracy.

The prime-time hearing featured dramatic video of the Proud Boys, a right-wing extremist group, leading the assault on the Capitol, and the emotional testimony of a Capitol Police officer who suffered a traumatic brain injury at the hands of the mob.

What I saw was a war scene, the officer, Caroline Edwards, one of the more than 150 officers injured in the rampage, testified. I saw officers on the ground. They were bleeding. They were throwing up.

She added: I was slipping on peoples blood. It was carnage. It was chaos.

Officer Edwardss appearance reflected the potency of the committees seamless two-hour presentation including never-before-seen video in bringing home the violence of that day all over again.

The committee is publicly telling the story of how a sitting president undertook unprecedented efforts to overturn a democratic election, testing the guardrails of American democracy at every turn. Mr. Trump and his allies challenged President Bidens victory in the courts, at state houses and, finally, in the streets.

You will see that Donald Trump and his advisers knew that he had in fact lost the election, said Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the vice chairwoman and one of two Republicans on the panel. But despite this, President Trump engaged in a massive effort to spread false and fraudulent information to convince huge portions of the U.S. population that fraud had stolen the election.

Lawmakers contrasted Mr. Trumps refusal to accept his defeat with every president who came before him. At one point, Mr. Thompson displayed a handwritten note from President Abraham Lincoln in which he said he would be duty-bound to cooperate with the newly elected president should he lose.

Using previously unreleased video of testimony from former Trump aides and even his daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, the panel left little doubt about the truth of the former presidents actions. In doing so, its leaders said they hoped to force the nation to grapple with a dark chapter in its history.

Our democracy remains in danger, Mr. Thompson said. Jan. 6 and the lies that led to insurrection have put two and a half centuries of constitutional democracy at risk. The world is watching what we do here.

The opening night contained several revelations, perhaps the most damning of which came from Ms. Cheney. She said the committee had received testimony that when Mr. Trump learned of the mobs threats to hang Vice President Mike Pence, he said, Maybe our supporters have the right idea, and added that Mr. Pence deserves it.

The committee also revealed that several Republican congressmen, including Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, now the chairman of the conservative Freedom Caucus, asked for a presidential pardon after Jan. 6.

The hearings are unfolding five months before midterm elections in which the Democrats majority is at stake, at a time when they are eager to draw a sharp contrast between themselves and the Republicans who enabled and embraced Mr. Trump, including the members of Congress who abetted his efforts to invalidate the election results.

Members of the panel see themselves as carrying out a critical function, much as fact-finding committees did in investigating the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, the Watergate scandal in 1973 and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.

At a time of intense political polarization, members of the panel took pains to back up their assertions with clear evidence, turning frequently to videotaped testimony to drive home their points. When Mr. Thompson outlined how Mr. Trump had been told repeatedly that there was no election fraud, he added, Dont believe me?

Then he paused for a video showing former Attorney General William P. Barr testifying that he knew the presidents claims were false.

I told the president it was bullshit, Mr. Barr is heard telling the committees investigators. I didnt want to be a part of it.

The committee also played a series of video testimony. Ms. Trump conceded that Mr. Barrs assertions affected her view. A Trump campaign adviser, Jason Miller, testified that a data specialist had showed him that the numbers were not there for Mr. Trump to win. Alex Cannon, a campaign lawyer, told the panel that he had relayed to Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, in November 2020 that he saw no evidence of irregularities sufficient to change the election result, prompting Mr. Meadows to reply, So, theres no there there.

Later, the panel played a video montage of rioters storming the seat of American government.

Members of the panel promised to reveal evidence in the days to come that would fundamentally change the publics understanding of the Jan. 6 attack and bring into clearer focus exactly who is to blame.

Itll change history, predicted Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, the other Republican on the committee.

Mr. Thompson said the next session, scheduled for Monday, would detail how Mr. Trump lit the fuse for the riot with his lie of a stolen election.

Other hearings are expected to focus on Mr. Trumps attempts to misuse the Justice Department to help him cling to power; his pressure on Vice President Mike Pence to throw out legitimate electoral votes for Mr. Biden; the way the mob was assembled and how it descended on Washington on Jan. 6, 2021; and the fact that Mr. Trump did nothing to stop the violence for more than three hours while the assault was underway.

The committee has interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses and accumulated more than 140,000 documents. It has a staff of about 45 employees, including more than a dozen former federal prosecutors and two former U.S. attorneys, and has spent millions on its work.

Many Republicans in Congress, whose leaders initially supported the idea of an independent commission, have spent the months since the assault trying to rewrite its history and downplay its severity.

They ramped up their fight Thursday morning, when the partys House leaders took turns at a news conference on Capitol Hill bashing the panels work as illegitimate and a sham.

Is Nancy Pelosi going to hold a prime-time hearing on inflation? said Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 2 Republican. Id sure like to see that. I think a lot of Americans would. Is Nancy Pelosi going to hold a prime-time hearing on lowering gas prices?

Four officers who suffered injuries defending the Capitol were on hand Thursday night. One, Officer Harry Dunn of the Capitol Police, wore a shirt with the definition of the word insurrection printed on it. Gladys Sicknick, the mother of Brian Sicknick, a Capitol Police officer who died after fighting off the mob, attended as did Mr. Sicknicks partner, Sandra Garza.

Serena Liebengood, the wife of Howard Liebengood, a Capitol Police officer who died by suicide after the attack, was seated next to Ms. Garza. They both watched the hearing in tears.

The hearing also featured the testimony of a documentary filmmaker, Nick Quested, who was embedded with the right-wing group the Proud Boys during the attack. Several members of the Proud Boys have been charged with conspiracy and sedition.

Mr. Quested, who has worked in the war zones of Afghanistan and elsewhere, spent a good deal of the postelection period filming the Proud Boys, including the groups former chairman, Enrique Tarrio, who has been charged with seditious conspiracy in connection with the Capitol riot. Mr. Quested accompanied the Proud Boys to pro-Trump rallies in Washington in November and December 2020 and was on the ground with members of the group on Jan. 6, when several played a crucial role in breaching the Capitol.

The committee concluded the evening with a video compilation of rioters attributing their actions to the lies and the urging of Mr. Trump.

We were invited by the president of the United States, one of them said.

Alan Feuer and Katie Benner contributed reporting.

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Trump Was at the Center: Jan. 6 Hearing Lays Out Case in Vivid Detail - The New York Times

Back in 2018, the New York Times published an anonymous op-ed called"I am part of the resistance inside the Trump administration."It set off quite a stir throughout Washington and got everyone in the executive branch looking over their shoulders wondering if their officemate might be the writer. Donald Trump had a fit, of course, and set off on a crusade to find the nefarious leaker. Before too long, however, the whole thing had blown over and we were off to the next crisis. But the idea that there was a "resistance" to Trump's unpredictability and ineptitude within the government soothed many people and led to a certain complacency that there were "grown-ups" stoppingthe president from going off the rails and keeping the engine of government humming.

The author wrote:

[W]e believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic. That is why many Trump appointees havevowed to do what we canto preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump's more misguided impulses until he is out of office.

The root of the problem is the president's amorality. Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making.

This wasn't a complete surprise. From the moment Trump was inaugurated there were almost daily reports of the chaos inside the White House and it was obvious from his public appearances that he was in over his head.The turnover was unprecedentedwith Trump firing people nearly every week and others being forced to resign undera cloud of corruptionandscandal.

This op-ed suggested that we needn't worry about all that. Yes, Trump was a complete disaster, but anonymous heroes were on the inside working to preserve our constitutional order. It was a pompous, self-serving declaration that was also total nonsense. The chaos itself was tremendously damaging, causing disruption and confusion day in and day out. Trump was systematically destroying the United States' reputation around the world which is a very dangerous situation for the world's only military superpower. And when confronted with a real crisis, as we were with the global pandemic, a dysfunctional government led by an incompetent narcissist was naturally overwhelmed.

The government may have been running during Trump's term but it was on fumes. All Trump had to do was light the match and the whole thing could have blown up. It almost did.

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In September 2020 we learned the author of that op-ed was a senior DHS employee named Miles Taylor who finally quit the administration and more or less admitted that the "grown-ups" had failed. He and other horrified Trump administration alumni signed letters saying Trump should not be re-elected and made appearances on TV trying to persuade the public that the country couldn't tolerate another four years of him. The majority of the public agreed and Joe Biden was elected to replace him.

The January 6 committee is now looking closely at what happened after that in the period between the election and the Capitol riot. What they have found is that the remaining protectors of the guardrails didn't do much to stop Trump from attempting to overturn the election.

Their reticence to do something other than watch from the sidelinesled to Trump empowering Rudy Giuliani and the rogues gallery of misfits and weirdos who helped him spread the Big Lie that led to the insurrection. Some of the anonymous heroes even suggested in the press that Trump just needed to cry it out and then he would bow out gracefully. The Jan 6 committee hearing this week revealed that within the White House during this period they called themselves "Team Normal" apparently because they knew the Big Lie was a big lie and they didn't go out of their way to help Trump spread it. However, some helped Trumplay the groundworkfor his claims that the election was being rigged and only balked after the fact when he insisted that it was. Some of themhelped him raisehundreds of millions of dollars in a clear-cut scam while others are even currentlyworking for peoplewho are running for office on the Big Lie platform. They all stayed mum about what Trump and his crazy accomplices were up to. It's good they are telling the truth under oath to the committee but it doesn't speak well of them that they didn't step up when it really counted. Their silence led to death and mayhem and an ongoing crisis in our democracy.

The Washington Postreportedsome new details about the one group in "Team Normal" who did manage to hold Trump back from doing his worst in those final days: the lawyers in the Department of Justice(DOJ) and the White House Counsel's office. While Jared Kushner testified that he dismissed them as a bunch of whiners, it was their threats to quit that kept Trump from firing the Acting Attorney General and replacing him with an obscure toadie named Jeffrey Clark who was somehow persuaded that he could take over the DOJ and use it to help Trump overturn the election.

The Post describes a meeting two days before the insurrection in which Trump seemed to be prepared to take that step until the lawyers made it clear that if he did, he wouldn't just be firing the top two lawyers in the DOJ, nearly 50 of the top lawyers in the department would quit as well. Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, called it a "murder-suicide pact." Trump relented. And it's interesting what he allegedly said to Clark:

"These guys are going to quit. Everyone else is going to resign. It's going to be a disaster. The bureaucracy will eat you alive. And no matter how much you want to get things done in the next few weeks, you won't be able to get it done, and it's not going to be worth the breakage."

Considering it was coming from a man who was neck-deep in fantasy, that sounds like a pretty rational assessment, doesn't it? It makes you wonder what might have happened if the whole "Team Normal" had come to Trump and said they were going to walk outen masse, hold a press conference and tell the country that the election was not stolen and that Trump was lying to them. They all knew that was the truth.

I don't know what Trump would have done but in this one instance at least he seems to have understood that destroying his administration in order to save face wasn't worth the "breakage." Maybe if they had the guts to confront him for once, he might have realized that it was time to throw in the towel. After all, it only would have taken two little words from Trump and the insurrection wouldn't have happened. All he needed to say was "I concede."

Continue reading here:

Accomplices to a coup: Trump's lackeys must be held to account for the Big Lie - Salon

Donald Trump was the first seditious president in US history, surpassing in his efforts to hang on to power beyond even the criminal imagination of Richard Nixon, according to the two political reporters who were instrumental in securing Nixons downfall.

In a new foreword to their celebrated 1974 book on the Watergate scandal, All the Presidents Men, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein accuse Trump of pursuing his diabolical instincts by zeroing in on the certification of Joe Bidens presidential victory by Congress on January 6 last year. In the authors assessment, Trumps unleashing of the mob that day, culminating in the violent attack on the US Capitol, amounted to a deception that exceeded even Nixons imagination.

They write in their foreword, published by the Washington Post, they write: By legal definition this is clearly sedition thus Trump became the first seditious president in our history.

Woodward and Bernsteins comparison of Trump and Nixon carries singular weight, given that as young Washington Post reporters they helped to uncover Nixons campaign of political spying and cover-up that led in 1974 to the only resignation of a president in American history. In separate capacities, the two journalists have also reported extensively on the Trump presidency, with Woodward doing so in a series of three books: Fear, Rage and Peril.

The timing of their analysis is also potent. It comes just days before the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection stages the first of at least six televised hearings in which they will attempt to show the American people that Trump acted corruptly in his efforts to stop Bidens certification.

Woodward and Bernstein suggest that the two presidents had much in common, despite the almost half a century that stands between them. Nixons belief that it was for the greater good that he stayed in power whatever the means was embraced by Trump, they write.

A man is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits, Nixon told himself in 1969. That informed Trumps campaign to hold on to power through falsehoods even in the face of defeat.

Misinformation also unites the diabolical pair. Both Nixon and Trump created a conspiratorial world in which the US constitution, laws and fragile democratic traditions were to be manipulated or ignored, political opponents and the media were enemies, and there were few or no restraints on the powers entrusted to presidents, Woodward and Bernstein say in their new foreword.

The reporters also explore the differences between the two men, notably that Trump attempted his electoral subversion in public. Pulling no punches, they call the January 6 insurrection a Trump operation and predict that the House committee has an abundance of evidence to prove that point in the upcoming hearings.

Though Nixons criminal misdeeds tend to be remembered through the lens of the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel on 17 June 1972, and the cover-up that followed, the authors remind their readers that his core purpose was to subvert that years presidential election. They rehearse some of the extreme measures that Nixons team of operatives took to derail the presidential campaign of his main Democratic rival, Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine.

Those measures included writing fake letters on Muskie stationery alleging sexual misconduct by other Democratic candidates and stealing Muskies shoes from outside his hotel room where he had left them for polishing in order to spook him out. Muskie ultimately lost the Democratic nomination to the liberal senator George McGovern of South Dakota.

Trump, the reporters argue, pursued equally ruthless tactics designed to undermine credibility in the 2020 presidential election. They reached a pitch on January 6 with the violent mob breaking into the Capitol chanting Hang Mike Pence against Trumps vice-president who was proceeding with certification of the election results.

In the last analysis, Woodward and Bernstein ask themselves why two such powerful men would embark on parallel efforts to destroy democracy. They have one overriding answer.

Fear of losing and being considered a loser was a common thread for Nixon and Trump, they write.

Link:

Trumps bid to cling to power beyond Nixons imagination, Watergate duo say - The Guardian US

Former President Trump faces a number of investigations and lawsuits related to his business practices with the Trump Organization and his four-year stint in the White House as he considers running for reelection in 2024.

Heres every major legal challenge the former president is facing, from several investigations into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol to a family inheritance feud.

The Jan. 6 investigation and related cases

Trump is facing nine lawsuits related to the events of Jan. 6, 2021, and the 2020 presidential election.

New York officials probing the Trump Organizations property valuations

New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) is investigating whether Trump inflated property values for investors and deflated them in federal tax forms. She is pushing for Trump to hand over documents and for Trump himself to sit for a deposition, a call he has so far refused in violation of a court order.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D)is continuing a similar probe into potential tax fraud and financial crimes. The case already resulted in charges filed last year against former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg for his alleged role in a 15-year tax fraud scheme.

The Westchester County, N.Y., district attorneys office also launched an investigation in October into whether the Trump Organization misled officials about the property value ofTrump National Golf Club Westchester.

Federal investigators are looking at whether Trump mishandled classified documents

The National Archives has asked the Department of Justice to investigate whether the former president mishandled classified documents.

Fifteen boxes of official records that Trump was legally required to turn over were recovered from his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.

Mary Trump is suing her uncle for allegedly defrauding her from the family inheritance

Trumps niece says she was defrauded out of millions of dollars from her inheritance.

The lawsuit is ongoing in the New York Supreme Court. Mary Trump has requested a preliminary conference to proceed, while Donald Trump has moved to dismiss the case.

Trump is suing his niece and The New York Times in a separate lawsuit over reporting on his taxes. Mary Trump revealed in her tell-all book that she gave information to the newspaper for the story.

E. Jean Carrolls sexual assault suit

E. Jean Carroll, a magazine writer who says Trump sexually assaulted her in the 90s, is suing the former president for saying she fabricated her claims that he raped her.

The lawsuit is pending in U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York. A federal judge recently denied Trumps attempt to countersue.

Former personal attorney Michael Cohen is also suing Trump

In Manhattan federal court, Cohen is suing Trump, the U.S. government and other officials for allegedly retaliating against him after writing a tell-all book about his time serving Trump in a legal capacity.

The attorney says he was returned to federal prison in 2020 because of the book, according to The Associated Press.

Trump Tower lawsuit

Trump actually sat for a four-hour deposition on this one in October.

Six protesters are suing Trump, accusing his security guards of assaulting them outside Trump Tower during a 2015 protest.

Trump called the lawsuit pending in New York State Court ridiculous after his deposition.

Doe v. Trump Organization

A class-action lawsuit first filed in 2018 alleges the Trump Organization used their business to scam investors into supporting false or worthless business opportunities.

The case is taking place in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York.

Tenants suing Trump for hiking prices

In a lawsuit filed in the New York Supreme Court, tenants who lived in a building once owned by Trumps father say the Trump family hiked rents by inflating prices for appliances.

The plaintiffs filed an amended complaint in March.

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Where Trumps long list of legal challenges stand - The Hill

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) on Monday said the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol has found evidence on former President Trump that supports a lot more than incitement.

The comment from Raskin, a member of the Jan. 6 panel, referenced Trumps second impeachment in January 2021, when the House voted to impeach the then-president for incitement to insurrection.

The Jan. 6 panel is set to hold its first public hearing on Thursday, where Raskin said the committee will lay out information regarding individuals who played a role in the attack including Trump.

The select committee has found evidence about a lot more than incitement here, and were gonna be laying out the evidence about all of the actors who were pivotal to what took place on Jan. 6, Raskin said during an interview with Washington Post Live.

Trump was impeached in the House by a 232-197 vote, with 10 Republicans joining all Democrats in sanctioning the president. The following month, however, the Senate acquitted him in a 57-43 vote. Seven Senate Republicans joined the entire Democratic caucus in voting to convict.

The select committee says Thursdays prime-time hearing, scheduled to begin at 8 p.m., will feature new material and witness testimony from the nearly yearlong investigation, which has largely been conducted behind the scenes

Raskin on Monday told The Washington Post Live that this weeks hearing will tell the story of a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 presidential election and block the transfer of power.

Asked if Trump is at the center of that conspiracy, Raskin said I think that Donald Trump and the White House were at the center of these events.

Thats the only way really of making sense of them all, he added.

He noted, however, that people are going to have to make judgments themselves about the relative role that different people played.

The Maryland Democrat then pointed to Trumps second impeachment, in which Raskin was the lead manager of the Senate trial.

Of course the House and the Senate in bicameral and bipartisan fashion have already determined that the former president, Donald Trump, incited an insurrection by majority votes in the House and the Senate, Raskin said.

Although, Donald Trump wasnt convicted by the requisite two-thirds majority, but commanding majority found that he had in fact incited this insurrection, he added.

Updated at 2:21 p.m.

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Raskin says Jan. 6 panel has found more on Trump than incitement - The Hill

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Republican Rep. David Valadao infuriated conservatives in Californias Central Valley when he voted to impeach President Donald Trump in the days after the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

But the former president whos repeatedly targeted many of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach him on a charge of inciting the deadly attack that unsuccessfully attempted to derail congressional certification of President Bidens 2020 Electoral College victory over Trump has been hands-off on Valadao, whos represented Californias 21st Congressional District for most of the past decade.

Valadao is one of two Golden State House Republicans along with Rep. Young Kim who face potentially challenging re-elections in the 2022 midterms, with the first test coming Tuesday in Californias primary, where all the candidates regardless of party identification are listed on the same ballot and the top two finishers move on to Novembers general election.

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National Republicans view the congressman, whos running for re-election in a district that Biden carried by double digits two years ago, as their best shot to keep the seat in GOP hands.

Valadao is facing three primary challengers for the renumbered and slightly redrawn district fellow Republicans Chris Mathys, a former Fresno city councilman, and King County school board member Adam Medeiros. Also running is Democratic Assemblyman Rudy Salas, who has represented much of the congressional district for the last decade in the state legislature in Sacramento.

Of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump, six are running for re-election this year, but Valadaos race is the only one where the former president hasnt endorsed a challenger.

Former President Donald Trump speaks at a rally Jan. 15, 2022, in Florence, Arizona. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

"I do think Valadaos a little bit different than the others. He hasnt doubled or tripled down [on impeachment]. All the other ones are going out and making hay, elongating the story. Valadaos stayed rather quiet and subdued," a source close to Trumps political orbit told Fox News.

"There hasnt been a credible challenger making noise either. So it was easy to move on from that race and not really give it much attention," explained the source, who asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely.

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Even without facing Trumps ire, national Republicans were concerned enough regarding Valadaos prospects of making the November ballot that they lent a helping hand. The Congressional Leadership Fund the top super PAC that backs House Republicans and is aligned with GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy spent nearly $800,000 to take aim at Mathys, with a last-minute ad criticizing him as "dangerously liberal."

Congressional Leadership Fund communications director Calvin Moore told Fox News that "David Valadao is an important Member and the only conservative who can win this otherwise deep blue seat November. Hes a fighter, and were doing all we can to help him win."

The top pro-House Democrats outside group also jumped into the fight. The House Majority PAC, which is tied to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has been running ads on TV and digital spotlighting Valadaos impeachment vote and calling Mathys "a true conservative" and "100% pro-Trump and proud."

Valadao has a history of grabbing independent voters and even some crossover Democrats in his electoral victories. But Democrats are hoping that Salas stems some of those crossover votes and Mathys eats into Valadaos support on the right, potentially shutting the incumbent out of the general election.

In the Orange County based 39th Congressional District, Kim defeated Democratic Rep. Gil Cisneros one of four House pickups Republicans made in the state last cycle. Kim, one of only three Korean American women serving in Congress, was a top GOP recruit in the 2020 election.

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But her district was dramatically redrawn in the once-in-a-decade congressional redistricting process, and many of the constituents in the new district are new to the incumbent. Biden carried the seat by two-points in the 2020 election.

Kims facing primary challenges from Republican Greg Raths a councilman in Mission Viejo and a Trump fanatic and Democratic candidate Asif Mahmood, a physician.

Rep. Young Kim speaks with Fox News Digital

The Congressional Leadership Fund has spent nearly $1 million to run spots to boost Kim.

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While the Democrats won the White House and took control of the Senate in the 2020 elections, House Republicans defied expectations and took a big bite out of the Democrats' House majority. And the four seats the GOP flipped from red to blue in the Golden State were a key part of that success. As Republicans aim to win the House majority in November, California will once again be a major congressional battlefield.

Paul Steinhauser is a politics reporter based in New Hampshire.

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Why Trump is hands off in re-election race for CA House Republican who voted for impeachment - Fox News

Its something that has bedeviled quite a few previous presidents. Lots of things happen on your watch but it doesnt mean there is a magic wand to fix it, said Robert Gibbs, a press secretary under President Barack Obama. The limits of the presidency are not well grasped. The responsibility of the president is greater than the tools he has to fix it.

The West Wing believes there is still time for a course correction.

The plan is to put Biden on the road to highlight progress being made, even incrementally, in meeting the series of tests, with visits this week to California, where he will preside over a summit of Western Hemisphere allies, as well as New Mexico to push for his climate agenda. The administration will also set aside its reluctance to work with a pariah nation with hopes to spur oil production. And it plans to sharpen its attacks on Republicans, aiming to paint the GOP as out-of-touch with mainstream America on issues like gun safety and abortion, all while hoping the upcoming Jan. 6 congressional hearings will further color the party as too extremist and dangerous to return to power.

But first aides need to quell the finger-pointing thats been erupting internally and the increasing concern over staff shakeups, according to five White House officials and Democrats close to the administration not authorized to publicly discuss internal conversations. They also increasingly are trying to soothe the greatest source of West Wing frustration, coming from behind the Resolute Desk.

The president has expressed exasperation that his poll numbers have sunk below those of Donald Trump, whom Biden routinely refers to in private as the worst president in history and an existential threat to the nations democracy.

After publication, White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said: This depiction of the White House is simply divorced from reality.

Far more prone to salty language behind the scenes than popularly known, Biden also recently erupted over being kept out of the loop about the direness of the baby formula shortage that has gripped parts of the country, according to a White House staffer and a Democrat with knowledge of the conversation. He voiced his frustration in a series of phone calls to allies, his complaints triggered by heart-wrenching cable news coverage of young mothers crying in fear that they could not feed their children.

Biden didnt want to be painted as slow to act on a problem affecting the working-class people with whom he closely identifies. Therefore, when aides convened a meeting with formula company executives, the president against the advice of staffers publicly declared it took weeks before details of the shortage had reached him, even though the whistleblower complaint that led to the shutdown of a major production facility was issued months ago. Some aides feared the moment made Biden look out of touch, especially after the CEOs in the very same meeting made clear that warnings of the shortage were known for some time.

Members of Bidens inner circle, including first lady Jill Biden and the presidents sister, Valerie Biden Owens, have complained that West Wing staff has managed Biden with kid gloves, not putting him on the road more or allowing him to flash more of his genuine, relatable, albeit gaffe-prone self. One person close to the president pushed for more let Biden be Biden moments, with the president himself complaining he does not get to interact enough with voters. The White House has pointed to both security and Covid concerns in restricting the travel of the 79-year-old president.

A lot of things are out of his control and we are frustrated and all Democrats not just the White House but anyone with a platform need to do a better of job of reminding Americans of how terrible it would be if Republicans take control, said Adrienne Elrod, a senior aide on Bidens transition team and aide to Hillary Clintons presidential campaign.

Complicating the White Houses efforts to turn around the presidents midterm fate has been the exodus of staff from its communications shop: from press secretary Jen Psaki to several deputy press aides. Psakis successor, Karine Jean-Pierre, took the post with little experience, and allies were critical when, days later, the White House brought over her Pentagon counterpart, John Kirby to join the staff. Kirby has been a candidate for Jean-Pierres role but will serve on the national security team.

The staff drama hasnt ended there. While Biden is undyingly loyal to his small inner circle of advisers, whispers in the building have built over whether the return of Anita Dunn back to a senior adviser post could portend her eventually succeeding Ron Klain as chief of staff.

With worries rising about the Democrats fate this November, the White House switched to more aggressive attacks on Republicans recently. Frustrated that the GOP has not been called to task for releasing few policy ideas of its own, Biden has gone hard after a tax plan put out by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.). But those broadsides have gained little traction.

The president is taking action to lower prices and fight the global rise in inflation, building on the unprecedented job creation and the manufacturing resurgence he has delivered, said Bates. And hes working with Congress to cut the deficit as well as many of the biggest costs families face, like energy and prescription drugs. He knows what families are going through and is moving to help them.

But much of what the White House can accomplish is only around the edges. Biden has sounded the alarm about the potential overturn of Roe v. Wade and continues to push Congress to act on guns in the wake of the mass shootings in Buffalo, N.Y., and Uvalde, Texas. But he also signaled in his Thursday evening speech that he knows that Congress, at most, will pass small measures on firearms that will leave much of his party dissatisfied.

And while Biden has received high marks even from some Republicans for holding together an alliance to stand up to Russia in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine, voters this fall will likely care far more about some of the wars aftershocks: its further strain on supply chains has only added to rising inflation and, most painfully for the White House, soaring gas prices.

For nearly a month, Biden and his inner circle have agonized over whether to make a trip to Saudi Arabia, a nation the president deemed a pariah after its crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, ordered the murder and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Biden, for a time, angrily rejected meeting with the crown prince, arguing the presidency should stand for something, according to two people with knowledge of his thinking.

But he has recently relented, recognizing a need to push Riyadh for more oil production. Still, the dates for the trip remain fluid, leaving some aides to wonder if the president will change his mind again.

Bidens inner circle is well aware of recent presidential precedent. Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton both overcame a rough first midterms only to benefit from economic turnarounds and cruise to reelection. But George H.W. Bush and, especially, Carter were felled by shaky economies and rising inflation.

[Carter] lost because of inflation and bad feelings about the economy and a sense that America was flailing and Biden is finding now that its hard to be a leader when other things are unraveling, said Douglas Brinkley, presidential historian at Rice University. He cant just be a mourner-in-chief, he cant just play defense. He needs to be on offense and convince Americans that, despite the challenges, better days are ahead.

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Biden wants to get out more, seething that his standing is now worse than Trump's - POLITICO

For the 6 January committee, the key question about Donald Trumps involvement in the insurrection is: What did the former president do, and when did he do it?

Washington:Americans are processing the nightmare of the slaughter of children in Texas, the racist murders in Buffalo, New York, and the other numbingly repeated scenes of carnage in the United States.

Theyre contending with what feels like highway robbery at the gas pump, theyre nagged by a virus that the world cant shake, and theyre split into two hostile camps over politics and culture the twin pillars of the nations foundation.

Theyve already been through two set-piece dramas of presidential impeachment indeed, through the wringer on all things Donald Trump.

Now, beginning in prime time on Thursday, the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol is setting out to establish the historical record of an event damaging not only to a community or individual families but to the collective idea of democracy itself.

After more than 100 subpoenas, 1,000 interviews and 100,000 documents, the committee has a story to tell in hearings that open this week. A story for the ages, its been said.

The open question: How much will the country care?

The committees examination of the actions of Trump and all the presidents men and women, more aggressive than any inquiry before it, has produced a multitude of plot lines that together will tell the tale of a violent uprising fuelled by the venom and lies of a defeated president.

File photo of violent insurrectionists stand outside the US Capitol in Washington during the riot on 6 January. AP

Many Republicans, even those who condemned Trump and the violence in the moment, have adopted a nothing more to see here posture since, even rejecting calls for an independent Sept. 11-style commission to investigate.

An entire disinformation ecosystem sprung up with utterly false claims about the nature and character of the attack. Rather than condemn the attack, Trump continues to insist his defeat by 7 million votes should be overturned, in effect validating the rioters cause.

Dozens of the insurrectionists have been brought to justice, many of them being convicted or pleading guilty to serious crimes. But the committees goal is larger: Who in a position of power should also be held to account?

There are endless ribbons of inquiry.

Vice President Mike Pence and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., read the final certification of Electoral College votes cast in November's presidential election during a joint session of Congress after working through the night, at the Capitol in Washington. AP

Did Vice-President Mike Pence refuse to leave the besieged Capitol because he suspected the Secret Service, at the behest of Trump, was trying to take him away to stop him from certifying Democrat Joe Bidens victory?

Did Trump flush incriminating papers down the White House toilet?

How to explain the gap of more than seven hours in White House telephone logs of Trumps calls during the insurrection? Will it stand in history alongside the infamous 18 1/2-minute hole in President Richard Nixons secret White House recording system in 1972?

The Watergate affair, which exposed Nixons cover-up of politically motivated criminal acts and destroyed his presidency, centered on a question posed by a Republican senator, Howard Baker, in a Tennessee drawl: What did the president know, and when did he know it?

For the 6 January committee, the key question about Trumps involvement in the insurrection is: What did the president do, and when did he do it?

One aim is to establish whether Trumps acts are criminal, as one judge has mused they may be, and whether that would prompt a politically fraught Justice Department prosecution of an ex-president.

More broadly, the effort addresses who might be punished in the large circle of Trump enablers. Some of them are members of Congress who helped him plot how to try to overturn an honest election only to huddle in fear with everyone else in a Capitol hideout when the rioters in service of that plot swarmed the marbled corridors of power 6 January, 2021.

The prime time setting for the committee hearing is a rarity and something of a throwback to an era when people gathered en masse at their televisions in the evening before video streaming atomized viewership.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat on the committee, set expectations that may be hard to live up to as the committee tries to renew the interest of this short-attention-span country in machinations that are nearly 18 months in the rear-view mirror.

The hazards in that mirror are closer than they appear, as committee members see it.

The hearings will tell a story that will really blow the roof off the House, Raskin said in April. Because it is a story of the most heinous and dastardly political offense ever organized by a president and his followers and his entourage in the history of the United States.

That offense? In short, he told a Washington forum, an inside coup coupled with a violent attack by neo-fascists.

Trump is not expected at any of the hearings, but his words and actions will hang heavy over the proceedings as lawmakers look to place him at the center of the chaos. It seems highly plausible that he will find a way to rail against them that does not involve being under oath.

The committee almost certainly will look to draw a tight connection between Trumps vociferous rejections of the election results and his 6 January rally outside the White House sending the angry crowd off to Capitol Hill.

Free from the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, committee members are likely to try to show that the riot that ravaged the Capitol was not a spontaneous gathering but part of a broader conspiracy and a natural outgrowth of weeks of denunciations of democratic processes.

Biden framed 6 January and its aftermath in existential terms about the threat posed to democracy. Its a battle for the soul of America, he said. But a president can only have one No. 1 priority at a time, and this isnt his. Time and again, hes said its inflation.

Whatever revelations the hearings may produce, much is already known because the attack played out on screens large and small in real time, and Trump exhorted supporters to fight like hell in shouts for the world to hear.

US president Joe Biden. AFP File

In quieter times, the hearings would have a stronger hold on public attention, said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania and an authority on political communications. But, as is, they will be competing for attention with topics with greater immediate relevance in our lives.

Hungry babies lacking formula. Soaring prices for gas and groceries. Rising COVID-19 hospitalization among the vaccinated. The scenes of destruction in Ukraine and the threat that the Russian invasion will escalate to include use of nuclear weapons. And theres monkeypox.

To say nothing of summer vacation, Jamieson added.

If the hearings are to do anything other than reinforce our existing political biases, she said, they will have to reveal previously covered-up goings-on that threatened something that Democrats, independents and most Republicans can agree should be sacrosanct.

Some of the inquirys juicy bits are out already. Text messages and emails, thought to be private when sent, have become public, including from chief of staff Mark Meadows.

But the committee has been sitting on much more information and will have tens of thousands of exhibits and hundreds of witnesses, said Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the committee chairman.

Seven Democrats and two Republicans both shunned by their party make up the committee. Among them the stakes are surely highest for Rep. Liz Cheney, the deeply conservative but fiercely independent Wyoming lawmaker who is practically alone in the GOP in assailing Trump while also seeking re-election to Congress.

Daughter of a vice president and once an embodiment of the Republican establishment, she is now a renegade in a new order dominated by Trump, who wants her unseated in her primary in August.

That new order became ever clearer in February, when the Republican Party censured Cheney and the committees other Republican, Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, whos not seeking re-election, for taking part in the inquiry. The party adopted a resolution saying the witnesses summoned by the committee for their actions on and around 6 January had only been engaging in legitimate political discourse.

Matthew Delmont, a Dartmouth College history professor specializing in Black history, said 6 January cast such an ominous shadow that he expects people in the United States, for all of their other pressing preoccupations, to be drawn to the inquiry.

I think people will watch the 6 January hearings because they want to understand how our democracy reached this precipice, he said. I dont know how many people will be willing to hear the evidence that will be presented, but I think it is important for the findings to be shared openly so people today and in the future can appreciate what happened.

6 January shares certain distinctions with other past agonies. As with 9/11, you can shorthand the date, 6 January, and people know. Like Watergate, it speaks to corrupt acts in the highest office. As with the Challenger space shuttle explosion and 9/11 and more, the scene brought so much visceral shock that many people remember where they were and what they were doing when they saw it.

As far as the far right is concerned, the historical analogy is the Boston Tea Party, with liberals, Democrats and the Washington establishment as the redcoats.

Former US president Donald Trump. AP

Trump-friendly Republicans sanitized what happened that day, once the shock that nearly all felt on 6 January subsided. In measurements of public opinion, Republican voters in the main said they believe the 2020 election was rigged, when by absolutely all measures the courts, nonpartisan and even Republican state officials, and the Trump administrations own election monitors, including his attorney general the election was purely fair.

A year later, the patently violent uprising was remembered as very or extremely violent by fewer than 4 in 10 Republicans polled, compared with almost 9 in 10 Democrats.

Even so, there were signs in the latest Republican primaries for the 2022 midterms that Trumps obsession about getting fired by the voters all those months ago is wearing thin even with them.

Trump won the 2016 election with a minority of voters, lost the House to the Democrats in 2018 and lost in 2020 by a decisive margin not a glowing electoral record.

Still, he holds sway over his party, thanks to supporters whose loyalty seems immovable. Unswayed by facts throughout the fight to discredit and upend Bidens election, they wont be easily dislodged by a congressional committees revelations.

Through Trumps presidency, audacious falsehoods and elaborate exaggerations were the order of the day. But Trump, at times, had a knack for speaking a larger truth that penetrated his fog of hyperbole and misinformation.

So it was with his comment in Iowa in January 2016, en route to the Republican nomination. The comment foretells that even if the 6 January committee manages to blow the roof off the House, Trump may remain golden with millions who love him.

I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldnt lose any voters, OK? Trump said then. Its, like, incredible.

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Televised hearings in Capitol riots case against Donald Trump to begin: Will America tune in? - Firstpost