Trump Draws Fire for Using Obvious Mafia Tactic on Gag Order

As the hush-money trial for former President Donald Trump resumed on Tuesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson held a press conference outside the courthouse and issued a slew of falsehoods in defense of Trump, denigrated the legitimacy of the judicial branch, and even attacked the adult daughter of the judge who is overseeing the case, Juan Merchan.

The move was quickly noticed by court reporters, who asked Trump if he was using Johnson and others to sidestep the gag order prohibiting him from making the types of statements levied by Johnson moments earlier. Trump responded expansively while saying nothing: “I do have a lot of surrogates, and they are speaking very beautifully.”

Trump further called for the gag order to be lifted, claiming that there has “never been anything like this in the history of our country,” though it is in fact typical to restrict an actively hostile defendant who is targeting people in order to disrupt the case against them. Trump has incited violence both against the electoral system and against the courts overseeing his corruption trials.

Many were quick to notice that, were Trump to say any of what Johnson said on Tuesday, he’d be found in violation of his gag order. Former Representative Liz Cheney criticized Johnson’s appearance, writing, “I’m surprised that @SpeakerJohnson wants to be in the ‘I cheated on my wife with a porn star’ club.”

Part of Trump’s gag order prohibits him from directing others to make statements on his behalf. Judge Merchan last warned Trump that if he violated the gag order again, he could face jail time.

Michael Cohen had no qualms about taking ownership of the insults he’s thrown at Donald Trump and the GOP presidential nominee’s legal counsel.

Opening cross-examination of Cohen on Tuesday, Trump attorney Todd Blanche attempted to call him out for Cohen’s relentless name-calling—but he only ended up embarrassing himself.

“You went on TikTok and called me a ‘crying little shit,’ didn’t you?” Blanche growled.

“It sounds like something I would say,” Cohen replied, before prosecutors objected.

Blanche then scrounged up another moniker Cohen had coined for Trump.

“You referred to Trump as a ‘dictator douchebag,’ didn’t you?” Blanche continued, referring to a post in which Cohen said Trump should be sent “where he belongs, in a fucking cage.”

“Sounds like something I said,” Cohen repeated to a crowd of stifled laughs.

Legal experts have speculated that Cohen may soon be the second person to receive a gag order in the hush-money trial due to his incessant online gossiping about Trump and his counsel.

“Witnesses need to keep their mouths shut until they are in the courtroom,” former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance said on The Insider Podcast earlier this month, predicting that Cohen’s comments online would become “fodder” for Trump’s attorneys.

That was in reference to evidence brought out by Blanche earlier in the trial, including a mess of inflammatory social media posts Cohen made in April referring to Trump as “Von ShitzInPantz” and retweeting another post that lambasted Trump as a “racist jackass who referred to African nations as ‘shithole countries,’” in light of Trump’s attempt to liken himself to Nelson Mandela.

A bid launched by the Republican National Committee to block voting rights in Arizona failed Tuesday after a Maricopa County judge summarily dismissed a complaint lodged by the RNC against the state’s 2023 Election Procedures Manual, handing a win to voting rights advocates. Conservatives launched a tsunami of legal attacks in February against the manual, to impede voting rights and allow for voter harassment in Arizona. Tuesday’s decision is the first ruling addressing those lawsuits and mud in the eye of the RNC, newly run by nepobaby-in-law Lara Trump.

According to Democracy Docket, the lawsuit filed February 9 by the Republican National Committee, Republican Party of Arizona, and Yavapai County Republican Party sought to block enforcement of the EPM on the basis that Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes failed to give the public enough time to comment before implementing the EMP and that portions of the EMP violate state law. The complaint also sought to have provisions removed regarding limiting public access to voter signatures, restrictions against challenging early mail-in ballots before they’re returned, and allowances for out-of-precinct voting.

The suit was filed by the RNC the same day as another suit by conservative group Arizona Free Enterprise Club, which claims the EMP, by prohibiting voter intimidation and harassment, inhibits “free speech.” That case has not yet been decided.

The Department of Justice wants former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon to begin his prison sentence immediately.

In 2022, a federal jury found Bannon guilty of two counts of contempt of Congress for ignoring the House January 6 committee’s subpoena, and he was sentenced to four months in prison. A federal judge had delayed the sentence while Bannon appealed the conviction, but that appeal was rejected last week.

In a federal court filing on Tuesday, the DOJ said that a person who is found guilty must report for their term of imprisonment unless the defendant can establish that “the appeal is not for the purpose of delay and raises a substantial question of law or fact likely to result in reversal.”

“The D.C. Circuit rejected defendant’s appeal on all grounds, including the primary argument on appeal: the requisite mental state required for a contempt of Congress violation,” the Justice Department added.

Bannon fought the conviction and sentence every step of the way, attempting to turn the trial into a circus and stir up the MAGA faithful. Since Trump’s term ended, Bannon has attempted to interfere in Brazil’s politics as well as the upcoming election in the United States, and his radio show is a haven for Republicans who want to tout their pro-Trump bona fides. It’s pretty clear that he wants to continue his far-right activities and avoid jail. After all, he was already pardoned once by Trump for a border wall fraud scheme.

Michael Cohen dropped another bombshell on day two of his hush-trial testimony.

Back on the stand on Tuesday, Cohen went over the details of the FBI’s April 2018 raids on his New York City apartment, law office, and a hotel room where he was staying while his apartment was under renovation.

Cohen testified that after the FBI visited his hotel room, he called Donald Trump and “left him a message for him to call me to let him know what was taking place.”

“Don’t worry. I’m the president of the United States,” Cohen recalled Trump telling him. “There’s nothing here. Everything’s going to be OK. Stay tough. You’re going to be OK.”

Asked by prosecutors how he viewed the call at the time, Cohen replied, “I wanted some reassurance that Mr. Trump had my back. Especially as this dealt with issues that related to him.”

“I felt reassured because I had the president of the United States protecting me. It’s his Justice Department, this should go nowhere,” Cohen said, adding that he decided to remain loyal to Trump after the call.

The short testimony is damning for Trump on multiple counts. First, it reveals that Trump was intimately familiar with the details of Michael Cohen’s hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels, made to cover up an alleged 2006 affair between her and Trump. Second, it’s abundantly clear that Trump likely knew from the beginning that what they did broke the law—and he was willing to use his power as president to try to erase the whole thing.

It’s an unsettling reminder as Trump, the soon-to-be Republican nominee, faces down four criminal cases as he tries to return to the White House. Two of those are federal cases that he could very well try to make disappear by pardoning himself.

A Pennsylvania Senate candidate is siding with the conspiracy theorists regarding abortion access within the Keystone State.

GOP Senate candidate David McCormick agreed with an outrageous claim during an interview on the Dawn Stensland Show, purporting that the fight to secure abortion access is not actually about women’s healthcare, but rather an elaborate ruse to cover up a Democratic money laundering operation.

“I always say the abortion issue is not about women’s reproductive rights, it’s not,” said Stensland on her radio show Monday. “It’s really, to me, personally, look at the money… that goes from Democrat administrations to Planned Parenthood. Look at how much they have donated to elections across the nation, and here in Pennsylvania, even the last primary, a lot of money.”

“Yeah, and [Senator] Bob Casey’s position… is this federal funding, which I am opposed to,” said McCormick, referring to the Democratic senator he’s gunning to replace. “I agree with you, but we’re going to spend a lot of time talking about it on the campaign trail.”

McCormick, a former combat veteran, has also gone after Casey on a string of GOP hot topics, including the U.S.-Mexico border, foreign policy, and the state of the economy.

Abortion is legal in Pennsylvania until 24 weeks—or the end of the second trimester—unless the pregnancy endangers the life of the patient. In that case, abortions can be performed after 24 weeks under an emergency provision.

But the state’s access to the medical procedure is still considered restrictive, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Extensive regulations around the procedure, including requiring clinics to “obtain and maintain burdensome and unnecessary expensive structural modifications” such as widening hallways and procedure rooms, have shuttered all but 17 abortion clinics across the state.

Former West Virginia Republican delegate and current January 6 convicted felon Derrick Evans is running against incumbent Carol Miller for the GOP primary nomination in West Virginia’s 1st congressional district Tuesday. The race, described as a test of voter perspective on violent insurrection, pits a MAGA incumbent who in her last primary cleaned up with 66 percent of the votes against a felonious livestreamer who aggressively posts.

Evans famously livestreamed himself storming the U.S. Capitol alongside the mob of Trump supporters on January 6, 2021. In the video, Evans reportedly declared, “We’re in! Derrick Evans is in the Capitol!” Evans was arrested two days later, at which time he claimed he was simply “there as an independent member of the media to film history.” Evans’s only background in media, to put it generously, is a history of livestreaming himself harassing patients and staff at West Virginia’s only abortion clinic—actions which eventually resulted in a restraining order that he subsequently violated.

In March 2022, Evans pleaded guilty to one felony count of civil disorder and served three months in federal prison related to his involvement in the Capitol riot. At the time, Evans apologized for his participation in the riot, which he called a “crucial mistake.” The month prior, Evans resigned from his seat as a delegate representing West Virginia’s 19th district, according to AP.

A year later, Evans reversed course and seemingly ignored his previous apology, tweeting, “I will not compromise my values or beliefs. That’s what politicians do” as part of his announcement of his campaign for political office. Since his announcement, Evans has pushed a bombastic campaign heavily focused on his participation in the Capitol riot to craft a contrast to his equally conservative competitor, who he’s referred to as a “commie RINO” for not physically participating in the Capitol riot.

According to the Daily Beast, Evans has been working to bolster his far-right brand by hiring Noel Fritsch of National File, a right-wing blog created by Alex Jones, to attack his incumbent opponent. Miller is also a staunch Trump supporter who voted against certifying election results, but is not a convicted felon. Evans has aggressively touted his conviction and prison time as a positive trait, framing himself as unfairly persecuted for his choice to participate in a mob riot.

Polls in West Virginia are open until 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Michael Cohen’s second day of testifying in Donald Trump’s hush-money trial started off with a bang, blowing a gigantic hole in the GOP presidential nominee’s legal defense.

According to Cohen, the payments distributed to him by Trump weren’t legal fees but rather reimbursements for the $130,000 sum he gave to porn actress Stormy Daniels to silence her ahead of the 2016 presidential election. As evidence, Cohen testified that he hardly worked for Trump the following year, after the deal with Daniels was done.

Cohen described the amount of work he performed for Trump in 2017 as “minimal,” likely constituting less than 10 hours of total labor while Cohen worked on a trademark issue for Melania Trump. “It was more work in 2018 than it was in 2017,” Cohen told the court Tuesday.

But none of that was billed, Cohen explained, because he didn’t expect to get paid.

Cohen also revealed the payback scheme via a series of invoices submitted to former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg, which he specified were not pursuant to a retainer agreement but rather strictly “for reimbursement.”

Trump’s attorneys have attempted to argue that the funds to pay off Daniels came from Cohen alone and that Trump had zero awareness of the hush-money payments. They’ve also argued that the funds issued to Cohen were payments for the purpose of keeping Cohen on retainer—but that narrative has been contradicted several times in the trial, including by several witnesses and Trump’s own words.

Trump is accused of using Cohen to sweep an affair with Daniels under the rug ahead of the 2016 presidential election. The Republican presidential nominee faces 34 felony charges in this case for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime. Trump has pleaded not guilty on all counts.

A New York appeals court on Tuesday shut down Donald Trump’s request to overturn the gag order in his hush-money trial, reports MSNBC.

The Supreme Court of the State of New York Appellate Division, First Judicial Department, ruled Tuesday that with his decision to impose a gag order, Judge Juan Merchan “properly weighed petitioner’s First Amendment Rights against the court’s historical commitment to ensuring the fair administration of justice in criminal cases.”

“Justice Merchan properly determined [Trump’s] public statements posed a significant threat to the integrity of the testimony of witnesses and potential witnesses in this case as well,” the appeals court added.

The gag order prohibits Trump from attacking Merchan, court staff, the prosecution, witnesses, and their families. Trump has decried this order as an attack on his constitutional right to free speech, complaining that he isn’t allowed to respond to statements made against him. The former president has already been fined $10,000 for 10 violations of the order, and Merchan has warned Trump that any further violations would send him to jail.

In the past week, Trump has heard testimony from two witnesses with damaging testimony: adult film actress Stormy Daniels and his former fixer and attorney, Michael Cohen, who have each gotten under his skin. He is carefully attempting to skirt the order by dodging reporters’ questions about having surrogates attack the people he cannot. For example, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson attended Trump’s trial on Tuesday and criticized the people specifically mentioned in the gag order.

The former president is accused of paying off Daniels in order to keep their affair under wraps before the 2016 presidential election with the help of Cohen. Trump faces 34 felony charges for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime, and has pleaded not guilty on all counts.

This story has been updated.

After being mercilessly bullied by Donald Trump during his failed run for president, Ron DeSantis is now helping Donald Trump.

The Florida governor is going to be fundraising for Trump over the next few weeks, as they discussed during a meeting last month in Miami. DeSantis is calling donors while his staff organizes a travel schedule that includes stops in Florida and Texas, the AP reported late Monday.

It’s a far cry from the presidential primary race, when Trump called DeSantis a variety of names, including “Meatball Ron,” “Rob,” “Ron DeSanctimonious,” and “Ron DeSanctus,” as well as the pedophile slur “groomer.” A story about DeSantis eating pudding with his fingers was the basis for an attack ad from a Trump-aligned political action committee.

So what is DeSantis’s angle? His authoritarian laws have crumbled, losing in repeated court cases, and DeSantis has been forced to back away from measures such as his signature book ban. He’s probably eyeing the 2028 race and hoping to stay in Trump’s favor, having endorsed Trump right after he dropped out of the current presidential race.

Trump’s campaign desperately needs the cash, as nearly a third of his campaign donations have gone to pay the former president’s legal bills. He has even resorted to selling the use of his likeness to other political campaigns.