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Sunday, 1 September 2024:

 

Fund-Raiser for January 6 Rioters at Trump’s Golf Club Is Postponed. Donald Trump did not plan to attend the gala event at his venue in Bedminster, N.J., but it highlighted his efforts to rewrite the history of the attack on the Capitol. The New York Times, Alan Feuer, Sunday, 1 September 2024: “A gala event to raise money for some of the rioters who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, set to take place on Thursday at former President Donald J. Trump’s golf club in New Jersey, has been postponed, according to the event website. While Mr. Trump had not been planning to attend the soiree — billed as the J6 Awards Gala — the event attracted attention for the way it reinforced the strong connections he has maintained with those who stormed the Capitol on his behalf at an awkward moment: just as his campaign to return to the White House enters its final stages. The event’s website did not provide a reason for the delay or mention a new date when it might take place. But the primary planner, Sarah McAbee, who runs a nonprofit organization called the Stand in the Gap Foundation, which supports Jan. 6 defendants, said she would try to reschedule it for after the November election, perhaps in February, according to text messages obtained by The New York Times.”

 

Monday, 2 September 2024:

 

Trump says he had ‘every right to interfere in the 2020 election. Harris’ campaign called the former president’s remarks to Fox News evidence that he thought he was above the law. NBC News, Natasha Korecki, Monday, 2 September 2024: “Former President Donald Trump said Sunday that he had ‘every right’ to interfere with the 2020 election, even as two criminal cases involving those allegations hang over him. On Monday, Kamala Harris’ campaign charged that the comments were evidence that Trump believed he was ‘above the law.’ In a Fox News interview that aired Sunday, Trump went on a long screed about the Justice Department and its treatment of him, charging he had been targeted. Trump marveled that the criminal charges did nothing but boost his poll numbers, because, he surmised, his supporters didn’t buy them in the first place. ‘Whoever heard you get indicted for interfering with a presidential election where you have every right to do it, you get indicted, and your poll numbers go up?’ Trump said. ‘When people get indicted, your poll numbers go down. But it was such, such nonsense.’ Last week, Trump was indicted again in his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss. He is accused of trying to carry out a multipronged effort that included trying to disenfranchise voters in certain states and of interfering with the election results by repeatedly claiming it was stolen, even though he knew those claims were false. Authorities say Trump’s false claims were a catalyst for the violence attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He faces similar charges of election interference in Fulton County, Georgia.” See also, Trump Claims He Had “Every Right” to Interfere in the 2020 Election, Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson, Monday, 2 September 2024: “In an interview with right-wing host Mark Levin on the Fox News Channel last night, Trump complained about the new grand jury indictment of him for trying to steal the 2020 presidential election. ‘Whoever heard you get indicted for interfering with a presidential election where you have every right to do it,’ he asked. In fact, no one has a right to interfere with a presidential election. Several federal laws prohibit such interference. Legal analyst Joyce White Vance added: ‘This is the banality of evil right here—Trump asserting he can override the will of the voters to claim victory in an election he lost. And, he will do it again. We must vote against him in overwhelming numbers.’ Former president Trump is approaching the election of 2024 the way southern white supremacists approached elections from 1876 to 1964. He has made it very clear he is not trying to win the votes of a majority of Americans. He and his loyalists are trying to intimidate his opponents to keep them from voting while egging on his supporters to commit violence. They are bringing the tactics of the reactionary southern Democrats after the Civil War forward to the present day in an attempt to impose the same sort of minority rule on the nation as a whole.”

 

Tuesday, 3 September 2024:

 

Judge Denies Trump’s Request to Move Criminal Case to Federal Court. Judge Alvin Hellerstein said the Supreme Court’s finding that presidents enjoy immunity does not apply in the hush-money case in which Donald Trump was already convicted. The New York Times, Jesse McKinley, Tuesday, 3 September 2024: “A federal judge in Manhattan denied an effort by Donald J. Trump to move his already adjudicated state criminal case to the federal courts on Tuesday, rejecting his claims of presidential immunity and brushing aside his allegation of bias. In late May, a jury convicted the former president on 34 felony counts of falsifying records to cover up hush-money payments to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, who had threatened to go public with her account of a one-night sexual encounter in 2006. A state judge, Juan M. Merchan, has scheduled his sentencing for Sept. 18, though Mr. Trump has asked him to delay it until after the presidential election. In a four-page decision on Tuesday, Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of Federal District Court in Manhattan said he could not evaluate Mr. Trump’s claims of bias, saying those were issues for the state courts. But he said that Mr. Trump’s claims that he should have immunity from criminal prosecution — based on a recent Supreme Court decision affirming such protection for ‘official acts’ — were groundless. He noted that ‘hush-money payments were private, unofficial acts, outside the bounds of executive authority.'”

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For a newsletter about the history behind today’s politics, subscribe to Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter, Letters from an American.

 

Thursday, 1 August 2024:

 

New York Appeals court upholds Donald Trump’s gag order as he again presses judge to exit hush money case, Associated Press, Michael R. Sisak, Thursday, 1 August 2024: “Two months after his felony conviction, Donald Trump still isn’t allowed to say everything he wants about his historic hush money criminal case. After a New York appeals court upheld his gag order Thursday, he won’t be for a while. The state’s mid-level appellate court denied the Republican former president and current nominee’s latest bid to lift the restrictions, swatting away a last-minute argument that he’s unfairly muzzled while Vice President Kamala Harris, his likely Democratic opponent, pits herself as an ex-prosecutor taking on a ‘convicted felon.'”

 

Friday, 2 August 2024:

 

$10 million cash withdrawal in 2016 drove secret investigation into whether Trump took money from Egypt. Political appointees rejected efforts to search for additional evidence investigators believed might provide answers, then closed the case. The Washington Post, Aaron C. Davis and Carol D. Leonnig, Friday, 2 August 2024: “Five days before Donald Trump became president in January 2017, a manager at a bank branch in Cairo received an unusual letter from an organization linked to the Egyptian intelligence service. It asked the bank to ‘kindly withdraw’ nearly $10 million from the organization’s account — all in cash. Inside the state-run National Bank of Egypt, employees were soon busy placing bundles of $100 bills into two large bags, according to records from the bank. Four men arrived and carried away the bags, which U.S. officials later described in sealed court filings as weighing a combined 200 pounds and containing what was then a sizable share of Egypt’s reserve of U.S. currency. Federal investigators learned of the withdrawal, which has not been previously reported, early in 2019. The discovery intensified a secret criminal investigation that had begun two years earlier with classified U.S. intelligence indicating that Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi sought to give Trump $10 million to boost his 2016 presidential campaign, a Washington Post investigation has found. Since receiving the intelligence about Sisi, the Justice Department had been examining whether money moved from Cairo to Trump, potentially violating federal law that bans U.S. candidates from taking foreign funds. Investigators had also sought to learn if money from Sisi might have factored into Trump’s decision in the final days of his run for the White House to inject his campaign with $10 million of his own money. Those questions, at least in the view of several investigators on the case, would never be answered, The Post found.”

Trump election interference case returns to federal judge Tanya Chutkan in DC after Supreme Court immunity ruling, NPR, Carrie Johnson, Friday, 2 August 2024: “The election interference case against former President Donald Trump returned to a federal judge in Washington on Friday. What happens next, and how quickly, is now up to Judge Tanya Chutkan. But the conservative supermajority on the U.S. Supreme Court has handed her a lot of work to do. Last month, a six-justice majority delivered Trump a significant victory, ruling that he deserved substantial immunity from prosecution for official acts he took in the White House, including his efforts to get Department of Justice leaders to back his bogus claims of election fraud in 2020. Legal experts say Chutkan will need to review evidence at the heart of the historic four-count felony case, to determine whether other alleged actions by Trump get constitutional protection as official steps of a president, or whether they instead count as personal acts of a candidate seeking political office.” See also, Trump’s election subversion case returns to DC federal judge Tanya Chutkan after Supreme Court immunity ruling, The Washington Post, Spencer S. Hsu, Friday, 2 August 2024: “A federal judge in Washington regained control over former president Donald Trump’s 2020 election obstruction case Friday under a deadline set by the Supreme Court when it ruled that presidents have broad immunity from prosecution. The justices on July 1 ruled 6-3 along ideological lines that Trump and other presidents are absolutely immune from prosecution when carrying out their core constitutional powers, but can face trial for private conduct or for official acts under narrow exceptions to be hammered out by lower courts. U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan now must decide which if any of Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election while president may be prosecutable. However, a trial will not be possible before his November election matchup against Vice President Harris, now the Democratic nominee, because whatever the judge decides is expected to wind up back before the Supreme Court next year.”

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For a newsletter about the history behind today’s politics, subscribe to Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter, Letters from an American.

 

Sunday, 2 June 2024:

 

A Felon in the Oval Office Would Test the American System. The system of checks and balances established in the Constitution was meant to hold wayward presidents accountable, but some wonder how it will work if the next president is already a felon. The New York Times, Peter Baker, Sunday, 2 June 2024: “The revolutionary hero Patrick Henry knew this day would come. He might not have anticipated all the particulars, such as the porn actress in the hotel room and the illicit payoff to keep her quiet. But he feared that eventually a criminal might occupy the presidency and use his powers to thwart anyone who sought to hold him accountable. ‘Away with your president,’ he declared, ‘we shall have a king.’ That was exactly what the founders sought to avoid, having thrown off the yoke of an all-powerful monarch. But as hard as they worked to establish checks and balances, the system they constructed to hold wayward presidents accountable ultimately has proved to be unsteady. Whatever rules Americans thought were in place are now being rewritten by Donald J. Trump, the once and perhaps future president who has already shattered many barriers and precedents. The notion that 34 felonies is not automatically disqualifying and a convicted criminal can be a viable candidate for commander in chief upends two and a half centuries of assumptions about American democracy. And it raises fundamental questions about the limits of power in a second term, should Mr. Trump be returned to office. If he wins, it means he will have survived two impeachments, four criminal indictments, civil judgments for sexual abuse and business fraud, and a felony conviction. Given that, it would be hard to imagine what institutional deterrents could discourage abuses or excesses. Moreover, the judiciary may not be the check on the executive branch that it has been in the past. If no other cases go to trial before the election, it could be another four years before the courts could even consider whether the newly elected president jeopardized national security or illegally sought to overturn the 2020 election, as he has been charged with doing. As it is, even before the election, the Supreme Court may grant Mr. Trump at least some measure of immunity. Mr. Trump would still have to operate within the constitutional system, analysts point out, but he has already shown a willingness to push its boundaries. When he was president, he claimed that the Constitution gave him ‘the right to do whatever I want.’ After leaving office, he advocated ‘termination’ of the Constitution to allow him to return to power right away without another election and vowed to dedicate a second term to ‘retribution.'”

Revenge: analysis of Trump posts shows relentless focus on punishing enemies. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington documents the former president’s threats against perceived political opponents. The Guardian, David Smith, Sunday, 2 June 2024: “A major study of Donald Trump’s social media posts has revealed the scale of the former US president’s ambitions to target Joe Biden, judges and other perceived political enemies if he returns to power. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew), a watchdog organisation, analysed more than 13,000 messages published by Trump on his Truth Social platform and found him vowing revenge, retaliation and retribution against his foes.”

 

Monday, 3 June 2024:

 

Multiple Trump Witnesses Have Received Significant Financial Benefits From His Businesses and Campaign. Witnesses in the various criminal cases against the former president have gotten pay raises, new jobs, and more. If any benefits were intended to influence testimony, that could be a crime. ProPublica, Robert Faturechi, Justin Elliott, and Alex Mierjeski, Monday, 3 June 2024: “Nine witnesses in the criminal cases against former President Donald Trump have received significant financial benefits, including large raises from his campaign, severance packages, new jobs, and a grant of shares and cash from Trump’s media company. The benefits have flowed from Trump’s businesses and campaign committees, according to a ProPublica analysis of public disclosures, court records and securities filings. One campaign aide had his average monthly pay double, from $26,000 to $53,500. Another employee got a $2 million severance package barring him from voluntarily cooperating with law enforcement. And one of the campaign’s top officials had her daughter hired onto the campaign staff, where she is now the fourth-highest-paid employee. These pay increases and other benefits often came at delicate moments in the legal proceedings against Trump. One aide who was given a plum position on the board of Trump’s social media company, for example, got the seat after he was subpoenaed but before he testified. Significant changes to a staffer’s work situation, such as bonuses, pay raises, firings or promotions, can be evidence of a crime if they come outside the normal course of business. To prove witness tampering, prosecutors would need to show that perks or punishments were intended to influence testimony. White-collar defense lawyers say the situation Trump finds himself in — in the dual role of defendant and boss of many of the people who are the primary witnesses to his alleged crimes — is not uncommon. Their standard advice is not to provide any unusual benefits or penalties to such employees. Ideally, decisions about employees slated to give evidence should be made by an independent body such as a board, not the boss who is under investigation.”

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For independent global news, visit Democracy Now!

For a newsletter about the history behind today’s politics, subscribe to Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter, Letters from an American.

 

Wednesday, 1 May 2024:

 

Trump, Repeating 2020 Election Lies, Will Not Commit to Accepting 2024 Results, The New York Times, Michael Gold and Chris Cameron, Wednesday, 1 May 2024: “Former President Donald J. Trump told The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Wednesday that he would not commit to accepting the results of the 2024 election, as he again repeated his lies that the 2020 election was stolen from him. ‘If everything’s honest, I’ll gladly accept the results. I don’t change on that,’ Mr. Trump said, according to The Journal Sentinel. ‘If it’s not, you have to fight for the right of the country.’ In an interview with Time magazine published on Tuesday, he also dismissed questions about political violence in November by suggesting that his victory was inevitable. When pressed about what might happen should he lose, he said, ‘if we don’t win, you know, it depends. It always depends on the fairness of an election.’ Mr. Trump’s insistent and fraudulent claims that the 2020 election was unfair were at the heart of his efforts to overturn his loss to President Biden, and to the violent storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, by a mob of supporters who believed his claims. Mr. Trump now faces dozens of felony charges in connection with those events.”

 

Thursday, 2 May 2024:

 

Jury Hears Tape of Trump and Michael Cohen Discussing Hush-Money Deal. The tape, played at the former president’s criminal trial, captured Michael Cohen telling Donald Trump about a payment to former Playboy model Karen McDougal. The New York Times, Jonah E. Bromwich and Jesse McKinley, Thursday, 2 May 2024: “Two voices reverberated in the courtroom. The first was loud, deep and unctuous, the second was casual — until money came up. They were discussing a deal made during the 2016 presidential campaign to silence a woman who claimed to have had an extramarital affair with the Republican candidate. The first voice on the recording belonged to Michael D. Cohen, a former personal lawyer and fixer for Donald J. Trump. The second was the candidate himself, Mr. Trump, who on Thursday sat mutely as jurors heard his words. The Manhattan district attorney’s office used the tape, surreptitiously made by Mr. Cohen, to bring the trial’s two main characters together for the first time. The recording vividly captured how Mr. Cohen reported details of a key transaction to his then boss. On it, Mr. Cohen discusses a hush-money deal that the parent company of The National Enquirer made on Mr. Trump’s behalf with the former Playboy model Karen McDougal, as well as the question of how to deal with ‘the financing’ — that is, repaying — the supermarket tabloid’s publisher, David Pecker. ‘What financing?” Mr. Trump asked, suddenly snapping to attention. He then directed Mr. Cohen to ‘pay with cash.’ (Mr. Pecker, the jurors already know, was never repaid.) The existence of the recording, made by Mr. Cohen about two months before the election, was previously known. But it demonstrated for the jury the direct involvement of the future president in what prosecutors have said was a conspiracy to help him get elected.” See also, At Trump’s Trial, a Decade’s Worth of Celebrity Sleaze Is Exhumed. Donald Trump’s lawyers tried to paint Keith Davidson, the man who helped broker a hush-money payment for Stormy Daniels, as a specialist in extracting money from the famous. The New York Times, Alan Feuer and Jonah E. Bromwich, Thursday, 2 May 2024: “An attempt to shake down the actor Charlie Sheen. Rumors that the Hollywood star Lindsay Lohan was in rehab. A lawsuit by Hulk Hogan, the former pro wrestler, against the gossip website Gawker for publishing a tape of him having sex. Testimony on Thursday at former President Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan dove deeply into the celebrity-obsessed digital media environment of the past fifteen years or so that helped fuel Mr. Trump’s rise to political prominence. The lurid tales were introduced to the jury largely through the witness Keith Davidson, a Los Angeles lawyer who specialized in getting money for clients who had dirt on famous people. In his testimony, particularly as he was cross-examined, Mr. Davidson and a defense lawyer, Emil Bove, together led the jurors on a whirlwind tour of several gossipy and tawdry deals he had a hand in…. The purpose of Mr. Bove’s interrogation appeared to be to suggest to the jury that Ms. McDougal and Ms. Daniels may have sought to extract their own payments from Mr. Trump. But making that point required Mr. Bove to drag Mr. Davidson through some old patches of mud.” See also, Live Coverage Including Five Takeaways: Jurors Hear Tape of Trump Discussing Deal With Playboy Model Karen McDougal. The recording, secretly made by Donald Trump’s longtime fixer, Michael Cohen, came at the end of a day of testimony detailing a separate hush-money deal with the porn star Stormy Daniels. The New York Times, Thursday, 2 May 2024. See also, Trump Hush Money Trial: Trump defense suggests he was shakedown target, not hush money schemer. During contentious questioning of Stormy Daniels lawyer Keith Davidson, Donald Trump’s lawyers portray their client as the victim in the case. The Washington Post, Devlin Barrett, Shayna Jacobs, and Mark Berman, Thursday, 2 May 2024: “Donald Trump’s defense team suggested Thursday that rather than orchestrating a hush money scheme, the former president was really the target of a shakedown attempt by unscrupulous entertainment figures who saw his 2016 presidential campaign as an opportunity for a quick payday. In the most contentious testimony yet in the criminal trial, Los Angeles lawyer Keith Davidson denied accusations that he flirted with extortion when he negotiated settlements with celebrities to keep potentially damaging stories out of the public eye. By accusing him, Trump’s lawyers displayed a key element of their defense strategy: getting jurors to focus on the lawyers and middlemen who negotiated hush money payments on Trump’s behalf in 2016, rather than the politician who — according to prosecutors — orchestrated the payments and allegedly falsified paperwork about one of them to try to separate it from his presidential campaign. The jury also heard a secretly recorded phone conversation between Davidson and Trump’s then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, in which Cohen claimed Trump told him, ‘I hate the fact that we did it,’ in reference to the hush money payment to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels.” See also, Trump Trial takeaways: ‘When in doubt, steer clear.’ Donald Trump’s lawyers used tabloid stories to portray their client as a victim and argued he should be able to respond to political jokes against him. The Washington Post, Perry Stein and Devlin Barrett, Thursday, 2 May 2024: “Another day in Manhattan criminal court, with much more testimony about the messy, shady world of celebrities and tabloid media. But unlike the last week and a half, Donald Trump’s legal team tried to use the tabloid stories Thursday to go on offense, rather than play defense against the prosecutor’s allegations.” See also, Live coverage: Stormy Daniels’s lawyer completes testimony in Trump’s hush money trial, The Washington Post, 6 Live coverage contributors, Thursday, 2 May 2024. See also, Highlights from day 10 of the Trump hush money trial, Associated Press, Thursday, 2 May 2024.

 

Friday, 3 May 2024:

 

Hope Hicks Takes the Stand: 5 Takeaways From Trump’s Criminal Trial. In a riveted courtroom, Ms. Hicks, the former spokeswoman for Donald Trump, testified how she and her former boss managed one scandal after another. The New York Times, Jesse McKinley and Kate Christobek, Friday, 3 May 2024: “Gasps were heard in the overflow courtroom when Hope Hicks was called as a witness on Friday in Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan, an audible sign of the anticipation as Mr. Trump’s former press secretary and White House communications director took the stand. Her testimony ended the trial’s third week in dramatic fashion. In nearly three hours on the stand, Ms. Hicks described the impact on Mr. Trump’s campaign of the so-called ‘Access Hollywood’ tape, in which Mr. Trump bragged about grabbing women’s genitals. As soon as the tape was disclosed in October 2016, Ms. Hicks said, she knew it would be ‘a massive story.’ Taking the stand under a subpoena, Ms. Hicks said she was nervous, and at one point, early in the cross-examination, she broke down in tears.” See also, Live Coverage of Trump Trial: Hope Hicks Delivers Emotionally Gripping Testimony Before Trial Adjourns for Weekend, The New York Times, Friday, 3 May 2024: “The former Trump spokeswoman testified about his 2016 campaign’s damage-control efforts after the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape, in which the candidate spoke of groping women, became public. Prosecutors say it made Mr. Trump’s aides more eager to quash damaging stories, like Stormy Daniels’s account of an affair.” See also, Live coverage of Trump Hush Money Trial: Hope Hicks testimony ends; Trump hush money trial concludes for the week, The Washington Post, 6 Live coverage contributors, Friday, 3 May 2024: “Hope Hicks, a former top aide to then-President Donald Trump, ended her testimony Friday in his New York criminal trial for allegedly falsifying records related to a hush money payment to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels. Hicks said she was stunned by the ‘Access Hollywood’ video revealed by The Washington Post in 2016 and worried about what Trump’s recorded comments about grabbing women’s genitalia could mean for his campaign.”

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