Previous President Donald J. Trump wound up momentarily kept recently prior to being delivered on bail in an occurrence that unfurled at the Trump Pinnacle in New York City. The previous President was arrested for roughly 20 minutes prior to getting his delivery after posting a $200,000 bail. Trump, known for his playing golf energy, burned through no time in leaving to his confidential green.
The occurrence occurred around 11:30 a.m. EDT, causing a multitude of media to notice Trump Pinnacle, which has for quite some time been related with the land big shot’s business realm and political vocation.
As indicated by policing, the confinement was connected with a continuous examination concerning monetary exchanges including the Trump Association. In spite of the fact that subtleties stay scant, specialists have not given explicit data about the idea of the supposed monetary mistakes or the people in question.
Trump’s legitimate group, drove by his lawyer Ronald Fischetti, quickly answered the confinement, getting his delivery on a $200,000 bail. Fischetti gave a short assertion to the press, expressing, “President Trump deliberately showed up for addressing by specialists and coordinated completely. He was delivered presently, and we accept this matter will be settled at the appointed time.”
It is quite important that the bail measure of $200,000 is a standard technique in such cases and doesn’t be guaranteed to suggest responsibility. Trump’s lawful group repeated his honesty in this.
After his delivery, Donald Trump was seen boarding his personal luxury plane at a close by air terminal, purportedly went to one of his selective fairways. Trump has every now and again visited these greens since leaving office, frequently facilitating political partners and partners for casual social events.
The episode today denotes one more section in the lawful examination encompassing the previous President and his business realm. Trump has confronted a few examinations and claims lately, with this occasion being the most recent improvement in a continuous lawful adventure.
People in general and media will without a doubt proceed to intently screen what is going on as additional subtleties arise in regards to the nature and result of the examination.
Reuters will keep on giving reports on this creating story as more data opens up.
My survey of GOP county chairs is part of an ongoing effort to track the so-called “invisible primary” for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, with a series that is being featured in POLITICO Magazine over the next year. What takes place during the invisible primary is the crucial coordination and jockeying that occurs before anyone starts voting or caucusing, but which will do much to determine the eventual winner. County chairs are figures who will play a key role in shaping the race. They are highly attentive to the party’s internal dynamics and are influential in local GOP circles; they offer the kind of endorsements that candidates are eager to collect. They’re also still close to the rank-and-file grassroots, and their shifts are likely to signal where the rest of the party is going.
When I launched my first survey in February, Trump was looking vulnerable. He was tied with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis among those who had committed to a candidate, and unlike DeSantis, there appeared to be a real ceiling for how much Trump’s support could grow. But in the wake of Trump’s April indictment in Manhattan, related to his alleged hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, Trump picked up some support, largely at DeSantis’ expense. It appeared Republicans were rallying to the embattled former president once again.
The most recent survey, conducted in the first few weeks of June, came amid yet another criminal indictment — this time involving federal charges that he mishandled classified documents, including violations of the Espionage Act. Yet I found Trump’s support continued to increase. Roughly twice as many county party chairs are now committed to Trump as to DeSantis, and no other candidates have really broken through.
This past month has seen a raft of new entrants to the GOP race, including some expected contenders like former Vice President Mike Pence and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, along with seemingly even bigger longshots like North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, former Texas Rep. Will Hurd and Miami Mayor Francis Suarez.
Some commentators have suggested the crowded primary campaign could mirror that of 2016, when Trump snatched the nomination because other candidates split the anti-Trump vote. But so far, support for all the candidates combined still falls short of Trump’s tally. The one hope for Trump holdouts is that many chairs remain undecided.
As director of the Center on American Politics at the University of Denver, I sent this survey to roughly 3,000 GOP chairs, one for every county in the country; 133 Republican chairs responded, roughly the same number who responded to the April survey.
The first question I asked was simply whether the county chairs had committed to supporting a candidate, and if so, whom that might be.
The proportion of undecided chairs remains significant, but it dipped a bit to 47 percent, down from 51 percent in April. DeSantis’ share of supporters has not shifted, holding just under 14 percent. But Trump’s support continues to grow. He has 29 percent now — roughly double what DeSantis has — and up from 24 percent in April and 16 percent in February. Support for all other candidates added up to around 10 percent.
Moe Yoder, a Trump backer who chairs the Republican Party of Yamhill County, Ore., summed up the sentiment of many: “I was impressed by his first term and was very upset that he was robbed of his second term.” Meanwhile, DeSantis supporter Donna Girten of Crittenden County, Ky., echoed the rationale many of his backers have voiced throughout this year, crediting “his conservative efforts and no-holds-barred approach. He’s Trump like without the drama.”
I then asked another question to gauge potential candidate support: Which candidates are county chairs considering for the presidential nomination?
DeSantis still holds the lead in this category, with 61 percent of chairs saying they’re open to the Florida governor’s nomination. But notably, that figure has dropped with each survey wave; it had been 67 percent in April and 73 percent in February. Trump’s numbers, while not as strong, continue to improve. He’s now at 53 percent, up from 51 percent in April and 43 percent in February, suggesting more and more Republicans are getting comfortable with him back at the top of the ticket. Again, that’s even as his legal woes grow.
The one non-Trump, non-DeSantis contender who saw a real bit of movement in my survey is South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott. He appears to have enjoyed a strong campaign rollout, with 46 percent of chairs now saying they’re considering supporting him, up from 26 percent in April. Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley’s numbers are up slightly, from 29 percent in April to 31 percent in June, while Pence saw his numbers rise from 17 to 24 percent between April and June.
Finally, I asked the chairs whom they do not want to see as their presidential nominee. Christie led the pack for the third straight time, with 57 percent of chairs saying they do not want him as the GOP nominee. This is roughly the same figure as in April, suggesting his recent campaign rollout in which he offered sharp critiques of Trump hasn’t done much to alter his image among Republican grassroots leaders. The one bright spot for Christie is that a few more chairs are considering him now than were in April: 11 percent rather than just 4 percent.
As in previous surveys, the candidates with the most opposition among county chairs after Christie were former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (who has continued to criticize Trump for his legal travails), Pence and Trump himself. Pence’s negatives are down slightly, however, to 42 percent of chairs ruling him out as opposed to 47 percent in April.
Meanwhile, considerably more county chairs are now rejecting Trump’s candidacy than in the last wave, with 38 percent of chairs now opposed to him, up from 29 percent in April. Ever the polarizing force, it appears that the latest round of indictments may have increased both Trump’s supporters and detractors within the party.
We can learn a bit more about these party leaders’ sentiment by focusing on just those who answered both the April and June surveys; that’s 57 chairs overall. For the most part, we see relatively stable candidate alignments. DeSantis picked up two undecideds while Trump picked up one chair and lost two. A few chairs shifted around a bit, but there wasn’t a lot of change.
This stability, of course, advantages Trump the longer it goes on. But the race is still relatively early. The debates start in August, and Trump could face yet more indictments based on his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Eventually those undecided chairs will have to pick a side.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
POLITICO Magazine commissioned this poll because we thought, despite some initial polling shortly after Trump’s federal indictment, that we could dig deeper into the public’s sentiment. How much do people really understand about the charges facing Trump and do they believe he’s guilty? What kind of punishments do they think fit the crimes if he is convicted? And, of course, what impact could all of this have on Trump’s presidential candidacy?
The poll was conducted from June 27 to June 28, roughly three weeks after Trump’s federal indictment and nearly three months after Trump was criminally charged by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. The poll had a sample of 1,005 adults age 18 or older, who were interviewed online; it has a credibility interval of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points for all respondents.
At this point, roughly half of the country believes that Trump committed the crimes alleged against him.
Forty-nine percent of respondents — including 25 percent of Republicans — said that they believe Trump is guilty in the pending federal prosecution, which alleges that he willfully retained sensitive government documents after leaving office and obstructed a subsequent federal investigation. A nearly identical 48 percent of respondents — including 24 percent of Republicans — believe that Trump is guilty in the Manhattan DA’s pending prosecution, which alleges that Trump falsified business records in connection with a payment to the porn star Stormy Daniels in the run-up to the 2016 election in order to keep her quiet about an alleged sexual relationship between the two.
On the question of timing, however, there was more unity.
Nearly two-thirds of respondents (62 percent) said that the trial in the pending federal prosecution should take place before the presidential election next November — a figure that includes nearly half of Republican respondents (46 percent). A lower number, but a still-solid majority, said that the trial should take place before the Republican primaries begin early next year (57 percent of all respondents, including 42 percent of Republican respondents).
The findings could bolster the position of federal prosecutors, who have been pushing for a trial date as early as this December. Trump is expected to try to drag out the proceedings for as long as possible, particularly because he would likely be able to shut the prosecution down if reelected. But the federal statute that governs the setting of trial dates requires judges to account for not only the defendant’s interest but “the best interest of the public” as well.
What should happen to Trump if he gets convicted? Forty three percent said he should go to prison, but most were willing to spare him jail time. Nearly a quarter of respondents said that Trump should incur no punishment at all (22 percent), while 18 percent said he should receive probation and another 17 percent said he should face only a financial penalty.
The results were roughly similar when respondents were asked what the punishment should be if Trump is convicted in Manhattan. Most respondents said that Trump should not go to prison and that he should instead receive either no term of imprisonment, probation, or a financial penalty only (21 percent, 17 percent and 22 percent, respectively).
In both instances, a clear partisan breakdown was evident. For the DOJ case, 73 percent of Democrats thought Trump should go to prison if convicted, compared to 16 percent of Republicans and 33 percent of independents. For the Manhattan DA’s case, 65 percent of Democrats backed prison time, compared to 14 percent of Republicans and 36 percent of independents.
The results also complicate the post-indictment narrative that the charges have improved Trump’s chances of winning his party’s presidential nomination. It’s true that he’s gained support in the polls since the indictments, but our survey suggests that they haven’t fundamentally changed Republicans’ opinion of his campaign. While 21 percent of GOP respondents said the federal indictment on mishandling classified documents made them more likely to support Trump, 23 percent said it made them less likely; fully 50 percent said it had no impact and 6 percent said they didn’t know. The results were similar for the Manhattan DA’s indictment over the hush money payment.
Among the broader public, a conviction in either case would be damaging to Trump’s electoral chances. An identical number — 41 percent of all respondents — said that a conviction in either the federal case or the Manhattan DA’s case would make them less likely to support the former president. Despite all the commentary that he’s Teflon Don, it’s clear that some of his missteps can cost him.
The results also suggest that the numbers could get worse as Americans learn more about the pending charges. Roughly one-third of respondents said that they are not particularly familiar with the allegations in either case.
That number could decrease as media coverage continues, particularly in the run-up to potential trials. A trial date in the Manhattan DA’s case is currently set to begin on March 25, though it is conceivable that, as a practical matter, Trump could have the nomination locked up by then if dynamics in the GOP primary do not change. So far, most of his opponents have struggled to articulate a message that distinguishes themselves from Trump while appealing to a voter base that is largely sticking with him despite his mounting legal problems.
The public’s preference for a relatively speedy trial date in the federal prosecution against Trump could prove tricky to accommodate. Many legal observers are skeptical that a trial is possible next year, particularly given the complexities of a case that involves classified documents and a defendant who has historically proven adept at mounting aggressive delay strategies.
Indeed, according to the most recent statistics available, the median time from filing to disposition in felony cases in the Southern District of Florida, where the federal case against Trump is pending, is nine months. But that figure is almost surely dragged down by the fact that the significant majority of federal criminal cases are resolved by guilty pleas and that very few trials in the district, if any, have posed the sort of complexities that the first-ever criminal prosecution against a former U.S. president will pose, particularly involving classified information.
Still, if prosecutors and the presiding judge want to look to the law and satisfy the public’s interest, they can point to the results from this poll.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
The verdict comes on the eve of Trump’s town hall in New Hampshire moderated by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, a 31-year-old anchor and correspondent who gained a reputation for challenging Trump while she covered the White House.
Trump signaled that he would take a combative approach to any questions around the case, writing on Truth Social immediately after the verdict that he had “ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA” who Carroll was, and that the “VERDICT IS A DISGRACE – A CONTINUATION OF THE GREATEST WITCH HUNT OF ALL TIME!” He had spent part of the day recording policy videos.
Trump advisers had been negotiating for weeks with CNN, which approached them earlier this year about the idea of doing a sit-down. Trump’s decision to agree to the town hall was seen as an implicit jab at Fox News, which he has clashed with in recent months, and at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has eschewed interviews with mainstream media outlets in favor of friendly conservative ones.
The verdict immediately split Republicans on Capitol Hill with some saying it should give voters pause and others arguing that it was a continuation of biased prosecution against the former president. That schism quickly became evident among Republicans on the campaign trail as well.
Vivek Ramaswamy, who quickly defended Trump after news broke of his criminal indictment a month ago, on Tuesday did the same.
“I wasn’t one of the jurors and I’m not privy to all of the facts that they have, but I’ll say what everyone else is privately thinking,” Ramaswamy said in a statement to POLITICO. “If the defendant weren’t named Donald Trump, would there even be a lawsuit?”
Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who called for Trump to drop out of the race after his indictment, said the jury’s verdict should be taken seriously “and is another example of the indefensible behavior of Donald Trump.”
“Over the course of my over 25 years of experience in the courtroom, I have seen firsthand how a cavalier and arrogant contempt for the rule of law can backfire,” Hutchinson said in a statement.
Mike Pence, Nikki Haley and Tim Scott didn’t speak to the verdict.
Trump’s support and fundraising have only strengthened in the aftermath of past legal flashpoints, including his indictment over his alleged involvement in a hush money payment scheme to a porn star.
Sarah Longwell, a political strategist and founder of the anti-Trump Republican Accountability Project, said she conducted a focus group last week in which two-time Trump voters were asked about the Carroll lawsuit. Just one of the seven voters, a woman, had heard of it — “and she didn’t believe her,” Longwell said.
Throughout other recent focus groups with Republican voters, Longwell and her staff have remarked internally about how Trump’s support is “the fiercest” among women who have already supported him twice.
“I wish things were different, but I can’t see this changing anything in a Republican primary,” Longwell said of the sexual abuse verdict Tuesday. “The things that are going to change anything in a Republican primary are if the field — his opponents for 2024 — show some political backbone and political talent and ability to capture some of the oxygen that he is sucking up.”
A recent NBC News poll found that two thirds of Republican voters believe the investigations are “politically motivated attempt to stop Trump.” But some party strategists are convinced it could hamper his prospects in a general election where he would have to reach beyond his loyal base.
RNC chair Ronna McDaniel was pressed by Fox News’ Martha McCallum over whether or not the Carroll ruling or the hush money scheme verdict could have a negative impact on suburban and women voters. McDaniel deflected, and said that women are more focused on President Joe Biden’s disappointing administration.
“I think we have a long way until the primary process begins, we have debates in August,” McDaniel said. “I think a lot of women are incredibly disappointed with the Biden administration so they’ll be looking at the Republican nominee, whoever that is, to put forward an opposing vision and one that will help suburban moms and kids and families across the country.”
But the question, which McCallum repeated again with other guests, underscores how that cohort of female and suburban women voters could potentially impact Trump. While Trump did better with women in 2020 than in 2016, Biden led among women in the last election by 11 points.
How Trump will handle discussing the lawsuit at the CNN town hall is hardly a mystery, said Dave Carney, a New Hampshire-based Republican strategist.
“He will spin it, and we could write that script right now,” Carney said soon after the verdict was issued. “‘Judge who hates me, a lady made this up, and blah, blah, blah.’ He will definitely have something to say about it.”
And he did, following that script almost exactly in posts he made on his social media website throughout the evening Tuesday.
But for a candidate who won the 2016 election mere weeks after a recording was published of him bragging about being able to sexually assault women, “none of this is new,” Carney said, and it’s unlikely voters are still trying to make up their mind about Trump’s character.
“Do I think any different eyeball is going to watch this show that wasn’t going to watch it beforehand? No,” Carney said of the Wednesday town hall. “Do I think any undecided voter was thinking ‘I don’t know about that Trump guy, I’m going to tune into CNN and see what he has to say?’”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
“He’s trying to win back everyone he can win back,” said Ron Gidwitz, a Republican fundraiser who served as Trump’s ambassador to Belgium but who questioned whether Trump has the “gravitas” necessary to be president again. “I think he believes he’s got the ability that if he can talk to people, he can persuade them.”
It’s not without major risk. Trump’s appearance on Wednesday night will come roughly 24 hours after a jury found him liable for sexual abuse against the writer E. Jean Carroll. He is expected to be pressed on that verdict, along with prior charges from Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg in a case involving payments to a porn actress. He is likely to face his first truly adversarial questioning on TV about his actions on Jan. 6.
But allies see the town hall as part of a larger play, designed for Trump to take on the image of the primary winner, not a mere candidate.
Trump’s embrace of mainstream media, after years spent bashing the press unrelentingly, may be a product of his unquenchable thirst to be at the center of the spotlight — a trait he’s exhibited since his days as a brash real estate tycoon dominating New York City’s tabloids in the 1980s. But it is also a sign of a more traditional political operation than was evident in his past campaigns. And it is a strategy that could have a major impact on the early stages of the primary, threatening to suck the oxygen from his more insulated and, in some cases, media-averse rivals.
“The difference is, Trump will do both Real America’s Voice and CNN interviews, and the campaign or PAC will highlight New York Times articles as well as Jack Posobiec tweets. We are dealing with the whole spectrum of media, whether liberal or very right wing,” said a Republican strategist working to elect Trump, who was granted anonymity to speak freely about his views of the campaign’s media plans. “I think there is a concerted effort to not isolate ourselves to conservative media and talk to all outlets because people still read those outlets. The New York Times has a huge readership. CNN has more viewers than Newsmax.”
Trump’s decision to exit the conservative media echo chamber is driven, in part, by the belief that the GOP’s donor class doesn’t actually reside there. While voters are familiarizing themselves with different candidates, the strategist said it’s important to make sure they are reaching donors who are reading the Wall Street Journal, not the Epoch Times.
Since the beginning of the year, Trump has brought all three of the major TV networks on his trips to rallies, and has gaggled with reporters from Politico, CNN, Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal, and Axios aboard his plane. Trump has sat for friendly interviews with Fox News and Nigel Farage. But he has also done pull-aside interviews with the Associated Press, local news outlets and conservative radio shows with a large listening audience. This spring, he started trying to court a younger millennial audience by inviting the Nelk Boys — a group of 20-something YouTube stars — to interview him at Mar-a-Lago.
He still tussles with the press. Earlier this year, Trump became frustrated with an NBC reporter’s line of questioning aboard his plane and he tossed aside the reporter’s phone, which was recording the group interview. And he has continued to make comments about different news outlets on his social media site Truth Social. But he has largely been welcoming of reporters from almost every outlet at this point in his campaign.
His chief rival, DeSantis, has taken an almost opposite approach, catering to media outlets that openly favor right-wing politicians. In March, the Florida governor sat for more than an hour with Piers Morgan in a wide-ranging interview that aired on a Fox affiliate and was previewed in the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post. He toured his hometown of Dunedin with Fox’s Brian Kilmeade in March. And over the weekend he granted Newsmax an interview.
As governor, DeSantis’ team tightly controls press conferences to showcase supporters and minimizes dissent by limiting questions. And when DeSantis doesn’t like a reporter’s inquiry, it shows. He bristled during a recent overseas trip when a reporter questioned him on his trailing poll numbers, and he expressed annoyance during another interaction over his past comments on prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
A DeSantis spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
In a typical primary, a message tailored to right-wing media would not be unexpected. Republican presidential candidates find themselves auditioning for the job amid an asymmetric media landscape in which “very few” news organizations are trusted by a majority of both Republicans and Democrats, according to an April YouGov survey released this week. Among Republicans, according to the survey, Fox News, Newsmax and One America News rank highest in trustworthiness.
The jettisoning of Tucker Carlson from Fox News has complicated that. The network has been attacked by conservatives for the move and has struggled with its ratings during that time slot.
But candidates like Nikki Haley — whom Carlson not only declined to invite onto his show, but has disparaged on air — now have a shot at getting booked during Fox’s 8 p.m. hour. That’s already happening for Sen. Tim Scott, who has now twice appeared on the show since Carlson’s departure two weeks ago, something that wasn’t occurring previously. Carlson on Tuesday announced he would be launching a new show on Twitter.
Like Trump, former Vice President Mike Pence has been doling out interviews to outlets across the ideological spectrum. Pence world occasionally blasts its press list with more favorable right-leaning clips, including a Washington Examiner interview by Salena Zito earlier this month, as well as an interview on The Brian Kilmeade Show. But his campaign also went to ABC’s David Muir for an exclusive sit down beforehand to talk about the events of Jan. 6.
Pence’s top communications aide, Devin O’Malley, is an admirer of the go-everywhere media strategy employed by Democratic operative Lis Smith when she worked for Pence’s fellow Hoosier Pete Buttigieg during the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. O’Malley even mused about the possibility of putting the former vice president, an ardent fan of the NFL’s Indianapolis Colts, on ESPN’s ManningCast during Monday Night Football last fall. He has given interviews outside the right-wing echo-chamber, including his own CNN town hall last November, a podcast appearance with Democratic strategist David Axelrod and even sat down with The Dispatch, the never-Trump publication started by former staffers from the conservative Weekly Standard.
“I am still frustrated that I don’t think the public is seeing the Mike Pence that I know,” said Jim Atterholt, Pence’s former gubernatorial chief of staff who would later set up Pence’s legal defense fund during the Russia investigation. “I don’t think they’re seeing the guy with a great sense of humor— the self deprecating, the great encourager. I still think there’s a little bit of a hesitancy to show some leg, if you will, in the media and in his public appearances and in his speeches.”
Pence’s team still does occasionally have tiffs with reporters, including POLITICO. Marc Short, one of Pence’s top advisers, “puts reporters in the penalty box” from time to time, said a person close to Pence.
Similarly, Haley’s political team is known for attempting to box out reporters based on their coverage. Her media strategy this campaign has been to focus almost exclusively on conservative television hits and local early-state outlets, declining to give interviews to mainstream reporters since participating in a sit-down for the Today Show after her February campaign announcement.
Scott has spoken with a number of legacy outlets, from CBS to WMUR in Manchester, and NBC News and the Post and Courier in Charleston.
“We’re not going to hide him away, only putting him on certain shows or in extremely controlled interactions,” said a Scott adviser, authorized to speak anonymously to discuss campaign strategy. While conservative networks will be “first among equals,” the adviser said, Scott’s team realizes that “conservative eyeballs are found in a variety of places,” not just in front of Fox News and Newsmax.
Scott’s adviser declined to comment on the senator’s decision to stop giving hallway interviews at the Capitol, a new practice Hill reporters have observed in recent months.
Ramaswamy, meanwhile, may be the most ubiquitous of all GOP aspirants, leaning fully into a say-yes media strategy.
“One of my top competitors in this race says he won’t talk to NBC News because they’re not nice to him,” Ramaswamy said, referring to DeSantis. “Well, if you’re afraid of sitting across the table from Chuck Todd, then you’re not ready to represent America across the table from Xi Jinping.”
It’s just another example of many underscoring Trump’s challengers’ difficulty in wrestling their share of the spotlight from him.
The 2024 media scrutiny will only ramp up in the coming months for all the declared candidates, and DeSantis and Pence have not yet announced a run. That means for now, Trump is able to dominate the conversation.
“They’re like a cat chasing a laser dot on the wall,” said Mike Madrid, the Republican strategist who was a co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, of the GOP field. “They’re not driving anything in the electorate, they’re trying to reflect it. And Donald Trump is the one holding the pen.”
Shia Kapos contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
New York: In a legal setback, former US President Donald Trump has been ordered to pay $5 million in damages to a woman who accused him of rape but he does not face prison time because it was a civil case.
A jury gave the verdict on Tuesday in a civil case hinging on an attack in a fitting room in a high-end store decades ago and Trump defaming her by calling her accusations a “hoax”.
The jury did not accept her claim of rape, but declared him liable for sexual abuse and defamation.
E. Jean Carroll, 79, brought the case against the front-runner to be the Republican Party’s presidential candidate next year, Trump, who she said had raped her decades ago, but was not sure when it happened.
In a post on Truth Social media, Trump characteristically called the verdict a “continuing of the greatest witchhunt of all time” and said he would appeal.
There was a large crowd of demonstrators outside the courthouse denouncing his treatment of women when the verdict came down.
Carroll was a columnist for the Elle magazine at the time she said she was attacked around 1996.
Trump is facing a criminal case brought by a local prosecutor in New York accusing him of falsifying business records to cover up payments made to a woman who claimed to have had an affair with him.
If convicted in that case, he could be sentenced to prison time, although that would not bar him from running for election under the US Constitution.
The first former President to face criminal charges, Trump was arrested and produced in court last month but was released pending the trial that could take place early next year.
The latest opinion poll by ABC News and The Washington Post taken before the verdict showed him six percentage points ahead of President Joe Biden.
Trump, who is busy campaigning for his presidential run, did not take the witness stand to contest Carroll’s case.
Several women have accused him of rape and sex abuse, but the thrice-married Trump, who once revelled in the image of a playboy, has not faced criminal charges.
A damning piece of evidence introduced against him related to a video of him using an obscenity and saying, “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything, grab ’em by the (genitals).”
During a deposition – testimony and cross-examination outside a court to speed up the trial – he defended the statement saying that “historically that is true” when asked about it by Carroll’s lawyer.
A video of his statement made during the cross-examination was shown to the jury, a citizens’ panel made up of three women and six men, which gave the verdict in less than three hours of deliberations after eight days of the trial.
Carroll herself took the stand at the trial as did two other women who said that they had been abused by Trump, one of them while on a plane.
“I’m here because Donald Trump raped me,” Carroll told the jury and gave a graphic description of Trump abusing her with his fingers before raping her.
She said that the encounter took place in the lingerie department of the department store when he approached her on the pretext of trying to find a gift for a woman friend.
He banged her head on the wall of a fitting room before the attack, she said.
Carroll first made the accusations public while the presidential race was heating up in 2019 in a magazine excerpt ahead of the publication of her book, What do We Need Men For”? in which she wrote about the assault more than two decades after the attack.
He was unaffected by the disclosure and he contested the election next year, even as other women made accusations against him.
Trump’s lawyer Joe Tacopina questioned Carroll’s credibility, saying that she did not report the attack to the police, didn’t remember the day it took place and brought it up decades later.
Two friends of Carroll testified that she had told them about the assault around the time it took place.
Lisa Birnbach said that Carroll told her about the assault minutes after it happened but declined her offer to accompany her to make a police complaint.
Trump is caught in a web of legal issues.
New York State Attorney General Leitia James has filed a civil case over his and his adult children’s business practices.
A state prosecutor in Georgia is looking into allegations that Trump interfered in the election results and a federal special counsel is examining if he had a role in the January 6, 2021, attack on Congress by his supoporters.
Federal prosecutors are also investigating his handling of classified documents that he took from the White House when he left office.
The memo was sent hours before a New York court delivered a verdict finding that Trump was guilty of sexual abuse of advice columnist E. Jean Carroll and awarding her $5 million in damages for that and defamation.
Budowich’s memo is, to a degree, a classic boast of a campaign that finds itself in a leading position. He describes Trump as “thoroughly vetted on a national stage” and portrays the legal troubles surrounding the ex-president as fundamentally good for him. “GOP voters aren’t just supporting President Trump overwhelmingly despite the investigations, they are supporting him because of the investigations,” he writes. He also writes that the argument Trump is “not electable” doesn’t hold water with recent polling.
But the memo is also notable in another respect: underscoring that Team Trump isn’t content to rest on its current lead but eager to keep attacking its main competitors. The memo bashes DeSantis’ Florida legislative session as a “bucket of cold water” for the governor.
“On top of losing major financial backers and cratering poll numbers, the most memorable part of his legislative session is that he picked a fight with Disney and lost,” Budowich writes. “DeSantis invested tremendous political capital to pass a 6-week abortion ban — in contrast, President Trump maintains a strong pro-life record with exceptions for rape and incest.”
The memo comes as DeSantis inches closer to making a presidential announcement and as Trump’s team is going after high dollar donors for support — some of whom have publicly wobbled on support for DeSantis or have put their donations on ice until they have a more clear picture of the field. The latest sign that the Florida governor plans to announce soon: DeSantis recently severed ties with his state-level PAC, which has a whopping $86 million, opening the door for that money to be transferred to a pro-DeSantis super PAC supporting his presidential ambitions.
Last month, Never Back Down, the pro-DeSantis PAC, said it had raised $30 million. The PAC also plans to have staff in the first 18 states on the Republican nominating calendar, according to the AP.
“While Governor DeSantis tallied up an impressive number of wins for the people of Florida this legislative session, Donald Trump offers the same old, pathetic attacks right out of Nancy Pelosi’s playbook to attempt to diminish the Governor’s conservative success story,” said Erin Perrine, the communications director for Never Back Down in a statement. “Donald Trump blamed the pro-life movement for his endorsed candidates’ losses in the 2022 midterm elections, and states like Trump’s real home, New York, have legalized infanticide up until birth. In Florida, Governor DeSantis has enacted historic measures to defend the dignity of human life and transform Florida into a pro-family state,” she added.
At the end of 2022, MAGA Inc. reported $54.1 million on hand, and the PAC has spent millions on national cable ads taking direct aim at DeSantis’ record on Medicare and Social Security. The PAC also paid for an eyebrow raising ad that accused DeSantis of “sticking his fingers where they don’t belong” into entitlements. The ad was also a reference to a story about DeSantis using his fingers to eat chocolate pudding on an airplane.
The MAGA Inc. memo, according to a PAC official, was being circulated on an individual basis Tuesday “to current, past, and targeted donors to MAGA Inc. and like-minded committees” as it “makes a strong push for unity as it looks towards the end for the quarter.”
After a disappointing midterm election for Republicans, where some important primary races were split over Trump’s endorsement and involvement, the memo calls on donors to rally around one singular Republican candidate to best help 2024 down ballot candidates.
“The 2024 cycle presents a promising opportunity for Republicans to realize massive gains in the U.S. Senate, House of Representatives, and down ballot races across the nation. Unifying early and focusing our collective resources towards maximizing our gains can be the difference maker,” Budowich writes.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Carroll testified that Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room after a chance encounter one evening in the spring of 1996. The jury found that Carroll did not prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that Trump raped her. But the jury did find him liable for sexual abuse and for defamation. The defamation count arose from a statement Trump made last year in which he called Carroll’s allegation a “hoax.”
“I filed this lawsuit against Donald Trump to clear my name and to get my life back,” Carroll said in a statement after the verdict. “Today, the world finally knows the truth. This victory is not just for me but for every woman who has suffered because she was not believed.”
Her lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, said the verdict was a triumph for Carroll as well as “for democracy itself, and for all survivors everywhere.”
“No one is above the law,” she said, “not even a former President of the United States.”
In a social media post Tuesday, Trump called the verdict “a disgrace.” He added: “a continuation of the greatest witch hunt of all time!”
Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina said Trump would appeal the verdict. “They rejected the rape claim and they always claimed this was a rape case, so it’s a little perplexing. But we move forward,” Tacopina said.
He added he had spoken to the former president. “He’s firm in his belief, like many people are, that he cannot get a fair trial in New York City based on the jury pool. And I think one could argue that’s an accurate assessment based on what happened today.”
Trump did not testify in court and did not even attend the trial. His legal team did not call any witnesses. The case hinged on the testimony of Carroll, who told the jury over the course of three days on the witness stand how her run-in with Trump at the luxury department store turned into a brutal attack in a dressing room in the store’s lingerie department.
“I’m here because Donald Trump raped me,” Carroll, 79, told the jury. Referring to a book she wrote in which she detailed the alleged incident, she said: “And when I wrote about it, he said it didn’t happen. He lied and shattered my reputation. And I’m here to try to get my life back.”
In vivid and, at times, tearful testimony, Carroll recounted how Trump shoved her against the dressing room wall, banging her head, and pinned her there with his body weight. She said he then pulled down her tights, inserted his fingers into her vagina and then penetrated her with his penis. The assault lasted a few minutes, she testified, before she managed to free herself and flee the store onto Fifth Avenue.
She said she contemporaneously disclosed what had happened to two friends, both of whom testified on her behalf, but didn’t tell anyone else about it for more than two decades, when she went public with her account by publishing an excerpt of her book in New York Magazine in 2019.
Asked if she had stayed quiet for so long because she was worried about how others would react to her story, she rejected that idea. “No, I knew how others would react,” she said. “Women who are raped are looked at as soiled goods. They’re looked at as less.”
Though jurors never saw Trump in person, they did hear from him in the form of a videotaped deposition, footage from a presidential debate and campaign rallies, and the “Access Hollywood” tape, a recording from 2005 in which Trump, caught on a hot mic, boasted that when it comes to women, if you’re a star you can “grab them by the pussy.”
In his deposition, Trump denied having raped Carroll or even knowing her, calling her allegation “the most ridiculous, disgusting story.”
“It’s just made up,” he said.
His lawyers, meanwhile, argued that Carroll’s testimony wasn’t credible, largely because Carroll couldn’t pinpoint certain pieces of information, including the precise date of the alleged attack. And they questioned other aspects, such as her claim that she didn’t recall seeing any other shoppers or sales attendants during the encounter at Bergdorf’s.
Carroll’s attorneys leaned heavily on the “Access Hollywood” tape, arguing that it amounted to “a confession,” as one of them put it, that Trump had a habit of sexually assaulting women and that he relied on a playbook of sorts to do so. To bolster that argument, her attorneys called two other Trump accusers as witnesses: Jessica Leeds and Natasha Stoynoff.
The nine-person jury delivered its unanimous – as required by law – verdict after an eight-day trial. Jurors in the case remained anonymous throughout the trial — even to Carroll, Trump and their lawyers — after U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered that their identities be kept secret due to “a very strong risk that jurors will fear harassment.”
Though the statute of limitations had long expired on Carroll’s battery claim, she was able to sue Trump under a New York state law that opened a one-year window beginning in November 2022 during which people can sue their alleged abusers for sexual assault.
For Carroll, the courtroom experience was bittersweet. Asked during her testimony whether she was glad she spoke out against Trump, she broke into tears.
“I’ve regretted this about 100 times,” she said, pausing. “But in the end, being able to get my day in court, finally, is everything to me,” she said, her speech interrupted by crying. “So I’m happy.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Melania Trump also did not accompany her husband to court in Manhattan last month for his alleged role in a scheme to pay hush money to a porn star during the 2016 presidential campaign, and was absent from his post-arraignment speech in Mar-a-Lago.
“My husband achieved tremendous success in his first administration, and he can lead us toward greatness and prosperity once again,” Melania Trump told Fox News.
Donald Trump is currently the frontrunner to be the GOP presidential nominee. According to a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll, if President Joe Biden and Donald Trump were the candidates, 38 percent said they would definitely or probably vote for the president, compared to 44 percent who would definitely or probably back Donald Trump.
Melania Trump told Fox News that if her husband is elected in 2024, she, as first lady, would “prioritize the well-being and development of children as I have always done.”
“My focus would continue to be creating a safe and nurturing space for children to learn, grow, and thrive,” she said. “If additional problems arise, I will take the time to study them and understand their root causes.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
“People will change horses,” said Dave Carney, a veteran Republican strategist for both former Bush presidents. “You may get really excited about somebody and then all of a sudden realize, ‘Eh, not really my cup of tea.’”
Where Wall Street puts its money matters because financial industry executives are among the biggest donors in presidential elections. And while bankers and asset managers generally favor lower taxes and lighter-touch regulation, they also value stability and experience — and they spread their money around to candidates of both parties, meaning they’re very much in play in each cycle.
On paper, that should give DeSantis an advantage. People close to Wall Street donors said his national profile and powerhouse fundraising operation that has included support from hedge fund titans like Ken Griffin and Jeff Yass had positioned him as most able to survive a primary with former President Donald Trump.
DeSantis’ gubernatorial reelection campaign is still loaded with cash, giving him big advantages over possible competitors. But many now say he no longer seems so formidable — at least on Wall Street.
His escalation of a feud with the Walt Disney Co. over its opposition to what critics called the “don’t say gay” law has made for a rocky rollout to an expected presidential campaign announcement in the coming weeks. On April 26, the company announced it was suing DeSantis, saying he violated its First Amendment rights — which will force him to do battle with one of his state’s largest employers in federal court.
It was “‘wait and see,’ and this is why,” said an adviser to one top GOP donor in New York, who like others interviewed for this story was granted anonymity to avoid alienating candidates. “We’re not the only ones who are happy with our decision to wait and see.”
With Trump surging in the polls following his indictment on criminal charges stemming from alleged hush money payments, one executive at a New York bank said confidence in DeSantis’s ability to win is flagging.
“DeSantis is certainly a better option than Trump at this point,” the executive said. “But he’s a really weak option.”
The executive said many are growing resigned to the possibility of a general election rematch between Trump and President Joe Biden.
“What we probably wind up with is a choice between a guy who is very old and wants to raise our taxes and reregulate everything, and a guy who could be running from prison,” the executive said.
In the meantime, any hesitation about DeSantis’s viability could be good news for Republicans who have tried to carve out space as business-friendly alternatives to Trump. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and Sen. Tim Scott — another South Carolina Republican who has launched an exploratory committee — have started lining their war chests with checks from major investors, according to campaign filings released in April.
During the first quarter, Haley raised about $8.3 million across her campaign, joint fundraising committee and leadership PAC. Scott, the ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee, raised $1.6 million and had $21.9 million on hand through his Senate committee, according to POLITICO’s analysis of his FEC filings. Those funds can easily be transferred to a presidential committee should he formally announce.
Scott is a fixture in New York, turning up for meetings at various big banks, and is beginning to draw backers at firms like Goldman Sachs. Bankers say they appreciate both his personal narrative — rising from humble beginnings — and his positive message about the power of American capitalism.
Still, Scott and Haley’s fundraising totals remain modest compared to those of DeSantis-aligned groups — one state-level committee, Friends of Ron DeSantis, has more than $85 million on hand.
For many Republicans on Wall Street, “there’s a lot of concern about whether Trump will consolidate support in the polls,” said Ken Spain, a partner at Narrative Strategies who advises investment firms. “Then the concern becomes: Does that freeze money in the investor class? Do people sit on the sidelines if they think the chance of defeating Trump in a primary is diminishing?”
Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), who leads the House Financial Services Committee, said in an interview at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills this week that the Trump campaign’s tactics over the next two months will be “well-organized, calculated, surgical.”
“This reminds me a lot of ’16 where everybody’s trying to figure out alternatives to Trump,” he said.
Those dynamics won’t make things any easier for DeSantis, who’s been catching flak over everything from the Disney fracas — a “self-inflicted wound,” one financial industry power broker said — to his arms-length relationship with key donors and GOP allies in Florida.
“I call my donors. I call my supporters. And that’s been an issue that people have complained about with him,” said Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, a Republican who has flirted with a 2024 bid.
But Scott, Haley, former Vice President Mike Pence and other potential GOP nominees face their own challenges. While DeSantis has shown he can win big in a swing state, other nominees have won in Republican strongholds. Many also lack national name recognition that would put them within striking distance of Trump or DeSantis.
“Scott is pretty fantastic, and if he can perform the way I think he can he has a real chance,” said one senior banker who is trying to organize support for him. “But it’s obviously a big hill to climb.”
DeSantis allies are taking comfort in the difficulties other candidates could have in breaking through. While there’s “some hesitancy from the Wall Street Journal class,” the Florida governor’s resources should be enough to sustain any surge from non-Trump competitors, said Jason Thomas, a Republican strategist who runs a pro-DeSantis Super PAC.
Even though DeSantis has shown a willingness to wage public battles against big businesses — hardly typical of what Thomas labeled a Country Club Republican platform — Thomas said he expects financial services donors to “eventually come home when DeSantis recaptures his first-place position in the nomination process or is the nominee.”
The first executive at the large New York bank said Wall Street would love a candidate like former House Speaker Paul Ryan “or a younger Mitt Romney.”
But they acknowledged that Trump would likely obliterate any candidate from the increasingly small centrist segment of the GOP.
“We all saw what happened to Jeb Bush, who everybody up here loved,” the executive said of Wall Street donors who flocked to the former Florida governor’s 2016 campaign. “He got crushed and crushed quickly, and that would just happen again.”
DeSantis could face another problem even if he does win substantial financial industry backing: Executives say they worry that raising money or donating to his campaign would give Trump the chance to brandish him as a Wall Street lackey.
“We know everyone hates us and that nobody running for president wants to be seen as the ‘Wall Street candidate,’” the first executive said. “So you’ll probably see a lot of people just sitting this one out.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
