Tag: Trump

Biden admin defends Afghan troop pullout, blames ex-Prez Trump for chaos

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Washington: Joe Biden’s administration has defended its decision to pull American troops out of Afghanistan and blamed former US President Donald Trump for the chaotic withdrawal from the war-torn country.
The White House on Thursday released a 12-page document on the conditions that led to US’ exit from Afghanistan in 2021 and sent related classified documents to various Congressional committees.
The report places much of the blame on the previous Trump administration, saying President Biden was “severely constrained” by former president Trump’s decisions.

The Trump administration had negotiated a withdrawal agreement with the Taliban that Biden pledged to honour. But Thursday’s report criticised the former Republican president for a lack of planning to carry out the deal.
According to the report, when Biden took office on January 20, 2021, “the Taliban were in the strongest military position that they had been in since 2001, controlling or contesting nearly half of the country.”
At the same time, the US had only 2,500 troops on the ground, the lowest since 2001, and President Biden was facing Trump’s near-term deadline to withdraw all US forces from Afghanistan by May 2021, or the Taliban would resume its attacks on US and allied troops, it said.
It said Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin testified on September 28, 2021, “The intelligence was clear that if we did not leave in accordance with that agreement, the Taliban would recommence attacks on our forces.”
John Kirby, White House National Security Coordinator for Strategic Communications, told reporters here that the Biden administration was “proud” of its withdrawal from Afghanistan.

“The president’s very proud of the manner in which the men and women of the military, the Foreign Service, and the intelligence community conducted this withdrawal,” he said.
“I’ve been around operations my entire life, and there’s not a single one that ever goes perfectly according to plan,” he said.
Kirby said Biden’s choice was stark, either to withdraw all US forces or resume fighting with the Taliban.
“He chose the former, but even in doing so, secured extra time to conduct that withdrawal, stretching it out to August. Despite having his options curtailed, President Biden led a deliberate, rigorous and inclusive decision-making process that was responsive to facts on the ground,” he said.
Noting that the administration focused keenly on the need for proper planning, he said Biden directed his top national security leaders to begin planning for a withdrawal even before he had made the final decision to leave Afghanistan.
He ordered troop reduction plans, plans to turn over bases and equipment to the Afghan government as the previous administration had negotiated, plans to draw down the diplomatic presence and plans to evacuate both American citizens and Afghan allies alike, Kirby said.
The White House official said the evacuation planning started in the spring of 2021 and the president ordered additional military forces pre-positioned in the region by mid-summer in case they were ever needed.
Throughout, President Biden insisted that his team plan for worst-case scenarios such as the fall of Kabul, even though the intelligence community’s assessment when he was making the decision in early 2021, was that Taliban advances would accelerate only after the withdrawal of US forces, Kirby said.
The president repeatedly requested assessments of the trajectory of the conflict from his military and his intelligence professionals, he said.
The long-awaited report also cites intelligence failure in not predicting rapid Taliban victory.
Responding to a question on inaccurate intelligence assessment, Kirby said no agency predicted a Taliban takeover in nine days.
“No agency predicted the rapid fleeing of President Ghani who had indicated to us his intent to remain in Afghanistan up until he departed on the 15th of August,” he said.
The internationally backed Afghan government collapsed and then-President Ashraf Ghani fled the country in August 2021 as the Taliban took over the capital, Kabul, amid the withdrawal of US forces.
During the evacuation, a suicide bombing by the Afghanistan branch of ISIS killed at least 175 people, including 13 US service members.
“No agency predicted that the more than 300,000 trained and equipped Afghan National Security and Defense Forces would fail to fight for the country, especially after 20 years of American support,” Kirby said.
The mission that was originally sent into Afghanistan was accomplished a long, long time ago, he said.
“Remember, they were ordered under President Bush to avenge the 9/11 attacks and to go specifically after Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. And decimating and degrading al-Qaida’s capability in Afghanistan was a mission that we accomplished a long, long time ago,” he said.
“Over time, the president has talked about this, the mission in Afghanistan morphed into something it wasn’t intended to originally be,” Kirby said.
The Biden administration has faced mounting criticism, especially from Republicans, over its withdrawal from Afghanistan.
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#Biden #admin #defends #Afghan #troop #pullout #blames #exPrez #Trump #chaos
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

April 7, 2023
Can Trump run for president from prison? Yes, and it’s been done before.

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Those requirements are minimal: A person must be at least 35 years old, must be a natural-born citizen and must have lived in the U.S. for at least 14 years.
The Supreme Court has never weighed in directly on those requirements, Mazo said, but in a 1995 case, the justices rejected an attempt by Arkansas to impose term limits on its U.S. senators and House members. That logic seems to extend to any attempt by a state to declare a presidential candidate ineligible for reasons not spelled out in the Constitution, the professor added.
States remain free to exclude felons from the ballot for state and local positions, just not federal ones, Mazo said. “In the states, we have different rules,” he said.
What would happen if a person in prison actually won the presidency is a thornier question. Would the new president have to govern from a jail cell?
Probably not. Many legal experts argue that a state-court sentence would have to be held in abeyance. Whether a federal sentence would also have to be postponed is less clear, but the question might not matter if the new president used his pardon power to set himself free — or preemptively pardon himself from any pending federal charges. (The pardon power covers federal crimes, but not state crimes like the New York charges for which Trump was indicted this week.)
Stebenne noted that Trump has extra motivation to win and dodge whatever charges federal prosecutors may be considering against him. “It provides a strange reason to run, but a powerful incentive,” the professor said. “If Trump attempted to do that, it would probably create some sort of constitutional crisis.”
An exotic cast of characters
After Debs, the history of prisoners seeking the presidency is peppered with eccentric personalities.
Conspiracy theorist Lyndon LaRouche ran for the White House eight times, with one of those bids — in 1992 — coming as he served a 15-year sentence for mail fraud, conspiracy and tax evasion. He was released in 1994 and died in 2019.

And there’s already one prominent declared candidate running from prison in the 2024 contest: Joseph Maldonado-Passage, better known as Joe Exotic. The former zookeeper and star of the Netflix “Tiger King” series is running as a Libertarian after filing candidacy papers in February with the Federal Election Commission.
Maldonado-Passage is mounting his presidential bid from a medical center for federal inmates in Fort Worth, Texas, where he’s serving a 21-year sentence for a slew of animal trafficking and abuse offenses as well as attempting to arrange the murder-for-hire of a rival private zoo owner, Carole Baskin.

Joseph Maldonado-Passage, also known as Joe Exotic, is mounting his presidential bid from a medical center for federal inmates in Fort Worth, Texas.
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Sue Ogrocki/AP Photo
Despite the fact that it came over a century ago, Debs’ candidacy may bear the closest resemblance to the one Trump could wind up pursuing if he’s jailed before November 2024.
One notable parallel is that Debs was imprisoned under one of the same statutes that Trump is now being investigated for potentially violating: the Espionage Act. Debs was accused of violating provisions of the law that prohibited encouraging insubordination in the armed forces or interference with the enlistment of troops.
More than a century later, federal prosecutors have indicated in court filings that they’re investigating the presence of classified documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida as a potential violation of another Espionage Act provision barring “willful retention” of national defense information after a request to return it. No charges have been filed, and Trump has denied wrongdoing.
Debs’ key conviction and his 10-year sentence were upheld by the Supreme Court in an opinion written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. Holmes eventually became one of the court’s biggest champions of free expression, but the Debs opinion is now seen as a low point in the protection of the First Amendment during wartime.
“He was in prison on free-speech principles,” Dreier said, noting that when prosecutors had trouble proving exactly what Debs said, he essentially admitted to it.
At his trial, Debs declared to the jury: “I have been accused of obstructing the war. I admit it. Gentlemen, I abhor war. I would oppose the war if I stood alone.”
Trump’s motivations in the New York hush money scheme that prompted his indictment this week seem considerably less pure, Dreier noted. “There are people that admire Trump,” he said, “but nobody thinks he’s going to prison on principle.”
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#Trump #run #president #prison
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 7, 2023
The Trump Cable News Coverage Was Good, Actually

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But what the critics overlooked was that cable news coverage isn’t supposed to be viewed nonstop like a news version of Empire — the way most of them were watching — but sporadically. That’s especially true of dominant stories like the arraignment of a former president who happens to be a candidate for reelection. That the story was news, nobody will deny. Every newspaper in the country put the Trump arraignment on Page One above the fold and published supplementary pieces galore about the legal and political ramifications of the criminal charge, yet you don’t hear anybody talking about print overkill.
Cable news was designed from its beginning in 1980, when Ted Turner started CNN, to deliver saturation coverage of major breaking news events like elections, catastrophic weather, wars, riots, school shootings, major criminal trials, impeachments, and now, arraignments like Trump’s, as they happen. When a big story breaks, the cable networks expect — rightly — that casual viewers beyond the core audience will tune in solely to learn the latest. These viewers come in waves, wanting to partake, however distantly, in the story that’s dominating the news. They tune in until their curiosity is sated and then tune out as other viewers arrive.
Because the networks understand that their audience is cycling through, they do their best to find new ways to keep telling it and to have something to share, even if it’s a kind of rerun when new viewers join. This system isn’t perfect. Often, when there’s no new breaking news to report, the reporters and commentators “dribble,” that is, keeping the news ball moving but not taking any shots because there are no shots to take. But even dribbling can be defended if it serves incoming viewers.
Cable news producers never expected anybody to watch 12 hours straight, and practically nobody does, just like nobody read every story the New York Times published about the Trump arraignment. The last time the Pew Research Center analyzed the cable news audience, it found the average viewer tunes in for only 25 minutes a day. Even the heaviest cable news viewers last for an average of only 72 minutes on the medium.
Like most drug users, cable news viewers have learned to titrate their dose before suffering the insulin shock of boredom that overwhelmed so many members of the commentariat this week. However many viewers suffered through all the coverage, there can’t be many aside from the journalists who had to tune in for their jobs or their own perverse addiction, so keep your pity in reserve. The most popular shows on cable news rarely get more than 3.3 million viewers a night.
If you were crazy enough to watch the coverage into the night, at which point reporters had actually read the formal charges against Trump, you would have learned something the daylight hours didn’t report: That district attorney Alvin Bragg appears to have a weak case. So there’s that.
In a perfect world, nobody would ever waste time watching breaking news on TV, waiting anxiously for something important to happen. Every moment would top the last as new revelations poured in. But news has its limits, as the BBC admitted on the evening of April 18, 1930, after the news well went dry one day. The announcer didn’t dribble, he came clean. “There is no news,” he said, and cut away to piano music for 15 minutes until the next scheduled program started.
******

The news is often like a meringue. It needs to be whipped into something worth consuming. Send news recipes to [email protected]. No new email alert subscriptions are being honored at this time. My Twitter feed likes pie. My Mastodon account has cut the cord. My Post account wants to be booked on Jake Tapper’s show. My RSS feed says, “Kill your TV.”

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#Trump #Cable #News #Coverage #Good
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 7, 2023
House GOP fires off first subpoena in probe of Trump indictment

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It’s unusual for Congress to subpoena a line prosecutor — and Jordan, in his Thursday letter, alleges that Bragg’s office directed Pomerantz not to cooperate with oversight. Pomerantz didn’t immediately respond to questions about that claim.
Bragg’s office issued a fiery rebuke of the subpoena, painting it as House Republicans’ latest attempt to meddle by “intruding on the sovereignty of the state of New York by interfering in an ongoing criminal matter in state court.”
“The House GOP continues to attempt to undermine an active investigation and ongoing New York criminal case with an unprecedented campaign of harassment and intimidation. Repeated efforts to weaken state and local law enforcement actions are an abuse of power and will not deter us from our duty to uphold the law,” Bragg’s office added.
But Pomerantz has also written a book where he included details of the New York investigation into Trump and the Trump organization that could make the subpoena harder to resist.
The Jan. 6 select committee used a similar argument against former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows’ resistance to a summons, arguing he waived any potential privileges by releasing a book that describes some of his interactions with the former president. Meadows was later held in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify, though the Justice Department declined to prosecute him.
However, another Jan. 6 committee witness who wrote a book before refusing to appear — Peter Navarro — is currently being prosecuted for contempt of Congress.
Jordan told Pomerantz that “you have no basis to decline to testify about matters before the Committee that you have already discussed in your book and/or on a prime-time television program with an audience in the millions, including on the basis of any purported duty of confidentiality or privilege interest.”
The subpoena comes just days after Trump appeared in court in New York and pled not guilty to 34 felony counts of “falsifying business records.” Prosecutors allege that Trump, the first former president ever indicted, tried first to bury and then cover up damaging allegations about an extramarital affair by falsifying company records.

It also comes as Republicans weigh their next steps in their probe of Bragg’s office.
They’ve returned multiple rounds of volleys seeking testimony and official documents from Leslie Dubeck, Bragg’s general counsel. Dubeck replied to Jordan, Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) and Administration Chair Bryan Steil (R-Wis.) last week requesting a list of questions they would want to ask Bragg as well as what documents they think they could receive that wouldn’t disclose private details of an investigation.
Dubeck, while urging Republicans to negotiate before a potential subpoena of Bragg, also offered a blistering critique of the investigation in her letter calling their accusations of political persecution as “baseless and inflammatory.”
“We urge you to refrain from these inflammatory accusations, withdraw your demand for information, and let the criminal justice process proceed without unlawful political interference,” she added.
Bragg’s office has contended that congressional Republicans have no “legitimate legislative purpose” behind the inquiry into the DA’s Trump probe. But Jordan has contended the inquiry is linked to the national implications of prosecuting a former president — from conflicts between state and federal law to the Secret Service’s role in protecting an ex-president who is also a criminal defendant.
Republicans haven’t yet responded to Dubeck’s latest letter, but Jordan defended the investigation in his letter to Pomerantz — reiterating that Republicans could use findings from it to draft bills on the use of federal forfeiture funds.
That would include, Jordan said, a potential prohibition of those funds’ use to investigate a current or former president, or a presidential candidate. (The Manhattan DA’s office disclosed that it has used federal forfeiture funds on expenses related to investigations of Trump or the Trump organization.)
Jordan has stressed in a series of TV interviews this week that a subpoena of Bragg remains on the table. He’s also left the door open to the DA voluntarily appearing or even Republicans focusing first on other individuals in Bragg’s orbit.
Pomerantz and Carey Dunne are of particular interest to House Republicans, since both resigned from Bragg’s office earlier this year — reportedly because of Bragg’s doubts at the time about moving forward with the Trump case. Thursday’s subpoena comes after Jordan fired off letters to both Pomerantz and Dunne last month, but has not issued a similar subpoena to Dunne.
Kyle Cheney contributed to this report.
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#House #GOP #fires #subpoena #probe #Trump #indictment
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 6, 2023
Trump makes play for DeSantis donors

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The memo — which was equal parts a jab at DeSantis and an actual appeal for support — displays how the Trump campaign is seeking to capitalize on his current strength in polling ahead of the 2024 presidential primary. The former president has seen his rise in support among Republicans in recent weeks amid news of his indictment over allegations of involvement in a scheme to pay hush money to a porn actress during the 2016 presidential campaign.
The email links to a donation page and to a three-page memo written by Trump campaign pollster John McLaughlin. McLaughlin summarizes recent surveys showing the former president with double-digit leads over DeSantis nationally and in New Hampshire, a key early nominating state.
The indictment has proven to be a windfall for the Trump campaign, which through Wednesday has raised over $12 million since it emerged last week that the former president was facing charges, according to a person familiar with the totals. The person said that one-third of those who have given are first-time donors to Trump.
But in its courtship of DeSantis contributors, it is clear, too, that the Trump campaign sees the risk that DeSantis poses to Trump’s path to the nomination, particularly in terms of his fundraising strength. The former governor has $90 million in leftover funds in his political committee, and he has in the past received the backing of GOP megadonors such as investor Ken Griffin, options trader Jeff Yass and private equity investor John Childs. In February, DeSantis held a donor retreat that drew a number of major givers, some of whom have previously backed Trump.
And earlier this week, a super PAC that has been set up to support a potential DeSantis candidacy announced that it had raised $30 million.
Trump himself is not exactly hurting for money. Though he has seen some of his past major donors express coolness toward his comeback bid, the former president still boasts a super PAC of his own that, as of the end of last year, had $54 million on hand. The group, MAGA Inc., has begun using the war chest to attack DeSantis.
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#Trump #play #DeSantis #donors
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 6, 2023
Opinion | The Gaping Hole in the Middle of the Trump Indictment

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For example, Bragg states that Trump “took steps that mischaracterized, for tax purposes, the true nature of the payments made in furtherance of the scheme.” But what tax crime exactly? Bragg doesn’t even specify whether it was a federal or state crime, or how he thought Trump intended to violate criminal tax laws.
To be sure, you can look at details within the statement of facts and try to guess at what those tax crimes might be. In one paragraph, Bragg explains how Trump’s payment to then-lawyer Michael Cohen to reimburse him for paying off Stormy Daniels was “doubled” to $360,000 so Cohen “could characterize the payment as income on his tax returns” so that Cohen would be “left with $180,000 after paying approximately 50 percent in income taxes.”
On its face, it sounds like Bragg believes that Trump intended to commit another crime by causing Cohen to falsely report on his tax return that he had too much income, thereby paying too much in taxes. A jury might have trouble believing that Trump intended to commit a crime by paying more money than necessary to the government in taxes.
But there’s another plausible reading of the statement of facts — that Trump “disguised” the reimbursement to Cohen as “a payment for legal services” so he could deduct it as a business expense. Either of these potential theories could be a criminal violation of either state or federal tax laws. But nothing in the statement of facts or the indictment makes clear what Bragg’s legal theory is or what state or federal tax law he alleges that Trump intended to violate.
Bragg also alleges that Trump “violated election laws” and repeatedly refers to the fact that Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to violating federal election laws. But again, neither the indictment nor the statement of facts cites any campaign finance or election laws, and neither document explains how Trump allegedly intended to violate election laws.
During a press conference after the arraignment, Bragg stated that Trump’s “scheme violated New York election law, which makes it a crime to conspire to promote the candidacy by unlawful means,” a reference to New York Election Law 17-152, a misdemeanor with a two-year statute of limitations. Bragg also noted that the payments to Daniels exceeded federal contribution limits.
It remains unclear whether Bragg relies on federal or state election laws, and both pose legal issues for the prosecution. If he relies on state election law, there is an argument that the New York state law is preempted by federal laws. After all, Trump was running for federal office. Bragg would be on stronger ground if he relied on federal election law, but it is not yet settled in New York courts that federal crimes can be used to bump up these crimes to felonies.
I’m not alone in wondering what the exact “other crimes” are. Since the indictment was released to the public, I’ve spent hours discussing the indictment with other lawyers, including multiple former Manhattan assistant district attorneys. None of us could determine with certainty what crimes Bragg is using to bump up the misdemeanor counts to felonies.

That is a serious problem. Like every other defendant, Trump has a right to be informed of the nature of the charges against him. His legal team can’t prepare a defense if they don’t know what Bragg’s legal theory is.
I expect Trump’s team soon will file a motion for a bill of particulars, the formal method by which defendants can demand prosecutors provide more specifics about the charges. Most of these motions are a waste of time, but in this case, the motion should be granted.
For now, Bragg seems to be leaving his options open, giving himself an opportunity to adjust his case in the upcoming weeks. That’s not how our system is supposed to work. While vagueness might give Bragg an advantage at this stage, prosecutors are supposed to promote justice, not try to gain an edge unfairly.
To be fair to Bragg, his office usually does not spell out what the “other crimes” are in an indictment. But as former Manhattan assistant district attorneys have pointed out to me, usually that is because the other crimes are charged within the same indictment, leaving little doubt regarding what they are. Given that no other crime is charged here besides Falsifying Business Records, it’s not clear what those “other crimes” are in Trump’s case.
That is not just a problem for Trump. That’s a problem for all of us. Bragg should know that the entire country is watching the proceedings brought by his office, and every American deserves to know exactly what the former President of the United States is accused of doing.
The indictment of a former president is a statement that no one is above the law. But that principle requires that every defendant is treated fairly. Trump — and the American people — deserve fair notice of the crimes that form the basis of the felony charges in the indictment.
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#Opinion #Gaping #Hole #Middle #Trump #Indictment
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 6, 2023
What happens next in People v. Donald Trump

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About one week from Tuesday
Prosecutors are expected to turn over to Trump’s defense team the first tranche of discovery materials, consisting of grand jury minutes and exhibits, as well as notes of witness statements for those who testified before the grand jury.
Around June 10
Prosecutors are expected to give the defense the second tranche of discovery materials, including materials they received in response to subpoenas, other witness materials and some police documents.
Date unknown
Prosecutors will hand over a third tranche of discovery materials, including certain internal emails from the district attorney’s office that are considered discoverable under the law. “Obviously, defense is entitled to see every single email discovery in this case, but those email messages tend not to be the most significant materials,” one of the assistant district attorneys told the judge on Tuesday.
Aug. 8
All motions must be filed with the court. Trump’s defense attorneys could file a motion to dismiss the indictment, a motion to argue that the statute of limitations has expired, or motion to argue that the charges should be downgraded to misdemeanors.
Sept. 19
Prosecutors must file their responses to Trump’s motions.
Dec. 4
The next court date in the case. The judge will issue his decisions on the motions. Blanche, Trump’s attorney, asked the judge to excuse Trump from appearing in person at this hearing, citing the cost and burden of the security measures required by his visit to the courthouse, but the judge denied that request. The judge added, however, that “if a reason were to come up that your client was unable to appear on that date — something unanticipated — you can certainly run that by me.”
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#People #Donald #Trump
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 6, 2023
Bragg’s case against Trump hits a wall of skepticism — even from Trump’s critics

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“I believe President Trump’s character and conduct make him unfit for office. Even so, I believe the New York prosecutor has stretched to reach felony criminal charges in order to fit a political agenda,” said Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who twice voted to convict Trump in impeachment trials that would have rendered him ineligible to run for president. “The prosecutor’s overreach sets a dangerous precedent for criminalizing political opponents and damages the public’s faith in our justice system.”
“You’ve got to work hard to make President Trump a martyr,” added Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), another GOP lawmaker who has been critical of Trump. “Congratulations to Manhattan DA, Alvin Bragg, who has managed to do just that.”

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg arrives at his offices as an increased media and security presence awaits the possible indictment of former President Donald Trump outside the Manhattan Criminal Court in New York City on March 23, 2023.
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Victor J. Blue for POLITICO
Some wondered why Bragg revived a case he had appeared to leave for dead just months ago. Others questioned the specifics — like how Bragg was able to elevate the “falsification of business records” charges against Trump into felonies, a move that requires evidence that Trump attempted to conceal a second crime. Still others focused on the delay in bringing charges — six years after the core underlying conduct — and anticipated that Trump will seek to toss the case for exceeding the statute of limitations, despite the assessment of some legal experts that the case is not time-barred.
Bragg left those questions largely unanswered in Tuesday’s filings and public comments. When asked why he changed course and charged Trump after having reportedly expressed reservations about aspects of the investigation, Bragg declined in a press conference to offer specifics, saying only that his prosecutors had “more evidence made available to the office and the opportunity to meet with additional witnesses.”
Legal experts who had awaited Bragg’s charging documents to resolve some of the lingering mysteries about the case remained confounded by some aspects of the prosecution.
“It is said that if you go after the king, you should not miss,” wrote Richard Hasen, a campaign finance law expert at UCLA. “In this vein, it is very easy to see this case tossed for legal insufficiency or tied up in the courts well past the 2024 election before it might ever go to trial. It will be a circus that will embolden Trump, especially if he walks.”
Even Ian Millhiser, the liberal legal commentator for Vox, called the legal theory on which Bragg’s case is built “dubious.”
The dynamic underscored the extraordinary risk Bragg took in deciding to mount the first-ever criminal prosecution of a former president — particularly one who is not shy about stoking outrage at the justice system. Trump did just that in a speech at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday night, attacking not only Bragg but also the judge who will preside over the case, Juan Merchan, and the judge’s wife.

Two former White House officials defended the case Bragg laid out, calling it legally sound and “an important case for democracy” even as they acknowledged the mixed reviews from legal experts.
“There are a number of important critiques of the case in the furor and they are worthy of consideration,” former Obama White House ethics adviser Norm Eisen and former Nixon-era White House legal counsel John Dean wrote in a CNN op-ed Wednesday morning. “But ultimately, they are all wrong.”
Bragg, a Democrat who colleagues say isn’t particularly politically savvy, found himself without a large number of prominent Democratic allies Tuesday. New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and Rep. Jamaal Bowman have been vocal supporters, with both elected officials attending a rally in support of the indictment Tuesday. Bowman has also taken to cable TV to advocate for Bragg, saying he has done “an exceptional job.”
And at times Bragg has marshaled the support of surrogates, though mainly regarding non-legal aspects of the case. After Trump called the district attorney an “animal” last month, Bragg allies such as Rev. Al Sharpton and Rep. Adriano Espaillat came to his defense to ask people to “stand with us now to stare down this unprecedented attack on the foundation of our democracy,” with Espaillat later holding a rally for him.
But Bragg hasn’t had a backer with a megaphone the size of Trump’s, and the district attorney is relatively limited in the public remarks he can make about an ongoing case — an uneven playing field that Trump has used to his advantage.
Others in Bragg’s position have said leaving the politics to election season is the best course of action for an elected district attorney. John Flynn, the district attorney of Erie County, New York, and the president of the National District Attorneys Association, said in a radio interview last month that “you have to separate it.”
“Once the election is over and you take over and start the job you have to remove yourself from politics. Once you do that, you can ward off the criticism,” he told Buffalo station WBEN.
Trump sought to highlight the fissures between his political adversaries and Bragg during his remarks at Mar-a-Lago late Tuesday, but he also appeared to damage his own cause with a fusillade aimed at Merchan — just hours after the judge warned Trump’s lawyers that their client should not made any statements that “incite violate or create civil unrest.”
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#Braggs #case #Trump #hits #wall #skepticism #Trumps #critics
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 5, 2023
Defiant Donald Trump pleads not guilty to all 34 criminal charges against him

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New York: Donald Trump, the first former US President to be criminally charged, has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records at his arraignment in a Manhattan court on charges relating to hush money payments made to a porn star before the 2016 presidential election.
The 76-year-old former president was arrested when he arrived to surrender at the Manhattan Criminal Court on Tuesday.
Trump, who became the first former US president to be indicted, arrested and arraigned on criminal charges, pleaded not guilty to 34 criminal charges of falsifying business records in person before State Supreme Court Justice Juan M Merchan.

Wearing a dark blue suit and red tie, a stone-faced Trump walked into the tightly-guarded courtroom with his steps heavy and slow and said “not guilty” in a firm voice while facing the judge.
He sat silently throughout almost the entire proceedings and only spoke when he was required to, either by pleading not guilty or by answering to the judge when addressed directly.
Speaking outside court after the arraignment, Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche said that his client is “frustrated” and “upset.” He accused the prosecutor of turning a “completely political issue” into a “political prosecution.” On the charges against Trump, Blanche said: “we’re going to fight it, fight it hard.” The historic indictment against Trump, was unsealed on Tuesday, providing the public and Trump’s legal team with details about the charges against him for the first time.
It includes charges of falsifying business records in connection with a hush payment that Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen made to porn star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 presidential election.
Prosecutors alleged Trump was part of an unlawful plan to suppress negative information, including an illegal payment of USD 130,000 that was ordered by the defendant to suppress the negative information that would hurt his presidential campaign.

The reason he committed the crime of falsifying business records was in part to “promote his candidacy,” the indictment alleges.
Trump hid reimbursement payments to Cohen by marking monthly checks for “legal services,” according to the statement of facts, in a deal the two worked out in the Oval Office.
The payments stopped after December 2017, according to the document.
Trump has denied all wrongdoings in connection with the payments made to 44-year-old Daniels.
Trump left the Manhattan courtroom after his arraignment on Tuesday without making any statement.
The next in-person hearing date for Trump’s case is set for December 4 in New York, roughly two months before the official start of the 2024 Republican presidential primary calendar.
Trump flew back back to his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida, where he addressed a crowd in a roughly 25-minute speech.
He repeated many of his campaign talking points and argued that he has been the victim of a Democratic conspiracy to tank his re-election bid.
Trump said he “never thought anything like this could happen in America” on Tuesday night after he was arraigned in a New York courtroom.
“It’s an insult to our country,” he said.
“The only crime that I have committed is to fearlessly defend our nation from those who seek to destroy it,” Trump said.
He criticised the indictment levelled against him, saying he is “going through a fake investigation” that “turned out to be a sham.” “Let me be as clear as possible: I am Innocent. The only offense I have committed is to defend America from those who seek to destroy it. What we’ve witnessed is election interference in the highest order,” he said.
“Let me assure you – I have never been more determined than I am right now. They will not beat me. They will not break me. They will not stop me from fighting to save this country. The more they try to frame me, slander me, and destroy me, the stronger my resolve to complete our mission,” Trump said.
He did not even spare the judge Juan Merchan who is overseeing his case.
The former president alleged that he is a “Trump hating judge” with the “Trump hating wife” and family “whose daughter works for Kamala house and now receives money from the Biden Harris campaign”.
Trump’s speech came after the judge did not place a gag order on him but warned him that the issue would be revisited if the ex-president continued with his heated rhetoric about the case.
A gag order would have prohibited Trump, his attorneys, other parties and witnesses from speaking about the case publicly.
The former president earlier arrived at the specially secured Manhattan courthouse in an eight-car motorcade. He was arrested as he arrived at the court.
Shortly after Trump was put under arrest, his campaign released a mugshot picture of him on a T-shirt saying not guilty.
President Joe Biden did not respond to questions from reporters when asked about Trump’s arraignment.
Trump is currently the front-runner among all declared and potential contenders for the 2024 Republican White House nomination. But there is nothing in US law that prevents a candidate who is found guilty of a crime from campaigning for and serving as president — even from prison.
Trump was twice impeached by the House of Representatives. He was acquitted by the Senate both times.
Hours before his arraignment, Trump sent an email to his supporters, which he claimed was the last one before his arrest, saying that the United States is becoming a “Marxist Third World” country and took to social media to question the fairness of the judiciary.
“My last email before my arrest,” Trump said in the subject line of the email.
The indictment was quickly criticised by Trump’s Republican allies.
“Trump is a textbook on positive thinking, he can convert any grave situation against him, to his best possible advantage. He will convert this week’s New York case, as a stepping stone to win back the White House in 2024,” Al Mason, a die-hard supporter of the former president, said in a statement.
Since news of his indictment first broke, the Trump campaign has raised millions and his poll numbers are skyrocketing, he said.
“God is with President Trump. He is a very good man. He will emerge even stronger after his arraignment today. In fact, this arrest of Trump is a blessing in disguise for Trump,” Mason said.
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

April 5, 2023
Thomas Massie endorsed Ron DeSantis for president in 2024 — another House Republican backing someone other than Donald Trump.

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Thomas Massie joins Chip Roy in supporting the Florida governor, who has yet to officially declare his candidacy.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 5, 2023