ICYMI: Trump called ‘opportunistic grifter’ by Capitol police veteran for attending slain NYPD officer’s wake
In a statement to The Independent on Thursday, retired Capitol Policer officer Aquilino Gonell said of Mr Trump: “As the opportunistic grifter that he is, he claims to support the police, law and order, the rule of law yet, he has not met with any officers from Capitol Police who were injured and assaulted or the ones that lost their lives because of his actions and inaction in his attempt to cling to power and the mob that he incited and wanted to lead.”
Gustaf Kilander has the story:
Oliver O'Connell30 March 2024 20:45
Watch: Obama answers what kept him awake at night during Trump’s administration
Oliver O'Connell30 March 2024 19:45
Analysis: Between Ukraine and Marjorie Taylor Greene, Mike Johnson has a tightrope to walk
Eric Garcia writes:
On Thursday, House Speaker Mike Johnson made two seemingly contradictory moves.
First, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced he had spoken with Johnson and explained that “quick passage of US aid to Ukraine by Congress is vital.”
Later in the day, Johnson announced the managers for the Senate trial of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas after the House voted to impeach him last month. Unsurprisingly, he named House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul and Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Greene as managers. He also threw a bone to the far-right by picking MAGA Republicans like Clay Higgins of Louisiana; Arizona’s Andy Biggs, one of the chief election deniers who voted to boot Kevin McCarthy; and Harriet Hageman, who beat Liz Cheney in they Wyoming Republican primary after Cheney vocally criticised the GOP and Donald Trump.
But more surprisingly, he also named Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the firebrand conspiracy theorist and ardent opponent of Ukraine aid, who last week filed a motion to vacate to initiate a no-confidence vote against Johnson.
Johnson’s decision to name Greene to the committee, especially after his talk with Zelensky, shows how the leader of the US House of Representatives has tried to balance keeping conservatives happy while also fulfilling his basic duties of governing: for every one act of governing, he has to pull one outrageous stunt that keeps the extremists in his conference from throwing him into the volcano the way they did his predecessors.
Continue reading...
Oliver O'Connell30 March 2024 18:45
Luttig hails ‘courage’ of judge who aired judiciary’s concerns over Trump attacks on courts
Judge Michael Luttig, the influential conservative and former federal judge who co-authored a report refuting claims of electoral fraud in 2020, has given a stark warning about former president Donald Trump.
In an extensive thread of posts on X, Judge Luttig reacted to the interview given by senior judge Reggie Walton to CNN’s Kaitlan Collins about how “the rule of law can only function effectively when we have judges who are prepared to carry out their duties without the threat of potential physical harm”.
Judge Luttig began: “The Nation is witnessing the determined delegitimization of both its Federal and State judiciaries and the systematic dismantling of its system of justice and Rule of Law by a single man – the former President of the United States.”
He continued: “In the months ahead, the former president can only be expected to ramp up his unprecedented efforts to delegitimize the courts of the United States, the nation’s state courts, and America’s system of justice, through his vicious, disgraceful, and unforgiveable attacks and threats on the Federal and State Judiciaries and the individual Judges of these courts.
“Never in American history has any person, let alone a President of the United States, leveled such threatening attacks against the federal and state courts and federal and state judicial officers of the kind the former president has leveled continually now for years.
“But suffice it to say, never in history has any person leveled such attacks and been met with such passivity, acquiescence, and submissiveness by the nation.”
Judge Luttig further wrote: “It is a regrettable commentary on our times that a lone federal judge, The Honorable Judge Reggie B. Walton — because no one whose responsibility it is to do so has had the courage and the will — would finally be left no choice but, himself, to express on national television the profound concerns of the entire Federal and State Judiciaries over Donald Trump’s contemptible attacks on the federal and state courts, the judges of these courts and their families, and the other participants in the judicial process.”
He continued: “It is the responsibility of the Supreme Court of the United States in the first instance to protect the federal courts, the federal judges, and all participants in the justice system from the reprehensible spectacle of the former president’s inexcusable, threatening attacks, just as it is the responsibility of the respective State Supreme Courts in the first instance to protect their courts and their state judges from the same.”
In conclusion, he wrote: “Ultimately, however, it is the responsibility of the entire nation to protect its courts and judges, its Constitution, its Rule of Law, and America’s Democracy from vicious attack, threat, undermine, and deliberate delegitimization at the hands of anyone so determined.”
Oliver O'Connell30 March 2024 17:45
Watch: Cheney reiterates Trump has all Jan 6 evidence, explaining how that plays to immunity argument
Oliver O'Connell30 March 2024 16:45
A Republican official pushed Trump’s voter fraud lies while voting illegally NINE times
File this under: Are you kidding me?
Administrative Law Judge Lisa Boggs backed the State Election Board’s findings in a 25-page ruling on Wednesday, saying that Pritchard voted unlawfully nine times while under extended probation for felonies going back almost three decades.
Gustaf Kilander has the story:
Oliver O'Connell30 March 2024 15:45
Liz Cheney: US can’t survive another Trump presidency
Former Republican Rep Liz Cheney, now a fierce critic of Donald Trump, has reiterated her staunch opposition to the former president returning to the White House in damning comments at an event at Drake University.
Ms Cheney was one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Mr Trump, following the January 6 Capitol riot, and one of just two who sat on the House select committee investigating the former president’s role in the events leading up to that day.
Speaking on the impact of Mr Trump on the Republican party, she said “Certainly, what’s happening in the Republican party is dangerous,” Ms Cheney said. “We now have one of our two major political parties that has abandoned the Constitution.”
“We all have a responsibility to encourage our public officials to engage in substantive debate [and] to be respectful,” She Cheney said. “I hope we will walk back from … the edge of the abyss that we’re looking into that has become so divisive and partisan — and so toxic — in so many ways.”
Speaking about November’s general election, she said the former president shouldn’t be so confident that things would go his way as they had in the primaries.
“In a number of these primaries, what we saw was that in some instances, close to 30% of the Republicans said they won’t vote for Donald Trump,” Ms Cheney said. “So although he won, that is not a basis on which someone should go into a general election feeling any comfort about being able to prevail in the general.”
On the importance of Mr Trump being defeated in November, she said: “We know [Trump] tried once not to leave office, and he will have no incentive to guarantee a peaceful transfer of power and to leave office should be selected again.”
“As frustrated as I know people get sometimes with policy disagreements you might have — and I certainly have policy disagreements with the Biden administration — I know the nation can survive bad policy. We can’t survive a president who is willing to torch the Constitution.”
Watch Ms Cheney speak about the former president’s actions on January 6th:
Oliver O'Connell30 March 2024 14:45
Trump and co-defendants appeal Fani Willis ruling
In a filing submitted to the Georgia Court of Appeals on Friday afternoon, attorneys for the former president and his co-defendants claimed Ms Willis should not be allowed to preside over the case and allowing her to do so would result in errors in each trial and public mistrust in the judicial system.
Ariana Baio reports:
Oliver O'Connell30 March 2024 14:15
Biden narrowly leading Trump in new poll — but there’s a catch...
John Bowden digs into the numbers of the latest Quinnipiac University poll which has some sort of good news for the Biden campaign:
Oliver O'Connell30 March 2024 13:45
Biden to visit Baltimore ‘next week’
President Joe Biden will visit Baltimore “next week” with Maryland Governor Wes Moore to tour the site of the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge after a container ship ran into it earlier this week, leaving six dead and shutting down the city’s port.
The president told the White House pool en route from New York to Camp David for the Easter weekend as she switched to a smaller plane for the flight to Hagerstown, Maryland.
Asked about detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has been held in Russia for a year now, Mr Biden said: “I admire the hell out of him.”
Oliver O'Connell30 March 2024 12:45
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