New York Attorney General Civil Lawsuit
New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a civil lawsuit filed in September that her office uncovered more than 200 examples of misleading asset valuations by Trump and the Trump Organization between 2011 and 2021.
James, a Democrat, accused Trump of inflating his net worth by billions of dollars to obtain lower interest rates on loans and get better insurance coverage.
James is seeking to permanently bar Trump and his children Donald Jr., Eric and Ivanka Trump from running companies in New York state, and to prevent them and his company from buying new properties and taking out new loans in the state for five years.
James also wants the defendants to hand over about $250 million that she says was obtained through fraud.
Trump has called the attorney general’s lawsuit a witch hunt. A lawyer for Trump has called James’ claims meritless.
A Reckoning Over Racial Inequality
Racial tensions were a constant undercurrent during Trumps presidency, often intensified by the public statements he made in response to high-profile incidents.
The death of George Floyd, in particular, brought race to the surface in a way that few other recent events have. The videotaped killing of the unarmed, 46-year-old Black man by a White police officer in Minneapolis was among several police killings that sparked national and international protests in 2020 and led to an outpouring of public support for the Black Lives Matter movement, including from corporations, universities and other institutions. In a survey shortly after Floyds death in May, two-thirds of U.S. adults including majorities across all major racial and ethnic groups voiced support for the movement, and use of the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag surged to a .
Attitudes began to change as the protests wore on and sometimes turned violent, drawing sharp condemnation from Trump. By September, support for the Black Lives Matter movement had slipped to 55% largely due to decreases among White adults and many Americans questioned whether the nations renewed focus on race would lead to changes to address racial inequality or improve the lives of Black people.
Lawsuit Filed By New York Attorney General
In a separate case, New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a civil lawsuit last month accusing Mr Trump and the Trump Organization of misleading banks and other investors over the course of years concerning the value of Mr Trumps assets.
The lawsuit is seeking $250m and a lifetime ban on Mr Trump operating businesses in the state of New York. A court hearing has been set for 31 October.
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Will The Guilty Verdict For The Trump Organization Turn The Tide On Holding The Former President Accountable
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg exits the courtroom after the jury found the Trump Organization guilty on all counts in a criminal tax fraud case.
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After two impeachments, a private charity and university shuttered thanks to fraud charges and other financial irregularities, a special prosecutors investigation , more than 20 sexual assault allegations, and a private-sector career riddled with allegations of fraud and self-dealing, Donald Trump now boasts his first adverse legal verdict. A state jury in Manhattan has found the Trump Organization guilty on 17 charges, including falsifying business information, a scheme to defraud, tax fraud, and conspiracy.
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Relationship With The Press
Trump sought media attention throughout his career, sustaining a “lovehate” relationship with the press. In the 2016 campaign, Trump benefited from a record amount of free media coverage, elevating his standing in the Republican primaries.The New York Times writer Amy Chozick wrote in 2018 that Trump’s media dominance enthralled the public and created “must-see TV.”
As a candidate and as president, Trump frequently accused the press of bias, calling it the “fake news media” and “the enemy of the people“. In 2018, journalist Lesley Stahl recounted Trump’s saying he intentionally demeaned and discredited the media “so when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you”.
As president, Trump privately and publicly mused about revoking the press credentials of journalists he viewed as critical. His administration moved to revoke the press passes of two White House reporters, which were restored by the courts. In 2019, a member of the foreign press reported many of the same concerns as those of media in the U.S., expressing concern that a normalization process by reporters and media results in an inaccurate characterization of Trump. The Trump White House held about a hundred formal press briefings in 2017, declining by half during 2018 and to two in 2019.
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Approval Ratings And Scholar Surveys
Trump was the only president to never reach a 50% approval rating in the Gallup poll dating to 1938. The approval ratings showed a record partisan gap: 88 percent among Republicans, 7 percent among Democrats. Until September 2020, the ratings were unusually stable, reaching a high of 49 percent and a low of 35 percent. Trump finished his term with a record-low approval rating of between 29 percent and 34 percent and a record-low average of 41 percent throughout his presidency.
In Gallup’s annual poll asking Americans to name the man they admire the most, Trump placed second to Obama in 2017 and 2018, tied with Obama for most admired man in 2019, and was named most admired in 2020. Since Gallup started conducting the poll in 1948, Trump is the first elected president not to be named most admired in his first year in office.
New York Criminal Probe
After Tuesday’s verdict in the tax fraud case, the New York state judge set sentencing for Jan. 13. The Trump Organization – which operates hotels, golf courses and other global real estate – faces up to $1.6 million in fines.
The company had pleaded not guilty. Trump was not charged.
While the fine is not expected to be material for a company of the Trump Organization’s size, the conviction by a jury could complicate its ability to do business by spooking lenders and partners.
Allen Weisselberg, the company’s former chief financial officer, had pleaded guilty and was required to testify against the Trump Organization as part of a plea agreement. A Trump Organization lawyer, Alan Futerfas, vowed to appeal the verdict.
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What Does The 2022 Gop Electorate Look Like
Chris Wilson, a top Republican pollster, thought Republican presidential primary voters were still divided into four broad lanes as they were in 2016: the establishment, the Tea Party, libertarians, and evangelicals. In his view, Trumps winning coalition in 2016 was an odd mishmash of the four categories, and the former president benefited then because he has never really faced a two-person race. In the 2016 primary, there were 17 candidates, with eventual runner-up Ted Cruz never getting a one-on-one matchup with Trump as a result of what Wilson termed John Kasichs death mission to stay in until the absolute end.
Wilson argued, I do think one development thats occurred since the last competitive primary is that you have candidates who are able to unite those different lanes under things like populism, competence, and maybe just ability to win.
In his view, I think one of the lessons learned out of 2022 is that candidate quality matters a lot. And the one thing that you have to give credit to Republican primary voters for is that they may fall in love, but the one thing they love more than anything else is winning. And that is where I think youre gonna see competence and electability play a bigger role in 2024 than it ever has before.
An Attack On The Capitol
In the weeks following the 2020 election, Trump refused to concede to Biden, declaring that he had won the election even though he and his legal team could not offer any evidence to back up his claims. On January 6, 2021, while Congress was in a joint session to count the electoral votes, a mob of violent protesters stormed the U.S. Capitol to prevent Congress from declaring victory for Biden. The mob consisted of people who believed Trumps false claims that he had won the election. Five people, including a U.S. Capitol police officer, died during the riots.
Many people believed that Trump encouraged his followers to overrun the Capitol because of remarks he had made on social media and at rallies, including one just before the attack happened. Because of that, the U.S. government moved to impeach Trump for the second time during his presidency to charge him with incitement of insurrection. He was officially impeached by the House of Representatives on January 13, 2021, this time with 10 Republicans joining Democrats to charge him. He is the only U.S. president ever to be impeached twice.
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Should The Media Stop Covering Donald Trump
Donald Trump continues to dominate the news cycle whether he is in office or not. But if he continues to make headlines with the same outlandish statements, when does it stop being news?
On the heels of Trumps announcement that he will run for president again in 2024, David Greenberg, a professor of history and journalism and media studies and an expert on American political and cultural history, including the presidency, weighs in on the news coverage and whether giving Trump less airtime would make a difference.
Donald Trump makes eyebrow-raising statements all the time so, is it even news anymore? If not, should the media stop covering him with such frequency?
Trumps shocking style has lost some of its power to shock. It propelled him to the presidency, and as long as he was president, what he said was inherently newsworthy. But he is going to have a harder time now getting the kind of coverage he used to get.
Do you think there needs to be a different approach to covering Donald Trump and politics in general as we head into the next presidential election cycle?
Objectivity is not Donald Trumps friend.
Trump still receives the coverage of a sitting president but what do you think of the coverage of the actual sitting president? Do you think Joe Biden is being treated fairly in the news?
Probe Of Trump Bid To Overturn 2020 Election
The special counsel overseeing two federal investigations has issued grand jury subpoenas to local election officials in Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin as part of an inquiry into efforts to overturn Trump’s loss in the 2020 U.S. election.
The subpoenas, made public on Tuesday, also seek communications involving a list of Trump’s attorneys during the 2020 campaign including Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Sidney Powell, Justin Clark, Jenna Ellis and Cleta Mitchell.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland on Nov. 18 appointed Jack Smith special counsel for two Justice Department probes. The second investigation focuses on Trump’s handling of classified government documents after leaving office.
The investigation into a failed attempt by Trump allies to overturn the 2020 results focuses on batches of phony slates of electors submitted to the U.S. National Archives for the state-by-state system that determines presidential election winners and on an effort to block Congress from certifying Biden’s win.
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Is Trump The Frontrunner For The 2024 Republican Nomination
Yes for now, at least. Trump still polls ahead of other potential GOP candidates nationally, although some state-level polls show DeSantis leading Trump in a hypothetical head-to-head match-up following the midterm elections. Trump’s frontrunner status has been bolstered by the campaign infrastructure he’s built up over the years. This includes both extensive fundraising apparatus, as well as an active email list that pumps out the former president’s preferred narrative to his supporters.
Crucially, as the first and to date, only Republican to officially announce their candidacy, Trump has already begun locking in frontrunner status by securing on-the-record endorsements before anyone else Elise Stefanik, the No. 3 House Republican, has already backed Trump as the “very clear” leader of the party, while MAGA loyalist Rep. Jim Banks is reportedly preparing to do so as well. For his part, Trump has publically backed Rep. Kevin McCarthy to become the Republican House speaker in the incoming Congress, in what is widely seen as a bid to shore up support for the 2024 race.
While it remains to be seen whether Trump’s mere presence is enough to scare off any potential GOP challengers, his presence as the sole declared candidate so far automatically vaults him into frontrunner status.
Second Half Of The Twentieth Century
The second half of the 20th century saw the election or succession of Republican presidents , , , and . Eisenhower had defeated conservative leader Senator Robert A. Taft for the 1952 nomination, but conservatives dominated the domestic policies of the Eisenhower administration. Voters liked Eisenhower much more than they liked the GOP and he proved unable to shift the party to a more moderate position. Since 1976, liberalism has virtually faded out of the Republican Party, apart from a few northeastern holdouts. Historians cite the and its respective as a significant shift, which saw the conservative wing, helmed by Senator of , battle the liberal New York Governor and his eponymous faction for the party presidential nomination. With Goldwater poised to win, Rockefeller, urged to mobilize his liberal faction, relented, “Youre looking at it, buddy. Im all thats left.” Though Goldwater lost in a landslide, Reagan would make himself known as a prominent supporter of his throughout the campaign, delivering the “” speech for him. He’d go on to become two years later, and in , win the presidency.
After he left office in 1989, Reagan became an iconic conservative Republican. Republican presidential candidates would frequently claim to share his views and aim to establish themselves and their policies as the more appropriate heir to his legacy.
Gingrich Revolution
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Trump Thinks Hes Still President: What Is The Evidence
Donald Trump thinks hes still president according to no more reliable a source than Rachel Maddow on her February 5th show. This was confirmed in May by Vanity Fair. Right-wing conspiracy theorists echo this analysis as recently as this month. Left-liberals are smugly confident that Kamala Harriss running mate is in the White House, snoozing in the presidential bedroom. Inquiring minds ask what is the evidence nearly a year into the alleged Biden presidency that there has been a change of guard in Washington?
+The Obama-Biden union card check proposal was not on Mr. Trumps political horizon, nor is it on that of the current occupant in the White House.
+The current occupant is ramping up Trumps unhinged Sino-phobic hallucinations, sanctioning 34 Chinese entities for development of brain-control weaponry. Not that the Chinese have been angels. In an egregious suppression of freedom of information, the inscrutable Orientals have made it more difficult for US spies to operate in their country.
+The current occupant nominally withdrew US troops from Afghanistan as negotiated by Mr. Trump, presumably reducing overall military costs. Yet, he continues the Trump-trajectory of lavishing billions of dollars more on the military than even the Pentagon requests.
+ President Trump slashed the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% candidate Biden vowed to raise it to 28% the current occupant proposed a further cut to 15%.
More On The Trump Documents Inquiry
- More Documents Found: A search team hired by former President Donald J. Trump found at least two items with classified markings at a Florida storage site, a person familiar with the matter said.
- Special Master: An appeals court shut down a special masters review of files seized from Mr. Trumps Mar-a-Lago estate, removing a major obstacle to the Justice Departments investigation.
- Special Counsel: Attorney General Merrick B. Garland appointed Jack Smith, a longtime prosecutor, to take over the documents inquiry and the investigation into Mr. Trumps role in the Jan. 6 attack.
The discovery of the documents at the storage unit, maintained by the federal General Services Administration, came during a series of wider searches that were completed around Thanksgiving and conducted at Mr. Trumps golf club in Bedminster, N.J. at Trump Tower in New York and in a storage closet at Mar-a-Lago, according to two people familiar with the events.
Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, said in a statement that the former president and his counsel continue to be cooperative and transparent, despite the unprecedented, illegal and unwarranted attack against President Trump and his family by the weaponized Department of Justice.
Alex Cannon, a lawyer who had worked with Mr. Trump in various capacities, became involved last fall and tried to help archives officials retrieve the material.
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