The latest Morning Consultpoll conducted from Dec. 31 to Jan. 2 shows that while Trump still leads a crowded field including DeSantis and other potential 2024 Republicans, the former President’s advantage is diminishing.
Trump holds strong plurality support, with 45% of those polled. DeSantis, at 34%, is 11 points back, and the only serious threat to Trump’s primacy.
“The Fake News Media was, believe it or not, very gracious in their reporting that I greatly helped Kevin McCarthy attain the position of Speaker of the House,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform on Saturday.
The
spectacle of a majority unable to muster the votes to elect a speaker,
while the Democratic opposition stayed united behind House minority
leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), raised ridicule across the country.
McCarthy tried to put a good spin on it but inadvertently undercut
confidence in his leadership when he, now the leader of the House, told
reporters: “This is the great part…. Because it took this long, now we
learned how to govern.”
But there is no doubt that the
concessions he made to extremist Republicans to win their votes mean he
has finally grasped the speaker’s gavel from a much weaker position than
previous speakers. “He will have to live the entirety of his
speakership in a straitjacket constructed by the rules that we’re
working on now,” one of the extremist ring leaders, Matt Gaetz (R-FL)
told reporters. Gaetz later explained away his willingness to accept
McCarthy after vowing never to support McCarthy by saying “I ran out of
things I could even imagine to ask for.”
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“The Fake News Media was, believe it or not, very gracious in their reporting that I greatly helped Kevin McCarthy attain the position of Speaker of the House,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform on Saturday.
Trump Deposition in Rape Accuser’s Lawsuit Ordered Unsealed
Parts of a deposition former President Donald Trump gave in a lawsuit by a woman who claims he raped her in the 1990s were ordered unsealed by a federal judge.
US District Judge Lewis Kaplan issued the order Monday in the suit by E. Jean Carroll, a New York columnist who sued Trump for defamation in 2019 after he publicly denied her claim.
Trump Deposition in Rape Accuser’s Lawsuit Ordered Unsealed
Parts of a deposition former President Donald Trump gave in a lawsuit by a woman who claims he raped her in the 1990s were ordered unsealed by a federal judge.
US District Judge Lewis Kaplan issued the order Monday in the suit by E. Jean Carroll, a New York columnist who sued Trump for defamation in 2019 after he publicly denied her claim.
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Judge Delays Unsealing Trump Deposition in Rape Accuser’s Suit
US District Judge Lewis Kaplan on Monday initially ordered the unsealing of 34 pages of Trump’s testimony in a defamation suit by New York writer E. Jean Carroll. Hours later, Kaplan granted a request by Trump to delay the release for three days while they file a formal objection.
Carroll sued Trump for defamation in 2019 after he publicly denied her claim that he raped her. She had filed excerpts of both her deposition and Trump’s in support of arguments to expedite evidence-gathering in the case.
While Carroll submitted Trump’s testimony under seal, Kaplan initially said the former president had failed to respond within a required three-day period to explain why it should remain sealed. In a letter to the court requesting a delay, the former president’s lawyers said they misunderstood their obligation to respond.
Judge Delays Unsealing Trump Deposition in Rape Accuser’s Suit
US District Judge Lewis Kaplan on Monday initially ordered the unsealing of 34 pages of Trump’s testimony in a defamation suit by New York writer E. Jean Carroll. Hours later, Kaplan granted a request by Trump to delay the release for three days while they file a formal objection.
Carroll sued Trump for defamation in 2019 after he publicly denied her claim that he raped her. She had filed excerpts of both her deposition and Trump’s in support of arguments to expedite evidence-gathering in the case.
While Carroll submitted Trump’s testimony under seal, Kaplan initially said the former president had failed to respond within a required three-day period to explain why it should remain sealed. In a letter to the court requesting a delay, the former president’s lawyers said they misunderstood their obligation to respond.
Trump executive Allen Weisselberg gets 5-month jail sentence
By MICHAEL R. SISAK
28 mins ago
NEW YORK (AP) — Allen Weisselberg, a longtime executive for Donald Trump ’s business empire, was taken into custody Tuesday to begin serving a five-month jail term for dodging taxes on $1.7 million in job perks — a punishment the judge who sentenced him said was probably too lenient for a case “driven entirely by greed.”
Weisselberg, 75, was promised the short sentence in August when he agreed to plead guilty to 15 tax crimes and to be a witness against the Trump Organization, where he worked since the mid-1980s. His testimony helped convict the former president’s company, where he had served as chief financial officer, of tax fraud.
But when he made the sentence official Tuesday, Judge Juan Manuel Merchan said that after listening to Weisselberg's trial testimony, he regretted that the penalty wasn't tougher. He said he was especially appalled by testimony that Weisselberg gave his wife a $6,000 check for a no-show job so that she could qualify for Social Security benefits.
Had he not already promised to give Weisselberg five months, Merchan said, “I would be imposing a sentence much greater than that.”
“I’m not going to deviate from the promise, though I believe a stiffer sentence is warranted, having heard the evidence,” he added.
Weisselberg, who came to court dressed for jail rather than in his usual suit, was handcuffed and taken away by court officers moments after the sentence was announced. He was taken to New York City’s notorious Rikers Island complex, where he was expected to be housed in an infirmary unit. He will be eligible for release after little more than three months if he behaves behind bars.
Weisselberg's sentencing also marked the end of his career at the Trump Organization, where he had been on leave since the fall, continuing to make $1.14 million in salary and bonuses, even as he was testifying against the company. His lawyer, Nicholas Gravante, said that as of Tuesday, the executive and the company “have amicably parted ways.”
As part of the plea agreement, Weisselberg was required to pay nearly $2 million in back taxes, penalties and interest, which prosecutors said he has done. Prosecutors recommended a six-month jail sentence, but Merchan said he settled on five months, in part because of mitigating factors, such as Weisselberg’s military service and stint as a public school teacher. In addition, Merchan ordered Weisselberg to complete five years of probation after his leaves jail.
Gravante had asked the judge for an even lighter sentence than the one in the plea bargain, citing Weisselberg’s age and “far from perfect health."
“He has already been punished tremendously by the disgrace that he has brought not only on himself, but his wife, his sons and his grandchildren," Gravante said.
Weisselberg faced the prospect of up to 15 years in prison — the maximum punishment for the top grand larceny charge — if he were to have reneged on his deal or if he didn’t testify truthfully at the Trump Organization’s trial. Weisselberg is the only person charged in the Manhattan district attorney’s three-year investigation of Trump and his business practices.
Weisselberg testified for three days, offering a glimpse into the inner workings of Trump’s real estate empire. Weisselberg has worked for Trump’s family for nearly 50 years, starting as an accountant for his developer father, Fred Trump, in 1973. He joined Donald Trump in 1986 and helped expand the company into a global golf and hotel brand.
Weisselberg told jurors he betrayed the Trump family’s trust by conspiring with a subordinate to hide more than a decade’s worth of extras from his income, including a free Manhattan apartment, luxury cars and his grandchildren’s private school tuition. He said they fudged payroll records and issued falsified W-2 forms.
A Manhattan jury convicted the Trump Organization in December, finding that Weisselberg had been a “high managerial” agent entrusted to act on behalf of the company and its various entities. Weisselberg’s arrangement reduced his own personal income taxes but also saved the company money because it didn’t have to pay him more to cover the cost of the perks.
Prosecutors said other Trump Organization executives also accepted off-the-books compensation. Weisselberg alone was accused of defrauding the federal government, state and city out of more than $900,000 in unpaid taxes and undeserved tax refunds.
The Trump Organization is scheduled to be sentenced on Friday and faces a fine of up to $1.6 million.
Weisselberg testified that neither Trump nor his family knew about the scheme as it was happening, choking up as he told jurors: “It was my own personal greed that led to this."
But prosecutors, in their closing argument, said Trump “knew exactly what was going on” and that evidence, such as a lease he signed for Weisselberg’s apartment, made clear that Trump was "explicitly sanctioning tax fraud.”
Trump Organization lawyers have said Weisselberg concocted the scheme without Trump or the Trump family’s knowledge.
Weisselberg said the Trumps remained loyal to him even as the company scrambled to end some of its dubious pay practices following Trump’s 2016 election. He said Trump’s eldest sons, entrusted to run the company while Trump was president, gave him a $200,000 raise after an internal audit found he had been reducing his salary and bonuses by the cost of the perks.
The company punished him only nominally after his arrest in July 2021, reassigning him to senior adviser and moving his office. He even celebrated his 75th birthday at Trump Tower with cake and colleagues in August, just hours after finalizing the plea agreement that ushered his transformation from loyal executive to prosecution witness and, now, jail inmate.
Rikers Island, a compound of 10 jails on a spit of land in the East River, just off the main runway at LaGuardia Airport in Queens, has been plagued in recent years by violence, inmate deaths and staggering staffing shortages.
Though just 5 miles (8 kilometers) from Trump Tower, it’s a veritable world away from the life of luxury Weisselberg schemed to build — a far cry from the gilded Fifth Avenue offices where he hatched his plot and the Hudson River-view apartment he reaped as a reward.
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The Special “Prosecutor” assigned to the “get Trump case,” Jack Smith(?), is a Trump Hating THUG whose wife is a serial and open Trump Hater, whose friends & other family members are even worse, and as a prosecutor in Europe, according to Ric Grenell, put a high government official in prison because he was a Trump positive person. Smith is known as “an unfair Savage,” & is best friends with the craziest Trump haters, including Lisa Monaco who runs “Injustice.” The Boxes Scam is a HOAX…
For seven years, from the day I came down the escalator in Trump Tower, the Democrat Party has WEAPONIZED the “Legal” System, using City, State, and Federal Law Enforcement against me and the Republican Party as though they were a Private Protection Agency. The greatest Witch Hunt in American History must end now. I beat the Fake Impeachments, the disgraceful Mueller Persecution, and much else that the Fake News doesn’t want to write or talk about, but this charade MUST STOP NOW!!!
Fire a man who may very well turn out to be a criminal, Jack Smith. His conflicts, unfairness, and mental state of derangement make him totally unfit for the job of “getting Trump.” Go after Biden and the Biden Crime Family instead. Like Bill Barr, the U.S. Attorneys in Delaware and Illinois are weak, ineffective, and afraid to do what must be done. The Election was RIGGED, and we are now losing our Country. We can’t let that happen. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
The Special “Prosecutor” assigned to the “get Trump case,” Jack Smith(?), is a Trump Hating THUG whose wife is a serial and open Trump Hater, whose friends & other family members are even worse, and as a prosecutor in Europe, according to Ric Grenell, put a high government official in prison because he was a Trump positive person. Smith is known as “an unfair Savage,” & is best friends with the craziest Trump haters, including Lisa Monaco who runs “Injustice.” The Boxes Scam is a HOAX…
For seven years, from the day I came down the escalator in Trump Tower, the Democrat Party has WEAPONIZED the “Legal” System, using City, State, and Federal Law Enforcement against me and the Republican Party as though they were a Private Protection Agency. The greatest Witch Hunt in American History must end now. I beat the Fake Impeachments, the disgraceful Mueller Persecution, and much else that the Fake News doesn’t want to write or talk about, but this charade MUST STOP NOW!!!
Fire a man who may very well turn out to be a criminal, Jack Smith. His conflicts, unfairness, and mental state of derangement make him totally unfit for the job of “getting Trump.” Go after Biden and the Biden Crime Family instead. Like Bill Barr, the U.S. Attorneys in Delaware and Illinois are weak, ineffective, and afraid to do what must be done. The Election was RIGGED, and we are now losing our Country. We can’t let that happen. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
Trump campaign officials got subpoena asking new questions about Jan. 6
Subpoena sought information and documents on legal representation, voting machines, fundraising around false election claims and more
A wide-ranging subpoena sent to Trump campaign officials last month shows new areas of investigative interest as part of the Justice Department’s extensive Jan. 6 criminal probe, according to a copy reviewed by The Washington Post, and lawyers say a grand jury focused on the day’s events and related fundraising has increased its activities in recent months.
The subpoena was received inearly December, according to a former Trump campaign official who provided the document to The Post on the condition of anonymity because a criminal investigation is ongoing. The document seeks more than two dozen categories of information, and includes some questions that were not part of a series of similar subpoenas reviewed by The Post that were sent to several dozen people in September.
One part of the four-page legal document asks recipients to reveal if anyone other than themselves is paying for legal representation — and if so, to provide a copy of the retention agreement for that legal work. At least one other former campaign official also received the subpoena, according to that person’s lawyer, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid drawing attention to his client.
The subpoena seeks any communications or information about Dominion and Smartmatic, two voting technology companies that were subjected to a barrage of false conspiracy theories floated by advisers to President Donald Trump. That request seems designed to gather what campaign officials might have been saying privately at the time Trump backers were publicly disparaging those firms in the wake of Joe Biden’s 2020 victory.
The subpoena shows the Justice Department is interested in other Trump entities besides the Save America PAC — which The Post and others reported last year was a subject of inquiry by investigators. It seeks “all documents and communications” related to a panoply of other Trump-affiliated groups, including the Make America Great Again PAC, the Save America Joint Fundraising Committee and the Trump Make America Great Again Committee.
Recipients are asked to produce documents related to the “formation, funding and/or use of money” of the groups and to show all employment contracts or correspondence with the groups or officials affiliated with them.
Recipients were also asked for documents related to the genesis of an “Election Defense Fund,” an entity that Trump officials created to raise money from grass-roots donors after the election. Officials later testified to the House committee investigating the events of Jan. 6, 2021, that such a fund never technically existed but was a mechanism to generate funds from people who believed and were outraged by Trump’s false election-fraud claims.
The subpoena was signed by an FBI agent in the Washington field office and was part of a flurry of new requests for information issued after Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed longtime federal prosecutor Jack Smith as special counsel to oversee the investigation. The Post reported last month that subpoenas were also received in late November and December by local and state election officials in states that Biden narrowly won and where Trump and his allies claimed there was fraud.
Spokespeoplefor the Justice Department and the FBI declined to comment. A spokesman for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Separately, several lawyers involved in the investigation said the Jan. 6 grand jury had accelerated its activities in recent weeks, bringing in a rapid-fire series of witnesses, both high and low level. Grand jury testimony is secret and is used to determine whether charges should be brought.
Much of what is in the subpoena received Dec. 9 is already known to be under federal investigation — and its wide-ranging request is potentially a sign the probe is far from complete. It asksfor detailed information about the fake electors scheme orchestrated by Trump’s team, naming more than 100 of them in seven states: Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, New Mexico and Michigan.
The subpoena also asks campaign officials to provide any analysis they had done on whether the election was stolen, andwhether they shared the analysis with others. It demands documents about the Jan. 6 rally on the Ellipse, including fundraising and planning, along with coordination with any outside groups about the event.
Dominion was the subject of some of the wildest theories advanced by Trump and his allies in the weeks after the presidential election. Lawyer Sidney Powell and others falsely alleged that the company had ties to Venezuelan communists and its voting machines had been manipulated to flip ballots from Trump to Biden.
The House committee investigating Jan. 6 found that numerous Trump aides privately concluded those allegations had no merit and informed the president of their findings. Nevertheless, Trump tweeted or retweeted about the conspiracy theories more than three dozen times between mid-November and Jan. 6, 2021, and included them in numerous public statements, including his speech to a crowd on the Ellipseon the morning of the Capitol attack.
The Justice Department request for information regarding Dominion, and another company Trump’s allies cited in their accusations, Smartmatic, may indicate prosecutors are gathering evidence that people in Trump’s orbit knew the attacks were false even though the president continued to use them to inflame his base.
A spokeswoman for Dominion, which has filed multibillion-dollar defamation lawsuits against Fox News, attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Powell, and others over the accusations, declined to comment on the subpoenas.
Prosecutors’ interest in payments made to lawyers might have been driven by testimony to the House committee from Cassidy Hutchinson, who served as an aide to Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows. She told the panel she was initially represented by a lawyer with whom she was connected by figures in Trump’s orbit. But she became uncomfortable, she testified, in part because the lawyer did not reveal to her who was paying his fees and said no formal written retention agreement was needed.
“I was like, ‘I probably should sign an engagement letter.’ And he said, ‘No, no, no. We’re not doing that. Don’t worry. We have you taken care of,’” she testified the lawyer said, according to an interview transcript released last month.
After sitting for an initial interview with the panel,Hutchinson testified, the lawyer told her that those paying his fees would not want her to sit for additional interviews unless she was required to do so by a new subpoena.
“‘Trump world will not continue paying your legal bills if you don’t have that second subpoena,’” she recalled him saying — testimony that came in a later interview with the panel, when Hutchinson had hired a different attorney.
The first lawyer, Stefan Passantino, has denied any wrongdoing in his interactions with Hutchinson, saying in a statement last month that he represented the former Trump aide “honorably, ethically, and fully consistent with her sole interests as she communicated them to me.”
Hutchinson testified that Passantino counseled her to tell the committee she “did not recall” details of events even when she could, and instructed her not to volunteer details of incidents that might be of interest to the committee. After changing lawyers, she became the committee’s star witness.
lmao they are still taking marching orders from the twice impeached, two time popular vote loser that doesn't pay his taxes. let them take that legislative path right into electoral oblivion come the 2024 election.
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
And, nothing could be more laughable. Except brilliant brilliance in all its brilliancy.
On his social media network today, Trump wrote: “Merrick Garland has to immediately end Special Counsel investigation into anything related to me because I did everything right, and appoint a Special Counsel to investigate Joe Biden who hates Biden as much as Jack Smith hates me.” In a different post, he called Smith an “unfair savage.”
Trump Organization to be sentenced for tax fraud, faces fine
By MICHAEL R. SISAK
2 hours ago
NEW YORK (AP) — The stiffest penalty Donald Trump’s company could receive when it is sentenced Friday by a New York judge for helping its executives dodge taxes is a $1.6 million fine — not even enough to buy a Trump Tower apartment.
Neither the former president nor his children, who helped run and promote the Trump Organization, are expected to be in the courtroom for the sentencing hearing. The company will be represented by its lawyers.
Because the Trump Organization is a corporation and not a person, a fine is the only way a judge can punish the company after its conviction last month for 17 tax crimes, including charges of conspiracy and falsifying business records.
By law, the maximum penalty that can be imposed by Judge Juan Manuel Merchan is around $1.6 million, an amount equal to double the taxes a small group of executives avoided on benefits including rent-free apartments in Trump buildings, luxury cars and private school tuition.
Trump himself was not on trial and denied any knowledge of his executives evading taxes illegally.
While a fine of that amount isn't likely to affect the company’s operations or future, the conviction is a black mark on the Republican’s reputation as a savvy businessman as he mounts a campaign to regain the White House.
Besides the company, only one executive was charged in the case: former Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg, who pleaded guilty last summer to evading taxes on $1.7 million in compensation.
Trump has said the case against his company was part of a politically motivated “witch hunt” waged against him by vindictive Democrats. The company’s lawyers have vowed to appeal the verdict.
The criminal case involved financial practices and pay arrangements that the company halted when Trump was elected president in 2016.
Over his years as the company's chief moneyman, Weisselberg had received a rent-free apartment in a Trump-branded building in Manhattan with a view of the Hudson River. He and his wife drove Mercedes-Benz cars, leased by company. When his grandchildren went to an exclusive private school, Trump paid their tuition.
A handful of other executives received similar perks.
When called to testify against the Trump Organization at trial, Weisselberg testified that he didn't pay taxes on that compensation, and that he and a company vice president conspired to hide the perks by having the company issue falsified W-2 forms.
Trump Organization lawyers repeated the mantra, “Weisselberg did it for Weisselberg,” contending that he had gone rogue and betrayed the company’s trust.
Assistant district attorney Joshua Steinglass attempted to refute that claim in his closing argument, showing jurors a lease Trump signed himself for Weisselberg’s apartment.
“Mr. Trump is explicitly sanctioning tax fraud,” Steinglass argued.
The company's fine will be barely a dent in the bottom line for an enterprise with a global portfolio of golf courses, hotels and development deals. It could face more trouble outside of court due to the reputational damage, such as difficulty finding new deals and business partners.
The Trump Organization’s conviction and sentencing don't end Trump’s battle with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat who took office in January. Bragg has said that a related investigation of Trump that began under his predecessor, Cyrus Vance Jr., is “active and ongoing,” with a newly hired prosecutor leading the charge.
At the same time, New York Attorney General Letitia James is suing Trump and the Trump Organization, alleging they misled banks and others about the value of its many assets, a practice she dubbed the “art of the steal.”
James, a Democrat, is asking a court to ban Trump and his three eldest children from running any New York-based company and is seeking to fine them at least $250 million. A judge has set an October trial date. As a preliminary measure, he appointed a monitor for the company while the case is pending.
Trump faces several other legal challenges as he looks to retake the White House in 2024.
A special grand jury in Atlanta has investigated whether Trump and his allies committed any crimes while trying to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia.
Last month, the House Jan. 6 committee voted to make a criminal referral to the Justice Department for Trump’s role in sparking the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. The FBI is also investigating Trump’s storage of classified documents.
___
Follow Michael Sisak on Twitter at twitter.com/mikesisak and send confidential tips by visiting https://www.ap.org/tips/
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lmao they are still taking marching orders from the twice impeached, two time popular vote loser that doesn't pay his taxes. let them take that legislative path right into electoral oblivion come the 2024 election.
LOL! Your TDS is flaring up. Out of all the special ten posters, always come across as the least knowledgeable.
I knew if taxes were released it would bring out the most ignorant left.
Comments
The latest Morning Consult poll conducted from Dec. 31 to Jan. 2 shows that while Trump still leads a crowded field including DeSantis and other potential 2024 Republicans, the former President’s advantage is diminishing.
Trump holds strong plurality support, with 45% of those polled. DeSantis, at 34%, is 11 points back, and the only serious threat to Trump’s primacy.
then gaetz nominated him for speaker, where he promptly lost again, haha
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Trump takes credit for McCarthy Speaker win
“The Fake News Media was, believe it or not, very gracious in their reporting that I greatly helped Kevin McCarthy attain the position of Speaker of the House,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform on Saturday.
“Thank you, I did our Country a big favor!”
https://thehill.com/homenews/3804301-trump-takes-credit-for-mccarthy-speaker-win/
This motherfucker...
But there is no doubt that the concessions he made to extremist Republicans to win their votes mean he has finally grasped the speaker’s gavel from a much weaker position than previous speakers. “He will have to live the entirety of his speakership in a straitjacket constructed by the rules that we’re working on now,” one of the extremist ring leaders, Matt Gaetz (R-FL) told reporters. Gaetz later explained away his willingness to accept McCarthy after vowing never to support McCarthy by saying “I ran out of things I could even imagine to ask for.”
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Trump Deposition in Rape Accuser’s Lawsuit Ordered Unsealed
Parts of a deposition former President Donald Trump gave in a lawsuit by a woman who claims he raped her in the 1990s were ordered unsealed by a federal judge.
US District Judge Lewis Kaplan issued the order Monday in the suit by E. Jean Carroll, a New York columnist who sued Trump for defamation in 2019 after he publicly denied her claim.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-09/trump-deposition-in-rape-accuser-s-lawsuit-ordered-unsealed?srnd=us-politics
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
The Golden Age is 2 months away. And guess what….. you’re gonna love it! (teskeinc 11.19.24)
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana; 2025: Pitt1, Pitt2
The Golden Age is 2 months away. And guess what….. you’re gonna love it! (teskeinc 11.19.24)
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana; 2025: Pitt1, Pitt2
bloomberg article linked above
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Judge Delays Unsealing Trump Deposition in Rape Accuser’s Suit
US District Judge Lewis Kaplan on Monday initially ordered the unsealing of 34 pages of Trump’s testimony in a defamation suit by New York writer E. Jean Carroll. Hours later, Kaplan granted a request by Trump to delay the release for three days while they file a formal objection.
Carroll sued Trump for defamation in 2019 after he publicly denied her claim that he raped her. She had filed excerpts of both her deposition and Trump’s in support of arguments to expedite evidence-gathering in the case.
While Carroll submitted Trump’s testimony under seal, Kaplan initially said the former president had failed to respond within a required three-day period to explain why it should remain sealed. In a letter to the court requesting a delay, the former president’s lawyers said they misunderstood their obligation to respond.
”Only the best people folks, only the best.”
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
NEW YORK (AP) — Allen Weisselberg, a longtime executive for Donald Trump ’s business empire, was taken into custody Tuesday to begin serving a five-month jail term for dodging taxes on $1.7 million in job perks — a punishment the judge who sentenced him said was probably too lenient for a case “driven entirely by greed.”
Weisselberg, 75, was promised the short sentence in August when he agreed to plead guilty to 15 tax crimes and to be a witness against the Trump Organization, where he worked since the mid-1980s. His testimony helped convict the former president’s company, where he had served as chief financial officer, of tax fraud.
But when he made the sentence official Tuesday, Judge Juan Manuel Merchan said that after listening to Weisselberg's trial testimony, he regretted that the penalty wasn't tougher. He said he was especially appalled by testimony that Weisselberg gave his wife a $6,000 check for a no-show job so that she could qualify for Social Security benefits.
Had he not already promised to give Weisselberg five months, Merchan said, “I would be imposing a sentence much greater than that.”
“I’m not going to deviate from the promise, though I believe a stiffer sentence is warranted, having heard the evidence,” he added.
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Weisselberg, who came to court dressed for jail rather than in his usual suit, was handcuffed and taken away by court officers moments after the sentence was announced. He was taken to New York City’s notorious Rikers Island complex, where he was expected to be housed in an infirmary unit. He will be eligible for release after little more than three months if he behaves behind bars.
Weisselberg's sentencing also marked the end of his career at the Trump Organization, where he had been on leave since the fall, continuing to make $1.14 million in salary and bonuses, even as he was testifying against the company. His lawyer, Nicholas Gravante, said that as of Tuesday, the executive and the company “have amicably parted ways.”
As part of the plea agreement, Weisselberg was required to pay nearly $2 million in back taxes, penalties and interest, which prosecutors said he has done. Prosecutors recommended a six-month jail sentence, but Merchan said he settled on five months, in part because of mitigating factors, such as Weisselberg’s military service and stint as a public school teacher. In addition, Merchan ordered Weisselberg to complete five years of probation after his leaves jail.
Gravante had asked the judge for an even lighter sentence than the one in the plea bargain, citing Weisselberg’s age and “far from perfect health."
“He has already been punished tremendously by the disgrace that he has brought not only on himself, but his wife, his sons and his grandchildren," Gravante said.
Weisselberg faced the prospect of up to 15 years in prison — the maximum punishment for the top grand larceny charge — if he were to have reneged on his deal or if he didn’t testify truthfully at the Trump Organization’s trial. Weisselberg is the only person charged in the Manhattan district attorney’s three-year investigation of Trump and his business practices.
Weisselberg testified for three days, offering a glimpse into the inner workings of Trump’s real estate empire. Weisselberg has worked for Trump’s family for nearly 50 years, starting as an accountant for his developer father, Fred Trump, in 1973. He joined Donald Trump in 1986 and helped expand the company into a global golf and hotel brand.
Weisselberg told jurors he betrayed the Trump family’s trust by conspiring with a subordinate to hide more than a decade’s worth of extras from his income, including a free Manhattan apartment, luxury cars and his grandchildren’s private school tuition. He said they fudged payroll records and issued falsified W-2 forms.
A Manhattan jury convicted the Trump Organization in December, finding that Weisselberg had been a “high managerial” agent entrusted to act on behalf of the company and its various entities. Weisselberg’s arrangement reduced his own personal income taxes but also saved the company money because it didn’t have to pay him more to cover the cost of the perks.
Prosecutors said other Trump Organization executives also accepted off-the-books compensation. Weisselberg alone was accused of defrauding the federal government, state and city out of more than $900,000 in unpaid taxes and undeserved tax refunds.
The Trump Organization is scheduled to be sentenced on Friday and faces a fine of up to $1.6 million.
Weisselberg testified that neither Trump nor his family knew about the scheme as it was happening, choking up as he told jurors: “It was my own personal greed that led to this."
But prosecutors, in their closing argument, said Trump “knew exactly what was going on” and that evidence, such as a lease he signed for Weisselberg’s apartment, made clear that Trump was "explicitly sanctioning tax fraud.”
Trump Organization lawyers have said Weisselberg concocted the scheme without Trump or the Trump family’s knowledge.
Weisselberg said the Trumps remained loyal to him even as the company scrambled to end some of its dubious pay practices following Trump’s 2016 election. He said Trump’s eldest sons, entrusted to run the company while Trump was president, gave him a $200,000 raise after an internal audit found he had been reducing his salary and bonuses by the cost of the perks.
The company punished him only nominally after his arrest in July 2021, reassigning him to senior adviser and moving his office. He even celebrated his 75th birthday at Trump Tower with cake and colleagues in August, just hours after finalizing the plea agreement that ushered his transformation from loyal executive to prosecution witness and, now, jail inmate.
Rikers Island, a compound of 10 jails on a spit of land in the East River, just off the main runway at LaGuardia Airport in Queens, has been plagued in recent years by violence, inmate deaths and staggering staffing shortages.
Though just 5 miles (8 kilometers) from Trump Tower, it’s a veritable world away from the life of luxury Weisselberg schemed to build — a far cry from the gilded Fifth Avenue offices where he hatched his plot and the Hudson River-view apartment he reaped as a reward.
___
Follow Michael Sisak on Twitter at twitter.com/mikesisak and send confidential tips by visiting https://www.ap.org/tips/
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
keep putting your desire out there and it will manifest.....
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
https://www.instagram.com/p/CnNafzfuILI/?igshid=NTdlMDg3MTY=
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
The Special “Prosecutor” assigned to the “get Trump case,” Jack Smith(?), is a Trump Hating THUG whose wife is a serial and open Trump Hater, whose friends & other family members are even worse, and as a prosecutor in Europe, according to Ric Grenell, put a high government official in prison because he was a Trump positive person. Smith is known as “an unfair Savage,” & is best friends with the craziest Trump haters, including Lisa Monaco who runs “Injustice.” The Boxes Scam is a HOAX…
For seven years, from the day I came down the escalator in Trump Tower, the Democrat Party has WEAPONIZED the “Legal” System, using City, State, and Federal Law Enforcement against me and the Republican Party as though they were a Private Protection Agency. The greatest Witch Hunt in American History must end now. I beat the Fake Impeachments, the disgraceful Mueller Persecution, and much else that the Fake News doesn’t want to write or talk about, but this charade MUST STOP NOW!!!
Fire a man who may very well turn out to be a criminal, Jack Smith. His conflicts, unfairness, and mental state of derangement make him totally unfit for the job of “getting Trump.” Go after Biden and the Biden Crime Family instead. Like Bill Barr, the U.S. Attorneys in Delaware and Illinois are weak, ineffective, and afraid to do what must be done. The Election was RIGGED, and we are now losing our Country. We can’t let that happen. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
Trump campaign officials got subpoena asking new questions about Jan. 6
Subpoena sought information and documents on legal representation, voting machines, fundraising around false election claims and more
A wide-ranging subpoena sent to Trump campaign officials last month shows new areas of investigative interest as part of the Justice Department’s extensive Jan. 6 criminal probe, according to a copy reviewed by The Washington Post, and lawyers say a grand jury focused on the day’s events and related fundraising has increased its activities in recent months.
The subpoena was received in early December, according to a former Trump campaign official who provided the document to The Post on the condition of anonymity because a criminal investigation is ongoing. The document seeks more than two dozen categories of information, and includes some questions that were not part of a series of similar subpoenas reviewed by The Post that were sent to several dozen people in September.
One part of the four-page legal document asks recipients to reveal if anyone other than themselves is paying for legal representation — and if so, to provide a copy of the retention agreement for that legal work. At least one other former campaign official also received the subpoena, according to that person’s lawyer, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid drawing attention to his client.
The subpoena seeks any communications or information about Dominion and Smartmatic, two voting technology companies that were subjected to a barrage of false conspiracy theories floated by advisers to President Donald Trump. That request seems designed to gather what campaign officials might have been saying privately at the time Trump backers were publicly disparaging those firms in the wake of Joe Biden’s 2020 victory.
Trump's PAC is paying legal fees for some Mar-a-Lago witnesses
The subpoena shows the Justice Department is interested in other Trump entities besides the Save America PAC — which The Post and others reported last year was a subject of inquiry by investigators. It seeks “all documents and communications” related to a panoply of other Trump-affiliated groups, including the Make America Great Again PAC, the Save America Joint Fundraising Committee and the Trump Make America Great Again Committee.
Recipients are asked to produce documents related to the “formation, funding and/or use of money” of the groups and to show all employment contracts or correspondence with the groups or officials affiliated with them.
Recipients were also asked for documents related to the genesis of an “Election Defense Fund,” an entity that Trump officials created to raise money from grass-roots donors after the election. Officials later testified to the House committee investigating the events of Jan. 6, 2021, that such a fund never technically existed but was a mechanism to generate funds from people who believed and were outraged by Trump’s false election-fraud claims.
The subpoena was signed by an FBI agent in the Washington field office and was part of a flurry of new requests for information issued after Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed longtime federal prosecutor Jack Smith as special counsel to oversee the investigation. The Post reported last month that subpoenas were also received in late November and December by local and state election officials in states that Biden narrowly won and where Trump and his allies claimed there was fraud.
Spokespeople for the Justice Department and the FBI declined to comment. A spokesman for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Justice Dept.'s Jan. 6 investigation is looking at ... everything
Separately, several lawyers involved in the investigation said the Jan. 6 grand jury had accelerated its activities in recent weeks, bringing in a rapid-fire series of witnesses, both high and low level. Grand jury testimony is secret and is used to determine whether charges should be brought.
Much of what is in the subpoena received Dec. 9 is already known to be under federal investigation — and its wide-ranging request is potentially a sign the probe is far from complete. It asks for detailed information about the fake electors scheme orchestrated by Trump’s team, naming more than 100 of them in seven states: Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, New Mexico and Michigan.
The subpoena also asks campaign officials to provide any analysis they had done on whether the election was stolen, and whether they shared the analysis with others. It demands documents about the Jan. 6 rally on the Ellipse, including fundraising and planning, along with coordination with any outside groups about the event.
Dominion was the subject of some of the wildest theories advanced by Trump and his allies in the weeks after the presidential election. Lawyer Sidney Powell and others falsely alleged that the company had ties to Venezuelan communists and its voting machines had been manipulated to flip ballots from Trump to Biden.
The House committee investigating Jan. 6 found that numerous Trump aides privately concluded those allegations had no merit and informed the president of their findings. Nevertheless, Trump tweeted or retweeted about the conspiracy theories more than three dozen times between mid-November and Jan. 6, 2021, and included them in numerous public statements, including his speech to a crowd on the Ellipse on the morning of the Capitol attack.
Sidney Powell's nonprofit raised $16 million as she spread election falsehoods
The Justice Department request for information regarding Dominion, and another company Trump’s allies cited in their accusations, Smartmatic, may indicate prosecutors are gathering evidence that people in Trump’s orbit knew the attacks were false even though the president continued to use them to inflame his base.
A spokeswoman for Dominion, which has filed multibillion-dollar defamation lawsuits against Fox News, attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Powell, and others over the accusations, declined to comment on the subpoenas.
Prosecutors’ interest in payments made to lawyers might have been driven by testimony to the House committee from Cassidy Hutchinson, who served as an aide to Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows. She told the panel she was initially represented by a lawyer with whom she was connected by figures in Trump’s orbit. But she became uncomfortable, she testified, in part because the lawyer did not reveal to her who was paying his fees and said no formal written retention agreement was needed.
“I was like, ‘I probably should sign an engagement letter.’ And he said, ‘No, no, no. We’re not doing that. Don’t worry. We have you taken care of,’” she testified the lawyer said, according to an interview transcript released last month.
After sitting for an initial interview with the panel, Hutchinson testified, the lawyer told her that those paying his fees would not want her to sit for additional interviews unless she was required to do so by a new subpoena.
“‘Trump world will not continue paying your legal bills if you don’t have that second subpoena,’” she recalled him saying — testimony that came in a later interview with the panel, when Hutchinson had hired a different attorney.
The first lawyer, Stefan Passantino, has denied any wrongdoing in his interactions with Hutchinson, saying in a statement last month that he represented the former Trump aide “honorably, ethically, and fully consistent with her sole interests as she communicated them to me.”
Hutchinson testified that Passantino counseled her to tell the committee she “did not recall” details of events even when she could, and instructed her not to volunteer details of incidents that might be of interest to the committee. After changing lawyers, she became the committee’s star witness.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/01/11/trump-subpoena-jan6-campaign-officials/
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
On his social media network today, Trump wrote: “Merrick Garland has to immediately end Special Counsel investigation into anything related to me because I did everything right, and appoint a Special Counsel to investigate Joe Biden who hates Biden as much as Jack Smith hates me.” In a different post, he called Smith an “unfair savage.”
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
NEW YORK (AP) — The stiffest penalty Donald Trump’s company could receive when it is sentenced Friday by a New York judge for helping its executives dodge taxes is a $1.6 million fine — not even enough to buy a Trump Tower apartment.
Neither the former president nor his children, who helped run and promote the Trump Organization, are expected to be in the courtroom for the sentencing hearing. The company will be represented by its lawyers.
Because the Trump Organization is a corporation and not a person, a fine is the only way a judge can punish the company after its conviction last month for 17 tax crimes, including charges of conspiracy and falsifying business records.
By law, the maximum penalty that can be imposed by Judge Juan Manuel Merchan is around $1.6 million, an amount equal to double the taxes a small group of executives avoided on benefits including rent-free apartments in Trump buildings, luxury cars and private school tuition.
Trump himself was not on trial and denied any knowledge of his executives evading taxes illegally.
While a fine of that amount isn't likely to affect the company’s operations or future, the conviction is a black mark on the Republican’s reputation as a savvy businessman as he mounts a campaign to regain the White House.
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Besides the company, only one executive was charged in the case: former Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg, who pleaded guilty last summer to evading taxes on $1.7 million in compensation.
He was sentenced Tuesday to five months in jail.
Trump has said the case against his company was part of a politically motivated “witch hunt” waged against him by vindictive Democrats. The company’s lawyers have vowed to appeal the verdict.
The criminal case involved financial practices and pay arrangements that the company halted when Trump was elected president in 2016.
Over his years as the company's chief moneyman, Weisselberg had received a rent-free apartment in a Trump-branded building in Manhattan with a view of the Hudson River. He and his wife drove Mercedes-Benz cars, leased by company. When his grandchildren went to an exclusive private school, Trump paid their tuition.
A handful of other executives received similar perks.
When called to testify against the Trump Organization at trial, Weisselberg testified that he didn't pay taxes on that compensation, and that he and a company vice president conspired to hide the perks by having the company issue falsified W-2 forms.
Weisselberg also attempted to take responsibility on the witness stand, saying nobody in the Trump family knew what he was doing. He choked up as he told jurors, “It was my own personal greed that led to this.”
Trump Organization lawyers repeated the mantra, “Weisselberg did it for Weisselberg,” contending that he had gone rogue and betrayed the company’s trust.
Assistant district attorney Joshua Steinglass attempted to refute that claim in his closing argument, showing jurors a lease Trump signed himself for Weisselberg’s apartment.
“Mr. Trump is explicitly sanctioning tax fraud,” Steinglass argued.
A jury convicted the company of tax fraud on Dec. 6.
The company's fine will be barely a dent in the bottom line for an enterprise with a global portfolio of golf courses, hotels and development deals. It could face more trouble outside of court due to the reputational damage, such as difficulty finding new deals and business partners.
The Trump Organization’s conviction and sentencing don't end Trump’s battle with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat who took office in January. Bragg has said that a related investigation of Trump that began under his predecessor, Cyrus Vance Jr., is “active and ongoing,” with a newly hired prosecutor leading the charge.
At the same time, New York Attorney General Letitia James is suing Trump and the Trump Organization, alleging they misled banks and others about the value of its many assets, a practice she dubbed the “art of the steal.”
James, a Democrat, is asking a court to ban Trump and his three eldest children from running any New York-based company and is seeking to fine them at least $250 million. A judge has set an October trial date. As a preliminary measure, he appointed a monitor for the company while the case is pending.
Trump faces several other legal challenges as he looks to retake the White House in 2024.
A special grand jury in Atlanta has investigated whether Trump and his allies committed any crimes while trying to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia.
Last month, the House Jan. 6 committee voted to make a criminal referral to the Justice Department for Trump’s role in sparking the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. The FBI is also investigating Trump’s storage of classified documents.
___
Follow Michael Sisak on Twitter at twitter.com/mikesisak and send confidential tips by visiting https://www.ap.org/tips/
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14