Trump trying to distract from ‘devastating’ economic news with idle threat to delay the election: MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle
July 30, 2020, 10:44 AM ET
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House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland on Tuesday, demanding an "unredacted copy" of the Justice Department appointment memoradum authorizing special counsel Jack Smith's investigations of former President Donald Trump.
Smith is overseeing two investigations that touch on the former president: the ongoing federal probe into the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, and the unauthorized retention of classified documents at Trump's Mar-a-Lago country club, which sources say is wrapping up with a charging decision imminent.
"The Committee on the Judiciary has jurisdiction to oversee the activities of the Jusrice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation," the letter concluded.
This comes after Jordan, who has been trying to investigate every law enforcement action that touches Trump, sent another letter to Garland last week, demanding specific details of Smith's investigation.
IN OTHER NEWS: Trump busted for 'contradicting reality' by a Fox News fact check
Jordan has similarly targeted Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who recently indicted Trump on charges of business fraud stemming from his allegedly falsified $130,000 hush payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels. Jordan has claimed he has jurisdiction over that probe because of a few thousand dollars worth of congressional grants that went to Bragg's office. Bragg responded by suing to quash his subpoena, arguing an improper attempt to intimidate his office. Jordan and Bragg ultimately came to an agreement on the scope of the House's investigation.
Earlier this week, lawyers representing Trump met with Smith, a sign that the investigation is nearing its conclusion and that charges for the former president are on the table.
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Fox News largely let Donald Trump off the hook for misrepresenting the facts as president, but the conservative network's website issued an extensive fact check of falsehoods he has told about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The Florida governor has officially challenged the ex-president for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, but Fox News said Trump had been "enraging Republicans" by attacking DeSantis since three days before last year's midterm elections and noted that failed to hurt his support for re-election.
"DeSantis managed to stay out of the mudslinging until only recently, and since DeSantis officially announced his candidacy for president on May 24, both campaigns have ramped up their criticism of the other," the website reported. "The Trump campaign, however, has been repeatedly accused by the other of creating false narratives about DeSantis’ policies."
The network called out Trump and his campaign for misrepresenting the governor's record on COVID-19, calling him the "lockdown governor," but said the former president's narrative left out key details and noted that Trump had previously praised his response to the pandemic.
IN OTHER NEWS: Florida college left without American history professor after axing DeSantis critic
"Before they became political rivals, Trump repeatedly fawned over DeSantis’ pandemic response and for being one of the first to reopen his state, calling him 'one of the greatest governors in our country,'" Fox News reported, and two 2020 tweets praising the governor. "DeSantis has since vowed that the state would never lock down again, and that one of his biggest regrets was not pushing back against the Trump administration’s recommendations."
Fox News also corrects some of Trump's claims about DeSantis on Social Security and the Fair Tax Act, along with his support for FBI director Christopher Wray's confirmation, and gave the governor the final word on the fact check.
"The way I'm being attacked, Trump has run almost $20 million in ads negative attacking me, you know, with frivolous and false smears," DeSantis told FoxRadio host Brian Kilmeade. "The corporate press is attacking me more than anybody else. Democrats are attacking me. They would not do that if they didn't think I was a threat. I mean, if they thought that I wasn't, you know, in shape to really win this thing, they would just be ignoring me. But they're not. They're coming after me. I'm the one that's taken most of the fire. And I think that's an indication that people know that, yeah, we have what it takes and that we're a force to be reckoned with."
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Erik Wallenberg, a visiting professor at the New College of Florida and a detractor of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' efforts to take over the state's higher educational system, was unceremoniously removed, leaving the campus without a professor who teaches U.S. history, the Miami New Times reported this week.
"Though he'd been an outspoken critic of New College's recent anti-'woke' overhaul, the axing of his teaching position made little sense to Wallenberg from an academic standpoint," reported Naomi Feinstein. "'The social sciences department had been supportive of his planned return for another year, he had received positive student evaluations, and he had just published an American history research paper."
In an interview with the Miami New Times, Wallenberg elaborated on why he was surprised by his dismissal.
"They have no U.S. historians in the department, and they need someone to teach U.S. history," he told the publication. "They asked if I would come back, and I said I would definitely be interested, so they said, 'Great, we'll send over the offer letter to the provost's office,' and then the head of the social sciences division told me that it was being held up by interim president Richard Corcoran.'"
IN OTHER NEWS: Trump rails at DOJ 'fascists and Marxists' over looming charges: 'I did nothing wrong -- fight!'
Wallenberg's status remained in limbo for six weeks before he was told that Corcoran, a DeSantis appointtee, would not sign off on his offer letter.
The New College of Florida, located in Sarasota, has been ground zero of DeSantis' experiment to exert right-wing control over higher education. He has appointed a number of far-right activists to oversee the school, including Chris Rufo, a filmmaker who architected the GOP moral panic against "Critical Race Theory." The Florida legislature actually rejected one of DeSantis' chosen trustees, Eddie Speir, due to his stated goal of wanting to use the position to proselytize about Jesus to students.
Wallenberg's own personal criticism of DeSantis may not be the only factor in his dismissal, the report noted.
"On April 20, Wallenberg had Black historian and outspoken DeSantis critic Marvin Dunn speak to his class for a lecture about Black history in the state and threats to educational freedom. Wallenberg says the social sciences division head supported Dunn coming to campus," the report noted. However, "Dunn's presence on campus was bound to ruffle feathers among DeSantis' newly installed college higher-ups. The professor emeritus at Florida International University was one of the plaintiffs who filed a lawsuit in August 2022 to block DeSantis' so-called Stop WOKE Act, which restricts the teaching of systemic racism in public schools. And he has not held back in his opposition to the governor's education agenda. (He recently told New Times, 'We will not allow DeSantis to kill our history. We just won't allow it.')"
All of this comes at a time when Florida's K-12 school system is also in crisis over DeSantis-backed laws prohibiting any expression of queerness and book censorship that pushed one school to strip its library shelves bare. It also comes as DeSantis mounts a campaign for president, trying to sell the country on the agenda he has pushed in Florida.
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