A former television producer who admitted to attempting to blackmail David Letterman is helping the Donald Trump campaign dig up possible wrongdoing by Democratic operatives.
Robert “Joe” Halderman, who served four months in jail after pleading guilty to second-degree felony charges of grand larceny, has turned up with James O'Keefe's Project Veritas organization, reported Think Progress.
It's not clear exactly what Halderman is doing with Project Veritas, but the website reported that a receptionist confirmed he worked there and provided his email address with the organization.
Project Veritas, which has received $10,000 in funding from Trump's supposedly charitable foundation, has produced a series of videos that purportedly reveal liberal activist groups illegally coordinating with the Hillary Clinton campaign to disrupt Trump rallies.
O'Keefe, who operates Project Veritas and the affiliated Project Veritas Action Fund, was sentenced in 2010 to three years of probation, 100 hours of community service and a $1,500 fine as part of a plea agreement after admitting to a botched “sting” attempt at the office of then-Sen. Mary Landrieu.
The conservative filmmaker is known for selectively editing videos to suggest wrongdoing by Democrats and liberal activists.
O'Keefe paid a $100,000 settlement to former ACORN employees after his videos misleadingly suggested they had agreed to help him smuggle underage prostitutes into the U.S.
Writer and conservative fellow Peter Wehner appeared on "Morning Joe" Tuesday to talk about his column in the National Review that outlined instructions for how the Republican Party can survive after Donald Trump.
In his piece, Wehner tries to discern whether Trump is "pneumonia that requires amoxicillin and will soon pass — that requires chemotherapy and may not pass for a great long while."
Host Joe Scarborough cited Trump's Muslim ban and the toxic language coming from Republican candidates during the primaries, saying "That's our party." Wehner agreed, saying that those things are what helped Trump in the primaries.
While Wehner expects Trump will lose, he's most concerned about the impending fight the GOP will have about their future. "One of the questions, is this an anomaly or a trajectory. As you were asking earlier, Willie [Geist], how much of this is Trump and how much ? I think, there's no question that if and when Trump leaves the scene, that's going to make things better. But will he leave the scene or become a political irritant and will Trumpism continue and how does the Republican Party rid itself of it?"
He goes on to say that the plague of the right-wing and religious right is like a "fever" that the GOP has and was further exacerbated by people like Sarah Palin.
"," Wehner continued. "You remember this, Joe, back when Ronald Reagan won in 1981, Pat Moynahan said I'm sad the Republican Party has become the party of ideas. It's now the party of anti-reason. It started with Sarah Palin in 2008 and it's continued. Unless he gets that straightened out, it's not going to win national elections and it shouldn't win national elections. The question is post-Trump, post-election, which Republican Party is going to prevail."
The right-wing and tea party wing of the GOP are more concerned about ideological purity than they are about winning elections and Wehner says that will be their downfall.
"You have to persuade voters and try to convince them that winning matters," he said of the GOP's base. "This may be a fever. We go back to medical analogies, that has to pass, but Republican Primary voters are determined to election people who are monstrous figures, who have in the case of Donald Trump, I think, clinically disordered personalities, there's a limited amount of things you can do. There's a lot of complaints about the Republican establishment. The Republican establishment never would have nominated Donald Trump and they probably would have won the election. So, Republican primary voters, because of certain mental habits that have developed in the last decade or more, this is a kind of primal scream and this is what happens."
Donald Trump was once known for throwing cocaine-fueled parties where teenage models were introduced to the real estate developer's rich, older friends.
Michael Gross, who has covered Trump since 1985 and has also written a book on the modeling industry, spoke recently to two men who had attended those parties back in the 1990s, reported The Daily Beast.
Both men told Gross how Trump took over corner suites at the Plaza Hotel to impress his guests.
Girls as young as 15 years old were lured to the parties with the promise that they'd meet well-connected men who might help them enter the modeling industry.
"There were always dramas because the men threw money and drugs at them to keep them enticed," said one former guest, a fashion photographer. "It’s based on power and dominating girls who can’t push back and can be discarded. There’s always someone to pick them back up. Nobody wants to call home and say ‘Help me.’”
The photographer, who asked to remain anonymous over possible lawsuit concerns, recalled that Trump would go from room to room, checking out his guests as they partied with girls and young women.
Former guests recall "a lot of sex, a lot of cocaine, top-shelf liquor" -- but no cigarettes, because Trump didn't approve of smoking.
The photographer and a male model who attended the parties said they never saw Trump use drugs himself, but they said "he was getting laid like crazy."
"Trump was at the heart of it," the photographer said. "He loved the attention and in private, he was a total f*cking beast.”
Andy Lucchesi, who's still a model, said he couldn't be sure how old some of those Trump partners had been.
“So, he’s a man with a woman,” Lucchesi said. “A lot of girls, 14, look 24. That’s as juicy as I can get. I never asked how old they were, I just partook. I did partake in activities that would be controversial, too.”
Donald Trump's flirtation with the alt-right was subtle but unmistakeable -- and ultimately effective.
White nationalists initially mistrusted Trump, believing he was secretly Jewish or at least too cozy with Jewish interests and “non-whites” in his business dealings, reality shows and beauty pageants, reported Politico.
But he began to win their trust with "his steady, consistent push for an anti-immigration platform," which is central to nationalist right-wingers, and through a series of winking communications that were widely covered in media at the time.
Trump signaled his agreement with the alt-right in November by retweeting made-up statistics claiming 81 percent of white homicide victims are killed by blacks and 97 percent of black homicide victims were killed by other blacks.
He continued the flirtation by twice retweeting posts from the @WhiteGenocideTM account, which reporters found had promoted Adolf Hitler and shared a post showing Trump putting Bernie Sanders into a gas chamber.
Trump consumated his relationship with the racist right by refusing to back away from former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke's endorsement -- which a commenter on the white nationalist website Stormfront lauded as “the best political thing I have seen in my life.”
The Republican presidential nominee's sons, particularly Donald Trump Jr., have also signaled their support to the racist alt-right on social media and by appearing on the air with white nationalist radio hosts.
It's not clear whether Trump's campaign intentionally cultivated their relationship with the organized racist right, but it's clear that long-standing white nationalist groups -- such as neo-Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan and Christian Identity -- see Trump as an opportunity to gain mainstream influence.
Trump's campaign spokesman, Jason Miller, denied that the GOP nominee had overtly courted the alt-right.
“We have rejected and rebuked any groups and individuals associated with a message of hate and will continue to do so," Miller told Politico. "We have never intentionally engaged directly or indirectly with such groups and have no intention of ever doing so, and in fact, we’ve gone a step further and said that we don’t want votes from people who think this way.”
But many of those voters will enthusiastically cast ballots for Trump, who hired Steve Bannon, founder of the alt-right Breitbart website, as his campaign CEO.
"I believe this guy truly wants the best for this country," wrote one commenter at Stormfront. "I can't believe that someone would put forth all this energy, and face all this ridicule, just to be another puppet in the machine. I'm locked into the vote.”
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is spiraling out of control in his final few weeks of the campaign trail. Projected for a historic loss, the candidate is looking for excuses to prepare himself and his followers. His paranoid attacks have now gone from his enemies to voters themselves, polling places and even dead people.
"Apparently, he's so paranoid that last night in Florida he told a crowd that as he flew over the Everglades he was afraid that he'd get eaten by an alligator," Seth Meyers cited on Monday night's "Late Night." His fear confirms that he is pretty much the 2016 version of Captian Hook, just with a really tiny hook for his really tiny hand.
Trump desperately tried to get back on track with his Gettysburg Address, but the attempt to look presidential failed when he spent 15 minutes railing on his accusers and the media. "So, basically, Trump did worse at Gettysburg than The South did," Meyers joked. "Trump giving a speech at Gettysburg only made sense if it was also the location where Abraham Lincoln was caught on a hot mic before taping an episode of 'Access Pennsylvania.'"
Pundits are saying that Trump's threats to sue the accusers is only hurting his already sinking support among women. But instead of saying things that could help him with voters, he's decided to complain that the whole election is rigged against him. The growing list of attacks on those threatening his chances now extends to dead people, who the campaign says are evidence of voter fraud. "Yeah, they might be registered, but I have a feeling turnout will be low," Meyers mocked.
Trump handbag holder Rudy Giuliani told CNN that these dead people were helping one side in particular. "Dead people generally vote for Democrats and not Republicans," Giuliani said. Meyers explained that Giuliani would know all about how dead people vote because he's king of the vampires.
The rigged language is prompting Trump followers to take action by going to monitor polling locations in Democratic strongholds. One Trump supporter admitted to the New York Times that he would be watching his polling place to racially profile "Mexican, Syrians [and] people who can't speak American." The person clarified that they won't be doing anything illegal but plans to go up behind them to "make them a little bit nervous." Intimidating someone at a polling place is illegal.
"You're going to make them 'a little bit nervous?' Where have you been for the last 15 months? We're all a little bit nervous," Meyers said.
The largest problem is that the GOP has stoked this nonsensical attack on the American voter for years. Their laws demanding voter IDs, cutting back on early voting or polling places and accusations that voter purges are necessary to prevent dead people from voting, all stoke the fires of paranoia about a rigged election. Despite the absurdly low numbers of voter fraud (between 0.00004 percent and 0.0009 percent) this has become a talking point to Republicans. The result has been long lines, particularly in African-American communities and near college campuses.
In North Carolina, for example, people are beginning to go to early voting sites to cast ballots to avoid the crowds on Election Day. They're facing long lines anyway, however, that are anywhere from 30 minutes to four hours. "To put that in context, four hours is longer than Donald Trump prepared for any of the debates," Meyers joked. "The only place Trump spent four hours is backstage at a Miss Universe pagent."
There might not be evidence of voter fraud, but there is certainly evidence that something is "off" with Trump. Even the Washington Post noted over the weekend that "Trump is in a funk." He's so morose "he can't even bring himself to do his favorite thing, talk about himself on TV," Meyers observed. Last week, Trump was confronted by a reporter and simply walked away, something he's never been known to do when being attacked. "So sad," Meyers said, confused. "I mean, listen to his voice, even he can't muster the energy to pretend what he's saying isn't ridiculous. 'I'm the least racist person. Everybody says so. Well, some people say so. Nobody says so,'" Meyers said, doing a Trump impression.
U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton slammed rival Donald Trump on Monday for saying that the week-old effort to retake the Iraqi city of Mosul from the control of Islamic State was going badly.
“He’s basically declaring defeat before the battle has even started,” Clinton said at a campaign event in New Hampshire. “He’s proving to the world what it means to have an unqualified commander in chief.”
In a tweet on Sunday, Trump, the Republican nominee for the Nov. 8 election, said the “attack on Mosul is turning out to be a total disaster. We gave them months of notice. U.S. is looking so dumb.”
Iraqi and Kurdish forces, backed by the United States, have mounted a huge assault on the area surrounding the city, the last stronghold of Islamic State forces in Iraq. They have retaken about 80 Islamic State-held villages and towns since the offensive was launched on Oct. 16, but have yet to move on the city itself.
Trump reiterated his position during a rally on Monday in St. Augustine, Florida, where he also urged supporters to vote early and declared his campaign was winning the election.
"So now we’re bogged down in Mosul. The enemy is much tougher than they thought. They’ve had a lot of time to get ready," Trump said. "It’s a horrible, horrible situation that’s going on. Why did we have to tell them we’re going in?"
The operation could last weeks, or even months. Islamic State mounted counterattacks on Monday across the country against the Iraqi army and Kurdish forces, trying to deflect attention away from the Mosul campaign.
Trump suggested last week during the final 2016 presidential debate that the U.S.-backed attack on Mosul was orchestrated to help Clinton in her White House bid.
With just over two weeks to go until the election, Clinton, President Barack Obama's first-term secretary of state, leads the New York businessman in national opinion polls. Both candidates have been focusing on a small set of political swing states that could decide the contest.
Seeking to cement a wide advantage she holds with women voters, Clinton enlisted the help of firebrand U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who blasted Trump over allegations he tried to grope or kiss several women without their consent over a 20-year span.
“He thinks that because he has a mouthful of Tic Tacs that he can force himself on any woman within groping distance,” Warren told a raucous crowd of 4,000 at St. Anselm College in Manchester. “Well, I’ve got news for you, Donald Trump. Women have had it with guys like you.”
'Nasty women'
At least 10 women have said Trump made unwanted sexual advances, including groping or kissing, in incidents from the early 1980s to 2007, according to reports in various news outlets. Trump has denied the women's allegations, calling them "totally and absolutely false" and promising on Saturday he would sue his accusers.
Warren's mention of Tic Tac mint candies referred to a moment in a 2005 video that surfaced earlier this month in which Trump was heard boasting about groping and kissing women.
Warren also referred to Trump calling Clinton “a nasty woman” at last week’s debate, a phrase that quickly caught fire on social media, sparking hashtags and T-shirts.
“Get this, Donald, nasty women are tough,” Warren said. “Nasty women are smart. And nasty women vote. And on Nov. 8 we nasty women are gonna march our nasty feet to cast our nasty votes to get you out of our lives forever.”
Clinton praised Warren for taking the fight to Trump. “She gets under his (Trump’s) thin skin like nobody else,” the candidate said.
Warren is one of a handful of high-profile surrogate campaigners helping Clinton in the final weeks of the race. In California, Obama raised money for his former top diplomat and joked on the "Jimmy Kimmel Live" show that he laughed most of the time when he saw Trump on television.
Trump spent the day campaigning in Florida, a critical swing state. At an event in Tampa, he criticized Clinton's position on Syria. "If you look at her plans for Syria, these are the plans of a child. These are the plans of someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing," he said.
At an earlier event for farmers in Boynton Beach, Trump disputed multiple national and state polls that show him lagging Clinton and accused the media of distorting poll results to discourage his supporters from voting.
“I believe we’re actually winning,” Trump said.
Just the day before, Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, acknowledged that the candidate was trailing in the race, saying in a TV interview: “We are behind.”
The former first lady is working to turn out her supporters in states such as Ohio, where singer Jay Z plans to hold a concert in support of her candidacy, the Clinton campaign said.
According to the Reuters/Ipsos States of the Nation project, which surveys the vote in battleground states, Clinton leads Trump in most of the states that Trump would need to win to have a chance of amassing the 270 Electoral College votes needed to capture the White House.
According to the survey, she had a better than 95 percent chance of winning, had the election been held last week. The mostly likely outcome would be 326 votes for Clinton to 212 for Trump. The Electoral College votes represent a tally of wins from the states.
(Reporting by Luciana Lopez in New Hampshire and Steve Holland in Florida; Additional reporting by Amanda Becker; Writing by James Oliphant and Jeff Mason; Editing by Jonathan Oatis, Peter Cooney and Michael Perry)
Republican nominee Donald Trump was recently invited to a fundraising event organized by a conservative group of Hindu Americans, the Republican Hindu Coalition. A poster from the event, which describes the group as “Hindus for Trump,” portrays the candidate in a posture much like that of a yogi in deep meditation.
It shows Trump, face pointing upward and hands outstretched, rising up from a mass of red, white and blue flower petals in the shape of a lotus. Prominently displayed in the center is the Indian sacred syllable, “om,” decorated with stars and stripes.
Om is the preeminent Sanskrit mantra and symbol of Indian religions, especially Hinduism.
In terms of religious identity, this sign denotes Hinduism in much the same way that the star of David and the Christian cross represent Judaism and Christianity. Om has its own dedicated sign in the scripts for Hindi and other Indian languages.
In global culture, the om sign has come to stand for Indian spirituality in general. It has been widely adopted by practitioners of yoga and meditation.
However, contemplation, transcendence or Indian spirituality would seem to have little in common with Trump’s public persona that has been described by the media as reflecting “narcissism, disagreeableness, grandiosity.”
So, what should we make of this juxtaposition of Trump and India’s “sacred syllable”?
For the uninitiated, here is what om means
The history of om stretches back more than 3,000 years. Om was first attested in the Vedas, a massive corpus of ancient “knowledge” (“veda” in Sanskrit) from the first millennium B.C. that furnishes the oldest and most authoritative texts of Hinduism.
The Upaniṣads, a collection of later Vedic texts regarded as the foundation for Indian philosophy, hailed om as “this whole world” and as the singular distillation of all wisdom.
Subsequent texts on Hindu law from the start of the Common Era codified the practice of intoning om at the start of every sacred recitation.
Hindu theological discourses emphasize that the sound of om is not of human origin – rather, it is a divine revelation and an audible expression of transcendence. By chanting or contemplating the mantra om, a practitioner gains access to a higher state of consciousness that leads to liberation from the cycle of rebirth.
In all these respects, the syllable has served as the quintessential symbol of religious authority in Hinduism – a role it continues to play up through the present day.
Multiple forms of om
This history, however, is not that simple. My research into om’s early history reveals that this symbol, much like the Hindu traditions it has come to represent, is neither monolithic nor static.
Om did not emerge suddenly as a full-fledged symbol of knowledge and the cosmos. Instead, premodern Hindu thinkers gradually constructed om as a single concept through contentious debates and theological reflections.
My research shows om in the Vedas does not have a single form or meaning. It is recited in many ways, appears in many different ritual contexts, and inspires a wide range of interpretations.
For example, Vedic experts in music described it as the sound of the sun, since it introduced their songs just like the sun signals the start of the day; the same singers called om “honey” for the sweetness it added to their melodies.
Vedic specialists in sacrifice glossed om as an affirmation of ritual actions, as the “truth” inherent in their mantras.
Other Vedic thinkers maintained that om was a secret password for attaining immortality at the moment of death.
Such examples could be multiplied many times over, not just in the Vedas but also in subsequent texts from Hindu, Buddhist and other Indian religious traditions where om is central to discussions about yoga, meditation, creation and salvation.
The bottom line is that India’s sacred syllable emerged over many centuries, depended on the contributions of different voices and accrued countless meanings along the way.
As a researcher of om, whenever I encounter the sign – whether inscribed in a manuscript, displayed at a Hindu temple or featured on a Donald Trump poster – its history of multiple meanings flashes into my mind.
There is no one Hindu voice
Now, against this background, let’s look at what the Hindus for Trump group is doing with its juxtaposition of Trump and om.
Hindus for Trump is closely allied with the Republican Hindu Coalition (RHC). Founded in 2015 by businessman Shalli Kumar, the RHC claims to provide “a single, unified platform for raising voice of Hindu Americans in public policy.”
In my view this raises the following issues:
Although in some contexts om is simply shorthand for “Hindu,” it seems problematic to harness this complex symbol to the single agenda of right-wing political activism among Hindu Americans.
Additionally, this raises another question: Do Hindu Americans really speak with only one voice?
A poster displaying the religions of India at the India Heritage Camp held in New York.
Mary Altaffer/AP
Judging from the protests and the backlash on social media, there are many Hindu Americans besides Hindus for Trump and the RHC who might be inclined to associate Trump with syllables more profane than sacred.
Om’s history exemplifies the fact that Hindu traditions and Hindu identity are complex and varied. “Hinduism” covers an astonishing array of doctrines, practices and lifestyles in India, Asia and around the world.
While Hinduism’s history has not been free from conflict, there is an abiding openness to diversity at the roots of the tradition, as this famous verse from the Vedas attests (Rig Veda 1.164):
“Truth is one but the wise call it by many names.”
Vowing to not talk about GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, CBS Late Show host Stephen Colbert lasted approximately one minute before delving into Trump's disastrous Gettysburg address where he threatened to sue the women who have accused him of sexual assault.
With Trump saying he would see his accusers in court, Colbert noted, "Yes, he will take all of these women to court. But at least when he's swearing in, they'll know where his hands are.
Citing the original Gettysburg address at a time when the nation was divided, Colbert said the country is facing a similar division.
"America is divided between those who think Trump will lose because the election's rigged -- and those who think he'll lose because it's not," he quipped.
Colbert then invited on the ghost of Abraham Lincoln to give the first draft of his speech -- with a definite Trumpian-spin.
Scottie Nell Hughes was at it again in defense of Republican nominee Donald Trump on CNN, Monday night, when she suggested that the media's polling numbers are a farce and said support for Tump could better be judged using social media.
According to Hughes, the media and polling numbers reported by media are inaccurate, and if you want to see the true value of the Trump campaign, you have to look at the turnout at his rallies.
She said, "The only place we’re hearing… that Donald Trump is losing is in the media or these polls…. You’re not seeing it with the crowd rallies, you’re not seeing the enthusiasm, you’re not seeing it on social media, where Donald Trump is 2-3 times more than Hillary Clinton on every social media platform."
CNN anchor Anderson Cooper shot back with the best comeback. He said in the most matter-of-fact way, "I also hear on Twitter that 9/11 is an inside job."
As the panelists laughed and Cooper took the segment to a pause, he said, "Time now for a quick break. Please don't tweet me about this."
Republican nominee Donald Trump made a campaign stop in St. Augustine, Florida on Monday where he conveniently dodged an one-on-one interview with a tough local reporter, Florida Politics reports.
Action News Jax reporter Jenna Bourne had set up a one-on-one interview with Trump on Monday following his rally, but the campaign refused to meet with Bourne after she declined to send them a list of questions.
Rather than sending a full list of questions, Bourne, after consulting Action News Jax, sent the campaign a few general ideas, which included "Marco Rubio, diplomacy in the White House, Hispanic Florida voters and Refugees."
The irony is not lost. Trump has been on a crusade over the last two weeks after a WikiLeaks leak revealed that interim DNC chair Donna Brazile provided Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton with the exact wording of one question ahead of a town hall event.
Of course, the Republican nominee responded to the information in the best way he knows how: on Twitter, and at his rallies. He took to Twitter and said, "Why didn't Hillary Clinton announce that she was inappropriately given the debate questions - she secretly used them! Crooked Hillary."
During a campaign stop in Delaware, Ohio last week, Trump said to his supporters, "Can you imagine if I got the questions?They would call for the reestablishment of the electric chair."
It seems, then, that the only time that anyone should receive questions in advance is when Trump is faced with an interview with a tough female reporter.
The Trump campaign reportedly "ghosted" Bourne — meaning they cancelled the interview with little to no notice — who said they told her the interview had either never been scheduled or that a "decision hadn’t been made" about whether to schedule one in the first place.
Full Frontal host Samantha Bee absolutely unloaded on GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump on Monday night, over his debate comments on partial birth abortion, literally yelling at him: "It's not a thing!"
"I'm sure Donald Trump would love to outlaw it, she ranted. "It makes the pussies too gross and screamy for grabbing. and while Donald may not understand how abortion works, he should be familiar with the concept of unviable. For instance, Trump Airlines, Trump Steaks, Trump Vodka, Trump Magazine -- not to mention the entire Trump brand on November 9."
During her attack on the GOP nominee, she labeled him a "dick-waving, Berlusconi-knock-off, little bitch."
During Monday night's Jimmy Kimmel Live! President Obama will read another round of mean tweets about himself, according to the Hill.
The 'Mean Tweets' segment started as part of Kimmel's late night show in 2012 in celebration of Twitter's six-year anniversary. The sketch includes celebrities reading the mean tweets people post about them online.
Obama first participated in the readings of 'Mean Tweets' in March 2015. At the time, he read a tweet about himself that said, "somebody send obama some lifehacks on how to be a good president. haha. like, i bet that would help. lol."
Now, the president is back for the second time for another round, and his haters are still hating. One tweet he read on Monday said, "Barack Obama is the ‘Sharknado’ of presidents. Loud, stupid, and overhyped. #Sharknado4."
After spending 55 years together in a West Village, New York brownstone, Tom Doyle is fighting the family of his late partner for his right to continue living in their home, according to Fusion.
Doyle's partner Bill Cornwell died two years ago in 2014 at age 88. Doyle, who is 85, told the New York Times, "I’m not so concerned about the money, I’m more concerned about a roof over my head for the rest of my life, and I wouldn’t have to be in a nursing home."
He added, "As long as I am here, I have all the familiar surroundings. It’s almost as if Bill is still here." In 2014, Doyle told the Villager about how he and Cornwell met in the late 50s.
He said, "In 1961, we heard about this garden apartment on Horatio St. It was the Meat Market back then. Trucks would roll up the street and bones would fall off the back. The landlord was asking $95 a month and we took it."
Now, Doyle finds himself in the middle of a legal battle with Cornwell's nieces and nephews who suggest that Doyle is not supposed to acquire the property, though mostly due to an error in the will.
According to the New York Times, Cornwell wrote his will nearly ten years ago, and signed over all of his possessions to his longtime partner, "including the three-story, four-unit building of which he was the sole titleholder."
However, while New York law requires that there be two witnesses when signing a will, there was only one person with Cornwell when he signed his will, thus legally invalidating the document.
"He had 50 years to put Tom’s name on any of these papers,” Carole DeMaio, Cornwell's niece said. “The will was never a valid will.” DeMaio even went so far as to suggest that Doyle and Cornwell were just "friends," according to the New York Times.
A lawyer for the Cornwell family, Peter Gray, told the Times, "Could they have all agreed to say, ‘Yeah, listen, fine: Whatever we would inherit as nieces and nephews, you can have it?' But they saw dollar signs, a couple million dollars each, and they are not going to necessarily give that up. It’s not like they are leaving him on the street.”
Doyle and the Cornwell family are now taking the matter to court.
