Donald Trump was quick to weigh in on Friday afternoon after the release of the Georgia special grand jury that revealed the names of a multitude of unindicted co-conspirators that jury members voted to indict but District Attorney Fani Willis did not include in her 19-person RICO filing.
The report contained a wide array of names including sitting U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) as well as former Republican Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, both from Georgia and both who lost their seats in the 2022 midterms.
Regardless of what was contained in the report, the former president took to his Truth Social platform to claim vindication and accuse DA Willis of having "no credibility."
According to the former president, who has also been indicted in separate cases in Florida, Washington D.C., and Manhattan, "The Georgia Grand Jury report has just been released. It has ZERO credibility and badly taints Fani Willis and this whole political Witch Hunt."
He continued, "Essentially, they wanted to indict anybody who happened to be breathing at the time. It totally undermines the credibility of the findings, and badly hurts the Great State of Georgia, whose wonderful and patriotic people are not happy with this charade of an out of control “prosecutor” doing the work of, and for, the DOJ. ELECTION INTERFERENCE!"
President Joe Biden arrives in Vietnam on Sunday on a mission to bolster US influence, but the heavy emphasis on countering rival China will likely confine human rights concerns to the margins.
Biden will become the latest in an unbroken line of US presidents since Bill Clinton in 2000 to visit the Southeast Asian former foe.
The underlying goal will be much the same as during Biden's time at the G20 summit in New Delhi this week -- to shore up support against China's growing influence.
"For decades, the US and Vietnam have worked to overcome a painful shared legacy of the Vietnam War," National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told a briefing this week.
"This visit is a remarkable step in the strengthening of our diplomatic ties, and it reflects the leading role that Vietnam will play in our growing network of partnerships in the Indo-Pacific as we look to the future," he said, using another term for the Asia-Pacific region.
- 'Actually matters' -
On Sunday in Hanoi, the 80-year-old US president will meet the leader of Vietnam's ruling Communist Party, Nguyen Phu Trong, the White House said.
There will be a welcome ceremony, speeches by the two leaders and a press conference by the US president -- who on Tuesday awarded the top US military honor to a helicopter pilot who rescued four soldiers during the Vietnam War.
Biden will meet President Vo Van Thuong and Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on Monday.
On the cards is an upgrade in the relationship between the two countries, less than 50 years after the end of a conflict that left millions of Vietnamese and 58,000 US service members dead.
They are expected to sign off on a "comprehensive strategic partnership", Hanoi's highest level of diplomatic ties.
Gregory Poling of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said that for Vietnam, a partner country's place in the hierarchy of diplomatic relations was important.
Currently Vietnam only has ties at the same level with Russia, India, South Korea and China.
And it is China that Biden has in his sights on the trip, as Beijing keeps up intense efforts to expand its influence in Asia.
China, which fought a war with Vietnam between 1974 and 1988, hasn't been slacking either. This week it sent a high-level delegation to Vietnam to "reinforce solidarity and cooperation", according to Chinese state media.
- 'Egregious' -
However, Vietnam won't be keen to play a role in balancing Washington and Beijing, said Nguyen Quoc Cuong, the Vietnamese ambassador to the United States from 2011 to 2014.
"Vietnam has a very clear policy of befriending all. Vietnam has always said we don't take sides, not choosing the US against China. The US is fully aware of this", said Cuong.
But Biden is betting that Vietnam won't mind being closer to Washington at a time when China's sweeping maritime claims in the South China Sea have fueled tensions.
The Democrat, seeking re-election in 2024, is also thinking about the economy at home. He has called for global supply chains that are less dependent on China, and Vietnam could be a key player in that.
In Vietnam, Biden will be juggling strategic interests with the defense of human rights -- a familiar theme from his dealings with allies like Saudi Arabia and India.
His trip comes days after a US government commission on religious freedom harshly criticized Vietnam for "egregious, ongoing, and systematic violations".
Separately, the State Department has highlighted "significant human rights issues" in the Communist state including illegal or arbitrary executions, torture and the holding of political prisoners.
"We also always raise issues related to freedom of expression, freedom of religion, and other basic human rights", Sullivan said.
"This trip will be no exception to that".
Vietnamese activists have few illusions.
"I do not expect any serious push (for change) from the US", said Le Cong Dinh, a former human rights lawyer in Ho Chi Minh City who was imprisoned for subversion.
"Human rights protection is no longer a top priority."
The trip also includes a poignant visit by Biden to the memorial to his friend John McCain, the former US senator shot down and held captive during the Vietnam War who in later years helped rebuild ties between the two countries.
WASHINGTON — Each afternoon since last week, former President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign has fired off an email titled "ICYMI: Important Articles and Posts from President Trump".
Most of these missives contain predictably Trumpian fare from decidedly far-right outlets peddling MAGA propaganda and culture war outrage.
“Trump is the greatest defender of the Constitution alive today,” declares the headline of a column from the Washington Times’ Charles Hurt.
“Energy sector sees 88% increase in ‘nonbinary’ workers from last year,” reads one story from John Solomon’s Just the News.
But Trump’s daily brag sheets are also peppered with articles from news organizations that — taking Trump at his own word — are straight-up terrible, filled with lying, no-good agents of “fake news” who are hell-bent on harming him.
Among them is “disgusting,” “bad,” “totally biased” and “truly unprofessional” NBC News, which Trump in March called “one of the worst” as he ordered reporter Vaughn Hillyard off his private Boeing 757 jet following a campaign rally in Waco, Texas.
On Wednesday, Trump used his daily email to highlight the reporting of NBC News’ Monica Alba and Carol E. Lee, who wrote that “attorneys for President Joe Biden and the special counsel appointed to investigate his handling of classified documents have been negotiating for about a month over the terms under which he would be interviewed.”
In 2020, Trump issued a blanket Twitter declaration that “WSJ is Fake News!” after the Wall Street Journal chided the then-president for the quality of his daily White House press briefings.
Even the ultimate “enemy of the people” — the “failing,” “inaccurate,” “corrupt,” “sick,” "discredited” and “totally dishonest” New York Times — earned not one, but two slots in Trump’s sizzle reel.
The top of a daily "Important Articles and Posts from President Trump" email that Donald Trump's 2024 campaign began sending out last week. Screengrab
One was a nearly 23-year-old New York Times story about a plan in Florida to appoint George W. Bush electors “with no Jeb Bush signature” — a not-so-subtle tie-in to Trump’s own 2020 fake elector scheme that has landed him and many of his associates in vat of legal magma.
The other, in Trump’s Sept. 6 email, is a piece from 2015 by Michael Barbaro about a 1987 letter to Trump from former President Richard Nixon. In it, Nixon says that his wife, Pat Nixon, saw Trump on the Donohue show and finished the program convinced that “whenever you decide to run for office you will be a winner!”
The “ultra liberal” and “failing” Des Moines Register and perennial “total joke” frenemy Fox News — “Fox has become fake news, too,” Trump said in 2020 — also got Trump email shout-outs in recent days.
So, has Trump, who is facing 91 felony counts across four separate criminal cases while maintaining a commanding lead for the 2024 Republican nomination, warmed to the coverage of his sworn media enemies?
The Trump campaign didn’t directly answer Raw Story questions about whether Trump still considers the New York Times, NBC and the rest to be "fake news". Nor did it explain why the campaign decided to highlight news articles from outlets Trump had previously deemed untrustworthy.
But in an email to Raw Story, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung wrote: “When Fake News is forced to print the truth, you know it's dire for Crooked Joe Biden.”
For Kathy Kiely, the Lee Hills chair in free-press studies at the University of Missouri's Missouri School of Journalism, Trump’s desire to have it both ways is a potential teaching moment. She challenged Trump supporters to think critically about when Trump cites mainstream news organizations to his advantage.
“Look at the record. Are they really fake if Donald Trump quotes these outlets?” Kiely said, while acknowledging that Trump’s “contradictions and hypocrisies don’t seem to bother his most hardcore supporters.”
Trump’s hypocrisy is, at least, transparent, Kiely added.
“He bludgeons the media when it’s convenient. He uses the media when it’s convenient. He’s happy to cite the media organizations he hates when they publish something that is helpful to him,” she said.
True to form, Trump’s email on Thursday featured the republication of an Associated Press story about conservative Christians’ attraction to Trump.
The article to which Trump linked appeared in the Milwaukee Independent, a small, nonprofit news organization in Wisconsin that features this quotation in its “about us” page: “As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
President Joe Biden's 2022 speech in Philadelphia on the threats facing democracy enraged former President Donald Trump so much, it caused him to jump off the sidelines and intervene in the midterm election in ways that harmed GOP candidates.
That's the view of former George W. Bush speechwriter and Never Trump conservative David Frum, who elaborated on his theory in an MSNBC segment with Jonathan Capehart and Charles Blow.
"You will remember that President Biden did give a major speech about the state of democracy on the eve of the 2022 congressional elections," said Frum. "The speech was in Philadelphia, the one with the ominous red lighting."
"Yes, and the speech was intensely powerful because what it did is it goaded Donald Trump into intervening in the 2022 elections," continued Frum. "Remember, the Republican strategy had been keep him off stage. This is not about Trump. Trump would not be contained after that speech. I think there's a lot of evidence that Trump's re-emergence did damage to Republican candidates and was one of the reasons they had such a disappointing election in 2022. People remember Republicans did capture the House, but they forget the downballot disaster. They lost four state legislative chambers, something which hasn't happened to the out-party since the Depression."
"Charles is absolutely right about the mismatch between the political timing of the highly informed, highly attentive to politics and those who are less so," Frum added. "But the President of the United States speaks to those who are less so. And his timing has to match theirs. And that time is not now. That time will come, but it is not now."
Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) hit back against his GOP colleague, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA), during a radio show Thursday.
Greene attacked Buck on Tuesday in a thread where she posted a letter Buck sent to other Republicans in the Colorado GOP. It was a response to a complaint sent by a constituent claiming that Jan. 6 defendants are being held without bond and are political prisoners. Buck alleges in the letter that the constituent made many unsubstantiated allegations that Buck attempts to dispute.
Greene didn't specifically address any of the things Buck disputes from the constituent.
She began by attacking him: "First off, Mr. Buck passed the buck on voting to object on Jan 6, 2021, and certified Joe Biden’s election so we know.."
What she does say, however, is that she believes the Jan. 6 members in jail are being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Constitution. She and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) cite in their report on the matter and boasted that she led a delegation to the Washington, D.C. jail where pre-trial defendants are being kept.
The D.C. jail has been documented as having poor conditions for years. The majority of residents of the jail are people of color. The Jan. 6 attackers in jail are reportedly white. Only after the Jan. 6 riot defendants were jailed did Republicans like Greene begin to protest the conditions at the jail.
“It’s America. They’re not going to do anything unless white people say it’s a problem,” former D.C. jail resident Michael Cohen told TIME in 2022. He is not the Michael Cohen that previously worked for Donald Trump. “If the insurrectionists can be treated like humans, the people who’ve been in this city can be treated like humans.”
Greene's "report" on what she saw at the jail focused on the Jan. 6 men and advocated that they be treated better. It does not speak out against all of the pre-trial detainees who are jailed around the country in horrific conditions. Nor does she fight for nationwide change to the jail and prison industries and conditions for inmates.
She goes on to attack special counsel Jack Smith and his investigation and the Justice Department as a whole for what she says is part of President Joe Biden's systemic attack on conservatives. She went on to say that she will not vote for a single budget for the government until the Smith investigation is fully defunded.
"Draining the swamp means impeaching criminal politicians, stopping a communist weaponized government, and objecting to stolen elections. Not apologizing for communists abusing their power to persecute their political enemies," Greene closed.
Buck hit back at Greene, calling into question both her intellect and experience with the law and Constitution.
"When I was teaching law school, I learned and taught certain Constitutional principles. When Marjorie Taylor Greene was teaching CrossFit, she learned a whole different set of values evidently because my idea of what this country should be like is based on the Constitution and she sees the world differently. She has criticized me for voting to certify the election in 2020. The Constitution says, 'Congress shall count the votes.' It doesn't say 'Congress may overturn an election result.' It doesn't say 'Congress may do whatever the heck it wants with the election.' Congress shall count the votes.' That's what the Constitution says. In her CrossFit class, maybe they didn't cover that."
He went on to say that the Constitution also makes it clear that the "impeachment of a president shall be based on treason, high crimes and misdemeanors."
"It doesn't say the political exercise and we hope it does the right thing," Buck said. "So, I get tired — you know, one of the beauties of Congress is you bring 435 people together from different backgrounds and you try to reach a consensus on issues. When you've got people who care more about their social media followers than they do about the Constitution, we have a real problem in Congress."
While senators’ health ailments are dominating cable shows and social media, the debate has barely penetrated the marble walls of one of the nation’s oldest Senates ever.
That’s by design.
“It is an institution that honors old age. Seniority is everything,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) told Raw Story after voting at the Capitol on Wednesday. “The Senate is also a place where one person on the first day can do some really big things, mostly based on their ability to obstruct, but that's the way it's built. It does reward longevity, and, consequently, you end up with a lot of older members.”
Indeed, the position of Senate president pro tempore — third in line to the presidency — is traditionally reserved for the majority party senator who’s served the longest, continuously. Committee chairpersons are often, if not exclusively, given to a majority party senator with the longest service on a given committee.
You also end up with a lot of secrets in an already secretive body. There’s a seemingly impenetrable veil of silence at the Capitol when it comes to lawmakers with failing health.
Seemingly, one of the most enduring bipartisan principles in the “World’s Greatest Deliberative Body” seems to be that you let your political friends and foes alike die as they please — even if you find them diminishing right next to you as you consider some of the nation’s most critical decisions and cast consequential votes.
When Senate insiders do talk — staffers, in particular — it’s generally in whispers about the lengths some must go to prop up their aged bosses. And it’s not pretty.
‘Out of respect for colleagues’
Six years ago — or one term, according to Senate time — in her piece, “An old-school pharmacy hand-delivers drugs to Congress,”Erin Mershon of STAT News reported that Capitol Hill pharmacist Mike Kim fills Alzheimer’s prescriptions for at least one member of Congress.
That terrifyingly tantalizing admission is news to freshmen senators — “That's pretty wild. I'm gonna look that up and read it,” Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) told Raw Story — but it’s simply the ways of Washington to senior senators who seem in on the not-so-secret-secret.
“I actually don't want to comment on that out of respect for colleagues,” Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) told Raw Story after exiting a Senate elevator.
Others shrug off reports of their congressional colleagues being afflicted with debilitating diseases like Alzheimer’s.
“We're a representative body reflective of the country. There's probably a lot of people in the workforce that are engaged in all kinds of different medications, whether they're for Alzheimer's, mental health, whatever. That doesn't surprise me,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) told Raw Story on Wednesday while walking next to the underground Senate tram.
Capito serves as a part of McConnell’s leadership team. She was in his office Tuesday night for their regular start of the week meeting.
“He was sharp as ever,” Capito said.
How the ravages of age affect the human body is a congressional drama that’s as old as Congress.
In 1846, former President John Quincy Adams suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed. Voters didn’t care. The former U.S. senator from Massachusetts overcame its debilitating effects and was then sent back to Washington, only this time as a member of the House.
That’s where, in 1848, Adams collapsed as he rose in his seat on the House floor only to later die in the Speaker’s Room of the Capitol.
More recently, Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-SC) remained in office until his 100th birthday.
Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) died in office in 2009 at 77.
Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) died in office in 2010 at 92.
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) died in office in 2018 at 81.
Such situations can leave millions of constituents without the active representation of a key, duly elected federal lawmaker — or, in the case of those who die in office, no elected representation at all. Governors work to quickly fill their seat, but they don’t consult voters and often tap one of their political allies, some of whom never seem to leave the seat.
‘Medicine shouldn't be politicized’
These days, the nation’s aged politicians are protected by their aides and most of their colleagues whoplay senatorially-supportive roles.
But every now and again, a lawmaker breaks Congress’ unofficially-official code of silence.
We saw that rarity this spring when Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) had enough ofthe congressional veil of silence after his state’s senior stateswoman, Feinstein, told Raw Story, “I’m not announcing anything” — hours after her office had literally announced she wasn’t seeking re-election in 2024.
As Khanna took to social media to call for Feinstein’s resignation, he showed the public what’s common knowledge in Washington: Feinstein stopped making some of her own decisions long ago.
“It’s time for@SenFeinstein to resign. We need to put the country ahead of personal loyalty. While she has had a lifetime of public service, it is obvious she can no longer fulfill her duties,” Khanna wrote. “Not speaking out undermines our credibility as elected representatives of the people.”
Of course, it would be unethical, immoral and idiotic for a doctor to divulge their patient’s diagnosis without consent. Consent, however, is not the problem when Washington physicians go out of their way to politically protect politicians.
Glowing physical examinations can transform a physician into a politician. Just ask Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX). He catapulted himself into the U.S. House Representatives after garnering headlines while serving as former President Donald Trump’s White House physician. Politicized medicine is a disease all its own, at least according to Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY). The Duke-trained ophthalmologist is one of four physicians currently serving in the Senate. He’s openly questioning Dr. Brian Monahan, the attending physician of U.S. Congress, for reporting McConnell’s showing no signs of a seizure or stroke.
“Medicine shouldn't be politicized, and if you're giving advice on, you know, what someone's potential diagnosis is, really, it ought to be based on the facts. And what I can tell you is that having vacant spells of 30 seconds or more where you’re unresponsive, is not a sign or a symptom of a concussion,” Paul told reporters Wednesday.
Bolstered by the Capitol physician’s report, the 81-year-old Senate minority leader brushed aside health questions Wednesday.
“I’m going to finish my term as leader and I’m going to finish my Senate term,” McConnell told the congressional press corps.
Everything’s … fine?
To many members of the Senate, everything’s fine, even if many read more into McConnell’s health episodes than the congressional physician reported.
“I think people need to actually read his book to understand the guy had polio and polio’s coming back and he's having some serious pain issues,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) told Raw Story just off the Senate floor. “The first time it happened, he was on the floor at 10 o’clock that night having conversations with us. Sharp as a tack.”
At the start of this Congress, Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) challenged McConnell’s leadership position, but, like most all others, he’s backing McConnell now.
Support McConnell continuing as leader?
“Absolutely,” Scott told reporters at the Capitol. “Mine was all about how you manage the Congress.”
As for Feinstein?
“Every time I’ve talked to her she’s been really nice to me,” Scott told Raw Story.
In your five years serving next to Feinstein, ever had a good policy conversation with her?
In a building built on seniority, members of both parties have already gamed out what the eventual exits of Feinstein and McConnell — and their combined 70 years in Washington — mean for their respective party’s rank and file.
But those whispers are kept far away from the cameras, secure within the bipartisan veil of silence.
While Feinstein checked outlong ago, McConnell, who isn’t up for re-election until 2026, seems bent on staying put for at least the next three-plus years.
His colleagues seem fine with that, because, most argue, Kentuckians decided to give him a seventh six-year term back in 2020 — even if voters nationally overwhelmingly support congressional term limits and age limits. Many frustrated voters even support cognitive tests for older lawmakers — something Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley has vocally pushed for lawmakers over the age of 75.
In New Hampshire on Tuesday, Haley even suggested 80-year-old President Joe Biden, if elected for a second term, would die before his term was up in 2029.
"There's no way Joe Biden is going to be 86. We all see it. This is about the fact that — you think it it's bad now? This could get so much more worse," Haley said.
Meanwhile, Republican frontrunner Donald Trump would become the oldest person elected president — 78 in November 2024 — were he to win the White House next year.
As for McConnell, many lawmakers just wish he'd get his eyes checked. Because, even as most senators reject proposals like term limits or mental fitness tests, they say Washington’s broken. They just wish those at the top of Washington’s power pyramid could see the ruins they’ve left in their storied wakes.
“It barely functions at all, as far as I can tell,” Cramer of North Dakota told Raw Story. “I think we should get back to some better guardrails.”
A trio of attorneys penned an open letter to indicted Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro on Thursday urging him to "swallow hard, cooperate, stay out of jail, and spend the rest of your life a free man" as Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' sprawling Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act case against Chesebro, former President Donald Trump, and seventeen of their associates proceeds.
Chesebro is the author of a memo laying out a plan to send fraudulent slates of pro-Trump presidential electors to Washington following Trump's 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden. In it, Chesebro suggests that then-Vice President Mike Pence had the power to reject Biden's electors from battleground states that Trump falsely insisted that he won.
"We have observed your ongoing travails in the criminal justice system at the federal and state level," wrote Katya Jestin, Marcus A.R. Childress and Caroline M. Darmody in the letter that was published by Just Security, a website that covers security and democracy.
"As experienced defense counsel, we write with serious concerns about your decision to proceed to trial in Georgia. Your current path represents a grave threat to your liberty. We urge you to reconsider for that purpose alone," the Just Security letter begins.
"We have watched as you were indicted in Fulton County, Georgia on August 14, thirteen days after being included as 'Co-Conspirator Five' in the federal indictment against former President Trump. We then watched as you pleaded not guilty in Fulton County, asserted your speedy trial rights under state law, filed an unsuccessful motion to sever your trial from that of co-defendant Sidney Powell, and most recently filed a motion to dismiss under the Supremacy Clause.
"We do not seek to weigh in on the merits of the individual Georgia charges pending against you. Instead, we are focused here on what the best legal advice would mean for someone in your position, and how to effectuate the optimal strategy."
Conceding that "we are not your lawyers" and that "nothing we write here is meant to suggest that you are not being represented ably by excellent counsel who are focused on your best interest," the three legal minds tell Chesebro, "we beseech you, think of one and only one thing: your liberty."
They continue, "As an appellate lawyer, you have probably not spent much time, or any time at all, inside a prison. But as seasoned defense counsel and former prosecutors, we have. Believe us when we tell you that prison is not where you want to spend any amount of time, much less a minimum of five years or the rest of your life."
They add, "You face criminal charges in the State of Georgia on seven counts. The state alleges that you conspired: to impersonate public officials by having impostors hold themselves out as qualified presidential electors; to forge and file a false document that purported to be a 'certificate' of Georgia’s 2020 electoral votes; and ultimately, to unlawfully change the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
"The facts underlying such a conspiracy, if it indeed existed as alleged, could astonish all Americans, particularly the jurors, voters, and citizens of Georgia especially as you are an outsider who allegedly worked to disenfranchise members of their community."
Following a review of "the facts," the authors assert that "it appears that the prosecution in Fulton County, Georgia has a lot to work with. This means that, barring jury nullification, chances are you will be convicted. And, even if you really want to roll the dice with the jury, the federal case looms; that must be factored in here. Yours is a Damoclean situation."
Therefore, Chesebro's best course of action, the attorneys jointly conclude, is "to swallow hard, cooperate, stay out of jail, and spend the rest of your life a free man."
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) sidestepped a question about his talks with Donald Trump's allies about a possible departure from constitutional requirements on Jan. 6, 2021.
Conservative lawyer John Eastman was asked during a California disbarment trial about an email he sent Dec. 23, 2020, hinting that Grassley, then the Senate president pro tempore, might play a role in the congressional certification of Joe Biden's election win, but he testified that his discussions on that topic were protected by attorney-client privilege.
"President Trump," Eastman said, when asked who his client had been.
Grassley caused a stir on Jan. 5, 2021, when he suggested that he would preside over the certification of electoral votes, rather than then-vice president Mike Pence, saying "we don't expect him to be there."
Pence, as president over the Senate at the time, was authorized to lead the joint session of Congress, although at times in the past the job has fallen to the Senate president pro tempore -- typically the most senior senator in the majority, as Grassley was at the time.
"“We were talking about presiding over the Senate, but a lot of people get that mixed up with some idea that I was going to preside over the joint session,” Grassley said Thursday, when asked about Eastman's testimony and his previous remarks, “and you know that's not what I ever intended to do.“
What's more, that employee has now made a deal with the Justice Department in exchange for testimony against Trump.
Speaking to CNN's Dana Bash on Thursday, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, himself a former prosecutor, said that Trump will likely spend his life agonizing over what he told the witness.
Christie suspects that the former president won't be able to stop thinking about those he perceived were loyal to him refusing to take the fall.
"Two things will happen," he began. "This man [Taveras] will be vilified, attacked, and savaged by Donald Trump publicly. And secondly, Donald Trump will lay in his bed at night staring at the ceiling trying to remember every conversation he had with this guy while he's sick to his stomach."
Christie predicted that this process would "repeat itself over and over and over again. It's going to repeat itself in Georgia, with some of the co-defendants. And it may happen again in this matter. The federal matters that are pending with folks who are either indicted or unindicted coconspirators. So, this is what the Republican Party is facing. Drip, drip, drip on the guy who is the front-runner, which is why he cannot be the nominee. If he is the nominee, he will not beat Joe Biden."
House Republicans have settled on bribery as the centerpiece of their impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden – although they still haven't found the evidence they hope to find.
GOP lawmakers are hoping the impeachment inquiry will give them the ability to uncover evidence of a "pay-to-play" bribery scheme involving Hunter Biden's business dealings in Ukraine, but for now they concede they've got a frame but haven't completed their masterpiece, reported The Messenger.
“We have this entire picture getting painted, and it’s more than just a bunch of dots connected," said Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX). "It’s that we’re seeing the picture form but we still have some things to fill in, and so we’ve got to know where’d the money go? How was any of the money used, whether it went directly to Joe or not, and then figure out any other information that we can get about why.”
GOP chairmen have pored over documents and interviewed witnesses before their committees to prove the Bidens personally benefitted from their White House ties when Hunter Biden was paid by the Ukrainian energy firm Burisma and a Chinese energy company, but so far their evidence is mostly conjecture.
“That money was coming from foreign countries,” said Roy, a member of the House Judiciary Committee. “The vice president [Biden] and then president [Barack Obama] was then lying about his knowledge about it. We know that to be true.”
A top House conservative lawmaker who asked for anonymity agreed there was "a mountain of evidence that Biden was on the take," and while no evidence has been found so far to show Biden received any of the money that came through his son, Republicans seem to think they've found enough to politically damage the White House.
“They don’t need the fire,” said Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. “They feel there is enough smoke to move forward and cause political problems.”
"The View's" co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin didn't get a good reception from the Manhattan audience when she celebrated some of the Republican candidates on Thursday.
Speaking about better possibilities, she claimed the GOP could win and be amazing with someone other than Trump.
"They want somebody that feels like turning the page and trying something different," Griffin said.
"Who?" asked Joy Behar.
"I think Nikki Haley or Mike Pence could be a strong president tomorrow," Griffin said.
The audience began to boo.
"Turning, turning," Behar joked.
"I understand. I love you guys. It's a Manhattan audience," Griffin said, before encouraging a new generation of leadership in both parties.
The co-hosts also said that Michelle Obama's adage "when they go low, we go high, is outdated.
Speaking about recent poll numbers from CNN showing President Joe Biden underwater on issues, the women argued it's because he's spent his time in office doing the job and not going on the offensive. Even on the issues where he's been successful, they want the president to fight back.
"I understand that there are people who specifically feel that they are under the bell jar with the finances," said Behar. "But statistically the economy has gotten better. There are more jobs than we've ever had. Inflation is down. I don't know about gas price, although I'm not sure he's involved with that. But they're mad. The job numbers are very, very good. I mean, last month we had 187,000 jobs. A lot of jobs. And last week he delivered a huge plan to reduce prescription drug costs. Insulin. And the Republican Party votes against that."
Sunny Hostin pointed out that one of the biggest challenges in the economy has been for Black Americans trying to buy a home. The Federal Reserve Chairman has jacked up the interest rates, and the cost of buying a home has become too high for many Americans. The Urban Institute explained, "Black homeowners pay about $250 more per year in interest charges."
Griffin agreed, saying that for the Millennial generation, homeownership isn't something that anyone thinks they can achieve until they're in their 40s. She acknowledged, however, that it isn't Biden's fault after an economic crash in 2007 and the rise in college tuition costs.
"Perception becomes reality," she explained.
Behar said that Biden doesn't even mention Trump's name when he speaks out against GOP policies.
"In 2019, Biden said he counseled Hillary Clinton, don't get into the topic of the 'Access Hollywood' tape. When they go low, we go high. It's time for the Democrats to go low and start talking and trashing the other side," said Behar to audience applause.
"I think that they — when someone goes low, you need to go to the Earth's crust," Hostin agreed. "You need to become small like an ant and you need to meet their energy where their energy is."
It's a similar strategy echoed in 2020 by California Democratic strategist Sean Clegg: “When they go low, we kick ‘em in the nuts."
Behar made a similar comment on HBO after Donald Trump was elected. She debated Van Jones, exclaiming, "F--k your kumbaya! When they go low, we go lower – these people are crazy."
See their full conversation in the video below or at the link here.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is rapidly approaching the most dangerous stage so far in his leadership career as he contends with a growing rebellion within his caucus who don't want him to work out a budget deal with President Joe Biden's administration – preferring instead to impeach him.
This is all happening as Senate Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), look on and duck running to his rescue, instead choosing to work with Democrats to pass legislation.
With Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) threatening to vote against a new budget bill unless McCarthy meets her demands that extend to stopping aid to Ukraine and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) hinting at a move to vacate the chair – ending McCarthy's dream of a long-term speakership – over impeachment , MSNBC's Hayes Brown notes Republican senators aren't rushing to shore up McCarthy's future.
"The Senate Appropriations Committee not only passed all 12 spending bills, it passed all 12 with overwhelmingly bipartisan votes, something that feels as rare as hen’s teeth these days. (Also, it’s worth noting that McConnell himself sits on the committee and voted on all 12 bills.) The plan is to start moving those across the Senate floor for passage in the next week or so, leaving the House in the metaphorical dust," he wrote before contrasting the Senate Republicans with their GOP colleagues in the House.
"There are major risks to McCarthy for notholding an impeachment vote. For example, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has said she won’t vote for any spending bills without an impeachment inquiry. And Rep. Matt Gaetz unsubtly hinted at further retribution during a radio interview Tuesday. He warned that 'if Speaker McCarthy stands in our way, he may not have the job long,'" Brown reported before adding, "If he doesn’t schedule a vote on impeachment to mollify his members on the right, McCarthy will have to depend on Democratic votes to keep the government open. That would be yet another reason, though, for members of the chaos caucus like Gaetz to pull the trigger on a motion to vacate the chair, which could lead to McCarthy losing the speakership."
He went on to point out that none of this seems to be concerning to McConnell.
"His caucus is mostly uninterested in the impeachment contretemps playing out in the lower chamber and is clearly united enough to pass bills alongside the Democratic majority. In short, Senate Republicans are doing what’s best for Senate Republicans, rather than what might help bail out the speaker," he wrote before adding, "From McConnell’s side of the Capitol, the problems McCarthy is facing are all of his making. Thus, McConnell is leaving him to figure it all out for himself."
U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene says she is "demanding" a vote on an impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden, listing just a handful of Republican members of Congress who support the move. While the far-right Georgia Republican has been ramping up the pressure on House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to approve an impeachment inquiry, longtime GOP strategist Susan Del Percio warns if Republicans try it, "it's going to go very badly" for them.
"No evidence has surfaced," The Messenger reports Thursday, "that shows President Biden received any of the funds that flowed to his son. And plenty of moderate and establishment Republicans worry impeachment will backfire on the party."
“It’s stupid. It’s completely made up. They don’t have anything,” Republican strategist Susan Del Percio told The Messenger. “This is not about impeachment for cause. This is a political stunt. And I have a feeling it’s going to go very badly for Republicans.”
Two weeks ago Newsweek published a report titled: "Full List of Republicans Who Support Impeaching Biden." It named less than one dozen House Republicans.
On Wednesday, Congresswoman Greene, who filed legislation to impeach President Biden on his first full day in office, posted video of her speaking to Turning Point USA's Benny Johnson on his YouTube show.
"I tell you what, Kevin McCarthy is a yes vote for an impeachment inquiry. Jim Jordan is a yes vote. James Comer, Jason Smith. Many, many Republicans are a yes vote for an impeachment inquiry right now," Greene said. "And I'm going to argue that we will see it put into action when we go back to Congress, possibly as early as next week."
"I'm demanding it," she told Johnson. "I'm so serious about this because I know the evidence is there, and I'm so disgusted and embarrassed for our country that we have such a corrupt president that we have allowed to remain in power and that they have colluded and conspired to cover up his crimes."
"It is purely disgusting to me, and I will not tolerate it and that's why I came out very boldly to it to my constituents at home at a town hall and I said I'm not voting to fund the government until we have an impeachment inquiry," Greene continued, threatening to vote to shut down the federal government unless her demands are met.
Her other demands include not funding "the government for any kind of COVID mask vaccine mandates, future vaccines, COVID insanity, it's a mental illness at this point," Greene declared, as COVID cases rise.
She also said she would not "fund the government for Ukraine to further a war that's just murdering people," which she also alleged was "lining the pockets of Democrats."
Ultimately, she declared, "I'm not going to vote to fund the weaponized government," as she lashed out at Wednesday's sentence of Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who was sentenced to 22 years in prison for his role in the January 6 insurrection. Greene said others who participated are being "persecuted."
"It's time for us to get serious and I'm telling you things are about to get real when we go back to Washington next week."
Last month, USA Today reported, the House Oversight Committee, "said in [a] report that it plans to continue to investigate Biden to find evidence of corruption, even as it acknowledged that it had no evidence that he financially benefited from the myriad foreign business dealings of his son Hunter."
The top of a daily "Important Articles and Posts from President Trump" email that Donald Trump's 2024 campaign began sending out last week. Screengrab