With Ukraine struggling with ammunition shortages in its fight against Russia, President Joe Biden on Friday called out Republicans who are still refusing to back a military aid package to the country.
In fact, noted Biden, the Republican-led House of Representatives will be on recess between now and the end of the month, which he called an unacceptably long break at a time when an American ally needed desperate help.
"It's about time they step up, don't you think, instead of going on a two-week vacation?" Biden asked rhetorically. "Two weeks! What are they thinking? My God! This is bizarre!"
Biden went on to explain how Republicans' decision to kill the foreign aid package, which also provided significant reforms to America's asylum and immigration laws, were a gift to foreign adversaries.
"It just reinforces the concern... about the United States being a reliable ally," he said.
The push to help Ukraine gained added urgency on Friday after it was revealed that longtime Russian dissident leader Alexey Navalny had died in prison.
While the cause of Navalny's death has not been disclosed, Russia's history of targeting dissidents with assassination has raised suspicions in many nations that foul play may have been involved.
Despite this, it does not appear that the House of Representatives is poised to move on an aide package anytime soon, as Speaker Mike Johnson has called any packages for aid that do not have significant border reforms to be dead on arrival.
What's more, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has vowed to file a motion to vacate the speakership should Johnson agree to bring any aid package for Ukraine to the floor of the House of Representatives.
A seemingly terrified pup in the clutches of a young Republican and next to the MAGA firebrand appears in a photo that went
viral on social media this week — and got an outpouring of concern.
“Those are ‘Please save me’ eyes,” @NoWay7790 replied to the photo shared on X.
The photo appears to have been taken at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit in Tampa, Florida, in 2022, according to reports.
While the unidentified man and Greene (R-GA) both have big smiles, X user Ron Filipkowski notes the dog doesn’t seem quite so pleased.
“Look on that dog’s face says that he just got into a bad situation,” he wrote.
U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) came under fire from a Democratic congressman accusing her of spreading "conspiracy theories and wild accusations" about the COVID-19 vaccine after she told an expert witness testifying in committee, "I'm not a doctor but I have a PhD in recognizing bullshit when I hear it."
Rather than use her time to ask questions of the expert witness, Greene delivered a five-minute anti-vax speech that included several falsehoods during Thursday'a hearing.
"I'm sorry y'all had a go through that," U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) said after Greene's remarks. "That was a lot of conspiracy theories and wild accusations, which we know have been debunked by biomedical science. And we should be clear that vaccines work and save lives and they have [saved] millions of lives in this country. Now, it's really unfortunate that we're actually here having this hearing trying to poke holes and cause more vaccine hesitancy amongst the public."
The expert witness denounced Congresswoman Greene's claims that "children were at no risk, practically zero risk of being hospitalized or deaths from COVID 19. We knew that young people healthy young people were not at risk."
"I do need to apologize to the 1000 or so parents of children who are under four years of age who have died of COVID 19 who were unvaccinated because there were deaths and are continuing to be deaths in children and that is the reason why they need to get vaccinated," said Dr. Peter Marks, a hematologist oncologist who is the FDA's director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research.
Rep. Garcia accused Greene of making "countless" social media posts, having "spread misinformation," and "encouraged parents to refuse routine vaccinations for their children," and "even compared our pandemic efforts responses to the Holocaust."
He then read from one of Greene's social media posts: "Vaccinated employees getting vaccination logo, just like the Nazis forced Jewish people to wear a gold star."
"That is the level of insanity and attacks that we're having here as we actually debate the lives saved around vaccinations," Garcia added. "Now, this same member has also held shadow public hearings, promoting ideas that COVID is a bioweapon to target people with specific races and the vaccines, and I quote, cause turbo cancers."
"Have the COVID vaccines resulted in an increase in cancers and are turbo cancers real?" Garcia asked Marks. "Dr. Marks, would you clarify once again, for the American people, do the COVID vaccines cause turbo cancers?
"I'm a hematologist oncologist that's board certified. I don't know what a 'turbo cancer' is," Marks replied. "It was a term that was used first in a paper in mouse experiments describing an inflammatory response. There are, there, we have not detected any increase in cancers with the COVID-19 vaccine."
Watch a portion of Greene's and Garcia's remarks below or at this link.
In trying to jab at Fulton County DA Fani Willis, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) called her out on a statement she made about keeping cash at home. And then the Georgia lawmaker was blasted by many for blatantly mischaracterizing her.
"Fani just advised that you should have six months of expenses in cash at your house at all times," wrote Greene in a tweet. "Home invasions in Fulton County are about to sky rocket! And Fani won’t prosecute because she’s only trying to get Trump!"
Greene was trying to pounce on the prosecutor for stating she universally keeps six months' worth of cash at her home.
The incident place during a hearing where Willis faces potential disqualification for allegedly carrying on a improper romantic affair with Nathan Wade — a private attorney hired to join her team to help prosecute the case alleging election interference against former President Donald Trump.
Willis assured she keeps much less than that and in fact the most she ever gave Wade is $2,500.
“I always have cash at the house," she said. "That’s been all my life,” she said. “If you’re a woman and you go on a date with a man, you better have $200 in your pocket. So if that man acts up, you can go where you want to go."
She continued: "It was never that serious. We're not talking about $20,000 in cash."
Willis also said that her dad recommended keeping six months' worth of cash at home, but explicitly said she does not do that.
Greene faced a torrent of objections for the slight.
Paul Schroder responded: "Well you just lied, but no one expected any more of you. What she actually said was her father advised her to do that. Fani Willis has said she has never done so."
"This is a lie," posted Ron Filipkowski. "She testified her father told her that growing up. But she said, 'I don’t do that.'"
Mikey Likey also hit back: "This is a lie. She testified her father told her that growing up."
But some fell for Greene.
"I was thinking the same thing," @TerryinSoCalif responded. "Her house is going to be burglarized not once, but a few times just from this testimony. Criminals are watching I’m sure."
@ElmoSherman5 also wrote: "Keeping that much money in her home is asking for her to get robed [sic]!"
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) went on the warpath on Thursday against a medical professional who said COVID-19 vaccines saved millions of lives.
During a hearing on vaccine safety in the House of Representatives, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) asked Food and Drug Administration official Dr. Peter Marks to comment on the impact that the vaccines had on Americans' health after they began to be administered on a widespread basis in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"It's estimated in the United States about 3.2 million lives [were saved] and it's estimated, globally, that COVID-19 vaccines saved over 14 million lives, conservatively," Marks testified.
Marks also noted the horrific toll that COVID-19 took on America, as the virus killed around 1.1 million Americans and, at its peak, was killing over 3,000 per day.
Shortly after this, however, Greene jumped in to accuse Marks of peddling false information.
"I'm not a doctor but I have a PhD in recognizing bulls--t when I hear it," the Georgia congresswoman declared.
"I'd like to point out to everyone that we knew early on ... that the people that were at risk of hospitalization and dying of COVID were those that were obese, had diabetes, were over the age of 65. We also knew the children were at no risk, practically zero risk, of being hospitalized or of death from COVID-19. We knew the young people, healthy young people, were not at risk. However, Dr. Marks, you rushed through this process of authorizing these vaccines even though you knew the side effects."
WASHINGTON — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) told Raw Story that the biggest mistake the Republican Party made was not choosing a candidate firmly behind former President Donald Trump to run in the New York Third District special election.
Disgraced former Rep. George Santos (R-NY) was expelled, and a new election was called, which Greene called their first mistake. It's a bad precedent to set to expel a member of Congress, she said.
"We shouldn't have lost that seat to begin with," she told Raw Story, meaning Santos.
She then claimed, "redistricting turned that district over to a D+8." Redistricting happened in 2020 and Santos was elected in 2022 after redistricting. There are new maps being drawn using a bipartisan commission, but those haven't yet been decided, much less implemented.
"Number three, they picked the worst possible candidate," Greene said, bashing Republican candidate Mazi Pilip. "She was a registered Democrat but, um, didn't like President Trump. And, uh, why would we pick a Democrat to run as a Republican? That's the dumbest thing they could have done. All of those reasons there — that's not an indicator of the election as a whole."
Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-PA) explained that newly elected Tom Suozzi was basically an incumbent because he'd previously held the seat.
"So, he had name recognition," said Thompson.
When asked whether Trump was right, if she was more of a MAGA candidate and had his endorsement, she would have won, Thompson said "no." He blamed it all on name identification for Suozzi. There's "nothing in my opinion to take away."
Rep. Ken Buck (R- CO) agreed that Suozzi had the overall advantage of name recognition after spending so much time in office previously there.
"He's a moderate Democrat who does work across the aisle. He had accomplishments he could point to, um, the weather was a factor," Buck said, citing the several inches of fluffy snow that fell on the Long Island congressional district.
"Either way it was going to be a wake-up call," said Buck. "When a party in power loses something, they say, 'Well, politics is local.' When you win something, you say, 'See what a great job I'm doing?' So, it's a mixed bag."
Buck's comments were almost a premonition of Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), who said, "To me, every election has a local geographic point to it, and it's been a Democrat district. We were fortunate to flip it. I equate it to the district in Charleston. They flipped it forever but they flipped it back. So, that was perceived as a huge Democrat (sic) victory. There was a fluke — a huge divide in the Republican party that got a Democrat elected."
He was optimistic about Pilip, calling her "an attractive candidate background, gosh."
When asked if she should have asked for his support, Wilson said that his endorsement has always helped in his South Carolina race.
"We've gotta stick to what we're doing," Wilson said.
Buck went on to tell Raw Story that while Trump certainly has a lot of influence over members of the conference, he doesn't believe that the ex-president is fully running things from Mar-a-Lago.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) this week slammed HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" for making purported gross caricatures of Georgians.
She posted a screed on Twitter/X targeting the show and saying it's a "glaring reminder of why most Georgian's resent Republicans in our state for inviting the nasty commies from California, the Hollywood elites, into our state by dishing out Hollywood tax credits.”
She added: “This week’s episode lied and painted GA conservatives and Trump supporters as racists and red necks and made fun of our good new law that stops the Stacey Abrams vote pandering machine and prevents voter fraud."
The episode in question, "The Lawn Jockey," finds star Larry David on the wrong side of the law in Georgia for giving water to a woman who is standing in line to vote.
"We in Georgia are fed up with disgusting Hollywood and their disgusting values and elite judgement in our state that is trying to turn GA blue," wrote Greene. "And we expect our Republican controlled state leaders to protect GA from the radical left not continually legislate a way in for them which is slowly handing GA over to the Democrats...Take it from me, as I fight against Democrats in Washington and their radical, evil, and America last policies I can tell you first hand that we in Georgia need to step and do more to PROTECT GEORGIA!!"
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) spouted off a series of blistering personal attacks on MSNBC anchor Alicia Menendez, daughter of New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, for her comments about the GOP's efforts to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over the overflow of migrants at the U.S. border, while on Trump ally Steve Bannon's "War Room" show on Tuesday.
This came after the show displayed a clip of Menendez saying, "The House GOP is set to vote on the measure again today and it's not because they suddenly found any high crimes or misdemeanors, which of course is the constitutional threshold for impeachment. It's because they think they have the votes," and bringing in Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) to say, "There's no crime, there's no misdemeanor, much less a high crime and misdemeanor."
None of that sat well with Greene, a key driver of the Mayorkas impeachment push.
"It's very simple for the very pathetically dumb girl on MSNBC," she said. "That's how it works in Congress, is you have to whip the votes and when you have enough votes, you can pass something on the House floor."
"That's how it's done in both parties and she's just so dumb and clueless," Greene added. "You could tell by the look in her eye that she had no idea. But she was reading the garbage that somebody put on the teleprompter in front of her."
Republicans have argued that Mayorkas has failed to enforce federal laws at the border, although their impeachment articles are vague about what laws they are accusing him of breaking or not enforcing. This also comes after Republicans, at Trump's direction, blocked a bipartisan Senate border security deal that would have given Mayorkas more robust tools to control the border.
Republican lawmakers have been publicly and privately pushing the limits of acceptable discourse with race-baiting language in the age of Donald Trump, according to a report.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) insultingly highlighted the Somali birthplace of her Democratic colleague Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) on the House floor the same week as Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) slurred the Black husband of Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) as a "thug," and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) repeatedly mixed up the nationality of TikTok chief executive Shou Chew.
“The nature of Trumpism is to embolden extremism,” said Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY). “Whether it’s badgering an Asian witness about his ethnic loyalties, or dehumanizing a cabinet secretary, or accusing a Muslim woman of treason, or describing a Black man as a thug, Republican members of Congress are crossing lines that should never be crossed.”
During a closed-door meeting of House Republicans, Homeland Security Committee chairman referred to DHS secretary Alejandro Mayorkas as a “reptile with no balls” because he refused to resign amid an impeachment investigation, and Democrats have condemned the statement as antisemitic.
“Chair Green’s comments are plain bigotry,” said Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-IL). “This whole impeachment process has been a bigoted, prejudiced spectacle.”
Trump entered national politics with racist 'birther" lies about Barack Obama and has kept up racist rhetoric that bellows much louder than traditional GOP dog whistles, the Times reported. They include his recent attack on Republican rival Nikki Haley, whose birth name Nimarata he intentionally misspells as "Nimrada," but his spokesman defended the coarsening of political discourse
“President Trump is a truth-teller," said spokesman Steve Cheung, "and the more people who follow his lead and speak their mind, the better.”
Eyebrows raised in Washington Thursday after Mike Johnson appeared to renege on the endorsement of a far-right Republican who voted for a bill pushed by the House Speaker but that the House Republican had vocally opposed, a new report shows.
Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-MT) threw his support behind a standalone Israel aid bill as rumors circulated that Johnson was considering backing him, instead of Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy, in the Senate race to challenge Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, the Daily Beast reported Thursday.
Three sources told the Daily Beast a low-key trade-off was in play, with Rosendale agreeing to back the package in exchange for Johnson backing Rosendale.
But after Punchbowl News reported Thursday morning that Johnson might soon endorse Rosendale, the House Speaker was slammed by top Republican strategists, the Daily Beast sources said.
According to one Daily Beast source, Johnson backpedaled. And the Israel measure ultimately failed, according to the Associated Press.
Johnson’s team denied the the Daily Beast's sources, saying bluntly "That's not true."
“There was no discussion about an endorsement until after the floor was adjourned Tuesday night," the spokesperson reportedly said.
"But what's happening with that war and the numbers that you're speaking of is a true, unbelievable tragedy on a massive proportion," Greene told right-wing podcast host Steve Bannon on Thursday. "And to think that our tax dollars were spent on basically just grinding down an entire generation of Ukrainian men, no wonder they don't want to serve."
Greene insisted that "America deserves answers" about the war.
"And I have to praise Tucker Carlson for going to Russia and being willing to interview Vladimir Putin just to get the truth out, just to get the story out, and let the American people decide for themselves," she said.
The lawmaker acknowledged that Putin might not tell the truth.
"It doesn't mean we have to believe everything he says, but we should be able to hear from him," she insisted.
Democratic operatives are telling Semafor that their Republican opponents this week have given them plenty of fodder to use in campaigns later this year with a series of votes that failed on the floor of the House of Representatives.
The operatives say that this week's events, which saw Republicans fail in their own campaign to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, will help them portray the GOP as the party of chaos that can't even get its own partisan agenda passed, let alone hammer out negotiations on a bipartisan basis.
“We’ve had a good week because Republicans have shot themselves in the foot,” a Biden campaign aide explained to the publication. “There’s a lot for us to work with, and we’re going to be able to highlight Joe Biden focusing on issues that matter for voters while Republicans are not.”
Democratic operative Kate Berner, meanwhile, told Semafor that this week shows "Donald Trump and congressional Republicans and the MAGA Republican Party can’t govern or deliver results for the American people."
A Trump spokesperson offered a profane response to Democrats and told Semafor that "their record has been s----y at best."
Now, there’s a legitimate chance Donald Trump could be running for president, or even serving as commander in chief, from behind bars.
Two overriding factors contribute to this bizarre reality.
Firstly, there’s very little — legally speaking — preventing Trump from doing so.
Secondly, Trump himself has offered no indication he’ll step away. To the contrary, he’s as emboldened as ever to run for and win the presidency he lost in 2020.
Thus far, juries have found Trump civilly liable for the sexual abuse and defamation of writer E. Jean Carroll. He’s been ordered to pay more than $88 million combined in damages.
New York Judge Arthur Engoron also found Trump and associates of his business empire liable for fraudulently inflating the value of the Trump Organization’s assets. Determination of damages in the civil fraud trial are expected this month — and could be well into the hundreds of millions of dollars.
And then there's the felony charges: 91 in total across four cases. If convicted, Trump could face significant prison time — totaling more than 700 years combined.
His trials are scheduled in the midst of the Republican presidential primary.
The indictments:
For the first time in U.S. history, a grand jury on June 8, 2023, federally indicted a former president — Trump — on 37 felony counts related to the alleged willful retention of classified documents and conspiracy to conceal them. District Judge Aileen Cannon set trial to begin May 20, but in February, special counsel questioned whether the FBI missed searching some rooms at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, ABC reported.
Then it happened again on Aug. 1 when Trump was indicted on four separate federal counts related to his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election. He was set to be tried starting March 4, but U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan delayed the trial's start as Trump — unsuccessfully, so far — petitioned a federal appeals court to rule that he enjoys presidential immunity from such prosecution.
Trump also faces a criminal trial in Georgia related to election interference in the state, with trial requested for Aug. 5. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis admitted in February to having a romantic relationship with a special prosecutor overseeing the case but denied any tainting of the case, Raw Story reported.
Separately, Trump is charged in New York with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in relation to payments the Trump Organization made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. His trial is slated for March 25.
Such a laundry list of legal woes would seemingly sabotage any politician’s campaign efforts. But the cases haven’t slowed Trump down in his pursuit of a second term as president or slashed his chances — now as good as ever — of winning the 2024 Republican nomination.
Trump, who has handily won in the Republican primaries thus far, is almost certain to become the Republican nominee — and has made it clear he has no intention of dropping out of the race no matter how severe his legal battles become.
“I see no case in which I would do that,” Trump said in June during an appearance on a radio show hosted by political strategist Roger Stone, a longtime confidant. “I just wouldn't do it. I wouldn't do it. I had opportunities in 2016 to do it, and I didn't do it.”
But Allan Lichtman, a professor of history at American University, said campaigning for president and defending himself against criminal charges are two very different endeavors.
“He thinks he can win this case in the court of public opinion, but the truth is, Trump can huff, and Trump can puff, but he can't blow the courthouse down,” Lichtman said. “It’s a very, very different game once you enter a federal courthouse or a state courthouse. You can't just bluster. Anything that you present has to be proven, and you're subject to perjury.”
Still, Trump can continue to run his campaign while facing these charges — and he could even do so from prison in the event he were to be tried, convicted and sentenced before the 2024 election.
“Trump’s legal problems shouldn’t affect his campaign. Many of his supporters believe that he is being treated unfairly, and there is no prohibition against a defendant under indictment or even a convicted felon from serving as president,” said Neama Rahmani, a former assistant U.S. attorney and president of West Coast Trial Lawyers. “Theoretically, Trump could even be president while in prison.”
Indeed, the U.S. Constitution stipulates only that a presidential candidate be a natural-born citizen of the United States, be at least 35 years old and a U.S. resident for 14 years. Trump easily checks all those boxes. And congressional Democrats’ strongest efforts to potentially disqualify Trump from ever again seeking the presidency — convicting him following impeachment trials — failed.
So, what would it take for Trump to run a presidential campaign — or govern the nation — from prison?
Raw Story interviewed historians, legal experts, political operatives and former government leaders who pieced together a playbook for how he could do it — and the peril that he’d face along the way as he stands to secure the GOP nomination ahead of a general election rematch with President Joe Biden in November.
Campaigning from a cell
Each of the charges Trump faces in the classified documents federal indictment carries maximum prison sentences between five and 20 years. Across all four indictments, potential prison time could span hundreds of years.
Being behind bars would, of course, prevent Trump from campaigning in his signature fashion: at big, rowdy MAGA rallies.
But Amani Wells-Onyioha, operations director at Democratic political firm Sole Strategies, envisions Trump still figuring out ways to communicate with potential voters.
“There's no doubt in my mind that he would have some recorded press from the little prison phone. There's no doubt in my mind that he would set up press opportunities whenever he's out on the yard getting his recreational use in, that there would be cameras there,” Wells-Onyioha said. “He would be using every opportunity to campaign. I don't see him stopping at all, and I only see him using this as fuel to make him go harder.”
Keeping up his Truth Social posts from prison might not be such a challenge for Trump, Wells-Onyioha said, as some jails and prisons might allow internet access.
“I do see him using the internet because that's all that he has, and he's great at that already,” Wells-Onyioha said. “He's a huge internet, TV personality type of guy, so it really would just force him to be in a position to do something that he's the best at, which is unfortunate for the country, but as far as he's concerned, I think he thinks that this is political gold for himself.”
Plus, Trump isn’t building a campaign from scratch. His 2024 presidential campaign is flush with staffers. He enjoys the support of super PACs, which may raise and spend unlimited amounts of money on his behalf to promote the former president and attack his opponents.
He also has a roster of high-profile MAGA acolytes — from Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Elise Stefanik (R-NY) to Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem — who gladly serve as Trump surrogates.
And save for former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who remains in the race despite losses in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary, with dim prospects going forward, Trump has already vanquished his other main GOP challengers, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Vice President Mike Pence and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy.
Meanwhile, few politicians are as good as Trump at presenting himself as a victim — he’s single-handedly vaulted the terms “witch hunt,” “deep state,” “hoax” and “fake news” into the contemporary political lexicon. As an inmate, Trump could become a martyr to the MAGA cause.
“You’re obviously handicapped to campaign, but in this electronic age, you can certainly campaign virtually, plus Trump's pretty well known. It’s not like he has to introduce himself to the American people,” Lichtman said.
If not prison, maybe jail
Former President Donald Trump arrives for his arraignment at Manhattan Criminal Court on April 04 in New York City. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
Although it seems unlikely Trump will be serving an active prison sentence before the November election, it’s conceivable he could wind up in pretrial confinement of some sort while campaigning.
This, several legal experts said, will depend on Trump himself.
“He has to behave himself during a trial, and that's not beyond the realm of possibility that he'll act up, thinking that somehow he can win over the jury, but that would be a mistake,” said Kevin O’Brien, a former assistant U.S. attorney and partner at Ford O’Brien Landy LLP who specializes in white-collar criminal defense.
His social media antics stand to put him in potential violation of pretrial instructions and release terms, raising the question of whether a judge would dare throw the former president in jail. So far, he’s been fined thousands for violating gag orders.
Brazenly defying a judge’s order or attempting to intimidate witnesses are among the more common ways a defendant can get himself thrown in jail or home confinement before or during his trial.
This isn’t merely conceptual, said Mike Lawlor, a criminal justice professor at the University of New Haven and former member of the Connecticut House of Representatives, who helped lead impeachment hearings against then-Gov. John Rowland, who ultimately pleaded guilty in federal court to political corruption.
Knowing Trump’s penchant for cutting outbursts, Lawlor can envision a judge sanctioning Trump for defying directives. Trump not only has one judge with whom to contend, but several, given the multiple legal actions against him.
“The opportunity to engage in contempt of court or witness tampering or obstruction of justice is fraught at this point. I’m not sure he has the self-control to keep himself from doing something that would get him confined pre-trial,” Lawlor said.
The U.S. House Jan. 6 select committee accused Trump of potential witness tampering, and Lawlor says he’s monitoring similar allegations here, especially because so many of the witnesses are GOP staffers of the former president.
“It’s so easy to imagine a situation where someone could be contacted and intimidated,” Lawlor said. “I think the temptation to do that for a guy like Trump is probably irresistible. I’m not sure his attorneys or the advisors he listens to can stop him from doing so. I don’t rule it out. As I said, it’s unlikely, but I can definitely see it happening.”
Using legal danger to fuel fundraising
The Trump campaign wasted no time in exploiting the indictments to raise money, leaning into a familiar claim that the candidate is a victim of a Democratic witch hunt.
Only one day after news broke about Trump’s first federal indictment, a fundraising appeal built around the charges appeared on the campaign website prominently displayed in a column on the left-hand side of the page, suggesting contribution amounts ranging from $24 to $3,300. The message lays out a bill of particulars with the former president at the center of the persecution narrative, beginning with the apocalyptic opener: “We are watching our Republic DIE before our very eyes.”
Trump Save America, the beneficiary, is a joint fundraising committee for Donald J. Trump for President 2024 and the Save America PAC, which supports Trump.
The fundraising appeal contends that a “witch hunt began when the FBI RAIDED my home and then staged it to look like a made-for-TV crime scene with police sirens and flashing red and blue lights.”
Alluding to his previous indictment in New York state, the appeals continued: “So, after a state prosecutor failed to break us, the Deep State sharpened their attacks and unleashed a FEDERAL prosecutor to TRY and take us down.”
Notwithstanding Trump’s claim, the charges in New York state remain pending, and Jack Smith, the special prosecutor appointed by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, was investigating Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents four months before a grand jury in New Manhattan returned an indictment on the state charges related to the Stormy Daniels affair.
Minutes after the Aug. 1 indictment dropped, Trump started fundraising again, selling "I Stand With Trump" T-shirts featuring the indictment date, and Trump's mugshot from his booking at the Fulton County Jail helped him bring in more than $7 million after the Georgia indictment as he quickly took to selling mugs, shirts and other merchandise with the photo.
At least one prominent surrogate helped retail the fundraising push.
Kari Lake, a fellow election denier who lost her race for governor of Arizona in 2022, joined a Twitter Spaces co-hosted by Dustin Stockton and Jennifer Lynn Lawrence on the night news broke about Trump’s indictment on charges of mishandling classified documents.
Stockton and Lawrence helped organize the rally that provided the springboard for the Jan. 6 insurrection. During her appearance on Stockton and Lawrence’s Twitter Space, Lake, who is now running for U.S. Senate, told more than 1,300 listeners she had just gotten off the phone with Trump shortly after news broke about the indictment on June 8. Lake said it wasn’t enough for Republican voters to just say they stand with Trump or condemn the indictment.
“And if we really stand with him, we need to go to DonaldTrump.com and make a donation tonight,” said Lake, who is herselfpreparing a 2024 U.S. Senate run in Arizona. “Everybody, whether it’s $5, $10, $500 — whatever you can afford. Because if we’re gonna stand with him, we need to put our money where our mouth is tonight.”
The political monetization of Trump’s legal woes grows deeper by the month. Go to Trump’s campaign website and you’ll find several items on sale — a black-and-white ceramic coffee mug is $24 — featuring a fake mugshot of Trump above the words “NOT GUILTY”. Of late, Trump hassuggested that he would “end” his campaign in a deceptive bid to squeeze money from supporters.
The Federal Election Commission, which enforces federal campaign finance laws, would have no grounds to intervene in Trump’s fundraising efforts while facing criminal charges or even time in jail or prison, said Ann Ravel, who served as an FEC commissioner from 2013 to 2017, including one year as the commission’s chairwoman.
Trump's campaign is selling these black-and-white ceramic coffee mugs for $24. (Screen grab)
Trump’s campaign could easily continue sending supporters incessant fundraising emails and text messages in Trump’s name.
“The only problems for him would be if there's failure to disclose, or if people are giving more than the limits, all of the things that are traditional FEC issues, but they don't have the authority to do anything with regard to a person who's been indicted and is still fundraising,” Ravel said. “That in and of itself is not sufficient for the FEC to take any action.”
Lessons of Eugene Debs, incarcerated presidential candidate
Trump wouldn’t be the first candidate to run for president from prison if he were convicted.
In the weeks before the 1920 election, Eugene V. Debs, the Socialist Party candidate for president of the United States and an inmate in federal prison, touched on the significance of the moment.
“Has there ever been anything like it in American history before?” Debs said, as reported by the socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason. “Will there ever be anything like it in American history again? We must impress it upon the people that this scene is symbolic of what has befallen this country.”
There has been one other. Lyndon LaRouche, whom The New Republiccalled “The Godfather of Political Paranoia,” ran from prison in 1992 after being convicted of tax evasion and mail fraud.
His vice presidential running mate, the Rev. James Bevel, did most of the campaigning. This suggests that a jailed Trump could lean heavily on the presence of a charismatic vice presidential candidate — be it someone such as Lake of Arizona, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia or even banished Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
LaRouche received .02% of the popular vote — 26,334.
Debs, who was serving a 10-year sentence for decrying the United States’ involvement in World War I, received 3.4% of the popular vote — 919,799.
He received 6% of the vote as a candidate eight years earlier, in 1912.
While emphasizing that she’s speaking as an individual, Allison Duerk, director of the Eugene V. Debs Museum, located in Debs’ home in Terre Haute, Ind., said she cringes at comparisons between Debs and Trump. In material ways, the two men are polar opposites.
“I bristle at recent casual references to the 1920 campaign — not because they are inaccurate on the surface, but because these two men and their respective projects are diametrically opposed,” she told Raw Story.
Duerk does believe Debs predicted the emergence of American political leaders such as Trump.
Illustration of Eugene Debs while running for president in prison. Indiana State University archives
“Take this quote from the speech that got him locked up,” she said, quoting Debs: “‘In every age it has been the tyrant, the oppressor and the exploiter who has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism, or religion, or both to deceive and overawe the people.’"
In an Appeal to Reason article, Debs said he believed in change “but by perfectly peaceful and orderly means.” He added, “Never in my life have I broken a law or advised others to do so.”
Unlike Trump, who nurses grievances daily, the article said of Debs, “Nothing embitters him. Injustice, oppression, persecution, savagery do not embitter him. It is a stirring, an uplifting thing to find a man who has suffered so much and remains so ardent and so pure.”
The U.S. government and the prison warden made small accommodations to Debs’ candidacy. He was, for one, allowed a single written message per week to voters.
“Where Debs had once stormed the country in a verbal torrent,” wrote Ernest Freeberg, author of Democracy’s Prisoner, “he would now have five hundred words a week.”
Debs still had some of the trappings of a political campaign, including a button that had his photo from prison with the words, “For President - Convict No. 9653.” He had printed material that said, “From Atlanta to the White House, 1920,” a reference to his residency inside the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary.
On election night, Debs received the results in the warden’s office and soon conceded the election to President-elect Warren Harding.
In his book Walls and Bars, Debs wrote that the question came up in the room about his potential ability to pardon himself as president — an action over which Trump has reportedly mused.
“We all found some mirth in debating it,” Debs wrote.
Serving as president from prison
If Trump ran a successful campaign from jail or prison, is there anything stopping him from assuming the Oval Office if he were elected president?
“There is nothing in our traditions or the Constitution that prevents someone who is indicted or convicted or, in fact, serving in jail, from also serving as the president,” said Harold Krent, law professor at the Chicago-Kent College of Law, who formerly worked for the Department of Justice. “Does it make any sense? No. But there is no Constitutional disablement from that happening. So, you could think of a scenario in which the case goes to trial, maybe after the primary and results in a prison time with President Trump and then he is inaugurated, and he gets to serve as president from some prison farm somewhere.”
Lichtman said “of course” Trump would just pardon himself of any federal crimes were he reelected president. There’s also the possibility of Trump attempting to preemptively pardon himself, with then-President Gerald Ford’s pardoning of Richard Nixon serving as an imperfect template.
But if Trump is convicted on any state-level charges, where federal pardons do not apply, that’s a different story.
“That's unprecedented, but the pardon power is pretty absolute,” Lichtman. “He can’t pardon himself for the New York case because that’s a state case. If he's convicted in New York, he's stuck. If ... he's convicted in Georgia, he can’t pardon himself from that either, because that's also a state case.”
Trump’s ability to pardon himself is widely debated in the academic community, Krent said.Federal document listing indictment counts against former President Donald Trump. U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida
“There's no law on the books that says you can't. You just have to reason from the idea of separation of powers and the Constitution or to think that it doesn't make any sense to have one person aggregate or accumulate so much power,” Krent said. “As a constitutional matter, I think that that would be too much of a conflict of interest to be able to pardon yourself.”
Interestingly, the classified documents federal indictment didn’t include counts related to 18 U.S.Code 2071, which deals with the concealment, removal or destruction of government documents. This would disqualify anyone found in violation of the code from running for office, Rahmani said.
“That particular provision was passed after Nixon as a disqualification provision that prevents anyone convicted of it from holding public office,” Rahmani said. “Trump's lawyers would have said that it's unconstitutional because only the Constitution can place limits on who could be president. You can be a felon. You can be in prison and still theoretically be president of the United States.”
The Constitution could be interpreted — ostensibly by the U.S. Supreme Court — that an imprisoned president wouldn’t qualify as capable of carrying out his duties, preventing him from taking the office, Ravel said.
“There's nothing to stop him from becoming president either because the provisions in the Constitution about the presidency and the requirements for presidency don't reflect any concern if a president has been indicted or is in jail,” Ravel said. “Although if he goes to jail, it would create a problem for him because the Constitution does have concerns about the inability to carry out the obligations of the office, which he certainly wouldn't be able to do in jail.”
Specifically, Section 4 of the Constitution’s 25th Amendment potentially empowers Congress to determine — via a two-thirds vote of both chambers — that a president is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office” and thereby transfer presidential powers to the vice president.
But if Trump is elected in November, and trials end up taking place after the general election, some of his legal peril could subside — at least at the federal level.
“There's clear Department of Justice memos and policies. It's pretty clear that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted,” Rahmani said.
If Trump won and was convicted but on appeal, he would “probably” still be able to get inaugurated, Krent said.
“The question is whether they would stop the appeal and let him serve out the presidency before it would continue,” Krent said. “Uncharted waters in terms of how this would go. It's gonna affect the primary. It would affect the general election, and it certainly would affect his ability to conduct a presidency.”
Editor’s note: A version of this article was originally published on June 13, 2023, and has been updated to reflect numerous legal and political developments involving Trump.
Former President Donald Trump arrives for his arraignment at Manhattan Criminal Court on April 04 in New York City. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
Trump's campaign is selling these black-and-white ceramic coffee mugs for $24. (Screen grab)
Illustration of Eugene Debs while running for president in prison. Indiana State University archives
Federal document listing indictment counts against former President Donald Trump. U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida