Law enforcement sources said, the situation is fluid, but the "ramped-up security is related to the Manhattan district attorney's ongoing investigation into hush money payments involving Stormy Daniels. Increased security presence is described as prudent with the grand jury sitting today, but it is unclear if they heard the Trump case Thursday or another matter."
The grand jury is scheduled to take a break for major holidays next month. Grand jury investigations are secret, so it's unknown the extent to which Americans will be informed about what unfolds. Legal experts warned that any information on it would likely come from Trump himself because everyone else involved would be under secrecy.
There was a fear that an indictment was coming after Trump said he would be arrested that week "on Tuesday." It didn't happen, but threats have followed, lending the NYPD to ask for an increase in force outside the courthouse.
In less than an hour, the New York Times reported that the grand jury was voting on Trump's indictment. It makes sense that due to the vote, the NYPD would want added security.
During the 2016 campaign, Trump allegedly got his close friend David Pecker at the National Enquirer to run a scheme to buy Playboy model Karen McDougal's story and hire her to write fitness articles. Neither that story nor any fitness articles were ever published, and the payment was supposedly a "catch and kill" agreement to bury the matter.
Former FBI general counsel and NYU law professor Andrew Weissmann claims Pecker was being brought in to the grand jury to reveal the second piece of the Daniels story.
NBC's Vaughn Hilliard explained that the Southern District of New York had already laid out the details in the Pecker case. In fact, they laid out the argument not only in the 2018 sentencing memo for Michael Cohen, but also in describing what Pecker and his company already admitted to.
"There is a litany of statements that are important," said Hilliard. "One of those here: 'In or about Aug. 2015, David Pecker, the chairman is CEO of AMI, met with Michael Cohen, an attorney for a presidential candidate and at least one other member of the campaign that is Donald Trump's campaign. At the meeting, Pecker offered to help deal with negative stories about that presidential candidate's relationships with women, assisting the campaign in identifying such stories so they could be purchased and their publication avoided.'"
Hilliard explained that these details are important because it's a court document with Pecker's company admitting the purpose of paying McDougal was to suppress her story and prevent such stories from influencing the election.
"If prosecutors in Manhattan District Attorney's office are trying to get to the point of making the case of an election law violation here, the parent company of the National Enquirer, which bought Karen McDougal's story at the behest of Michael Cohen, and as federal prosecutors have alleged, Donald Trump's directive, then, therefore, this particular company has already admitted they did it for the purpose of influencing the 2016 presidential election," he explained.
Weissmann explained all of these facts were recorded and confirmed by the SDNY that Trump was not only a witness to the negotiations for McDougal and Daniels but it was at the behest of Trump.
"The reason, as Vaughn laid out, this is important is for two reasons: one, because you have David Pecker saying that Donald Trump was in on the scheme to do a catch and kill and that there were direct conversations with David Pecker, Michael Cohen, and the former president," Weissmann said. "So that's one incredibly important piece of evidence, and the other is the defense that Donald Trump may have, which is, 'I did this because I was concerned about Melania, my wife, finding out' — the so-called John Edwards defense."
"'I wasn't doing this related to the campaign,' is also something that is directly refuted by David Pecker, assuming he's going to repeat what he said to the southern district of New York, and it is laid out directly," Weissmann continued. So, those two things are really important pieces that the Manhattan District Attorney could be not just pursuing but really have in the pocket to present a strong case to the grand jury and then, of course, ultimately if there's an indictment, to a trial jury."
Joint Base Andrews, in Maryland, is on lockdown after reports of a possible active shooter.
Fox5 DC reported that there was an armed person reported near base housing. The individual is a white male and was reportedly wearing a purple sweatshirt and black shorts. The person was reported carrying an AR-15-style rifle.
Joint Base Andrews is the Air Force base near Washington, D.C., that the president and vice president use when flying on Air Force One and Air Force Two.
The Fox report explained that the incident began when an emergency message was sent to service members.
“Stay away from base housing. Initiate Lockdown Procedures!” the message said.
There has not yet been a report of actual shots fired, however, the base Twitter account explained. Thus it isn't being treated as an "active shooter incident."
After the New York Times revealed that the Manhattan District Attorney's Office was looking at felony charges for former President Donald Trump, it sparked a legal conversation among scholars and experts about how they would get there.
If Trump is charged with a crime over the hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels, it doesn't rise above a misdemeanor charge. To try and hide the payment to Daniels, Trump spliced them out into several payments to Cohen over time and claimed them as a legal retainer.
"That's going to be really strong evidence because there was no legal work being done by Michael Cohen," said former Justice Department lawyer Andrew Weissmann, who now teaches at NYU School of Law. "There was no reason to have these retainers month after month. And so, that will be a very strong part of the case. The problem is, that's a misdemeanor under New York law. And so, the thing that we don't know is the way in which that misdemeanor can be elevated to a felony, and under New York law, the way it can be elevated is if you commit that misdemeanor to further or to cover up another crime. Whether that other crime is a felony or a misdemeanor. Then the false business record charge is no longer a misdemeanor. It is a felony. Meaning, if you do the misdemeanor to help promote another crime, it's more serious. What we don't know is exactly how [DA] Alvin Bragg is thinking about what he would charge probably some form of either a federal and/or state election crime."
Conservative Bill Kristol compared Trump to former presidential candidate John Edwards, when speaking to MSNBC last week. Edwards engaged a third party to make the hush money payments. The jury ultimately acquitted Edwards — but Trump's case is more complicated.
In Trump's case, he not only paid off Daniels through his lawyer, but he also paid off Karen McDougal through a third party, The National Enquirer. The tabloid's chief, David Pecker, was given immunity in the Michael Cohen case. Pecker has been called back to speak to the grand jury more than once.
The Wall Street Journal confirmed Thursday that the DA's office has brought up the hush money deal for McDougal.
"Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office has been presenting a grand jury with evidence of Mr. Trump’s involvement in a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels since January," said the report. "In those proceedings, the people said, Mr. Bragg’s prosecutors also have questioned grand-jury witnesses extensively about an earlier deal involving Karen McDougal, Playboy Magazine’s Playmate of the Year in 1998, who has said she began a 10-month relationship with Mr. Trump beginning in 2006."
At the same time, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen recorded his client talking about the "deal" being made with Pecker, and the plan to reimburse the Enquirer's parent company, American Media.
The Enquirer used what's known as a "catch and kill," to protect Trump from the allegations. It's where the company claims they'll buy the rights to the story, and then not publish anything about it.
"A consultant for Mr. Pecker used a separate shell company to issue a false invoice to Mr. Cohen for advisory services, insulating both American Media and Mr. Trump from the transaction, according to the nonprosecution agreement," the Journal explained. Cohen tried to have Pecker buy the Daniels story too, but he refused, which is how Cohen ended up running the hush money through him.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) was shredded by Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) during the Senate proceedings on Thursday.
Cruz, like other Republicans, has focused on making schools more impenetrable as a mechanism for stopping school shootings. The Tennessee shooter fired on the doors to the school, making it possible for her to climb through. An AR-15, however, can penetrate bullet-proof vests used by police officers. So, the doors that would have to be used by a school couldn't merely be particle board.
Then there's the matter of windows. If the shooter could blow through the doors to get inside, couldn't the shooter also shoot windows to get into the school? It's unclear if Republicans will propose schools without windows and steel doors.
Cruz's next demand is that police officers be put into schools. That hasn't been a helpful solution either. The school officer on hand at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, didn't go inside the building when there were reports of shots fired. In Uvalde, Texas, dozens of police were on hand to fight back against the shooter there. Instead, they refused to go up against the AR-15, knowing it would penetrate their Kevlar vests.
There's also an added problem that Republicans continue to complain about crime in communities and strained police departments. With a police force guarding every school in a community, it would make it difficult to fully staff the rest of the city. Such proposals are little more than a bandage to heal an amputation.
"The senator is right," Murphy agreed. "I have very little interest in engaging on the merits of these proposals in a dialogue on the floor of the Senate because they are not serious attempts to make our kids safer. These unanimous consent requests that Senator Cruz makes, they're going to get a lot of clicks online. The confrontation that he's looking for will probably lead to a bunch of cable news appearances being booked, but it's not going to save any kids' lives. The senator knows this is not how the Senate works. This isn't an autocracy. It's not a dictatorship. You don't come down here and introduce a piece of legislation and two mains later — two minutes later demand that the entirety of the Senate agree to it without any debate, any negotiation."
He went on to call it "so ham-handed" that in one of the Cruz bills, "there's literally brackets and question marks in the text. The legislative drafters, at least in the version that I see, haven't made decisions on when the money is being spent."
He went on to call out Cruz for not caring about the gun safety bills until it was politically advantageous for his cable news appearances. He along with other lawmakers of both parties have spent years working on a bill that both sides could agree to. Murphy said that Cruz has never been part of that.
"What happened last summer after the shooting in the senator's state is that serious members of this body, members of this body who are more interested in legislating than enacting political theater, sat down together and negotiated a bill to save children's lives," Murphy continued. It "didn't solve all of the problems in this country. Didn't guarantee every child's safety. No, it did not. But let's be clear, Sen. Cruz never expressed one iota of interest in being part of those negotiations. Other Republican senators did. And while I understand he objects to the gun provisions in that bill, guess what? That bill also put $15 billion into school safety, into mental health, into hardening our schools, into community anti-gun violence programs. I can't speak about the other members of the group that authored that bill, but I never got a single phone call from Sen. Cruz during the month of negotiations suggesting that we add the language he's talking about to that proposal."
He further shamed Cruz for his inaction and disinterest in solutions while pushing his own performative bills he'll blame Democrats for voting against.
The About Face Beauty Spa in Royal Oak, Michigan, a quiet suburb north of Detroit, offers a variety of skin and body services, from $10 lip waxing to a $150 “bridal make-up” session.
But while owner Robin Manoogian generally caters to a local clientele, you’ve likely seen her work.
That’s because the Republican National Committee has paid the beauty spa more than $17,000 in recent years to do Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel’s hair and make-up ahead of the powerful Michigander’s many appearances on national television.
The payments to Manoogian’s spa are just a fraction of the nearly $100,000 the RNC has paid various beauty professionals since 2017, when McDaniel became chairwoman, according to a Raw Story analysis of federal campaign finance data. They include several in the Washington, D.C., area, where McDaniel also spends significant amounts of time.
Describing McDaniel as “a delight to work with” and possessing "the most beautiful bone structure and sparkling eyes,” Manoogian told Raw Story she routinely meets the RNC chairwoman on-location at Detroit television studios.
“When she's got a live interview, we just keep working. Rain, sleet, snow,” said Manoogian, adding she totes a beauty kit with her for her appointments with McDaniel. “You know, the hit is scheduled for a certain time frame and she's got to be in the chair mic'ed ready with not a hair out of place. In and out. Done and done.”
The RNC’s hair-and-make-up spending comes at a time when the Republican Party is courting blue-collar voters and lambasting President Joe Biden for what conservative leaders assert is an elitist and ineffectual economic policy that’s causing “nothing but pain and misery for American families.”
A recent payment from the Republican National Committee to the About Face Beauty Spa, per Federal Election Commission records.
And it’s the latest example in a storied string of prominent political figures — both Democrats and Republicans — who’ve enjoyed top-shelf pampering while simultaneously wooing the proletariat.
‘Incredibly sexist’
An RNC spokeswoman defended the committee’s hair-and-makeup spending, which it characterized in federal campaign finance filings as “media preparation.”
“These payments were for hair and make-up for TV appearances for GOP voices, and as chairwoman of the RNC, part of the job is to spread our great Republican message on the airwaves,” RNC spokesperson Emma Vaughn told Raw Story. “It is incredibly sexist of Raw Story to attempt to smear women in politics for getting their hair and make-up done for TV appearances, something that has been done by men on both sides of the aisle for decades without criticism.”
But there has been criticism, often from Republicans.
In 2015, prominent Republicans panned then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton — perennially on television — for a $600 hair appointment at the posh John Barrett Salon in New York City, which put part of the Bergdorf Goodman department store on lockdown.
Then-GOP presidential frontrunner and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker tweeted a list entitled “The Economics of Hillary’s $600 Haircut.” The money spent on Clinton’s coiffure could buy a family “138 pounds of beef” or “buy four years’ supply of eggs,” Walker asserted. Hashtag: “#OutOfTouch.”
The College Republicans tweeted two photos of Clinton, her hair shorter and sleeker in the second image. “Before and After @HillaryClinton's $600 haircut #WeCanDoBetter,” it read.
In another tweet, the College Republicans scoffed: “.@HillaryClinton's $600 haircut: meanwhile college students struggling to pay for books this semester #WeCanDoBetter”
For example, Trump has called actress Rosie O’Donnell a “fat pig” and “slob” and media executive Arianna Huffington a “dog” and “ugly both inside and out.”
“I tell you what it really was shocking to see it because you’re right it must be, it was massive. Her hair became massive,” he told conservative radio host Mark Levin in 2017.
Levin warned Trump, whose own hair is the subject of endless fascination and mockery, that his comments might get him in trouble.
“I don’t care. I’m a person that tells the truth,” Trump said. “You know it was interesting to see but I’ve never seen Hillary with that hairdo so I think that’s an OK thing to say, but it was very different.”
More recently, Trump slammed the Super Bowl halftime performance of Rihanna, a longtime critic of the former president.
"Without her 'Stylist' she'd be NOTHING. Bad everything, and NO TALENT!" Trump wrote on his Truth Social site.
As the news spread about the possibility of a Trump indictment for the hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels, the former president lashed out, calling her “horseface” and misspelling her name.
Political expense? Or personal?
There's a fine line between what the public will consider a legitimate political expense and a personal extravagance.
"If political donors knew their contributions would be funding $16,000+ spa retreats, $1,000+ haircuts, and thousands of dollars for suits, dresses, and makeup, many of these contributors likely wouldn't donate," said Aaron Scherb, senior director of legislative affairs at Common Cause, a government accountability group. "While these expenses likely aren't illegal, these examples show how big money continues to dominate politics and funds lavish lifestyles for certain political figures. We need reforms like those contained in the Freedom to Vote Act to get big money out of politics to help elevate the voices of everyday Americans in politics."
The COVID-19 era proved that TV talking heads, stuck in their living rooms and home offices with studios off-limits, could still do national media hits without the help of professional artists.
One prominent politician — Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) — boasted in a fundraising message to donors about his cut-rate approach to grooming.
“Just like my $12 flattop haircut from my local barbershop back home and my collection of dirt-stained t-shirts, my background is a big part of the reason I remain grounded and focused amid the partisan politics and nonsense happening in our government,” Tester said.
Nevertheless, politicians of all stripes will sometimes use donors’ campaign cash — often a little, occasionally a lot — to put on their best face.
Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA) paid a makeup artist $300 in August 2022. When Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland represented New Mexico in the U.S. House, she once spent $275 on a makeup artist.
And when Carla Sands, who served as an ambassador to Denmark during the Trump administration, ran for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania in 2022, she labeled her $845 makeup artist as "media prep.”
There are others: Rep. Emilia Sykes (D-OH) spent less than $300 on "media prep" at Macy's and Dillards. During her 2014 and 2016 campaigns, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat-turned-independent who now works as a Fox News contributor, spent just under $7,000 in campaign cash for makeup and hair expenses.
Raw Story also examined Rep. Nancy Pelosi's expenses, finding that among her campaign accounts and political PAC, the former Democratic House speaker used campaign money to fund $2,900 worth of makeup and hair expenses between 2014 and 2024.
But according to campaign finance reports, the former speaker didn’t regularly use political or campaign cash to have her makeup and hair done for public appearances. Rather, she paid for it out of her own pocket and not at the donors’ expense.
Pelosi’s appointments continued to make news during the past decade. Fox News, for example, reported on Pelosi having her hair done in San Francisco on Aug. 31, 2020 — during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, when trips to the beauty salon or barber shop came with perceived risk.
Campaign finance reports show that during the same month, the RNC paid District Bridal Company of Washington, D.C., $2,496 for hair and makeup services.
In the midst of these hair and makeup expenditures, the Republican National Committee stands apart for the frequency and amount of money it spends for such services, Raw Story’s analysis of federal campaign finance data indicates.
Among the charges the RNC had for hair and makeup includes $750 for a Michigan salon and a “celebrity” makeup artist that appears to work with Fox, who charged $2,546.97.
In the case of one makeup artist, who was paid $1,560 in 2018 and $778 in 2017, the same person was listed on OpenSecrets for "travel expenses," totaling $3,473 in 2017.
The RNC told Raw Story that, by its count, the DNC spent over $47,000 in hair and makeup expenses during the 2021-2022 election cycle.
The DNC refused to comment for this story. But a person familiar with the DNC expenditures told Raw Story the costs are not just for hair and makeup but for a variety of people and purposes.
FEC data indicated the DNC lists hair and makeup expenses using the catch-all term “event production,” which also includes site rentals, stage set-ups, lighting, filming, and event consultants for conventions. It’s all mixed together, making it difficult to suss out the exact amount out of the $167,817 of “event production” for the past decade.
The names of hair and makeup vendors that appear in the DNC’s financial disclosures also for the past year match the names of makeup artists that have posted photos touting their work with first lady Jill Biden during the 2020 campaign for her photoshoot with Vanity Fair.
Another DNC expense during the 2021-2022 years comes from the hair and makeup company Conceptual Beauty.
While they haven’t posted any photos of their work with political leaders in the past two years, they did share pics of Pelosi, tagging the location of the photos as the Capitol Visitor’s Center following Donald Trump’s 2019 State of the Union address.
Many of the DNC's hired hair and makeup artists are proud to publicly promote their clients, whether political or media. But DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison never turned up in the social media images for these hair and makeup artists.
It doesn’t mean he hasn’t utilized any services — but there’s no federal record indicating such expenditures have occurred. The DNC declined to comment on Harrison, as well.
The artist was hired via the communications department during Anthony Scaramucci’s short tenure. Then-White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ makeup changed enough during her time in front of the cameras that comedian Michelle Wolf joked about her “perfect smoky eye” during a White House Correspondents Association dinner.
‘Personal image to maintain’
According to Manoogian, McDaniel has never physically visited her spa in Michigan.
And while McDaniel may rank among Manoogian's most notable clients — the late Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin is another — Manoogian told Raw Story that she has worked for decades doing hair and makeup for television programs and more recently did the makeup for an episode of NBC show “Dateline.”
Manoogian’s spa website explained that she has worked for numerous clients and network television during her nearly 40 years in the business.
Manoogian emphasized that the money she’s made from the RNC came over a six-year period and that she does McDaniel's makeup and hair every time she's appearing on television from Michigan. Most cable news networks have their own hair and makeup staff in New York and Washington, but that might not be the case at the affiliates where the guest, such as McDaniel, appears via satellite.
RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel appears on Fox News in November 2018.
RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel appears on CNN in February 2023.
"I absolutely just go to the studio facility prior to the interview to handle getting her ready, and that's my craft," Manoogian explained. "I mean, with six years together, do the math. When she's in D.C., I know she's got her normal crew but, I know she travels all the time, so she's either coming or going."
Manoogian clarified that she has a "kit" and drives directly to the studio to meet McDaniel each time.
"It's not much per year for how many visits there are," Manoogian said. "And essentially, you have to go where the satellite is to reach the national, live. It's standard."
Manoogian also explained that one of the biggest problems with television is that it takes a three-dimensional world and renders it in two dimensions, which is why people always look like they've gained weight on camera. Light reflecting off the oils on the face also contributes. So, the most important thing a person can do when appearing on camera is to ensure there's no shine, she said.
“As a professional, you have a personal image to maintain, just like movie stars," Manoogian told Raw Story.
Politicians, tangled
Former President Bill Clinton and former U.S. Sen. John Edwards (D-NC)Photos by Gage Skidmore/Wikipedia and Peter Smith/Flickr
In a political era where the image is often everything, one can trace modern grooming and beauty brouhahas to President Bill Clinton, who once shut down part of Los Angeles International Airport with Air Force One’s engines running so his mononymous Beverly Hills hairstylist, Cristophe, could board the presidential jet and tend to the commander-in-chief’s salt-and-pepper locks.
Democrat John Edwards, a U.S. senator and 2004 and 2008 presidential candidate, drew gasps and pearl-clutching when this “son of a mill worker,” who championed impoverished Americans, used $1,250 worth of donor dollars to bankroll a traveling hairstylist who tended to his Kennedy-like coiffe.
During the 2008 campaign, the RNC spent $150,000 not on hair and makeup but on a wardrobe for vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin and her family, Politico reported at the time. Ahead of the Republican Convention in Minneapolis that year, the committee spent $75,062.63 at Neiman Marcus.
Trump’s White House didn’t use political donors’ money to handle hair and makeup, however.
Taxpayers funded Trump’s White House hiring a full-time artist to work at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. and handle anyone there who appeared on television.
The RNC’s first financial report for 2023, covering spending in January, indicated more spending with Manoogian’s business, as well as other vendors that provide various hair, makeup and eyelash services — although it’s unclear exactly what services they provided the RNC.
Since the conclusion of the 2022 midterms, the RNC dropped another $3,867 on hair and makeup costs in January 2023. In February 2023, they had another $1,725 payment to the Michigan spa. It’s a total of $5,592 for 2023. The Democratic Party has spent $4,333.25 on "event production" during the same time period.
That put the Republican Party over $90,000 in donor-funded hair and makeup expenditures since McDaniel took over.
The RNC told Raw Story that they don’t intend to change their process of spending donor funds on the chair’s hair and makeup.
Tyranny expert Timothy Snyder, a Yale University professor and author, explained that the contemporary Republican Party has a startling number of characteristics that they're adopting from fascists and authoritarians — and also from the communists they claim to oppose.
Speaking to Ali Velshi on Wednesday, Snyder addressed the recent alarm raised by retired Judge Michael Luttig, claiming that the American democracy is still in peril and there is no end to the threat in sight.
Snyder explained that it's easy to see the decline in a democracy when it's something like Russia invading Ukraine, because there it's an "autocracy trying to take over a democracy by force." But Velshi noted that when it comes to things like Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's attempt to eliminate the independent judiciary or threats to the rule of law with Donald Trump ginning up violence against those investigating potential crimes, it's more of an abstract idea. It isn't as openly understood as the same kind of attack on democracy as Russia's.
Snyder explained that the interesting thing seen in the 21st Century is that everyone is trying to claim to be a democracy. Russia claims have claimed in the past it's a democracy. Their use of the word is an attempt to erode the understanding of it, he said. It's part of their design.
Looking at Ukraine's success, he explained it's about the cooperation of a unified country intent on fighting a potential oppressor.
"It's the habit of resistance," Snyder said. "It's the habit of cooperation that allows the army to do so well. That's a lesson for other societies. Why did Netanyahu have to pull back in Israel? Because Israelis are finally getting on the streets in large numbers and they are making their voices known as a society. Democracy is about muscle. It's about movement. It's about people taking a stand together. If you wait for the institutions to save you, then it's already too late."
Velshi brought up Judge Luttig again and noted that he's not a "hair on fire" kind of guy. He's a conservative Republican, and he's very concerned about the American democracy at risk. The concern he has, and it's something Snyder shares, is in convincing people that the risk is real.
Velshi cited Donald Trump's claim, for the second time in a month, "I am your retribution." As Velshi explained, "It's the language of autocracy."
"It's also the language of fascism," said Snyder. "Living in a 'Big Lie' is being a fascist. Saying that I have an alternative truth for you, an alternative reality where you can live, saying that politics is all about naming the enemy and taking revenge, that is basically a fascist reality that we're talking about."
He said that those who care about democracy should remember the 20th Century.
"When I look at Florida, I have to say, what I think about is Communism," Snyder said. "The book bans, and the public gatherings, and the singling out of authors, and the denunciations — like it's funny, all of this stuff is supposed to be anti-Communist, but as a historian of Communism, that reminds me of some of the basic things that were wrong about Communism. Those denunciations and book bannings and getting people all rallied up about authors that are supposedly contaminating other people. So, I think we have to be ready to name some names and describe some practices. And we also have to say positively that in a democracy we don't do those things, but we do other things, and those other things are actually better and make for a better sort of life."
Sources are telling WNBC that Allen Weisselberg, the former CFO of the Trump Organization, has fired his Trump Org lawyers.
Weisselberg is not the first one to do something like this. Michael Cohen did it just before he flipped on Trump. Cassidy Hutchinson had a Trump-funded lawyer before she fired him and got another lawyer so she could tell the Jan. 6 investigatory committee the truth about what she learned working for former chief of staff Mark Meadows. Each time a Trump-funded lawyer was fired, it has been an indication that those previous allies were about to turn.
Weisselberg is serving a five-month sentence in a Rikers Island jail, known for being one of the most violent in America. MSNBC's Ali Velshi noted that if someone was trying to get Weisselberg to flip, now would be the time. Last month, the New York Times reported that the Manhattan prosecutor's office was pondering whether to file new charges against Weisselberg for fraud.
Nick Gravante and Mary Mulligan are no longer with Weisselberg.
"Our colleagues at NBC saying that his attorneys, who are being paid for by the Trump Organization to represent Weisselberg, are no longer representing him," said Velshi. "It's a big deal. That could potentially explain the delay."
The delay that Velshi is talking about is the idea that Trump claimed eight days ago that he was about to be arrested. He hasn't been. In fact, there's no indication that he's been indicted either. Grand juries are secret, so it's also possible that they have voted to indict and it simply hasn't made its way to Trump yet. It's assumed the information will be leaked by Trump when it happens, because the district attorney can't legally reveal any information from the grand jury.
The Wednesday report nails the former president for hypocrisy after he complained that the government was being weaponized against him. "He would know," the title says.
“He was always telling me that we need to use the F.B.I. and I.R.S. to go after people — it was constant and obsessive and is just what he’s claiming is being done to him now,” the report quoted Trump's former chief of staff, John Kelly. It isn't the first time he's said it.
Trump fired Andrew McCabe mere days before his retirement, barring his federal pension, simply because he criticized Trump's role in the Russia scandal. Trump was furious that McCabe's wife supported Hillary Clinton. In fact, he said Trump was obsessed with her. McCabe ultimately got an extremely rare and invasive audit by the IRS that turned up nothing.
Comey's clash with Trump became infamous, as he was fired after refusing to give Trump absolute loyalty.
“I would tell him why it was wrong, and while I was there I did everything I could to steer him away from it and tell him why it was a bad idea,” Kelly recalled. “I thought we were successful, but he would often ask a lot of people to do a lot of things that he didn’t want to do himself in the hopes that someone would do it and he could claim he did nothing wrong.”
The 2022 report cited Trump regularly demanding something be done to his enemies that would make them look bad.
"The president would carry on about having them investigated to the point that Mr. Kelly thought he needed to tell the president that what he wanted was highly problematic, explaining, in sometimes heated conversations, that what Mr. Trump wanted was not just potentially illegal and immoral but also could blow back on him," said the Times.
Cohen's stories recall being let out of prison on house arrest due to the pandemic. When he was meeting with those ready to process his release, he was faced with the demand to sign a non-disclosure agreement saying he wouldn't write a book about Donald Trump and he wouldn't speak to the media about Donald Trump. Cohen and members of Congress have demanded how something like this became a formal request. While Cohen ultimately won a court case against this unprecedented demand, there has been no information about the request and how it reached Cohen.
The Haberman/Schmidt report also cited a "petty" decision to block then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi from using a military plane in 2019 to visit troops in Afghanistan.
Then there was his war against former secretary of state, Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Senator John Kerry. Trump was desperate to prosecute him. He claimed that Kerry broke the law by speaking to Iranian officials he negotiated a nuclear deal with. Trump was working to kill the deal, despite Kerry continuing to speak to his contact.
"As president, Mr. Trump repeatedly pressed senior officials behind closed doors about using the Justice Department to target Mr. Kerry," the Times said, citing two people familiar with the matter. "Ultimately, federal prosecutors in New York were pushed by senior Justice Department officials in Washington to investigate Mr. Kerry, according to the U.S. attorney in Manhattan at the time."
Trump's campaign still calls Kerry a "threat to national security" despite never being able to prosecute him for it.
John Bolton, who served Trump as the national security adviser, eagerly denounced Trump's playing the victim card.
“The idea that he’s a paragon of virtue who didn’t do this to other people and is now a victim of this unfairness really is laughable," he told the Times.
Former President Donald Trump spent his afternoon giggling over poll numbers showing Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) failing to persuade Fox viewers to support him over Trump.
The Fox poll showed Trump at 43 percent support in Feb. 2023, and DeSantis at 28 percent. After a rollout of his book, a tour of early primary states and a slew of speeches and appearances on Fox, DeSantis fell to 24 percent. Trump, by contrast, went up to 54 percent support among Republican primary voters.
"It’s bad news for Ron DeSanctimonious and his RINO Globalist Donors," Trump needled the Florida governor. "Probably because of his terrible Votes against Social Security and MediCare (sic), and also, of course, because people love the job I did as President of the United States. We were Number One (sic) in every category, respected all over the World, and now our Country is going down the 'tubes'—We are a Failing Nation!" (sic)
Less than 30 minutes later, Trump had to post another comment trashing DeSantis and his falling numbers.
"FoxNews Viewers are VERY Happy about the just released FoxNews Polling that shows Ron DeSanctimonious being absolutely CRUSHED and, more importantly, dropping like a ROCK!" Trump wrote.
The drop comes a month after DeSantis saw a loss in support in the Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll. The poll then showed Trump leading DeSantis 46 percent to 23 percent. It was a 5 percent decrease for DeSantis since Jan. 2023.
A heated debate between Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) erupted just steps from the floor of the House of Representatives on Wednesday.
"They are cowards! They're all cowards!" Bowman shouted in a video posted by CBS News' Ellis Kim. "They won't do anything to save the lives of our children at all. Cowards! Pressure them! Force them to respond to the question, why the hell won't you do anything to save America's children. Explain that all the way until 2024. Let them explain it all the way up until elections day in 2024. They're freaking cowards! They're gutless. They're not here —"
That's when Massie stepped in to ask Bowman what he was talking about. Bowman said gun violence.
Massie claimed that there's never been a school that allowed teachers to carry guns. In fact, school resource officers have been on the scene in several shootings. In the case of Parkland, Florida, a security officer didn't go inside. Uvalde, Texas, officers stood outside for nearly an hour when they found out the shooter had an AR-15.
Their debate resulted in Massie telling Bowman to calm down.
“Calm down? Children are dying. Nine-year-old children!” Bowman said.
It was reported on Tuesday that Ginni Thomas, the wife to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, raised $600,000 in anonymous donations for her fringe political group over the past few years. It's a fund that is raising alarms among ethics hawks wondering if it has to do with the Thomas' work around the 2020 election.
The money, according to the report, was funneled through a right-wing think tank in Washington that agreed to help Thomas from 2019 until the start of 2022. It guaranteed that any donations were shielded from public view. Those donors would have been disclosed if they gave to Thomas' group directly.
"Yet another shocking display of audacity by the spouse of a sitting Supreme Court justice that raises brand-new questions about ethics and potential conflicts of interest," MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace said.
"Thomas' activism has set her apart from other spouses of Supreme Court justices," The Washington Postreport said. "She had aligned with numerous people and groups that have interests before the court and dedicated herself to causes that involve some of the most polarizing issues in the country. It was glaringly, Ginni Thomas' involvement in the attempted coup by the twice-impeached ex-president to overturn the results of the 2020 election he lost."
Ginni Thomas was texting Mark Meadows, giving him strategy ideas. She was pressing the fake electors scandal on state lawmakers. It was thanks to Meadows that Thomas' text messages were exposed in which she begs him to "stand firm" and fight for Trump to stay in office, despite losing.
"Not for nothing, while the Supreme Court acts like it doesn't care that the public isn't that into them anymore, stories like this are exactly why the public doesn't trust and — they've seen a collapse in public trust in the institution," said Wallace.
"So, there's a feeling that it's not only reaching decisions that are questionable, it's also reaching them through illicit means," said Fallon.
To Wallace, it was the funding piece of the story that stunned her.
"Because, you know, over here on Earth 1, you would do the opposite, right?" she asked. "If there were a nonprofit that involved the spouse of a Supreme Court justice, you would take the path that would bring about more disclosure, more transparency. Ginni Thomas does the opposite. She basically buries and hides the funding through a workaround that may or may not be legal. It's certainly not ethical or transparent. What do you make of the demented approach toward ethics and transparency?"
Fallon explained that there were some links to organizations that may seem political and not entirely ethical but wasn't illegal. His example was if Mrs. Thomas was lobbying on behalf of corporate interests seeking to loosen regulations. Given Justice Thomas hears cases related to those issues, it wouldn't be ethical.
"But it probably wouldn't stun Washington to the degree that her activities here do," said Fallon. "That's because she's a fringe figure, Nicolle. The people that she brought together for this nonprofit that received $600,000 was a rogues gallery of people that didn't belong in polite society in Washington, D.C. You've got the head of Project Veritas, who has been criminally prosecuted for the shady activity of that group. Charlie Kirk, these are people that say outrageous things that help provoke conspiracy theories that contributed to the riots that tried to overturn the government. And Ginni Thomas is in league with all of them. This should be shocking and appalling on both sides of the aisle. It should be 100 percent uncontroversial at this point to impose a mandatory code of ethics on the Supreme Court so that Clarence Thomas has to account for his wife's activities."
Ivanka Trump is no longer helping her dad out of his difficult situation, People Magazine reported on Wednesday.
Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, were key pillars in the Donald Trump administration while he was there, but in the aftermath, Kushner scored his billions in investments from the Saudi royal fund, and published his book. After cashing in, the couple has moved on.
"Even though Ivanka loves her dad, she knows how impossible he can be," People wrote, citing "a social source." Another person close to Ivanka said that there's no tension between Trump and his children.
It's an ironic statement because, over the course of the past several months, Trump has been dropping passive-aggressive comments about heirs like his children.
In one video to a group of farmers, Trump rambled on about the estate tax and how he thought he saved family farms worth over $50 million.
Trump's comments then turned to say that it was only probably applicable if they like their children. The estate tax wouldn't matter if farmers hated their children. Some people don't like their children, Trump explained.
“But if you don’t love your children so much,” he said. “And there are some people that don’t — and maybe deservedly so — it won’t matter, because, frankly, you don’t have to leave them anything. Thank you very much. Have fun.”
Then there was a rally in Iowa, in which Trump "joked" about the estate tax and "if you don't like your kids."
The first People source claims that the first Trump daughter "is recreating her business life and raising her children which are her priorities. She is through with politics."
It matches what she's said since her father announced he was running right after the 2022 midterm elections.
"This time around, I am choosing to prioritize my young children and the private life we are creating as a family," she said in a statement. "I do not plan to be involved in politics. While I will always love and support my father, going forward I will do so outside the political arena."
Former President Bill Clinton and former U.S. Sen. John Edwards (D-NC)Photos by Gage Skidmore/Wikipedia and Peter Smith/Flickr