WASHINGTON – During Donald Trump’s one-term presidency, his namesake hotel, five blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, endlessly hummed with political wheeling and personal dealing.
But Joe Biden beat Donald Trump in 2020. The following year, the Trump Organization sold the rights to his once-prized MAGA monument. By 2022, Trump International Hotel DC became a Waldorf Astoria. The nation’s capital is a town that rewards winners. And on Tuesday, as a New York judge arraigned the 45th president of the United States on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, the scene in what was once Trump’s expansive, sun-soaked hotel atrium, replete with its faux cherry blossom branches and four sunbeam-powered chandeliers, silently shrugged.
“Loser.”
As Trump sits in Manhattan’s Trump Tower, preparing for a short drive to the courthouse and a million camera clicks, the few dozen people sprinkled about barely pay notice to any of the four flat screen televisions hovering over the ornate bar.
Three of these TVs are playing “The Price is Right.” Some eyes occasionally glance up to see overexcited contestants spin the big flashing wheel. “The Young and the Restless” flickers on next.
Fox News’ Trump coverage plays on the fourth flat screen. But no one is watching. The only other sign of Trump in his former hotel are two unflattering headlines emblazoned across the front of complimentary stacks of the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal. The real estate developer-turned-politician, who’s running for president again, isn’t even mentioned on the iconic pink-tinged paper of the Financial Times.
The presidential ballroom is empty.
Newspapers in the former Trump International Hotel DC on April 4, 2023, the day of Donald Trump's arraignment on 34 felony charges. Matt Laslo/Raw Story
I order a vodka tonic and an ice water on this sunny, 70-degree spring day. My Serbian bartender — after eyeing my press pass and frantic scribbling on my tattered notepad — makes small talk.
“When’s Trump on?” he asks, looking over his shoulder at the screen I’m eyeing.
“Who knows.”
After watching a steady stream of mostly tourists coming and going, I ask if he’s noticed any changes from the hotel’s Trump International days when this was the mecca of making America great again.
The consummate service professional is strictly business.
“For me, everybody’s the same,” the bartender says. “You can be a governor or something, and I treat you the same. I don’t pay attention to [politics].”
And this hotel no longer pays attention to Trump.
As the former president is formally booked in Manhattan, one bartender slowly hand polishes water glasses. A manager leans on the expansive wood bar, catching up on texts or, maybe, playing a game. Neither ever bother looking up at the large man wearing a blue suit, red tie and scowl fit for someone about to plead “not guilty” before a judge.
The only person in the atrium wearing a mask is a mother rocking shorts and beige-green baseball cap that screams “TOURIST.” She pauses to snap a picture of the TV screen showing Trump and masses of American paparazzi. You can feel her daughter’s eyes roll as the girl looks up and then keeps walking. Mom quickly gets the message and scurries to catch up.
This space now feels like an oasis from politics, not the heart of it.
The soaring bar at the former Trump International Hotel DC. Matt Laslo/Raw Story
I pay up and catch a cab.
“What’s going on with Trump?” my cabbie asks upon learning I’m a reporter.
“TMZ Breaking News alert,” I say, answering by reading the first alert I see on my locked screen. “Donald Trump arrested in Stormy Daniels hush money case.”
“So he’s arrested?”
“You haven’t listened?”
“I was busy.”
“Not to pry too much,” I ask, “but what made you so busy it trumped Trump?”
“I was driving.”
Indeed, his radio’s off. Turns out this Ethiopian cab driver is a self-proclaimed evangelist.
“Are you saved? That’s the question. That’s the only question,” the cabbie says before getting a little theological with this former pastor-in-training. “Total depravity…”
“I know total depravity,” I joke.
“You need Jesus Christ,” he says, handing me a tract titled, “After Death, What?”
“I’ve actually heard about him from the former president. President Trump talked a lot about Jesus Christ.”
“There are people who use the name of God to do business, to do many things,” the cabbie preaches as Trump’s former hotel recedes in the rearview. “They are false prophets.”
Business owners are complaining that no one wants to work anymore and there’s a labor crisis in America. The crisis is that workers have more leverage and are refusing to work for minimum wage and be treated like crap.
The obvious solution is raising wages and improving working conditions but some offer a different solution – a return to child labor. After all, children have no work experience, are easily exploited and are unlikely to organize.
Republicans would rather erode child labor laws than support a living wage. But it’s Democrats who have abandoned the working class, amirite?
The reason Republicans want to erode child labor protections is the exact reason we need these laws – children are easily exploited in the labor market.
This discussion gets to the heart of labor laws in this country, which is that the concept of “freedom of contract” doesn’t exist when one party (the employer) has significantly more power than another (the employee).
Initially, many attempts by the labor movement to protect workers from unfair hour requirements and extremely low wages were struck down by the Supreme Court for violating the supposed right to “freedom of contract.”
In Lochner v. New York in 1905, the Supreme Court ruled that the 14th Amendment protected a constitutional right to freedom of contract and, therefore, that a New York state law outlawing bakeries from hiring bakers for more than 10 hours a day or 60 hours a week was unconstitutional.
The theory was that the bakers should have the freedom to work as many hours as they wanted – discounting coercive pressure by employers to force bakers to work extreme and unsafe hours if they wanted to keep their jobs.
The Lochner ruling ushered in the “Lochner Era” of the Supreme Court and was used to strike down laws forbidding “yellow-dog contracts” (contracts that required workers to promise not to join a union) and minimum wage laws out of a belief in laissez-faire economics and “freedom to contract.”
This precedent changed in Nebbia v. New Yorkin 1934 when the Supreme Court ruled there was no constitutional fundamental right to “freedom of contract,” and in 1937 in West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, which upheld a minimum wage law. West Coast Hotel v. Parrish stated that economic regulation is reasonable if in the community’s best interest. Protecting kids from exploitation seems to me like it's in the best interest of the community.
Historically, child labor was common. Children often worked on family farms or were apprenticed out to learn a trade when they got a little older.
Child labor became exploitative with the industrial revolution. Children worked away from families in factories. They were paid less than adults. They were often useful for tasks requiring small hands or small stature.
Public education reformers promoted the importance of public education but laws that required school attendance were rarely enforced or only applied to primary school. (This is probably another reason why Republicans are trying to destroy education. They’ll get more workers out of it!).
The first compulsory education law was passed in Massachusetts in 1852. Mississippi was the last to require primary education for all students in 1917.
The National Child Labor Committee was founded in 1904 at the same time the larger labor movement was also trying to pass reforms to protect workers from unsafe and unfair labor practices. It served the larger labor movement’s goals to restrict child labor because child laborers drove down wages and were less likely to join in strikes and unionizing efforts.
The National Child Labor Committee hired a photographer to photograph the conditions children were worked in to influence public opinion.
The Congress passed the first anti-child labor law in 1916. Called the Keating-Owen Child Labor Act, it relied on Congress’ authority to regulate interstate commerce to ban products from “any factory, shop, or cannery that employed children under the age of 14, from any mine that employed children under the age of 16, and from any facility that had children under the age of 16 work at night or for more than eight hours during the day.”
Unfortunately, the law was short-lived. It was struck down by the Supreme Court two years later in Hammer v. Dagenhart when the court said the Congress did not have the power to regulate working conditions. The next attempt – regulating child labor by levying an extra tax on goods made using child labor – was also struck down in Bailey v. Drexel Furniture.
The Congress finally succeeded in restricting child labor in 1938 with the Fair Labor Standards Act. It established a right to minimum wage, overtime pay, a maximum number of hours that could be worked in jobs related to interstate commerce, and set a minimum age of 16 to work in mining or manufacturing industries. The act was upheld in United States v. Darby Lumber Co in 1941. It was later expanded, in 1949, to include more industries.
Today “federal labor law prohibits the employment of workers under the age of 14 in non-agricultural settings. Fourteen- and 15-year-olds must work outside of the hours of school and cannot work: more than 3 hours on a school day…more than 18 hours per week when school is in session…”
Last month, the Arkansas legislature rolled back child-labor protections. Minors under 16 previously needed age verification and work certificates. This requirement has been abolished under the newly passed Youth Hiring Act of 2023. Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders called it an “arbitrary burden” but it protected children from exploitation by ensuring that the state was involved in their employment and that those working weren’t below 14.
Arkansas isn’t the only state eroding child labor law to meet labor shortages. Last year, New Jersey expanded the number of hours teens can work. In Minnesota, Republicans proposed allowing teens to work on construction sites. Iowa is considering a bill to allow 14 and 15 year olds to work in industrial laundry services and meatpacking plants while also exempting them from worker’s compensation protections. Ohio is considering removing the cap on hours minors can work as long as a parent or guardian approves. These will expose minors to exploitation and dangerous working conditions.
Gun violence is the leading cause of death for children because Republicans reject gun-law reforms. Public education is being harmed by anti-history laws and book banning. Now there’s a movement to send children back to work, all to avoid raising wages and improving working conditions.
Thieves. Stalkers. Rapists. Mobsters. Murderers. All tried and convicted in Manhattan. If DA Alvin Bragg gets his way, you can add a former president of the United States to the city’s long list of felons.
The circus-like atmosphere surrounding Donald Trump has distracted from the gravity of the moment, but for those who work in the Manhattan Criminal Court, today is both business as usual and business most unusual.
And it’s straight-up surreal to New York public defender Thalia Karny, who is intimately familiar with the spot where Trump will today stand before the law.
“I’ve sat in that same courtroom. My client sat in the same seat that Trump will be sitting in. It’s just very hard to envision a former president sitting in the same chair, but he should,” Karny — who boasts 25 years of legal experience — tells Raw Story. “If he's been indicted he should be in that same chair. Right? Why should he be treated any differently than anyone else?”
The Manhattan courthouse is no stranger to fallen icons — Harvey Weinstein and Cuba Gooding Jr., of late — overwhelming security, or a piranha-like press corps.
After attending New York University, Karny moved to Los Angeles to dabble in the entertainment industry before coming back to New York. The public servant shared with Raw Story that this week’s Trump reality show meets court TV — an American drama airing live across the globe — is a historical spectacle dwarfing all other storied spectacles the Big Apple’s criminal justice system and entertainment-fueled media have ever known.
The below interview with Thalia Karny of New York County Defender Services has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Raw Story: Have you ever seen anything like this?
Thalia Karny: [Paul] Manafort came through our courthouse, [Steve] Bannon came through our courthouse, and then [Allen] Weisselberg. So Trump is, like, the big kahuna now, he’s coming through, too. It’s just bizarre now.
RS:Did you just expect it?
TK: No. No, I never thought — I did not think that. I didn’t think he’d get indicted. I didn’t think this would happen. It's just bizarre. Really bizarre.
RS: How so?
TK: He's going to be sitting in the same place where my clients sat, and I represent indigent defendants — people that are charged with crimes who are too poor to afford lawyers. And that's kind of the beauty of this system, he’s going to sit in the same chair, in the same courtroom, presumably. I can't tell you 100 percent, but that's what I've heard.
RS: That’s so fascinating, because on Fox News and all that, it’s a different story … Ben Shapiro tweeted out something like, “Oh, this is so precedent setting.” You’re saying, “No, this is just America’s criminal justice system”?
Donald Trump will turn himself in for arraignment on Tuesday. At that very moment, America will find herself in a brave new world -- a world in which the consequences of political defeat may mean legal prosecution. — Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) April 3, 2023
TK: He’s a guy who was indicted, and because he was indicted, he has to be arraigned. That’s the way it works. What’s mind bending is that a former president is being indicted. It's not where he's going to be or that he's going to be arraigned. It is what it is. He was indicted by a grand jury.
RS: What are you expecting?
TK: In my experience, it's gonna be a very brief appearance. They go before the court and they're advised of the charges. They're entitled to their lawyer being present. They plead guilty or not guilty. But this is such an abnormal circumstance. It's just so insane and unprecedented that it's really hard to even talk about it until it's done. Because, you know, I don't think anybody can really imagine the behavior of a former president being arraigned on an indictment in a state Supreme Court. It's just crazy.
RS:Wait, explain that to us on the levels that you're understanding it, because it's crazy to us, probably on the spectacle level and also a little bit the historical level, but it sounds like it's crazy to you on the legal level — or no?
TK: No. No, not really. It's not crazy on the legal level. It's crazy for the reasons you think it's crazy, because it's unprecedented and because of who Trump is. It was always going to be this type of circus, and this is so close to home. It's the courthouse that we're in every day and, for the most part, your garden variety people. Mostly, our clients are Black and brown and poor.
RS: How’s the staff handling the circus?
TK: People at the courthouse, the court officers, they look totally nonplussed by this. Everyone looks how they always look, no one’s like, "Oh my god" like this is like the biggest deal of the world.
RS: They’ve dealt with everything.
TK: Not with a president, because a president’s never been indicted.
RS: What’s the buzz around the court been this week?
TK: There's no shock value anymore — I'm shocked because I'm a little older — but when you see people walk by the reporters and everything, they don't even look at them. Every other week Law & Order is filming right in front of the courthouse. I think Lady Gaga was next to the federal courthouse a few weeks ago. People just don't even — they just walk on by and don’t care.
RS:If anything, the camera crews and news people, they’re in their way?
TK: Exactly. It's like, "What the hell are you doing here?" That's exactly the New York attitude.
RS: What's the worst case ever tried in this court?
TK: [Harvey] Weinstein. Two years ago. It was a circus, too. He was convicted in that courtroom.
RS:It will be so curious to compare the crowds for Weinstein and Trump …
TK: There will be no comparison. Oh my god, no comparison. This is much bigger.
RS:Wait. Why?
TK: Because Harvey Weinstein was a movie producer, and Trump was the leader of the free world.
RS: But this is America where most of us know about the presidency through movies!
TK: No, no, no. I personally don't see the comparison. Cuba Gooding Jr. also got adjudicated at [the New York County Criminal Court] a couple years ago. Yeah, the cameras were out there, but it's nothing like I've seen the last couple of days.
RS: Love that you, as a public defender in New York, are less cynical than I am, a jaded 17-year congressional correspondent.
Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg has traveled a long and winding road to reach his indictment of former President Donald Trump on charges related to hush money payments to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels.
Little more than a year ago, Bragg was receiving sharp criticism from Trump foes after two top prosecutors in his office — Mark Pomerantz and Carey Dunne — resigned in protest over his unwillingness to charge Trump at that time. There were calls for state or federal authorities to intercede.
These Trump detractors believed that the 45th president had once again escaped accountability for his alleged misdeeds, and they were especially galled that it was happening on the watch of a Democratic prosecutor. Bragg, feeling the pressure, had this to say:
“While the law constrains me from commenting further at this time, I pledge that the office will publicly state the conclusion of our investigation — whether we conclude our work without bringing charges, or move forward with an indictment,” New York Magazine reported.
Little fanfare greeted Bragg's statement. But it would turn out to survive the test of time.
In contrast, the barrage of criticisms aimed at Bragg haven’t aged so well. And neither has Republican gloating and predictions about Trump emerging from the investigation unscathed.
Here are our top 10 examples:
10) “Alvin Bragg has abdicated his duty and/or lacks the courage to do his job.” — Bakari Sellers, pundit and former South Carolina state legislator.
9) "The more I read about the NY AG civil fraud case against Trump, the more I wonder how Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg could possibly have rejected indicting him for criminal fraud." — Tristan Snell, an attorney formerly in the New York AG’s office who prosecuted the Trump University case.
8) “Bragg’s actions undercut the credibility of his words and represent a third strike, this time for a lack of candor. Just how gullible does Bragg think New Yorkers are? — MSNBC columnist Glenn Kirschner, reacting to the news that Bragg was disbanding the first grand jury in March, 2022.
7) “It is a great tribute to the system that Alvin Bragg came in and stopped the unfairness against Trump. Bragg and his team did the legally and morally correct thing, and they didn’t go the typical political route." — Fox News, quoting an anonymous source “close to the investigation” in a 2022 article reporting it was over.
6) “No. I spent countless hours, over 15 sessions — including three while incarcerated. I provided thousands of documents, which coupled with my testimony, would have been a valid basis for an indictment and charge. The fact that they have not done so despite all of this … I’m not interested in any further investment of my time,” Michael Cohen, asked in March 2022 by The Daily Beast about cooperating with Bragg if no indictment was coming at that time.
5) “My guess is that there are political forces — political people at the national level on the Democratic side — who have urged restraint on Bragg because they realize what a mistake and debacle it would be to indict the former president for this conduct.” — Sol Wisenberg, deputy independent counsel to Kenneth Starr during the Clinton investigation — two days before Trump was indicted.
4) “Left-wing prosecutor Alvin Bragg in New York, it kind of looks like he can’t, he cannot indict a ham sandwich. It looks like Trump will not be indicted.” — Former Trump adviser and Fox Business News host Larry Kudlow — less than one hour before the indictment was announced.
3) “Alvin Bragg is sweating even more than usual tonight. Now, his pathetically weak case against former President Trump has totally imploded. Let's be very clear here. The case died this very week. It is very obvious. It is very clear. It's transparent.” — Sean Hannity on Fox News, speaking on March 23.
2) “I and others believe that your decision not to authorize prosecution now will doom any future prospects that Mr. Trump will be prosecuted for the criminal conduct we have been investigating.” — Pomerantz, in resignation letter to Bragg published March 23, 2022, in the New York Times.
1) “There was no crime, period.” — Donald J. Trump, on March 19, via Truth Social.
WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is the latest in a string of prominent politicians and political committees to lose campaign cash to a thief.
Schumer's campaign committee acknowledged to federal regulators that a check it cut in November was "fraudulently cashed by someone other than the intended recipient" a short time after its issuance, according to a letter to the Federal Election Commission that Raw Story obtained Monday.
The check, intended to pay a campaign "facilities and AV rental" bill, "was stolen after it was mailed and was fraudulently cashed by someone other than the intended recipient," Friends of Schumer campaign treasurer Constantine Dimas wrote the FEC.
"The Committee has no reason to believe the theft was committed by someone affiliated with the Committee or vendor," Dimas continued. "The Committee worked with its bank to report the theft to law enforcement and sought a refund from the bank."
Friends of Schumer campaign finance report indicating there had been a committee "check intercepted" by a thief. Source: Federal Election Commission
Dimas said Schumer's committee received a refund on March 30.
While Friends of Schumer maintains "recommended internal controls to prevent misappropriations and associated misreporting," such internal controls "would not have helped prevent this situation where a check was stolen by a third party after it was mailed," Dimas added.
Even with the theft, Schumer's campaign coffer is among the most robust in politics, with Friends of Schumer reporting nearly $9.9 million in reserve as of Dec. 31, according to FEC records.
Representatives from Schumer's Senate offices in Washington, D.C., and New York City could not immediately be reached for comment Monday.
While it isn't immediately clear which law enforcement entity is investigating the Schumer campaign's intercepted check, although the FBI has this year has involved itself in previous thefts from political committees, including a cybertheft incident late last year that initially cost the campaign of Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS) $690,000.
Political theft epidemic
Raw Story in recent weeks has identified several current and former Republican members of Congress who’ve been victimized by fraudsters in what’s fast becoming open season on politicians’ campaign accounts.
The problem isn’t unique to Republicans, either: In addition to Schumer's committee, President Joe Biden’s 2020 Democratic presidential campaign committee lost at least $71,000.
Recently, the Business Industry Political Action Committee — the nation's oldest federal business— lost $14,156 to thieves, while the federal PAC of State Farm Insurance lost $12,220 to thieves, Raw Story first reported.
The McKesson Corporation, a pharmaceutical and medical supplies company, informed the FEC that it, too, had fallen victim to someone who "created, forged and cashed a fictitious PAC check for $12,000" on Nov. 7.
The McKesson Company Employees Political Fund notified its bank "immediately upon discovery of the fraudulent activity" and attempted to secure return of the lost funds.
"To date," the committee added, "the bank has not returned the stolen funds."
The political action committees of Google, National Association of Manufacturers, Consumer Technology Association, National Association of Home Builders, National Air Traffic Controllers Association, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, MoveOn.org, and law firms Akerman LLP and Blank Rome LLP have also experienced theft of various kinds, be it cyber theft, forgeries or check tampering, according to Insider.
WASHINGTON— At the U.S. Capitol, most Republicans don’t like being asked questions about former President Donald Trump.
Music, however, brings people together, right? And it turns out that if you play federal lawmakers the new song performed by Trump and the “J6 Prison Choir” — the one that’s soared to the top of the iTunes charts — lawmakers suddenly have a lot of questions of their own. Or things get really awkward. Or both.
Upon first listen, the song leaves many Republicans doubting their senses that the former president, who stands indicted in Manhattan and credibly accused in D.C. of fomenting an insurrection, is collaborating with many defendants accused of assaulting police officers.
A most awkward ‘Senators Only’ elevator ride
Last week at the Capitol, bells beckon senators to their storied chamber. During votes, most every U. S. senator scurries through the drab, dry passageways that tunnel through the Capitol’s remarkably unremarkable basement. In particular, three tram tracks — and the two walkways running alongside them — narrow into one hallway leading into the Capitol.
At the end, a bank of six elevators greets senators, though only one is permanently reserved for them.
As she waits for the “Senators Only” elevator, Raw Story asks Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) about Trump’s music track. She’s flanked by “There’s a choir?” Murkowski blurts out as Sen. John Barrasso, a fellow Republican who represents Wyoming, stands nearby.
“Is Matt making things up?” Barrasso quips from a distance.
“Right?” I reply through a wink and smile.
Barrasso is now legitimately interested.
“Is Matt Laslo making things up?” Barrasso asks again in an unusually giddy fashion.
“I think he is,” Murkowski replies, her eyes transfixed on my iPhone 12 screen.
The iTunes listing for "Justice for All," the single musical track featuring Donald Trump and the J6 Prison Choir. Screenshot
“‘Donald Trump’ artist,” I say, turning towards Barrasso, the third most powerful Senate Republican and one of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s top lieutenants. “Have you heard of this?”
“I don’t know anything,” Barrasso says, turning his back and greeting the perpetually sauntering Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS).
“I think it’s just …” Murkowski says. “It can’t be.”
Her eyes now wide with confusion, Murkowski demands I play the song. She waves me into their exclusive, if cramped, elevator.
“Listen to it,” commands Murkowski — now touching my screen, almost as if she’s checking if it’s real — to no one and everyone.
“O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light …” the choir starts.
Murkowski seems mesmerized by the patriotic drone — monotone, expertly unproduced — coming from my phone’s tiny speaker. Her fellow Republican senator’s voices drop. They continue pleasantries while craning to listen, even as they’re deliberately avoiding eye contact.
As the elevator arrives on the Capitol’s second floor, Murkowski’s no longer laughing as she heads to the Senate floor.
After leading Trump’s Office of Budget and Management, Mick Mulvaney knows Trump.
“He’s going to win the Republican nomination, probably,” Mulvaney says as we walk across the Capitol grounds. “He can be beaten in a one-on-one race. I don’t think he can be beaten in a five-on-one race, and I think that’s what [the GOP primary] is going to end up being.”
Then I ask about Trump’s song.
“It’s leading iTunes,” I say.
“Is it really?” Mulvaney smiles.
Besides running OMB, Mulvaney also served as Trump’s acting-White House chief of staff for a time. But something doesn’t quite compute.
“There’s such a thing as the J6 choir?” Mulvaney asks, as the smile ran away from his face. “Is it real or is it something that somebody made up, that’s fabricated?”
“What do you think about that — flirting with the people who stormed the Capitol?”
“I don't have any…” Mulvaney says, before stopping himself.
He pauses, then tries again.
“That sounds like — that looks like something that somebody just clipped together from a bunch of other stuff.”
“One nation,” Trump then says on the sparse track. “Under God…”
Still, Mulvaney tells Raw Story he’s dubious, in part, because he doesn’t trust Trump’s team.
“I think he's got a bunch of grifters looking to get wealthy off of him,” Mulvaney says. “And why he permits it? I have no idea."
'You do so at your own peril'
Other Trump allies aren’t shocked by Trump’s foray into music. They know Trump, the businessman and marketer, who’s peddled Trump-branded clothing, bedding, water, wine, vodka, steaks, perfume, hotel rooms, golf courses and 101 other products and experiences.
And they know of Trump’s new song, even if it takes a moment to remember.
“Have you heard about this Donald Trump January 6 choir track?” I ask Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
“What track?” Graham replies.
I click play.
“Oh — yeah,” Graham chuckles. “Yeah. Yeah.”
“He believes some of these people were treated unfairly,” says Graham — a JAG lawyer, in a past life. “Everybody deserves due process, including those being held for January 6.”
While familiar with the song, Graham maintains he’s not changing his personal tune when it comes to the attack on the Capitol, nor the alleged attackers.
“Here's my view on January 6, those who defiled the Capitol need to pay a price. There was nothing legitimate about what they did. They tried to basically interfere with a peaceful transfer of power,” Graham says. “And those who decided to do that need to face the full consequences of the law — as a deterrence.”
Graham is, seemingly, amused by the track.
“I think what he's going to be doing, you know, he feels — and some people on the right feel — these people have been denied due process. And if that's true, I'd like to correct it,” the senator says “But the average American is not going to be sympathetic to the idea that somehow January 6 wasn't a big deal. I’ll tell you this: You try to whitewash January 6, you do so at your own peril.”
Barking dogs
Over on the House side, Democrats — after impeaching him twice — say they expect the worst from Trump.
“Every time you think there’s a bottom, there is no bottom,” Rep. Pete Aguilar — a former select J6 committee member and now the No. 3 House Democrat — tells Raw Story of Trump and the J6 Choir. “That’s just the Donald Trump enterprise.”
Other Democrats agreed. Until we played Trump’s song.
“You gotta be kidding me,” says Rep. Dan Kildee (D-MI), grabbing my phone out of my hand.
Kildee had been rushing up the Capitol steps leading to the House floor, agreeing only to a quick interview, so he didn’t miss votes.
But now, he finds himself in no hurry at all as the song plays — and it sinks in.
“Oh my god,” Kildee says. “Sick. Sick. Sick. Wow.”
After Raw Story asks about the former president’s purported “dog whistling,” the six-term congressman changes his tune.
“The ‘dogs’ are barking now,” Kildee says.
They’re also buying.
Since teaming up with prisoners accused of storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump has reveled in legally hacking iTunes.
“It's No. 1 in every single category. No. 2 was Taylor Swift, No. 3 was Miley Cyrus,” Trump told supporters at a campaign rally March 25, in Waco, Texas. “So we have our moment, and that tells you that our people love those people. They love those people."
WASHINGTON — In the minutes after news broke that former President Donald Trumphad been indicted by a Manhattan grand jury, Raw Story spoke with seven prominent politicians and political actors, past and present, to put the moment into perspective.
Here's their initial reactions to Trump becoming the first president or former president to face an indictment — in this case, for actions allegedly related to illegal hush money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels:
Walter Shaub: Shaub, who served as director of the Office of Government Ethics during the early months of Trump's presidency, described the indictment to Raw Story as something years in the making.
"The Office of Government Ethics notified the Justice Department in 2018 that former President Donald Trump had omitted his debt to Michael Cohen for the hush money payment from his 2017 financial disclosure, and this indictment shows precisely why that sort of omission matters," said Shaub, who's now a senior ethics fellow at the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight. "We should all be wondering what else Trump may have omitted from his disclosures as president and, more recently, why he missed the deadline to file a required personal financial disclosure as a candidate this year."
Shaub noted that the hush money payment matter is years old and formally addressed by the Office of Government Ethics in 2018.
A 2018 letter from then-Acting Director of the Office of Government Ethics David Apol to then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA): The former 2020 presidential candidate said that "the indictment of a former president is a somber day for America. It’s also a time to put faith in our judicial system. Donald Trump deserves every protection provided to him by the Constitution and due process under our rule of law."
Swalwell urged the public to "neither celebrate nor destroy. As the former president continues to call for violence in his name, let all of us, as Democrats and Republicans, condemn his efforts to incite. We are better than that and justice benefits all of us.”
Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-PA): “No person is above the law," the five-term lawmaker said.
Former Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-VA): “About damn time,” said Riggleman, who also served as an adviser to the U.S. House's January 6 select committee and said he left the Republican Party last year.
Asked if he had advise for fellow Republicans, Riggleman replied: “Don’t back lawless and duplicitous con-men."
Former Rep. David Jolly (R-FL): “This is how the criminal justice process works," Jolly said. "Trump now has an opportunity to refute the charges. My concern is the case actually takes a back seat to genuinely destabilizing themes proffered by Trump allies on the Hill and in conservative media. [Rep.] Ronny Jackson has already gone there. Others won't be far behind.”
Former Rep. Reid Ribble (R-WI): Expect more indictments, said Ribble, who served in Congress from 2011 to 2017.
"It's unlikely it's going to be the only one," he said, noting investigations Trump faces in Washington, D.C., and Fulton County, Georgia.
Ribble urged all Americans to resist idle speculation about what Trump did or didn't do and not prejudge the legal process the former president is facing.
"People like to say nobody is above the law — until our guy gets attacked," he said.
Ribble noted that Trump's constant attempts to cast doubt on the legal process aren't helpful, and that Trump has personally used the courts to his benefit for decades.
"You live by the court, you might die by the court," the former congressman said.
Former U.S. Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-NE): Kerrey, who served in the Senate from 1989 to 2001 and ran for president in 1992, urged the public to take a measured approach to Trump's indictment.
"You're not guilty because you're indicted. This is a step," Kerrey said. "Is this unprecedented? Everything about Donald Trump is unprecedented. Yes, it is without precedent. The fact that it is unprecedented means nothing. But this is a serious charge. It is not trivial."
Kerrey, however, said Trump is doing himself no favors.
"It's unfortunate that the former president is saying he's a victim in this process. He is not," Kerrey said. "Nobody is immune to an indictment by a grand jury, including a former president of the United States."
Kerrey added that Trump could, however, face his greatest legal peril in Georgia, where a grand jury in Fulton County is considering evidence that Trump tampered with results of the 2020 election.
"If you're looking for evidence, you have a phone call ... from Donald Trump," Kerrey noted.
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.
Democratic Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware violated a transparency and conflicts-of-interest law by disclosing one of his wife's stock trades more than a year after a federal deadline, according to a Raw Story review of congressional financial disclosure records.
Carper on Tuesday disclosed that Martha Ann Stacy sold $2,991.98 worth of stock in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd., although the trade took place on Jan. 19, 2022.
His wife's sale of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd. came shortly before Carper, as chairman of the Senate Finance Subcommittee on International Trade, advocated for Taiwan's inclusion in the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd., for its part, spent more than $2.8 million lobbying the federal government in 2022, according to federal records compiled by nonpartisan research group OpenSecrets.
Federal lawmakers and their spouses are legally permitted to trade individual stocks. But Carper is one among dozens of lawmakers who have violated the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act of 2012's transparency requirement that any stock trade must be publicly disclosed within 45 days of the trade being made.
Widespread violations of this provision, coupled with lawmakers' potential conflicts between their public responsibilities and personal stock trades, have prompted some in Congress to call for an outright ban on elected officials and their families buying and selling equities.
Carper's office characterized the late disclosure as a "simple clerical error".
"Senator Carper and his wife, Martha, have always been careful to ensure that their financial investments are handled separately by a financial adviser who makes decisions and transactions independently," Carper spokesperson Katie Grasso told Raw Story. "Senator Carper supported the STOCK Act, and he fully supports ongoing conversations in Congress on how to strengthen the legislation and improve transparency and accountability for our elected officials."
Grasso added that "immediately upon being made aware of this error, Senator Carper reported the transaction to rectify the situation."
The senator is working with the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Ethics, a bipartisan body of three Republicans and three Democrats, "so he can fully resolve this matter," she said.
The typical fine for a late stock trade disclosure of this sort is $200, per federal law. Generally, neither the House nor the Senate ethics committees release details about their findings regarding lawmakers who violate the STOCK Act, nor do they maintain a public accounting of which lawmakers have been assessed fines, and how much those fines total.
During the 117th Congress from 2021 to 2022, at least 78 members of Congress — dozens of Democrats and Republicans alike — were found to have violated the STOCK Act's disclosure provisions, according to a tally maintained by Insider.
Some, like Carper, were late disclosing a few thousand dollars worth of stock trades. Others were late disclosing trades that soared into the hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars.
This year, Raw Story has identified two additional lawmakers — Reps. Seth Moulton (D-MA) and Gerry Connolly (D-VA) — who were late disclosing personal stock trades.
Carper, a close ally of President Joe Biden, who represents Biden's home state, is one of Congress' most active stock traders, as he and is wife have logged hundreds of individual trades during the past several years.
News organizations including the New York Times, Insider, NPR and Sludge have documented rampant financial conflicts of interests among dozens of members of Congress, such as those who bought and sold defense contractor stock while occupying positions on congressional armed services committees or otherwise voting on measures to send such companies billions of federal dollars. The executive and judicial branches are riddled with similar financial conflict issues, too, as the Wall Street Journal hasreported.
A plan to enact a congressional stock-trade ban failed during the 2021-2022 congressional session after Democratic House leaders declined to bring any of several existing bills — including one floated by House leaders themselves — up for a vote.
But this year, a bipartisan group members of Congress, including Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA), Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), are renewing efforts to ban federal lawmakers and their spouses from trading stocks altogether. Cryptocurrency trades are also a target.
A bill in Florida that’s supported by Gov. Ron DeSantis would make it easier to sue journalists for defamation, and press freedom advocates say such a change in the law would be extremely dangerous. The bill would seemingly violate a Supreme Court ruling that established these press protections, New York Times v. Sullivan, but it appears the bill may be an effort to get the Supreme Court to reconsider that decision and, as former President Trump once put it, “open up” libel laws.
The bill, HB 991, was introduced by Florida state Rep. Alex Andrade, a Republican. It would redefine “actual malice” to make it easier to win a defamation suit against a journalist. Actual malice is the term used to determine if a journalist knew what they were writing about a public figure was false or should have known it was false. The bill would also change who can be considered a “public figure” under the law.
“The New York Times v. Sullivan ‘actual malice’ rule applies when the plaintiff is a public official or a public figure, and the courts have defined the category of public figure pretty broadly,” Samantha Barbas, a law professor at the University at Buffalo who focuses on First Amendment law, told Raw Story.
Essentially, the bill would make it so fewer people are considered public figures, which means the Sullivan rules would apply to fewer cases, and the people who do qualify as public figures wouldn’t have to provide much evidence that the journalist was acting maliciously or irresponsibly. This change in the law wouldn’t only affect journalists, though.
“The Sullivan actual malice rule affects all speakers, so ordinary citizens who want to comment on public officials or public affairs are protected by it if they make comments that are defamatory. We tend to think of Sullivan as a shield for the press, but really it affects everyone who wants to make commentary or criticism on public issues,” said Barbas, who recently wrote a book on the matter entitled “Actual Malice: Civil Rights and Freedom of the Press in New York Times v. Sullivan”.
So say you’re a Florida resident. You want to go to a town hall meeting and make some negative comments about your local representative. Feel free to do so — just know that without Sullivan in force, the lawmaker could potentially sue you for defamation, possibly successfully, just for insulting their character. The same could apply to posting negative comments about public figures on social media.
Prior to the Sullivan ruling in 1964, defamation lawsuits were often used against newspapers that were writing about the civil rights movement and racist activities in the Jim Crow South.
Post-Sullivan, those newspapers were much more protected from such lawsuits.
“In the late 1950s and early 1960s in the Jim Crow South there were a few judges and lawyers who came up with this very cynical theory of using defamation law to try to squelch northern newspapers from covering the civil rights struggle, voting rights abuses and things like that,” Lili Levi, a law professor at the University of Miami, told Raw Story. “They wanted to maintain the Jim Crow regime. That is the case that went up to the Supreme Court that we refer to as New York Times v. Sullivan.”
If this kind of legal shift did come to pass, such repressive tactics could be revived by people who want to stop the media from reporting on things they don’t like or want to keep hidden from the public eye.
Barbas and Levi said they believe this bill was introduced to set up a case for the Supreme Court, because there would certainly be court cases regarding if it was constitutional. Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch have both expressed a desire to revisit the Sullivan rules.
“You might actually be able to get five justices to agree to revisiting and, even if not totally reversing, at least significantly truncating New York Times v. Sullivan protections,” Levi said. “The press, which by the way includes anyone who writes on Substack or Twitter or wherever, is going to potentially be liable for a significant amount of damages in a libel suit. That is one of the dangers of legislation like this, if it’s passed.”
Beyond what’s happening in Florida and the possibility of a Supreme Court case, it’s clear there’s a growing desire among Republicans nationwide to “open up” libel laws in a bid to shut down press freedoms.
Trump, who is running for president again while facing massive legal peril, famously called for that when he was running for president in 2016 and has repeated it multiple times. DeSantis, too, appears to support this kind of change as he considerschallenging Trump and launching his own 2024 presidential bid. Even a libertarian such as Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) has called for changing the Sullivan rules to make it easier to sue journalists. Relatedly, DeSantis is also seemingly trying to prevent journalists from requesting information about where he travels.
“We’ve seen this widespread attack on New York Times v. Sullivan over the past five or six years … I don’t see why this wouldn’t spread to other conservative states while there’s this pervasive anti-media sentiment and all of this talk about needing to change Sullivan,” Barbas said. “This is really unprecedented, historically. I’ve looked at the criticism of Sullivan since 1964, and there’s always been an undercurrent of dissatisfaction and people saying Sullivan went too far, but I don’t think we’ve had a concerted attack like this in our history.”
Levi said that if other states start to pass similar bills, that could make it more likely the Supreme Court would reconsider Sullivan. She said there would presumably be a lot of court cases going on around the country focusing on the constitutionality of these laws.
“I think if you have a bunch of statutes in a bunch of states that attempt to cut back, in one way or another, on protections for the press, some of those are going to end up being upheld by some courts, and they might become the occasion when [a Supreme Court review] could be granted,” Levi said.
Policies that are spearheaded by DeSantis in Florida, from the “Don’t Say Gay” bill to book bans, sometimes spread to other states, so it only seems logical that members of a party that’s constantly decrying the so-called “liberal media” would join this effort to change defamation laws in America. What happens in Florida doesn’t tend to stay in Florida.
“It’s quite possible this could spread to other states, which is also what makes it very dangerous,” Levi said.
One of the bill's co-sponsors, Florida state Rep. Mike Beltran (R), says he’s not sure if other states will adopt similar legislation.
However, he did make clear what he’d like to see happen.
“I think that it will likely be litigated and would be the vehicle to roll back much of the Supreme Court's dicta from NYT v. Sullivan, etc.,” Beltran told Raw Story. “The current case law finds no support in textualist or originalist principles and unfairly allows people to be defamed without redress."
When former President Donald Trumprallies today in Waco, Texas, under a cloud of legal scandal, he'll do so after his campaign reportedly paid the central Texas city's government more than $60,000 to cover various municipal services, such as public safety costs.
But across the state, in El Paso, city officials there tell Raw Story that they're still waiting for Trump's campaign committee to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bills stemming from the former president's February 2019 visit to their border town.
"The Trump campaign has not submitted any payments for their debt," El Paso city spokesperson Laura Cruz-Acosta confirmed to Raw Story, noting that the current Trump tab is $569,204.63, including a city-issued late fee of $98,787.58.
El Paso is still trying to get Trump to pay up. In late 2020, the El Paso City Council unanimously took action to hire the Law Offices of Snapper L. Carr to "advocate in the City’s interest in the collection of the outstanding invoices," Cruz-Acosta said.
"The city continues to seek the payment of these past due expenses, so city taxpayers do not continue have to bear the cost," she added.
Most of El Paso's Trump-related charges stem from police and fire department expenses, according to a current City of El Paso invoice obtained by Raw Story.
Trump has been notoriously stingy when it comes to paying public safety-related bills city governments have sent his campaign committee to defray the often significant and unexpected costs of facilitating and securing a large-scale political event.
Insider in 2020 calculated that Trump's campaign had not paid nearly $2 million worth of public safety-related invoices sent to his campaign by more than a dozen municipal governments, including those of Minneapolis; Erie, Pa.; Tucson, Ariz.; Battle Creek, Mich.; Spokane, Wash.; Lebanon, Ohio; and Burlington, Vt.
The Daily Beast has since found other unpaid bills, although the Trump campaign appears to have paid at least one, from Sioux City, Iowa, after being pressured by local officials.
Waco officials did not immediately comment on the financial particulars of Trump's visit and asked Raw Story to make a written request for details, which have not yet been provided.
But the difference between why Trump is paying his Waco bills, as first reported by the Waco Tribune-Herald, and ignoring his El Paso bills appears tied to the mundane but significant matter of jurisdiction and contractual obligations.
Trump conducted his 2019 rally at the El Paso County Coliseum, which is controlled by the nonprofit El Paso Sports Commission, not the City of El Paso. Nevertheless, City of El Paso officials provided police and other resources for the event, but had no power to compel the Trump campaign to pay beforehand.
Similarly, other city governments that provide city services for Trump rallies at non-city facilities are left to invoice the campaign of the former president with the hope that he'll pay up after the fact.
Most of the cities have been left disappointed.
"It is the U.S. Secret Service, not the campaign, which coordinates with local law enforcement. The campaign itself does not contract with local governments for police involvement. All billing inquiries should go to the Secret Service,” the Trump campaign told the Center for Public Integrity in 2020.
The U.S. Secret Service, which indeed oversees security for the visit of a current or former president, does not, however, receive funding from Congress to reimburse municipal governments for services they render at the Secret Services' behest. Cities could theoretically refuse to provide public services for Trump rallies, but such a move would introduce other risks officials aren't willing to shoulder, from traffic snarls to public safety breakdowns in the event of a Trump rally-related emergency.
Since Trump is conducting his Waco rally at the Waco Regional Airport, which the city government manages, City of Waco officials had leverage in compelling Trump to sign a pre-rally contract and pay up before the event took place.
Several city governments, including the government of Nashville, Tenn., have taken similar approaches to Trump rallies when Trump's campaign wanted to use a city-managed facility for a political event.
Trump has long professed his love and admiration for law enforcement officials.
"Nobody appreciates you more than the president of the United States. Everybody knows what you do, and everybody cares. Without you, it just couldn't be the same. It would be really bad," Trump said in a video on Law Enforcement Appreciation Day 2020.
But when Trump rallies tonight in Waco — the event coincides with the 30th anniversary of the federal government’s siege of the compound of David Koresh’s Branch Davidians religious cult — he'll do so with local and federal law enforcement officials on his case from multiple angles.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is investigating whether Trump violated election laws and potentially falsified business documents to illegally cover up a hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, with whom he allegedly had an affair. Trump himself says he expects to be indicted soon.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) made a personal bet on Donald Trump’s Truth Social platform — and is losing bigly.
The value of Greene’s class A stock in Digital World Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, that’s supposed to merge with Truth Social, had cratered in recent weeks amid significant corporate turmoil.
Digital World Acquisition Corp. this week ousted its chief executive officer, Patrick Orlando. Federal prosecutors are investigatingTrump Media, the current owner of Truth Social, to determine whether it violated money laundering laws, The Guardian reported. And Trump himself faces a potential indictment related to hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, with whom Trump allegedly had an affair.
On Friday, Digital World Acquisition Corp. stock closed at less than $13 a share.
Compare that to when Greene, on Oct. 22, 2021, became the first member of Congress to personally invest in Digital World Acquisition Corp. the stock was worth exponentially more, swinging wildly in price from a low of $69 per share to a high of $172 in a single trading session.
Greene reported that she and her then-husband Perry Greene purchased between $15,001 and $50,000 worth of Digital World Acquisition Corp. stock that day.
Although lawmakers are only required to disclose the value of their stock holdings in broad ranges, preventing a precise calculation of money lost or gained over time, the Greenes could have conceivably lost well into the $40,000-range investing in Trump’s social media venture.
Marjorie Taylor Greene and Perry Greene officially divorced in December, and it’s unclear how they’ve divided their shared assets.
But congressional stock disclosure records show that Greene, who used to trade individual stocks frequently, has not personally made a stock trade since February 2022, indicating that she still owns her Digital World Acquisition Corp. shares.
In February 2022, Greene bought shares in 10 different stocks, including oil giant Chevron Corporation, defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corporation and drugstore company Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc.
It remains legal for members of Congress to buy and sell shares of individual stocks, although the practice is controversial even among lawmakers themselves, with some Republicans and Democrats alike calling for a ban.
Greene’s office did not respond to several Raw Story requests for comment about her stock-trading habits.
Trump, who is running for president in the 2024 election, has for months used Truth Social as his favored mouthpiece, most recently warning in a post of coming “death and destruction” if he’s charged with crimes related to the Daniels hush money brouhaha.
Greene, for her part, endorsed Trump for president in November. The second-term congresswoman has since been a steadfast supporter and defender of the former president, writing last week in a Twitter post that “President Trump did nothing wrong and has always fought for the American people, and we all know it, which is why we love him.”
The Business Industry Political Action Committee — the nation's oldest federal business PAC and friends with some of the biggest names in corporate America — just became the latest political committee to fall victim to thieves.
In all, BIPAC on Feb. 27 lost $14,156.89 to "an individual not associated with" the committee, according to new documents filed with the Federal Election Commission and reviewed by Raw Story.
To steal the money, the unknown perpetrator used "a forged image of a BIPAC check and not an actual check used for business purposes," BIPAC told federal regulators.
BIPAC President and CEO Tim Riordan on Wednesday told Raw Story that his organization quickly contacted three law enforcement agencies — the FBI, the Washington Metropolitan Police Department and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service — to report the crime. A Washington Police incident report indicates an investigation is "pending."
BIPAC wasn't without its money for long, as its bank reimbursed the committee for the money lost, Riordan confirmed. But no money has been recovered from the thief, who remains at large.
At the time of the thefts, BIPAC did not have in place a "positive pay" system to deter check fraud. Such a system, used by financial institutions, flags suspicious checks for further review — often at a small cost to the check issuer.
Since the theft, BIPAC has instituted a positive pay system, Riordan urged BIPAC associates to do the same.
Defending against political committee theft "requires a level of diligence," he said. "It needs to be paid attention to. It's happening more."
A bipartisan PAC, BIPAC is affiliated with dozens of different corporate entities across the country. Recent donors to BIPAC include executives or PACs associated with International Paper Company, Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company, Halliburton Company, Rolls Royce North America, General Atomics and the American Rental Association, according to federal records. Its website also lists eBay, Volvo Group North America and Phillips 66 among its associated companies.
In turn, BIPAC made four-figure contributions to two-dozen federal-level political candidates during the 2021-2022 election cycle, including Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL) and Reps. Henry Cuellar (D-TX), Michael Guest (R-MS) and Sharice Davids (D-KS), per federal records.
It reported having $23,405 cash on hand as of Feb. 28, according to a filing with the FEC.
Epidemic of political committee fraud
Raw Story in recent weeks has identified several current and former Republican members of Congress who’ve been victimized by fraudsters in what’s fast becoming open season on politicians’ campaign accounts.
Recently, the federal PAC of State Farm Insurance lost $12,220 to thieves, Raw Story first reported.
The McKesson Corporation, a pharmaceutical and medical supplies company, informed the FEC that it, too, had fallen victim to someone who "created, forged and cashed a fictitious PAC check for $12,000" on Nov. 7.
The McKesson Company Employees Political Fund notified its bank "immediately upon discovery of the fraudulent activity" and attempted to secure return of the lost funds.
"To date," the committee added, "the bank has not returned the stolen funds."
The political action committees of Google, National Association of Manufacturers, Consumer Technology Association, National Association of Home Builders, National Air Traffic Controllers Association, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, MoveOn.org, and law firms Akerman LLP and Blank Rome LLP have also experienced theft of various kinds, be it cyber theft, forgeries or check tampering, according to Insider.
Newspapers in the former Trump International Hotel DC on April 4, 2023, the day of Donald Trump's arraignment on 34 felony charges. Matt Laslo/Raw Story
The soaring bar at the former Trump International Hotel DC. Matt Laslo/Raw Story
Friends of Schumer campaign finance report indicating there had been a committee "check intercepted" by a thief. Source: Federal Election Commission
The iTunes listing for "Justice for All," the single musical track featuring Donald Trump and the J6 Prison Choir. Screenshot
A 2018 letter from then-Acting Director of the Office of Government Ethics David Apol to then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
Former President Bill Clinton and former U.S. Sen. John Edwards (D-NC)Photos by Gage Skidmore/Wikipedia and Peter Smith/Flickr