Legal analysts watching Donald Trump’s civil court case took to social media Tuesday to debate rumors that the former president might be discussing a settlement.
MSNBC analyst Lisa Rubin and Law360 reporter Frank Runyeon both said they saw signs that a settlement might be taking place in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ $250 million lawsuit against Trump, who has denied wrongdoing.
“Very curious,” posted Runyeon at 2:45 p.m. “Settlement bid afoot?”
But Daily Beast political investigations reporter Jose Pagliery argued it would be a “a cold day in hell” when Trump and James reached an agreement on the case.
“The judge might drown Trump in fines ranging from $250 million to a gazillion dollars. And the entire Trump Org could end up in receivership soon,” wrote Pagliery. “What would the Trumps counteroffer?”
The Attorney General’s office did not immediately respond to Raw Story’s request for comment.
As potential signs of a settlement, Runyeon pointed to Trump attorney Alina Habba’s solitary exit from court chambers — which was followed by State attorneys’ entrance — and a Monday message from Trump complaining about a “low ball” offer.
Rubin also linked those private conversations to the rumors, but noted Trump did not specify when the conference took place at which Engoron offered to settle “for a much lower amount.”
“When was that conference? Trump’s post was devoid of any temporal context,” Rubin wrote about 5:45 p.m. roughly 10 minutes before ABC News reported the court adjourned for the day.
She shared a New York Times report from 2022 that detailed multiple settlement overtures made by the Trump Organization, none of which include Engoron.
“So what is Trump talking about and when did it happen?” Rubin wrote. “Stay tuned.”
Harry Litman, legal affairs columnist for the L.A. Times, shared Rubin’s musings with his followers.
“This would be an absolutely stunning development, but I can’t think of a better explanation for Kise’s being outside the court room for so long mid trial,” Litman said.
WASHINGTON — Testosterone’s overflowing at the Capitol this week. But, even with Republicans talking tough, it’s still unclear if anyone can land a punch.
This morning, on the House side of the Capitol, former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was accused of forcefully jabbing his elbow into the kidney of Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN), one of the eight Republicans who forced his ouster last month. Meanwhile, in the Senate, former MMA fighter and current freshman Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) challenged Teamster President Sean O’Brien to fisticuffs.
Tension’s been building all year long, but there seems to be extra strain on lawmakers these days, especially with another government shutdown hanging over Congress ahead of the midnight funding deadline this Friday. Even as tempers are flaring, many lawmakers are sitting these fights out.
“Oh, I saw it,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) told Raw Story. “I’ll let it speak for itself. I’m glad I wasn’t in a position of having to tamp things down.”
It’s the same for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
“What do you think of Mullin trying to fight the [Teamster president] earlier?” Raw Story asked Schumer earlier. “No comment, Mr. Leader?”
Schumer kept walking onto the Senate floor, refusing to even turn around.
“He was a kickboxer. I wouldn't mess with him,” Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) told Raw Story. “I gotta watch the video.”
No one seems to be backing down though, especially not Mullin.
“At the end of the day, he popped off at the mouth. I was raised totally different than him: If you say something, back it up. I gave him the opportunity to back it up. It’s a done deal at that point,” Mullin told reporters just off the Senate floor.
The former undefeated (5-0) MMA fighter was asked if he thinks he could take O’Brien, and, once again, Mullin refused to back down.
“Because I used to fight professionally, I would hope to be but I don’t know,” Mullin said. “It doesn’t matter to me. He could be 6’ 8” 380lbs or — probably not, he’s much smaller than that.”
Still, Mullin says he’s down to grab a cup of coffee with O’Brien.
“If he wants to go have a cup of coffee now. Fine. I’ll go have a cup of coffee,” Mullin said.
Mullin has at least one Democratic defender in his fellow Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee member Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO).
Hickenlooper was slated to question the witnesses right after Mullin, so he caught all the drama up close. He saw through it.
“It's a classic case. You know, they had some history. They disrespected each other,” Hickenlooper told Raw Story. “What he posted, I think it was on Twitter, accused Mullin of inheriting what he had. Mullin took over his father's business because his father died, and he went through a really hard time and really struggled.”
Hickenlooper says it was as avoidable as it was predictable.
“So what happened was, he touched that third rail, and so then they're at each other without really having a good reason to,” Hickenlooper said. “If you actually look at Mullin and some of the stuff around labor and protecting workers, Mullin’s actually pretty good.”
The former Colorado governor predicts O’Brien and Mullin would get along “in a different context.”
“I think you could see them — maybe they're not gonna agree on everything; that’s certain, for sure — but they certainly wouldn't be at each other's throats,” Hickenlooper said.
As for talk of a coffee summit between the senator and union boss? The Coloradan who helped co-found Denver’s first brewpub, Wynkoop Brewing Company, in 1988 says all this talk of coffee is making him thirsty.
“Or a beer,” Hickenlooper said. “For me, a beer has been always very successful.”
If beer heals political divides, on the House side of the Capitol, they may need a keg. Tuesday morning NPR correspondent Claudia Grisales reported seeing former Speaker McCarthy shove Rep. Burchett.
“Have NEVER seen this on Capitol Hill,” Grisales tweeted on X. “While talking to @RepTimBurchett after the GOP conference meeting, former @SpeakerMcCarthy walked by with his detail and McCarthy shoved Burchett. Burchett lunged towards me. I thought it was a joke, it was not. And a chase ensued…”
When asked if he planned to apologize, McCarthy basically shrugged.
“Well, I didn’t punch the guy,” the recently former speaker told reporters at the Capitol. “If I was punching him, he would know it.”
Burchett says McCarthy’s lying.
“First he said, ‘He just brushed me.’ Then he said, ‘It's a narrow hall.’ And then he says, ‘If I’d have hit him, he’d known it.’ Then he says, ‘I’m gonna call him,’ and I guess make up to him or something. He needs to make up his mind,” Burchett told Raw Story. “The NPR reporter was there. I'll just stand by what she said.”
“Especially what McCarthy told us — ‘Oh, if I would have hit him, he'd known it” — that's some macho high school talk?” Raw Story asked.
“If you hear his voice, when he starts talking, his voice gets higher and higher as he talks. That’s a telling sign,” Burchett said.
As for all the extra testosterone? Many lawmakers fear it’s a harbinger of gridlock to come.
“People engaging in physical altercations, it’s not a sign of somber deliberation, let’s put it that way,” Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) told Raw Story.
When asked if this week’s spats are fitting in a Capitol with a violent history — from historic shootings to contemporary insurrections — including the historic caning of a Massachusetts senator by a South Carolina House member in the leadup to the Civil War, Nadler didn’t love the comparison, at first.
“That we don’t want. That was a prelude to the Civil War,” Nadler said.
“But aren’t we having a little bit of a GOP civil war?” Raw Story asked.
In one of his first legislative wins, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has successfully brokered the passage of a deal to avert a government shutdown, which had been on track to happen at the end of the week. The bill, a so-called "clean resolution" that funds the government with no strings attached, passed overwhelmingly by a 336-95 margin, and is expected to easily clear the Senate and be signed into law by President Joe Biden.
However, noted Punchbowl News' Jake Sherman on X, Johnson isn't out of the woods — and needs to be careful of an uprising from within his own party.
"The House has passed the stopgap funding bill," wrote Sherman. "BUT — Democrats saved him. More Democrats voted for this than Republicans. Rs: Y: 127 N:93 Ds: Y: 209 No: 2."
"Dangerous territory for a GOP speaker," Sherman added. "See McCarthy, Kevin."
McCarthy was ousted by a small group of far-right Republicans, leading to weeks of chaos, after he negotiated with Democrats on averting a shutdown. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) accused McCarthy of going back on deals he made with the House Freedom Caucus to secure his speakership in the first place, and after McCarthy attacked the very Democrats who gave him the votes for the deal on TV, no one in that party voted to save him.
Notably for Johnson, the same rule that allowed Gaetz to easily orchestrate McCarthy's ouster — a motion to vacate the chair that can be filed by a single member — hasn't been changed since Johnson took over, although there have been discussions among the GOP to alter those rules.
The career plans of Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX) appear to be in a state of flux this week, as he made moves to leave Congress at the end of his current term — but then went back on it.
On Monday, Fallon, a lawmaker elected in 2020 to a North Texas seat vacated when former President Donald Trump tapped Rep. John Ratcliffe for Director of National Intelligence, filed to run for Texas State Senate District 30, the seat he had held before being elected to Congress. "At the end of the day, the decision came down to, If we lose Texas, we lose the nation," Fallon told The Texas Tribune. "It’s just terribly important to ensure that Texas has written a great success story and I want to keep moving that forward."
But just 24 hours later, Fallon appears to have changed his mind.
According to CBS 11's Jack Fink, Fallon has confirmed he will seek re-election to the 4th Congressional District after all, likely blindsiding Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who had already endorsed his campaign to re-take the 30th Senate District and praised him as a "solid member" of the legislature.
In his relatively brief time in Congress, Fallon has been involved in a handful of controversies.
In 2021, he was embarrassed when he attacked the hate-tracking organization the Southern Poverty Law Center based on a satirical report joking they had labeled veterans' organizations as hate groups. And earlier this year, he accused protesters heckling his comments on the Second Amendment of staging an "insurrection."
Former President Donald Trump's porn star hush money criminal case won't be heading to federal court.
That's the result of Trump's move to rescind his appeal on Tuesday, according to ABC News.
Lawyers representing the 45th president requested the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to dismiss his appeal of a ruling that declined to move the case from New York state court into federal jurisdiction.
The filing failed to supply a specific reason other than seeking "to dismiss his appeal in this case."
The former president has denied any wrongdoing.
In April, Trump pleaded not guilty to a 34-count indictment accusing him of falsifying business records in connection with a $130,000 to porn star actress back in October 2016 to win the silence of Stormy Daniels over an alleged 2006 sexual romp with him.
A tentative trial has been set for March 25, however Judge Juan Merchan is considering shifting the date in order so that it doesn't conflict with other Trump cases.
When reached by ABC News, the Manhattan District Attorney declined to comment.
British TV host Piers Morgan has long been a vocal admirer of Donald Trump and his presidency, but that doesn't appear to extend to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who spoke on his show Tuesday evening in the UK.
The debate began with Morgan bringing up accusations against Greene that she purports to support Israel while being anti-Semitic. He specifically mentioned the "Jewish Space Laser" conspiracy that she's been tied to — blaming them for Californian wildfires.
Greene responded it was "fake news."
"I'm reading it right here," Morgan said on TalkTV, holding up a tablet showing her Facebook post. The piece blames the California wildfires on PG&E's relationship with the Rothschilds and a space laser. The Rothschilds are an Ashkenazi Jewish family that have become associated with anti-Jewish conspiracy theories.
Greene maintained she never made the accusation.
Another battle surfaced over the Jan.6 attack, which Greene attempted to downplay, and it led to a conversation about the 2020 election. Greene maintained over and over that the election was stolen and ballots were fraudulent.
When Morgan promoted the interview on social media he pointed out, "See what happens when I tell her the 2020 wasn’t stolen, as she still absurdly claims."
Jack Smith Tuesday called for a gag order against Donald Trump to be reissued after the former president doubled down on threats against the special counsel’s family, according to court filings and reports.
Smith filed a 67-page motion with a Washington federal appeals court requesting Judge Tanya Chutkan’s suspended gag order, appealed by Trump, be reinstated to curtail attacks on prosecutors and witnesses, Politico was among the first to report.
In the filing, Smith’s team likened Trump’s social media rants to a famous request made by a medieval king that led to his former lord chancellor’s death.
“Targeted disparagement of this sort poses a danger even when it does not explicitly call for harassment or violence,” the filing states. “Repeated attacks are often understood as a signal to act—just as King Henry II’s remark, ‘Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?’ resulted in Thomas à Becket’s murder.”
The filing also cites a violent threat, which includes racial and gendered slurs, that one of his followers phoned into the district court’s chambers: “If Trump doesn’t get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you.”
The filing arrives less than a week before a three-judge panel will consider the Chutkun's gag order in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Nov. 20, the New York Times notes.
Chutkan is overseeing the federal election fraud case filed in Washington D.C. Trump has pleaded not guilty.
Trump’s challenge to court-issued gag orders relies heavily on his status as a frontrunner in the 2024 presidential campaign and protections the Constitution provides political speech.
Prosecutors argued Tuesday that Chutkan’s gag order does not prevent Trump from speaking publicly about the Biden administration or claiming he’s being prosecuted unfairly.
“But, like every other criminal defendant, he does not have ‘carte blanche to vilify and implicitly encourage violence against public servants,’” the filing states.
“He may not ‘launch a pretrial smear campaign against participating government staff, their families, and foreseeable witnesses.’”
The man accused of breaking into Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) home and attacking her husband with a hammer burst into tears during his trial Tuesday when he was asked what inspired the attack, The Daily Beast reported.
David DePape reiterated previous claims that he got caught up in a web of conspiracy theories by watching right-wing podcasters like Tim Pool, which he says inspired him to carry out the attack.
Through his weeping, he said he went down a rabbit hole of conspiracies from watching podcasts on YouTube all day.
“When Bush was in office, I thought 9/11 was an inside job,” he said, admitting that he believed conspiracy theories involving Tom Hanks, Mike Pence, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Hunter Biden, and Gavin Newsom.
“I wasn’t trying to hurt him,” DePape testified about Pelosi. “I reacted because my plan was ruined... Getting to the rest of my targets and pardoning all of them and ending the corruption.”
He said he attacked Pelosi because his “plan was ruined.” He also said he thought he had killed Pelosi until he read the state charges against him that said, "attempted murder."
Pelosi testified Monday that he “woke up in a pool of his own blood” after being struck by DePape, who was carrying zip ties and a hammer when he broke into the San Francisco home. He confronted Paul in bed and demanded to speak to Nancy Pelosi.
Newly leaked tapes of an interview of President Donald Trump's one-time associate Sidney Powell by Fulton County prosecutors is incredibly damning for Trump in the Georgia election racketeering case, said January 6 investigator Tim Heaphy on MSNBC Tuesday.
For one thing, Heaphy told anchor Nicolle Wallace, Powell reveals on the tapes that Trump deliberately ignored counsel telling him he lost the election — undermining his argument that he truly believed in good faith the election was rigged.
"There was really never any serious effort to uncover voter fraud or any serious belief in its existence," said Heaphy.
"It sounds very much like this was a political strategy from the beginning. Generate fake electors, go to the state legislators and state officials, the Republican members of Congress, that's the path forward. It doesn't really matter if we keep losing these claims."
"That is shocking. That's illegal. We got toward that, but this is more direct evidence. The other thing that comes through to me in all of these new debriefing tapes that are coming out is how much engaged the president was himself. A key fact for Jack Smith, Fani Willis, will be a personal involvement. He was briefed by [attorney Kenneth] Chesebro directly on the fake electors plans. He's talking directly to Sidney Powell about these theories of election fraud, which are debunked. He is not a passive observer being advised by lawyers. He's engaged in discussions and controlling and understanding a plot. Those are two significant things, very relevant in both cases."
"Trump has been charged with the civil rights era crime of denying the vote and their actual votes and the right to vote," said Wallace. "It seems that knowing there was never any fraud goes a long way toward proving that Trump intended to deny people their votes."
"Yes, exactly right," agreed Heaphy. "If the civil rights charge requires mindful deprivation of a right, the fact that he disregards the actual evidence of fraud and moves straight to the political coup, those flanks in the multiprong approach to disrupt the joint session is very telling on his intent."
"The other thing that Powell indicates very directly is she was present in repeated explanations to the president," said Heaphy. "Again, go back to [former Attorney General] Bill Barr's analogy about the clown car. There are capable lawyers that had been with the president throughout his time. His campaign lawyers, even on the political side, yet he listens to or adopts the flawed reasoning of people like the clown car. Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis, who is not far out of law school, had no experience — these are the people on which he's going to claim to rely when the pros in the room are continually telling him in the presence of the clown car. All significant evidence of his understanding and his intent."
Republican Celeste Maloy thinks Donald Trump is trying to remake himself in the image of a "dictator" — and that the Republican Party doesn't swing that way.
Maloy worked in former Utah Rep. Chris Stewart’s office when the Capitol was attacked on Jan. 6 and has first-hand experience of what happened that that day, the Tribune reported.
A video interview with the Washington County Republican Women was done a few weeks after Jan. 6, and Maloy tells her story about getting phone calls from Republicans asking if it was a "false flag" or if it was "Antifa."
"Trump supporters don’t do this," she recalled people saying to her.
“I spent a lot of time that day just telling people, ‘Yeah, these are Trump supporters,’” she said.
“The fact that the actual Confederate Army never got into the U.S. Capitol, but we had Trump supporters carrying a Confederate flag into the Capitol in 2021, was sort of soul-crushing,” Maloy said. “It was a hard thing to watch.”
“Americans support the institutions of our country more than we support people. We don’t get behind dictators,” Maloy continued. “Our loyalty isn’t even primarily to the Republican Party; it’s to America. And watching people go into the Capitol like that felt like they were proving me wrong on all those beliefs."
But now that Maloy is running for Congress, she called the impeachment of Trump for the Jan. 6 attack "political grandstanding." Now, the Justice Department has indicted him.
"Republicans are the party of law and order — and I am a law-and-order Republican. I believe the video where I talk about January 6th is clear on that,” Maloy told The Salt Lake Tribune when they asked about the video.
Maloy’s former boss, Rep. Chris Stewart (R-UT), discounted her claims, saying that the Jan. 6 attack was all a lie.
“They were not Trump supporters. The normal folks who were there to support the president stood back. They didn’t rush the Capitol,” Stewart said. “This was another kind of group. They were there to incite violence and hurt people.”
Washington D.C. politicians were slammed Tuesday and macho strutting as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) broke up an almost-fight between Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) and International Brotherhood of Teamsters President Sean O'Brien during a Senate Committee while, in Congress, former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) had an altercation with Rep. Timothy Burchett (R-TN), one of the GOP senators who voted to oust him from that position.
Burchett told CNN that McCarthy gave him a "clear shot to the kidneys" with his elbow when they passed by one another.
The two incidents received plenty of reactions on X.
Journalist Aaron Rupar, formerly of Vox, commented on both incidents, tweeting, "So to recap, here's what Republicans are up to today. One House Republican accused another of sucker punching him in the Capitol. For the second time in recent months, a Republican senator challenged a hearing witness to a fistfight. These are children."
NPR's Claudia Grisales tweeted, "Have NEVER seen this on Capitol Hill: While talking to @RepTimBurchett after the GOP conference meeting, former @SpeakerMcCarthy walked by with his detail and McCarthy shoved Burchett. Burchett lunged towards me. I thought it was a joke, it was not. And a chase ensued."
Business Insider's Bryan Metzger had a humorous reaction, posting a gif with the lyrics, "This is my fight song, take back my life song, prove I'm alright song, while Pundit Shannon Vann said of the Mullin/O'Brien altercation, "Markwayne may want to take lessons from Sean on how to be successful at your job.And Clare Considine mocked the "men in Congress."
Bloomberg News' Ian Kullgren posted, "The Senate HELP Committee is on the verge of a literal brawl. @SenMullin stood up at the dais to FIGHT @TeamsterSOB before Bernie Sanders intervened…. It was a close one, but looks like Sanders cooled things down."
Julie Kashen, director of Women's Economic Justice, tweeted, "Not on my BINGO card for the 117th Congress: @SenSanders having to stop a fist fight in the middle of a hearing. Wow."
Condé Nast Legal Affairs Editor Luke Zaleski commented, "You're paying Mullin for these cheap macho theatrics, America. He's wasting your time and tax dollars with this stunt because rightwingers love slinging this (crap). Because — thanks to [T]rump — there's an economy in farming rage and fundraising off it. And he will be rewarded generously."
Jim Saranteas, co-chair of the Wake County, North Carolina Democratic Party, lamented, "Seriously, one has come to expect this from Republicans. They just can't be taken seriously to lead our country and come up with policy solutions which help Americans."
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis revealed Tuesday that she does not expect Donald Trump's election interference case to wrap up until after the 2024 election.
Willis made the remarks in an interview at The Washington Post Live's Global Women's Summit.
But she said she did expect the trial to go forward.
"I believe in that case there will be a trial," she remarked. "I believe the trial will take many months. And I don't expect that we will conclude until the winter or the very early part of 2025."
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee is expected to hear the case against Trump and his co-defendants for allegedly conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.
Donald Trump’s legal team took a blow Tuesday in his $250 million civil court trial when New York Judge Arthur Engoron ruled their expert witnesses couldn’t testify about the value of one of his golf courses, according to reports.
Trump pal and real estate investor Steven Witkoff was slated to speak about financial documents linked to Trump’s Doral golf course until State prosecutors issued an objection which Engoron sustained, ABC News reports.
Chris Kise called Witkoff to show that if some Trump properties were overvalued, others, such as Doral, essentially balanced the books by being undervalued, according to the report.
Lisa Rubin, legal analyst for MSNBC, reports Engoron asked Kise, “Is it your position that if a financial statement has two assets, one is overvalued and one of which is undervalued, that if it balances out, there’s no materiality?”
According to ABC News, Kise argued, "It is highly, extraordinarily relevant if there are assets that are undervalued."
State attorney Andrew Amer retorted, and Engoron ultimately agreed, that inconsistencies don’t "come out in the wash," ABC News reports.
ABC News reported from inside the courtroom that Engoron then promised he would sustain all objections linked to Doral, concluding, "They are looking for accuracy."
Trump and his sons, accused of fraudulently inflating the value of Trump Organization holdings, deny wrongdoing.
