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'A fairy tale world': Melania Trump reportedly sheltering her son as legal problems swirl around Donald
March 28, 2023
While her husband is busy fending off legal challenges and running for president for a third time, Melania Trump is prioritizing her son.
The former first lady is living with her parents and 17-year-old son Barron at her husband’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, where she’s mostly keeping to herself, People magazine reports.
"Melania's friends are her family members," PEOPLE reports, citing a Palm Beach source.
"Many Mar-a-Lago Club members and others know and see Melania. But they aren't friends. They don't get together and gab or socialize. She has always surrounded herself with family. She is a doting mother to Barron and very protective of him. This is nothing new."
IN OTHER NEWS: GOP congressman confronted live on CNN over his gun-toting ‘come and take it’ video
Melania Trump remains concerned about her husband’s legal trouble, the report said.
Donald Trump is facing four separate criminal investigations, including a probe into alleged hush money payments to Stormy Daniels.
"Barron has always been a first priority in [Melania's] life," the source said.
"Of course she is worried and concerned about the legal issues but she has not done anything more to protect Barron now than she ever did. She has always put him first. She is a good mother."
Melania Trump is doing what she can to keep her family sheltered from the real world, the reports said.
"They live in a fairy tale world and just deal with things as they come and seem to survive pretty well," the source says. "They do what is possible to get past the problems without disrupting their lifestyle."
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‘Troubling questions’: Experts slam Ginni Thomas’ group that waged cultural war via web of dark money orgs
March 28, 2023
Legal experts are responding to bombshell reporting from The Washington Post revealing Ginni Thomas, the spouse of a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, who had unprecedented access to the Trump White House and Oval Office, for years headed a secretive right-wing activist organization funded through a web of dark money groups, whose purpose was to wage a culture war against the left.
The Post reports the organization, Crowdsourcers for Culture and Liberty, took in nearly $600,000 in anonymous funds to fuel its efforts to battle “cultural Marxism,” as Ginni Thomas, who headed the group, called their mission.
Thomas had stepped away from her previous non-profit right-wing activist group “amid concerns that it created potential conflicts for her husband on hot-button issues before the court,” The Post says, and yet, she led Crowdsourcers for Culture and Liberty, which creates the same concerns. Where is the money coming from? What is the group doing with it? How much crossover is there between her activism and the group’s targets and efforts, and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ work?
According to The Post, in tax filings of its think tank sponsor, Crowdsourcers for Culture and Liberty is described as an “informal, unincorporated nonprofit association which serves as an incubator for ideas across a network of conservative leaders, cultural entrepreneurs, and cultural influences.”
It appears great efforts were made to ensure the donors to Thomas’ Crowdsourcers group would not be able to be publicly identified.
“In 2019, anonymous donors gave the think tank Capital Research Center, or CRC, $596,000 that was designated for Crowdsourcers, according to tax filings and audits the think tank submitted to state regulators. The majority of that money, $400,000, was routed through yet another nonprofit, Donors Trust, according to that organization’s tax filings. Donors Trust is a fund that receives money from wealthy donors whose identities are not disclosed and steers it toward conservative causes,” The Post explains.
Thomas, who is reportedly active in another secretive far-right wing group, the Council for National Policy, brought two well-known far-right wing activists from CNP into Crowdsourcers for Culture and Liberty: former Trump attorney, ally, and advisor Cleta Mitchell, and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.
The New York Times last year described the Council for National Policy as an organization that “brings together old-school Republican luminaries, Christian conservatives, Tea Party activists and MAGA operatives, with more than 400 members who include leaders of organizations like the Federalist Society, the National Rifle Association and the Family Research Council.”
But despite all the obvious red flags, an attorney for Ginni Thomas, Mark Paoletta, told The Washington Post she was “proud of the work she did with Crowdsourcers, which brought together conservative leaders to discuss amplifying conservative values with respect to the battle over culture.”
“She believes Crowdsourcers identified the Left’s dominance in most cultural lanes, while conservatives were mostly funding political organizations,” Paoletta also told The Post.
“There is no plausible conflict of interest issue with respect to Justice Thomas,” he claimed.
Others disagree.
U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), who is also an attorney, responded to The Post’s report by mocking Paoletta’s claim there is no conflict of interest.
“Donors Trust was central to the far-right Court-packing operation, and now they pass secret donor funds to a justice’s spouse, but ‘no plausible conflict of interest’? Please.”
Sen. Whitehouse went on to explain his additional concerns.
“Plus, remember that the secrecy conduits like Donors Trust keep the *public* from knowing what’s happening, but nothing prevents the secret donor from telling the spouse or the justice, ‘Hey, that money that secretly came through to you — that’s me.'”
Adam Smith, Vice President for Democracy Initiatives at the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), observed: “Seems like the spouse of a Supreme Court Justice shouldn’t be able to hide the source of huge donations that could be from people with business before the court.”
READ MORE: Ginni Thomas’ Attempts to Influence Overturn of Election Even Wider Than Previously Known
CREW’s President, Noah Bookbinder, a former federal corruption prosecutor, adds: “Hundreds of thousands in anonymous donations to an activist group led by Ginni Thomas, spouse of a Supreme Court justice, raises all kinds of troubling questions about who could be influencing decisions that affect all of us.”
Attorney and Slate Magazine senior writer covering courts and the law, Mark Joseph Stern, pushed back against any idea the nearly $600,000 funding came from small donations.
“Ginni Thomas’ various political ventures have never had any small/grassroots donors. They have ALWAYS been funded by a handful of ultra-wealthy individuals and organizations who are very obviously trying to curry favor with her husband,” Stern said.
Former White House aide and CNN commentator Keith Boykin, also an attorney, called for Justice Thomas to recuse from certain cases: “If Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson had to recuse herself from the Harvard affirmative action case, then Clarence Thomas should recuse himself from all the cases on right-wing issues in which his activist wife, Ginni Thomas, is involved.”
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Pence could be forced to answer simple questions that are 'incredibly incriminating' for Trump: Nicolle Wallace
March 28, 2023
Despite his best efforts, former Vice President Mike Pence lost his bid to avoid the grand jury exploring those responsible for the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and the attempt to overturn the 2020 election. It prompted a discussion on MSNBC about some of the evidence revealed by the House Select Committee during their 2022 probe.
Host Nicolle Wallace focused on information from the Jan. 6 committee and shared in Pence's autobiography in which he refused to get into a limousine once rushed to a safe location. Pence told his Secret Service lead that he didn't know who was driving the car, implying he didn't trust them.
New York Times reporter Luke Broadwater brought up the number of Republican lawmakers requesting pardons for themselves before former President Donald Trump left office. Wallace noted that people generally only beg for a pardon if they know they've committed a crime. Given Pence knows many of those Republican officials, he could shed some light on the role those lawmakers played. They were able to skirt testifying before the Congressional investigation.
Democratic strategist Basil Smikle said that the information he thinks about the most is that the Jan. 6 attack wasn't a spontaneous action. It was plotted, planned, organized, and in some cases even funded by people who, he claimed, escaped accountability.
IN OTHER NEWS: GOP congressman confronted live on CNN over his gun-toting ‘come and take it’ video
"You're the president of the United States and the vice president having these conversations, you think that members of Congress who would be engaged in those conversations anyway with the president or vice president did not know or have any clue that this was being discussed? That they were going to be potential consequences for nib who did not follow through on what Donald Trump wanted?" Smikle asked with disbelief. He went on to say that he thinks that politically speaking, more people should be held accountable.
"I go back to the earlier point: there are people voting on policy right now that may never be held accountable for what happened," he continued. "And that's why you see in places like New York. Independents now outnumber Republicans in the state. I'm sure it's a trend that's happening around the country. Not because it's an end of conservatism, but it's a sign that there are a lot of folks that want to get away from Donald Trump."
He lamented that those lawmakers probably wouldn't be held accountable in the end, however.
"See, 'probably will not be,'" Wallace repeated. "We're all beaten down."
READ MORE: ‘Horrified’: Oath Keeper juror reacts to defendant’s ‘stunt’ that aimed to evoke sympathy
She went on to say that it wasn't a delusion coming from the left, there is actual evidence of GOP officials asking for pardons. Cassidy Hutchinson testified to it, naming names. None of the lawmakers revealed to have asked for pardons have been forced to answer questions about it under oath.
"So, those members, in their words, in their conversations with President Trump, sought pardons not to hang on the wall but because they were worried they committed crimes. Where is DOJ?" Wallace asked. "I'm sure Luke Broadwater's reporting is spot on. None of them seem to be under scrutiny."
Conservative Charlie Sykes called it "frustrating," joining in the complaints about inaction by the Justice Department. He said that justice would not be done until every conspirator was held accountable in a court of law.
Former federal prosecutor Joyce White Vance agreed that the greatest miscarriage of justice is coming from those who carried out the violence but not the architects of it.
There's a larger question about what Pence knew as the Jan. 6 "stop the steal" rally was being organized. At a time when he was facing pressure from lawmakers as well as the president. Pence has never revealed who was calling him personally. The only information that is public comes from social media posts.
"Just because something appears to be a crime doesn't always mean that prosecutors end up with sufficient evidence to end up with guilt beyond a reasonable doubt," Vance explained. "This fact that Mike Pence will now testify under subpoena to, sort of, come full circle might open up new opportunities. We don't know what conversations Pence, who was a creature of the House might have had with his former colleagues. It may be he has something to add. He certainly has tried to avoid testifying for as long as and in as many ways as possible."
Wallace brought up the reason that Pence refused to get in the car. Broadwater noted that Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) brought that up, as did former Pence chief of staff Marc Short.
Wallace said that the details about Pence being worried about the car "unlocks everything about premeditation. I was in the White House for six years. I never heard of any protectee defying the Secret Service. What were you worried about? Where did you think they would take you? He must have known at the Capitol, the White House, a division existed he was on one side of it and Donald Trump on the other. We're talking about Mike Pence under oath, ascribing these political ambitions and that's all true. But if you can't lie, as Joyce said, simple questions like why didn't you get in the car could be incredibly incriminating for Donald Trump and his allies."
See the full discussion below or at the link here.
Experts alert grand jury on questions for Mike Pence youtu.be
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