Hours after Donald Trump suggested setting aside provisions in the Constitution because he believes the 2020 election was stolen from him, he was back to complaining about his legal problems in a Manhattan courtroom.
Taking to Truth Social, the former president complained that the prosecutors never should have brought a case against the Trump Organization for ducking paying taxes on employee benefits.
According to Trump, the case is both a “witch hunt” and a “scam.”
“The D.A.s small and uneventful ‘Fringe Benefits’ case (as opposed to Rape, Murder, or any one of many forms of Violent Crime which is taking place now in New York City at Record Levels), is a case the likes of which has never been charged or tried in such manner before (it is usually a small civil case, if even a case at all. Witch Hunt!),” he wrote.
“At Summation, the prosecutor made statements that weren’t true or factual in order to help his bad & nonexistent facts, and was called out by the Judge. SCAM!” he added.
The former president did not indicate what Assistant Manhattan District Attorney Joshua Steinglass was admonished about, however NY1 reported Judge Juan Manuel Merchan had words with Trump attorney Susan Necheles, with the report adding, “Necheles said the error wasn’t intentional and apologized to the jury when she resumed her argument after a half-hour break.”
The person or persons responsible for nearly countywide power outage in south-central North Carolina pulled a vehicle up to an electrical substation and opened fire on Saturday evening and then repeated the attack at a second substation, Moore County Sheriff Ronnie Fields told reporters at a press conference this afternoon.
Responding to a question from a reporter, the sheriff confirmed that the attack appears to be designed to inflict maximum impact on the county.
“The persons that done this — or the persons — knew what they were doing,” Fields said. “Absolutely.”
The sheriff discounted any possible role by Emily Grace Rainey, a former US Army psychological operations officer involved in protests against drag shows, — who posted on Facebook last night: “The power is out in Moore County, and I know why.”
In a previous Facebook post, Rainey had posted a photograph of the venue in Southern Pines hosting a “Downtown Divas” drag show, and wrote, “God will not be mocked.”
“There was an individual that put some information on Facebook that was false,” Sheriff Fields said. “Yes, we had to go interview this young lady and have a word of prayer with her.”
Rainey described the interview in a subsequent Facebook post, writing that she told investigators from the sheriff’s office “that God works in mysterious ways and is responsible for the outage.” She added: “I used the opportunity to tell them about the immoral drag show and the blasphemies screamed by its supporters. God is chastising Moore County.”
A former Army captain, Rainey was investigated by her command staff after organizing a bus trip to Donald Trump’s Jan. 6 rally at the Ellipse. In June 2021, Rainey announced on Facebook that she had resigned her commission from the Army.
After another reporter asked how the agency determined that Rainey’s post claiming knowledge of the motive for the attack was false, Sheriff Fields replied, “Good law enforcement,” and concluded the press conference.
Fields, who earlier characterized Moore County as “God’s country,” also downplayed opposition to the drag show as a possible motive for the attack.
“Is it possible? Yes, anything’s possible,” he said. “But we’ve not been able to tie anything back to the drag show.”
Fields said “every available officer” in the agency, including the criminal investigation division and patrol, are working to catch the perpetrator of the attack, while the FBI and State Bureau of Investigation are also working the investigation.
Fields said the attack caused millions of dollars of damage to Duke Energy.
“But what it’s done to the citizens, and what the citizens of Moore County, what we’re losing, they’re losing, and all of the businesses,” he added. “We’re just getting over the COVID, and now this, and what’s gonna hurt all of our restaurants and the businesses and stuff. It’s gonna hurt. The people of Moore County are strong, and we’ll get through it.”
Fields deflected a question about whether he would characterize the attack as “domestic terrorism,” saying, “I can’t answer that. We’re looking at all avenues. That’s why I’ve got the professionals, the federal folks — they deal with domestic terrorism, more so than locals. So, they’re on board and they’re working with us to determine who done this. I can say this: It was targeted; it wasn’t random.”
Jeff Brooks, a spokesperson for Duke Energy, said it could be Thursday before power is fully restored to the county.
“During our investigation of the outage, we did determine that there had been intentional impact on the substation, damaging multiple pieces of equipment in the substation and causing power to go out there,” Brooks said. “Unlike perhaps a storm, where you can go in and reroute power somewhere else, that was not an option in this case, so repair has to be completed. In many cases, some of that equipment will have to be replaced.”
The county has issued a state of emergency, imposing a curfew from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and the superintendent of Moore County Schools announced that school will be closed for all students and staff on Monday, with a day-by-day determination before they reopen.
While explaining that the outage will require “a pretty sophisticated repair with some fairly large equipment,” Brooks said, “We understand it is December. The nights get cold and being without power is very challenging at times.”
Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) aired an ad last week that showed perplexed Georgia citizens trying to figure out what Herschel Walker was talking about in some of the more infamous public speeches. Now one of those strange comments from Walker has been somewhat explained.
Walker gave a speech at a Jackson County, Georgia warehouse last month with a cisgender swimmer from the University of Kentucky swimmer that has been campaigning for Republicans complaining about making fifth place in a swim meet against a transgender college simmer, reported LGBTQ Nation. The fifth-place swimmer, Riley Gaines actually lost to four other cisgender female swimmers. Instead of working hard to beat the other women, she is competing against, she has been traveling around the country attacking transgender people.
“That’s like having Herschel Walker compete against your daughter,” Walker said about himself in the third person. He’s a cisgender male and not a transgender woman. “You don’t want me to compete against your daughter, do you?”
“I will get men out of women’s sports,” Walker promised. No one is pushing men to compete in women’s sports. It isn’t an issue. “I’ll tell you the definition of a man and a woman, because it’s in the Bible. A man and a woman are two different people.”
“Pronouns? What’s a pronoun? I can tell you, a grenade don’t care about their pronouns,” Walkers said about transgender people serving in the military. Walker has never served, despite falsely claiming he had a “military career.”
Speaking before a small crowd with Republican allies Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) and Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), Walker talked about officers who put uniforms on and are transformed.
“They almost got me caught up in that elevator,” Walker said discussing policing. “Thinking we need to reform the police ’cause I was thinking, he was a bad one. But then, I was no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. They’re not talking me down that elevator. Why don’t we reform the citizen too? Because maybe they should show respect. Show respect to that officer because that officer has on a uniform. He needs to be able to put that uniform on to go to work. He’s going to work like you put your work uniform on. So, while he puts that uniform on, he’s a mom; he’s a dad; he’s a sister; she’s a brother. So, I’ll tell you right now what we’ve got to do is show respect to these officers.”
Walker has made a number of bizarre statements over the past year he’s been running for office. Speaking of police, Walker was given many honorary badges and went so far as to claim that he was an actual police officer as a result of the badge. Those who gave Walker the badges have said that he is not a member of any law enforcement.
Despite a campaign for a government post, Walker said last month that he needed to “get rid of the government” to enact his climate policy.
Walker has had a rough week after admitting he didn’t live in Georgia. Instead, he lives in Texas, declaring that his home on his “homestead exemption” for his taxes was not the state he intended to represent.
See the bizarre moment in the video below:
Walker Police 1 pressed
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In a debate between conservative Alice Stewart and The Grio’s April Ryan, both sides agreed that the former president has a screw loose if he thinks that the Constitution could simply be eliminated.
But it was host CNN Jim Acosta who took a different route in attempting to explain to Donald Trump how the Constitution works in a way that he could understand.
“The Constitution is not like the buffet at Mar-a-Lago,” said Acosta. “You can’t skip past the items that you don’t like.”
Stewart went another route in explaining the Constitution to Trump in a way he would understand: “I hate to inform the former president, the Constitution is not like a spouse. You can’t just get rid of it when it no longer suits your purpose.”
Trump has been married three times and has multiple documented affairs.
“Look, a lot of people are not going to be proactive, come out and denounce this ludicrous statement,” Stewart said of the GOP. “But if asked, they will make it clear that there’s no space in American politics for this. Kevin McCarthy is in maybe the battle of his life in terms of trying to get the votes to be Speaker. And he’s going against Republicans who are very pro-Trump. So, he has to really thread that needle in terms of standing up for the Constitution and for the American people without poking the bear and poking those speaking out against him as Speaker. If asked, he would denounce the statement, but he’s trying to do what he can to maintain his attempt to get the necessary votes to be Speaker.”
Acosta noted in his question to Ryan how Trump appears to be looking for any possible ways he could desperately score some press attention.
“Jim, you and I covered the former president of the United States. He factually is known to have broken the law in office. He is being investigated by the state Georgia, the state of New York, Jan. 6th and others because he’s broken the rule of law,” said Ryan. “He is going into this to attempt to be the president of the United States again and the 2024 efforts as a weakened candidate because of the past and the investigations. This is not a surprise. This president is going to try to win by any means necessary. Look at what he did — once again let’s talk about Georgia. He tried to have the numbers changed in Georgia when it came to the final count of how many people voted. This is not a surprise but yet again another news story about Donald Trump trying to win the Oval Office by any means necessary. Alice is right, there are a lot of Republicans that don’t have the stomach for this again include Karl Rove, who said it’s time to move on.”
The Constitution isn’t the buffet at Mar-a-Lago
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