Commentary: Republicans Vow to Scorch the Earth After Trump Conviction

Donald Trump

by Philip Wegmann   Spurred by the volcanic temper of their base, Republicans are now preparing to scorch the earth in the wake of former President Donald Trump’s conviction, potentially setting off a chain reaction that could fundamentally alter the American political system entirely. No one knows exactly how far…

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Trump Defense Plants Seeds of ‘Reasonable Doubt’ While Prosecutors Prop Up Cohen

Former President Donald Trump’s defense’s closing arguments in his so-called hush money trial on Tuesday were designed to plant seeds of reasonable doubt with the jury while the prosecution sought to prop up their key witness, Michael Cohen, who continues to be plagued by credibility issues.

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While Trump Faces Felony Charges, New York-Based Clinton Campaign Only Faced Fines for Its Records Issue

Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton’s New York-based presidential campaign was hit with an administrative fine by the Federal Election Commission following the 2016 election when the FEC found the campaign misrepresented campaign expenses by describing the opposition research that produced the discredited Steele Dossier as a “legal expense.” The Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee paid $113,000 to settle the charges, the Associated Press reported.

Yet, Donald Trump faces felony charges for allegedly falsifying business records to conceal campaign violations in the same state, echoing the alleged violations in the Clinton case and indicating a double standard in how the violations were handled by investigators.

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Alvin Bragg’s Team Produced Docs at Center of Case Against Trump But Fail to Establish Direct Link

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg

Prosecutors finally displayed the documents at the heart of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against former President Donald Trump on Monday, but have yet to establish a direct link to demonstrate Trump’s culpability.

Until Monday, prosecutors had been focused on setting up other pieces of their case: the context for the $130,000 payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about claims of a sexual encounter and the broader “conspiracy” to influence the 2016 election they allege Trump was involved in. Monday’s witnesses — former Trump Organization controller Jeffrey McConney and Trump Organization accounts payable supervisor Deborah Tarasoff — offered starkly different testimony than earlier witnesses like David Pecker and Keith Davidson, providing no salacious celebrity stories and an almost exclusive focus on accounting.

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Former Biden DOJ Official Prosecuting Trump Received Thousands of Dollars From DNC

Matthew Colangelo

The lead prosecutor for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against former President Donald Trump received thousands of dollars from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in 2018, Federal Election Commission (FEC) records show.

Matthew Colangelo, who was President Joe Biden’s acting associate attorney general and spent two years in the current president’s Department of Justice (DOJ), joined the Manhattan District Attorney’s office as senior counsel in December 2022. The lawyer received $12,000 from the DNC in 2018 for “political consulting” in two payments of $6,000 on Jan. 31 of that year, FEC records show.

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Most Americans Don’t Think Trump Acted Illegally in Alvin Bragg Case: Poll

Trump in Oval Office

Only 35 perdent of Americans believe former President Donald Trump acted illegally in regard to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against him, which began on Monday, a Tuesday poll found.

Jury selection is underway in the first of Trump’s four criminal cases, where he faces 34 felony counts over allegations related to falsifying business records when reimbursing a hush money payment to former porn star actress Stormy Daniels leading up to the 2016 election. As Trump sits in the courtroom this week, 31 percent believe Trump’s alleged actions were “unethical, but not illegal,” 14 percent argue he did “nothing wrong” and 19 percent said they “don’t know enough to say,” according to an AP/NORC poll.

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‘Truly Unprecedented:’ Donald Trump Is Dominating the Early Primary Season Like Nothing in Modern History

Former President Donald Trump continues to dominate the early primary season in an unprecedented third bid for the White House, polling experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

This Republican primary cycle is like none other as the frontrunner is a former president, has a massive lead in the polls, his former vice president is running against him and Trump has two federal indictments under his belt. Polling analysts stressed to the DCNF the stark difference between this GOP primary season and previous cycles, arguing that it’s difficult to draw comparisons in modern history.

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Rep. Jim Jordan Subpoenas Former Manhattan Prosecutor in First Strike Against Office Prosecuting Trump

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan on Thursday subpoenaed a former Manhattan prosecutor who openly campaigned to criminally charge Donald Trump in the first significant strike at the office that brought the historic indictment against the former president this week.

Jordan’s subpoena to former Special Assistant District Attorney Mark Pomerantz comes just days after Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg pointedly declined to provide documents and testimony to Jordan’s committee, calling it an interference in his investigation.

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House GOP Looking to Punish Politicized Prosecutors by Stripping Them of Legal Immunity

For months, House Republicans have decried the actions of leftist local prosecutors who free violent felons or prosecute political enemies like Donald Trump. Now they are beginning to rally around a solution that could inflict significant punishment on wayward district attorneys. Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, told Just the News that Republicans are considering turning the tables in a debate started by liberals a few years ago when they tried to eliminate the qualified immunity that protected police officers from lawsuits.

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Trump Prosecutors Cross Perilous Rubicon, Now Face Test over Credibility, Consistency and Clock

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg thrust America into uncharted political and legal waters when he secured a grand jury indictment against Donald Trump. Soon his team will face withering scrutiny that will test three crucial elements of his case: the credibility of his witnesses, the clock known as the statute of limitations and the consistency of his application of fraud law. The latter, which has received little media scrutiny, may prove prosecutors’ most Herculean challenge as the courts for both New York and the nation have a very clear and high-bar definition of what constitutes the act of defrauding, something that is assumed to be a central element of the hush money scandal.

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House Administration Chair Warns Hyperpolitical DAs: Weaponize the Law, Lose Federal Funding

Amid the Manhattan district attorney’s reported planning to arrest former President Trump next week under a novel legal interpretation of a state law against falsifying business records, Chairman of the House Administration Committee Bryan Steil (R-Wisc.) issued a blunt warning Monday to hyperpolitical big city district attorneys: Any federal funding their offices receive may be at risk if they are abusing their prosecutorial power to settle political scores rather than fight violent crime.

“Often the federal government is funding and providing resources to prosecutors across the United States,” Steil told the “Just the News, No Noise” TV show. “The purpose of that is to make our cities safer. If we find out through this investigation that instead those are being used to weaponize DAs across the country with a purpose of grinding a political ax rather than making our communities safer, we’re gonna have to go back into the funding model.”

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