Federal judge condemns ‘normalization’ of January 6 while sentencing defiant rioter
Marshall Cohen, CNN – April 3, 2024
Jay Mallin/Zuma/Alamy/File
A federal judge on Wednesday blasted a convicted January 6 rioter for downplaying the US Capitol attack and using the kind of revisionist rhetoric that former President Donald Trump often uses on the campaign trial.
“This cannot become normal… We cannot condone the normalization of the January 6 US Capitol riot,” US District Judge Royce Lamberth said while sentencing Taylor James Johnatakis to more than seven years in prison.
The judge warned of a “vicious cycle … that could imperil our institutions” if Americans, upset with future election results, resort to the “vigilantism, lawlessness and anarchy” that occurred on January 6, 2021.
He did not reference Trump by name while sentencing Johnatakis, but the comparisons were clear. After Johnatakis’ conviction in November, he has mirrored Trump’s rhetoric in interviews about the insurrection, saying “everything about January 6 is just overblown,” and referring to the jail in Washington, DC, as a “gulag.”
Trump has used what “January 6 hostages” front and center in his campaign. He has pledged to pardon some of the people facing charges for their role in the insurrection. And he has played a song at political rallies that features the voices of January 6 inmates singing the national anthem.
The judge declared Wednesday that “the January 6 riot was not civil disobedience,” but instead was a “corrosive” and “selfish, not patriotic” affront to the nation, where Americans were “battling (their) own representative government.” He invoked the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Henry David Thoreau as examples of historic American figures who pursued “peaceful” but powerful acts of civil disobedience.
“There can be no room in our country for this sort of political violence,” Lamberth said.
Johnatakis briefly spoke during the hearing, only to say “I repent for my sins,” and to ask several questions common among so-called Sovereign Citizen conspiracy theorists who don’t recognize the authority of the federal government.
Lamberth, a senior judge appointed by former President Ronald Reagan, dismissed these inquiries as “gobbledygook.”
Johnatakis was found guilty in November by a federal jury of seven crimes, including assaulting a police officer and obstructing the congressional proceedings. He has been in the DC jail since his conviction.
According to evidence presented at trial, Johnatakis attended Trump’s rally on January 6 and then threatened to “break down doors” while marching toward the Capitol. Once outside the building, he incited fellow Trump supporters in the massive mob by spewing fiery rhetoric over a megaphone – and later led the charge to breach the police line by using a metal barricade to overpower the officers.
He has been defiant about his actions, saying in a recent interview that “we did nothing” on January 6, and writing about the “injustice” that he and other Capitol riot defendants are facing behind bars.
Prosecutors said he deserved a longer prison term because of his “continued lack of remorse.”
Man who used megaphone to lead attack on police during Capitol riot gets over 7 years in prison
Michael Kunzelman – April 3, 2024
This image from police body-worn camera video, contained and annotated in the Justice Department’s government’s sentencing memorandum supporting the sentencing of Taylor James Johnatakis, shows Johnatakis at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. Johnatakis, of Washington state, who used a megaphone to orchestrate a mob’s attack on police officers guarding the U.S. Capitol, was sentenced on Wednesday to more than seven years in prison. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth said videos captured Johnatakis playing a leadership role during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack. (Department of Justice via AP)Rioters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. Taylor James Johnatakis of Washington state, who used a megaphone to orchestrate a mob’s attack on police officers guarding the U.S. Capitol, was sentenced on Wednesday to more than seven years in prison. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth said videos captured Johnatakis playing a leadership role during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Washington state man who used a megaphone to orchestrate a mob’s attack on police officers guarding the U.S. Capitol was sentenced on Wednesday to more than seven years in prison.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth said videos captured Taylor James Johnatakis playing a leadership role during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot. Johnatakis led other rioters on a charge against a police line, “barked commands” over his megaphone and shouted step-by-step directions for overpowering officers, the judge said.
“In any angry mob, there are leaders and there are followers. Mr. Johnatakis was a leader. He knew what he was doing that day,” the judge said before sentencing him to seven years and three months behind bars.
Johnatakis, who represented himself with an attorney on standby, has repeatedly expressed rhetoric that appears to be inspired by the anti-government “ sovereign citizen ” movement. He asked the judge questions at his sentencing, including, “Does the record reflect that I repent in my sins?”
Lamberth, who referred to some of Johnatakis’ words as “gobbledygook,” said, “I’m not answering questions here.”
Prosecutors recommended a nine-year prison sentence for Johnatakis, a self-employed installer of septic systems.
“Johnatakis was not just any rioter; he led, organized, and encouraged the assault of officers at the U.S. Capitol on January 6,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing.
A jury convicted him of felony charges after a trial last year in Washington, D.C.
Johnatakis, 40, of Kingston, Washington, had a megaphone strapped to his back when he marched to the Capitol from then-President Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally near the White House on Jan. 6.
“It’s over,” he shouted at the crowd of Trump supporters. “Michael Pence has voted against the president. We are down to the nuclear option.”
Johnatakis was one of the first rioters to chase a group of police officers who were retreating up stairs outside the Capitol. He shouted and gestured for other rioters to “pack it in” and prepare to attack.
Johnatakis shouted “Go!” before he and other rioters shoved a metal barricade into a line of police officers. He also grabbed an officer’s arm.
“The crime is complete,” Johnatakis posted on social media several hours after he left the Capitol.
He was arrested in February 2021. He has been jailed since November 2023, when jurors convicted him of seven counts, including obstruction of the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress that certified Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory. The jury also convicted him of assault and civil disorder charges.
Justice Department prosecutor Courtney Howard said Johnatakis hasn’t expressed any sincere remorse or accepted responsibility for his crimes on Jan. 6.
“He’s going so far as to portray himself as a persecuted victim,” she said.
Lamberth said he received over 20 letters from Johnatakis, his relatives and friends. Some of his supporters don’t seem to know the full extent of Johnatakis’ crimes on Jan. 6, the judge added. He said he would order the clerk of court’s office to send all them copies of his prepared remarks during the sentencing hearing.
“There can be no room in our country for this sort of political violence,” Lamberth said.
Last April, Lamberth ordered a psychologist to examine Johnatakis and determine if he was mentally competent to stand trial. The judge ultimately ruled that Johnatakis could understand the proceedings and assist in his defense.
Approximately 1,350 people have been charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. Over 800 of them have been sentenced, with roughly two-thirds getting terms of imprisonment ranging from several days to 22 years.
1.7 million Texas households are set to lose monthly internet subsidy
Pooja Salhotra – April 2, 2024
A colonia, unincorporated neighborhoods that lack basic services such as street lights, proper drainage, paved roads or waste management, is seen near Edinburg on March 25, 2020. Credit: Verónica G. Cárdenas for The Texas Tribune
The $30 per month Daisy Solis has saved off of her internet bill for the past two years stretched a long way.
Those dollars covered new shoes for her three, growing children, dinners out at the Chick-fil-A that popped up in her town of Peñitas in South Texas, and part of a higher-than-usual electricity bill.
Now, Solis worries she might have to sacrifice on her internet speed because a federal subsidy that has helped her pay for her internet plan is set to expire at the end of April.
The Affordable Connectivity Program provides a $30 monthly subsidy to help low-income households pay for internet service, and up to $75 per month for households on tribal lands. The $14.2 billion program was part of the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and has helped 23 million households in the U.S — including 1.7 million in Texas — save money on their internet bills. The program’s funding is slated to dwindle at the end of April, though, potentially cutting millions off from the internet. In May, limited remaining funding in the program will allow eligible households to receive a partial discount; there won’t be any benefits after May.
“It has really helped me in that I don’t have to stress out about the bill,” said Solis, 27. “Even though it’s $30, $30 goes a long way.”
The program’s termination will disproportionately impact South Texas, where counties along the Texas-Mexico border had higher than average rates of participation. Overall, 1 in 7 Texans used the program. But in some border counties, including Hidalgo County, about half of its residents used the subsidy, according to data from the Federal Communications Commission.
“Some people have told me they might not get internet if [the subsidy] goes away,” said Marco Lopez, a community organizer at La Unión del Pueblo Entero, a nonprofit organization that supports low-income neighborhoods in the Valley. “I don’t know what to tell them because it’s not just cutting off their internet; it’s cutting off their opportunities for jobs, for school, for telehealth.”
A bipartisan group of lawmakers has introduced a bill that would extend funding for the Affordable Connectivity Program through the end of 2024. But the bill has not moved and faces considerable pushback from Republican lawmakers who claim the Biden administration has spent “recklessly.”
In a December letter to the chair of the FCC, a group of lawmakers, including U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, disputed that the broadband program was necessary. The lawmakers said that most households using the subsidy already had broadband subscriptions. But that’s likely untrue. According to an FCC survey, 47% of respondents reported having either zero connectivity or relying on mobile service before enrolling in the federal program.
On Tuesday, FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel sent a letter to Congress urging them to fund the program until the end of the year. She said the funding has been particularly critical for vulnerable populations, including veterans, seniors, and students.
“We know that nearly half of ACP households are led by someone over the age of 50,” she wrote. “The ACP and the broadband service it supports is ‘need to have’ for many seniors, who depend on the program for managing their health and maintaining access to their medical teams.”
The program’s termination comes as the state and federal government pump historic sums of money to expand broadband infrastructure and close the so-called digital divide. Texas is poised to receive more than $3.3 billion federal dollars to help connect the roughly 7 million Texans who lack access to affordable internet. The state will bolster those funds with an additional $1.5 billion that voters approved in November.
Some advocates worry that terminating the Affordable Connectivity Program at this juncture could jeopardize the success of future broadband investments.
“If we build the infrastructure but then all these people lose internet access, we are going to be taking one step forward and two steps back,” said Kelty Garbee, executive director of Texas Rural Funders, a nonprofit focused on rural philanthropy. “It is important to take a long view.”
Rural areas lag behind their urban counterparts when it comes to broadband access. The combination of low population density and remoteness make such areas unattractive to internet service providers, who are hesitant to invest in expensive infrastructure without a guaranteed pool of customers. Garbee worries that ending the government subsidies could shrink the rural customer base and make those areas even less attractive to internet companies.
Jordana Barton-Garcia, who focuses on broadband investments for nonprofit organization Connect Humanity, said that while the termination of ACP will be a significant loss for high poverty areas, the program is a “Band-Aid” solution. She said the subsidy doesn’t address the root of the problem: that the economics of broadband do not work in rural, low-income areas.
“Instead of being ruled by profit-maximizing major corporations, we need other models to serve low and moderate income communities,” she said. “We need to be able to serve without maximizing profits and instead serve for the public good.”
Some communities have found innovative ways to provide broadband to their rural constituents at a low cost. The city of Pharr in Hidalgo County, for example, created a municipal internet service program that offers plans for as low as $25 per month, the price residents in the border community said they could afford. Barton-Garcia said Pharr won’t be affected by the termination of government subsidies because the city has already secured its own funding. Pharr used grant money, a municipal bond as well as American Rescue Plan dollars to create a municipally-run internet service.
Large internet providers such as Comcast said they will continue to support low-income customers with an affordable plan. Comcast offers eligible customers a plan called internet essentials for $9.95 and a slightly higher-speed plan for $29.95.
For smaller providers in rural Texas, though, a low-cost plan is not financially feasible without government support. Charlie Cano, CEO of ETex Telephone Cooperative, said his lowest cost option is $62 per month.
“Anything lower than that is going to jeopardize our business model,” Cano said. “I’m nervous about what we are going to do about that low-cost option.”
In order to qualify as a grantee for the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program — the main broadband program created by the bipartisan infrastructure law — providers must offer a low-cost option to low-income customers. Providers like Cano worry this requirement may make it difficult for companies like his to win federal grant dollars.
Disclosure: Comcast has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
Our Trump reporting upsets some readers, but there aren’t two sides to facts: Letter from the Editor
Chris Quinn, Editor, Cleveland Plain Dealer – March 30, 2024
Some readers complain that we have different standards involving Donald Trump and Joe Biden. (AP Photo, File)AP
A more-than-occasional arrival in the email these days is a question expressed two ways, one with dripping condescension and the other with courtesy:
Why don’t our opinion platforms treat Donald Trump and other politicians exactly the same way. Some phrase it differently, asking why we demean the former president’s supporters in describing his behavior as monstrous,insurrectionist and authoritarian. I feel for those who write. They believe in Trump and want their local news source to recognize what they see in him.
The angry writers denounce me for ignoring what they call the Biden family crime syndicate and criminality far beyond that of Trump. They quote news sources of no credibility as proof the mainstream media ignores evidence that Biden, not Trump, is the criminal dictator.
The courteous writers don’t go down that road. They politely ask how we can discount the passions and beliefs of the many people who believe in Trump.
This is a tough column to write, because I don’t want to demean or insult those who write me in good faith. I’ve started it a half dozen times since November but turned to other topics each time because this needle hard to thread. No matter how I present it, I’ll offend some thoughtful, decent people.
The north star here is truth. We tell the truth, even when it offends some of the people who pay us for information.
The truth is that Donald Trump undermined faith in our elections in his false bid to retain the presidency. He sparked an insurrection intended to overthrow our government and keep himself in power. No president in our history has done worse.
This is not subjective. We all saw it. Plenty of leaders today try to convince the masses we did not see what we saw, but our eyes don’t deceive. (If leaders began a yearslong campaign today to convince us that the Baltimore bridge did not collapse Tuesday morning, would you ever believe them?) Trust your eyes. Trump on Jan. 6 launched the most serious threat to our system of government since the Civil War. You know that. You saw it.
The facts involving Trump are crystal clear, and as news people, we cannot pretend otherwise, as unpopular as that might be with a segment of our readers. There aren’t two sides to facts. People who say the earth is flat don’t get space on our platforms. If that offends them, so be it.
As for those who equate Trump and Joe Biden, that’s false equivalency. Biden has done nothing remotely close to the egregious, anti-American acts of Trump. We can debate the success and mindset of our current president, as we have about most presidents in our lifetimes, but Biden was never a threat to our democracy. Trump is. He is unique among all American presidents for his efforts to keep power at any cost.
Personally, I find it hard to understand how Americans who take pride in our system of government support Trump. All those soldiers who died in World War II were fighting against the kind of regime Trump wants to create on our soil. How do they not see it?
The March 25 edition of the New Yorker magazine offers some insight. It includes a detailed review of a new book about Adolf Hitler, focused on the year 1932. It’s called “Takeover: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power” and is by historian Timothy W. Ryback. It explains how German leaders – including some in the media — thought they could use Hitler as a means to get power for themselves and were willing to look past his obvious deficiencies to get where they wanted. In tolerating and using Hitler as a means to an end, they helped create the monstrous dictator responsible for millions of deaths.
How are those German leaders different from people in Congress saying the election was stolen or that Jan. 6 was not an insurrection aimed at destroying our government? They know the truth, but they deny it. They see Trump as a means to an end – power for themselves and their “team” – even if it means repeatedly telling lies.
Sadly, many believe the lies. They trust people in authority, without questioning the obvious discrepancies or relying on their own eyes. These are the people who take offense to the truths we tell about Trump. No one in our newsroom gets up in the morning wanting to make a segment of readers feel bad. No one seeks to demean anyone. We understand what a privilege it is to be welcomed into the lives of the millions of people who visit our platforms each month for news, sports and entertainment. But our duty is to the truth.
Our nation does seem to be slipping down the same slide that Germany did in the 1930s. Maybe the collapse of government in the hands of a madman is inevitable, given how the media landscape has been corrupted by partisans, as it was in 1930s Germany.
I hope not.
In our newsroom, we’ll do our part. Much as it offends some who read us, we will continue to tell the truth about Trump.
Extremist ex-adviser drives ‘anti-white racism’ plan for Trump win – report
Martin Pengelly in Washington – April 1, 2024
Stephen Miller at the White House, in Washington DC on 15 July 2020.Photograph: Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The anti-immigration extremist, white nationalist and former Trump White House adviser Stephen Miller is helping drive a plan to tackle supposed “anti-white racism” if Donald Trump returns to power next year, Axios reported.
“Longtime aides and allies … have been laying legal groundwork with a flurry of lawsuits and legal complaints – some of which have been successful,” Axios said on Monday.
Should Trump return to power, Axios said, Miller and other aides plan to “dramatically change the government’s interpretation of civil rights-era laws to focus on ‘anti-white racism’ rather than discrimination against people of colour”.
Such an effort would involve “eliminating or upending” programmes meant to counter racism against non-white groups.
The US supreme court, dominated 6-3 by rightwing justices after Trump installed three, recently boosted such efforts by ruling against race-based affirmative action in college admissions.
America First Legal, a group founded by Miller and described by him as the right’s “long-awaited answer” to the American Civil Liberties Union, is helping drive plans for a second Trump term, Axios said.
In 2021, an AFL suit blocked implementation of a $29bn Covid-era Small Business Administration programme that prioritised helping restaurants owned by women, veterans and people from socially and economically disadvantaged groups.
Miller called that ruling “the first, but crucial, step towards ending government-sponsored racial discrimination”.
Recent AFL lawsuits include one against CBS and Paramount alleging discrimination against a white, straight man who wrote for the show Seal Team, and a civil rights complaint against the NFL over the “Rooney Rule”, which says at least two minority candidates must be interviewed for vacant top positions.
Reports of extremist groups planning for a second Trump presidency are common, not least around Project 2025, a blueprint for transition and legislative priorities prepared by the Heritage Foundation, a hard-right Washington thinktank.
Trump’s spokesperson, Steven Cheung, told Axios: “As President Trump has said, all staff, offices, and initiatives connected to [Joe] Biden’s un-American policy will be immediately terminated.”
Throughout Trump’s term in office, Miller was a close adviser and speechwriter – though one of the 45th president’s less successful TV surrogates, ridiculed for using “spray-on hair”.
Controversies were numerous. Among them were reported advocacy for blowing up migrants with drones (which Miller denied); for sending 250,000 US troops to the southern border; and for beheading an Isis leader, dipping the head in pig’s blood and “parad[ing] it around to warn other terrorists” (Miller denied it and called the source of the story, the former defense secretary Mark Esper, a “moron”).
In 2019, after Miller was discovered to have touted white nationalist articles and books, 55 civil rights groups wrote to Trump, protesting: “Stephen Miller has stoked bigotry, hate and division with his extreme political rhetoric and policies throughout his career. The recent exposure of his deep-seated racism provides further proof that he is unfit to serve and should immediately leave his post.”
On Monday, Cedric Richmond, co-chair of Biden’s re-election campaign, said: “It’s not like Donald Trump has been hiding his racism … [but] he’s making it clear that if he wins in November, he’ll turn his racist record into official government policy … It’s up to us to stop him.”
Despite his legal advocacy in the cause of eradicating “anti-white racism”, Miller is not himself a lawyer.
Ty Cobb, a former Trump White House lawyer, recently told the Guardian those close to the former president were now “looking for lawyers who worship Trump and will do his bidding. Trump is looking to Miller to pick people who will be more loyal to Trump than the rule of law.”
Trump Allies Plan to Reinterpret Civil Rights Laws to Protect White People: Report
Nikki McCann Ramirez – April 1, 2024
Allies of Donald Trump and powerful conservative organizations are preparing to launch an offensive against “anti-white racism” should the former president retake the White House in November. According to a report from Axios, those in Trump’s orbit are gearing up for a widespread re-interpretation of civil rights laws to combat what they perceive as reverse racism against white Americans.
According to the report, this would include a mass gutting of government programs and diversity initiatives. “As President Trump has said, all staff, offices, and initiatives connected to Biden’s un-American policy will be immediately terminated,” Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesperson, told Axios.
The initiative is already being spearheaded by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller, who founded the right-wing judicial activist outfit America First Legal after leaving the White House. Miller has leveraged Civil Rights-era laws intended to protect minorities from discrimination to challenge “woke” corporate policies of inclusion. America First Legal has sued Nike, Disney, United Airlines, the National Football League, and CBS Entertainment — among others— for allegedly discriminating against white men. Several of the lawsuits cite the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin.
Miller and his organization are not acting alone. America First Legal was consulted by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, in the drafting of its “Project 2025” policy handbook. The handbook contains language calling for an end to “affirmative discrimination,” and calls for an incoming conservative administration to “reorganize and refocus the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division to serve as the vanguard for this return to lawfulness.”
Trump himself has repeatedly claimed to be the target of anti-white discrimination. As previously reported by Rolling Stone, the former president has directed his advisers to look into ways he might compel the Justice Department to investigate New York Attorney General Letitia James, who successfully sued the former president for fraud last year. Trump regularly refers to James as “racist” in his social media posts and public statements.
Last week, National Review contributing editor Deroy Murdock suggested on Fox Business that Trump has grounds to sue James on the basis of discrimination.
“I think what President Trump should do is sue her on the basis of the 1964 Civil Rights Act,” Murdock said. When asked if he had suggested this directly to the former president, Murdock responded that he “will,” and that the message will get to Trump “sooner or later.”
Feds Want to Seize This $7 Million Condo in a Luxe Trump Building
Justin Rohrlich – April 1, 2024
UCG
U.S. authorities have targeted an apartment in a Donald Trump-branded luxury Manhattan tower, where they are looking to seize a $7 million unit prosecutors say was illicitly obtained by one of Congolese President Denis Sassou-Nguesso’s children.
A forfeiture complaint filed Friday in Manhattan federal court and obtained by The Daily Beast says the action “concerns the misappropriation, theft, or embezzlement of hundreds of millions of dollars from the Congolese treasury, some of which was used for the purchase of a luxury apartment in the Southern District of New York for the use of President Nguesso’s daughter.”
“That property is Unit 32G in the Trump International Hotel & Tower at 1 Central Park West, New York, NY 10023,” the complaint states.
The United States is seeking to repossess the property “because the funds used to acquire it are traceable to violations of specified unlawful activities and U.S. law,” according to the complaint.
Sassou-Nguesso, who has been described as a breathtakingly corrupt kleptocrat, has held power in Congo, almost uninterrupted, since 1979.
Congolese President Denis Sassou-Nguesso with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the 2023 Navy Day parade in Saint Petersburg, Russia.Sputnik/Alexander Kazakov/Kremlin via Reuters
A past listing for the apartment says it is a corner space “overlooking Central Park and the Hudson River [and] captures the essence of the most sought after Columbus Circle neighborhood. Special features include: floor to-ceiling windows, 10′ ceilings, a gracious entrance gallery, living/dining room, a windowed eat-in-kitchen with washer/dryer, two bedrooms with spectacular views and luxurious baths ensuite, plus a powder room, capacious closets and a separate bar, ideal for entertaining. Sorry no pets allowed.”
Ownership of the Trump International Hotel & Tower is complicated, with the Trump Organization managing the building and owning some units and hundreds of individual owners holding the rest. On Monday, a Trump Org spokeswoman, Kimberly Benza, told The Daily Beast, “If this sale did occur, it would be by a 3rd party unit owner unrelated to our Organization.”
The apartment was procured via a byzantine array of shell companies and intermediaries who routed funds stolen from Congo’s public coffers through entities in Portugal, Cyprus, the British Virgin Islands, and Brazil, the forfeiture complaint states. The money finally ended up in the U.S., where Sassou-Nguesso and her enablers hired law firm K&L Gates to purchase apartment 32G “for the benefit of Sassou-Nguesso, using a portion of the laundered funds and embezzlement proceeds,” according to the complaint.
Claudia Sassou-Nguesso, daughter of Congolese President Denis Sassou-Nguesso, during a national assembly meeting in 2012.Guy Gervais/KITINA/AFP via Getty Images
The complaint says Sassou-Nguesso was aware she could be rejected by Trump International as “a politically-exposed person,” and considered listing her cousin as the unit’s beneficial owner to avoid trouble. However, Trump International officials told Sassou-Nguesso’s team that “it was ‘not a problem’ and that the information was ‘only for the condominium building,’” the complaint goes on. On June 24, 2014, a Portuguese businessman representing Sassou-Nguesso in the deal wired a $710,000 deposit to the condo’s seller, sending the $6,525,000 balance a month later, according to the complaint.
“In sum, the money used to purchase the Defendant Asset was a portion of the approximately USD 19.5 million of Congolese state funds embezzled through… sham contracts… and these embezzled funds were used to purchase the Defendant Asset for Sassou Nguesso’s apparent personal enrichment,” the complaint states.
After the Global Witness report was released in 2019, the Trump Organization said that monthly common charges paid by condo owners did not go directly to Trump himself “for profit.”
According to the forfeiture complaint, Sassou-Nguesso paid some $250,000 in common charges between 2018 and 2022. It says they were paid “out of bank accounts in Luxembourg, Portugal, and the United Arab Emirates” in the name of another Portuguese national fronting for Sassou-Nguesso.
Although the apartment has apparently remained unoccupied since it was purchased, prosecutors say they have reviewed emails from Sassou-Nguesso about interior design work to be conducted at the property, transferring, via her worldwide network, more than $400,000 to a Portuguese firm to carry out the job.
The apartment, according to the forfeiture complaint, “is traceable to… a conspiracy to launder the proceeds of specified unlawful activities.”
“The Court, for the reasons set forth herein, adjudge and decree that the Defendant Asset be forfeited to the United States of America and disposed of in accordance with existing laws, together with costs, and for such other relief as this Court deems proper and just,” the complaint states.
The Trump International Hotel & Tower at 1 Central Park West in Manhattan.Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images
Trump’s properties, as The New York Times once said, “have a long history of serving as home to people with checkered pasts.”
Former federal prosecutor Kenneth McCallion, a onetime member of an organized crime strike force that investigated potential criminal activities during the construction of Trump Tower, told The Daily Beast that dirty money has long been attracted to Trump buildings.
“They’d pay cash for condos, held them for a few years, sold them, and the proceeds of the sale would then be clean money,” McCallion said.
Haitian dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier owned a unit in Trump Tower on Manhattan’s 5th Avenue; alleged Russian gangster David Bogatin—one of at least 13 Russian organized crime figures who have resided in the building—owned five.
A Trump development in Panama was “riddled with brokers, customers and investors who have been linked to drug trafficking and international crime,” according to a 2017 NBC News investigation.
Nicole Wallace Gets Fed Up, Tosses Script While Covering Latest Trump Attack: ‘What Are We Going to Do Different?’ | Video
Stephanie Kaloi – March 30, 2024
MSNBC’s Nicole Wallace quite literally threw out her prepared script on Friday on-air while covering breaking news about a new public attack from former president Donald Trump. The visibly angry anchor told a panel of guests that “it’s time to do something different” when speaking about Trump’s outrageous and sometimes dangerous actions on and offline.
Wallace picked up her news script and tossed it to her right as she explained, “I have come on the air with breaking news about requests for gag orders because of threats for judges and their kids more times than I can count today before I got ready.”
After she apologized to the person who “has to write the banner at the bottom of my show,” Wallace added, “Donald Trump broke the rule of law. We should cover a broken judiciary in this country. Donald Trump managed to delay every federal, criminal trial based on facts that he barely denies.”
“Donald Trump managed to enlist the Supreme Court in a delayed process — the highest court in the land. Donald Trump brazenly and repeatedly attacks not just judges … judges don’t have Secret Service protecting them.”
Nicolle Wallace literally throws out the script, disgusted by Donald Trump’s latest behavior. pic.twitter.com/HtbiVrLkzk
Wallace spoke in response to a Truth Social post that Trump published on Thursday about the daughter of Judge Juan Merchan, who had previously placed Trump on a gag order before his April 15 court date in his hush money trial.
Trump wrote, “Judge Juan Merchan is totally compromised, and should be removed from this TRUMP Non-Case immediately. His Daughter, Loren, is a Rabid Trump Hater, who has admitted to having conversations with her father about me, and yet he gagged me.”
“She works for Crooked Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, and other Radical Leftists who Campaign on ‘Getting Trump,’ and fundraise off the ‘Biden Indictments’ – including this Witch Hunt, which her father ‘presides’over, a TOTAL Conflict – and attacking Biden’s Political Opponent through the Courts. Former D.A. Cy Vance refused to bring this case, as did all Federal Agencies, including ‘Elections.’
The claim about Merchan’s daughter has not been prove true.
Trump’s repeated use of social media to fire unsubstantiated and unwarranted accusations at his political opponents (perceived and real) is unprecedented in American politics, and has posed a real danger to his targets.
The gag order in Trump’s hush money case is meant to prohibit both Trump and surrogates from making public statements about jurors and witnesses in the trial. He is also banned from making statements about the court’s staff, prosecutors, and family members. The gag order does not prohibit Trump from commenting on Judge Merchan or his family members.
The hush money case is the first of Trump’s four federal cases that will go to trial. He is accused of logging payments to his former lawyer Michael Cohen as legal fees when they were actually for his work during Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Those payments included $130,000 to adult entertainment star Stormy Daniels to ensure she would not speak about a sexual encounter she had with Trump.
Trump has pled not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records and has denied Daniels’ claims.
Watch the segment with Wallace in the video above.
The Unhinged Arguments the Supreme Court Is Fielding on Trump Immunity
Jose Pagliery – March 30, 2024
Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty
Retired American generals vehemently say that no, Donald Trump cannot deploy SEAL Team 6 to kill a political rival. Gun groups howl that the United States is turning into Communist China. And a convicted Jan. 6 rioter warns that President Joe Biden could someday get sued over the death of a jogger in Georgia.
These are among the 18 various groups that shared their wisdom with the Supreme Court earlier this month, filing amicus briefs on the same day that Trump told the high court why he should be able to dodge a federal prosecution for trying to overturn the 2020 election on false pretenses.
Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith’s election interference case against Trump has finally reached the nation’s highest judicial authority, which will determine whether the business tycoon can be put on trial. The timing of the nine justices’ eventual decision will determine if the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee is to face trial in court before Election Day in November.
But ahead of oral arguments next month, the Supreme Court is already getting inundated with all kinds of opinions about the main question in the case: whether a former president enjoys immunity for actions made while at the White House.
The Daily Beast reviewed the litany of uninvited legal arguments spanning 599 pages, ranging from breathless reiterations of Trump’s claims to head-turning warnings. Yet all bear the signs of a historic case that could determine the fate of the election, if not American democracy.
The most unusual and unexpected amicus brief comes from three former high-ranking military leaders: Retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, who served as Trump’s own acting national security adviser; Robert Wilkie, who served as Trump’s Veterans Affairs Department secretary; and retired Lt. Gen. William “Jerry” Boykin, who once led the Army’s elite commandos in Delta Force and Green Berets.
The three former military men felt it necessary to join together and address—in public and at the national level—one of the crazier Trump legal arguments: that Trump’s immunity from criminal prosecution is so beyond question that it would allow him to order the assassination of his political enemies.
“No—the president cannot order SEAL Team Six to assassinate his political rival and have the military carry out such an order,” they clarified, marking the first time former military leadership has ever had to utter such a phrase in court.
The trio went further, pointing out that a Reagan-era executive order already prohibits anyone acting on behalf of the United States government from taking part in an assassination. They dedicated a significant portion of their 18-page court filing to making clear that military officers would be legally justified in refusing to even carry out an official order from their commander-in-chief, an assertion rarely made by military brass—and one that underlies just how stark their concerns are at this point.
“That a person is a political rival of the president is neither a justification nor an excuse for an unlawful killing. And deliberately carrying out an order to murder such a person would be acting upon a premeditated design to kill or an intent to kill. Therefore, any officer engaged in murder on the orders of a president would be subject to the death penalty or life in prison—and the officer would know it,” they wrote.
Meanwhile, the vast majority of the other amici curiae—the so-called “friends of the court” who weighed in to give the Supreme Court their two cents—largely sided with Trump.
The right-wing nonprofit America’s Future—which screened a bonkers QAnon Hollywood conspiracy “documentary” at Mar-a-Lago earlier this week—joined forces with Gun Owners of America and similar firearms associations to warn the high court that Smith’s prosecution was making the United States look more like China, Russia, or Zimbabwe.
“The prosecution of President Trump by the Biden Administration has a parallel to a recent event in Communist China,” they wrote, recalling the way former Chinese President Hu Jintao has vanished from public view ever since he was mysteriously escorted out of a public ceremony where he had been sitting next to his successor, Xi Jinping.
The United States is heading down that same route, they warned, lamenting “the explosion of lawfare” aimed at Trump for doing what they deemed totally sensible political speech—an argument that rests, in part, on the gun-toting petitioners’ continued rejection of the 2020 election results. They referenced Trump’s “supposed” defeat in Arizona and Georgia.
The real danger here, though, is that while Trump is currently polling strong, the gun groups concede that “the effect of a conviction may be very different and could determine the outcome of the election.”
But it wasn’t the conglomeration of Second Amendment enthusiasts that made a veiled threat over the high court decision. That came from an Alabama electrical engineer who’s become a political financier.
In his court filing, Shaun McCutcheon describes himself as “a successful, self-made American businessman and constitutional patriot.” And he warned Supreme Court justices that the country’s MAGA loyalists aren’t going to suddenly start trusting the U.S. court system to select fair-minded jurors.
“The former President’s tens of millions of supporters cannot reasonably be expected to accept the typical legal fictions of voir dire under such extreme circumstances,” his lawyer wrote.
McCutcheon assigns malicious intent to the Special Counsel’s decision to indict Trump in the largely liberal District of Columbia—never mind that the U.S. Constitution’s Sixth Amendment ensures that a person will be subjected to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury drawn from the district where his alleged crime was committed, which in this case was the White House.
“A prosecutor appointed by a partisan presidential appointee of the opposing political party may prosecute a former president in a hand-picked venue deeply hostile to that former president, his beliefs, political expression, and legacy,” his lawyer wrote.
While the Supreme Court received various interpretations of presidential immunity that cast the Special Counsel’s investigations as a severe threat to the functions of the commander-in-chief’s job, the sharpest example came from someone who knows a thing or two about Trump’s insurrection.
In his brief, Treniss Evans argued that if Trump can be put on trial for allegedly masterminding a months-long and multi-pronged attack on U.S. democracy, then President Biden could be held personally responsible for the death in February of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, given that an allegedly undocumented Venezuelan man was arrested for her killing.
“If a President doesn’t have immunity from prosecution for his actions, what prevents Georgia murder victim Laken Riley’s family from suing Joe Biden for allowing her illegal migrant murderer into the USA? Or what if hundreds of families all sued, seriatim?” his lawyer wrote, using the Latin phrase that means “one-by-one.”
Evans made the filing through his “legal advocacy group,” which bears the emotionally charged name Condemned USA. He trivialized Trump’s 2020 election fraud claims, but then went on to assert that Trump and his followers can’t possibly be accused of trying to stop certification of the election with a violent riot because technically Jan. 6, 2021, was just the official counting of the already certified votes before Congress.
The Supreme Court justices will get the sense that this topic is deeply personal for Evans. After all, his brief says right up top that “Mr. Evans has been investigating and reporting events of January 6th since January 6th, 2021. He was present at the Capitol on that day.”
In reality, he was in the violent crowd, held a bullhorn, and entered the Capitol—only to be identified by a Facebook tipster, arrested in Texas two months after the insurrection, and eventually sentenced to three years’ probation. To convince the federal judge to go easy on him, his other lawyer wrote that “Mr. Evans is quite self-reproving, sincerely remorseful, and duly contrite. He is embarrassed of this criminal conduct and the shame he has brought upon himself and his family. He has entered his plea of guilty voluntarily.”
But his March 19 brief before the Supreme Court doesn’t exactly hint at that remorse, nor does it morph into any critique of the man who called on him and others to show up that day and march on the Capitol Building.
Yet another legal advocacy firm asked the Supreme Court to give even more deference to Trump for the actions that led up to the disaster at the tail end of his presidency. The Christian Family Coalition Florida, a conservative Miami group that recently lent its support to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ crackdown on transgender kids in girls’ sports teams, reduced Trump’s election interference efforts to merely “core political speech.” And it would give future politicians carte blanche to lie—and follow through with those lies—regardless of their claim’s merit.
“For the sake of the presidency and the nation, criminal liability cannot turn on a mere factual dispute over whether an ex-president’s communications in challenging an election were ‘knowingly false,’” a lawyer for the group wrote.
In this Trump case, justices also heard from a favorite villain of the American progressive movement: Citizens United, the nonprofit behind the Supreme Court’s 2010 landmark decision that opened the door to having corporations spend unlimited funds on elections.
The group joined with two former U.S. Attorneys General: the Reagan administration’s Edwin Meese III, and the George W. Bush administration’s Michael B. Mukasey. Together, they tried to strip the current team of federal prosecutors going after Trump from any legitimacy.
They argued that Smith “wields tremendous power, effectively answerable to no one, by design.” And they contend that’s something he can’t do without the Senate’s confirmation. Instead, they say, AG Merrick Garland should have taken the same approach he did with the separate Hunter Biden investigation and tap an existing, Senate-confirmed federal prosecutor in charge of a regional office, like Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss.
The two conservative former AGs and the nonprofit also claim that most cabinet officials have the authority to appoint officers—minus the Justice Department, a proposition that would give the heads of Agriculture, Education and Homeland Security departments more leeway than the nation’s attorney general. And they warn that Garland’s actions could “create by regulation an entire shadow Department of Justice.”
But leave it to a consortium of 18 state attorneys general—all pro-Trump Republicans led by Alabama AG Steve Marshall—to make the one point everyone can probably agree on.
“If he had not been president, none of this would be happening,” they wrote.
New report finds striking parallels between tobacco, gas stove campaigns: ‘This is intentional; it’s by design’
Ben Stern – March 22, 2024
For decades, tobacco companies misled the public about the dangers of their products, engaging in multipronged PR campaigns and spreading disinformation.
Today, nicotine and smoking are widely acknowledged to be addictive, and cigarettes are known to cause cancer. But it took years to expose these truths, all while massive tobacco corporations profited from the harm they caused.
In a striking new report titled “Cooking with Smoke: How the Gas Industry Used Tobacco Tactics to Cover up Harms from Gas Stoves,” the Public Health Law Center has revealed how Big Tobacco’s playbook of deception was also used to convince the public that gas stoves are safe.
The beginning of the gas stove fight
While news coverage on the potential dangers of gas stove pollution has recently picked up, researchers have been trying to sound the alarm since at least the 1970s.
Early studies conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency were primarily focused on investigating the health impacts of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) pollution from gas stoves.
After it was determined that such NO2 exposure could cause or worsen asthma and other respiratory problems, the American Gas Association (AGA), fearing public outcry, began to fund its own research claiming that gas stoves weren’t associated with respiratory issues.
Yet the current scientific consensus is that gas stoves are burdening the public with health issues, specifically our children. One peer-reviewed study from the nonprofit think tank RMI found that more than one in eight cases of childhood asthma in America is associated with a gas stove in the home.
The full health impacts of exposure to gas stove pollution are unfortunately not yet known. Pediatrician Dr. Lisa Patel, the Executive Director of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health, believes it’s critical to learn more about gas stoves’ potential dangers sooner rather than later.
“Because the oil and gas industry has been so successful in pulling the wool over our eyes, suppressing the research, we’re still figuring out which of the pollutants [from stoves] is the ‘worst’ in terms of risk,” Dr. Patel told The Cool Down.
Cooking with smoke
The Public Health Law Center’s new report lays out how eerily similar the disinformation campaigns of the gas and tobacco industries are.
“Cooking with Smoke” describes seven of the deceptive tactics used by both the tobacco and gas industries to mislead the American public.
One such tactic is hiring the same scientists and research labs to provide biased or partial information pointing to desired results — namely, downplaying the health impacts of tobacco products and gas stoves. The AGA has hired the exact same laboratory as the Council for Tobacco Research, a tobacco industry trade group, for its sponsored research.
Last year, a New York Times exposé revealed that not only did the AGA hire a toxicologist to obscure the relationship between gas stoves and health impacts, but that same toxicologist was hired by the cigarette company Philip Morris to provide testimony claiming that Marlboro Lights were “safer for smokers.”
Another strategy utilized by both industries is the marketing of deceptive media to children. As outlined in the report, gas companies have used social media influencers to promote gas stoves to young people. Within the past two years, the gas industry has also sent coloring books to schools, telling children that “natural gas [is] your invisible friend,” as the report noted.
We deserve better
Due to decades of industry disinformation, the health harms caused by gas stoves have largely gone unnoticed or misunderstood by the American public. But just as Big Tobacco couldn’t hide the truth about cigarettes, the gas industry won’t be able to successfully hide the dangers of its stoves from the public forever.
“The gas industry wants us to accept health harms that we don’t have to. This is intentional; it’s by design,” Joelle Lester, Executive Director of the Public Health Law Center, told The Cool Down. “That’s where the gas industry is similar to Big Tobacco. They will continue to resist regulation and restriction to protect their profits.”
Change is coming
Both Lester and Dr. Patel believe that more information about the true health risks of gas stoves will inevitably emerge. When it does, change will follow.
“Jurisdictions will make changes [to transition away from gas stoves],” Lester told The Cool Down, “and once the sky doesn’t fall, and the health benefits can be measured, it will be so powerful.”
And according to Dr. Patel, “in the end, science and wanting to take care of each other will always win out.”
Actions you can take now
For those worried about the impacts of gas stoves, waiting on policy fixes isn’t necessary. The best way for an individual to eliminate the health risks of a gas stove is to replace it with an induction or electric range.
Induction cooktops have already proven to be the superior option in many ways, cooking food more quickly, evenly, efficiently, and safely than gas stoves.
While replacing your gas stove may seem daunting, the federal government, through the Inflation Reduction Act, will offer up to $840 to those who make the switch.
Even renters will be able to take advantage of this point-of-sale rebate by purchasing plug-in induction cooktops.
Some landlords may also be amenable to electrification projects, like installing induction stoves, once they find out how much more energy-efficient the devices are. The nonprofit Rewiring America has an in-depth guide for talking to your landlord about upgrading.
Of course, even with an $840 upfront discount, not every family will be able to make the switch. For those families, many options still exist to protect their respiratory health. Dr. Patel told The Cool Down: “If they can’t get that gas cooktop out, using electric appliances, opening windows, [or] using an overhead vent helps.”
