Trump says it’s “very possible” that Biden and other political rivals will have to be jailed
Nicholas Liu – June 5, 2024
Donald Trump Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Donald Trump, spinning the old, false line that the trial that led to his conviction on felony charges was “rigged” and orchestrated by Joe Biden, suggested in an interview with Newsmax that the “precedent” would give him an opening pay his political opponents back in kind, according to the Washington Post.
“I said, ‘Wouldn’t it really be bad? … Wouldn’t it be terrible to throw the president’s wife and the former secretary of state — think of it, the former secretary of state — but the president’s wife into jail?” Trump mused on Tuesday, referring to his 2016 opponent Hillary Clinton, who he had repeatedly said should be “locked up” despite now blaming his supporters for saying it instead.
“But they want to do it,” Trump said, apparently referring to Biden and other political rivals. “So, you know, it’s a terrible, terrible path that they’re leading us to, and it’s very possible that it’s going to have to happen to them … it’s a terrible precedent for the country.”
The precedent Trump was referring to was his imagined version of events, in which President Biden supposedly instructed Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to prosecute him, and then rigged the trial secure a conviction. Despite making this claim for several months now, Trump has been unable to cite any evidence to suggest that Bragg, an independently elected prosecutor, coordinated with the White House at all. Prosecutors said that they were only following the facts in their case.
Trump, who faces criminal charges in three other cases, has made revenge a central message of his campaign, telling supporters at one point that “I am your retribution.” Other times, he has vacillated, saying in an Iowa rally that he “didn’t have time for retribution.” Since he first ran for president in 2015, Trump has called for the Justice Department to investigate political opponents and former allies who are now critical of him; in the lead up to the 2024 election, he has a plan to make that a reality by purging DOJ staff turning the department into what Reuters referred to as “an attack dog for conservative causes.”
The report tracks what it calls “prolific Russian influence actors” that last summer began focusing on disparaging the 2024 Olympic Games and French President Emmanuel Macron, including by posting a bogus documentary featuring a deepfake of actor Tom Cruise.
“These ongoing Russian influence operations have two central objectives: to denigrate the reputation of the [International Olympic Committee] on the world stage; and to create the expectation of violence breaking out in Paris during the 2024 Summer Olympic Games,” the report says.
“Russia has a decades-long history of undermining the Olympics, but for the Paris Games, we’ve observed this old playbook has been updated with new generative AI tactics, “ said Clint Watts, a former FBI agent who directed the study. “They want to scare spectators from attending the Games for fear of physical violence breaking out.”
Most recently, the Russian campaign has sought to capitalize on the Israel-Hamas war by impersonating militants and fabricating threats against Israelis who attending the 2024 Games, the report found. Some images referenced the attacks at the 1972 Munich Olympics, where an affiliate of the Palestine Liberation Organization killed 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team and a West German police officer.
Munich Olympics 1972 Hostage Crisis (Russel McPhedran / Fairfax Media via Getty Images file)
The fake documentary, posted online last summer, was titled “Olympics Has Fallen,” a play on the 2013 movie “Olympus Has Fallen.” Designed to resemble a Netflix production, it used AI-generated audio resembling Cruise’s voice to imply his participation, the report says, and even attached sham five-star reviews from The New York Times, The Washington Post and the BBC.
YouTube took it down at the behest of the International Olympic Committee, but it remains available on Telegram, Microsoft says.
“The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has recently been faced with a number of fake news posts targeting the IOC,” the committee said in a statement last fall, citing “an entire documentary produced with defamatory content, a fake narrative and false information, using an AI-generated voice of a world-renowned Hollywood actor.”
Tom Cruise in
The Russian campaign also put out videos designed to look like news reports that suggested intelligence about credible threats of violence at the Paris Games, Microsoft found.
One video that purported to be a report from media outlet Euronews in Brussels falsely claimed that Parisians were buying property insurance in anticipation of terrorism.
In another spoofed news clip impersonating French broadcaster France 24, the Russian campaign falsely claimed that 24% of purchased tickets for Olympic events had been returned due to fears of terrorism.
A third Russian effort consisted of a fake video news release from the CIA and France’s main intelligence agency warning potential attendees to stay away from the 2024 Olympics due to the alleged risk of a terror attack.
Microsoft says Russia, like the Soviet Union before it, has a long history of attacking the Olympics.
“If they cannot participate in or win the Games, then they seek to undercut, defame, and degrade the international competition in the minds of participants, spectators, and global audiences,” the report says. “The Soviet Union boycotted the 1984 Summer Games held in Los Angeles and sought to influence other countries to do the same.”
At the time, according to Microsoft, U.S. officials linked Soviet actors to a campaign that covertly distributed leaflets to Olympic committees in countries including Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka and South Korea, claiming that nonwhite competitors would be targeted by American extremists if they went to Los Angeles.
In 2017, the IOC banned Russia from the 2018 Winter Games after finding widespread use of performance-enhancing drugs by Russian athletes.
But the current ban is over the war in Ukraine. The committee decided that qualifying athletes from Russia and close ally Belarus may compete in the 2024 Summer Games only as “individual neutral athletes,” prohibited from flying their national flags.
Microsoft said the online influence campaign picked up shortly afterward.
The Russian Embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Sheinbaum Makes History as First Woman Elected to Lead Mexico
Natalie Kitroeff – June 3, 2024
A young girl with the name of Claudia Sheinbaum, a climate scientist and former mayor of Mexico City, on her face attends Sheinbuam’s election night event in Mexico City, on Sunday, June 2, 2024. (Fred Ramos/The New York Times)
MEXICO CITY — Claudia Sheinbaum, a climate scientist and former mayor of Mexico City, won her nation’s elections Sunday in a landslide victory that brought a double milestone: She became the first woman, and the first Jewish person, to be elected president of Mexico.
Early results indicated that Sheinbaum, 61, prevailed in what the authorities called the largest election in Mexico’s history, with the highest number of voters taking part and the most seats up for grabs.
It was a landmark vote that saw not one, but two, women vying to lead one of the hemisphere’s biggest nations. And it will put a Jewish leader at the helm of one of the world’s largest predominantly Catholic countries.
Sheinbaum, a leftist, campaigned on a vow to continue the legacy of Mexico’s current president and her mentor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, which delighted their party’s base — and raised alarm among detractors. The election was seen by many as a referendum on his leadership, and her victory was a clear vote of confidence in López Obrador and the party he started.
López Obrador has completely reshaped Mexican politics. During his tenure, millions of Mexicans were lifted out of poverty and the minimum wage doubled. But he has also been a deeply polarizing president, criticized for failing to control rampant cartel violence, for hobbling the nation’s health system and for persistently undercutting democratic institutions.
Still, López Obrador remains widely popular and his enduring appeal propelled his chosen successor. And for all the challenges facing the country, the opposition was unable to persuade Mexicans that their candidate was a better option.
“We love her, we want her to work like Obrador,” Gloria Maria Rodríguez, 78, from Tabasco, said of Sheinbaum. “We want a president like Obrador.”
Sheinbaum won with at least 58% of the vote, according to preliminary results, while her closest competitor, Xóchitl Gálvez, an entrepreneur and former senator on a ticket with a coalition of opposition parties, had at least 26.6%.
If early returns hold, Sheinbaum will have captured a broader share of the vote than any candidate in decades.
Speaking to supporters early Monday, Sheinbaum vowed to work on behalf of all Mexicans, reaffirmed her party’s commitment to democracy and celebrated her groundbreaking ascension to the nation’s highest office.
“For the first time in 200 years of the republic, I will become the first female president of Mexico,” she said. “And as I have said on other occasions, I do not arrive alone. We all arrived, with our heroines who gave us our homeland, with our ancestors, our mothers, our daughters and our granddaughters.”
Sheinbaum said she received calls from Gálvez and the third-place candidate, Jorge Álvarez Máynez, to congratulate her on the victory. Shortly after Sheinbaum’s speech, Gálvez told supporters that the early returns were “not favorable to my candidacy,” and “irreversible,” noting that she had just communicated with Sheinbaum.
Gálvez had said in an interview days before the vote Sunday that “an anti-system vote” against López Obrador could help propel her to victory. In reality, it appeared that many Mexicans still associate the parties backing her with a system they see as inept and corrupt.
“Xóchitl Gálvez has been unable to represent change because the parties backing her embody the establishment,” said Carlos Bravo Regidor, a political analyst based in Mexico City. “Most Mexicans want a continuity of the change brought by López Obrador.”
Many voters seemed to endorse Sheinbaum as an agent of institutionalizing the changes brought about by her mentor. “We need to bring about more change to the country,” said Evelyn Román, 21, a chemical engineering student in Mexico City who supports Sheinbaum. “We did notice the progress in these six years.”
Sheinbaum’s experience is ample: She has a doctorate in energy engineering, participated in a United Nations panel of climate scientists awarded a Nobel Peace Prize and governed the capital, one of the largest cities in the hemisphere.
Known as a demanding boss with a reserved demeanor, Sheinbaum has risen through the ranks by aligning herself completely with López Obrador, who built an entire political party around his outsize personality. During the campaign, she backed many of his most contentious policies, including a slate of constitutional changes that critics say would severely undermine democratic checks and balances.
As a result, the president-elect battled the perception among many Mexicans that she will be little more than a pawn of her mentor.
“There’s this idea, because a lot of columnists say it, that I don’t have a personality,” Sheinbaum complained to reporters earlier this year. “That President Andrés Manuel López Obrador tells me what to do, that when I get to the presidency, he’s going to be calling me on the phone every day.”
Even with the broad mandate voters granted her, she faces significant challenges when she takes office in October.
López Obrador benefited “from the invincible popularity that comes from being a very charismatic leader — something that Claudia is not,” said Paula Sofía Vásquez, a political analyst based in Mexico City.
Cartel violence continues to torment the country, displacing people en masse and fueling one of the deadliest campaign cycles in recent Mexican history, with more than 36 people vying for public office killed since last summer.
Carlos Ortiz, 57, a municipal official working for the Iztapalapa borough in Mexico City, said that such bloodshed compelled him to vote against Sheinbaum.
“I want everything to change,” Ortiz said, recalling the dozens of aspirants for public office killed in recent months. “I don’t want a country on fire anymore.”
López Obrador has directed government attention to addressing the drivers of crime instead of waging war on the criminal groups, a strategy he called “hugs not bullets.” Homicides declined modestly but remain near record levels, and reports of missing people have spiked. Insecurity was a top concern for voters.
Sheinbaum has said she would continue his focus on social causes of the violence, while also working to lower rates of impunity and building up the national guard.
On the economy, the opportunities are clear: Mexico is now the largest trading partner of the United States, benefiting from a recent shift in manufacturing away from China. The currency is so strong it’s been labeled the “super peso.”
But there are also problems simmering. The federal deficit ballooned to around 6% this year, and Pemex, the national oil company, is operating under a mountain of debt, straining public finances.
“The fiscal risk we’re facing at the moment is something we haven’t seen for decades,” said Mariana Campos, director of Mexico Evaluates, a public policy research group.
It’s unclear how Sheinbaum would make good on a range of campaign promises — from building public schools and new health clinics to expanding social welfare programs — given the current state of public finances.
“The problem I see is that a lot of proposals are oriented toward spending and there is nowhere to get the money from,” said Vásquez.
Another challenge involves the broad new responsibilities granted to the armed forces, which have been tasked with running ports and airports, running an airline, and building a railroad through the Mayan jungle. Sheinbaum has said “there is no militarization” of the country, while suggesting she’s open to reevaluating the military’s involvement in public enterprises.
Beyond the domestic strains, Sheinbaum’s destiny will be intertwined with the outcome of the presidential election in the United States.
A reelection victory for President Joe Biden would provide continuity, but a return of Donald Trump to the White House would likely be far less predictable. Trump’s plans to round up people living in the country illegally on a vast scale and deport them to their home countries could target millions of Mexicans living in the United States. He has already threatened to slap 100% tariffs on Chinese cars made in Mexico.
Then there’s the festering issue of fentanyl, which cartels produce in Mexico using chemicals imported from China, the U.S. government says. Trump has suggested taking military action to combat the fentanyl trade.
Sheinbaum has said Mexico would have “good relations” with either Trump or Biden as president, and her campaign team has said it will continue to work to contain flows of migrants.
But handling such pressure from Washington, even in the form of incendiary campaign rhetoric, could prove complicated.
Voters expressed faith in Sheinbaum’s ability to deal with such challenges. Daniela Mendoza, 40, a psychologist who lives in Villahermosa, in Tabasco state, said she had long supported López Obrador, including during his previously unsuccessful bids to win the presidency.
Pleased with his social welfare programs, Mendoza voted for Sheinbaum.
“Claudia follows that line, perhaps with better ideas,” Mendoza said. “And having the first woman president in the country is an accomplishment.”
How the Supreme Court could upend the other criminal cases against Trump
David Knowles, Senior Editor – June 3, 2024
Donald Trump in Manhattan criminal court, May 21. (Michael M. Santiago/AP/Pool)
On Monday, former President Donald Trump vented about being found guilty in New York of 34 counts of falsifying business records and suggested that the U.S. Supreme Court step in to prevent Judge Juan Merchan from sentencing him in the case.
“The United States Supreme Court MUST DECIDE!” Trump wrote.
While the high court is unlikely to intervene in the sentencing of the former president found guilty by a jury in a state court proceeding, it is expected to issue a ruling at any time on whether the principle of presidential immunity protects Trump from prosecution in the federal election interference case brought by special counsel Jack Smith.
But whatever the court decides, the ruling will affect not only that criminal case, but at least two of the others he is facing as well. Here’s why:
Chutkan has paused the Jan. 6 election interference case until the Supreme Court issues its ruling. If the court rules in Trump’s favor, agreeing that former presidents are protected from criminal prosecution unless first impeached and convicted by Congress, the trial will not move forward. If the justices rule in the government’s favor, the case could conceivably go to trial before the 2024 presidential election.
Based on the questions from the justices, most legal analysts believe that the court will not give Trump blanket protection from prosecution, but could issue a ruling that would require another court to examine each of the charges against Trump to try to clarify whether his behavior, such spreading false claims about the outcome of the election, should be characterized as an official act.
If that happens, the start date of the trial could be pushed back until after the 2024 election. That’s significant because if Trump is reelected, he could direct his attorney general to simply drop the case against him.
Georgia election interference
Trump and 14 others face felony charges in Fulton County, Georgia, stemming from their efforts to overturn the 2020 election in that battleground state, and if the Supreme Court were to rule in Trump’s favor on presidential immunity, his lawyers would quickly press Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee to drop the 10 felony counts against him.
In January, Trump filed a court motion with McAfee to dismiss the state charges on the grounds that past Supreme Court precedent “shields President Trump from criminal prosecution for acts within the ‘outer perimeter’ of his official duties.”
Proceedings in the trial are currently on hold as McAfee awaits the Supreme Court’s ruling on immunity and Trump’s lawyers pursue an appeal of McAfee’s decision to allow Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to remain on the case despite allegations of misconduct. On Monday, the Georgia appeals court scheduled the case to be heard in October.
A Supreme Court ruling on the immunity question that goes even partially in Trump’s favor would result in a new round of court challenges from Trump’s lawyers that would almost certainly drag the case into 2024 or 2025.
Classified documents
At the core of Trump’s defense in the classified documents case is his contention that, because he was president when he decided to send boxes containing classified documents to his Florida home, he can’t be prosecuted for doing so. In February, Trump’s lawyers asked Judge Aileen Cannon to drop all 40 felony counts brought by Smith on those grounds.
Cannon, a Trump appointee, has already delayed the trial so that it would very likely begin after the presidential election.
Should the Supreme Court rule that presidential immunity protects Trump from prosecution, the classified documents case could be quashed before a trial begins.
Judge Cannon Falls for Trump’s Most Nefarious Lie Yet
Hafiz Rashid – June 3, 2024
Judge Aileen Cannon seems to have handed Donald Trump another big favor in his classified documents trial—seriously entertaining a lie from the former president.
Trump made up a false claim that the FBI plotted to assassinate him during its search of his Mar-a-Lago estate for classified documents because it had weapons, despite the fact that this is generally standard procedure when law enforcement carries out a search warrant. Trump appointee Cannon has decided to grant this made-up conspiracy legitimacy by giving the presumptive Republican presidential nominee two weeks to prove it, further delaying the trial.
Tweet screenshot: Aileen Cannon gives Trump a full two weeks to argue that he should be allow to falsely claim the FBI tried to assassinate him, a conspiracy theory based off an obvious misstatement from his lawyers.
It’s the latest in a series of questionable moves from Cannon in the classified documents case. She has indefinitely delayed the case over “unresolved pretrial motions,” and last week she rejected a gag order request from special counsel Jack Smith because she claimed it was “wholly lacking in substance and professional courtesy.” Trump has made no secret of how much he appreciates Cannon’s efforts, and there have been calls for her to remove herself from the case. Even one of Trump’s former lawyers, Ty Cobb, thinks that she is incompetent.
Overall, the trial isn’t running smoothly. One hearing that gave a defendant’s lawyer a chance to allege vindictiveness from a prosecutor devolved into a shouting match. Cannon herself seems to be having trouble understanding basic legal proceedings and principles, leading to long explanations that she still doesn’t appear to grasp. Her conduct has disillusioned some of her clerks, two of whom decided to quit as a result of her conduct on the classified documents case as well as an allegedly hostile work environment. All of this fuels accusations that Cannon is deliberately slowing down the case to benefit Trump and his campaign for president.
Trump faces 42 felony charges in the case related to illegally retaining national security documents and conspiracy to obstruct justice, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
Why aren’t Americans willing to believe good news about crime?
Mike Bebernes, Senior Editor – June 3, 2024
Photo illustration: Victoria Ellis for Yahoo News; photos: Getty Images (Photo illustration: Victoria Ellis for Yahoo News; photos: Getty Images)
What’s happening
The best data we have available shows that violent crime in the United States has declined significantly over the past couple of years. But ask the average American and they’ll confidently tell you that it’s actually going up.
According to the FBI’s preliminary analysis, crimes like murder, rape and assault fell in 2023 at what could prove to be a record pace, erasing a pandemic-era spike in violent crimes and bringing the national rates near the lowest levels ever recorded. The rate of property crimes like burglary and theft has also declined.
In survey after survey, though, Americans consistently say they believe crime is increasing. In a poll taken late last year, 77% of people said crime is getting worse, and two-thirds said crime is an extremely or very serious problem. The last time Americans were so pessimistic about crime was in the early 1990s, when the violent crime rate was more than double what it is today.
Perception vs. Data
In any given year, most Americans say crime is going up. The best stats we have suggest it has plummeted in recent decades.
Violent crime rate……..Percentage who said crime is rising
This gap between perception and reality has real-world impacts. The campaign to enact police and criminal justice reform gained major momentum in the wake of the nationwide protest movement following George Floyd’s murder in 2020. But it has largely stalled — and in some cases been rolled back — as members of both parties have returned to promoting “tough on crime” policies.
Republicans have also worked to make crime a central issue in the upcoming election, often in connection with immigration based on the false claim that migrants are fueling a national crime wave. They also frequently mischaracterize crime rates in major Democratic-run cities. On Friday, former President Donald Trump, reacting to his own criminal convictions, claimed that crime is “rampant” in New York even though it ranks among the safest cities in the country. Polls suggest that, despite this misleading message, voters trust the GOP to deal with crime much more than Democrats.
Why there’s debate
Part of the disconnect appears to come down to human nature. We tend to put more weight on negative events, whether we experience them personally or simply hear about them, much more than times when everything goes well. Gallup has been polling on perceptions of crime for 25 years, and almost every year a majority of people say it’s going up, even though the actual crime rate has been cut by more than half over that same period.
Experts say there are also plenty of cultural forces that feed our predispositions on crime. Watching the news or using social media, which frequently focuses on out-of-context acts of individual violence, can make crime seem much more prominent than it really is. That’s especially true of conservative media outlets that have a vested interest in promoting the narrative that crime is on the rise.
Politics plays a major role as well. Republicans have been promoting the idea that crime is out of control, especially in blue cities like New York and Chicago, to attack their liberal rivals and draw favor for their “tough on crime” policies for decades. For the most part, though, Democrats have struggled to land on a cohesive narrative to counter these attacks that highlights the progress that has been made without seeming to be dismissive of voters’ concerns.
But some conservative analysts argue that the data is simply wrong and crime has not in fact fallen as much as the numbers would suggest. While the FBI’s figures are the closest thing we have to national crime rates stats, they are far from perfect. They don’t include data from every law enforcement agency in the country and only account for crimes that were in fact reported to police.
Critics say it’s possible that what has really declined is the share of crimes that get reported, either because people distrust the police more recently or because some departments have had their resources cut, not the true crime rate itself. As evidence for this claim, they point to data showing that the share of people who say they’ve been the victim of a crime — whether it was reported or not — did rise in 2022 after falling during the peak of the pandemic.
Perspectives
Good news doesn’t get any attention
“The old adage is that if it bleeds, it leads: Lurid stories attract press coverage. More positive stories, such as the absence of crimes, are less likely to receive attention.” — David A. Graham, The Atlantic
The GOP wants the public to think crime is rampant, and Democrats aren’t eager to counter that message
“Politically, for [Republicans], it would have been helpful if the statistics had been just the opposite. If homicides had gone up, it would have been a useful tool for bashing Democrats in order to take some of the heat off Trump. Democrats, on the other hand, could use the positive stats to bolster policies fostered by the current administration, but they’re being fairly quiet about them because they really want to keep the spotlight on the abortion issue and Trump’s trial.” — EJ Montini, Arizona Republic
Crime hasn’t actually gone down; it has just been reported less
“Americans aren’t mistaken. News reports fail to take into account that many victims aren’t reporting crimes to the police, especially since the pandemic.” — John R. Lott Jr., Wall Street Journal
Social media turns rare incidents into viral moments
“The spread of social media and video technology has made it infinitely easier to film and publicize a viral crime incident such as a large-scale shoplifting spree. There are millions of property crimes occurring each year, but these outlier incidents become the glue people rely on when guesstimating whether crime is up or down. My neighbors never post on NextDoor how many thousands of packages they successfully receive, only video of the one that randomly got swiped.” — Jeff Asher, crime data analyst, via Substack
Conservative media is committed to pushing a false vision of crime
“Even with crime dropping, Fox is still talking about crime as though it’s on the rise. This is often done by cherry-picking, finding a city or a statistic where crime has gone up and then focusing on it. Often, though, it’s simply presented as a given, which its audience — given what it sees on the news — will assume to be the case.” — Philip Bump, Washington Post
Bad data obscures what’s really happening with crime in the U.S.
“I wouldn’t say the FBI is cooking the books, but that the data they are putting out is half-baked. … So it’s not a conspiracy but a rush job, and it’s giving people a false picture. They infer something is true, and then because it’s politically expedient they don’t bother correcting it.” — Sean Kennedy, executive director of the Coalition for Law, Order and Security, to Real Clear Investigations
The chaos of the past few years has left people feeling unsettled and wary of the world around them
“The bottom line is that concern about crime is often a proxy for broader fears about social disorder. Public safety is about more than just the number of robberies and assaults that occur in a given year; it is also about whether people feel safe when they leave their homes. And those vibes have been way off during the past four years.” — Ethan Corey, The Appeal
Will Scharf, an attorney for former President Donald Trump, insisted Sunday that the Biden administration was firmly behind Trump’s prosecution even as ABC’s George Stephanopoulos pushed back on that idea.
Speaking on “This Week,” Scharf responded to Stephanopoulos saying, “Of course, the attorney general of Manhattan has nothing to do with the Department of Justice,” by arguing in response: “I vehemently disagree that the district attorney in New York was not politically motivated here, and I vehemently disagree that President Biden and his political allies aren’t up to their necks in this prosecution.”
Stephanopoulos answered: “There’s no evidence here of that sir. … I’m not going to let you continue to say that — there’s zero evidence of that.”
After some further jousting over the issue, the ABC host tried to steer Scharf back to a question he had asked. “This has nothing to do with President Biden,” he said. “Do you want to answer the question about the sentencing process or not?”
“I completely disagree that this has nothing to do with President Biden,” Scharf said. “With respect to sentencing, as I said before, we’re going to vigorously challenge this case on appeal. I don’t think President Trump is going to end up being subject to any sentence whatsoever.”
In discussing the appeals process, Scharf made it clear that Trump’s appeal of his conviction of 34 felony charges would focus on two areas: Justice Juan Merchan’s decision not to recuse himself amid appearances of bias, and Merchan’s instructions to the jury.
Stephanpoulos pointed out that Scharf himself had praised the jury instructions before the deliberations took place.
“I think: Hope for the best, plan for the worst, George. But I think when you look at the totality of the circumstances in this case,” Scharf responded, “this is a prosecution that should have never been brought. This was a case tried in front of a judge that clearly should have recused. I think we have a lot of fair complaints with the way this trial was conducted and I think ultimately, President Trump will be vindicated on appeal.”
In discussing the effectiveness of the defense team’s legal strategies, Scharf also said it “would have been dangerous” for Trump to testify on his behalf, but that he would have made an effective witness if he had testified.
On Thursday, Scharf sharply criticized the verdict right after it came down.
“This is a tragic day in the history of the American Republic,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “President Trump’s conviction proves one thing and one thing only: that Joe Biden and his allies have weaponized our legal system to persecute their principal political opponent. We will speedily appeal, and we will win on appeal because this case is meritless, baseless, and should have never seen the inside of an American courtroom.”
Stephanopoulos cuts off Trump lawyer after he suggests Biden was behind Trump conviction
Sarah Fortinsky – June 2, 2024
ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos clashed with former President Trump’s attorney, Will Scharf, in a Sunday interview, over the former president’s unsubstantiated claims that President Biden played a role in bringing the hush money criminal case against Trump in New York.
In an interview on “This Week,” Scharf repeatedly echoed claims of the former president, arguing the hush money criminal trial — which ended in a guilty conviction against Trump on 34 felony counts — was “exhibit A” in terms of the “politicization of the legal system.”
“It’s absolutely unprecedented in American history. It’s not the way that our campaigns are supposed to be run. We contest elections at the ballot box, not in the courts in this country,” Scharf continued.
Stephanopoulos conceded Scharf’s point about winning elections at the ballot box but made clear there was no evidence to suggest any involvement of the federal Department of Justice with the New York state criminal trial that just concluded.
“That is true. But, of course, we’ve never had a former president or presidential candidate facing the kind of charges that the president faced because of his own activities. And, of course, the attorney general in Manhattan has nothing to do with the Department of Justice,” Stephanopoulos said.
As Stephanopoulos tried to pivot back to his question about the sentencing process, Scharf pressed on, refusing to concede his point about the prosecution being politically motivated. Stephanopoulos eventually interrupted.
“I vehemently disagree that the district attorney in New York was not politically motivated here,” Scharf said, “and I vehemently disagree that President Biden and his political allies aren’t up to their necks in this prosecution.”
Stephanopoulos jumped in, saying, “There’s no evidence here of that. Sir … I’m not going to let you continue to say that. There’s just zero evidence of that.”
“Do you want to answer the question about the sentencing process or not?” Stephanopoulos added, after some back-and-forth.
Scharf pointed to the prosecutor in the case, Matthew Colangelo, “standing over [District Attorney] Alvin Bragg’s shoulder when he announced this verdict” as evidence of political interference, noting he used to work at the Department of Justice, before the interview wrapped up.
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Cowherd, whose nationally syndicated radio show is simulcast on Fox Sports 1, declared as much after Trump was convicted Thursday of 34 felonies in a historic verdict.
“He’s trying to sell me an America that doesn’t exist,” Cowherd said Thursday on his podcast. “I live in a nice neighborhood in L.A. and it’s not … one of those swanky neighborhoods, but I don’t see crime. I’m not stumbling over homeless people.”
“Dodger Stadium’s full, leads Major League Baseball in attendance,” he continued. “Laker games are full. People have money in their pocket.”
Cowherd argued that the picture of “skyrocketing” crime rates Trump often evokes on the campaign trail is nonexistent — and that violent crimes rates have “plummeted coast to coast” since 2023.
The former president responded to Thursday’s verdict by accusing the justice system of being “rigged.” Cowherd said he thinks Trump, who he called a “con-artist,” is now stoking increasing disillusionment among his supporters.
“Donald Trump is now a felon,” Cowherd said. “His campaign chairman was a felon. So is his deputy campaign manager, his personal lawyer, his chief strategist, his national security adviser, his trade advisor, his foreign policy advisor … they’re all felons.”
The list of Trump’s former team members who’ve been convicted of a crime is expansive. Among them: Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and former campaign vice chairman, Rick Gates; his former fixer, Michael Cohen; his former chief strategist, Steve Bannon; his former national security advisor, Michael Flynn; his former trade advisor, Peter Navarro; and his former foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos.
Trump decried his guilty verdict as “rigged.” Julia Nikhinson/Associated Press
“If everybody in your social circle is a felon, I don’t think it’s ‘rigged,’” Cowherd added. “I don’t think the world’s against you. And to get people to agree on anything, 34 counts? Zero for 34? That’s a batting slump even the New York Mets could be impressed with.”
Louisiana graduate finishes high school as valedictorian while being homeless
Ashley R. Williams, CNN – June 1, 2024
A Louisiana high school senior experiencing homelessness recently graduated at the top of his class with the highest-earned GPA.
Elijah Hogan, 19, was named valedictorian of Walter L. Cohen High School in New Orleans and graduated May 24 with a 3.93 GPA, he told CNN.
Hogan, who became homeless a year and a half ago, says he was in disbelief when he learned of his academic achievement.
“I thought they were mistaking me for someone else, but when I looked at it and I was shown evidence that it was me, I was in awe, like, I was jaw dropped,” said Hogan, who was born in New Orleans and raised mostly in Houston.
Hogan was one of four Black male students who achieved valedictorian status at their New Orleans schools this spring, CNN affiliate WDSU reported.
Hogan, who previously lived with his grandmother since he was 11, says he became homeless after the lease on his grandmother’s house expired when the homeowner decided to sell the property.
He and his grandmother were given 30 days to vacate the house, according to Hogan.
“From there, I made the executive decision to live on my own to lighten my grandmother’s burden,” Hogan told CNN.
While his grandmother went to live in a care home for the elderly, Hogan was left without permanent housing.
His grandmother told him about the Covenant House, a homeless shelter in New Orleans serving youth and young adults ages 16-22. Hogan has been living at the shelter as part of its transitional housing program since he became homeless, he said.
Elijah Hogan, center, proudly holds up his high school diploma from Walter L. Cohen High School. – Courtesy Kewe Ukpolo
The program allows young people to stay at the shelter up to 24 months rent-free, giving them an opportunity to focus on education or to save money while working, Covenant House New Orleans chief executive officer Rheneisha Robertson told CNN.
“It really allows them to get stable and identify more permanent, stable housing,” said Robertson, who added the homeless shelter had five other high school graduates this year.
Hogan, who addressed his graduating class with an uplifting valedictorian speech last week, said dealing with homelessness while completing his education was challenging but he found support from the homeless shelter’s employees and his high school’s staff.
“As time went on, I started to open up to people over at Covenant House as well as Cohen, people were there to support me and give me a guiding hand,” Hogan said. “Without them, I wouldn’t (have) become who I am today.”
He credits his Covenant House case manager, Jarkayla Cobb, with never giving up on him.
“She helped me get through it even when I was showing a lack of faith in myself,” Hogan said. “She’s been there no matter what I needed.”
Hogan, who lost his mother just before he turned 12, says her death encouraged him to push forward with his education for his grandmother’s sake.
“I know that’s what (my mother) would have wanted,” he said.
Hogan plans to attend Xavier University in New Orleans in the fall to study graphic design and has been granted a scholarship to cover his tuition fees, he says.
“Elijah’s accomplishments are worth celebrating. We know that they are a product of his character and the choices he made day after day to pursue his dreams,” Jerel Bryant, chief executive officer of Collegiate Academies, which operates Hogan’s former high school, said in a statement.
“His success is also a testament to how capable and excellent our Black youth are, in New Orleans and across this country,” Bryant said.
Hogan offered these words of encouragement for other young people:
“To any race, no matter what color or accent you have, you are your own guiding light,” Hogan said. “You are your own storybook that you write. Let yourself be the pen that you write on paper.”
