Month: September 2022

Categories
Capitol Insurrection January 6 The Trump Adminstration

White House Switchboard Called A Capitol Rioter During January 6 Attack: Report

 

A senior adviser to the House Select Committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol has revealed that on the day of the riots, the White House switchboard called a rioter as the attack was taking place.

Denver Riggleman, who served as a senior technical adviser to the Jan. 6 panel, told 60 Minutes correspondent Bill Whitaker:

“You get a real ‘a-ha’ moment when you see that the White House switchboard had connected to a rioter’s phone while it’s happening. That’s a big, pretty big ‘a-ha’ moment.”

Riggleman, a former GOP congressman from the state of Virginia who also served as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Air Force, added:

“I only know one end of that call. I don’t know the White House end, which I believe is more important. But the thing is the American people need to know that there are link connections that need to be explored more.”

What remains to be seen, Riggleman noted, is who exactly in the White House reached out to a rioter right as the Capitol was under violent attack, and what that individual was trying to communicate:

 “From my perspective…being in counterterrorism. If the White House, even if it’s a short call, and it’s a connected call, who is actually making that phone call?”

That led Whitaker to inquire:

“Is there a simple, innocent explanation for that?”

Riggleman:

“Was it an accidental call? When the White House just happened to call numbers that somebody misdialed a rioter that day, on January 6th? Probably not.”

CBS News also notes that the House Select Committee has done extensive research on communications during the fateful events of Jan. 6 which resulted in the deaths of five people, including a member of the U.S. Capitol Police:

The call was uncovered after Riggleman assembled a small team of data miners and analysts for the committee to comb through 20 million lines of data: emails, social media posts, phone records, and texts, to learn who did what leading up to and on January 6th.

“We were able to do things, I think, in a way that had never been done before with millions of lines of data,” Riggleman said. “And to actually create a graph that shows how these groups actually intermingled.”

Among those groups, Riggleman explained, were “Trump team, Trump family, rally goers, unaffiliated DOJ-charged defendants, Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, and others, which are state legislators, alternate electors, things like that.”

The House Select Committee resumes its hearings on September 28.

 

Categories
Elections GOP Immigration WTF?!

Sickening GOP Fundraising Email Asks: ‘Where Do You Want Republicans To Send Illegal Immigrants Next?’

Now that the Republican Party has made it clear they will do absolutely anything — including putting innocent people in harm’s way — for publicity and free media coverage, they’re now trying to raise money off their disgusting actions that endanger the lives of people who simply want to live in freedom and peace.

The GOP just sent out a fundraising email to supporters in which they not only beg for contributions, but also implore those who do contribute to tell answer a question: Where do you want us to send illegal immigrants next now that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) has shipped almost 50 of them to Martha’s Vineyard.

Business Insider notes:

A baked-in poll, which may not collect any data but definitely accepts donations, asks MAGA fans to choose which Democratic enclave to disrupt next: former President Barack Obama’s house, the White House, San Francisco, or some other location. The Martha’s Vineyard incident has sparked mounting lawsuits against DeSantis as well as a wave of calls for Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate potential criminal violations. 

Even though he has been indirectly critical of Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) revealed that he supported sending immigrants to Democratic locations, telling reporters. “I personally thought it was a good idea.”

But there were plenty of others who don’t think it’s a good idea, and harshly criticized the fundraising email.

Categories
Donald Trump

Trump’s Latest Bizarre Interview Hints At Serious Cognitive Problems: Report

During an interview this week with Fox News host Sean Hannity, disgraced, failed, one-term, twice-impeached former president Donald Trump asserted that he declassified all of the highly sensitive documents he illegally took from the White House.

Did Donald go through the arduous process for declassifying those documents? No. According to him, he declassified them with his mind, telling Hannity:

“There doesn’t have to be a process as I understand it. If you’re the president of the United States, you can declassify just by saying, ‘It’s declassified,’ even by thinking about it because you’re sending it to Mar-a-Lago or wherever you’re sending it. And there doesn’t have to be a process. There can be a process but there doesn’t have to be. You’re the president. You make that decision. So when you send it, it’s declassified. I declassified everything.”

Problem is, that’s not how it works. That’s not how any of this works.

The Hannity-Trump interview led the ex-president’s former attorney, Michael Cohen, to suggest that the Donald’s mental acuity has degraded considerably since he left the White House.

Appearing on CNN, Cohen told host Sara Sidner:

“There’s something very different about Donald Trump today than the Donald Trump I remember at the Trump Organization.

“I think cognitively there’s something seriously going on. He’s so worried about what’s going on, not just in this case but in all of the cases, that I really do believe that cognitively there’s something going on there because nobody, even Donald — he’s not stupid enough to believe that you can mentally declassify documents.”

Cohen added:

“He knew what documents were there. I mean, there’s nuclear documents and we don’t even know which ones that they are, we don’t know what country they relate to. And I believe he took those documents and all of them in order to use against the United States in the event that he is indicted or potentially incarcerated. “It’s a ‘get out of jail free’ card.”

And Cohen also noted that the ex-president will toss anyone and everyone to the wolves to save his own hide:

“There’s nothing that he won’t do to protect himself because he doesn’t care about anyone else other than himself. In fact, he’ll let his kids go down before him. He’ll let them fall on the sword the same way he let me fall on the sword. That’s who he is.”

Categories
Business Donald Trump Social Media

Investors Dump Trump’s Truth Social Site And Withdraw Millions As It Nears Financial Collapse

Failed, one-term, twice-impeached former president Donald Trump’s fledgling social media site, Truth Social, appears to be headed for a quick demise, much like nearly every business venture the Donald has attempted over the course of his life.

According to Reuters, major investors are now withdrawing millions of dollars in financing.

Some investors are backing out of Digital World Acquisition Corp’s (DWAC.O) plan to acquire former U.S. President Donald Trump’s social media firm Truth Social, the blank-check firm said on Friday.

Digital World said it had received termination notices from private investment in public equity (PIPE) investors ending nearly $139 million in investments out of the $1 billion commitment it had previously announced.

That move by some investors could lead to a complete collapse of the deal, which would mean Truth Social no longer has any operating capital. That would lead to the death of the site.

More investors could pull out in the next few weeks, sources said, as they can terminate anytime after the deadline. Many are waiting for DWAC to propose more preferred terms to PIPE investors, sources added.

Truth Social was created by Trump because he was permanently banned from both Twitter and Facebook. The plan was to serve as an alternative to those sites, but Truth Social has suffered numerous setbacks since it first launched.

The biggest problem for Truth Social, however, has been a lack of interest by potential users. So far, the site only has approximately 550,000 active daily users. In contrast, Twitter has 217 million.

Just last month, it was reported that Truth Social was unable to pay its bills, including for the server which hosts the site:

There are signs that the company’s financial base has begun to erode. The Trump company stopped paying RightForge, a conservative web-hosting service, in March and now owes it more than $1 million, according to Fox Business, which first reported the dispute.

The company also has struggled with some basics of corporate operation. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office this month denied its application to trademark “Truth Social,” citing the “likelihood of confusion” to other similarly named companies, including an app, “VERO — True Social,” first released in 2015.

 

Categories
Crime Donald Trump The Trump Organization

Trump’s Financial Penalty For Inflating His Net Worth Could Reach $1 Billion: Report

In addition to possibly watching as New York Attorney General Letitia James shuts down the Trump Organization, failed, one-term former president Donald Trump is also facing the prospect of having to pay up to $1 billion in financial penalties to the state for inflating the value of his business.

That’s the opinion of Trump’s former attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen, who floated the $1 billion figure during an appearance on MSNBC Thursday.

Speaking with host Ari Melber, Cohen remarked:

“I think Tish James is fantastic. I think she is an incredible attorney general, and an attorney general that I wish every single state in this country had. I actually wish [Manhattan DA] Alvin Bragg had been a little more Tish James. Though I’m going give Alvin a little bit of leeway as we now in October have the case against the Trump Organization … you cannot separate the Trump Organization from Donald.”

The led Melber to ask:

“Knowing him well, where do you think his head and emotions are at today, when he sees the prospect that he could really be booted from New York business, not him or his kids able to run any business here?”

Cohen replied:

“One of the things you talked about at the beginning, she’s seeking $250 million. That’s not accurate. What she said was the baseline of $250 million. Knowing the documents the way I do and knowing exactly the fraud that was going on, I see the number between $750 million and $1 billion.”

Imagine it: Trump is forbidden from ever doing business in the state of New York, the Trump Organization is permanently shuttered, and on top of that, the Donald has to pay $1 billion in penalties to the Empire State. He doesn’t have $1 billion, and no one is going to loan him a sum that large. He’d be forced to declare bankruptcy and liquidate all his assets.

Sounds about right considering all the harm Trump has done to this country.