Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

Fox News settles with Venezuelan businessman in election defamation lawsuit

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Fox News said on Sunday it has reached a settlement with a Venezuelan businessman Majed Khalil, ending a defamation case in which Khalil said he was falsely accused on air of helping to rig the 2020 U.S. presidential election against Donald Trump.

Khalil had filed a defamation suit against the news outlet and former host Lou Dobbs, arguing in filings that they had fabricated claims he and other Venezuelans were involved in "orchestrating a non-existent scheme to rig or fix the election" against the former Republican president.

A short letter sent to U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton in Manhattan on Saturday said the parties had reached a "confidential agreement to resolve this matter" and expected to file a joint stipulation of dismissal next week.

"This matter has been resolved amicably by both sides. We have no further comment," Fox News said in a statement on Sunday.

Lawyers for Fox News and Dobbs referred Reuters to the statement. Khalil's lawyer did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

Trump has continued to repeat debunked claims of widespread voting fraud as reason for his loss to Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 election even after they have been roundly rejected by courts, state governments and members of his own former administration.

Jury selection is set to begin on Thursday ahead of a separate trial in Dominion Voting Systems Corp's $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News and its parent company Fox Corp over their coverage of debunked election-rigging claims.

© Reuters

[Rick Plant]

Bill Barr foresees Trump indictment from feds: 'He had no claim to those documents'



Former Attorney General Bill Barr said that former President Donald Trump would likely be prosecuted after he refused to return classified documents to the federal government.

On Sunday, Barr told ABC News that Trump should be "most concerned about the documents case" despite the former president's recent arrest in New York.

"I'd be most concerned about the document case in Mar-a-Lago because from what I can see, you know, when it first came out, a lot of Republicans manned the ramparts and were dumping all over the FBI and the government," Barr said. "He had no claim to those documents, especially the classified documents. They belonged to the government."

"And so, I think he was jerking the government around, and they subpoenaed it, and they tried to jawbone him into delivery of the documents," he continued. "I think they probably have some very good evidence there."

Barr explained why special counsel Jack Smith was likely to prosecute Trump.

"I don't know him well, but by reputation, he's a very dogged, aggressive prosecutor who will get to the bottom of what happened," he said of Smith. "And this is one of the things that leads me to believe that if there's a case there to be made, it will be brought, because I think the attorney general would have selected another kind of special counsel if he wanted more discretion exercise, like, well, yeah, there's a case, but we don't want to bring that case here because there's a lot of reasons against the public."

Watch the clip from ABC here: https://twitter.com/i/status/1645068527747858432

[Rick Plant]

'Normal people are repulsed by Trump': The Manhattan indictment is chasing away independent voters



Any hopes that the Republican party might have that the indictment of Donald Trump in a Manhattan courtroom last Tuesday will convince outraged independent voters to jump on the Trump train should be put on hold, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

While GOP lawmakers are rallying to the former president's side despite a whopping 34 felony counts related to his alleged payment of hush money to an adult film star and a Playboy model, independent voters and some two-time Trump voters are saying they have had enough and are moving on.

According to the Journal's John McCormick, "While the indictment may embolden Mr. Trump’s core supporters, it is unlikely to help him reach more of the centrist voters he would need to reclaim the White House. A poll released by CNN last week showed 62% of independents approve of the indictment, while Democrats were nearly universal in their approval of it and Republicans largely disapproved of it."

Case in point, Randy Marquardt, the Republican party chairman in Washington County, Wisconsin, said a recent get-together broke up when Trump's name came up as the possible 2024 presidential nominee.

“It got ugly and people eventually went their separate ways to head home,” explained Marquardt. “The other guy argued that Trump came with too much baggage, but there are still quite a few people who are all in with Trump.”

Dallas lawyer David Sherwood, who voted for Mr. Trump in 2016 and 2020, has no desire to see the indicted former president on the ballot in 2024, telling the Journal, "The party should avoid Trump and find a younger and fresher candidate,” before adding, “I don’t think Trump can win because he has too much baggage. He has good policies, but an abrasive personality.”

Independent Josh Olson, of Huntersville, N.C., predicted Republicans would have trouble appealing to voters like himself.

“A lot of us normal people are repulsed by Trump already, whether he was indicted or not,” he explained.

Kevin Welch, an independent living in Pottsville, Pa. said he would be willing to consider a Republican who is not the former president even though he voted for him twice before.

“He’s just too caustic,” he remarked. “I liked some of the things he did for this country, but the division that he causes, because of the words he uses, creates a lot of tension.”

Read more here:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/for-some-trump-voters-legal-drama-is-latest-reason-to-move-on-177b67b5?mod=hp_lead_pos1

[Rick Plant]

On Easter Sunday, Criminal Donald was calling for World War III on his failed social media site. Even on the most religious holiday, this lunatic is calling for war & violence. Donnie must be getting scared of his upcoming Fulton County, Georgia and DOJ indictments.     

[Rick Plant]

Fact check: Eric Trump spreads false claims about Alvin Bragg after Donald Trump's arrest
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2023/04/07/fact-check-eric-trump-spreads-false-claims-alvin-bragg/11608149002/

[Rick Plant]

No, Criminal Donald is not "surging in the polls" as MAGAs falsely try to claim. Donnie's numbers are going further down the toilet.   

A new ABC/Ipsos poll pegs Trump's favorable rating at just 25%.

[Rick Plant]

Donnie is so toxic, that even members of his own party don't want him around.

Some Republicans are begging Trump to stay out of their primaries

One of the biggest problems that Republicans faced in 2022 is that the majority of Americans didn't want to vote for them. They lost all but one U.S. Senate seat they were hoping to hold onto and failed to take back others. The so-called "red wave" they were bragging would happen failed.

The Washington Examiner reported Monday that the GOP is begging Donald Trump to keep out of the 2024 race.

Steve "Daines has reportedly been in touch with the former president and Donald Trump Jr., his eldest son and a friend of the Montana senator, as part of a larger effort to keep all camps on the same page about candidate selection matters," said the report. "The goal is to avoid messy primary fights that left weakened some 2022 candidates in their general election contests. The stakes are especially high given that Republicans only need to net two seats to win back the Senate in 2024."

"If I were [Daines], I’d focus on his own election, but I doubt if he’ll take that advice," said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). “You need to learn from your past mistakes. If you don’t make adjustments, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome, it’s insanity.”

"Sure seems like that would be helpful based on our lack of success in 2022," said Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-SD).

"I hope he stays out because him getting involved last time led to us losing key Senate races we could have won," Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) said. “I think it’s viewed [that way] by almost every single member of the caucus, if not all of them, but I think few will say it because they don’t want to get the wrath of Donald Trump.”

Daines is also looking to try and take out Sen. Jon Tester, a centrist Democrat who is beloved in deep-red Montana.

Then there's the matter of Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who left the Democratic Party and thinks she can win as an independen. Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb just filed to run as a Republican against her. It's unclear whether Trump ally Kari Lake would run in the race.

Read the full report here: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/campaigns/senate-gop-nrsc-trump-primaries-2024


Trump expected to return to NYC this week for deposition in $250 million state civil case

Donald Trump is expected to return to New York City this week to be deposed in a case over financial records, but this time he isn't facing criminal charges.

The former president will be back in the Big Apple on Thursday to be deposed in a $250 million New York State civil lawsuit Attorney General Letitia James filed last year, CNN reports.

Trump will return to New York just more than a week after Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg indicted the former president on 34 felony counts over election interference centering around alleged hush money payments to Stormy Daniels.

The lawsuit alleges that Trump, along with his children and the Trump Organization defrauded lenders and insurers, among other business entities.

“This conduct cannot be brushed aside and dismissed as some sort of good-faith mistake,” James told reporters around the time of the filing on Sept. 21.

According to CNN, the lawsuit alleges that Trump and his associates “repeatedly and persistently to induce banks to lend money to the Trump Organization on more favorable terms than would otherwise have been available to the company, to satisfy continuing loan covenants, and to induce insurers to provide insurance coverage for higher limits and at lower premiums.”

Trump was deposed in the case in August of last year, but the former president asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to more than 400 questions — and it is not clear whether he plans to cooperate this time.

Trump before last year’s deposition defended his decision to assert his Fifth Amendment right.

“Anyone in my position not taking the Fifth Amendment would be a fool, an absolute fool,” Trump said in a video of the deposition released by the Attorney General’s Office.

“One statement or answer that is ever so slightly off, just ever so slightly by accident, by mistake, such as it was a sunny, beautiful day when actually it was slightly overcast, would be met by law enforcement.”

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-deposition-2659789406/