Month: October 2023

Former President Donald Trump was fined $10,000 for violating a gag order in his civil fraud trial in New York after a judge questioned him on the stand about recent comments made by the former president. Trump’s remarks were made during a midmorning break, where he said: “If we had a jury it would have been fair, at least — even if it was a somewhat negative jury — because no negative jury would vote against me. But this judge will. Because this judge is a very partisan judge, with a person who’s very partisan sitting alongside of him, perhaps even much more partisan than he is.”

Judge Arthur Engoron asked Trump, who was on the stand, who he was referring to, and he replied Michael Cohen, the one-time lawyer and fixer for the former president. Engoron inferred Trump’s remarks to mean his clerk, whom Trump had previously criticized as a “partisan Democrat.” Engoron said: “I think I’ve said this before, but the idea the statement of referring to the witness as someone sitting along side me doesn’t make sense to me.” Trump has already been fined $5,000 for violating a gag order Engorn placed on all parties.

Cohen testified for a second day at the New York County Supreme Court civil trial alleging the former president inflated the value of his assets to land better business deals and tax benefits.  During his testimony Cohen said that Trump had asked him to “increase the total assets based upon a number that he arbitrarily elected.” However, Alina Habba, Trump’s attorney, referred to previous Cohen comments where he said Trump did not directly ask him to inflate the numbers.

Led by Trump att’y Alina Habba, Cohen’s cross examination on Wednesday centered on Cohen’s past of lying under oath. During Wednesday’s questioning, Cohen admitted to lying to U.S. District Judge William Henry Pauley III, the late federal judge who sentenced Cohen. Habba also questioned Cohen on how he and Weisselberg drew up the statements of financial condition that included inflated total values for assets.

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Louisiana Rep. Mike Johnson won the House speaker election on Wednesday afternoon in a 220-209 vote on party lines. All 220 Republicans cast their vote for Johnson, while all 209 Democrats voted for Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York. Johnson now becomes second in line to the presidency, finally putting an end to an unprecedented three weeks of disarray among House Republicans after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted from the position in a first-of-its-kind recall on Oct. 3.  Johnson said in his address to the House chamber after his election: “We want our allies around the world to know that this body of lawmakers is again to our duty stations. Let the enemies of freedom around the world hear us loud and clear — the people’s House is back in business.”

After McCarthy’s ouster, Republicans initially nominated Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise, but he learned he would not have enough votes to win the formal speaker election on the House floor and withdrew from consideration. Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan was next selected as the new Republican House speaker nominee but after three rounds of voting Jordan was also unable to secure the number of votes needed to win. Current House majority whip, Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer, was then chosen as the party’s third-choice nominee on Tuesday, but he also dropped out when it became clear that he would not have the necessary 217 votes to become the House speaker in a floor vote.

The House Republican Conference then nominated Johnson, 51, on Tuesday evening, hours after Emmer withdrew his name. Johnson served as a deputy whip for the House GOP and sits on the House Judiciary Committee. He is in his fourth congressional term and, has maintained a relatively low national profile, representing his northwestern Louisiana district since 2017.

Johnson — an election denier and far-right Donald Trump ally whose political positions are largely attributed to his ultraconservative religious views, which have led him to fight for prayer in public schools and lobby against reproductive rights and LGBTQ+ freedoms. He introduced a bill in 2022 aiming to ban mention of sexual orientation and gender identity in federally funded institutions, called the Stop the Sexualization of Children Act. Johnson was one of the leaders of the GOP effort to keep former president Trump in power after his defeat to Joe Biden in 2020. Johnson led the amicus brief, signed by 100 Republicans, backing a Texas lawsuit seeking to invalidate the 2020 election results in four swing states won by Biden.

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Republicans have chosen their fourth House Speaker candidate, Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., in a secret-ballot vote Tuesday evening. Johnson was selected the party’s new nominee after multiple rounds of voting, and after Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota dropped his bid for the position. The House has been without a speaker for three weeks after former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California was ousted from the leadership role.

Johnson received 128 votes in the final round during the 8 p.m. EDT meeting, with Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., getting 29 votes. Five speaker candidates made their pitches to the conference before voting began — Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, R-Tenn., was the first candidate knocked out of the running, followed by Rep. Roger Williams, R-Texas, in the second round of voting. Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., dropped out after Williams was eliminated.

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., won multiple rounds of voting earlier in the day to become the party’s third nominee before being forced to drop his bid just three hours after GOP members chose him, in the face of staunch opposition from within the conference, as well as former President Donald Trump.
Twenty-six Republicans reportedly either voted present or for another candidate, indicating that Emmer was far from the 217 votes needed to win. After meeting with holdouts on Tuesday afternoon, Emmer stepped aside.

Johnson, 51, was elected to Congress in 2016 and has avoided making political enemies in the House. Johnson is a lawyer specializing in constitutional issues, he had rallied Republicans around Trump’s legal effort to overturn the 2020 election results. To secure the speakership, Johnson will need to win at least 217 of the 221 Republican votes. It remains unclear if Johnson can get to 217 to break the GOP stalemate. A floor vote could happen as early as Wednesday afternoon

Republicans are now faced with trying again to choose a new speaker who can credibly unite the GOP majority, lead the party and get the U.S. Congress working again.

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Michael Cohen, former attorney to Donald Trump, testified against the former president today in New York’s civil fraud lawsuit. The trial will determine how much Trump owes to the state of New York after he, several of his adult children, and his business associates were found liable for fraud. The court determined Trump overvalued his properties and inflated his net worth over several years, thus deceiving banks, investors, and insurers.

When entering the court, Cohen told reporters: “This is not about Donald Trump vs. Michael Cohen, or Michael Cohen vs. Donald Trump… this is about accountability, plain and simple.”

Trump told reporters outside of the courtroom that he and his attorneys were “not worried at all about his testimony …I haven’t seen him in years. And you know his record. His record is a horrible one. All you have to do is ask the Southern District of New York, he’s got a horrible record.” 

Cohen testified on Tuesday that Trump directed him and former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg to inflate the value of his assets to “whatever number” the former president asked for. Said Cohen: “He would look at the total assets and say ‘I’m actually not worth 4.5 billion. I am really worth more like $6 billion’. My responsibility, along with Allen Weisselberg predominantly, was to reverse engineer the various different asset classes and increase those assets […] to achieve a number Mr. Trump asked us.”

Cohen’s court appearance at Trumps trial marked the first time Trump and Cohen have been in the same room in over five years. Cohen’s falling out with the former president dates back to 2018, when Cohen was embroiled in allegations that he had helped coordinate hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels to buy her silence ahead of the 2016 election over an alleged affair with Trump. In 2018, Cohen was convicted of having committed campaign finance violations when he made the payments and sentenced to 36 months in prison, before being released from prison early in 2020. Cohen pleaded guilty to having lied to Congress about the details of a proposed business deal between Russia and the Trump Organization in a separate case that same year.

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