Top Republicans refusing to come to Trump's defense after criminal referrals

Ryan King

December 20, 07:56 AM December 20, 08:24 AM

A number of top Senate Republicans are refusing to come to former President Donald Trump's defense in the wake of the Jan. 6 committee making a number of criminal referrals to the Justice Department.

After the referrals were made Monday, top party officials refused to defend Trump, sidestepped questions about the former president's woes, and called for the DOJ to have the final say on what happens next.

“The entire nation knows who is responsible for that day. Beyond that, I don’t have any immediate observations," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) declared in response to questions about the referrals.

'THESE FOLKS DON'T GET IT': TRUMP DISMISSES JAN. 6 CRIMINAL REFERRALS, SAYS IT ONLY MAKES HIM STRONGER

On Monday, the Jan. 6 committee unveiled criminal referrals for Trump to the Department of Justice on four categories of criminal conduct: obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to make a false statement, and inciting an insurrection.

Trump unsuccessfully prodded Senate Republicans to oust McConnell, but the Kentucky sage managed to overcome an effort to usurp his seat from Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) earlier this year. Some Republicans aligned with him echoed similar sentiments.

“It’s up to Justice now,” Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-SD) said, per the Hill. “[The panel] interviewed some credible witnesses.”

“I think the referrals are not as important as the report. The report’s important, even though it came out of a partisan process,” Sen Rob Portman (R-OH) told the outlet. "The testimony is the testimony, and they were able to get the testimony from most of the people they wanted — not everybody but most — and I think most of the significant figures.”

Back in early 2021, seven Republican senators voted to convict Trump and remove him from office during the second impeachment for his actions surrounding the Capitol riot — a higher rate of party defections than in the House. Unsurprisingly, many of those senators appeared open-minded to the referral.

“I am not a lawyer and certainly not a prosecutor,” outgoing Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), who voted to convict, said, the Hill reported. “I don’t know the legal basis of it, but you know what I think of what the president did that day."

“Obviously they spent considerable time and [went into] great detail over many months they have investigated this,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) contended, according to the Hill. “I think it’s going to be important for us to read this report that will be coming out Wednesday."

Trump himself shrugged off the referrals, proclaiming "what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger," and chalked up the development as "a partisan attempt to sideline me and the Republican Party." Criminal referrals are ultimately nonbinding. It will be up to the DOJ to decide whether or not to bring forward charges.

Special counsel Jack Smith has been appointed to oversee the DOJ's sprawling investigation of the Jan. 6 riot and coinciding efforts to overturn the 2020 election — an inquiry done in tandem with the Jan. 6 committee's review. He is expected to weigh criminal charges against Trump in that matter, as well as the other investigation he is overseeing pertaining to the Mar-a-Lago document saga.

The Jan. 6 committee is expected to release the final report of its findings on Wednesday.

Trump likens US to 'person dying of cancer' in fiery tirade against FBI

Ryan King

December 17, 01:33 PM December 17, 01:34 PM

Former President Donald Trump likened the current outlook of the United States to a "person dying of cancer" in a scathing Truth Social post about the FBI.

Talking about Friday's fresh revelations from the Twitter Files that the social media giant had "constant and pervasive" communications with the bureau, Trump declared that such "thugs and Tyrants must be dealt with," or else, the country could meet its demise.

REP. BRAD WENSTRUP SAYS THAT TRUST IN FBI IS 'WANING' IN CONGRESS AMID TWITTER FILES

"Our Country is SICK inside, very much like a person dying of Cancer. The Crooked FBI, the so-called Department of 'Justice,' and 'Intelligence,' all parts of the Democrat Party and System, is the Cancer. These Weaponized Thugs and Tyrants must be dealt with, or our once great and beautiful Country will die!!!" Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.

On Friday, journalist Matt Taibbi revealed that the FBI often flagged content for Twitter to review for content moderation purposes and underscored that there had been over 150 emails between the bureau and former Twitter trust and safety chief Yoel Roth between January 2020 to November 2022. At one point, Twitter executives had near weekly meetings with law enforcement officials, the journalist noted.

Newly anointed Twitter CEO Elon Musk has given sprawling internal Twitter access to Taibbi, journalist Bari Weiss, and author Michael Shellenberger, who have released the so-called Twitter Files outlining internal company deliberations on content moderation and key flashpoints such as the suspension of Trump's account following the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

"This (the FBI’s wild and crazy relationship with Twitter) is absolutely a coordinated effort to change Election Results! It worked, but they got caught. This is why people protested in Washington. Our 2020 Presidential Election was Crooked, Rigged, and Stolen, and yet the Unselect Committee of Political Hacks & Thugs didn’t spend any time investigating this outrage!" the former president wrote in another post.

Earlier this week, Trump vowed to ban the federal government from "colluding with any organization" if he retakes the White House in 2024. He laid out a litany of measures he would pursue in a hypothetical second term as president to counter the concerns conservatives have raised about censorship in light of the Twitter Files.

His policy announcement, which came Thursday, was overshadowed by the debut of the Donald Trump Digital Trading Card collection, in which his followers could pay $99 for a digital card bearing his likeness. Some of his closest allies, such as Steve Bannon, criticized the move. Nevertheless, the collection reportedly sold out and amassed $4.5 million.

Donald Trump is 'absolutely guilty' of a crime ahead of Jan. 6 report release: Kinzinger

Ryan King

December 15, 08:27 AM December 15, 08:31 AM

Former President Donald Trump is "absolutely guilty" of a crime in relation to the Jan. 6 riots, committee member and outgoing Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger said.

Kinzinger made the comments during an interview this week, discussing how Trump pressured officials at the Justice Department to say the election was "stolen" and sat in the Oval Office "actively resisting pressure" to quell the rioters.

"I have to caveat it with that I'm not a Justice Department official. They have different levels of standards," Kinzinger told CNN. "I think he is absolutely guilty. And if he is not guilty of some kind of a crime, I mean, what we've basically said is presidents are above the law and they can do everything short of a coup as long as it doesn't succeed."

JAN. 6 COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN ANNOUNCES LAST PUBLIC MEETING AHEAD OF FINAL REPORT

"[Trump] knew what was happening prior to Jan. 6, he pressured the Justice Department officials to say, 'Hey, just say the election was stolen and leave the rest to me,'" Kinzinger continued. "Then you look at the 187 minutes where he sat in his office, not indecisive, I think indecisive would be probably complementary. He was actively resisting pressure from his family and from his staff to stop that from happening."

The Jan. 6 committee is poised to hold its final public meeting on Dec. 19 and is expected to unveil any criminal referrals from its investigation. It has reportedly been mulling criminal referrals for Trump, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, attorney John Eastman, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark.

Then, on Dec. 21, the panel will release its long-anticipated final report, committee Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) told reporters this week. Criminal referrals are nonbinding, and it will be up to law enforcement agencies to decide whether or not to move forward with criminal charges.

Even if the DOJ doesn't pursue criminal charges against Trump, Kinzinger insisted the committee's efforts will not have been in vain.

"The information that who is responsible — that's very important. Showing the American people the true nature of what happened — that's very important. Where I think this work is going to actually echo the loudest though is not even necessarily tomorrow," Kinzinger added. "It's going to echo through the history books."

As the panel wraps up its work, newly appointed special counsel Jack Smith is spearheading the DOJ's investigations related to Trump, including Trump's actions surrounding the Capitol riot and coinciding efforts to thwart the 2020 election. Trump, who launched his 2024 campaign last month, has denied wrongdoing and blasted both Smith and the Jan. 6 committee for conducting a witch hunt.

Kinzinger opted not to vie for reelection in the midterm elections and is set to depart Congress in January.

Kara Young says ex-boyfriend Trump's 'white side' comment wasn't anything serious

Brady Knox

November 01, 10:52 PM November 01, 10:53 PM

Donald Trump's biracial ex-girlfriend backed up a claim in New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman's biography of the former president in which Haberman writes that Trump said the model got her intelligence from her father, "the white side."

In an interview with Inside Edition, Young spoke about her relationship with Trump publicly for the first time and, she claimed, for the last time.

The supermodel painted a mostly positive picture of Trump, insisting that the two had a good relationship and had ended things amicably. However, she also claimed in the interview that Haberman's anecdote that he told her she got her intelligence from her father, "the white side," was true, though she didn't appear to think too much of it.

JAN. 6 COMMITTEE NEGOTIATING MULTIDAY TESTIMONY FROM TRUMP: CHENEY

"Yeah, that's true," Young said when asked about the anecdote, visibly sighing afterward. She clarified that he was joking, and she wasn't entirely sure what to make of it.

"When someone says something in jest, are they kidding? You know, I don't know," she said. "It wasn't like a fight or anything like that. It was just more like, 'No, don't say that. It's not funny,'" after which he apparently clarified, "I was just joking. You know I don't think that."

Young and Trump dated for two years, with her being the businessman's last girlfriend before his current marriage to Melania. Young appeared to give a positive impression of him, saying, "I know it's hard to believe, but he's very funny and has a really good personality."

She added that they never fought during the relationship, and things ended on a positive note. The last time she talked with Trump was in 2016 when she called him to congratulate him on his presidential victory.

Young had previously refused to comment publicly on her relationship with Trump, but renewed attention after Haberman's book led her to finally speak out, albeit briefly. She made it clear that she intended the interview to be the last time she would speak publicly about the relationship.

Trump PAC pays around $1 million to attorney in New York investigation

Brady Knox

September 21, 10:37 PM September 21, 10:38 PM

Former President Donald Trump's political action committees have paid more than $1 million in service fees to his lawyer in the New York investigation, Alina Habba.

Most of this dollars, $943,000, has been paid considering the fact that April by Trump's Save The us PAC, according to marketing campaign finance disclosures, ABC News claimed. The payments are established to boost dramatically in gentle of New York Attorney General Letitia James's sweeping Wednesday lawsuit in search of $250 million.

Trump's PACs have paid a considerable total in authorized resources, with the Help save America PAC by itself paying out $7 million given that its launch in 2020, according to the outlet.

'ART OF THE STEAL': NEW YORK AG LETITIA JAMES UNVEILS FRAUD LAWSUIT Versus TRUMP AND Children

James's newest lawsuit statements that Trump and his corporation "regularly and persistently manipulated the price of assets to induce financial institutions to lend funds to the Trump Corporation on a lot more favorable phrases than [what] would or else have been available to the corporation."

Trump has fervently denied the accusations.

"It is abundantly clear that the Legal professional General’s Place of work has exceeded its statutory authority by prying into transactions where absolutely no wrongdoing has taken area," Habba explained in a assertion obtained by the Washington Examiner. "We are self-assured that our judicial technique will not stand for this unchecked abuse of authority, and we glance ahead to defending our consumer."

James has also engendered criticism within just her very own party, with previous New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, submitting a lawsuit accusing her of improperly handling the investigation into his alleged sexual assaults of many gals, stating she utilized it to additional her personal vocation.