webodec3ARCHIVEPreview
Open in TheBrain

lawfare DOJ weaponiz BS

estb 4 24 PRIMARY 1 25

11 24 convert BS bannon retaliation

SO TWO ASPECTS, 1ST IS 2 TIER LAW USED UNFAIRLY FOR WITCHHUNT ON TRUMP ; TWO IS RETALIATORY AND EXCULPAToRY/COMPENSATORY BS LEGAL ATTACKS ON LEGIT CRITICS /PROSECUTORS OF TRUMP AND GOP CRIMES EG JAN 6 COMM LIZ C, SCHIFF BY KASH PATEL BONDI BANNON

3 trump doj attacks on critics // fascism

SEE FASCISM

SEE LAWFARE BY TRUMP DOJ BONDI BOVE

not sure what to do with this cat

it’s rubber glue projections? tries to negate 4 trials plus and 34 felonies

SEE EARTH2 ECHO ESCALATOR

also sorta GENERIC EG oge OFFICE GOVT ETHICS?

---

---

-=-=

AN 10 26

According to a new exclusive report by the Wall Street Journal published on Thursday, the Department of Justice is seeking to relitigate the legacy of disgraced former President Richard Nixon. “For nearly two years, the Justice Department has made it a priority to investigate people who previously investigated President Trump,” writes the Journal. Now, “the department is reviewing whether the special prosecutor’s office that investigated the famed Watergate break-in committed misconduct, according to people familiar with the matter, more than half a century after that scandal led to Nixon’s resignation.”

According to the Journal, Geoff Shepard – a former Nixon aide turned Watergate historian and revisionist – recently delivered a two-hour presentation at Justice Department headquarters that laid out his theory that the deep state took Nixon down. The title of his 78-page slide deck was “Watergate As Lawfare," and the language used by Shepard is notably similar to that wielded by Trump when complaining about investigations against him, as he has long asserted that “deep state” actors have waged “lawfare” against him on behalf of his opponents.

“The review comes at a moment of renewed interest in the Nixon legacy,” writes the Journal. “Republicans see in the combative former president, who was loathed by the press and besieged by investigations, a historical analogue for Trump. During remarks at the Nixon Presidential Library this summer, Vice President JD Vance made the comparison explicit.” In Vance’s estimation, “If you look at the story of how the deep state took down Richard Nixon, it’s not all that different from what the same groups of people — the same institutions — tried to do to Donald Trump in the first Trump administration. There is a parallel.”

The Journal reports that a senior Justice Department official invited Shepard to come to Justice Department headquarters and make his case before the Office of Professional Responsibility, an internal watchdog that investigates allegations of misconduct. Ironically, notes the Journal, “the office itself is a product of the Watergate era, one of a number of changes aimed at shielding criminal investigations from White House influence.” Shepard has previously requested an investigation into his theories during the Biden Administration, but was denied.

“Shepard has served as a sort of godfather for the Watergate revisionists,” writes the Journal. “Mainstream scholars have long concluded that Watergate generated a genuine constitutional crisis and that Nixon, not those who investigated him, was guilty of a malfeasance which not only doomed his presidency but also led to overhauls that significantly curtailed executive power. Nixon’s tenure has been of growing interest to Trump, Vance and the larger conservative movement. Trump has asked former Nixon aides on several occasions why Nixon resigned rather than fight it out. The current president also has moved to roll back many post-Watergate overhauls, challenging limits on presidential authority to fire inspectors general and career civil servants.”

-=-=

---

MMA

Right-wing media celebrate Trump’s revenge tour

Written by Isabella Corrao & Helena Hind

Research contributions from Jane Lee

Published 10/24/25

Right-wing media are rejoicing over President Donald Trump’s execution of his promised revenge tour. In the first nine months of his second administration, the president has targeted political opponents and Democrat-led cities, states, and institutions. From indictments against Trump's former FBI director and national security advisor, to threats to revoke federal funding, to the deployment of the National Guard in cities, right-wing media figures have defended, justified, and commended Trump’s actions through it all.

Donald Trump has targeted political opponents and Democrat-led cities, states, and institutions

:{---

===

// sue wsj for biday card

an 10 25

Trump reportedly appears to be demanding the U.S. Department of Justice pay him $230 million in compensation after multiple investigations during his presidential campaign.

"The situation has no parallel in American history, as Mr. Trump, a presidential candidate, was pursued by federal law enforcement and eventually won the election, taking over the very government that must now review his claims," The New York Times, citing people familiar with the matter, reported.

Noting that President Trump has installed his former personal lawyers at the top of the DOJ, the Times called it "the starkest example yet of potential ethical conflicts."

Trump, according to the Times, in 2023, submitted a claim that "seeks damages for a number of purported violations of his rights, including the F.B.I. and special counsel investigation into Russian election tampering and possible connections to the 2016 Trump campaign, according to people familiar with the matter."

READ MORE: Not a ‘Gut-Wrenching’ Problem: Ron Johnson Shrugs Off Millions Losing Subsidies

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

Another complaint, filed the following year, "accuses the F.B.I. of violating Mr. Trump’s privacy by searching Mar-a-Lago, his club and residence in Florida, in 2022 for classified documents."

Bennett L. Gershman, an ethics professor at Pace University, told the Times it was "a travesty."

“The ethical conflict is just so basic and fundamental, you don’t need a law professor to explain it,” Gershmann said. "And then to have people in the Justice Department decide whether his claim should be successful or not, and these are the people who serve him deciding whether he wins or loses. It’s bizarre and almost too outlandish to believe.”

READ MORE: ‘Sick’: Jeffries Torches Trump’s ‘Out of Control’ Press Secretary

---

---}:

MMA

Why the right-wing media apparatus is suddenly yelling about Jack Smith supposedly spying on GOP senators

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 10/07/25

Republicans and their right-wing media allies yesterday spun out frothy allegations about former special counsel Jack Smith purportedly “spying on Republican senators” in order to forestall tough questions about the state of the Justice Department. But their dark conspiracy theory immediately collapses under scrutiny.

Attorney General Pam Bondi was slated to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday for what seemed fated to be a grueling hearing. Potential avenues for congressional oversight could include the unprecedented weaponization of her department as an extension of President Donald Trump’s will; the ongoing Jeffrey Epstein saga, including the location of the Epstein “client list” she once claimed to possess and a potential presidential pardon for the notorious sex offender’s chief accomplice; and the legal authority for the deployment of the U.S. military on American streets.

But FBI Director Kash Patel, his deputy Dan Bongino, and the stenographers at Fox News were happy to try to help her out of that tough spot. On the afternoon before the hearing, Fox News Digital reported that “former Special Counsel Jack Smith was allegedly tracking the private communications and phone calls of nearly a dozen Republican Senators as part of his investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots.” The October 6 article was based on a document “recently discovered by FBI Director Kash Patel and exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital,” which states that an FBI special agent “‘conducted preliminary toll analysis’ on the toll records associated with” eight senators and one member of the House as part of Smith’s probe, which at the time was called Arctic Frost. The story also included quotes from Bongino, whom the report said would be meeting with the affected members of Congress that day.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, subsequently posted the document on social media, saying that it “shows the Biden FBI spied on 8 of my Republican Senate colleagues.” He added, “BIDEN FBI WEAPONIZATION = WORSE THAN WATERGATE.”

Their allegations were quickly promoted by MAGA media outlets and on Tuesday morning were highlighted by Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee as they sought to shield Bondi from criticism.

But legal reporters explained that there’s not much to the story — the FBI needed to review the toll records of senators in order to establish who Trump and his alleged co-conspirators were trying to contact before and during the January 6 insurrection.

Smith’s final report cites such toll records in a footnote for its statement that “at around the same time as he issued his 6:01 p.m. Tweet [telling his supporters occupying the U.S. Capitol to leave], Mr. Trump tried to reach two U.S. Senators, and he also directed Co-Conspirator 1 to call Members of Congress and attempt to enlist them to further delay the certification” of the electoral votes, as MSNBC’s Ken Dilanian reported.

“It actually seems sort of obvious that if you’re investigating a former president of the United States for trying to subvert an election, you’d probe some of contacts he and alleged co-conspirators had with people he was trying to enlist/pressure to overturn the results,” Politico’s Kyle Cheney noted.

“In other words, if you start from the premise that the entire probe was political, then seeking lawmakers’ toll records would be inherently bad,” Cheney added. “But if you view the probe as righteous or justified, then it’s not hard to see why those records would be pertinent.”

You won’t have trouble guessing which side the MAGAsphere came down on. Trump gave clemency to all the January 6 defendants, including those convicted of assaulting police and seditious conspiracy, still falsely claims to have won the 2020 election, and clearly believes that the only thing wrong with his election subversion plot was that it was unsuccessful. On Monday, his loyal propagandists at Fox and Newsmax leaped into action to promote the purported FBI bombshell.

On Fox, Newsmax, “stunning” story shows Smith conducted an “enemies list investigation,” is “going to go to jail

Just minutes after Fox News Digital published its story, Fox host Will Cain declared it “pretty stunning.” He went on to claim that Democrats had engaged in “projection when it comes to authoritarianism. But if this doesn't fit the bill, this doesn't fit the definition, what is the definition of authoritarianism?”

His guest, Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX), replied, “This is the quintessential definition of it.”

Later that night, Fox host Jesse Watters claimed that the story shows that “Biden's FBI was spying on Republican senators.”

His prime-time colleague Sean Hannity hosted right-wing journalist John Solomon, who declared that “Arctic Frost is starting to look like an enemies list investigation” and “a really troubling diagram of how the deep state was working under Joe Biden. The FBI, the DOJ working hand and glove to spy, pry, into the lives, the conversations, and the data of Republicans.”

Solomon went on — somehow maintaining a straight face — to accuse the FBI of potentially “intruding on a constitutionally protected event” because, in the time period for which the bureau sought the toll records, Congress had been certifying the election (except when they were evacuated in the face of a violent mob of Trumpists).

Video

Citation

From the October 6, 2025, edition of Fox News' Hannity

The rhetoric was similarly over-the-top in the prime-time hours of Fox competitor Newsmax.

“Jack Smith, bad guy, and I think he's just been busted in something really bad,” host Greg Kelly said at the top of his segment on the report. He described the FBI’s actions as “illegal,” adding, “Jack Smith, I think you’re going to go to jail.”

Fellow host Rob Schmitt didn’t seem to understand what the story was actually about, even as he promoted it to his audience. He told Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), “You had your phone tapped by Jack Smith,” and asked the senator to “illustrate to us how big a deal this is.” Johnson gently corrected Schmitt, saying that investigators had only obtained “metadata,” before claiming that the report “should shock and outrage every American.”

(Newsmax quickly updated its chyron from “FBI: JACK SMITH TAPPED PHONES OF GOP SENATORS” to “FBI: JACK SMITH SNOOPED ON GOP PHONES.”)

---

---

September 26, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Five

GREG GUTFELD (CO-HOST): It's Comey's turn. And remember, you know, the Dems love due process, so let's due process the hell out of this guy. He may get away with it, but he's got to go through the process. I love the media saying that, you know, Trump has set a precedent. Have they forgotten Julie Honey, Bannon, Stone, Navarro, Papadopoulos, the Trump supporters, what, a thousand of them? They invented lawfare. So, they can call it revenge. It's not revenge if you have it coming and if it's justice.

Here is the issue. Here is the thing you've got to remember about mutually assured destruction. It doesn't work when you go first and we're still standing. That's what just happened. When you come for us, you've kind of got to finish the job. Because now we're in power, and it's payback, revenge, I don't care what you call it. I don't care what the media calls it.

...

JESSE WATTERS (CO-HOST): They're just mad Trump is doing to them what they did to them. So, I don't care what you call it. I'm with Greg, revenge, retribution, accountability, who cares? It's happening. And I'm enjoying it because these people need to be punished. If someone declares war on you, what are you going to just turn the other cheek? You're right. It is an eye for an eye, and I hope we win.

They're asking like, "Oh, well, this is like the revenge tour?" Well, what would the revenge be for, Jessica? What would the revenge be for? No one really answers that question all right? It's because they arrested him, they arrested his campaign manager, his campaign advisor, his lawyers, his national security advisor. They arrested his trade advisor and put him in shackles. They arrested his CFO. They arrested his valet. And not only that, they spied on him, staged a coup, impeached him twice, tried to bankrupt his company, leaked his tax returns, and then couldn't protect him from a sniper. So, what are you supposed to do? They didn't think this was going to happen?

//

MMA

  1. //### Fox News' Will Cain calls for Des Moines superintendent to be deported

09/26/25 5:02 PM EDT

  1. ### The Comey indictment is so weak even some in right-wing media aren’t buying it

09/26/25 2:40 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox News panel expresses extreme skepticism on Comey charges: “I don't think this case even gets to trial”

09/26/25

---

an 525

std BS?

'Freedom of speech': MAGA store owner faces eviction over code violations — but claims it's political

plASTIC SURGERY DTR WEDDING

wapo no lnx

Trump pardons ally who spent cash raised to honor slain officer

Former Las Vegas City Council member Michele Fiore, dubbed “Lady Trump” by pundits, was pardoned after being convicted of fraud. She faced up to 140 years in prison.

April 25, 2025

Michele Fiore participates in a debate in Henderson, Nevada, in April 2016. (John Locher/AP)

:

By Tobi Raji and Brianna Tucker

President Donald Trump has pardoned a former Republican Las Vegas City Council member convicted last year of using money meant to honor a slain police officer for plastic surgery, rent and her daughter’s wedding — one of several pardons the president has granted to his supporters since the start of his second term in office.

Michele Fiore — whom outlets and pundits dubbed “Lady Trump” for her gun-toting imagery and vociferous brand of conservatism — was found guilty in October on six counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. She faced up to 140 years in prison.

On Wednesday, Trump issued a “full and unconditional pardon” for the ex-Las Vegas official, according to court documents filed by Fiore’s attorneys Thursday. In the documents, Fiore’s legal team asked U.S. District Judge Jennifer A. Dorsey of the District of Nevada to vacate her sentencing, which had previously been set for May 14. Fiore’s attorneys attached a certificate of the pardon with Trump’s signature to the request.

“Michele Fiore, a former RNC Committeewoman and elected official from Nevada, made a name for herself through her outspoken and maverick personality,” a White House official said in a statement to The Washington Post. “A supporter of President Trump, she was also the first female Republican Majority Leader in the Nevada State Assembly. Due to her outspoken conservative views, she became a target and incurred government investigation and prosecution. She was convicted of wire fraud, but now she has received a pardon.”

Fiore’s legal team told The Post in a statement that Trump’s blanket pardon has given their client “a new light.”

“We are excited for Michele to move forward with her life and continue her path of service to the community she loves so much,” lawyer Paola M. Armeni said Friday.

Fiore in a social media statement accused federal prosecutors of unjustly targeting her and weaponizing the justice system against her.

“This act of mercy is not just a correction of a legal record — it is the restoration of a life, a reputation, and a mission long targeted for destruction,” she wrote. “To every patriot, every mother, every woman who has been falsely accused — let this moment be your reminder: We don’t break. We rise.”

Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, a Democrat, criticized Trump’s pardon, writing on X: “Donald Trump’s blatant disregard for law enforcement is sickening, and pardoning someone who stole from a police memorial fund is a disgrace.”

“As Nevada’s top cop, I believe there’s no room for reprieve when it comes to betraying the families of fallen officers,” Ford added.

Skip to end of carousel

Trump presidency

Follow live updates on the Trump administration. We’re tracking Trump’s progress on campaign promises and legal challenges to his executive orders and actions.

End of carousel

Fiore is the latest political ally to receive a full and unconditional pardon from the president. Since the start of his second administration, Trump has pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the now-defunct Silk Road online marketplace who had been sentenced to life in prison in 2015; and Rod Blagojevich, the disgraced former governor of Illinois who was convicted on multiple charges of corruption in 2011.

Trump also granted clemency to two of Hunter Biden’s ex-business associates: Devon Archer, who was convicted of securities fraud in 2018; and Jason Galanis, who was sentenced in 2017 to nearly two decades in prison for multiple fraud schemes. The pair helped Republicans during their failed impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.

In one of the earliest acts of his presidency, Trump granted a blanket pardon to virtually all Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot defendants and commuted the sentences of the remaining 14.

Fiore served on the Las Vegas City Council from 2017 until 2022. Her fraud scheme began in July 2019 and lasted seven months, The Post previously reported.

In 2018, the city had broken ground on Alyn Beck Memorial Park, a site in honor of Alyn Beck, a 41-year-old Las Vegas police officer who was shot and killed in the line of duty in 2014. Fiore proposed installing a statue of Beck at the park’s entrance. A private real estate development company had already agreed to pay a sculptor to erect the statue, but Fiore began a fundraising campaign that solicited more than $70,000 from Nevadans, including Gov. Joe Lombardo (R), who was the sheriff of Clark County at the time.

Fiore had promised donors that “100% of the contributions” would go toward the statue, but none of the raised funds were actually used, prosecutors said. They said Fiore instead used the money to maintain her lavish lifestyle, laundering the money through front companies and relatives, and used some of the donations to write checks to her daughter, who then cashed them to pay for rent.

---

an 4 25

Trump criticized on Thursday a court ruling against Marine Le Pen, the leader of France's far-right, who was found guilty of embezzling millions of euros from the European Parliament.

“The Witch Hunt against Marine Le Pen is another example of European Leftists using Lawfare to silence Free Speech, and censor their Political Opponent, this time going to so far as to put that Opponent in prison,” Trump wrote in a late-night post on his social platform Truth Social.

“It is the same ‘playbook’ that was used against me by a group of Lunatics and Losers,” the president added.

READ MORE: The 'honeymoon might be over': Here’s why Trump 2.0 is flailing

Le Pen was sentenced to four years in prison, with two years suspended, and is also facing a five-year ban on holding office, which takes effect immediately. This restriction would bar her from running in the 2027 presidential election in France, an election she was expected to win, unless she succeeds in appealing her conviction.

Trump's statement about the French politician's case came the same day global stock markets plummeted in response to his decision to impose a series of sweeping global tariffs.

“I don’t know Marine Le Pen, but do appreciate how hard she worked for so many years,” Trump further said in his post, crediting the leader for suffering losses, but continuing her politics.

"And now, just before what would be a Big Victory, they get her on a minor charge that she probably knew nothing about—Sounds like a ‘bookkeeping’ error to me," he added.

The court determined that Le Pen and around twenty other co-defendants exploited the European Parliament as a source of income, misappropriating almost $5 million in parliamentary funds. This misuse allegedly took place over an 11-year span during a time when her party’s finances were critically low.

Tech billionaire and Department of Government Efficiency head Elon Musk endorsed the president's post about Le Pen's case on his own social platform X.

"Free Le Pen!" he wrote, along with a screenshot of Trump's Truth Social post.

---

MMA IRONY IS DEAD

February 13, 2025, edition of Fox News'The Five

JESSE WATTERS (HOST): There's a new DOJ in town and they're not messing around. Attorney General Pam Bondi just threw down the legal gauntlet, suing New York and its squad of lawfare junkies. Governor Kathy Hochul and AG Letitia James for straight up ignoring immigration laws and hooking up illegals with driver's licenses.

...

AG Bondi should probably look into this. AOC's office is now giving webinars for illegals on how to avoid Trump's deportation raids.

===

aha? just calling X deep state obligates you to attack kill it?

mma

January 21, 2025, edition of Infowars' The Alex Jones Show

ENRIQUE TARRIO (GUEST): I'd like to thank again President Donald J. Trump for helping us through these difficult times and releasing me, Joe Biggs, Ethan Nordean, Zachary Rehl, and Dominic Pezzola. Right? And all the J6ers. We went through hell, and I'm gonna tell you, it was worth it, because what we stood for and what those guys stood for was what we've been fighting for and what we saw yesterday on the inauguration stage. I can't tell you it's been easy, but I will tell you it's been worth it.

And, Alex, I mean, everything that they concocted. Even you, everything that they concocted against you, I mean, we see how this system could be weaponized, and we need people like Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, and the rest of Trump's cabinet to right all these wrongs. I'm happy in my heart. I love what's transpired in the past just couple hours, and there's a couple J6ers that are still in prison, that are waiting to be released.

...

TARRIO: They didn't care about the evidence. They cared about putting Trump supporters in prison. Well, now it's our turn. Now it's our turn. I'm happy that the president's focusing not on retribution and focusing on success, but I will tell you that I'm not gonna play by those rules. The people who did this, they need to feel the heat. They need to be put behind bars, and they need to be prosecuted. They pardon the J6 committee? Fine. In this country, our case proves that you could be put in prison for anything. They need to be imprisoned. We need to find and put them behind bars for what they did. They need to pay for what they did.

ALEX JONES (HOST): Well, I mean, let's be clear. Trump talked about getting the economy going and success. That's key to keeping his support to do the rest. But to have our success, we have to put the deep state in prison. Fauci, the traitor Milley, the J6 people.

//

Newsmax host defends Proud Boys and Enrique Tarrio: “They have been so lied about and maligned”

09/06/23 9:46 AM EDT

  1. ### Proud Boys founder McInnes calls for “a big memorial for all the whites” and laments “all the whites in history who have suffered from Blacks”

07/19/18 2:58 PM EDT

  1. ### Gavin McInnes And Alex Jones Discuss Whether Women “Deserve” To Be Attacked When They Stay Out Late

05/09/1x

===

---

mma

Mike Davis to Steve Bannon: “It'd be a great way to get rid of these mayors in these Democrat hell holes is just charge them with federal felonies”

01/08/25

---

===

an 1 25

The Department of Justice's internal watchdog released a report Tuesday finding some of the agency's officials under Donald Trump's first presidency "may have violated federal law" ahead of the 2020 election "by pushing for pandemic-related investigations that targeted states with Democratic governors," ABC News exclusively reports.

Furthermore, ABC reports that the same officials may have leaked "private information about those investigations to friendly media outlets in a potential attempt to influence the election," according to the watchdog.

The report, which the news outlet has obtained less than two weeks before Trump takes the White House once more, notes that a senior member of the DOJ's public affairs team sent a text message less than a month before the 2020 election "describing a proposed leak to a major New York-area tabloid about reviews of COVID-related deaths at nursing homes in New York and New Jersey as 'our last play on them before [the] election' -- 'but it's a big one,' he added."

READ MORE:**'Truth must prevail’: Garland urged to 'release the damn report' on Jack Smith’s Trump probe**

That same senior public affairs team member, according to the watchdog's report, first launched the alleged ploy to leak the information to media.

ABC reports, "In late August 2020, when the Justice Department then sent letters to the governors of Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York seeking relevant data -- 'despite having been provided data indicating that the nursing homes with the most significant quality of care issues were in other states' -- the Justice Department's public affairs office issued a press release about the move," according to the report.

The inspector general's report, ABC notes, mentioned that "current and former officials more recently described the press release as 'unusual and inappropriate.'"

READ MORE:**'Insane': Experts condemn Trump plan to make DOJ 'manufacture evidence' that he won in 2020**

ABC News' full report is available[here.

===

Steve Bannon threatens DOJ officials: “We are going to torment you and destroy your lives”

01/06/25 mma

January 6, 2025, edition of Real America's Voice's War Room

STEVE BANNON (HOST): Matthew Graves. These people are relentless. They are unchained, and Matthew Graves has to understand something. Matthew Graves, write this down. Or if Matthew Graves' family or anybody that knows Matthew Graves, make sure his family knows this.

You're going to prison for a very long time. You're a totally evil person that has broken the law and destroyed lives, and the people whose lives you destroyed may not have the power to do anything about it, but we certainly do, and we are. You are a truly evil individual and you're deranged.

Lisa Monaco, Merrick Garland, the guy Bratt, Matthew Graves, all of you, we are going to torment you and destroy your lives because you deserve to have your lives destroyed like you've destroyed patriots from January 6th. Yes, patriots.

…

Matthew Graves, you think this is funny? You think we take this as funny? We don't take it as funny, brother.

And when you're serving in your 10th year of your 20 year sentence in that - in the cell, in a cell block right at some low security, because you're not going to go to a camp, to a low security prison, I want you to remember this day when we actually committed ourselves body and soul to make sure that you people are hunted down and brought to justice.

//

Steve Bannon says Mike Johnson should not be speaker: “We don't need partisanship now. We need hyper-partisanship now.”

12/20/24 1:53 PM EST

  1. ### Media Matters weekly newsletter, December 20

12/20/24 10:48 AM EST

  1. ### Steve Bannon on a government shutdown: “I'd like just to shut it down. Go home.”

12/19/24

---

porn star case sentencing

Fox News legal analyst calls for investigation into Jack Smith and his staff

01/03/25

January 3, 2025, edition of Fox News' Hannity

JASON CHAFFETZ (HOST): Gregg, what's the incoming administration -- what can they do to push back not just in this case, but across the country, the lawfare that's been used against the Trump family, quite frankly, and against conservatives and Republicans broadly? What can this administration do to just put justice back where it's supposed to be, with a blindfold and equal to everybody?

GREGG JARRETT (GUEST): Well, Trump already won the lawfare battle. He is essentially prevailed. This is sort of the last case -- and the professor and I agree, it's guaranteed to get reversed because it was such an abomination.

But I do think, to answer your question, that the incoming Department of Justice needs to take a very close look at the conduct of Jack Smith, his entire staff, bringing specious cases in Washington and Florida. And if laws were broken by prosecutors, those prosecutors should be prosecuted. If they didn't break laws, nevertheless, their unscrupulous, unprincipled behavior needs to be exposed, and that's the job for Pam Bondi, assuming she is approved as the next attorney general in charge of the Department of Justice.

Same thing goes for the FBI. I mean, it has -- sad to say, this is not a reflection on the hardworking agents out in the field, but, you know, it is the headquarters that has corrupted itself with an abuse of the law and that needs to be fixed as well.

===

an 11 24

As the clock winds down on Democratic control of the U.S. Senate, upper chamber lawmakers on Thursday confirmed President Joe Biden's nomination of David Huitema, head of the State Department's ethics program, to lead the Office of Government Ethics for a five-year term.

Senators voted 50-46 in favor of Huitema's confirmation to head the OGE through the duration of Republican President-elect Donald Trump's tenure, averting at least temporarily a scenario in which the winner of the 2024 election—who has refused to sign required transition-related ethics agreements and whose first term saw thousands of conflicts of interest—would be empowered to fill or stonewall the post.

IFrame Content

The OGE has been without a director for more than a year, ever since the term of Trump appointee Emory Rounds expired. In September, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) blocked Senate Democrats' attempt to confirm Huitema via unanimous consent until after the presidential election, alleging "political weaponization of the U.S. government against Donald Trump by the Biden-Harris administration."

As the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen said ahead of Huitema's conf

One of the most important roles of the Office of Government Ethics is to oversee and advise the presidential transition process. The selection and nomination of most new administration officials takes place during the transition, in which OGE's vetting of pending nominees for conflicts of interest is most critical. The office needs to be fully staffed and operational during the course of the transition period.

However, Walter Shaub, who led the OGE during the Obama administration and resigned in 2017 after months of conflict with the Trump White House, warned in a Thursday interview with Government Executive that "it might be a hollow victory for government ethics if Trump fires Huitema after the inauguration."

"Even if Trump doesn't fire Huitema, OGE won't be able to prevent Trump's top appointees from retaining conflicting financial interests if the Senate grants Trump's request that lawmakers conspire in skirting or short-shrifting the constitutional confirmation process," Shaub added.

Still, ethics advocates cheered Huitema's confirmation, with the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington hailing what it called the "good news" and "an important step to safeguard ethics compliance ahead of a second Trump administration that threatens to be even more corrupt than the first."

As one Democratic strategist said on social media following his confirmation, "Buckle up, David Huitema."

===

---

November 13, 2024 edition of *War Room: Battleground

STEVE BANNON (HOST): Weissmann, you were on TV with MSNBC and all the producers at MSNBC, preserve your documents. Ari Melber and all you hosts, preserve your documents. All of it. You better be worried and you better lawyer up. Some of you young producers, better call mom and dad tonight — hey mom and dad, you know a good lawyer? Lawyer up. Lawyer up.

You tried to destroy Trump, you tried to imprison Trump, you tried to break Trump. He’s not breakable. You couldn’t destroy him and now he is turned on you and he’s put a firebrand in charge of main justice, Department of Justice. And you’re going to have to live it with — Andrew Weissmann and all your kind — McCabe and Comey. Oh my lord.

…

The hunted now become the hunters, yep. With the full apparatus — but here’s the difference, here’s the difference, here’s the difference.

It’s going to be totally transparent. It’s going to start with the mass declassification of all this information we've been keeping back from the American people, shouldn’t keep it back.

American people should understand that, should see it, and see what you’ve done. It’s going to be fully transparent, all of it, and all of the interconnections. Norm Eisen and all these NGOs, and you know, and Reid Hoffman is all worried. You better be worried. You big billionaire donors, you better be worried. You better lawyer up. You should be worried.

---

===

an 5 24

attorneys representing former President Donald Trump have sent a cease-and-desist letter to the producers of the fictionalized biopic The Apprentice, which depicts a younger Trump in an unflattering manner.

Variety reported Friday that the independently produced film, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, drew the attention of the Trump legal team due to one scene in particular. That scene reportedly shows Trump sexually assaulting his first wife, Ivana, based on an account she gave in a 1990 divorce deposition that she later retracted in 2015. The cease-and-desist letter warned filmmakers to not seek theatrical distribution in the U.S.

"This ‘film’ is pure malicious defamation, should not see the light of day, and doesn’t even deserve a place in the straight-to-DVD section of a bargain bin at a soon-to-be-closed discount movie store, it belongs in a dumpster fire," said Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung.

READ MORE:[Ivana Trump's Bedminster burial site might be a secret tax windfall, experts say

In an official statement, the producers of The Apprentice insisted that "the film is a fair and balanced portrait of the former president."

"We want everyone to see it and then decide," filmmakers said in response to the cease-and-desist letter.

According to Variety, the film also shows Trump taking amphetamines to lose weight, undergoing plastic surgery and liposuction as well as cutting deals with the mafia to build his real estate empire. Sebastian Stan plays Trump, and Jeremy Strong — known for his Kendall Roy character on the HBO show "Succession" — plays his mob-connected attorney, Roy Cohn.

The film's script was written by Vanity Fair special correspondent Gabriel Sherman, who covered the Trump administration for the outlet. During a press conference at Cannes, Director Ali Abbasi shrugged off the cease-and-desist letter, and added that he doesn't "necessarily think this is a film [Trump] would dislike."

READ MORE:['Awful day for the defense': tty says Trump lawyers 'struck out' with Costello testimony

"Everybody talks about [Trump] suing a lot of people — they don’t talk about his success rate though, you know," Abbasi said.

In addition to the former president's legal team, billionaire Dan Snyder — who helped fund production of the movie assuming it would be a flattering portrayal of Trump — is reportedly "furious" about the final result after a screening in February.

Currently, there is no set date for the film's release in the U.S., and there are no distribution deals in place. However, TIME reported that Abbasi hopes to have the film in American theaters by September, just before early voting begins in the 2024 election.

"We have a promotional event coming up called the U.S. election that’s going to help us with the movie," Abbasi said.

READ MORE:**(Opinion) America in the final stage of a 40-year transition**

Click here to read Variety's report in full.

===

April 29, 2024 RWW

===