BORIS EP BAK
ESTB 10 25
no merri
no sanctions? trump coup 2 2024
jan 6 subpoena w/ kraken?
---
AN 11 25
President Donald Trump went on a Sunday night pardon spree, granting full clemency to at least 77 individuals involved in promoting alternate electors in battleground states after the 2020 election, including former Trump attorneys John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani and former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, according to Axios.
Announced by U.S. Pardon Attorney Ed Martin, the pardons cover potential federal offenses but exclude Trump himself and do not affect ongoing state prosecutions in Georgia, Arizona, and Michigan.
Others who received pardons include attorneys Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell, attorney and Acting Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Office of Management and Budget Jeffrey Clark, and attorney and former Trump strategic advisor Boris Epshteyn.
Legal experts describe the action as largely symbolic, given the absence of federal charges against the recipients, but critics excoriated the pardons on social media.
One wrote on X that this move means the country is "waving goodbye to democracy again."
Chef Courtney Brown wrote that"AmeriKKKa has lost its way! This is an absolute disgrace!"
"The fact that NO ONE will be held to account for conspiring to illegally keep Trump in office is one of the most distressing and infuriating consequences of the 2024 election," posted another critic on X.
An x user by the name of America First Democrat posted, "So basically no one who participated in efforts to illegally overturn the 2020 election can be held accountable? The lawlessness of this administration knows no bounds."
Retired Naval reservist and self-described "JFK Libertarian" David Rouse said, "This only reflects #Trump's total disdain for the #Constitution he swore to "protect, preserve, and defend". Pardoning his accomplices in an attempt to overthrow the 2020 fair election that he lost, makes a mockery of the #Rule_of_Law and endangers us all!"
Tech CEO Simon St-Onge wrote, "When people see injustices, criminals pardoned because they know the leader, they lose faith in the justice system, and take their own defence in to their own hands. That’s a premise for barbarism and violence, and war amongst citizens. We should never tolerate injustice, I pity America, the land of the free is no longer so. It will take years, to make it great again. The USA is alone now, with a few other countries lead by autocratic leaders, demented narcissistic men, like Trump and Putin, devoted to themselves, and themselves alone."
"It's about the political whims of Donald Trump," said MSNBC's justice and intelligence reporter Ken Dilanian.
---}:
WIKI
In September, Trump forced out the United States attorney (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_attorney) for the Eastern District of Virginia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_District_Court_for_the_Eastern_District_of_Virginia), Erik Siebert (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Siebert), over his handling of his office's investigations into Letitia James (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letitia_James), the attorney general of New York (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attorney_General_of_New_York), and James Comey (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Comey), the former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Director_of_the_Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation).\18] After Siebert's dismissal, Boris Epshteyn (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Epshteyn), a Trump aide, approached Halligan about taking the position.\19] On September 20, Trump announced that he would nominate Halligan—who has no prosecutorial experience—to succeed Siebert.\20] According to [The New York Times (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times), attorney general [Pam Bondi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pam_Bondi) and deputy attorney general [Todd Blanche (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Blanche) questioned her viability for the role given her lack of experience.[19] Two days later, Halligan was sworn in as the interim U.S. attorney.[21] Hours after being appointed, she sought access to her office's computers for communication purposes.[22] Halligan resigned as staff secretary after she was appointed.[23]
bbc nov 2024?
Boris Epshteyn, a long-time adviser to Donald Trump and member of his transition team, has been accused of seeking payments from people to promote them for roles in the incoming administration.
He has called the allegations, which were the subject of an internal investigation by Trump's legal team, "false and defamatory".
The Trump campaign said in a statement it is moving on from the issue after reviewing consulting agreements. The investigation and accusations were first reported by conservative outlet Just the News.
Epshteyn is a highly visible member of Trump's inner circle, appearing beside his boss in court both during a criminal trial earlier this year and on stage when Trump delivered his election victory speech this month.
Epshteyn has been indicted in Arizona for allegedly working to overturn the state's lawful 2020 election results in order to help Trump remain in the White House after he lost to President Joe Biden.
Former Missouri Governor Eric Greitens, a Republican, submitted a sworn declaration to Trump's transition team making the allegations.
He wrote that Epshteyn's "overall tone and behaviour gave me the impression of an implicit expectation to engage in business dealings with him before he would advocate for or suggest my appointment to the President".
The BBC's news partner CBS News obtained and authenticated a copy of the declaration.
"It was important to me to protect the president because I was concerned about the ethics of what was happening," Greitens told CBS News. "Very specifically, I was concerned that there was an offer to advance a nomination in return for financial payments."
Greitens was vying for an appointment as US Navy Secretary and contacted Epshteyn for assistance, CBS reported. He said Epshteyn indicated he would consider suggesting him for the position if there was financial consideration.
Greitens wrote that this created "a sense of unease and pressure on my part".
In a statement denying the accusations, Epshteyn called them "fake claims" and vowed they would not distract from the incoming administration's work.
Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump's transition team, said in a statement that a "broad review" of the campaign's agreements with Epshteyn and other consultants had been completed, and the team was "now moving ahead".
Trump had referenced the investigation during an interview on Just the News, a conservative news outlet, where he said he does not condone staffers soliciting consulting fees from those seeking jobs in his administration.
“No-one can promise any endorsement or nomination except me,” he said. “I make these decisions on my own, period.”
:{
Who is Boris Epshteyn?
Trump's son, Eric, connected his father with Epshteyn after they were classmates at Georgetown University.
Epshteyn's career with the Trump team started as a staffer during the president-elect's run for office in the 2016 presidential election. He earned a junior White House communications position when Trump first won office.
He resigned unexpectedly two months later. It is unclear why.
But he has remained a loyal and close confidant of the President.
Epshteyn has served as an adviser and attorney to Trump, helping run the president-elect's legal teams.
These teams have overseen multiple criminal cases involving the former president and have been successful in delaying and postponing several of the legal battles.
"I've known Boris for years, and I've never known him to be anything but a good human being," Eric Trump said in a Fox News interview on Monday.
"I certainly hope the reporting is false and I can also tell you if it's true, you know, the person will probably no longer be around," he added.
The New York Times reported Epshteyn played a role in recommending that former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz serve as attorney general.
Gaetz withdrew his name after facing pushback on his nomination from his Republican colleagues in Congress.
There are some others who have questioned Epshteyn's motives, US media reports.
Tech mogul and billionaire Elon Musk, who has become a member of Trump's inner circle, has reportedly inquired about Epshteyn's influence on Trump.
CNN reported that Musk and Epshteyn had a confrontation at Mar-a-Lago with Musk making several accusations against the long-time adviser.
In June, Epshteyn pleaded not guilty to felony charges in a case related to overturning the 2020 presidential election results in Arizona.
US election 2024 (https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/cj3ergr8209t)
Donald Trump (https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/cp7r8vgl2lgt)
an 11 24
Two advisers close to Donald Trump (https://www.rawstory.com/trump-news/) are engaged in a bitterly personal power struggle over some of the former president's Cabinet nominees, according to a new report.
Elon Musk quickly worked his way into the president-elect's inner circle (https://www.rawstory.com/donald-trump-2669466414/) after pouring about $200 million into his re-election campaign, but there are already signs of tension between the tech mogul and other Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) advisers — specifically longtime loyalist Boris Epshteyn, reported Axios (https://www.axios.com/2024/11/18/trump-cabinet-musk-adviser-clash).
"Their rocky relationship came to a head last Wednesday during a heated discussion at a dinner table in front of other guests at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club, three people familiar with the episode told Axios," the website reported. "At one point during what the sources described as a 'massive blowup' and a 'huge explosion,' Musk accused Epshteyn of leaking details of Trump's transition (https://www.rawstory.com/rfk-jr-trump-cabinet/) — including personnel picks — to the media. Epshteyn responded by telling Musk that he didn't know what he was talking about."
Epshteyn pushed for former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) as attorney general, and Musk questioned whether the longtime adviser had too much influence over his top Justice department picks and the White House (https://www.rawstory.com/tag/white-house) counsel pick of William McGinley, the sources said, while Epshteyn bristled at Musk's criticism.
Musk has been pushing for Trump transition co-chair Howard Lutnick as treasury secretary instead of Wall Street favorite Scott Bessent, a hedge fun manager who visited Mar-a-Lago last week.
"Bessent is a business-as-usual choice, whereas \Lutnick] will actually enact change," Musk [posted (https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1857819784865362211?s=10) on his X platform. "Business-as-usual is driving America bankrupt."
The tech billionaire is well-liked by Vice President-elect J.D. Vance (https://www.rawstory.com/tag/jd-vance), conservative broadcaster Tucker Carlson and Trump's two eldest sons, but his near-constant presence at Mar-a-Lago has irritated (https://www.rawstory.com/trump-elon-musk-2669907539/) some longstanding members of Trump's inner circle.
an 11 24
Trump chief of staff 'apparently unaware' of Boris Epshteyn effort to lobby on behalf of Gaetz: report (https://www.alternet.org/boris-epshteyn/)
chris h 1024 out of jail attacks marc elias
boris e, 2 others
an 7 24
on Thursday, in the midst of the July 4th holiday, a former Donald Trump (https://www.rawstory.com/trump-news/) staffer who worked on his 2016 campaign went public with a series of texts she allegedly made with Trump attorney Jenna Ellis (https://www.rawstory.com/jenna-ellis-trump-2668393929/) asking about secret lawsuit settlements (https://www.thedailybeast.com/ex-trump-staffer-alleges-campaign-settled-seedy-suits-in-bombshell-filing?ref=home?ref=home) for accusations of "sexual harassment and gender discrimination" within the campaign.
In replies to those texts from attorney A.J. Delgado, who posted them on-line, Ellis appears to reply, "Yes off record — Boris The campaign settled multiple lawsuits. Have your investigator contact [campaign staffer] Michael Glassner. I will of course tell you the truth."
As the Daily Beast's Josh Fiallo wrote, the "bombshell" texts were included in a filing by Delgado as part of a lawsuit she filed against Trump campaign adviser and he supervisor, Jason Miller (https://www.rawstory.com/jason-miller-2666344758/), whom she has accused of raping her while they were having an affair.
The video player is currently playing an ad.
According to the report, "As part of that lawsuit, Delgado, a lawyer who’s representing herself, filed a motion Thursday that included a text thread she claims to be between her and Jenna Ellis (https://www.thedailybeast.com/keyword/jenna-ellis), another ex-Trump staffer who is a co-defendant in his election subversion case in Georgia."
Ellis pleaded guilty in the Georgia case.
The report adds that the Boris in question appears to be Boris Epshteyn (https://www.rawstory.com/trump-boris-consigliere-arizona/), who has been at Trump's side during his courtroom appearances (https://www.rawstory.com/boris-epshteyn-support-animal/).
The report states, "The Daily Beast has not independently verified the authenticity of the texts, and neither Ellis, Delgado or a Trump representative responded to questions messaged and emailed on Thursday night. It’s the second time the texts were submitted as evidence by Delgado, after the Trump campaign’s lawyers asked her to re-submit them without names redacted and an offer to mark them as “confidential” appeared to be ignored."
Fiallo added, "The texts did not specify what sort of lawsuits “Boris” may have faced, but Epshteyn was accused of repeatedly groping two sisters at an Arizona bar in 2021 until a bouncer and cops intervened to remove him (https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-adviser-boris-epshteyn-accused-of-groping-sisters-in-arizona-nightclub). "
You can read more here (https://www.thedailybeast.com/ex-trump-staffer-alleges-campaign-settled-seedy-suits-in-bombshell-filing?ref=home?ref=home).
Arizona Charges Giuliani and Other Trump Allies in Election Interference Case
Those charged included Boris Epshteyn, a top legal strategist for Donald Trump, and fake electors who acted on Mr. Trump’s behalf in Arizona after the 2020 election.
By Danny Hakim and Maggie Haberman
Published April 24, 2024
Updated April 25, 2024,
Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mark Meadows, and a number of others who advised Donald J. Trump during the 2020 election were indicted in Arizona on Wednesday, along with all of the fake electors who acted on Mr. Trump’s behalf there to try to keep him in power despite his loss in the state.
Boris Epshteyn, one of Mr. Trump’s top legal strategists, was also among those indicted, a complication for Mr. Trump’s defense in the criminal trial that began this week in Manhattan over hush money payments made to a porn star, Stormy Daniels.
The indictment includes conspiracy, fraud and forgery charges, related to alleged attempts by the defendants to change the 2020 election results. Arizona is the fourth swing state to bring an elections case involving the activities of the Trump campaign in 2020, but only the second after Georgia to go beyond the fake electors whom the campaign deployed in swing states lost by Mr. Trump.
The former president, who is seeking another term, was also named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Arizona case.
“I understand for some of you today didn’t come fast enough, and I know I’ll be criticized by others for conducting this investigation at all,” Kris Mayes, Arizona’s Democratic attorney general, said in a recorded statement. “But as I have stated before and will say here again today, I will not allow American democracy to be undermined. It’s too important.”
Thumbnail of page 1
Read the Arizona Election Indictment
Arizona on Wednesday indicted Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mark Meadows and a number of others who advised Donald J. Trump during the 2020 election, as well as the fake electors who acted on Mr. Trump’s behalf to try to keep him in power despite his loss in the state. Here is the indictment.
READ DOCUMENT 58 PAGES
Mr. Giuliani is Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer; Mr. Meadows was the White House chief of staff at the time of the 2020 election. They were among a number of defendants whose names were redacted from the indictment, though it was clear from the context and the descriptions who they were. For example, the passage referencing Mr. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, said among other things that he was known as “the mayor.”
A Guide to the Various Trump Investigations
Confused about the inquiries and legal cases involving former President Donald Trump? We’re here to help.
Key Inquiries: Trump faces several investigations at both the state and the federal levels, into matters related to his business and political careers.
Case Tracker: Keep track of the developments in the criminal cases involving the former president.
What if Trump Is Convicted?: Will any of the proceedings hinder Trump’s presidential campaign? Here is what we know, and what we don’t know.
Trump on Trial Newsletter: Sign up here to get the latest news and analysis on the cases in New York, Florida, Georgia and Washington, D.C.
Some parts of the indictment did not refer to Mr. Trump by name, instead referring to the “defendants’ attempts to declare Unindicted Coconspirator 1 and Pence the winners of the 2020 Presidential Election.”
Also indicted were Mike Roman, a Trump campaign operative in 2020, John Eastman, an architect of the fake electors plan, and two other lawyers who advised Mr. Trump and his 2020 campaign: Jenna Ellis and Christina Bobb.
The indictment lays out a series of alleged efforts by the defendants to overturn Arizona’s election results. They are accused of pressuring “officials responsible for certifying election results to encourage them to change the election results,” including the governor, the legislature and the Maricopa Board of Supervisors.
In all, 35 people who acted as fake electors in Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and now Arizona face criminal charges for signing certificates in 2020 falsely stating that Mr. Trump had won their state’s electoral votes.
Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Meadows, Mr. Roman and Mr. Eastman now face charges in two states, Georgia and Arizona. Ms. Ellis has already pleaded guilty to a felony in Georgia.
Among those charged in Arizona are some who served as top Republican Party officials there during the 2020 election, including Kelli Ward, a former state party chairwoman, and Greg Safsten, who at the time was executive director of the state party. Two state senators, Anthony Kern and Jake Hoffman, now also face charges.
Some of the people who held themselves out to be Trump electors in states that he lost in 2020 have adamantly insisted that they were acting legally. After Dr. Ward and other fake electors gathered in Phoenix that December, she wrote in a social media post that “we are the electors who represent the legal voters of Arizona!” As recently as late last year, Mr. Kern said that “there’s no such thing as fake electors.”
Late Wednesday, Charles Burnham, a lawyer for Mr. Eastman, said: “The phenomenon of partisan lawfare grows more troubling by the day. Professor Eastman is innocent of criminal conduct in Arizona or any other place and will fight these charges as he has all the other unjust accusations leveled against him.”
Ted Goodman, a spokesman for Mr. Giuliani, said: “The continued weaponization of our justice system should concern every American as it does permanent, irrevocable harm to the country.”
Mr. Hoffman said in a social media post that he was “innocent of any crime,” adding that “I will vigorously defend myself, and I look forward to the day when I am vindicated of this disgusting political persecution.”
Mr. Epshteyn was a constant presence during Mr. Trump’s civil trial in January on charges that he had defamed the New York writer E. Jean Carroll. He joined Mr. Trump at the defense table when Mr. Trump’s lawyer in the case went to the bench for sidebars.
But Mr. Epshteyn has not been in New York for the current criminal case. He has described himself as an “in-house counsel” to Mr. Trump and has been something of a quarterback for the various legal teams working on the former president’s defenses in four criminal cases. He usually speaks with Mr. Trump several times a day.
Mr. Epshteyn has been arrested twice in Arizona over the last 10 years, once in 2014 for assault after a bar fight, in which he pleaded guilty and the conviction was set aside, and again in 2021, after he was accused of inappropriately touching two women. In that case, he pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, received probation and a fine, and the conviction again was set aside.
Mr. Epshteyn did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Election deniers have not fared well at the polls in Arizona, but they maintain a grip on the state’s Republican Party. In January, the party installed a hard-right Trump supporter, Gina Swoboda, as its new leader; Ms. Swoboda runs a nonprofit group that has falsely claimed to have found huge discrepancies in voting records in a number of states. Kari Lake, a fervent backer of Mr. Trump and his false election claims, was the party’s candidate for governor in 2022 (she lost) and is the leading Republican candidate for a U.S. Senate seat this year.
The Arizona Republican Party, in a statement, called the indictment “a blatant and unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial power, aimed solely at distracting the public” ahead of the 2024 election.
The United States Supreme Court rejected an appeal on Monday that challenged the state’s electronic voting machines. The case was brought by Ms. Lake and Mark Finchem, who lost a 2022 race for Arizona secretary of state.
Having slates of people claiming to be electors for Mr. Trump was an integral part of the effort to keep him in office after his loss at the polls in 2020. Mr. Trump and his allies sought to block or delay congressional certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory, hoping that Mr. Trump’s allies in the House and Senate might then consider a challenge to the validity of the results in a number of battleground states like Arizona and Michigan — and then accept the pro-Trump electors from those states as valid.
In addition to the state cases, Mr. Trump is facing election interference charges himself in the Georgia case and in a federal case brought by Jack Smith, the special prosecutor appointed by the Department of Justice.
Mr. Trump has long made a strategy of falsely claiming election fraud. After he was defeated in the 2016 Iowa caucus, he said that Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, the winner of that contest, “illegally stole it.” And after Mr. Trump received fewer votes nationwide in 2016 than Hillary Clinton did, he said that he had actually won the popular vote “if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.”
Faced with criminal charges in the state elections inquiries, some of Mr. Trump’s allies and advisers have backtracked from his 2020 claims.
“Biden was elected, the process was followed,” Kenneth Chesebro, an architect of the fake elector plan, told investigators in Michigan last year. Mr. Chesebro has emerged as a key witness in the state prosecutions.
James Renner, a former Michigan state trooper who was a last-minute substitution as a fake elector in that state, expressed regret last year to investigators, saying that he “had been walked into a situation that I shouldn’t have ever been involved in.” Charges against him were dropped as part of a cooperation agreement with the office of Dana Nessel, Michigan’s attorney general, a Democrat.
Major US newspapers and broadcast TV news outlets often failed to report on Jim Jordan’s role in undermining the 2020 election – and ignored the risk to certification in 2024 if he becomes speaker | Media Matters for America (https://www.mediamatters.org/congress/major-us-newspapers-and-broadcast-tv-news-outlets-often-failed-report-jim-jordans-role)
1 24 judd ymail
david D. Smith, the executive chairman of Sinclair Broadcast Group (Sinclair), purchased the Baltimore Sun (https://substack.com/redirect/4301d110-e35e-4c78-9239-ef4dfab904f4?j=eyJ1IjoiN3ltancifQ.i0HJl3aVWG8sHp566T-pebMssFGKcgvxVOFLuZyEDpw) — the largest newspaper in Maryland — for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition means another powerful media outlet will be under the control of a wealthy conservative businessman with a history of using local media outlets to push an ideological agenda.
Smith is the son of Sinclair founder Julian Sinclair Smith and, along with his brothers, controls the company. Sinclair, a publicly traded company, owns or operates 185 local television stations across 86 markets. A 2018 study (https://substack.com/redirect/b5e86630-2d6c-4aee-9ecd-a745e7a19f7b?j=eyJ1IjoiN3ltancifQ.i0HJl3aVWG8sHp566T-pebMssFGKcgvxVOFLuZyEDpw) published in the American Political Science Review found that stations purchased by Sinclair "coverage of national politics at the expense of local politics" and undergo "a significant rightward shift in the ideological slant of coverage."
Sinclair regularly requires its local affiliates to run segments pushing right-wing talking points. In 2018, Sinclair affiliates were required to have local anchors read a script (https://substack.com/redirect/a5b8b44a-f389-4d38-8356-f328f6d77e00?j=eyJ1IjoiN3ltancifQ.i0HJl3aVWG8sHp566T-pebMssFGKcgvxVOFLuZyEDpw) warning views about "fake stories" being published by other media outlets "to push their own personal bias and agenda." The trend was described as "extremely dangerous to a democracy." The argument, which included no actual examples, matched then-president Donald Trump's rhetoric about the media.
When Sinclair faced criticism for puppeteering its local anchors, Trump defended the company (https://substack.com/redirect/3316a517-864b-4f56-bbc4-1c5cfa8e288f?j=eyJ1IjoiN3ltancifQ.i0HJl3aVWG8sHp566T-pebMssFGKcgvxVOFLuZyEDpw). "So funny to watch Fake News Networks, among the most dishonest groups of people I have ever dealt with, criticize Sinclair Broadcasting for being biased," Trump said. "Sinclair is far superior to CNN and even more Fake NBC, which is a total joke."
Sinclair stations were also required to run political commentary from Boris Epshteyn (https://substack.com/redirect/9e4f183f-e1c8-498f-a9fd-6a982f87b018?j=eyJ1IjoiN3ltancifQ.i0HJl3aVWG8sHp566T-pebMssFGKcgvxVOFLuZyEDpw), who previously served as a Trump advisor and surrogate. Sinclair hired Epshteyn as its chief political analyst. Epshteyn's segments for Sinclair were mostly indistinguishable from his work for the Trump campaign. "The American people demand change, and they demand action, and that’s exactly what they’ll get from this administration going forward," Epshteyn declared in one piece.
Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and advisor, said that in 2016, the Trump campaign provided Sinclair stations with extensive access to Trump in exchange for friendly coverage (https://substack.com/redirect/8e02c6f7-aa61-41fe-9f45-01bd8643cbd7?j=eyJ1IjoiN3ltancifQ.i0HJl3aVWG8sHp566T-pebMssFGKcgvxVOFLuZyEDpw) that did not include fact-checking. "We are here to deliver your message (https://substack.com/redirect/6d0a916e-7c94-4458-862e-ab8033d40568?j=eyJ1IjoiN3ltancifQ.i0HJl3aVWG8sHp566T-pebMssFGKcgvxVOFLuZyEDpw)," Smith told Trump in a 2016 meeting. Sinclair executives denied there was anything unusual or unethical about its dealings with the Trump campaign. Sinclair affiliates have also promoted right-wing conspiracy theories (https://substack.com/redirect/a5b8b44a-f389-4d38-8356-f328f6d77e00?j=eyJ1IjoiN3ltancifQ.i0HJl3aVWG8sHp566T-pebMssFGKcgvxVOFLuZyEDpw), including claims that DNC staffer Seth Rich was murdered by a hitman as payback for sharing sensitive emails to Wikileaks.
The history of using Sinclair-owned stations to push a right-wing agenda predates Trump. In 2004 (https://substack.com/redirect/4328c4be-b39f-4573-b2f6-4d9d3fe12eaa?j=eyJ1IjoiN3ltancifQ.i0HJl3aVWG8sHp566T-pebMssFGKcgvxVOFLuZyEDpw), "Sinclair ordered its stations to broadcast an hour-long documentary — preempting prime-time programming — titled Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal that blamed Democratic nominee John Kerry for the torture of American prisoners of war in Vietnam."
In an interview (https://substack.com/redirect/4301d110-e35e-4c78-9239-ef4dfab904f4?j=eyJ1IjoiN3ltancifQ.i0HJl3aVWG8sHp566T-pebMssFGKcgvxVOFLuZyEDpw) with the Baltimore Sun, Smith defended Sinclair's news coverage "as balanced and apolitical." According to Smith, Sinclair is "not perfect" but overall is "much better than a lot of folk."
Smith, not Sinclair, is purchasing the Baltimore Sun — although that may be a distinction without a difference. Smith said (https://substack.com/redirect/4301d110-e35e-4c78-9239-ef4dfab904f4?j=eyJ1IjoiN3ltancifQ.i0HJl3aVWG8sHp566T-pebMssFGKcgvxVOFLuZyEDpw), "he envisions opportunities for partnerships between The Sun and Sinclair, such as promoting each other’s stories, and other synergies in the future."
The checkered history of Smith's right-hand man
Smith did not purchase the Baltimore Sun alone. He brought along one partner: Armstrong Williams, a right-wing pundit and operative.
(https://substack.com/redirect/1a6881a0-25bd-44bb-820b-238d5b8b4435?j=eyJ1IjoiN3ltancifQ.i0HJl3aVWG8sHp566T-pebMssFGKcgvxVOFLuZyEDpw)
:{:{Williams has his own syndicated show on Sinclair stations. His social media accounts are full of incendiary statements about Democrats and liberals. "Each day Joe Biden has sat in office, we have gotten closer and closer to a fascist communist nation," Armstrong wrote on January 10 (https://substack.com/redirect/cddba394-5181-4d5a-aa05-47e1a49052fc?j=eyJ1IjoiN3ltancifQ.i0HJl3aVWG8sHp566T-pebMssFGKcgvxVOFLuZyEDpw). On January 5, he accused Biden of "destroy[ing] American democracy (https://substack.com/redirect/d58ab78a-df6a-4178-90e1-59da423adc78?j=eyJ1IjoiN3ltancifQ.i0HJl3aVWG8sHp566T-pebMssFGKcgvxVOFLuZyEDpw)."}:
On December 19 (https://substack.com/redirect/3b5c95fa-3af0-4ca9-bbe1-a5d65a351fce?j=eyJ1IjoiN3ltancifQ.i0HJl3aVWG8sHp566T-pebMssFGKcgvxVOFLuZyEDpw), Armstrong decried "the real time consequences of being infiltrated by radical left-wingers and the acceptance of their insane political agendas." (The issue was the Pope slightly softening his stance on same-sex marriages.) On December 6 (https://substack.com/redirect/22b838aa-c173-4a9f-aeff-a3ba240ca4ee?j=eyJ1IjoiN3ltancifQ.i0HJl3aVWG8sHp566T-pebMssFGKcgvxVOFLuZyEDpw), Armstrong called Biden "a senile senior citizen" who "barely knows right from left." Armstrong also called the prosecutors pursuing cases against Trump as "terrorists (https://substack.com/redirect/0a3a89e9-1efc-4ea1-b033-ddb65c69de05?j=eyJ1IjoiN3ltancifQ.i0HJl3aVWG8sHp566T-pebMssFGKcgvxVOFLuZyEDpw)" and promoted false narratives and conspiracy theories (https://substack.com/redirect/c9d05ce1-989a-4726-857d-151899f00310?j=eyJ1IjoiN3ltancifQ.i0HJl3aVWG8sHp566T-pebMssFGKcgvxVOFLuZyEDpw) about the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.}:
Armstrong served as an advisor (https://substack.com/redirect/0a3a89e9-1efc-4ea1-b033-ddb65c69de05?j=eyJ1IjoiN3ltancifQ.i0HJl3aVWG8sHp566T-pebMssFGKcgvxVOFLuZyEDpw) to former presidential candidate and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson. He claims to have paid for Justice Clarence Thomas' wedding reception (https://substack.com/redirect/eda4135d-bdee-4da6-a8e1-2702ab5af3fb?j=eyJ1IjoiN3ltancifQ.i0HJl3aVWG8sHp566T-pebMssFGKcgvxVOFLuZyEDpw). In 2005, Armstrong lost his syndicated column (https://substack.com/redirect/be48e861-9d79-4edf-bb93-66777b4c4122?j=eyJ1IjoiN3ltancifQ.i0HJl3aVWG8sHp566T-pebMssFGKcgvxVOFLuZyEDpw) after it was revealed that he had been paid $240,000 by the George W. Bush administration to promote their signature education initiative, No Child Left Behind.
Follow the money
Smith has used his vast wealth to support a variety of far-right causes. The Baltimore Banner reports (https://substack.com/redirect/0a3a89e9-1efc-4ea1-b033-ddb65c69de05?j=eyJ1IjoiN3ltancifQ.i0HJl3aVWG8sHp566T-pebMssFGKcgvxVOFLuZyEDpw) that since 2015, Smith, through his family foundation, has donated large sums to Young Americans for Liberty ($581,000), Project Veritas ($536,000), Turning Point USA ($150,000), and Moms for Liberty ($121,000).
Smith does not support Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott (D), and has sought to recruit opponents to unseat him (https://substack.com/redirect/8eff81fe-3822-4d19-ac8c-4d399c894038?j=eyJ1IjoiN3ltancifQ.i0HJl3aVWG8sHp566T-pebMssFGKcgvxVOFLuZyEDpw). Sinclair stations have provided highly favorable coverage (https://substack.com/redirect/0a3a89e9-1efc-4ea1-b033-ddb65c69de05?j=eyJ1IjoiN3ltancifQ.i0HJl3aVWG8sHp566T-pebMssFGKcgvxVOFLuZyEDpw) to former Mayor Shelia Dixon (D), who is running against Scott this year. Armstrong conducted an interview with Dixon on a Sinclair affiliate last summer that consisted mostly of "praise for Dixon and criticism of current elected officials."
In 2022, Smith backed a successful ballot initiative to impose term limits on Baltimore's elected officials. Currently, Smith is "underwriting Renew Baltimore, a ballot drive to cap and lower the property tax rate (https://substack.com/redirect/2f369ead-afd0-44da-b581-2b3f2293fac2?j=eyJ1IjoiN3ltancifQ.i0HJl3aVWG8sHp566T-pebMssFGKcgvxVOFLuZyEDpw)."
Now, Smith has a new tool in his arsenal to shape Baltimore's politics: the city's paper of record.
https://www.newsweek.com/mike-roman-trump-fake-electoral-2020-election-1810082
no lnx
Mike Roman Flipping Could be a Catastrophe for Donald Trump
BY EWAN PALMER ON 6/30/23
Atop official in Donald Trump's 2020 campaign team who was a key part of the fake elector scheme to overturn the results in favor of the former president is cooperating with federal prosecutors, according to reports.
Mike Roman was director of Election Day operations for Trump's campaign. He has spoken to Special Counsel Jack Smith's office as part of the expansive criminal investigation into attempts to overturn the last election and into the events that led up to the January 6, 2021 attack, reported CNN.
Roman reportedly spoke to prosecutors under what is known as a proffer agreement. This means he can share information with investigators on an understanding that the statements will not be used against him in future criminal proceedings. Roman also may not have to appear before the grand jury as part of the agreement. It is unclear what precisely Roman was asked about during his meeting with prosecutors, or what information he may have provided.
The New York Times previously reported that Roman was preparing to answer questions voluntarily about the scheme to create a fake group of electors. They would falsely declare that Trump had beaten Joe Biden in several key swing states that the Republican had actually lost in 2020.
The New York Times also described Roman as doing "much of the legwork" in finding ways to challenge Trump's losses in the key battleground states at the last election. Roman is considered a major part of the plot to send fake electoral officials to declare falsely that Trump had won in states such as Georgia, Arizona and Michigan in 2020.
Roman andBoris Epshteyn, a strategic adviser for the Trump campaign, had coordinated with others who played roles in advising Trump in the weeks after the Election day in 2020. This is according to a series of emails, reviewed by The New York Times in 2022.
In July 2022, Politico named Roman as a Trump operative who tried to get a list of false electors from Michigan and Wisconsin to Pennsylvania GOP congressman Mike Kelly on Capitol Hill in a hope they would eventually make their way to Vice President Mike Pence.
The fake electoral scheme has long been the main focus of Smith's probe. Trump's former lawyer Rudy Giuliani also recently voluntarily answered questions from federal prosecutors about the plan involving several members of the former president's inner circle.
The reports of Roman and Giuliani both meeting with prosecutors arrive amid suggestions the federal investigation into the 2020 Election may soon be drawing to a close, with indictments forthcoming.
Political reporter Jamie Dupree noted the potential significance of the reports that Roman may now be cooperating with federal prosecutors investigating the fake electoral scheme.
"Mike Roman could be a very important figure in unlocking how the fake ballots got to members and staff on Capitol Hill, who were trying to get the envelopes to VP Pence," Dupree tweeted.
In February 2022, Roman was subpoenaed to give evidence to The United States House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack, regarding the plot to send false slates of electors to Washington D.C. to "change the outcome" of the 2020 election.
In a letter to Roman, Rep. Bennie Thompson, chairman of the committee, said the panel has received communications allegedly sent by Roman. They suggested that he was involved in a plan to contact state lawmakers and tell them to "reclaim" their freedom by sending alternate electors to declare falsely that Trump had won in several states in 2020.
Thompson said itappeared Roman had "helped direct" Trump campaign staffers to participate in the plot.
Gary Michael Brown, Roman's former deputy, also received a subpoena from the January 6 committee. Brown was questioned in front of the grand jury under Smith's federal probe in mid-June, reported The New York Times.
While speaking to House investigators last year, Roman mainly invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, according to CNN.
When asked about his ties to Giuliani—another key figure in the fake electoral plot—Roman replied: "I don't believe I had any interaction with him before the election."
:{
}:
When asked about his interactions with Giuliani after Election Day in 2020, Roman said: "On the advice of counsel, I assert my constitutional privilege under the Fifth Amendment and respectfully decline to answer the question."
Newsweek has contacted Roman's office for comment via email.
cut off
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-J6-REPORT/html-submitted/ch3.html
j6 report ch 3
As discussed further in Chapter 5, that email contained Eastman’s 2-page memo proposing a strategy for January 6th based on the incorrect legal theory that Vice President Pence could assert some authority as President of the Senate to prevent or delay the election of former Vice President Biden during the joint session. Eastman’s memo relied on the fake votes, which the memo featured in the very first line: “7 states have transmitted dual slates of electors.” 120 When Eastman submitted his memo toEpshteyn, he also copied Chesebro, who had edited the memo and called it “[r]eally awesome.” 121
By that point, Chesebro and Eastman were coordinating their arguments about the fake-elector votes and how they should be used:{. On January 1, 2021, Chesebro sent an email to Eastman and Epshteyn that recommended that Vice President Pence derail the joint session of Congress. In it, he raised the idea of Vice President Pence declaring “that there are two competing slates of electoral votes” in several States, and taking the position that only he, or possibly Congress, could “resolve any disputes concerning them.” 122
}:
Two days later, Eastman completed his second major memo advising President Trump and his team on strategies for January 6th, again arguing that there were “dual slates of electors from 7 states,” and calling for Vice President Pence to assert power to act “[a]s the ultimate arbiter” to take steps that could overturn the election, either by sending the election back to State legislatures to reassess or by rejecting Biden’s certified electoral votes from States in which there were also fake Trump electors.123
By early January, most of the fake elector votes had arrived in Washington, except those from Michigan and Wisconsin.124 Undeterred, the Trump team arranged to fly them to Washington and hand deliver them to Congress for the Vice President himself. “Freaking trump idiots want someone to fly original elector papers to the senate President . . .” Wisconsin Republican Party official Mark Jefferson wrote to Party Chairman Hitt on January 4th.125 Hitt responded, “Ok I see I have a missed call from [Mike] Roman and a text from someone else. Did you talk to them already? This is just nuts. . . .” 126
The next day, Trump Campaign Deputy Director for Election Day Operations G. Michael Brown sent a text message to other campaign staff suggesting that he was the person who delivered the fake votes to Congress.127 After sending the group a photo of his face with the Capitol in the background, Brown said, “This has got to be the cover a book I write one day” and “I should probably buy [Mike] [R]oman a tie or something for sending me on this one. Hasn’t been done since 1876 and it was only 3 states that did it.” 128 The reference to 1876 alludes to a controversy during that election about certain States’ electoral college votes.129
President Trump and his Campaign apparently had assistance from allies on Capitol Hill for this effort, including Senator Ron Johnson, his chief of staff, and the chief of staff to Representative Mike Kelly, although Senator Johnson has said that “[his] involvement in that attempt to deliver” fake elector paperwork “spanned the course of a couple seconds.” 130 On the morning of January 6th, Representative Kelly’s then-chief of staff texted anaide to the Vice President, Chris Hodgson, about hand-delivering the fake elector votes to the Vice President’s team before the joint session, a message that Hodgson ignored: “Just following up-any chance you or someone from your team can meet to take the Michigan and Wisconsin packets.” 131
According to the office of Senator Ron Johnson, Representative Kelly’s chief of staff then had a phone call with Senator Johnson’s chief of staff at 11:58 a.m. “about how Kelly’s office could get us the electors [sic] because they had it.” 132 Shortly after 11:30 a.m., the Trump Campaign’s lead attorney in Wisconsin had texted Senator Johnson expressing a “[n]eed to get a document on Wisconsin electors to you [for] the VP immediately. Is there a staff person I can talk to immediately.” 133 Senator Johnson then put his chief of staff in touch with the campaign to handle the issue.134
Shortly afterwards, Senator Johnson’s chief of staff texted Hodgson: “[Sen.] Johnson needs to hand something to VPOTUS please advise.” 135 When Hodgson asked what it was, the response he got was, “Alternate slate of electors for MI and WI because archivist didn’t receive them.” 136 Hodgson did not mince words: “Do not give that to him [the Vice President]. He’s about to walk over to preside over the joint session, those were supposed to come in through the mail.” 137
Those fake electoral votes, which the Trump team tried for weeks to manufacture and deliver, never made it to the Vice President. But they would have been invalid even if they did arrive on time. The Trump team’s activities were based on the false pretense that these fake electoral votes had a decisive role to play at the joint session of Congress. And yet any such role that they could have played would have helped unlawfully obstruct an official proceeding that determines how our Nation carries out the peaceful transfer of power between Presidents.
Indeed, as the joint session approached, Senator Mike Lee had expressed grave concerns about the fake elector effort in a series of text messages to one of the Trump team’s senior legal advisors. Although Senator Lee had spent a month encouraging the idea of having State legislatures endorse competing electors for Trump, he grew alarmed as it became clear that the Trump team wanted the fake electors’ votes to be considered on January 6th
...
On December 30th, Senator Lee texted Trump advisor Cleta Mitchell that January 6th was “a dangerous idea,” including “for the republic itself.” 139 He explained that, “I don’t think we have any valid basis for objecting to the electors” because “it cannot be true that we can object to any state’s presidential electors simply because we don’t think they handled their election well or suspect illegal activity.” 140 Senator Lee even questioned her about the plan’s dangerous long-term consequences: “[w]ill you please explain to me how this doesn’t create a slippery slope problem for all future presidential elections?” 141
ENDNOTES
an 9 22
The New York Times reported (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/12/us/politics/trump-aides-jan-6-doj.html) Monday afternoon that at least 40 subpoenas have been filed for allies of former President Donald Trump over the attempt to overthrow the 2020 election using the fake electors.
At least two of Trump's top advisers had their phones taken by the FBI, sources told the Times.Boris Epshteyn, a Russian-American Republican political strategist who served as a strategic adviser to Trump's 2020 campaign was one of those who had to surrender his phone. The other was Mike Romanan opposition researcher who worked for Trump from 2017 to 2018. He went on to work on the campaign, and became the person who handed off the envelope of fake electors to be given to Vice President Mike Pence.
The Times described it as an indication that the Justice Department's case is escalating after slow movement for the past several months.
Dan Scavino, Trump’s former social media director is also among those who got a subpoena from the case.
Former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik was another subpoenaed. He was on the team with Rudy Giuliani and helping with the so-called "war room" on Jan. 6 at the Willard Hotel.
Some of the information, the Times explained, was asking about activities around theSave America PAC,which has been the main source of funding for Trump since leaving office.
Read the full report here. (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/12/us/politics/trump-aides-jan-6-doj.html)
'Manna from heaven': Legal wonks react to fake elector scheme emails
Sarah K. Burris and Raw Story July 26, 2022
The New York Times reported on Tuesday that previously unknown communications between staff on Donald Trump's campaign revealed the work outside advisers were doing to try and overturn the election.
What's being called a "gift to prosecutors" proves both federal and state crimes, according to former impeachment lawyer Norm Eisen on Twitter.
In one email, internal advisers admitted that the "alternate slate of electors" were actually "fake electors." Many of the fake electors were subpoenaed by the Justice Department. The details that it was known that the electors were "fake" is "manna from heaven," said former New York Counsel Maya Wiley.
It was a sentiment shared by NYU Law School Professor Ryan Goodman. He highlighted the piece of the report that said they'd simply send the "'fake' electoral votes to Pence so that 'someone' in Congress can make an objection when they start counting vote, and start arguing that the 'fake' votes should be counted."
That almost happened with Sen. Ron Johnson's (R-WI) staffer reaching out to Mike Pence's aides to see if he could hand the fake electors to the vice president. Johnson has been asked about the details....
in a follow-up email, Mr. Wilenchik wrote that “‘alternative’ votes is probably a better term than ‘fake’ votes,” adding a smiley face emoji."
Maggie Haberman
@maggieNYT
https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/ej-montini/2022/07/26/arizona-fake-electors-electoral-college-jack-wilenchik-kelli-ward/10156607002/
media reports on Tuesday again highlighted (Or should we say lowlighted?) the sinister scheme of Arizona’s fake Electoral College electors and their part in trying to gut the democratic process and stage a coup to keep Donald Trump in office.
This time around, according to The New York Times, the “often slapdash efforts of advisers” to Trump (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/26/us/politics/trump-fake-electors-emails.html?campaign_id=60&emc=edit_na_20220726&instance_id=0&nl=breaking-news&ref=cta®i_id=69347979&segment_id=99604&user_id=8349b742d0ddd0f5f813286e8db17be1) included the names of reactionary Republican notables like Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward and attorney Jack Wilenchik.
The report quotes anemail from Wilenchik to Trump adviser Boris Epshteyn that reads, “We (Arizona Republicans) would just be sending in ‘fake’ electoral votes to Pence so that ‘someone’ in Congress can make an objection when they start counting votes, and start arguing that the ‘fake’ votes should be counted.”
Imagine that.
Blatantly admitting that the electors were “fake.”
Wilenchik said 'fake'? He meant to say ...
Kind of damning, don’t you think?
Perhaps that is why the report noted that Wilenchik sent a follow-up email saying, “‘alternative’ votes is probably a better term than ‘fake’ votes,” followed by a smiley face emoji.
wilenchik also pointed out Ward’s part in the scheme, saying she wanted to keep the fake electors plot “under wraps until Congress counts the vote Jan. 6th (so we can try to ‘surprise’ the Dems and media with it) – I tend to agree with her.”
We already know from previous reporting that Ward and her husband, Michael, received grand jury subpoenas from the Department of Justice (https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona/2022/06/23/arizona-gop-chair-kelli-ward-subpoenaed-fake-elector-scheme/7719149001/)regarding their involvement in the fake electors operation.
Fake electors should pay a price for this
And we’ve known about the coup attempt almost from the beginning.
All of which might cause some to wonder why these latest revelations even need to be reported?
msnbc every time they get what demanded, it gets worse for trump?
https://www.mediamatters.org/john-solomon/john-solomon-representative-trump-national-archives-many-his-claims-about-case-are
no lnx many vids
John Solomon is a representative for Trump to the National Archives. Many of his claims about the case are false.
Trying to gain control of the story, Solomon himself released a May 10 letter from acting National Archivist Debra Wall and immediately misled about what it said
WRITTEN BY JACINA HOLLINS-BORGES
PUBLISHED 08/25/22
John Solomon, former President Donald Trump’s official representative to the National Archives and Records Administration, released a letter that reveals in plain detail that Trump and his legal team did not cooperate with the National Archives, and that the August 8 Mar-a-Lago search occurred only after they repeatedly sought to delay the FBI’s involvement. Despite these facts, Solomon has made numerous appearances in the right-wing media, including on Fox News, to spread misinformation and spin about the letter.
Dated May 10, the letter from acting National Archivist Debra Wall to Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran details the back-and-forth between Trump’s lawyers and the National Archives in retrieving over 700 pages of classified material from Mar-a-Lago. It clearly lays out how Trump did not fully cooperate with the National Archives and the Department of Justice, outlining the five-month process to retrieve the documents.
Solomon’s website Just the Newswas the first to publish the damning document late on August 22.The next morning, he appeared on Steve Bannon’s War Room:Pandemic to put a confusing pro-Trump spin on the story.
Video
CitationFrom the August 23, 2022, edition of Real America's Voice's War Room: Pandemic
In Solomon’s version, the FBI mysteriously heard that the National Archives retrieved documents from Mar-a-Lago and wanted to look through them. The bureau asked President Joe Biden, who told the DOJ and the FBI to go right ahead and look through the documents, completely ignoring that Trump maintains executive privilege over them.
This is completely false. Here’s a breakdown:
CLAIM: “The White House counsel's office authorized the National Archives to send information they had gotten in the boxes of Trump – voluntarily returned to the archives – and send it to the FBI. That launches a criminal investigation.”
REALITY: Solomon conveniently leaves out that the Presidential Records Act not only allows, but requires this course of action.As Wall details in the letter, the National Archives’ initial review of the documents returned in January found “items marked as classified national security information, up to the level of Top Secret and including Sensitive Compartmented Information and Special Access Program materials” – a label given to the most sensitive secrets in government. This prompted the agency to inform the DOJ. The Presidential Records Act empowers the National Archives, the president, and the DOJ to oversee the handling of presidential documents, including the power of “the Archivist and the Attorney General [to] jointly investigate the unlawful removal or destruction of government and presidential records.”
CLAIM: Next, Solomon says that “President Trump would have had the right … to go to court and say, I have executive privilege, I might have declassified these documents,” but “the current president waives the executive privilege of the past president.” He repeated this point again later on in the interview.
REALITY: His argument that Biden and the DOJ should have allowed Trump to take his executive privilege claim to the courts is debunked by the letter itself. Wall consulted the Office of Legal Counsel, which advised her that “there is no precedent for an assertion of executive privilege by a former President against an incumbent President to prevent the latter from obtaining from NARA Presidential records belonging to the Federal Government where ‘such records contain information that is needed for the conduct of current business of the incumbent President’s office and that is not otherwise available.’”
The precedent that Solomon and other Trump allies refer to when they argue this point applies only to congressional or judicial oversights, not executive branch examination and investigation. To be clear, a former president cannot exert executive privilege claims over a current president, the head of the executive branch itself, when the information pertains to the current business of the administration.
Then, referring to the same case as Solomon, Wall laid out what it actually means for Trump:
“To the contrary, the Supreme Court’s decision in Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, 433 U.S. 425 (1977), strongly suggests that a former President may not successfully assert executive privilege “against the very Executive Branch in whose name the privilege is invoked.” … The Court specifically noted that an “incumbent President should not be dependent on happenstance or the whim of a prior President when he seeks access to records of past decisions that define or channel current governmental obligations.”
The Office of Legal Counsel advised that Trump had no privilege over these documents. There was no need to start a court fight to rehash the same issue; as Wall’s letter noted, “the question in this case is not a close one.”
CLAIM: Solomon claims that on May 8, “the Biden White House says it's over, we're passing privilege. We're giving the documents to the FBI.”
REALITY: This is false. Biden delegated the decision to Wall; he did not make it himself. From the letter:
The Counsel to the President has informed me that, in light of the particular circumstances presented here, President Biden defers to my determination, in consultation with the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, regarding whether or not I should uphold the former President’s purported “protective assertion of executive privilege.”
As Politico’s Kyle Cheney explains, “there was no way a former president's claim could override an incumbent administration's need for the review. … Trump allies touted portions of this letter that were revealed by Solomon earlier in the evening, saying it showed Biden had been involved in the process. That's a requirement of any NARA matter involving privilege.”
CLAIM: Solomon argues that “there's an escalation driven by the Biden White House against its likely rival in 2024. … I think most Americans are going to be troubled to find out the current president [was] siccing the FBI on the former president,and I think that’s the way these documents read when you look at it. ”
REALITY: The letter makes clear that the “escalation” came only after numerous attempts by the Trump legal team to delay an FBI investigation. After being granted an initial delay until April 29, the Trump team requested an additional delay based on executive privilege claims, which the National Archives and the Office of Legal Counsel found to be legally unfounded. As the letter painstakingly explains, “The Executive Branch here is seeking access to records belonging to, and in the custody of, the Federal Government itself, not only in order to investigate whether those records were handled in an unlawful manner but also, as the National Security Division explained, to ‘conduct an assessment of the potential damage resulting from the apparent manner in which these materials were stored and transported and take any necessary remedial steps.’”
CLAIM: Solomon says that “in mid-April, there's a discussion – the FBI hears from the National Archives that they got the boxes. They want to see what's in the boxes.”
REALITY: Solomon’s word choice is misleading. Rather than implying that a nosy FBI “want[s] to see what’s in the boxes,” it would be more accurate to say that the bureau needed to investigate the documents, as is procedure per the Presidential Records Act. Nonetheless, this is not what the letter says. It says that the National Archives informed the DOJ, “which prompted the Department to ask the President to request that NARA provide the FBI with access to the boxes at issue so that the FBI and others in the Intelligence Community could examine them.” The FBI heard “from the National Archives that they got the boxes,” because the National Archives and DOJ needed the bureau to investigate whether the boxes contained classified documents.
Under federal law, “The Archivist is not authorized to independently investigate removal or recover records.” Engaging the FBI was a necessary step.
CLAIM: Solomon claims that Trump’s team asked for time to sort out privileged materials and “within a few days of that, those conversations going on, the National Archives came back and said ‘We don’t care about your privilege claims.’”
REALITY: He is putting a false spin on the timeline here. Trump’s lawyers were advised on April 12 that the National Archives would allow the FBI to examine the returned records. They sought and were granted a delay until April 29.
The rejection he’s referring to is the second request for a delay on April 29, two and a half weeks after Trump’s lawyers were notified that the FBI needed to examine the documents. At the time of writing the May 10 letter, Wall noted, “It has now been four weeks since we first informed you of our intent to provide the FBI access to the boxes so that it and others in the Intelligence Community can conduct their reviews.”
CLAIM: Solomon closes by arguing, “This is a chilling potential fact for not only former presidents, but any future president – if any future president knows that the guy who beats him at the polls or succeeds him at the polls can then turn around and release all the documents that a prior president might have considered privileged because he got important advice to do his job, who's going to put anything on paper? Who's going to want to get that advice knowing that could happen?”
REALITY: Solomon ignores that the documents the FBI was sent to recover still legally belong to the federal government, not Trump. Rather than trying to “turn around and release all the documents that a prior president might have considered privileged,” Wall’s letter said that the classified documents in question would need to be reviewed by national security officials to assess “the potential damage resulting from the apparent manner in which these materials were stored and transported” by the former president.
Responding to the Trump team’s objections, she explained that “there is no reason to believe such reviews could ‘adversely affect the ability of future Presidents to obtain the candid advice necessary for effective decisionmaking.’ … To the contrary: Ensuring that classified information is appropriately protected, and taking any necessary remedial action if it was not, are steps essential to preserving the ability of future Presidents to “receive the full and frank submissions of facts and opinions upon which effective discharge of [their] duties depends.”
Further, what Solomon complains about has been possible since 1978; any president since the Presidential Records Act was put in place could release such documents. Trump does not hold executive privilege over the executive branch itself.
Nonetheless, Solomon was not the only pro-Trump figure on War Room spinning the National Archives letter.
Former Trump adviser Boris Ephsteyn also appeared on Bannon’s August 23 show and claimed that Politico’s coverage of the letter somehow exonerates Trump:“The only thing that matters in the Politico article is that it proves once and for all, fully proves that A) there was full cooperation and compliance, as we've been saying consistently, and B) that the Biden administration absolutely and fully participated in this plan to raid and attack Mar-A-Lago. There's no two ways about it.”
Video
CitationFrom the August 23, 2022, edition of Real America's Voice's War Room: Pandemic
The Trump team was not in “full cooperation and compliance.” They sought to delay the investigation at least twice and submitted challenges with no legal basis. The May 10 letter shows that the Biden administration, as Cheney again points out, was remarkably detached from the investigation: “The language about consultation with the White House shows Biden was more hands off with the Mar-a-Lago docs than he was with the Jan. 6 records held by NARA. In both cases, archivist consulted with OLC, but in latter Biden delegated privilege decisions to NARA.”
The previous day, president of the Article III Project and regular War Room guest Mike Davis complained that before ordering the Mar-a-Lago search on August 8, Attorney General Merrick Garland did not “take the time to go to the Office of Legal Counsel within his own Justice Department,” whose opinions “are binding on the executive branch.” Davis asserted this meant that Garland knew the Mar-a-Lago search was “unlawful” and “unnecessary.”
Of course, we now know that the Office of Legal Counsel was consulted by the National Archives before the May 10 letter, and its “binding” legal opinion rejected Trump’s defenses. But these facts haven’t stopped right-wing media from spreading other pro-Trump spin and misinformation around the Mar-a-Lago search.
In an August 23 article, Fox News adopted the same false framework with the headline “Biden signed off on FBI review of Trump records, National Archives letter reveals.”
And Solomon has introduced a dubious new line of attack blaming former President Barack Obama.
Video
CitationFrom the August 23, 2022, edition of Real America's Voice's Just the News
JOHN SOLOMON (JUST THE NEWS): Joe Biden’s former boss, Barack Obama, actually managed to change the rules. After 9/11, George Bush had put a rule into place that a prior president got to protect his own privilege. If he and the president couldn’t – the sitting president – couldn’t agree on the release of records, that the prior president’s claim to executive privilege was predominant. Barack Obama came in in 2009 and he got rid of that and said, I, the incumbent president, I get the only say on this. … Barack Obama actually set in motion the raid that ultimately ended up in a raid at Mar-a-Lago on Donald Trump’s property.
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08/22/22
what does it mean when THIS GUY [judge trump]
cuts bannon off at knees?
bogus trump ltr releASED from exec priv when trump has never asserted and can't now?
judge tossed case, liar said i have no defense left (4 parts all) , judge said yup.
an 7 22
If you are tired of waiting for Attorney General Merrick Garland to indict Donald Trump for seditious conspiracy, insurrection, obstruction of Congress, or any other crime involving the attempt to overturn the 2020 election, I have some words of consolation: Steve Bannon’s trial (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Bannon#Donald_Trump_2016_presidential_campaign) for contempt of Congress (https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/11/bannon-trial-hearing/) has begun. If convicted, he will likely go to jail.
Ordinarily, I wouldn’t take pleasure in the prospect of anyone doing time, as our penal institutions are shamelessly overcrowded and do little in the way of rehabilitation or deterrence to lower our outrageously high crime rates. But apart from Trump himself, there might not be any other person more (https://progressive.org/latest/steve-bannon/) deserving (https://progressive.org/magazine/steve-bannon-trump%E2%80%99s-right-hand-batterer/) of a stint in the pokey than Bannon, the loud-mouthed propagandist and podcaster who led (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/18/devils-bargain-joshua-green-steve-bannon-trump-election-win) Trump’s 2016 political campaign to victory, and subsequently served as the disgraced ex-President’s chief strategist and senior counselor for nearly eight months in 2017.
The facts of the case against Bannon are straightforward and, from a legal perspective, devastating.
On September 23, 2021, the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol issued a subpoena (https://docs.house.gov/meetings/IJ/IJ00/20211019/114156/HMTG-117-IJ00-20211019-SD001.pdf) commanding Bannon to produce documents on October 7 and sit for a sworn deposition on October 14. Bannon defied both requests.
On October 20 (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/house-jan-6-committee-to-vote-to-hold-bannon-in-contempt/2021/10/19/cc0e836a-3104-11ec-a1e5-07223c50280a_story.html), the committee voted to hold Bannon in contempt. Three days later, the full House (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/house-votes-refer-trump-adviser-steve-bannon-doj-possible-criminal-n1282064), with the support of nine Republicans and every Democrat, passed a contempt resolution against Bannon and forwarded a request for prosecution to the Department of Justice.
On November 12, a federal grand jury returned a two-count indictment against Bannon (https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1447811/download) for disobeying the subpoena. The first count cites him for refusing to testify, and the second for failing to turn over documents.
Contempt of Congress is a misdemeanor, but a very serious one. Conviction carries a mandatory minimum (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/2/192) sentence of thirty days and a maximum of one year in jail. There is no possibility of probation, according to a 2011 federal court ruling (https://casetext.com/case/us-v-bloch?q=370%20U.S.%20139&sort=relevance&p=1&type=case&tab=keyword&partyTypes=148,332,667&motionTypes=msj&resultsNav=false) interpreting the contempt statute.
The committee set forth its reasons for seeking Bannon’s cooperation in a succinct one-page letter that accompanied the subpoena. The letter reads in part:
“The Select Committee has reason to believe that you have information relevant to understanding important activities that led to and informed the events at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. For example, you have been identified as present at the Willard Hotel on January 5, 2021, during an effort to persuade Members of Congress to block the certification of the election the next day, and in relation to other activities on January 6....Moreover, you are quoted as stating, on January 5, 2021 [on Bannon’s ‘War Room’ podcast] that ‘[a]ll hell is going to break loose tomorrow.’ Accordingly, the Select Committee seeks both documents and your deposition testimony regarding these and multiple other matters…”
The subpoena itself lists seventeen categories of records and communications. In addition to the items highlighted in the letter, the list includes all discussions that Bannon had with Trump about the planning, financing, and staging of the events of January 6, and any communications that Bannon had with Trump between November 3, 2020, and January 20, 2021, “concerning efforts to contest the election results or delay or impede the electoral vote.”
The list also includes communications Bannon may have had with any third parties about the insurrection. The subpoena specifically names attorney Boris Epstein (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Epshteyn) [TYPO], who worked as a strategic adviser on Trump’s 2020 election campaign; Kash Patel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kash_Patel#U.S._Department_of_Defense), a one-time aide to former GOP Congressman Devin Nunes of California; and Ezra Cohen-Watnick (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezra_Cohen-Watnick), an intelligence officer who briefly served as the acting Under-Secretary of Defense in 2020.
Initially, Bannon reacted to the subpoena with tough-guy bravado. Following his first court appearance in November, he told (https://www.foxnews.com/politics/judge-chooses-not-to-proceed-with-bannon-arraignment-releases-him-pending-trial) a small crowd of supporters and reporters, “This is going to be the misdemeanor from hell for Merrick Garland, Nancy Pelosi, and Joe Biden. Joe Biden ordered Merrick Garland to prosecute me from the White House lawn when he got off Marine One. And . . . we’re going to go on the offense.We’re tired of playing defense. We’re going to go on the offense on this and stand by.”
Bannon might have been emboldened by the fact that contempt of Congress prosecutions arerelatively rare (https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/LSB/LSB10660), and because his case was assigned to Federal District Court Judge Carl Nichols (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_J._Nichols), a Trump appointee who was narrowly confirmed by the Senate in 2019. In March, Nichols dismissed (https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/03/08/judge-tosses-jan-6-obstruction-charge/) a felony obstruction charge brought against a Texas man accused of storming the Capitol.
Nichols, however, has been anything but lenient with Bannon. On June 15, Nichols denied (https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/15/judge-rejects-bannons-effort-to-dismiss-criminal-case-for-defying-jan-6-select-committee-00039888)Bannon’s motion to dismiss the case, rejecting his claims of executive privilege and his contention that the select committee was established illegally (https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/06/15/judge-rejects-bannon-motion-to-dismiss/) in violation of House rules.
As Bannon’s July 18 trial date approached, he apparently had a “come-to-Jesus moment” typical of many criminal defendants faced with imminent defeat. In an email (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/10/steve-bannon-discussions-january-6-committee-capitol-attack) sent to committee chairman Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of South Carolina, by one of his lawyers on July 9, Bannon offered to testify after all. The email also cited a rambling letter (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22082936-president-trump-letter-07092022pdf) written by Trump, waiving claims of executive privilege.
Neither Judge Nichols nor the DOJ was swayed by Bannon’s change of position. On July 11, Nichols denied (https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/11/bannon-trial-hearing/) Bannon’s request to postpone his trial to October.
Nichols also ruled (https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/11/judge-shreds-bannon-defenses-ahead-of-contempt-trial-00045191) that Bannon will not be permitted to argue executive privilege as a defense at trial, and that he will not be allowed to subpoena House Speaker Nancy Pelosi or other members of the select committee to testify. The rulings left attorney David Schoen—who represented Trump in his second impeachment trial and later joined Bannon’s legal team—so exasperated that he remarked (https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/11/judge-shreds-bannon-defenses-ahead-of-contempt-trial-00045191) in open court, “What’s the point in going to trial if there are no defenses.”
Unlike seditious conspiracy or obstruction cases, contempt of Congress cases do not involve complex issues of intent. All that the prosecution needs to prove is a willful or deliberate intention (https://www.justsecurity.org/81191/what-kind-of-guilty-mind-is-needed-for-the-criminal-contempt-of-congress-statute/) not to respond to a Congressional subpoena. Evil motives or corrupt purposes need not be shown.
Bannon’s eleventh-hour offer to testify likely won’t save him, either. As the DOJ noted in a recent court filing (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22083320-steve-bannon-ausa-11th-hour), Bannon’s crime was committed and became complete in October, when he dodged the committee’s subpoena.
What this means, bottom line, is that Bannon had best hope he isn’t housed with the general population at the infamous D.C. Central Detention Facility (https://doc.dc.gov/page/correctional-facilities), where he will probably serve his sentence (https://www.washingtonian.com/2021/10/25/if-steve-bannon-is-jailed-where-would-he-be-held/). The same goes for former Trump aide Peter Navarro (https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/peter-navarro-indicted-contempt-congress), who has also been indicted for defying a select committee subpoena. Navarro’s trial (https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-peter-navarro-plea-not-guilty-contempt-congress-january-2022-6) is set to begin November 17.
And who knows—a victory in the Bannon and Navarro cases might even encourage Garland to find his spine and prosecute Trump for attempting to overthrow what remains of our damaged democracy.
7 22
Boris Epshteyn - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Epshteyn)
boris Epshteyn (born August 14, 1982) is a Russian-American (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Americans) Republican (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party%28United_States%29) political strategist, investment banker, and attorney. He was the strategic advisor on the Donald Trump 2020 presidential campaign (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_2020_presidential_campaign).[1] He was the chief political commentator at Sinclair Broadcast Group (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Broadcast_Group) until December 2019.[2] He was a senior advisor to Donald Trump (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump)'s 2016 campaign (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_presidential_campaign,2016) for President of the United States (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_United_States), and previously worked on the John McCain 2008 presidential campaign (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCain_2008_presidential_campaign). Following Trump's election, he was named director of communications for the Presidential Inaugural Committee,[3] and then assistant communications director for surrogate operations in the White House Office (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_Office), until he resigned in March 2017. He was a member of a team of Trump allies[4][5] who sought to prevent the certification of Joe Biden (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden)'s victory in the 2020 presidential election (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S.presidential_election,2020).
Early life and education (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Epshteyn#Early_life_and_education)
2Career (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Epshteyn#Career)
2.12016 Trump campaign (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Epshteyn#2016_Trump_campaign)
2.2Trump administration (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Epshteyn#Trump_administration)
2.3Sinclair Broadcast Group (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Epshteyn#Sinclair_Broadcast_Group)
2.42020 Trump campaign (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Epshteyn#2020_Trump_campaign)
3Personal life (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Epshteyn#Personal_life)
4References (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Epshteyn#References)
5External links (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Epshteyn#External_links)
Early life and education
Epshteyn was born in 1982 in Moscow (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow), Soviet Union (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union), the son of Anna Shulkina and Aleksandr Epshteyn. His family are Russian Jews (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Jews).[6] In 1993, he immigrated as a refugee with his family to Plainsboro Township, New Jersey (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plainsboro_Township,New_Jersey) under the Lautenberg amendment of 1990 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson-Vanik_amendment#Lautenberg_Amendment%281990%29).[7]
Epshteyn is a graduate of Georgetown University School of Foreign Service (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgetown_University_School_of_Foreign_Service_in_Qatar) (BSFS, 2004). During his time as an undergraduate at Georgetown, Epshteyn became a brother of the Eta Sigma chapter of the Alpha Epsilon Pi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Epsilon_Pi) (AEPi) fraternity.[8]He graduated from the Georgetown University Law Center (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgetown_University_Law_Center) with a J.D. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juris_Doctor) degree in 2007.[9]
Career
Following his graduation from law school, Epshteyn was part of the finance practice of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milbank,Tweed,Hadley_%26_McCloy). He worked on securities transactions, private placements, and bank finance.[10]
In 2008, Epshteyn was a communications aide with the McCain-Palin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCain-Palin) campaign. While at the campaign, he was part of a rapid response task force which concentrated on issues related to vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin).[11]
Epshteyn was managing director of business and legal affairs at the boutique investment bank West America Securities Corporation until the firm was expelled by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority in 2013.[12] He is managing director of business and legal affairs for investment banking firm TGP Securities.[10] In October 2013, Epshteyn moderated a panel at the investment conference "Invest in Moscow!". The panel was composed mainly of Moscow city government officials, including Sergey Cheremin, a city minister who heads Moscow's foreign economic and international relations department.[13]
2016 Trump campaign
During the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, Epshteyn acted as a senior advisor to the Donald Trump campaign (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_presidential_campaign,_2016), making frequent television appearances as a Trump media surrogate on Trump's behalf.[13]
In September 2016, Epshteyn responded to a question from MSNBC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSNBC)'s Hallie Jackson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallie_Jackson) by offering a new explanation for why a portrait of Trump – paid for by the Donald J. Trump Foundation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_J._Trump_Foundation) – wound up on display at Trump National Doral Miami (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_National_Doral_Miami), a Trump-owned for-profit golf resort in Florida. Epshteyn said, "There are IRS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS) rules which specifically state that when a foundation has an item, an individual can store those items – on behalf of the foundation – in order to help it with storage costs... And that's absolutely proper." Epshteyn's explanation was, in effect, that Trump hadn't used his foundation to buy some art for his resort, which would be self-dealing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-dealing). Instead, Trump's resort was helping the foundation – which has no employees or office space of its own – to store one of its possessions.[14] Epshteyn's explanation failed to account for why the storage services required that portrait be displayed in public, as opposed to being maintained in a storage space. Similarly, Epshteyn failed to explain why the Trump National Doral Miami provided such storage services only for the Trump Foundation and only for a portrait of Trump.
In September 2016, the media watchdog organization Media Matters for America (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Matters_for_America) criticized CNN (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNN), Fox News (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News), and PBS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PBS) for failing to disclose Epshteyn's "financial ties to the former Soviet Union, which include consulting through Strategy International LLC for 'entities doing business in Eastern Europe' and moderating a Russian-sponsored conference on 'investment opportunities in Moscow.'"[15]
In an October 2016 article in The New York Times (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times), three political commentators said in separate interviews that Epshteyn "often acted in a rude, condescending manner toward show staffers, makeup artists and others." Joy Reid (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy-Ann_Reid), an MSNBC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSNBC) show host, said "Boris is abrasive. That is who he is both on the air and off."[6]
Epshteyn co-hosted the Trump Campaign Facebook Live (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook) coverage before and after the final presidential debate. He also anchored Trump Tower Live, the Trump Campaign Facebook live nightly program.[16]
During the 2020 U.S. presidential campaign, Epshteyn acted as a senior advisor to the Trump campaign.
On November 25, 2020 it was reported that he had tested positive for coronavirus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus).[17]
Trump administration
Epshteyn became a special assistant in the Trump administration (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_administration) as it took office. He wrote Trump's controversial statement for Holocaust Remembrance Day (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_Remembrance_Day) in January 2017, which omitted any mention of the Jewish people.[18] Following criticism of the omission, press secretary Sean Spicer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Spicer) defended the statement as written by "an individual who is both Jewish and the descendent of Holocaust (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust) survivors."[18][19] At the end of March 2017, it was reported that unnamed sources had said Epshteyn was resigning.[20]
Sinclair Broadcast Group
In mid-April 2017, Sinclair (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Broadcast_Group) announced it had hired Epshteyn as its senior political analyst. Regarding the appointment, Scott Livingston at Sinclair said in part, "We understand the frustration with government and traditional institutions." Epshteyn said in part, "I greatly admire Sinclair's mission to provide thoughtful impactful reporting throughout the country." At the time, Variety (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variety_%28magazine%29) also noted Jared Kushner (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Kushner)'s December 2016 revelation of discussions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Broadcast_Group#Political_views) between the Trump campaign and the company and content provided to the company which, the report said, Sinclair had "vehemently denied".[21]
2020 Trump campaign
Epshteyn was the Strategic Advisor and Co-Chair of the Jewish Voices for Trump Advisory Board for Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign.[22] He led the campaign’s Jewish outreach, appearing in media interviews across national outlets and participating in large-scale events across the country, including in Florida, Pennsylvania, and New York.[23]
Trump garnered the highest Jewish support for a Republican presidential candidate since George H.W. Bush (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H.W._Bush) in 1988, receiving 30% of the vote nationally[24] and 42% in the key battleground state of Florida,[25] which Trump won. Trump’s 2020 results with Jewish voters was lower than his 2016 totals, when he received 24% [26] of the Jewish vote nationally and 30% in Florida.
After Trump lost the election, Epshteyn was a member of a team that gathered at a "command center" in the Willard Hotel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willard_Hotel) one block from the White House days before Joe Biden (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden)'s victory was to be certified by Vice President Mike Pence (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence) in the Senate chamber on January 6. The team's objective was to prevent Biden's victory from being certified. On January 2, Trump and two of his attorneys, Rudy Giuliani (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudy_Giuliani) and John Eastman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Eastman), held a conference call with some 300 Republican state legislators in battleground states Biden won to provide them with false allegations of widespread voting fraud (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Lie#Trump's_false_claim_of_a_stolen_election) they might use to convene special sessions of their legislatures to rescind Biden's winning slates of electors and replace them with slates of Trump electors for Pence to certify.
On January 5, dozens of Republican legislators from Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin wrote Pence asking him to delay the January 6 certification for ten days so they would have time to replace the elector slates. Pence did not act on the request and that day also rejected a proposal made by Eastman that a vice president could simply choose to reject the electoral college results; a vice president's role in certifying the results is constitutionally ministerial (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministerial_act). Epshteyn toldThe Washington Post (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Post)in October 2021 that he continued to believe Pence "had the constitutional power to send the issue back to the states for 10 days to investigate the widespread fraud and report back well in advance of Inauguration Day, January 20th."[27]
Epshteyn worked with Giuliani in December 2020 to persuade Republican officials in seven states to prepare certificates of ascertainment (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_of_ascertainment) for slates of Trump "alternate electors" to be presented to Pence for certification. Epshteyn and others asserted this was a contingency similar to the 1960 presidential election, in which two slates of electors were prepared pending results of a late recount of ballots in Hawaii. Both parties agreed to that recount, which ultimately resulted in John F. Kennedy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy) winning the state, though the outcome of the election did not hinge on the Hawaii results. By contrast, in the case of the 2020 election, the stated need for slates of alternate electors in multiple states was predicated on persistent false claims of nationwide election fraud. Epshteyn asserted the slates of alternate electors were not fraudulent and "it is not against the law, it is according to the law."[5][28][29][30]
Epshteyn was subpoenaed in January 2022 to testify before theHouse Select Committee on the January 6Attack (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_Select_Committee_on_the_January_6_Attack).[31]
Personal life
Epshteyn married Lauren Tanick Epshteyn, a sales manager at Google (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google), in 2009.[9] They have one child.
Epshteyn was reported to be a friend of Eric Trump (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Trump), who also attended Georgetown.[6]
Following a bar fight in Scottsdale, Arizona (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottsdale,_Arizona), in 2014, Epshteyn was charged with misdemeanor assault (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault). The charge was dropped after he agreed to undergo anger management (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anger_management) counseling and perform community service.[6]
References
- ^ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Epshteyn#cite_ref-1) Kumar, Anita (June 9, 2020). "Trump gets the 2016 band back together as he tumbles in polls" (https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/09/trump-2016-team-campaign-307896). Politico (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politico). Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20200613143208/https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/09/trump-2016-team-campaign-307896) from the original on June 13, 2020. Retrieved June 14, 2020.
- ^ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Epshteyn#cite_ref-2) Atkinson, Claire (December 19, 2019). "Sinclair drops Boris Epshteyn and other political analysts" (https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/sinclair-drops-boris-epshteyn-other-political-analysts-n1099796). NBC News (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBC_News). Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20200219142530/https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/sinclair-drops-boris-epshteyn-other-political-analysts-n1099796) from the original on February 19, 2020. Retrieved February 21, 2020.
- ^ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Epshteyn#cite_ref-3) "Presidential Inaugural Committee seeks workers and volunteers" (https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/presidential-inaugural-committee-seeks-workers-and-volunteers/2016/11/23/29a886d0-b188-11e6-be1c-8cec35b1ad25_story.html). The Washington Post. November 23, 2016. Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20161126133049/https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/presidential-inaugural-committee-seeks-workers-and-volunteers/2016/11/23/29a886d0-b188-11e6-be1c-8cec35b1ad25_story.html) from the original on November 26, 2016. Retrieved November 26, 2016.
- ^ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Epshteyn#cite_ref-4) Haberman, Maggie (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maggie_Haberman); Berzon, Alexandra (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Berzon); Schmidt, Michael S. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_S._Schmidt) (April 18, 2022). "Trump Allies Continue Legal Drive to Erase His Loss, Stoking Election Doubts" (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/18/us/politics/trump-allies-election-decertify.html). The New York Times (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times). Retrieved April 18, 2022.
- ^ Jump up to:a (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Epshteyn#cite_ref-CNNPolitics_5-0) ^b (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Epshteyn#cite_ref-CNNPolitics_5-1) Swire, Sonnet (January 22, 2022). "Former Trump campaign adviser acknowledges being part of 2020 'alternate electors' plot" (https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/22/politics/boris-epshteyn-trump-campaign-fake-electors/index.html). CNN (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNN). Retrieved April 18, 2022.
- ^ Jump up to:a (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Epshteyn#cite_ref-NYT_6-0) ^b (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Epshteyn#cite_ref-NYT_6-1) ^c (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Epshteyn#cite_ref-NYT_6-2) ^d (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Epshteyn#cite_ref-NYT_6-3) Meier, Barry; Craig, Susanne (October 13, 2016). "The Obscure Lawyer Who Became Donald Trump's TV Attack Dog" (https://web.archive.org/web/20170120223922/https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/14/us/politics/boris-epshteyn-trump.html?r=0). The New York Times (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times). Archived from the original (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/14/us/politics/boris-epshteyn-trump.html?r=0) on January 20, 2017. Retrieved January 25, 2017.
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- ^ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Epshteyn#cite_ref-24) "Understanding The 2020 Electorate: AP VoteCast Survey" (https://www.npr.org/2020/11/03/929478378/understanding-the-2020-electorate-ap-votecast-survey). NPR (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR). Retrieved January 16, 2021.
- ^ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Epshteyn#cite_ref-25) "Florida Voter Surveys: How Different Groups Voted" (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/ap-polls-florida.html). The New York Times (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times). November 3, 2020. Retrieved January 16, 2021.
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- ^ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Epshteyn#cite_ref-27) Alemany, Jacqueline; Brown, Emma; Hamburger, Tom; Swaine, Jon (October 23, 2021). "Ahead of Jan. 6, Willard hotel in downtown D.C. was a Trump team 'command center' for effort to deny Biden the presidency" (https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/willard-trump-eastman-giuliani-bannon/2021/10/23/c45bd2d4-3281-11ec-9241-aad8e48f01ff_story.html). The Washington Post (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Post). Retrieved October 23, 2021.
- ^ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Epshteyn#cite_ref-28) Reinhard, Beth; Gardner, Amy; Dawsey, Josh; Brown, Emma; Helderman, Rosalind S. (January 20, 2021). "As Giuliani coordinated plan for Trump electoral votes in states Biden won, some electors balked" (https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/electors-giuliani-trump-electoral-college/2022/01/20/687e3698-7587-11ec-8b0a-bcfab800c430_story.html). The Washington Post (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Post).
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grift?
interesting that currency based on trust, ~ gubmint, fox raison detre hate dems
no lnx
Steve Bannon is pushing an anti-Biden cryptocurrency — but a new report sounds the alarm about hidden risks
Alex Henderson January 19, 2022
Steve Bannon, host of the “War Room” podcast and former White House chief strategist under President Donald Trump, has been promoting his involvement in $FJB — a new cryptocurrency aimed at MAGA Republicans who hate President Joe Biden. But reporters Ali Breland and David Corn, in an article published by Mother Jones this week, warn that according to tech experts, $FJB could pose risks for investors.
The FJB in $FJB stands for “fuck Joe Biden.” Bannon, on his podcast, has called $FJB a “currency for the MAGA movement” — and his MAGA ally Boris Epshteyn has described it as a way to “let your feelings, your primal disapproval, your primal disgust with Biden be heard.”
Breland and Corn point out that starting a cryptocurrency is “surprisingly easy.” Making it profitable for investors, however, is another matter.
“$FJB buyers might want to beware,” Breland and Corn warn. “Not only does every purchase bolster the value of Bannon’s and Epshteyn’s holdings, crypto experts say the currency is designed in a way that affords its operators an unusual amount of discretion in blocking owners of coins from selling their tokens — a power that could cause problems for investors.”
READ: 'Incredibly dumb': Former federal prosecutor mocks Eric Trump for telling NY AG 'we are prosecuting you'
Mother Jones interviewed tech expert Simon de la Rouvier for the article, and he is advising caution.
“The code for $FJB allows the currency’s operators to manually lock an owner’s token balance, an unusual practice in a space that aims to avoid centralized authority,” Breland and Corn explain. “This would prevent an owner from selling coins, according to Simon de la Rouvier, who reviewed the code for Mother Jones. De la Rouvier is a digital artist and co-author of ERC-20, a coding standard used to program contracts on the Ethereum blockchain — which supports Ether, a cryptocurrency second only to Bitcoin in market capitalization.”
According to de la Rouvier, the owners of $FJB are exempt from its restrictions. De la Rouvier told Mother Jones, “They can transfer as much as they want, whenever.”
In a chat on the messaging app Discord, Breland and Corn report, an $FJB user complained, “My wallet has been locked now for the 4th time. This time it’s locked by the new owners of $FJB. It’s an anxious time. (I’m) waiting for answers.”
oddly fired in middle of impeachment?!
Sinclair Broadcasting Group has dropped Boris Epshteyn as a commentator.
Over the past several years, Epshteyn has featured in right-wing propaganda “news” segments that Sinclair forced its local stations around the country to air.
Prior to working for Sinclair, Epsteyn was an aide to Donald Trump in the White House. Not surprisingly, Epshteyn used his segments to directly advocate for Republican policies, defend the president from attacks, and give softball interviews to officials in the Trump administration.
Since 2017, Media Matters’ Pamela Vogel has watched all of Epshteyn’s “must-run” segments and pointed out his worst moments, often prompting media coverage of the right-wing propaganda. We compiled some of the worst moments here (http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=2c9666db472b531a2fc911317c07fe3778619e14452b1816ce250ab1b83e9e6131621a7263bed591c94f521b0907f17a06656bddb74e223c).
Also: No one has tracked Sinclair more than Vogel. She examined (http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=2c9666db472b531aa36815b7143b7ea79fcfd258842b0a86b516344969f556c34f8d222de934ec4197226947f9ab8d0c928cb4ecbd732354) what its propaganda will look like post-Epshteyn.
https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/rudy-giuliani-2649698626/
12/20 an alexh
Although Joe Biden's inauguration is only three weeks away, President Donald Trump and many of his loyalists have yet to acknowledge the president-elect's victory. And that includes the president's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who has announced yet another election-related lawsuit (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election-2020/supreme-court-trump-giuliani-election-b1780166.html) challenging Biden's win in Wisconsin.
Making debunked and totally baseless claims of widespread voter fraud, Trump and his allies have filed one lawsuit after another in the hope of overturning the 2020 presidential election results — and most have already been dismissed or rejected in the federal courts. That includes the U.S. Supreme Court's refusal to even consider a lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who asked the High Court to throw out the election results in four states that Biden won: Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia.
Giuliani, according to Independent reporter Justin Vallejo, is challenging a December 14 ruling by the Wisconsin Supreme Court — which rejected the Trump campaign's efforts to get more than 50,000 ballots thrown out in Wisconsin. The former New York City mayor is hoping that the U.S. Supreme Court will invalidate the Wisconsin Supreme Court's decision.
Vallejo notes that Trump's campaign "says its petition will present claims that ballots were counted by voters without identification, incomplete absentee ballots were counted, and ballots were collected by hand at events held before the election."
Previously, a lawsuit from the Trump campaign asked the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out the election results in Pennsylvania, but it refused to consider that case. And the justices later rejected Paxton's widely condemned lawsuit out of Texas.
When the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled against the Trump campaign on December 14, it was a 4-3 decision — and Justice Brian Hagedorn wrote, "Our laws allow the challenge flag to be thrown regarding various aspects of election administration. The challenges raised by the campaign in this case, however, come long after the last play or even the last game; the campaign is challenging the rulebook adopted before the season began."
During a recent appearance on the podcast of former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon — who is facing criminal fraud charges (https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/kris-kobach/) for allegedly defrauding donors to the We Build the Wall campaign — Trump campaign adviser Boris Epshteyn insisted that the campaign will continue to fight the election results in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and claimed that there will be "action out of Georgia" as well.
The U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate are scheduled to officially count the Electoral College results during a joint session of Congress on January 6. Some far-right House Republicans, including Rep. Mo Brooks (https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/adam-kinzinger/) of Alabama and Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, have vowed to challenge the election results that day. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has acknowledged Biden as president-elect and Sen. Kamala Harris of California as vice president-elect and is urging other Senate Republicans to do the same. Since Democrats still control the House of Representatives, and a majority of the Senate acknowledges Biden's win, Trump has no path to overturn the election in Congress, despite his hopes.
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Reporter details why Rudy Giuliani may have just perjured himself ... › (https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/rudy-giuliani-2649543528/)
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==
https://www.mediamatters.org/boris-epshteyn/dead-voter-conspiracy-theory-quickly-spread-4chan-trump-campaign-strategic-advisor
no lnx twt
A dead voter conspiracy theory quickly spread from 4chan to a Trump campaign “strategic advisor”
WRITTEN BY TIMOTHY JOHNSON
PUBLISHED 11/05/20 3:10 PM EST
boris-goback.png
A deranged conspiracy theory promoted on Twitter by Trump campaign strategic adviser Boris Epshteyn is illustrative of how quickly conspiracy theories about voter fraud can spread from the cesspools of the internet to social media and then to high-level figures in President Donald Trump’s campaign.
In the wake of Election Day, Trump has been attempting to steal the election by claiming he has won in states that he has not and by making numerous baseless claims that election results that are unfavorable to him are the result of voter fraud. Trump supporters have already responded to the president’s claims by attempting to disrupt election procedures in Michigan and Arizona.
Of the many false voter fraud claims being used as grist, one centered on Detroit indicates just how quickly far-right trolls and extremists can guide the Trump campaign’s messaging.
On November 4 at 7:44 p.m. CST, an anonymous user of 4chan’s /pol/ message board, which is known for promoting bigotry and anti-Semitism, posted an image that purported to be from a vote-counting location in Detroit. The image supposedly showed that eight people with birth dates 1/1/1900 had successfully voted in the 2020 election -- at the age of 120 years. In reality, 1/1/1900 is the “default date” used by Michigan for instances where the state does not have a registered voter’s birthday. Voters with incomplete registration information can have their votes recorded by providing photo identification at the polls. Furthermore, simple internet searches of the names observed in the image posted to 4chan indicate the individuals’ actual ages are within a typical human lifespan.
4chan post claims to show evidence of dead voters in Detroit
Just 12 minutes later, at 7:56 p.m. CST, a Twitter user who goes by the name of Eric Block, posted a cropped photo from the 4chan post with the message “Dead voters in Michigan. Look at the birth date. @realDonaldTrump.” Block’s Twitter profile, and the tweets he has sent, indicate that he is an enthusiastic supporter of the QAnon conspiracy theory, which includes many anti-Semitic elements, has been labeled a potential domestic terror threat by the FBI, and has been tied to acts of violence, including murder.
Approximately four hours later, Block’s dead voter claim was retweeted by Trump campaign “2020 Strategic Advisor” Boris Epshteyn, who is known for having pushed ludicrous pro-Trump propaganda while working for Sinclair Broadcast Group in between 2016 and 2020 Trump campaign stints.
Boris Epshteyn promotes dead voter conspiracy theory
Block’s tweet is no longer available on Twitter; it is unclear whether he deleted it or Twitter took it down. The original image posted to 4chan is still available on Twitter from the account of Mike Coudrey,who is known for spreading far-right disinformation, including other bogus claims of fraud about election results this week. Coudrey’s tweet has been retweeted more than 4,000 times.
Although Block’s tweet is no longer available, Epshteyn has continued to promote other disinformation about voter fraud and election results on Twitter.
is it as simple as, dems won on this in 2018 so i'll just co-opt it, tho central to aca which raga and doj actively constantly trying to kill for year? ppl lose healthcare w/ jobs, so helps the, how?
https://www.alternet.org/**2020/08/**trump-campaign-thought-their-huge-news-on-pre-existing-conditions-had-democrats-cornered-but-it-backfired-spectacularly (https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/trump-campaign-thought-their-huge-news-on-pre-existing-conditions-had-democrats-cornered-but-it-backfired-spectacularly)
During a bizarre Friday evening press conference at his private golf club in New Jersey, President Donald Trump vowed to protect Americans with pre-existing conditions.
Of course, Trump does not need an executive order to accomplish such a goal, as it is already federal law in the Affordable Care Act, that was passed a decade ago by congressional Democrats and then-President Barack Obama.
Trump campaign advisors soon took to Twitter to praise Trump’s promise as “huge news.”
“Huge news just now – [Trump] announces upcoming EO to cover pre-existing conditions. Big, big, big news,” campaign senior advisor Jason Miller tweeted.
Campaign advisor Boris Epshteyn believed it was such “HUGE NEWS” that he tweeted it between to flashing red sirens.
There was just one problem, which was pointed out by trial lawyer Max Kennerly, who pointed out it conflicted with a brief the administration recently filed with the U.S. Supreme Court.
Here’s what others were saying:...
==
https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/pence-secretly-meeting-with-right-wing-media-personalities-on-how-to-spin-trumps-virus-crisis-report/
no lnx
Pence secretly meeting with right-wing media personalities on how to spin Trump’s virus crisis: report
Written by Tom Boggioni / Raw Story March 17, 2020
As part of his duties overseeing the task force in charges of dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, Vice President Mike Pence has been holding secret meetings with prominent right-wing “influencers” on how to spin Donald Trump’s administration’s efforts to contain the growing health crisis.
According to a report from the Daily Beast, the outreach began at the annual CPAC conference long before the administration had any idea what they were dealing with, the report notes.
“The direct outreach occurred on Thursday, Feb. 27—the day after Trump tapped Pence to lead the task force. There, the vice president hosted an informal briefing on COVID-19 and the administration’s latest efforts, with several right-leaning personalities with large followings on Twitter and other social media platforms, according to a source with direct knowledge of the gathering,” the Beast reports, adding, “The following Wednesday, Pence hosted another closed-door meeting with conservative ‘influencers,’ with this one lasting for roughly an hour in the vice president’s office on White House grounds.”
Among those Vice President Pence has been reaching out to are “Fox New fixture and prolific MAGA tweeterDan Bongino; former Trump adviser and current “War Room: 2020” podcast host Jason Miller; Newsmax TV host and Trump’s former press secretary Sean Spicer; former White House official and Sinclair ‘must-run’ commentator Boris Epshteyn; Sinclair anchor and ex-Fox News host Eric Bolling; and former Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA), a Trump surrogate.”
The report notes that the outreach illustrates that White House knows it has a public relations problem of epic proportions on its hands and needs all Trump-supporting hands on deck, who are being used to praise the president while at the same time lashing out the media for their coverage of the administration’s failures.
“For weeks the Trump administration’s coronavirus task force has struggled to maintain continuity in messaging, with different departments seemingly operating off of different scripts and with different ideas about how to disseminate information to the public. Part of that tension is internal, with a White House and a president having been desperate to calm the markets at a time when state governments are calling for help amid rising death tolls,” the report continued. “Through it all, the vice president’s office, and communications teams on the task force, have tried to minimize the noise, calm Americans, and relentlessly lauded the president’s response to the outbreak in the U.S. The efforts to loop in conservative influencers has been seen as a way to maneuver beyond the regular briefings to the White House press corps and reach a different and more sympathetic media cohort. “
Defending the meetings, Pence chief of staff Marc Short described their efforts by stating, “The vice president has said that he wants to get as much information out to the American people as possible… There are a lot of different channels of communication. It’s not just press briefings every day, it’s not just TV interviews… There’s a whole lot of different streams of information. And one of those is surrogates.”
You can read more here.
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ref
https://www.mediamatters.org/boris-epshteyn/sinclairs-right-wing-propaganda-will-outlast-boris-epshteyn
After subjecting the American public to more than two years of near-daily pro-Trump commentary that ranged from morally appalling to just aggressively tepid, Sinclair Broadcast Group is reportedly relegating chief political commentator Boris Epshteyn to the sales department. As a researcher who’s tracked every one of his segments, I’m relieved -- but also worried about what's to come.
Epshteyn has been the deeply uncharismatic face (https://www.mediamatters.org/sinclair-broadcast-group/there-no-audience-boris-epshteyns-pro-trump-propaganda-so-sinclair-forces) of the right-wing local news giant since the spring of 2017, when he began regularly producing right-wing political commentary that Sinclair sent out as “must-run” segments to its local news stations across the country. But on December 11, NBC News reported that Sinclair was ending (https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/sinclair-drops-boris-epshteyn-other-political-analysts-n1099796) Epshteyn’s commentary segments, along with those from liberal commentator Ameshia Cross. Their final segments will air today, and Epshteyn will reportedly transition to a role in “sales.”
Since June 2017, I have been engaging in a task I would never wish on another human being: I have watched every single “Bottom Line with Boris” segment he’s ever narrated for Sinclair. (As of publishing, there have been at least 603 and one more to go.) I’ve written dozens of posts (https://www.mediamatters.org/boris-epshteyn) about this person and the horrifying things he’s said in defense of Trump.
And here is my bottom line: Epshteyn is a cheap knock-off with no charisma -- and, more important, he’s a bully.
Epshteyn joined (https://www.mediamatters.org/sinclair-broadcast-group/sinclair-broadcast-group-deepens-its-trump-administration-ties-boris?redirect_source=/blog/2017/04/17/sinclair-broadcast-group-deepens-its-trump-administration-ties-boris-epshteyn-hire/216048) Sinclair fresh off a stint in the Trump administration and, before that, on the presidential campaign. He was a Trump spokesperson who reportedly terrorized (https://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/boris-epshteyn-television-networks-behavior-235787) the nation’s green rooms off-camera, and he’s a personal friend (https://www.mediamatters.org/sinclair-broadcast-group/comprehensive-guide-relationship-between-sinclair-broadcast-group-and) of the president’s adult sons. A few months after Epshteyn started his new role at Sinclair, HBO’s John Oliver memorably
(https://youtu.be/GvtNyOzGogc?t=5m15s) him as “a rejected extra from The Sopranosin a J.C. Penney tie whose voice sounds like Sylvester Stallone with a mouthful of bees.”
Seventy-five percent of his segments were so utterly boring I couldn’t get through a single 90-second clip without accidentally zoning out and having to rewatch it. But the other 25% were completely depraved. He is most well-known to the general public as the talking head who defended (https://www.mediamatters.org/sinclair-broadcast-group/sinclairs-latest-must-run-defends-tear-gassing-migrant-children-warns) the tear-gassing of migrants at the southern border, dismissed (https://www.mediamatters.org/sinclair-broadcast-group/sinclair-must-run-segment-family-separation-policy-and-child-detention) the cruelty of separating children from their parents and holding them in cages in camps, and implied (https://www.mediamatters.org/sinclair-broadcast-group/sinclairs-boris-epshteyn-fearmongers-about-undocumented-immigrants-raping) that child rape is a major consequence of illegal immigration.
I’m elated to no longer have to watch him every day. And I’m significantly more elated that the millions of people who are just trying to catch the traffic report or some local sports updates aren’t going to have to see it anymore either.
But I’m also not optimistic at all -- because bullies stick together. And Sinclair is also a bully.
The company infamously cuts corners, in all senses of the word. It is known for abusing regulatory loopholes (https://www.mediamatters.org/sinclair-broadcast-group/fcc-has-called-out-several-sinclairs-sham-deal-proposals-there-are-many) to buy up more and more local news stations, and then taking the stations over (https://www.mediamatters.org/sinclair-broadcast-group/sinclair-insiders-are-sounding-alarm-about-its-plans-transform-local-news) and cutting local anchors (https://journalisms.theroot.com/sinclair-group-ousting-longtime-tv-anchor-maureen-bunya-1791134110) with close community relationships. Local journalists face a difficult choice if Sinclair takes control of their station: They can stay and fight through the corporate cuts and the “must-runs” or they can leave quietly and re-enter a market dominated by other Sinclair jobs. Some have been subjected to unusually restrictive (https://www.thedailybeast.com/sinclair-making-employees-sign-highly-problematic-contracts-legal-experts-say) contract clauses limiting their ability to find new work; some have even been sued (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/jonathan-beaton-sinclair-suing_n_5ac60f6fe4b09ef3b2441237) by their former employer, which brings in more than $3 billion (http://sbgi.net/wp-content/uploads/investor-relations/Annual-Reports//sbgi-2018.pdf) in annual revenue.
Its owners’ support for conservative causes didn’t begin with Epshteyn and won’t end with him, either. Sinclair has a long history (https://www.mediamatters.org/sinclair-broadcast-group/short-history-right-wing-politics-sinclair-broadcasting) of openly engaging with right-wing politics and, of course, it’s a giant corporation that would benefit from deregulatory policies supported by the right. And the Smiths -- the family that founded and owns Sinclair -- have thrown some of their financial support (https://www.mediamatters.org/sinclair-broadcast-group/senior-sinclair-executive-donated-campaign-disgraced-racist-joe-arpaio) to particularly notorious Republicans, like racist criminal Joe Arpaio and Rep. Greg Gianforte (R-MT), who physically assaulted a reporter just days before receiving the donation.
In keeping with the myriad ways conservative politics overlap with xenophobia and racism, Sinclair has shown no signs of slowing down its anti-Muslim fearmongering “Terrorism Alert Desk (https://www.mediamatters.org/sinclair-broadcast-group/sinclairs-terrorism-alert-desk-segments-are-designed-gin-xenophobia-local)” segments. Sinclair also suggested (https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/sinclair-dumping-former-trump-aide-epshteyns-commentaries/2019/12/11/24dac2d2-1c63-11ea-977a-15a6710ed6da_story.html?outputType=amp) in its announcement about Epshteyn and Cross that the company will be making room for more local investigative reporting instead, like their Seattle station’s highly problematic special programming (https://www.mediamatters.org/sinclair-broadcast-group/sinclairs-national-programming-fearmongering-about-homelessness) on homelessness in the city.
Sinclair also still employs other right-wing thugs: namely, former Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka (https://www.mediamatters.org/sinclair-broadcast-group/sebastian-gorka-officially-bringing-his-anti-muslim-commentary-sinclair) and former Fox News host Eric Bolling (https://www.mediamatters.org/sinclair-broadcast-group/eric-bollings-new-show-sinclair-broadcast-group-brings-worst-right-wing). Bolling has been hosting a weekly political show for Sinclair since April, and he appears to be the new face of political analysis for the company. He was a host at Fox News until 2017, when he left amid reports he sent unsolicited images of genitalia to multiple co-workers. (When this was first reported, he threatened (https://money.cnn.com/2017/08/09/media/fox-news-eric-bolling-yashar-ali-lawsuit/index.html) the reporter with a lawsuit, too, in a classic bullying move.)
On his Sinclair show, Bolling has given friendly interviews (https://www.mediamatters.org/sinclair-broadcast-group/stephanie-grisham-gave-her-first-tv-interview-white-house-press-secretary) to seemingly every member of the Trump administration including the president himself (https://www.mediamatters.org/sinclair-broadcast-group/sinclairs-latest-trump-interview-may-well-have-been-produced-white-house), some more than once. He’s also hosted a gamut of right-wing grifters and conspiracy theorists (https://www.mediamatters.org/sinclair-broadcast-group/eric-bolling-using-his-sinclair-and-blazetv-shows-elevate-conspiracy), including his “friend” Alex Jones (https://www.mediamatters.org/alex-jones), who currently faces a lawsuit because of his claims that the deaths of 26 young children and school employees in the 2012 Sandy Hook mass shooting were a hoax.
Boris Epshteyn was merely one convenient indicator of the sum total of Sinclair’s toxic, bullying behavior. And I haven’t even mentioned the single most enraging aspect of it all, which won’t change one iota with the end of his commentary segments: Sinclair is bullying you. Sinclair is bullying us all.
From the start, what made the Sinclair beat most appealing to me at Media Matters was the layers of nefariousness. Much of its nationally produced news programming is as conservative as Fox News, but it’s also highly dishonest in a structural way, and with an arguably even more personal cost.
The whole reason this $3 billion company has grown and thrived for so long is because it flew under the radar. No one is tuning into their local news stations and seeing a Sinclair logo on the screen, and it’s even harder to trace the company to the dozens of stations it operates via legal agreements because it’s not technically allowed to own them at all. Like a lot of local news, what actually airs on many Sinclair-controlled stations is also a black box; it’s difficult to track the content of so many newscasts on smaller stations in any systematic way.
All of these factors swirl together to underpin Sinclair’s greatest bullying tactic of all: exploiting everyone’s trust in their local news. At least when you watch Fox or One America News or listen to Rush Limbaugh, you know what you’re signing up for. Sinclair, on the other hand, is banking on being able to surprise you by slipping in some conservative talking points between weather and community news, just as the local anchors you know and trust cut to commercial break. It’s fundamentally unethical behavior that damages media credibility as a whole, and it’s a cowardly and disrespectful way to treat your audience.
Sinclair leadership mandated these segments in the first place, of course, because they knew no one would voluntarily choose to hear Epshteyn’s garbage of the day. It’s scary because they clearly didn’t care about what they owe their viewers as stewards of our public airwaves.
But what scares me even more is what lessons they may have learned. Bullies don’t usually just give up randomly one day; sometimes their tactics just change. What if this time around, the propaganda becomes better, more charismatic, less clumsy -- easier to watch but harder to notice?
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new
https://www.mediamatters.org/sinclair-broadcast-group/sinclairs-boris-epshteyn-fearmongers-about-undocumented-immigrants-raping
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new 819 mma
Ken Cuccinelli, the former (http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=d6da311b15ac6335c1a3894d2b4a545015c93b6b2fd255b988921424f81ac4b58797dff676e64f860bcee49c77427165ea507e3b5d74705b) CNN pundit (http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=d6da311b15ac6335814df5d77dd9411c67204240bab93e31c8e889be4d79ac375477c16f8959179f7293429d2bcad2af0bae642af8ae0867) and current acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, suggested in media appearances that Emma Lazarus' famous poem The New Colossus, inscribed on the Statue of Liberty, referred to “people coming from Europe” and should apply to those “who will not become a public charge.” These comments came just a day after the Trump administration announced that it would seek to deny green cards to any immigrants who may be in need of Medicaid, food stamps, housing vouchers, or other forms of public assistance.
Following criticism and condemnation, Cuccinelli ran to Fox News (http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=d6da311b15ac63354452c2d43085dc07d880663a89a0cf3a7eada7fdf23e4f28024390458a49178e4db53f3fdc2f3226af2033b2818dc2e6). Fox "hard news" anchor Shannon Bream offered him the opportunity to repeat the administration’s talking points with little pushback.
On Bream’s show Cuccinelli said, “If I open my mouth, you know they will scream something awful came out no matter what.” He went on to assert that media reports about his comments are “completely and totally untrue,” despite video footage showing the opposite.
Cuccinelli also appeared (http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=d6da311b15ac6335504530c12f50a8da487c996df11cce1ef51f5b0489e5d52580404b8ff1b5475af0b98c2a01ce7865ba32ce9abc87e541) this week in a softball interview with Sinclair’s Boris Epsteyn and touted recent ICE raids in Mississippi that devastated Latinx families in several factory towns.
Sinclair has been producing pro-Trump "must-runs" that air during local news segments across the country. Frequently these segments feature chief political analyst Boris Epshteyn asking softball questions of Trump administration figures like Sarah Huckabee Sanders (https://mediamatters.nationbuilder.com/r?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mediamatters.org%2Fblog%2F2018%2F06%2F26%2Fexclusive-must-run-interview-sarah-huckabee-sanders-sinclair-analyst-says-she-s-been-victimized%2F220542&e=2fd18ded548fce9ef66e074aaf01da3d5df1923b&utm_source=mediamatters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=729weekly&n=7&v=1418) or Scott Pruitt (https://mediamatters.nationbuilder.com/r?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mediamatters.org%2Fvideo%2F2018%2F05%2F31%2FPruitt-gives-exclusive-interview-to-conservative-Sinclair-TV-empire%2F220338&e=2fd18ded548fce9ef66e074aaf01da3d5df1923b&utm_source=mediamatters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=729weekly&n=8&v=1418) -- at least when Epshteyn is not giving over the top (https://mediamatters.nationbuilder.com/r?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mediamatters.org%2Fblog%2F2018%2F07%2F11%2Fclockwork-sinclair-has-must-run-cheering-scotus-pick-brett-kavanaugh%2F220640&e=2fd18ded548fce9ef66e074aaf01da3d5df1923b&utm_source=mediamatters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=729weekly&n=9&v=1418) pro-Trump (https://mediamatters.nationbuilder.com/r?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mediamatters.org%2Fblog%2F2017%2F12%2F18%2Flatest-trump-propaganda-segments-running-local-news-courtesy-sinclair-broadcast-group%2F218877&e=2fd18ded548fce9ef66e074aaf01da3d5df1923b&utm_source=mediamatters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=729weekly&n=10&v=1418)commentary (https://mediamatters.nationbuilder.com/r?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mediamatters.org%2Fblog%2F2017%2F08%2F17%2Fdefense-trump-s-unforgivable-statements-charlottesville-may-be-airing-your-local-news%2F217675&e=2fd18ded548fce9ef66e074aaf01da3d5df1923b&utm_source=mediamatters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=729weekly&n=11&v=1418) on his own. This week, Epshteyn gave a warm welcome (https://mediamatters.nationbuilder.com/r?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mediamatters.org%2Fblog%2F2018%2F07%2F25%2Fmike-pence-turns-sinclair-embarrassingly-friendly-interview-trump-defends-media-giant%2F220783&e=2fd18ded548fce9ef66e074aaf01da3d5df1923b&utm_source=mediamatters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=729weekly&n=12&v=1418) to VP Mike Pence. The first parts of the interview were embarrassingly friendly, with Epsheyn praising Trump's unpopular tax law.
The final segment with Pence really jumped the rails. In the clip, Epshteyn did not even ask a question. Rather, the entire "must-run" was Pence talking about how great the Trump administration has been, followed by Epshteyn saying that the Trump administration "has to focus on continuing to achieve success for the American people."
The obvious goal here is to get audiences to only trust Sinclair -- and Trump.
Also: With Sinclair's merger with Tribune at risk (https://mediamatters.nationbuilder.com/r?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mediamatters.org%2Fresearch%2F2018%2F07%2F20%2Ffcc-has-called-out-several-sinclairs-sham-deal-proposals-there-are-many-more%2F220745&e=2fd18ded548fce9ef66e074aaf01da3d5df1923b&utm_source=mediamatters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=729weekly&n=13&v=1418) over Sinclair's lying (https://mediamatters.nationbuilder.com/r?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.techdirt.com%2Farticles%2F20180723%2F08481740292%2Ffcc-confirms-sinclair-misled-agency-to-try-get-megamerger-approved.shtml&e=2fd18ded548fce9ef66e074aaf01da3d5df1923b&utm_source=mediamatters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=729weekly&n=14&v=1418) and shady business tactics (https://mediamatters.nationbuilder.com/r?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mediamatters.org%2Fblog%2F2018%2F07%2F16%2Fsinclair-tribune-merger-might-be-big-trouble-because-sinclairs-shady-business-tactics%2F220689&e=2fd18ded548fce9ef66e074aaf01da3d5df1923b&utm_source=mediamatters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=729weekly&n=15&v=1418), Trump himself took to Twitter to complain (https://mediamatters.nationbuilder.com/r?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reuters.com%2Farticle%2Fus-tribune-media-m-a-sinclair-ma-trump%2Ftrump-calls-fcc-decision-on-sinclair-tribune-merger-unfair-idUSKBN1KF02J&e=2fd18ded548fce9ef66e074aaf01da3d5df1923b&utm_source=mediamatters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=729weekly&n=16&v=1418) about the merger being in question -- and in doing so, Trump admitted that Sinclair was conservative.
Lastly: Senior Sinclair executive Frederick Smith donated to (https://mediamatters.nationbuilder.com/r?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mediamatters.org%2Fblog%2F2018%2F07%2F24%2Fsenior-sinclair-executive-donated-campaign-disgraced-racist-joe-arpaio%2F220770&e=2fd18ded548fce9ef66e074aaf01da3d5df1923b&utm_source=mediamatters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=729weekly&n=17&v=1418) disgraced racist Joe Arpaio, who is running for Senate in Arizona as a Republican. Smith has given (https://mediamatters.nationbuilder.com/r?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fec.gov%2Fdata%2Freceipts%2F%3Ftwo_year_transaction_period%3D2018%26data_type%3Dprocessed%26contributor_name%3DSmith%252C%2BFrederick%26min_date%3D01%252F01%252F2017%26max_date%3D07%252F24%252F2018%26contributor_employer%3DSinclair&e=2fd18ded548fce9ef66e074aaf01da3d5df1923b&utm_source=mediamatters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=729weekly&n=18&v=1418) largely to Republicans this cycle, including Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA).
Sinclair’s “chief political analyst” is former Trump aide Boris Epshteyn
In April 2017, Sinclair announced (https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2017/04/17/sinclair-broadcast-group-deepens-its-trump-administration-ties-boris-epshteyn-hire/216048) that it had hired Boris Epshteyn (https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2018/03/05/there-no-audience-boris-epshteyns-pro-trump-propaganda-so-sinclair-forces-it-people/219554) to serve as its “chief political analyst,” producing frequent “must-run” commentary segments about political issues that Sinclair requires its local news stations to air. It upped (https://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2017/07/10/boris-epshteyn-sinclair-broadcasting-240359) the segments’ frequency months later.
Epshteyn had previously worked (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/25/us/politics/boris-epshteyn-white-house-press-official-is-let-go-from-his-job.html) in the Trump White House on the communications team, after doing stints on the Trump inauguralcommittee and on the Trump campaign. Epshteyn also served (https://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/boris-epshteyn-television-networks-behavior-235787) as a Trump media surrogate throughout the campaign and first days of the Trump presidency. Epshteyn is personal friends with the president’s sons Eric (https://twitter.com/BorisEP/status/756100487003398144) and Donald Jr. (https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2018/05/30/sinclair-s-boris-epshteyn-laughably-claims-donald-trump-jr-farthest-thing-racist-or-anti-semite/220337), and he has been spotted at Trump International Hotel multiple (https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2018/04/26/ronny-jackson-congress-support-266080) times (https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2018/06/21/house-vote-immigration-trump-280875), including with Don Jr. in June. Epshteyn has returned to the White House several (https://www.instagram.com/p/BifSR4wne3F/?hl=en&taken-by=bottomlinewithboris) times (https://www.instagram.com/p/Bjp-4ixHKEs/?hl=en&taken-by=bottomlinewithboris) since his departure, seemingly to attend events as a member of the press. In May 2018, Sinclair hired (https://www.thewrap.com/sinclair-broadcasting-hires-trump-white-house-alum-as-new-executive-political-producer/) another Trump campaign and White House alum, Kaelan Dorr, as Epshteyn’s executive political producer. In a June 14 Instagram post (https://www.instagram.com/p/BkA5Htwn_y2/?hl=en&taken-by=bottomlinewithboris), Epshteyn wrote that he and Dorr shared a McDonald’s meal to celebrate Trump’s birthday.
Epshteyn has been producing regular commentary segments, called “Bottom Line With Boris,” for Sinclair for more than a year, and they’re basically pro-Trump propaganda. For a chief political analyst, his takes (https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2017/08/03/pro-trump-outlet-sinclair-turning-local-news-trump-tv-heres-what-it-looks/217482) are notably unoriginal. At best, he regurgitates Trump talking points or touts some vague, imaginary bipartisan ideals that involve being nicer to Trump. At worst, he defends the most absurd, racist things Trump does. Here are some of the more notable arguments Epshteyn has made:
Media (http://wjla.com/news/bottom-line/opinion-over-eagerness-of-some-in-media-to-get-the-president-needs-to-stop) are (http://wjla.com/news/bottom-line/opinion-democrats-media-lying-bias-fbi-doj-ig-report)
(https://youtu.be/c7uBAxdOE4I) against (http://wjla.com/news/bottom-line/opinion-some-in-the-media-are-getting-more-violent-in-their-tone-toward-trump-admin)
(https://youtu.be/MlJ9ibxSPeE) Trump (http://wjla.com/news/bottom-line/opinion-dont-buy-into-the-medias-portrayal-of-a-white-house-in-chaos)
(https://youtu.be/tVr2SgFY2mo).
The FBI is also extremely (http://wjla.com/news/bottom-line/opinion-political-views-cannot-drive-the-actions-of-law-enforcement) biased (http://wjla.com/news/bottom-line/opinion-democrats-media-lying-bias-fbi-doj-ig-report) against Trump.
The Trump administration’s family separation and child detention policies were overblown (https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2018/06/21/sinclair-must-run-segment-family-separation-policy-and-child-detention-attacks-media/220509) by media.
Trump’s taunts (https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2018/01/05/sinclair-s-boris-epshteyn-praises-trump-nuclear-button-tweet-strong-purposeful-foreign-policy/218990) to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un about a “nuclear button” constitute good foreign policy.
Trump’s racist comment about “shithole countries” is mere “salty language (https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2018/01/17/sinclair-defends-trump-s-racist-shithole-remarks-mere-salty-language/219091)” that the media are unnecessarily repeating.
GOP losses (https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2017/11/08/sinclair-stations-boris-epshteyn-covered-gop-losses-regurgitating-trump-tweets/218482) in state elections (https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2018/03/14/sinclairs-boris-epshteyn-pro-trump-republican-struggling-pennsylvania-actually-good-news-trump/219635) do not reflect poorly on Trump.
More Americans should be (http://wjla.com/news/bottom-line/opinion-we-should-want-our-president-and-country-to-succeed) like actor Bryan Cranston, who remarked during an interview that people ought to hope Trump succeeds for the good of the country.
==
While Sinclair Broadcast Group is not a household name, it is one of the most powerful TV companies in the nation. It owns 173 local TV stations across the country, including affiliates of all the major networks. And it’s attempting to grow even larger by purchasing Tribune Media—a $3.9 billion deal currently under regulatory review. Sinclair has been widely criticized for its close ties to the White House. But Sinclair is facing new scrutiny after it ordered news anchors at scores of its affiliate stations to recite nearly identical “must-read” commentaries warning of the dangers of “fake news” in language that echoes President Trump’s rhetoric. The commentaries reached millions of viewers last month and drew widespread attention after the website Deadspin published a video over the weekend showing side-by-side comparisons of the broadcasts from 45 Sinclair-owned stations. We speak to Andy Kroll, senior reporter at Mother Jones magazine.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We begin today’s show looking at Sinclair Broadcast Group. While it’s not a household name, Sinclair is one of the most powerful TV companies in the nation. It owns 173 local TV stations across the country, including affiliates of all the major networks. And it’s attempting to grow even larger by purchasing Tribune Media—a $3.9 billion deal currently under regulatory review.
Sinclair has been widely criticized for its close ties to the White House. It’s chairman and former CEO, David Smith, is active in Republican politics and supported Donald Trump’s campaign. The network’s chief political analyst, Boris Epshteyn, served as a senior adviser to Trump’s presidential campaign. During the 2016 campaign, Sinclair reportedly struck a deal with the Trump campaign to give it better media coverage.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Sinclair is coming under new criticism after it ordered news anchors at scores of its affiliate stations around the country to recite nearly identical “must-read” commentaries warning of the dangers of “fake news” in language that echoed President Trump’s rhetoric. The commentaries reached millions of viewers last month and drew widespread attention after the website Deadspin published a video over the weekend showing side-by-side comparisons of the broadcasts from 45 Sinclair-owned stations.
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/10/26/fcc_eliminates_rules_preventing_media_consolidation (https://www.democracynow.org/2017/10/26/fcc_eliminates_rules_preventing_media_consolidation)
major decision by the Federal Communications Commission Tuesday eliminated a decades-old rule that ensures community residents can have a say in their local broadcast TV station. This comes as the FCCannounced plans Wednesday to abolish long-standing media ownership rules. Opponents say these changes will accelerate media consolidation, allowing massive corporate media companies, such as the right-wing Sinclair Broadcast Group, to buy up and control even more local stations. We speak with Andy Kroll, senior reporter at Mother Jones magazine, whose story in their new issue is titled “Ready for Trump TV? Inside Sinclair Broadcasting’s Plot to Take Over Your Local News.”
major decision by the Federal Communications Commission that eliminates a decades-old rule that ensures community residents can have a say in their local broadcast TV station. The regulation is known as the “main studio rule,” and it requires broadcasters to have a physical studio near where they have a license to transmit.
This comes as the FCC also announced plans, at a hearing Wednesday, to abolish long-standing media-ownership rules, including limits on how many stations or newspapers one company can own in a single market. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai testified Wednesday during a congressional hearing.
AJIT PAI: If you believe, as I do, that the federal government has no business intervening in the news, then we must stop the federal government from intervening in the news business. And that is why, this afternoon, I shared with my fellow commissioners an order that will reform our media ownership rules and help pull the government, once and for all, out of the newsroom. We will vote on this order at our November 16th meeting.
The marketplace today is nothing like it was in 1975. Newspapers are shutting down. Many radio and TV stations are struggling, especially in smaller and rural markets. Online competition for the collection and distribution of news is even greater than it ever was. And just two internet companies claim 100 percent of recent online advertising growth. Indeed, their digital ad revenue alone this year will be greater than the market cap of the entire broadcasting industry. And yet the FCC’s rules still presume that the market is defined entirely by pulp and rabbit ears.
AMY GOODMAN: But opponents say these changes will accelerate media consolidation, allowing massive corporate media companies, such as the right-wing Sinclair Broadcast Group, to buy up and control even more local stations. Earlier this year, Trump’s FCC appointees revived a regulatory loophole that could allow Sinclair to buy 42 TV stations from Tribune Media Company, on top of the more than 170 stations it already owns. The deal means Sinclair stations would reach about 72 percent—almost three-quarters—of U.S. households.
This comes as former Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly has reportedly been negotiating for a position with Sinclair Broadcast Group. O’Reilly secretly settled a sexual harassment claim for $32 million in January, the sixth and by far the largest such settlement during his tenure at Fox, from which he was fired.
For more, we’re joined in Washington, D.C., by Andy Kroll, senior reporter at Mother Jones magazine, where he’s written extensively about the FCC. His latest story (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/10/ready-for-trump-tv-inside-sinclair-broadcastings-plot-to-take-over-your-local-news/) in the current issue is headlined “Ready for Trump TV? Inside Sinclair Broadcasting’s Plot to Take Over Your Local News.”
Andy, welcome back to Democracy Now! You know, a lot of the meme going around is that Trump just can’t get anything done, but it sure doesn’t look that way at the FCC this week. Can you talk about what’s happened?
ANDY KROLL: Well, at the FCC this week, as you described, the commission voted along party lines—three Republicans voting in favor, two voting in opposition—to eliminate the main studio rule, this rule from about 80 years ago saying that a local TV or radio station needs to have its studio, its primary studio, in or near the community it serves. And that served a number of purposes, not only for the community to be able to interact with that station, but also tethering that station to the community in which it’s reporting the news and delivering some value to the people who watch it. That rule has been eliminated.
And then, as we saw in the clip that you just showed, the chairman of the FCC, Ajit Pai, a Republican, former staffer to Jeff Sessions, now the attorney general, has said that there is a whole bunch more deregulation in the works. This comes in a year, since President Trump’s inauguration in January, in which the FCC has consistently knocked down one barrier after another to enabling a massive deal frenzy, a consolidation in the broadcast business, which is exactly what companies like Sinclair want, going forward, so that they can gobble up as many TV stations around the country as they can, and basically dominate the local news business.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Andy, before we get to Sinclair Broadcasting, I wanted to ask you about the context of this attempt—or, in fact, the overturning of the main studio rule. It’s been in effect, as you said, for several decades. Has any other administration attempted to overturn it?
ANDY KROLL: No. The rule has been tweaked over time, on several occasions, to, what they say, modernize it. But the substance of the rule, having that studio in the community where the viewers, where the people who depend on that TV or radio station is, that has not changed over time. And the supporters of the rule say there’s a very clear reason for that. Yes, it’s true that with email and with social media you can send a message to your TV station, but the rule also gave that sense of locality. It gave that connection in the newsgathering and in the—you know, just the connection to a community that is so vital to local news. And that has been a bedrock of broadcast television for nearly 80 years and has gone unchallenged under Republican administrations and under Democratic administrations. And now, under President Trump and with Commissioner Pai at the FCC, that rule is ancient history.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Andy, before—could you explain, because—as a result of overturning this rule, all of these different stations, TV stations and radio stations, can be increasingly consolidated. Now, one of the companies under which these stations have been consolidated is Sinclair Broadcasting. But this media organization, very few people know about. So could you tell us about this broadcasting channel?
ANDY KROLL: Yeah. I like to say that Sinclair Broadcast Group is the most influential media organization that most Americans have never heard of. It owns nearly—owns or operates nearly 200 local TV stations around the country. It has a tremendous influence over the local news business.
And it marries that influence, that size, reaching into 40 percent of households right now, with a unabashed conservative and pro-Trump agenda. You see that in the kind of programming that Sinclair produces and sends out to its local stations. These are called “must-run segments.”They take, you know, basically, a shamelessly pro-Trump message, repeating talking points of the administration’s through its commentators, and putting that into the local news.
And as you mentioned earlier, Sinclair is eyeing a deal to acquire 42 new stations around the country, giving it a reach to almost three-quarters of American households. So this is a massive broadcast company, set to get even bigger. And it has a distinct conservative viewpoint that it is intent and bent on projecting out to the millions of people who watch its television channels.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain what you mean when you say “intent and bent on.” Your headline of your piece, “Ready for Trump TV? Inside Sinclair Broadcasting’s Plot to Take Over Your Local News.” What are the edicts being handed down?
ANDY KROLL: Well, Sinclair is a pioneer in what’s known as the “must-run segment.” This is a segment that is produced by Sinclair’s corporate headquarters here in the D.C. area and also in Maryland, that it produces, and then it sends out to its stations around the country—again, almost 200 of them—and says, “You are required to run this 90-second commentary or this two-minute editorial.” That content, that is being distributed out around the country, has a very clear, unequivocal conservative, partisan bent to it and, frankly, a pro-Trump bent to it.
You know, the lead political analyst, if you could call it that, atSinclair is a man named Boris Epshteyn, former Trump campaign aide and a former Trump White House aide, who left the administration and immediately went into this role at Sinclair. His segments are called “Bottom Line with Boris.” They are distributed, and they are required to run every day at Sinclair stations. And these are basically Trump talking points. And, I mean, you can go on YouTube, you can watch all of his clips in a row. They are 100 percent toeing the Trump line. And if they’re not that, they’re softball interviews with Trump administration officials.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I mean, of course, people might know who Boris Epshteyn is, because during the campaign he was one of his spokespeople, always interviewed on TV. This is one of Boris Epshteyn’s recent commentaries.
BORIS EPSHTEYN: It is important to note that voter fraud goes beyond stealing or miscounting ballots. Intentionally improper voter registration is absolutely a type of voter fraud. The Commission on Election Integrity has gotten to work. … The extent of voter fraud in our elections has been hotly debated between the left and the right. The president’s commission has been established to come up with a factual, impartial answer to that question. The states should do everything within their power to cooperate with the commission. And that’s the bottom line.
AMY GOODMAN: And that is required by every station to run, Andy Kroll?
ANDY KROLL: That’s correct. You are—
AMY GOODMAN: This is—
ANDY KROLL: Yes, that’s right.
AMY GOODMAN: This is another clip from a Sinclair station, featuring former Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka. The show was broadcast earlier this month.
SEBASTIAN GORKA: You do not make legislation out of outliers. Our big issue is black African gun crime against black Africans. It is a tragedy. Go to Chicago. Go to the cities run by Democrats for 40 years. Black young men are murdering each other by the bushel.
AMY GOODMAN: “By the bushel.” That’s former Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka referring to “black African [gun] crime” on “black [Africans],” saying black men are killing each other “by the bushel.” Andy Kroll?
ANDY KROLL: Sebastian Gorka, of course, another alumnus of the Trump White House, who, upon leaving, went immediately to Sinclair and is now a talking head at Sinclair. So you see this trend of Trump officials going to Sinclair Broadcast Group and then them being put on the airwaves and either pushing a completely crazy message, that Sebastian Gorka just did, on a segment that was supposed to be about guns in America—
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, I think “outright racist” is a very—
ANDY KROLL: Outright racist, yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: —more accurate way to describe it.
ANDY KROLL: Yeah, it’s hard to find the words to describe what that was. You have Boris Epshteyn, as well. His segment, that we just listened to, is basically advocacy for the Trump administration in its deeply flawed, inept supposed commission on investigating voter fraud, which, of course, in most cases, doesn’t exist.
So, you have this message, and you have stations around the country that, in a lot of cases, just want to do local news. But as they come under the Sinclair umbrella, they are being told by headquarters, “You will run these segments.” In Boris Epshteyn’s case, Sinclair doubled down and tripled the number of times that Boris Epshteyn was required to be run by its stations. And so, this is the progression we’re seeing this year. So we’re only seeing a more pro-Trump message, at the same time that Sinclair is looking to gobble up more stations and consolidate its control.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, could you talk, Andy, about the founder of Sinclair Broadcasting Group, David Smith?
ANDY KROLL: Yeah. David Smith is a media mogul with an incredible amount of sway over what goes on on the local airwaves. He’s not well known on the level of, say, a Rupert Murdoch, for instance, even though the two men would, I think, consider themselves contemporaries or competitors.
David Smith built a small family company that had three TV stations, starting in the mid-’80s. They were based out of Baltimore. And he—by finding ways around the law and taking advantage of ways that the law was changed—in this case, deregulated—in the past few decades, he has grown Sinclair into this conservative TV behemoth that it is today, and one that stands to get even bigger if the Tribune Media merger goes through.
David Smith, longtime donor to mostly Republicans, though Democrats, as well, who are in a position to help his company. And today, you know, he throws a party for a Supreme Court justice, Clarence Thomas. He travels in a, you know, elite, rarefied group of Republican supporters. He’s even bragged about dining at the White House with the president. So he is right at the top of a Republican-industry-donor pyramid, if you will. But he has managed to avoid the amount of attention that, say, a Rupert Murdoch or some other international media moguls that we do of have attracted.
AMY GOODMAN: And the merging of Sinclair and Tribune? I mean, these are the smaller local stations that dot the United States, you know, crisscross the United States.
ANDY KROLL: That’s right. The deal would give, again, 42 television stations from Sinclair—or from Tribune into Sinclair. It would add more of those dots on the map, as you mentioned. Right now, Sinclair has no presence in Colorado. This would give it a major presence in Colorado. But it would also bring stations in the three largest media markets in the country into the Sinclair company: New York, WPIX; KTLA in Los Angeles; and WGN, one of the most famous broadcast companies in America, in Chicago. So this would really seal Sinclair’s position as the sort of dominant broadcast company—and, of course, given that many more tens of millions of people who would be potentially seeing Boris Epshteyn, Sebastian Gorka, potentially Bill O’Reilly.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, when we were talking about Sebastian Gorka, just to understand, as he’s talking about black African violence here in the United States, who he is, the whole controversy around him wearing that pin at the inauguration, of the Vitézi Rend, the newspaper The Forward reporting members of the Vitézi Rend elite order confirmed Gorka took a lifelong oath of loyalty to the Hungarian far-right-wing group, listed by the U.S. State Department as having been under the direction of the Nazi government of Germany during World War II. I mean, just the significance of what is being required by these local stations to run all over the country?
ANDY KROLL: Yeah. And Gorka is—if you watch that clip, or the roundtable that that clip comes from, which is available on Sinclair’s website, I mean, Sebastian Gorka is more or less given an open mic to say what he thinks about, in this case, quote-unquote, “guns in America.” We see where he took that theme. But he was a foreign policy aide in the Trump White House. He was not a domestic policy expert. He was not someone working on the issue of guns, for all that we know. And yet he is just given this platform, as he has been on several other occasions with Sinclair.
The company seems to have no qualms, given the background that you describe, the fantastic reporting that The Forward has done on his past. They seem to have no problem giving him that platform, just as they reportedly seem to be considering an arrangement with Bill O’Reilly, someone who, as you mentioned, has settled sexual harassment claims for tens of millions of dollars when he was at Fox News, to the point that Fox fired him.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, explain that last part. What do you understand is the state of these negotiations? And have they been stopped by this latest news of his $32 million settlement with a Fox host for sexual harassment?
ANDY KROLL: What I’ve heard and what I’ve seen reported in the past week is that there are negotiations underway between Sinclair and O’Reilly around either—whether it would be bringing him in as a host or a commentator or some kind of arrangement or partnership between O’Reilly having his own—potentially his own program, his own platform, and Sinclair as the megaphone, if you will, projecting that program, projecting O’Reilly out, using its empire of stations. Now, Sinclair has denied that it is talking with O’Reilly, and has repeatedly done that, though the reporting, that doesn’t go for the official comment from Sinclair, would suggest otherwise.
I will say that I, you know, have talked to people in and around Sinclair, and among the rank and file, if you will, there is kind of shock and disgust that—in light of O’Reilly’s sexual harassment settlements and all the allegations at Fox, that Sinclair would be thinking about considering a partnership with him has a lot of people there upset, concerned about their futures, whether they want to work there if Bill O’Reilly joins the company in some capacity.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Andy Kroll, we want to thank you for being with us. We’ll certainly link to your piece (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/10/ready-for-trump-tv-inside-sinclair-broadcastings-plot-to-take-over-your-local-news/). Andy Kroll, senior reporter at Mother Jones magazine, where he has written extensively about the FCC and Sinclair Broadcasting. His piece published this week, we’ll link to, “Ready for Trump TV? Inside Sinclair Broadcasting’s Plot to Take Over Your Local News.”