Report: House Judiciary Considering Holding Mark Zuckerberg in Contempt of Congress

Ken Silva
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Report: House Judiciary Considering Holding Mark Zuckerberg in Contempt of Congress

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Fox Business reported Tuesday that the House Judiciary Committee is considering holding Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in contempt of Congress over his apparent refusal to provide information about Facebook censorship.

“House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is strongly considering holding Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in contempt of Congress this month, a move that could happen as early as next week,” the outlet reported.

“Sources with direct knowledge of the situation tell FOX Business that Meta—formerly known as Facebook—has not provided any internal communications regarding the company’s censorship efforts.”

The House Judiciary issued a subpoena to Meta in February for documents related to content moderation and Meta’s engagements with the U.S. government.

Meta told Fox Business that it has gone great lengths to comply with the subpoena.

“We have shared over 50,000 pages of documents in response to the committee’s request and have made nearly a dozen current and former employees available to discuss external and internal issues,” a Meta spokesman reportedly said. “We look forward to continuing to work with the committee moving forward.”

However, Fox Business cited an anonymous source, who said that none of the documents include the specified internal communications the committee is seeking. The documents the committee seeks likely include communications from the FBI in 2020 about censoring the Hunter Biden laptop story—which Zuckerberg disclosed on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast last August.

On Monday, Jordan wrote a letter to inform Meta that the subpoena covers the company’s new Twitter-like social media platform, Threads.

“In addition, please treat these discovery obligations as ongoing and applicable to any information generated after receipt of this letter,” he said.

“Furthermore, this letter serves as a formal request to preserve all existing and future records and materials relating to the Threads platform and related topics addressed in this letter.”

Fox Business noted that the last person to be held in contempt of Congress was former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows over his defiance of a January 6th Committee subpoena. The Justice Department declined to press charges in that matter.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

BREAKING: Trump Announces that DOJ Will Charge Him over Jan. 6

Ken Silva
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BREAKING: Trump Announces that DOJ Will Charge Him over Jan. 6

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Former President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he’s expecting the Justice Department to charge him over his alleged attempts to interfere in the 2020 presidential election.

“HORRIFYING NEWS for our Country was given to me by my attorneys. Deranged Jack Smith, the prosecutor with Joe Biden’s DOJ, sent a letter (again, it was Sunday night!) stating that I am a TARGET of the January 6th Grand Jury investigation, and giving me a very short 4 days to report to the Grand Jury, which almost always means an Arrest and Indictment,” Trump said in a statement, also listing the litany of other political-motivated attacks against him over the last seven-plus years.

Trump additionally said he expects to be indicted in Georgia, where he’s under investigation—also for allegedly attempting to meddle in the 2020 election. Trump’s statement comes on the heels of Georgia’s Supreme Court declining to quash a grand jury investigation into him.

“They have now effectively indicted me three times (the DOJ staffed and runs the D.A.’s Office in Manhattan), with a probable fourth coming from Atlanta, where the DOJ are in strict, and possibly illegal, coordination with the District Attorney, whose record on murder and other violent crime is abysmal,” he said.

“THIS WITCH HUNT IS ALL ABOUT ELECTION INTERFERENCE AND A COMPLETE AND TOTAL POLITICAL WEAPONIZATION OF LAW ENFORCEMENT!”

Trump’s statement confirms months of speculation that the DOJ will indict him over the 2020 election.

According to reports, the indictment might not be directly related to Jan. 6.

“Trump’s words are protected by the First Amendment, and his rhetoric — telling the people in the crowd they were “not going to have a country anymore” if they didn’t “fight like hell” — could fit within the realm of heated political rhetoric. Trump also explicitly told the crowd to march “peacefully,” which would make charges even more difficult,” NBC News reported last month.

However, Special Counsel Jack Smith is reportedly probing Trump’s so-called fake elector scheme—referring to  Trump’s plan to use alternate electors to challenge the results of controversial results in Nevada, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona.

According to CBS News’s Robert Costa, Murphy is also probing Trump for allegedly considering to use federal authority to seize voting machines.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

SELLERS: Dems Throw Asians, RFK Jr. Under the Bus in One Fell Swoop

Ben Sellers
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SELLERS: Dems Throw Asians, RFK Jr. Under the Bus in One Fell Swoop

(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) Democrats may have been the party of the Confederacy, the Ku Klux Klan and Jim Crow, but their shameful legacy of discrimination doesn’t end there. 

They also, under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, were the party responsible for interning Japanese–American U.S. citizens as prisoners during World War II.

Although the fog of war may be used to justify many things, the mass detainment of innocent civilians with little to no due process, based only on their identities and affiliations with a particular cultural group, has never been a forgivable offense for a free nation. Conservatives in the Biden era can certainly relate.

Yet, despite the party’s dubious history, it was no surprise when, during the COVID-19 pandemic, left-wing activists openly began courting Asian Americans in what they hoped would be a parallel movement to the Black Lives Matter riots as part of their coalition to take down then-President Donald Trump.

Beyond the obvious identity politics ploy, there were other factors at play:

  1. Since at least the Bill Clinton era, Democrat elites had been actively forging relationships with Chinese backers; and party leaders like the most powerful Democrat at the time, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., (through the investments of her husband, Paul) had deep financial connections to the CCP. As we now know, the Biden family also has extensive business ties to the Chinese government. And during the Obama administration, President Joe Biden’s eventual Homeland Security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, even helped facilitate the visas of Chinese donors as part of the GreenTech scandal involving ex-Clinton cronies Terry McAuliffe and Tony Rodham, the brother of Hillary Clinton.
  2. China-linked companies are known to have funded BLM activism and likely played a more direct role in funding Democrats’ 2020 election efforts through dark-money channels.
  3. Trump’s criticisms of China—first over trade imbalances and later its role in covering up the origins of the pandemic—fed into a convenient leftist narrative of xenophobia and oppression, their go-to weapon for fearmongering, even though the criticisms have proven to be entirely justified.

With climate czar John Kerry becoming the third top Biden official in the span of a month to visit China, following current Secretary of State Tony Blinken (who received Chinese funding while working at the Penn Biden Center) and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, it would stand to reason that Biden and his Cabinet are continuing to take their marching orders from Beijing.

And yet, even as they remain beholden to Asia, there are several indications that, politically speaking, Democrats seem poised to throw Asian Americans under the bus.

COURTING TROUBLE

Clearly, in the wake of a Supreme Court decision in which Asian–American students victimized by pernicious affirmative-action policies at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina helped bring down the longstanding practice, they are now the personae non gratae of the Left’s intersectionality taxonomy.

Recent stories in far-left outlets like The Nation have emerged framing Asian-identifying conservatives as the new yellow faces of white supremacy.

In an unforgiving diatribe by writer Promise Li, even the oft-invoked left-wing trope that the poor, marginalized minorities were being outfoxed by the sly and crafty deplorables into acting against their own interests and being used as “pawns” was roundly dismissed.

“[W]e must be clear about one thing: Asian American anti–affirmative action activists have not been simply ‘used’ by white activists and duped into this white supremacist policy,” Li wrote.

“They are active, militant co-conspirators with white conservatives,” he continued. “They are building a key flank for the right wing across the nation, and the left must urgently recognize that right-wing politics precisely gain power by recruiting conservative ideologies among communities of color that overlap with, but retain distinct aspects from, white supremacy.”

However, as The Federalist noted on Monday, the Left’s hot takes were boundless and targeted Asians from every direction like dive-bombing kamikazes.

“The woke left’s anti-Asian bigotry reflects their panic over the fact that their radical policies, from defunding police to eliminating meritocracy in education, have alienated many racial minorities,” wrote the conservative news site’s Helen Raleigh.

CHINA: THE NEW RUSSIA?

The bitterness that spurned leftists have felt following the dissolution of their marriage of convenience with Asians and other identity groups gravitating rightward extends well beyond the Supreme Court.

Although former Biden press secretary Jen Psaki may have migrated from the briefing room to the DNC’s cable channel of record, MSNBC, she remains, first and foremost, a shill for the Democrat party, with any accidental acts of journalism being merely an afterthought.

So when Psaki pulled a page out of the 2016 playbook over the weekend by attempting to smear House Oversight Chair James Comer, R-Ky., as part of a vast Chinese conspiracy, not only was the irony richer than a syringe full of foie gras with truffles, but it was a telling indication of where Democrats intend to take their rhetoric in the foreseeable future.

Comer responded to the latest talking points by noting that Republicans don’t have any say in the matter beyond their investigation of it.

Yet, there was another telling indicator that Democrats were eager to cut bait with Asians, and it came in the form of a glaring omission while attacking one of their very own presidential candidates.

BIOWEAPONS VS. RACE CARD

During a bizarre and freewheeling private dinner last week that included several members of the Manhattan media and one notable outburst of flatulence, a second headline was simmering on the back-burner due to comments by political scion and vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that the COVID-19 virus may have been genetically engineered to attack specific populations while largely bypassing other ethnic groups.

“COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people,” Kennedy said. “The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”

Some rightfully criticized Kennedy’s lack of data to support the claim. Anecdotally speaking, New York City, which has an above-average Jewish population, was among the first places where the virus spread after making its U.S. landfall.

And while China claimed to have much lower numbers than the global average, that might be attributable either to its draconian lockdowns—or, more likely, to its efforts to downplay the data, just as American officials, perversely, opted to torque up their own COVID mortality numbers for political purposes.

Interestingly, there are some indications that one religious group did emerge from the pandemic significantly unscathed. Despite ignoring many of the lockdowns, mask and vaccine mandates, the Amish may have had a mortality rate 90 times lower than the U.S. average, Slay News reported.

Fortunately, Kennedy spared us his Mennonitophobia.

At the same time, he highlighted a valid field of concern in the area of bioweapons research and development—one that the Chinese are, undoubtedly pursuing as a potential avenue in the event of future conflict with the West.

But the accuracy and validity of his claims notwithstanding, Kennedy’s fellow Democrats took a much different approach to criticizing the political thorn spoiling their dreams of a second Biden term.

A TIMELESS SMEAR TACTIC

Many—including Kennedy’s own sister and nephew—echoed the party line by accusing him of anti-Semitism.

Meanwhile, the vast majority seemed to sweep under the rug the China criticisms and fixate only on the alleged anti-Jewish aspect.

Headlines from the New York Times, The Atlantic, NBC News and others all ignored the apparent Sinophobia that went alongside it.

In some cases, the condemnation of RFK Jr. led, once again, to an uncomfortable lack of self-awareness, as with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., who has routinely brushed off other instances of blatant anti-Semitism coming from the Left, including from  members of his own family.

The China snub also marked a dramatic about-face from just two years ago, when Democrats, in their own anti-Semitic fervor, were quick to condemn attacks on Asian Americans while ignoring those on Jews.

Yet, it exposed the cynical, politically driven motives that underlie the entire process of Democrat messaging.

Kennedy is an inconvenience to the party. By advocating traditional liberal values, he has strayed far off message and now threatens the Democrats’ ironclad hegemonic order, which for now maintains that the incumbent Joe Biden will be the 2024 presidential nominee.

Although such a smear attack against a strong conservative, like former President Donald Trump, might only strengthen his resolve to persevere, such a crushing allegation against RFK Jr., as he tries to slay Democrat corruption from within, is likely to be the death knell—an inescapable stigma that may be trotted out at a moment’s notice without any sort of logical rebuttal or disproof.

The spirit of defeat was palpable in his efforts to respond to the unwinnable feeding-frenzy attack.

As for Asian Americans, while they are apt to be embrraced, once again, by the Left when it deems them useful or necessary in the future, they, too, have currently fallen out of grace.

In the face of such duplicity, as the Left devours its own and exposes one layer of hypocrisy after another, there is only one thing for conservatives to do: Grab the popcorn.

Ben Sellers is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/realbensellers.

Woke Disney Heiress Arrested at Climate-Change Protest

Dmytro "Henry" Aleksandrov
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Woke Disney Heiress Arrested at Climate-Change Protest

(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) The far-left heiress of the woke Disney empire was arrested on Friday as she joined a climate-change protest at an airport in Long Island, New York.

Abigail Disney, the granddaughter of Roy O. Disney and self-described patriotic millionaire, protested on the East End of Long Island, alongside other climate-change alarmists, like members of New York Communities for Change, Planet Over Profit and Sunrise Movement NYC, Breitbart reported.

The activists blocked the main entrance of the East Hampton Airport, which serves private jet and charter flights, in Wainscott, N.Y., to challenge its use by the “rich, powerful and privileged.”

The aim was to disrupt the “exclusive vacations of wealthy fossil fuel investors and polluters driving the climate crisis,” they claimed.

“As a person who has been privileged enough to use private jets, I know it’s hard to give up a luxury that is special,” Disney said in her statement. “But I also know that the time has passed for spewing greenhouse gasses like this merely for our personal comfort.”

To support her claims, Disney cited a list of random weather events typically associated with summertime—many of which have been exacerbated by the naturally occurring pattern of warmer temperature El Niño surface waters in the Pacific Ocean, according to the consensus of climate experts.

“The events of the past week alone—with Earth’s average temperature hitting an all-time high, drought and fatal heat waves across the country, floods in Vermont and New York, and ocean temperatures around Florida well over 90 degrees—should remove all doubt once and for all,” she said.

She added that because of her own arbitrary decision to undergo a lifestyle change that will reduce her carbon footprint considerably, every other rich person also should be prevented from using private jets.

“The wealthiest 1% uses as much greenhouse gas as the entire bottom 50%,” she said. “It is time for real change, and this is the most obvious place to start.”

Disney and the other protesters formed a blockade at the main entrance of East Hampton Airport, which serves private and charter flights instead of commercial ones, photos and videos of the incident revealed.

The airport is located in the Hamptons, a wealthy community in eastern Long Island where many celebrities and other rich people live.

“These same rich people farting into the Hamptons on private jets are often the ones who make their money in industries that hugely accelerate the climate crisis,” said Teddy Ogborn, an organizer of Planet Over Profit, who was also arrested at the protest.

“As long as the 1% continues to needlessly poison our air and heat our earth, we will continue to escalate our actions against them,” he added.

Does Trump Expect to be Charged under the Insurrection Act?

Ken Silva
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Does Trump Expect to be Charged under the Insurrection Act?

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Former President Donald Trump caused a minor stir online last week when he referenced the Insurrection Act on Truth Social, with supporters and detractors alike both expecting him to be charged under that statute soon.

Trump apparently referenced Insurrection Act inadvertently in a post about the Espionage Act and his current classified documents case in Florida. He quickly deleted that post, but observers questioned whether Trump committed a Freudian slip.

“Why does Trump have Insurrection Act on his mind?” asked Ryan Goodman, an editor for the national security publication Just Security. Goodman then linked to an article in his publication that recommends Trump be charged with the same statute.

If Trump’s Truth Social post was the lone link between him and the Insurrection Act, perhaps it could be written off as a mistake. But the social media post follows other reports and indiciations that he’s about to be indicted for his alleged attempts to interfere in the 2020 presidential election.

Indeed, the Washington Post published a tell-all story last month about the Justice Department’s ongoing investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill protest and alleged 2020 election interference—strongly suggesting that Trump will be indicted over these matters in the near future.

More recently, NBC News reported last week that Special Counsel Jack Smith is probing Trump’s so-called fake elector scheme—referring to  Trump’s plan to use alternate electors to challenge the results of controversial results in Nevada, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona.

On the same day as the NBC News story, CBS News’s Robert Costa reported another scoop about the Special Counsel Murphy’s investigation of the 2020 election aftermath. According to Costa, Murphy is also probing Trump for allegedly considering to use federal authority to seize voting machines.

Unlike other commentators, Costa said he’s not sure whether Murphy’s probe will result in election-related charges against Trump.

“The question remains, though, whether [special counsel] will seek indictments or write up a lengthy report… no one I’ve spoken with, with varying levels of connection to the investigation, is quite sure what Smith will do… the constant word is this is ‘serious’ but hard to predict,” the reporter said.

But given the dubious nature of the other two cases against Trump—the campaign finance matter in New York and the classified documents case in Florida—the former president’s supporters are convinced that J6-related charges are looming.

“When he is indicted … which I think the chances have increased tremendously after today, I think he might get ‘pretrial detention’—what they did to every defendant charged with seditious conspiracy,” conservative writer Julie Kelly said in May, in the wake of the Proud Boys J6 convictions in March. “So now they have a precedent for courts to sign off on.”

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

Karine Jean-Pierre Thanks Secret Service for Help w/ Cocaine Cover-Up

Luis Cornelio
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Karine Jean-Pierre Thanks Secret Service for Help w/ Cocaine Cover-Up

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) In a startling development, Karine Jean-Pierre, the Press Secretary for the Biden White House, championed the Secret Service for what some Republicans called a cover-up investigation of the cocaine found in the East Wing.

Jean-Pierre’s statements come amidst a wave of controversy engulfing the Biden administration, with lingering questions surrounding the case’s management.

When questioned about the White House’s satisfaction with the investigation, which failed to identify any suspects, Jean-Pierre stated, “We believe that Secret Service did a thorough investigation. I’m certainly not going to opine on the investigation, of course, we’re going to have confident that they’re going to do their jobs and do everything that they can to get to the bottom of this.”

The press secretary was further asked if President Joe Biden was content with the Secret Service’s explanation that the lack of a suspect was due to the high volume of individuals entering the White House.

“What I will say is that the Secret Service did a thorough investigation,” Jean-Pierre reiterated. “That’s what we believe. They put out a public statement. I think that’s important. Anything else, detailing any details or any more information, I’d reach out to the Secret Service.

Tensions rose during the press briefing as reporters pressed Jean-Pierre for more information. When asked about President Biden’s reaction upon learning that the investigation yielded no suspect, Jean-Pierre curtly replied, “No,” cutting off further inquiry.

Jean-Pierre’s dismissive stance throughout the cocaine scandal is likely to intensify speculation of a potential cover-up involving officials within the Secret Service.

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., criticized the Secret Service’s questionable explanation for closing the investigation.

“I take this very seriously,” Cotton said on Sunday during an interview with Fox News. “What if this was anthrax? This is supposed to be the most secure building in the world. If the Secret Service closed down this investigation after a few days, it’s my understanding they barely conducted any interviews.”

Drawing attention to the Biden family, Cotton said, “I don’t think they interviewed the president’s son, who’s a known cocaine addict, “This is like if Hamburglar lived in the White House and all the hamburgers disappeared, and they said they didn’t have any suspects or no one they could question.”

While accusations fly, the legacy media has largely avoided delving into the scandal, accusing Republicans of excessive focus and politicization of the disconcerting discovery at the White House.

Leftist Media Claims Reps. MTG, Boebert on Verge of Fist Fight

Luis Cornelio
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Leftist Media Claims Reps. MTG, Boebert on Verge of Fist Fight

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) The tensions between Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., continue to escalate, with allegations of an imminent physical altercation surfacing.

The ongoing battle revolves around House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and public feuds regarding competing impeachment articles against Biden officials.

Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., described the intensifying feud in statements to the Daily Beast, saying, “A fistfight could break out at any moment.” Burchett, who considers both representatives his friends, added, “It’s entertaining to think that a fistfight could break out at any moment. I kind of dig that.” Another GOP lawmaker commented, “You can’t have too many of these rifts for too long.”

Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., also weighed in on the matter, stating, “I just think that whatever is there could be utilized both ways. People make decisions that they have to work and live by, and you kind of hate being in their shoes.”

The feud between these two prominent figures within the MAGA movement reached a boiling point when Greene confronted Boebert over their separate impeachment proceedings against President Joe Biden.

During a House floor session, Greene allegedly told Boebert, “I’ve donated to you, I’ve defended you. But you’ve been nothing but a little bitch to me, and you copied my articles of impeachment after I asked you to cosponsor them.”

Greene’s derogatory remarks resulted in her abrupt expulsion from the House Freedom Caucus. Although she did not address her reported ousting directly, Greene told Politico that she prioritizes serving the interests of her constituents.

“In Congress, I serve Northwest Georgia first and serve no group in Washington,” Greene stated.

According to the Daily Beast, Greene refused to be notified of her removal unless it was publicly announced. She has also declined to speak with Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry, R-Pa., who attempted to formally notify her of her removal from the caucus.

House Dems Under Fire Once Again over Anti-Semitic Hate Speech

Luis Cornelio
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House Dems Under Fire Once Again over Anti-Semitic Hate Speech

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Antisemitism continues to plague the Democratic Party, despite its dubious claims to stand behind ethnic minorities and numerous hypocritical statements of condemnation.

A recent statement by Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., a far-left radical, came under fire for attacking Israel as a “racist country.” Jayapal specifically stated, “I want you to know that we have been fighting to make it clear that Israel is a racist state.”

The remark, widely condemned for its blatant anti-Semitic tone, drew fiery condemnations from prominent Republican leaders. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, expressed her dismay in a Twitter statement. “No, Israel is not a racist state,” Ernst said on Monday. “Anti-Semitism has no place in America, especially in the halls of Congress.”

Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., echoed Ernst’s remarks but further blasted the entire Democratic Party over its troubling history of spewing anti-Semitic statements in a lengthy Twitter thread. “[Jayapal]’s comments are the most recent in a long line of hate-filled statements towards our greatest ally in the Middle East, Israel,” Good said on Friday. “This is nothing new from the Democrat party.”

Good stated that Democrats “openly attack Israel’s legitimacy and the Jewish people with anti-Semitic comments.” In a separate Twitter post, the Virginia lawmaker singled out embattled Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who is notably known for her opposition to Israel.

“Other members, like Rep. Omar, seem to constantly look for ways to attack them. In 2021, Omar tweeted: ‘Israel has hypnotized the world,'” Good added.

This latest incident sheds light on a separate issue within the Democratic Party surrounding Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s suggestion that COVID-19 might have been an “ethnically targeted” genetic weapon.

RFK Jr., who is running for the Democratic nomination for president, made his remarks at a restaurant in New York. “COVID-19. There is an argument that it is ethnically targeted. COVID-19 attacks certain races disproportionately,” Kennedy said. “COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., attempted to lecture RFK Jr. in a statement shared on Twitter. “The dangerous language used by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. risks fanning the flames of violence against our Jewish and Asian-American brothers and sisters,” Jeffries said. “It should be uniformly condemned.”

Jeffries himself, however, has been mired by his own troubled history with anti-Semitism, akin to his party members. When tapped to replace former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Jeffries became embroiled in controversy after the resurgence of his defense of his uncle’s anti-Semitic remarks, which included comments on the role of “rich Jews” in the African slave trade.

In February 1992, Jeffries called his uncle, Leonard Jeffries, then a professor in New York, a victim of “a media lynching complete with character assassinations and inflammatory erroneous accusations.” Jeffries dismissed the damning scandal, claiming he had little recollection of the 1992 incident.

Jeffries has remained silent on Jayapal’s remarks.

Arizona U.S. Senate Race Shaping into High-Dollar Slugfest

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Arizona U.S. Senate Race Shaping into High-Dollar Slugfest

(Cameron Arcand, The Center Square) Democrat Congressman Ruben Gallego, Republican Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, and Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema released their quarter-two fundraising numbers in the Arizona Senate race this week, which paints a clearer picture of the race in its early days.

Gallego raised $3.1 million in the quarter, which runs from April 1 to June 30, whereas Lamb raised over $607,000. The Democrat entered the race in January, and he’s quickly accumulated a war chest courtesy of dark-money billionaires eager to unseat the disloyal Sinema.

Among other things, the maverick first-term senator blocked leftist efforts to abolish the filibuster that would have allowed them to pass sweeping election-fraud legislation.

Lamb waited till Friday to release his numbers, which also show that he has $335,000 in cash on hand and spent over $272,000. Notably, his wife, Janel Lamb, was paid nearly $5,000 by the campaign for “strategic consulting” and mileage costs.

Lamb is currently the only candidate in the race for the Republican nomination, which has arguably come to a standstill as former gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake has continuously said she is considering a bid to replace Sinema.

Sinema has not announced whether or not she will run for re-election, but the Wall Street Journal reported in April that she was laying the groundwork for a possible campaign.

She raised $1.6 million, less than Gallego, but has $10.7 million on hand. The senator received significant praise and pushback after she left the Democratic Party in December, although she still caucuses with them.

Sinema would have likely faced a primary challenger if she stayed and decided to run for re-election, and her impending decision could set the stage for an unusual three-way race where the incumbent is not with either major party.

Prosecutors Push Back on Trump’s Argument that Documents Trial Should Be Delayed

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Prosecutors Push Back on Trump’s Argument that Documents Trial Should Be Delayed

(Brett Rowland, The Center Square) Federal prosecutors said former President Donald Trump’s open-ended request to defer a trial date until after the 2024 election was unjustified in a case that alleges he illegally kept classified documents.

Trump, the current GOP presidential frontrunner, filed a motion last week to postpone any trial on allegations he illegally kept and concealed classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort until after the 2024 presidential election.

Attorneys for Trump and alleged co-conspirator Walt Nauta detailed a number of reasons they wanted to push back the trial, which is set for December 2023, including the sheer amount of discover materials in the case. So far, that includes 833,450 pages of records and nine months of security camera footage.

Defense attorneys also said that, ultimately a trial wouldn’t be needed anyway.

Prosecutors, led by special counsel Jack Smith, pushed back on those claims in a response to the motion from the former president.

“Defendants Trump and Nauta claim unequivocally that they cannot receive a fair trial prior to the conclusion of the next presidential election, urge the Court to withdraw the current scheduling Order, and request that the Court not even consider a new trial date until some unspecified later time,” the prosecutors wrote. “There is no basis in law or fact for proceeding in such an indeterminate and open-ended fashion, and the Defendants provide none.”

Prosecutors said the trial date should be Dec. 11, 2023.

“The Defendants chide the Government for seeking an ‘expedited’ trial, but in doing so they have it exactly backward,” according to the federal response. “A speedy trial is a foundational requirement of the Constitution and the United States Code, not a Government preference that must be justified.”

Prosecutors also said Trump’s claims that the Presidential Records Act will lead to dismissal of the case was incorrect.

“As for the impact of the Presidential Records Act on this prosecution, any argument that it mandates dismissal of the Indictment or forms a defense to the charges here borders on frivolous,” they wrote.

“The PRA is not a criminal statute, and in no way purports to address the retention of national security information,” they continued. “The Defendants are, of course, free to make whatever arguments they like for dismissal of the Indictment, and the Government will respond promptly. But they should not be permitted to gesture at a baseless legal argument, call it ‘novel,’ and then claim that the Court will require an indefinite continuance in order to resolve it.”

Trump posted again Monday that the Presidential Records Act protects him.

“IF I’M BEING PROSECUTED OVER DOCUMENTS, AND I SHOULDN’T BE IN THAT I COME UNDER THE PRESIDENTIAL RECORDS ACT, WHY IS JOE BIDEN NOT BEING PROSECUTED?,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Prosecutors also were unmoved by Trump’s claims that the volume of discovery materials was too much for a December trial date.

“The legal issues Defendants raise do not justify deviation from a speedy trial date, much less open-ended deferral of considering one,” prosecutors wrote.

“Although the Government’s production included over 800,000 pages, the set of ‘key’ documents was only about 4,500 pages,” they continued. “The Government similarly identified to the Defendants a small subset of ‘key’ CCTV footage referenced in the Indictment or otherwise pertinent to the case.”

Prosecutors disagreed with Trump’s claims that he won’t be able to get a fair trial during the election cycle.

“Moreover, the conditions that Defendants argue will make it a challenge to select a jury will not appreciably change after the completion of the election,” prosecutors wrote. “The Government’s position is that the best way to move this case forward consistent with the Defendants’ rights and the public’s interest is to set a trial date now, with interim deadlines for [Classified Information Procedures Act] procedures and motion practice leading up to that date.”

Prosecutors also said that Trump’s busy campaign schedule wasn’t a reason to put things on pause.

“The demands of Defendants’ professional schedules do not provide a basis to delay trial in this case,” prosecutors wrote.

“Many indicted defendants have demanding jobs that require a considerable amount of their time and energy, or a significant amount of travel,” they added. “The Speedy Trial Act contemplates no such factor as a basis for a continuance, and the Court should not indulge it here.”

Trump pleaded not guilty to 37 counts that allege he kept sensitive military documents, shared them with people who didn’t have security clearance, and tried to get around the government’s efforts to get them back.

He is charged with 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information along with conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding a document or record, corruptly concealing a document or record, concealing a document in a federal investigation, scheme to conceal and false statements and representations.

The 49-page indictment laid out the charges against Trump and his valet and alleged co-conspirator Walt Nauta.

Trump was charged with keeping classified documents after leaving office and later obstructing the government’s efforts to get them back.

The indictment contains specific dates and times with to-the-minute details of where the documents were stored, where they were moved, and who was involved.

Among the records were 197 that contained classified markings, including 98 marked “secret” and 30 marked “top secret.”

The “top secret” designation means that unauthorized disclosure “reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage” to national security,” according to the indictment.

Trump turned those records over to the National Archives and Records Administration on Jan. 17, 2022, in response to demands from that federal agency.

On June 3, 2022, an attorney for Trump provided the Federal Bureau of Investigation with 38 additional documents with classified markings. And during a raid of Mar-a-Lago on Aug. 8, 2022, the FBI recovered 102 additional documents with classified markings.

Although the U.S. Secret Service provided security to Trump while he was at his Palm Beach property, Trump never told the agency that classified documents were stored there, according to the indictment.

Mar-a-Lago hosted 150 social events—such as weddings, fundraisers and movie premieres for tens of thousands of guests from January 2021, when Trump left office, through the FBI raid on Aug. 8, 2022. Mar-a-Lago had about 150 employees during that time, prosecutors said in the indictment.

Prosecutors alleged the documents belonged to some of the nation’s most secret agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense, the National Security Agency, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance Office, the Department of Energy and the Department of State.

The documents contained information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of the United States and other allied nations, U.S. nuclear programs, plans for possible retaliation in case of an attack and potential U.S. vulnerabilities, according to the indictment.

Trump stored the boxes in several locations at Mar-a-Lago, his social club with 25 guest rooms in Palm Beach. The boxes that contained classified documents were stored in a ballroom, a bathroom and shower, an office space, his bedroom and a storage room, prosecutors alleged in the indictment.

The club was not authorized to store classified documents.

Prosecutors further alleged that Trump showed classified documents to people not authorized to see such records.

In one case on July 21, 2021, at the Bedminster Club in New Jersey, Trump allegedly showed a writer, a publisher and two staff members classified documents.

During the recorded interview, Trump said that the documents were “highly classified” and that could have declassified them while president, but could no longer do so after leaving office, according to the indictment.

In August or September 2021, prosecutors alleged that Trump showed a representative of his political-action committee a classified map of a country.

In April, Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts in New York related to charges he paid hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels through a lawyer before the 2016 presidential election and covered it up as a legal expense before being elected president.

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