Yearly Archives: 2023

Former President Donald Trump pleaded not guilty Thursday afternoon to all charges related to his role in protesting the 2020 election results.

Trump was indicted for the third time this week. According to the latest indictment, Trump faces four federal charges related to his contesting the 2020 election and connection to the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol building. The indictment charges include conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstruction, and conspiracy against rights.

The former president is the current frontrunner for the Republican nomination in 2024 by a wide margin.

Trump appeared before Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya at a federal courthouse in Washington, D.C. about 4 p.m. eastern Thursday.

"This is election interference at its finest against the leading candidate right now for president for either party," Trump's legal spokesperson Alina Habba told reporters outside the courthouse Thursday. "President Trump is under siege in a way that we have never seen before."

Outside the courthouse, Trump's supporters and detractors gathered with signs while authorities stood guard.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia released a 45-page indictment of the former president earlier this week.

“Look, it’s not my fault that my political opponent in the Democrat Party, Crooked Joe Biden, has told his Attorney General to charge the leading (by far!) Republican Nominee & former President of the United States, me, with as many crimes as can be concocted so that he is forced to spend large amounts of time & money to defend himself,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Thursday.

“The Dems don’t want to run against me or they would not be doing this unprecedented weaponization of 'Justice,'" he added. "BUT SOON, IN 2024, IT WILL BE OUR TURN. MAGA!”

Trump also has recently been indicted in two unrelated cases related to payments to former porn star Stormy Daniels and his handling and retention of classified documents after his time as president.

Trump blasted the latest indictment after it was released, calling it part of a “witch hunt.” His team argues the string of court dates will slow down Trump's campaigning for president.

“I AM NOW GOING TO WASHINGTON, D.C., TO BE ARRESTED FOR HAVING CHALLENGED A CORRUPT, RIGGED, & STOLEN ELECTION,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Thursday. “IT IS A GREAT HONOR, BECAUSE I AM BEING ARRESTED FOR YOU. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!

Republicans were quick to criticize the indictment as well, saying it is politically motivated while Biden avoids charges for his own alleged overseas deals with his son, Hunter.

"The American people are smart and they see Biden’s lies and corruption. President Trump has never been in a stronger political position," U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., said on social media just before the arraignment.

Democrats, though, have backed the indictment, characterizing it as a solemn day for the country.

“This indictment is the most serious and most consequential thus far and will stand as a stark reminder to generations of Americans that no one, including a president of the United States, is above the law,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said in a joint statement earlier this week. “The legal process must continue to move forward without any outside interference.”

Former President Donald Trump said Monday that he expects to be indicted "any day now" by U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith over his conduct after the 2020 election.

"I assume that an Indictment from Deranged Jack Smith and his highly partisan gang of Thugs, pertaining to my PEACEFULLY & PATRIOTICALLY Speech, will be coming out any day now," Trump posted on his social media platform.

He said the indictment was part of ongoing efforts to disrupt his 2024 presidential bid. Trump is leading polls for the GOP nomination despite state and federal criminal charges over hush-money payments to an adult film actress and his handling of classified documents after leaving office.

Over the weekend, multiple media outlets reported that Trump's political action committee, Save America, was expected to report that it spent about $40 million in legal fees in the first half of 2023 to defend Trump and his advisers.

The former president's legal costs could mount if additional criminal charges surface in Georgia and Washington D.C.

"This seems to be the way they do it," Trump posted on Truth Social. "ELECTION INTERFERENCE! PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT!"

Earlier this month, Trump announced that Smith informed him he is the target of a criminal probe related to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

In June, 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.

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

House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., laid out a litany of new evidence in the ongoing investigation into an alleged Biden family “bribery scheme” Monday after interviewing one of the Biden family’s business associates.

Comer interviewed Devon Archer, a long-time friend of Hunter Biden who attended Yale with him and has ties to the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. Hunter Biden served on the board of Burisma, which allegedly paid millions of dollars to the Biden family as part of a “bribery scheme.”

“Devon Archer’s testimony today confirms Joe Biden lied to the American people when he said he had no knowledge about his son’s business dealings and was not involved. Joe Biden was ‘the brand’ that his son sold around the world to enrich the Biden family,” Comer said.

Most notably, Comer said that Archer alleged that President Biden met with Hunter Biden’s business partners more than “20 times,” directly refuting the president’s previous claim that he did not discuss the matter with his son.

“When Joe Biden was Vice President of the United States, he joined Hunter Biden’s dinners with his foreign business associates in person or by speakerphone over 20 times,” Comer said. “When Burisma’s owner was facing pressure from the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating the company for corruption, Archer testified that Burisma executives asked Hunter to ‘call D.C.’ after a Burisma board meeting in Dubai.”

Biden has repeatedly dismissed questions about his involvement in any overseas deals of this kind and Democrats have downplayed the seriousness of the investigation, including Archer’s contribution.

Comer’s comments come after IRS whistleblowers testified earlier this month that the Biden family and its associates received about $17 million distributed to about 20 shell companies from Chinese, Romanian and Ukrainian entities.

The comments came after a four-hour transcribed interview behind closed doors with Archer, who had previously canceled the interview but finally went through with it Monday. Archer, who faces prison time for conspiracy to defraud a Native American tribe, declined to comment to reporters who questioned him as he arrived on Capitol Hill Monday.

Over the weekend, controversy erupted after the Department of Justice sent a letter to a federal judge saying that Archer report to jail to begin his sentence.

Critics blasted the decision from the DOJ, saying it was politically motivated, though Archer did not echo that sentiment.

The House Oversight Committee released a timeline of events Monday based on Archer’s testimony and version of events.

From the Committee:

Devon Archer testified that the value of adding Hunter Biden to Burisma’s board was “the brand” and confirmed that then-Vice President Joe Biden was “the brand.”Archer admitted that “Burisma would have gone out of business if ‘the brand’ had not been attached to it.” He believed that Hunter Biden being on the board and the Biden brand contributed to Burisma’s longevity. People would have been intimidated to mess with Burisma legally because of the Biden brand.In December 2015, Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of Burisma, and Vadym Pozharski, an executive of Burisma, placed constant pressure on Hunter Biden to get help from D.C. regarding the Ukrainian prosecutor, Viktor Shokin. Shokin was investigating Burisma for corruption. Hunter Biden, along with Zlochevsky and Pozharski, “called D.C.” to discuss the matter. Biden, Zlochevsky, and Pozharski stepped away to make the call. This raises concerns that Hunter Biden was in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.Devon Archer testified that Hunter Biden put then-Vice President Joe Biden on the speakerphone during business meetings over 20 times. Archer testified that Joe Biden was put on the phone to sell “the brand.” These phone calls include a dinner in Paris with a French energy company and in China with Jonathan Li, the CEO of BHR.Archer acknowledged that then-Vice President Biden had coffee with Jonathan Li, the CEO of BHR, in Beijing. Then-Vice President Biden even wrote a letter of recommendation for college for Li’s daughter.Archer confirmed Joe Biden was referred to as “my guy” by Hunter Biden.In spring of 2014, then-Vice President Biden attended a business dinner with his son, Hunter, and his associates at Café Milano in Washington, D.C. Elena Baturina, a Russian oligarch who is the widow of the former mayor of Moscow, attended the dinner. Notably, the Biden Administration’s public sanctions list for Russian oligarchs does not contain Baturina.

(The Center Square) – There are a lot of expectations about what a new liberal-majority Supreme Court will mean for Wisconsin. But not everyone is expecting change right away.

Judge Janet Protasiewicz will take her oath of office Tuesday, and with that Wisconsin’s Supreme Court flips from a 4-3 conservative court to a 4-3 liberal court.

Fellow Supreme Court Justice Brian Hagedorn, who is often the conservative-leaning swing vote, said on UPFRONT on Milwaukee TV over the weekend that Protasiewicz’s arrival will not radically change the court in the short term.

“There certainly is going to be some shift in judicial philosophy, right? I mean, I've advocated for textualism and originalism, this idea that we’re supposed to take the law as it is and as written and try to give effect to whatever the reasonable reading of those words are. And some of my colleagues, particularly when it comes to the constitution, you have a little bit different approach that they’ve expressed and we’ve debated that. I think those debates will continue and they might turn out a little bit differently on at least some cases,” Hagedorn said. “But that’s not necessarily what governs every single case.”

Mark Lischeron, managing editor with the Badger Institute, agreed.

“Despite the protracted victory lap by progressives and the accompanying media cheerleading, a left-leaning majority on the state Supreme Court probably won’t mean much in the short term,” Lischeron told The Center Square. “Much like the recent consequential U.S. Supreme Court decisions, cases are brought from the lower courts and make their way to the top. As polarized as our politics is, cases that have the potential for big legal and policy change will be battled over all the way up the line. Even progressive sympathizers have said any changes to abortion law or voting district maps or Act 10 could take years.”

That doesn’t mean there aren’t expectations that the new Protasiewicz court will bring changes to Wisconsin’s abortion law, and more.

“We’re here to treat political cases like other cases. we shouldn’t be handling them differently,” Hagedorn said. “I get there’s a lot of political noise and a lot of people want what they want out of the court. But I think it’s incumbent upon us to show that we are going to act like a court and not just do whatever the political-chatters want on either side.”

Lischeron said the case against Wisconsin’s 1849 abortion law is headed for the Supreme Court, but will take some time to get there.

“There is going to be a lot more sorting and interpreting and isn’t going to be the slam dunk progressives think,” Lischeron said. “But don’t think for a moment cases like the one filed by Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul, looking to make abortion universally legal in the state, won’t keep coming.”

Lischeron said other cases, like school choice, Act 10, and the state’s electoral maps will also take some time to end up in front of the new majority court.