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WASHINGTON—Citing the federal arrests of pro-life activists, former President Donald Trump vowed to establish a task force to investigate anti-Christian bias if he is elected to another term.
“Joe Biden has weaponized the Justice Department to viciously prosecute pro-life activists,” Trump said of the current president on Saturday during remarks at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s 15th annual Road to Majority Conference in Washington, D.C.
“I will also create a new federal task force on fighting anti-Christian bias,” Trump later added. “Its mission will be to investigate all forms of illegal discrimination, harassment, and persecution against Christians in America. It’s taking place at a level that nobody can believe. This is not America any more that we are living in.”
Trump specifically talked about the case of Paulette Harlow, a 75-year-old woman sentenced recently to 24 months in prison for singing in front of an abortion clinic after she was convicted of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE Act.
Harlow told The Daily Signal earlier this month, “I felt like it was a tremendous privilege to stand in the court on behalf of the unborn, who have no voice.”
For its part, the Biden administration has said the FACE Act is in place to protect the health and safety of women seeking abortions.
Trump delivered a wide-ranging speech, talking almost 90 minutes about the border crisis, the economy and inflation, and crime. He also talked about his own legal problems, which he said were bogus.
He was in front of an enthusiastic crowd that interrupted his speech several times with chants of “Trump, Trump, Trump,” and “USA, USA.”
Trump said he has more political wounds than any other president, but noted Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Jackson come closest.
His remarks come days before the first presidential debate between Trump and Biden on Thursday.
This was Trump’s ninth speech at the Road to Majority Conference.
He is banking on comparing the strong economy under his watch with the lagging economy and inflation under the Biden administration. Biden, meanwhile, is beginning to primarily campaign on Trump’s felony conviction in New York last month.
Trump began talking about the targeting of pro-life activists as a contrast with his position that abortion is a policy that should be decided by the states—not the federal government.
He talked about the three justices he appointed to the Supreme Court who voted with the court’s majority in 2022 to scrap the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that made abortion legal nationwide.
“Thanks to these justices, we have what the pro-life movement has fought for for 49 years and we’ve gotten abortion out of the federal government,” Trump said. “Now, the people will decide, and that’s the way it should be. Some states will be more conservative. Some states will be more liberal.”
Trump insisted Democrats don’t want people in the states deciding.
“If the radical Democrat extremes get their way, they will have a federal law on abortion to rip the baby out of the womb in the seventh, eight, ninth month, or even execute the baby after birth,” Trump said.
The “execute” reference, Trump said, was about former Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, who had seemingly supported the idea of allowing a baby who survived an abortion to be killed.
Trump said he is pro-life, but made exceptions for the life of the mother, rape, or incest.
“Every voter has to go with your heart and do what is right. We have to get elected,” Trump told the audience.
Trump is scheduled for a rally in Philadelphia, and wasn’t originally on the conference’s speaking list. Trump said that his campaign staff encouraged him to cancel out of the Faith and Freedom Coalition event, and he joked, “I don’t have the courage to do that.”
Trump told the largely Christian crowd that not enough Christians turn out to vote.
“Christians go to church, but they don’t vote that much,” Trump said. “Do you know how much power you’ll have if you vote? Just this time. In four years, I don’t care.”
The post Trump Vows Task Force to Investigate Anti-Christian Bias appeared first on The Daily Signal.
The Manhattan district attorney who prosecuted former President Donald Trump ran a politically motivated investigation while allowing common criminals off the hook.
That was one of the conclusions of Republican lawmakers and witnesses at a House Judiciary Committee hearing Thursday on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s prosecution of Trump.
Bragg has agreed to appear before the committee in July.
In his opening statement, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, the committee’s chairman, said that Bragg ran for district attorney while “bragging” about suing Trump and vowing to prosecute the former president.
When Bragg took office in 2022, the first thing he did, Jordan said, was release a “Day One memo,” committing to “progressive, soft on crime, anti-victim policies.” That included reducing some violent crimes, such as armed robbery, to misdemeanors.
Despite his commitment to prosecuting Trump, Bragg told one of his prosecutors that the case was too weak, in large part because the lead witness, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, couldn’t be trusted, Jordan said.
Cohen had pleaded guilty to lying to Congress and was disbarred.
Jordan said that Bragg received pressure from the Left to prosecute Trump, especially after the former president announced he would be running for president again in 2024.
Shortly after the Trump presidential announcement, Bragg hired Matthew Colangelo, a senior official in President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice.
The Ohio congressman said that the pattern of Bragg’s actions demonstrates that the judicial system has been contorted to go after Trump.
“Alvin Bragg’s prosecution of President Trump was personal, was based on politics, and was wrong,” Jordan said.
One of the witnesses at the hearing, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, also said that the prosecution was “politically motivated” and “replete with legal error.”
Alvin Bragg's prosecution of President Trump was politically motivated and replete with legal error.
— House Judiciary GOP ?????? (@JudiciaryGOP) June 13, 2024
1. Prosecutors are explicitly forbidden from waging politically motivated prosecutions.
2. The charges’ reference to an unspecified and unidentifiable other crime constitutes a… pic.twitter.com/M24bJcJxzA
Bailey, a Republican, said that in the Trump case, the prosecutor “perverted the law to meet the facts, rather than objectively apply the facts to the law.”
He noted that the prosecution failed to correct the court’s instructions to jurors in the case.
“The prosecutor failed to correct the court’s error in instructing the jury that unanimity was not required as to the predicate offense that forms the basis for the fallacious charges,” Bailey said.
The Missouri attorney general said that trial by jury requires a unanimous decision of guilt for every offense, but the court didn’t instruct jurors to act in this way, which is why Trump was found guilty on all 34 charges.
Federal Election Commission member James E. “Trey” Trainor III, who was appointed by Trump, said that the legal theory the New York court convicted Trump on was absurd.
Trump was convicted of violations of campaign-finance law.
WATCH: FEC Commissioner Trey Trainor testifies about the absurd legal theory Alvin Bragg used to prosecute President Trump pic.twitter.com/jya5rdlJ1B
— House Judiciary GOP ?????? (@JudiciaryGOP) June 13, 2024
“District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s decision to pursue charges against former President Trump for alleged violations of campaign-finance laws marks a significant deviation from this established legal framework,” Trainor said. “Doing so, Bragg has effectively usurped the jurisdiction that this Congress has explicitly reserved for federal authorities.”
Trainor said that the Trump case “sets a disturbing precedent for the politicization of legal proceedings at the state level.”
He said that the case opens a can of worms, wherein states can now use creative interpretations of campaign-finance laws against former presidents, presidential candidates, and other people running for federal office.
Trainor also condemned the Department of Justice for not intervening in this case, despite it being under federal jurisdiction. He said the campaign-finance laws are designed to allow the DOJ to ensure that the laws are not used to manipulate the political process, especially in an election year.
Democrats at the hearing supported the Bragg decision and said that Republicans were undermining the courts by questioning the Trump verdict.
Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., focused on Trump being a “convicted felon” in his remarks during the hearing.
“Just a show of hands for anyone in the room who hung out with a felon today?” Swalwell asked, rhetorically. “Hey, guys, you might want to get your hands up. You were hanging out with convicted felon Donald Trump. I don’t think anyone on our side did. That’s why we’re here.”
Swalwell said that Trump’s legal team had the chance to help choose the jury in New York. The California congressman also asserted that Fox News celebrated the recent conviction in the case of President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, on charges related to the illegal purchase of a firearm.
Swalwell also questioned Republican support for the Supreme Court, which might ultimately decide the Trump cases.
“One judge is flying an insurrection flag in solidarity with the insurrection on Jan. 6, [2021] that tried to overturn Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election,” the California Democrat said, referring to the story about how an “Appeal to Heaven” flag—originally created by an aide to George Washington in the American Revolution—was seen flying at Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s home in 2021.
Swalwell said that Republicans on the committee chose to help a felon over families by focusing on the Trump trial.
The post At Judiciary Committee Hearing on Trump’s NYC Trial, House Republicans Decry Politicized Indictment appeared first on The Daily Signal.
When the elected Democrat district attorney of Manhattan and his 12 (likely Democrat) Manhattan jurors convicted Donald Trump on artificially inflated felony counts of business accounting, you could count on leftist journalists to try to make it the Most Historic Event Ever.
We’re not even sure it won’t all be reversed on appeal. But “historic” is their word of choice … when they like the result.
In 1999, when Bill Clinton was impeached for lying under oath about sex with an intern named Monica Lewinsky, Geraldo Rivera was furious on the “Today” show: “It was a spiteful action, an action that they performed absolutely in violation of the framers’ intent. It was a legislative coup d’etat.”
Impeaching Trump twice was never a “coup” to NBC News. But the worst part of that spectacle was leftist activists like Rivera trying to speak for the framers of the Constitution. He was implying it wasn’t just a revolting result but revolting in the eyes of James Madison and the rest. The Left reveres nothing about the Founders, routinely denouncing them as a racist, sexist, capitalist patriarchy.
This regrettable citation of the Founding Fathers happened again with the Trump trial, and again in this case, the American revolutionaries were placed on the side of the Democrats.
George Stephanopoulos began his commentary on “This Week” with the second president: “In 1774, John Adams said representative government and trial by jury are the heart and lungs of liberty. Two hundred and fifty years later, the heart and lungs of liberty are facing what may be the ultimate stress test.” It’s John Adams vs. Trump.
The front page of the June 3 New York Times was topped with an editorial—labeled “News Analysis”—from its White House correspondent Peter Baker. He picked Patrick Henry as the Trump opponent.
“The revolutionary hero Patrick Henry knew this day would come,” Baker began. Henry “feared that eventually a criminal might occupy the presidency and use his powers to thwart anyone who sought to hold him accountable.” In Henry’s words, “Away with your president, we will have a king.”
Never mind that historians pointed out Henry was inveighing against the Constitution before it was ratified. Baker channeled the Democrat line: “The notion that 34 felonies is not automatically disqualifying and a convicted criminal can be a viable candidate for commander in chief upends two and a half centuries of assumptions about American democracy.”
Inside the paper, the headline over Baker’s essay was “If a Felon Becomes President, Can Anyone Limit His Power?” The text box underlined the theme again: “Revival of a long-ago fear that a U.S. leader could try to be a king.” All that followed was the argument ad infinitum that Trump’s second term would result in “unfettered abuses of authority.”
What Baker and Stephanopoulos refused to understand was that this rhetoric of a president abusing authority can also be applied to President Joe Biden. On CNN, Scott Jennings mocked Rep. Jake Auchincloss, D-Mass., on how Biden ruthlessly ignored the courts and the Congress in offering $165 billion in student loan “forgiveness” to win younger voters.
“You’re a member of Congress,” Jennings told Auchincloss. “Does it not offend you that the president of the United States is usurping your authority?” The eventual answer was no.
The Democrats and their media enablers use “history” to establish how there is a “right side,” and that is their leftist agenda. Undercutting democratic norms and coequal branches of government is admirable when the ends justify the means. The Founding Fathers are just yellowed paper puppets in their relentless power games.
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We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.
The post Beware When Leftist Journalists Use Founders to Attack Trump appeared first on The Daily Signal.
Former President Donald Trump’s campaign donation page crashed Thursday within minutes of the jury returning a guilty verdict.
Shortly after the verdict, the page displayed a 500 error stating “something went wrong.” Trump also received massive influxes of cash from major donors after the verdict, including $300,000 from Sequoia Capital partner Shaun Maguire.
“The timing isn’t a coincidence,” Maguire wrote on X. In the past, Sequoia Capital employees have donated to both the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee, as well as the anti-Trump group The Lincoln Project, according to Open Secrets.
Trump’s campaign wrote on X that “the American people see through Crooked Joe Biden’s rigged show trial.”
“So many Americans were moved to donate to President Trump’s campaign that the WinRed pages went down,” the campaign said.
I just donated $300k to President Trump
— Shaun Maguire (@shaunmmaguire) May 30, 2024
The timing isn't a coincidence https://t.co/LDU4nJ8FBx
The jury convicted Trump on all 34 counts of falsifying business records charged in the indictment brought by Democratic District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Trump is set to be sentenced on July 11.
WEBSITE IS BACK ONLINE!https://t.co/KojPKxsxaD https://t.co/LylEZV7zJb
— Team Trump (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TeamTrump) May 30, 2024
New York gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin also wrote on X after the verdict that he just “secured a $800k donation from someone for President Trump’s Joint Fundraising Committee.”
“Never experienced a massive ask that easy,” he wrote.
The Trump campaign and WinRed did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The post Trump Campaign Gets Immediate Avalanche of Cash After Guilty Verdict appeared first on The Daily Signal.
A Manhattan jury found former President Donald Trump guilty Thursday on all 34 charges of falsifying business records to hide “hush money” payments in 2016 to former pornographic movie actress Stormy Daniels.
Upon leaving the courthouse, Trump called the trial a disgrace and said, “This was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who is corrupt.” He continued: “The real verdict is going to be Nov. 5 by the people.”
Trump faces up to four years in prison.
BREAKING: Donald Trump says the "real verdict" will be decided on election day November 5th, 2024, calls out George Soros after being found guilty.
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) May 30, 2024
"It's okay, I'm fighting for our country… I'm fighting for our constitution."
Trump also called out President Biden, saying the… pic.twitter.com/3QibqBSCrt
Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts issued a statement on the conviction:
This verdict is a travesty to our republic. This was a bogus prosecution engineered by President Biden and his weaponized DOJ that has made the New York justice system look like that of a third-world country where government officials engage in partisan prosecutions against their political opponents.
(Read the rest of Roberts’ statement here.)
The Heritage Foundation launched The Daily Signal in 2014.
The Biden campaign put out a statement saying that “no one is above the law.”
Biden-Harris Campaign Statement on Today’s Verdict pic.twitter.com/TEmdNsPmzP
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) May 30, 2024
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said in a statement that the verdict represents a “dark day” in America:
This is a dark day for America. This entire trial has been a sham, and it is nothing more than political persecution. The only reason they prosecuted Donald Trump is because Democrats are terrified that he will win reelection. This disgraceful decision is legally baseless and should be overturned promptly on appeal. Any judge with a modicum of integrity would recognize that this entire trial has been utterly fraudulent.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, said in a statement on X that a guilty verdict never would have been reached if Trump wasn’t the person being charged.
Today’s verdict represents the culmination of a legal process that has been bent to the political will of the actors involved: a leftist prosecutor, a partisan judge and a jury reflective of one of the most liberal enclaves in America—all in an effort to “get” Donald Trump.
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) May 30, 2024
That…
MoveOn.org, a liberal advocacy organization, called the verdict a “small degree of justice” in a statement:
Today, a jury concluded that Donald Trump broke the law. This verdict represents a small degree of justice against Trump and his enablers and now millions of MoveOn members will keep up their work to guarantee he loses at the ballot box, too.
Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., the No. 4 Republican in the House, said the verdict demonstrates that the nation’s legal system under President Joe Biden is “rigged.”
My statement on the rigged verdict in the New York City Biden Trial against President Trump:
— Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) May 30, 2024
“Today’s verdict shows how corrupt, rigged, and unAmerican the weaponized justice system has become under Joe Biden and Democrats. I fully support President Trump appealing this decision…
Before beginning to deliberate on a verdict Wednesday, the 12-member jury received unusual instructions in Manhattan Criminal Court from Judge Juan Merchan, as Fox News’ John Roberts reported on X.
Judge Merchan just told the jury that they do not need unanimity to convict. 4 could agree on one crime, 4 on a different one, and the other 4 on another. He said he would treat 4-4-4 as a unanimous verdict.
— John Roberts (@johnrobertsFox) May 29, 2024
The former president spoke to reporters and onlookers Tuesday outside the court before closing arguments in his trial.
Tiffany Trump makes her first appearance at the sham Trump trial.
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) May 28, 2024
Don Jr, Eric, Lara, Michael Boulos (Tiffany's husband), Steve Witkoff, Will Scharf, and Deroy Murdock are also in attendance.pic.twitter.com/mrn6aDNThV
Also before those closing arguments, actor and liberal activist Robert De Niro showed up at the courthouse to denounce Trump and his supporters and express his own support for Biden.
The Democrats parade a washed up actor, Robert De Niro, outside of Trump's trial, a man who has spewed vile, pejorative-filled poison at Trump multiple times, and now he's upset Trump supporters are shouting at him in protest?!
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) May 28, 2024
De Niro is a unhinged, entitled maniac. pic.twitter.com/Ar9A0f60dS
Inside the courtroom during closing arguments, Trump’s lawyer argued that the prosecution had failed to come up with any evidence that Trump committed a crime.
“President Trump is innocent,” defense attorney Todd Blanche said. “He did not commit any crimes, and the district attorney has not met their burden of proof, period.”
Blanche was referring to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, an elected Democrat.
Trump’s attorney also pointed to the prosecution’s star witness, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, as an unreliable witness with a history of lying.
“You cannot send someone to prison based on the words of Michael Cohen,” Blanche told the jury.
Merchan, the judge, reprimanded Blanche for this remark, calling it “outrageous” and “highly inappropriate.”
The prosecutor, Joshua Steinglass, rested his case by arguing that Trump’s defense was built on deception.
“The name of the game was concealment and all roads lead to the man who benefited most, the defendant, Donald Trump,” Steinglass said.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
The post Political World Erupts After Jury Declares Trump Guilty on All 34 Counts appeared first on The Daily Signal.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, the Georgia prosecutor who brought racketeering charges against former President Donald Trump and his political allies, won her Democratic primary Tuesday in the face of scandal.
Meanwhile, Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, presiding over the Fulton County case against Trump, also won his race—just two months after his ruling allowed Willis to continue with the case, despite the fact that she was in an undisclosed relationship with the lawyer she had hired to prosecute Trump.
These local races gained national attention not only because of the Trump case, but because of personal and professional scandal surrounding Willis over the revelations of her affair with Nathan Wade, the man she hired as special prosecutor to go after Trump for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.
The judge made what was considered a mixed ruling in March that the Trump case could go forward only if Willis or Wade recused themselves. So, Wade left the case.
On Tuesday, Willis defeated Christian Wise Smith, a former county prosecutor who previously unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for Georgia attorney general in 2022. He also previously lost to Willis in the Fulton County Democrat primary for district attorney in 2020.
The Associated Press called the race at 7:31 p.m.
BREAKING: Fani Willis wins the Democratic Party primary in Georgia for District Attorney, Atlanta Judicial Circuit. #APRaceCall at 7:31 p.m. EDT.
— AP Politics (@AP_Politics) May 21, 2024
In the upcoming November general election, Willis now faces Courtney Kramer, a lawyer who didn’t have a challenger in the Republican primary for district attorney in the heavily Democratic jurisdiction made up primarily of Atlanta.
Willis was first elected in 2020. She has faced controversies beyond the Trump case that include the prosecution of rapper Young Thug and complaints by the liberal American Civil Liberties Union about living conditions in the Fulton County Jail.
The Associated Press called the race for McAfee shortly before 8 p.m.
McAfee faced Robert Patillo II, a Georgia civil rights lawyer and radio host. One candidate for the judgeship, defense attorney Tiffani Johnson, was disqualified but was fighting the disqualification, according to The New York Times.
Judicial races in Georgia are nonpartisan. McAfee is a former state inspector general appointed to the bench by Gov. Brian Kemp in December 2022 to fill a vacancy.
The Willis-Wade controversy came up after one of the defendants—former Trump White House and campaign aide Michael Roman—filed a legal motion asking for both to be disqualified from the case.
Willis hired Wade in November 2021 for $250 per hour. Wade has billed Willis’ office for more than $650,000 in legal work. Wade and Willis went on several vacations, cruises, and flights to destinations that included Belize, Aruba, and the Bahamas, which raised accusations that Willis personally benefited from the financial arrangement.
Trump and Roman were among 19 people charged under the state’s Racketeering Influencing and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, in August 2023 by a Fulton County grand jury for challenging the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia.
McAfee determined in March that the Trump allies hadn’t shown an actual conflict of interest with Willis employing Wade but said, “the established record “highlights a significant appearance of impropriety that infect the current structure of the prosecution team.”
The post Georgia’s Democratic Voters Render Their Verdict on Fani Willis appeared first on The Daily Signal.
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