FEC Commissioner Undermines Entire Manhattan Prosecution, The Trump-Daniels NDA Is Not an Election Campaign Violation


Posted originally on the CTH on April 6, 2023 | Sundance 

If the other substantive weaknesses in the politically constructed Manhattan case against Donald Trump do not lead to a pre-trial dismissal, this one should collapse it.

The Commissioner of the Federal Election Commission (FEC) explicitly states the payments by President Trump to Stormy Daniels are not an election campaign violation.

WASHINGTON DC – A key member of the Federal Election Commission today rejected the Manhattan district attorney’s indictment of former President Donald Trump as a violation of federal election laws.

“It’s not a campaign finance violation. It’s not a reporting violation of any kind,” said FEC Commissioner James E. “Trey” Trainor.  In trying to stretch the law to make it look like a violation, he added, District Attorney Alvin Bragg “is really trying to make a square peg fit into a round hole.”

In a 34-count indictment of Trump, the first criminal case ever against a former president, Bragg charged that a $130,000 payment made by former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen to porn star Stormy Daniels, which Cohen went to jail for in a plea deal, violated several campaign finance laws that splashed onto Trump. [T]he FEC and Justice Department already considered the case and tossed it.

First, he said, Cohen took the blame in his plea deal. “At the end of the day, there’s the person who committed the crime, and there’s the person who is behind bars because of it,” Trainor said of Cohen.

Second, the paperwork violation in question came well after Trump’s 2016 election, so it couldn’t have been done to help his election.

Third, it is not obvious that the reason for the payment and the reimbursement to Cohen was to influence the election, thus failing the “objective standard” of law. “It has to be something that anybody on the street can look at and say the only reason you did that was to influence the campaign,” said Trainor. “There’s a lot of reasons that he could have done it that aren’t related to him being a candidate for president, and so therefore, it wouldn’t have met the standard as campaign expenditure under federal law,” he added. (read more)

McConnell DeceptiCon Foot Soldier Roy Blunt Takes Role with DC Lobbying Group


Posted originally on the CTH on April 5, 2023 | Sundance

A case study in the DeceptiCon politics that we discuss amid these pages surfaced today.

WASHINGTON DC – Former Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) on Wednesday joined Husch Blackwell Strategies, a Washington, D.C., lobbying firm with close ties to the veteran GOP senator.

Blunt will lead a newly launched strategic advisory practice at the firm, which is run by Gregg Hartley, Blunt’s former chief of staff in the House, and Andy Blunt, his son. Blunt will also reunite with Stacy McBride, his chief of staff in the Senate who joined the firm last month.

Blunt recently retired from Congress after 26 years in office. He held several prominent roles, chairing the Senate Rules Committee and Senate Republican Policy Committee and serving as the No. 2 Republican in the House. He was a trusted adviser to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

Blunt is the third senator from the 117th Congress to announce a new gig. Former Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) joined lobbying and law firm DLA Piper in a similar advisory role. Former Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) joined the American Enterprise Institute as a public policy fellow.

The Missouri Republican, who served on the Senate Intelligence Committee, will maintain his security clearance and continue to advise the intelligence community separate from his role at the firm. He’ll also stay on as the recently elected president of the State Historical Society of Missouri. (read more)

RSBN Livestream From New York City


Posted originally on the CTH on April 4, 2023 | Sundance 

RSBN broadcast team LIVE from New York City as President Donald J. Trump is expected to surrender himself to New York prosecutors after being indicted by a grand jury last week. Protests against and rallies in support of Trump are expected and RSBN will bring you wall-to-wall coverage of the entire day’s events. {Direct Rumble Link}

There is also a Reuters Link below

Post-Indictment Polls Show Massive Surge in Support for President Trump – Everyone Can See the Politics of Persecution


Posted originally on the CTH on April 2, 2023 | Sundance 

Generally polling is sporadic depending on the agenda of the pollster.  However, two separate polls released within a 24-hour period show almost identical outcomes.

The YouGov Poll [DATA Here] shows President Trump with a 31-point lead over Ron DeSantis 52/21. No one really close after that. In the head-to-head matchup with only two options, Trump now leads Ron DeSantis 57%-31%.  That up from a 47%-39% last month.  [Yahoo News Article Here]

Another poll [Article Here] “by Trump’s campaign team, found that 51 percent of Republicans see him as their preferred 2024 candidate – putting him ahead of his biggest threat Ron DeSantis who scored 21 percent.”  That’s an almost identical outcome to the YouGov poll.

[Article Here – Data Here]

.

President Trump responded to the support he sees via Truth Social. [Source Here]

Trump & Likely Gag Order to Create Imprisonment


Armstrong Economics Blog/Rule of Law Re-Posted Mar 31, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

Trump will now find himself silenced and whatever Free Speech he once had, will now be stripped away from him like the rest of his constitutional and human rights. We are about to witness just how corrupt our legal system truly is. This is George Soros’s puppet. Alan Bragg will now show the entire world that in the United States, there is no such thing as constitutional or even Human Rights.

Bragg will most likely seek a Gag Order in addition to a denial of bail, which no matter how ruthless the judge, will probably realize he cannot deny bail to a former President. Still, they will most likely put a Gag Order on Trump, and that way they can throw him in jail even indefinitely as they did to me using Civil Contempt of Court which is not a crime. If they charge him with Criminal Contempt, then he gets a trial by jury. Under Civil Contempt, you have ZERO rights and no right to a trial.

Because I did an interview in the Japanese press and told all my clients to file suit against the bank, they then put a gag order on me FOR LIFE to prevent me from providing my own clients with evidence against the bank. Normally, you are supposed to get more time if you do not assist the victims. Law means ABSOLUTELY nothing in court. They do as they like and the Constitution means absolutely nothing.

This is who I believe is a disgusting individual. I have been told he ran for office saying he would indict Trump. Screw NYC. Crime is off the hook. It is no longer a safe city to even go to visit. At the last coin show there, they robbed a dealer and stole his entire inventory when packing up to leave. That’s OK – but for Trump to pay money to a porn star warrants endless taxpayer money to be spent for this guy’s career.

BEWARE Mr, Trump. They kept me in prison on Civil Contempt from 2000 to 2007. I was released ONLY because I got to the Supreme Court and they ordered the government to explain how I could be held for 7 years without anything on statute 28 USC 1826 which had a maximum of 18 months. To avoid having to answer, they suddenly released me.

So forget the payment to a Porn Star

They can now gag trump, restrict his movements, and harass him to PREVENT him from running in 2024. They will listen to every word he says and are just going to wait to be able to throw him in prison on Civil Contempt indefinitely with ZERO Constitutional Rights. Welcome to the REAL America. They call it a “protective order” to protect the Government and Bragg as you are stripped of ALL your First Amendment rights.

Team DeSantis Expand Astroturf Operations – Hire Team Cruz and Team Youngkin, Immediately Begin Fake Push Polls


Posted originally on the CTH on March 31, 2023 | Sundance 

Everything about Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is shallow fakery and manipulative astroturf.

The term “astroturf” is given whenever a political operation attempts to generate the illusion of support where little to no support exists.   Astroturf politics is pure fabrication and highlights the smallness of the candidate for whom the astroturf operation is conducted.

In republican national politics we saw astroturf operations around Carly Fiorina and Ted Cruz in 2016, so it doesn’t come as a surprise to see the same individual’s surface again as hired by Team DeSantis to create his 2024 astroturf campaign.  Yesterday’s trip by the meatball to Georgia was pure astroturf, complete with free DeSantis ’24 swag, t-shirts, and various freebies in order to support the artificial optics of the campaign [see video at end].

With the support of Jeb Bush and Karl Rove, team Meatball has hired former Cruz and Youngkin campaign officials to help generate and enhance his illusion.  They even hired people skilled in manufactured polling [WPA intel] to create false data for media to promote. This action comes on the heels of the meatball’s instructions to state senate allies for them to change Florida law, thus permitting him to run without resigning.

WASHINGTON – […] The upper ranks of Never Back Down, a group founded by former Virginia attorney general Ken Cuccinelli, will include top strategists to Sen. Ted Cruz’s 2016 presidential campaign, a top adviser to Glenn Youngkin’s 2021 Virginia gubernatorial campaign and senior communications aides involved in former president Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential run, according to a person familiar with the plans, who, like others in this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private arrangements.

The sheer firepower of the senior team suggests that Never Back Down — which will be able to accept donations of unlimited value and transfers from DeSantis’s state political committee — will have a more expansive role in the 2024 campaign than past presidential super PACs, which have traditionally focused almost exclusively on television and digital advertising.

[…] Phil Cox, a senior adviser to the 2022 DeSantis reelection campaign who has been a point of contact for Republicans hoping to support a White House bid, will serve as a senior adviser to Never Back Down, the person familiar with the plans said. He will work with Axiom Strategies President Jeff Roe, the architect of the 2016 Cruz campaign and the 2021 Youngkin campaign, whose role with the group was disclosed last week.

Kristin Davison, an Axiom consultant who has worked as a top adviser to Youngkin, will join the group as chief operating officer, working with Chris Jankowski — a Virginia strategist who has worked with Cox — who has taken the title of chief executive.

[…] Chris Wilson, a Republican pollster at WPA Intelligence, will lead the data efforts for Never Back Down. He worked on Youngkin’s gubernatorial campaign, and served as director of research, analytics and digital strategy for the 2016 Cruz presidential campaign.

David Polyansky, Axiom’s chief strategy officer, will also join Never Back Down as a senior adviser. He previously worked as a senior adviser to the 2016 GOP presidential campaign of former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, as top adviser to the Cruz presidential campaign and as a Senate chief of staff to Cruz.

[…] On Monday, Matt Wolking, a deputy communications director for Trump’s 2020 campaign who works at Axiom, announced on Twitter that he was joining the group. (read more)

Right on cue, today Meatball spox Matt Wolking starts promoting a Meatball WPA Intelligence poll for NBC to promote.

The coordinated astroturf effort is extremely visible, and makes the meatball look smaller than a spaghetti-o.

Next up is an exceptional video explanation by Randy of what happened in Georgia yesterday.

Everything noted in the ‘on-the-ground’ video in Georgia is describing pure astroturf.

If Casey DeSantis had any shame or humility, she would be embarrassed for her Meatball.  However, as Casey takes counsel from Cindy McCain while shopping for tiaras and drapes, the general optics are that Mrs. Meatball is one of the biggest pushers of the 2024 enterprise.

DOJ Celebrates First Criminal Conviction in U.S. History for Creating a Meme – The Future of The First Amendment Under the “Restrict Act” Clarifies


Posted originally on the CTH on March 31, 2023 | Sundance

Welcome to The United States of America in 2023, where we see the first ever criminal conviction of a U.S. citizen for creating a meme. A man created a picture determined to be illegal by a Dept of Justice focused on the arrest and incarceration of people working against the interests of a weaponized government.

We will see what happens on appeal.  After the jury remained deadlocked for three days, and after thrice telling the judge they were deadlocked, Judge Ann Donnelly threatened not to release them from duty unless and until they came to a decision on guilt.  The jury subsequently found Douglass Mackey, a 33-year-old who went by the name Ricky Vaughn on Twitter and a resident of Florida (insert DeSantis silence here), guilty of creating a meme against the interests of the U.S. government.

The DOJ Celebrates – Douglass Mackey, also known as “Ricky Vaughn,” was convicted today by a federal jury in Brooklyn of the charge of Conspiracy Against Rights stemming from his scheme to deprive individuals of their constitutional right to vote.  The verdict followed a one-week trial before United States District Judge Ann M. Donnelly.  When sentenced, Mackey faces a maximum of 10 years in prison.

Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, and Michael J. Driscoll, Assistant Director-in-Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office (FBI), announced the verdict.

“Mackey has been found guilty by a jury of his peers of attempting to deprive individuals from exercising their sacred right to vote for the candidate of their choice in the 2016 Presidential Election,” stated United States Attorney Peace.  “Today’s verdict proves that the defendant’s fraudulent actions crossed a line into criminality and flatly rejects his cynical attempt to use the constitutional right of free speech as a shield for his scheme to subvert the ballot box and suppress the vote.”

In 2016, Mackey established an audience on Twitter with approximately 58,000 followers.  A February 2016 analysis by the MIT Media Lab ranked Mackey as the 107th most important influencer of the then-upcoming Presidential Election.

As proven at trial, between September 2016 and November 2016, Mackey conspired with other influential Twitter users and with members of private online groups to use social media platforms, including Twitter, to disseminate fraudulent messages that encouraged supporters of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to “vote” via text message or social media which, in reality, was legally invalid. (read more)

This is a dark day for our nation.  However, let this serve as a warning for what lies ahead as the United States Senate attempts to create criminal laws that will take control over online content.  This conviction for the expression of speech is the first of many if the Restrict Act is passed as written.

NYC – The Most Corrupt Legal System in the USA


Armstrong Economics Blog/Rule of Law Re-Posted Mar 30, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

Jacob Chansley, 35, who pleaded guilty to breaching the U.S. Capitol and was sentenced to 41 months in prison, was released from prison after Fox News aired footage of him being escorted by police officers inside the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021. The videotapes confirm that Chansley was innocent. Why would he plead guilty to a false charge by a prosecutor who knew he was innocent? Because the judges do whatever the prosecutor tells them. If he says life, he is given life. The first thing a corrupt court-appointed lawyer tells you, you cannot win, just plead guilty.

The United States has one of the MOST corrupt legal systems in the Western World. We do not honor the law or the constitution, and it is standard practice to force innocent people to plead guilty under threats to their family or terms of imprisonment for life by stacking multiple charges. They will routinely call every email a separate crime even though they were all part of a single transaction.

Judge Jed S. Rakoff was probably the most honest judge in New York City Federal Court. He wrote a book to explain why the innocent were pleading guilty and the guilty go free as long as they bring in more people for the prosecutors like Bragg. Every person I met who was an actual big drug importer, said the same thing. If they had $500,000 in cash they confiscated, the indictment would say $250,000. When they would tell the court-appointed lawyer who is professional at selling citizens to the prosecution to maintain their 97%-99% conviction rate, tell them to keep their mouth shut. More money means more time. They arrest drug dealers and spread the cash among themselves. This was not just one person, but EVERY drug dealer said the same.

Trump is about to step into the most corrupt court system in the United States. Bragg will claim he is a flight risk living in Florida and should be denied bail. They will then fall back and try to say that he must remain in New York City to prevent him from campaigning around the country. If the corrupt judge grants any such relief of that nature of Bragg, you can turn the lights out on NYC. I for one will never set foot in that place for it is the modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah.

NYC is nop longer the Big Apple – it is the Cesspool of Political Corruption

Trump is Indicted – This May Backfire in Spades


Armstrong Economics Blog/Politics Re-Posted Mar 30, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

Donald Trump is now the first former US president to face criminal charges after a grand jury in New York has voted to indict him on charges related to hush money payments to an adult film star. President Warren G. Harding (1865-1923), 29th President of the United States (1921-1923), has gone down as perhaps the worst president in America’s history. Harding’s legacy was overshadowed by corruption. He was surrounded by cronies which took his administration down the rabbit hole of amazing corruption.

Harding preferred to play poker and womanizer rather than tackle the serious questions of his time. Herbert Hoover, who succeeded Harding, said: “He was not a man with either the experience or the intellectual quality that the position needed.”

Nevertheless, despite Harding’s Administration having been one of the most corrupt in modern history, he was still honored on stamps when he died. Yet they still gave him a presidential funeral. It is hard to imagine that either the press or Washington would do the same for Trump. We have crossed the Rubicon with this indictment of Trump. This desperate attempt to try to damage his credibility to prevent him from running for president is now degraded American justice to the lowest possible level of the corrupt Ukrainian government which routinely imprisons political adversaries as well as a South American banana republic.

In all honesty, NEVER in all my career have I ever seen so many crazy fundamentals all culminate at the same time with the turning point in the Economic Confidence Model as we head into the next turning point of April 10th from cycles in Russia, Ukraine, banking crisis, and throw in this indictment of Trump that is just insane. If they really think this would reduce Trump’s chances of running,  they are seriously wrong. There is a growing number of people now who see the government as corrupt. This will only be seen as a desperate measure to protect Washington and the real swamp that always acts against the interests of the people. Next week was a Directional Change in many markets and we have panic cycles in May. It looks like this is s Smörgåsbord of political chaos and uncertainty.

Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, said they contacted Trump’s attorney to “coordinate his surrender” on an indictment that “remains under seal.” Trump will self-surrender and Bragg will probably seek pre-trial confinement without bail claiming a flight risk. Zelensky tried that with his former President. This is going to be a major game-changer in politics. Bragg has crossed the Rubicon, and that means Biden and his entire family could be indicted even when sitting as president. The laptop of Hunter and the bank records are grounds for impeachment and even removal from office in the case of Biden. Bragg has crossed the Rubicon and this indeed can be a political civil war.

Article II, Section 4:

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

President Trump Attorney Alina Habba Speaks to Tucker Carlson About Political Indictment


Posted originally on the CTH on March 30, 2023 | Sundance

Tucker Carlson frames the context of the accusations against President Donald Trump and then interviews one of President Trump’s civil attorneys Alina Habba. {Direct Rumble Link}

While Ms. Habba is not a criminal attorney for President Trump she notes the legal ramifications to the justice system from a radical leftist District Attorney running amuck. WATCH: