Trump is also barred “from serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation or other legal entity in New York for a period of three years,” while his sons have been barred from serving as New York executives for two years.
New York Judge Arthur Engoron has ordered former President Donald Trump to pay $364 million for allegedly defrauding banks in order to acquire loans and other benefits – loans which the banks themselves testified they were satisfied with after doing their own due diligence.
Breaking Exclusive! Judge Arthur Engoron Finds Trump Guilty Of Real Estate Fraud In New York City pic.twitter.com/F6SdMv7Wgy
Trump is also barred “from serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation or other legal entity in New York for a period of three years,” while his sons have been barred from serving as New York executives for two years.
BREAKING: A judge finds Donald Trump liable in his civil fraud case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, fining him $364 million and prohibiting him from operations in the state for 3 years. pic.twitter.com/Wj8QLpRvy4
New York Attorney General Letitia James had sought $370 million from Trump, his company, and its top executives for what she claimed was “repeated and persistent fraud” – which included allegations of falsifying records and financial statements to the tune of as much as $2.2 billion.
Our fan-favorite Turbo Force Plus is now 40% off! See for yourself the delicious one-of-a-kind energy boost infowarriors CRAVE!
Trump maintains that his financial statements to banks were conservative, and has called the case a “fraud on me.”
“This is a case that should have never been brought, and I think we should be entitled to damages,” Trump said on Jan. 11.
The months–long civil trial included testimony from Trump and his oldest children. The former president was combative in his day on the stand, blasting James as a “hack” and calling the judge “extremely hostile.”
Trump repeatedly complained about Engoron before and throughout the trial, and the judge slapped him with a partial gag order after he started blasting the judge’s law clerk as well. Trump’s complaints led to a flood of death threats against the clerk, as well as Engoron, court officials said, and Trump was fined $15,000 for twice violating the order. -NBC News
During the trial, Deutsche Bank executive David Williams, who directly worked on at least one of several loans obtained by Trump over several decades, testified that it’s “atypical, but not entirely unusual” for a bank to internally slash a client’s stated asset values by 50% and approve a loan anyway, as they did with Trump, Bloomberg reported in November.
“It just depends on the circumstances,” said Williams, a managing director at the bank.
Deutsche Bank, which loaned hundreds of millions of dollars to Trump for properties in Miami, Chicago and Washington, cut his stated net worth in 2011 and 2012 from about $4.2 billion to $2.3 billion, according to internal bank credit memos. The same documents indicated the bank approved the loans anyway because it expected them to generate a profitbased on Trump’s history of successful developments and other criteria.
Trump, who denies wrongdoing and claims the case is politically motivated, is calling to the stand this week four current and former Deutsche Bank employees — including the family’s former private banker Rosemary Vrablic — as part of his defense case, seeking to flip the script on the state’s version of events. -Bloomberg
The testimony undermined AG James’ premise, that Trump defrauded the German bank. But of course, none of that matters to Engoron – while Trump’s Martyr status just intensified.
Expect this decision to be reflected in upcoming polls.
Watch: Democratic Leaders Tell America That Illegal Aliens Come First
The President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Joe Ajaero has said that the national minimum wage should be reviewed annually to enable workers to cushion the negative impact of the economic hardship in the country.
Recall that the National Minimum Wage Act of 2019, Section 3(4) mandated that “the national minimum wage expires after five years and shall be reviewed in line with the provision of the Act.”
However, Section 7 of the act noted that “The Tripartite Committee shall have all the powers to make recommendations on the national minimum wage, more especially to exercise the powers of review given under section 3 (4) of this Act”.
Ajaero being a member of the tripartite committee on Friday revealed that part of the minimum wage negotiation would be the annual review of the wage against the initial five-year period of implementation.
According to him, the decision is based on the daily devaluation of the naira against the dollar, inflation surging to an all time high of 29.90 per cent since the inception of democracy, food insecurity and the uncontrolled hardship felt by Nigerians.
“If the naira continues to depreciate, N1m would be a child’s play to the minimum wage. As of today is above N1,500 per 1$. Why are we scared when we demand that workers be paid N1m when those in the national assembly are receiving over N15m, for jobs not commensurate to that of the workers?
“Why can’t a worker get N1m in a situation where you need a bag full of naira to get a handful of goods? Unless it is checked, the demand will have no end.
“The minimum wage, we are going to insist for the review to be annual, because if we decide on any amount, the value changes per hour and it will be illogical to sustain it for five years. These are the dynamics of the negotiations”, Ajaero noted.
He also urged the federal government to honour its October 2024 agreement, while noting that actions to compel them if it fails is already in motion.
Why Minimum Wage Should Be Reviewed Annually— NLC is first published on The Whistler Newspaper
A social media post alleged that an influx of immigrants is bringing a livestock disease eradicated since 1929 back into the U.S., but that’s news to the U.S. Agriculture Department.
A Feb. 15 Instagram post used a meme from “The Simpsons” with text misspelling “vaxxed” and “unvaxxed” that said, “The people who forced you to get vaxed to keep your job let in 17 million unvaxed and unemployed.” The post’s caption read, “They’re bringing different diseases in. Foot and mouth disease is back. We got rid of that fifty years ago.”
This Instagram post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)
The claim is wrong on two points. First, it vastly overstates how many people have entered the U.S. illegally under President Joe Biden, as PolitiFact reported in January. Second, foot-and-mouth disease has not been detected in the U.S. since 1929.
(Instagram screenshot)
There have not been 17 million people “let in” to the U.S. in recent years. Since February 2021, Biden’s first full month in office, there have been about 8.8 million nationwide encounters with migrants at U.S. borders, data through January 2024 shows. That figure counts encounters, not people; some may have tried to enter multiple times.
About 2.3 million people were released into the U.S. at the southern border under Biden’s administration, Homeland Security Department data shows. Another 356,000 children were let in and placed in government custody. There have been more than 3.7 million expulsions, removals and returns under Biden, the data shows.
The claim that foot-and-mouth disease is back as a result of migrants entering the U.S is inaccurate, said Lyndsay Cole, a spokesperson for the U.S. Agriculture Department’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.
“There are not currently any cases of foot-and-mouth disease in livestock in the United States,’” Cole told PolitiFact.
Foot-and-mouth disease is a highly contagious viral disease that affects livestock, such as cows, sheep, pigs and other animals with divided hoofs, according to the inspection service.
It can spread quickly among livestock, but it is not a public health or food safety threat for humans, Cole said. She said the agency conducts about 2,600 investigations yearly into foreign animal diseases to safeguard the nation’s livestock supply, and that foot-and-mouth disease has not been detected in the U.S. since 1929.
It’s very rare for humans to get the virus, perhaps through a lab accident or direct contact with an infected animal, but humans can still transmit it, said Donald Forthal, a professor at the University of California, Irvine’s Center for Virus Research.
“Humans can carry the virus, for example on soiled shoes (and) clothes,” Forthal said.
To keep foot-and-mouth disease from entering the U.S., the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service sets regulations for trade and agricultural products brought into the country, and works closely with U.S. Customs and Border Protection at border crossings to inspect imports of livestock and plants, Cole said.
The inspection service’s website says CBP screens cargo and prevents travelers from bringing in “any products of concern.” Travelers must declare all food items and plant and animal materials upon entry and report recent travel to farms and livestock facilities.
There is a similarly named common childhood viral illness called hand, foot and mouth disease that may have been confused with the animal disease. They are completely different viruses.
Hand, foot and mouth disease is common in children under 5 years old, although anyone can get it, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It’s contagious and causes sores and rashes, but it’s usually not serious, the CDC said.
Hand, foot and mouth disease usually spreads in the late summer and fall. It’s already common here, Forthal said.
“Anybody traveling with the infection could spread it,” Forthal said. “Since it’s a common infection here and elsewhere, migration from outside of the U.S. is not at all necessary for spread.”
An Instagram post’s claim that 17 million immigrants let into the U.S. has resulted in the reemergence of foot-and-mouth disease in the country is wrong. There are no current cases of foot-and-mouth disease. The claim is False.
Para leer en español, vea esta traducción de Google Translate.
At their weekly news conference, several Republican House leaders wrongly claimed the special counsel report into Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents found the president was mentally unfit to stand trial. The report said no such thing.
Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report ultimately concluded “the evidence is not sufficient to convict” Biden and that “no criminal charges are warranted.”
The report did refer numerous times to what it characterized as Biden’s “limited” and “poor” memory. Those observations were included, Hur wrote, because they factored into his decision about whether he could convince a jury that Biden had acted “willfully” to break the law. And the special counsel wrote that Biden’s age and memory might make him a more sympathetic witness, causing a jury to give him the benefit of the doubt.
“We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” the report said. “Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him – by then a former president well into his eighties – of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.”
Special Counsel Robert Hur (center), who oversaw the investigation of President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents, speaks in 2019 about an unrelated case he handled as a U.S. attorney. Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images.
But Hur never said Biden was mentally unfit to stand trial, a determination that requires a competency evaluation and that would not preclude a prosecutor from filing charges.
“The standard for competence to stand trial demands some recollection of events but looks as much to a defendant’s ability to consult with counsel and to understand the proceedings,” Daniel Richman, a former federal prosecutor who is now a law professor at Columbia Law School, told us via email. “The DOJ report does not offer the slightest basis for doubting Biden’s competence to stand trial, and in fact shows an interaction with investigators that would make any claim of incompetence frivolous. Hur’s focus on memory was primarily for the purpose of assessing and predicting how a jury would assess the evidence in the case.”
After the special counsel report was released, Biden and his attorneys pushed back forcefully on the report’s claims about his memory, saying they were false and gratuitous.
“They don’t know what they’re talking about,” Biden said at a press conference about the report. When a reporter asked if he thought his memory had gotten worse, Biden answered, “My memory is fine.”
Republican Claims
After Hur publicly released the special counsel report on Feb. 8, numerous Republicans seized on its comments about Biden’s “diminished faculties and faulty memory.”
For example, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene posted on social media, “The Special Counsel’s report exposing that Joe Biden’s mental decline is so severe that he can not stand trial means he is unfit for office.”
In their weekly press conference on Feb. 14, several House leaders echoed that sentiment and drew false distinctions between Biden’s case and the charges against former President Donald Trump.
House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik: Special counsel Hur’s decision to not prosecute Biden because of his deteriorating mental state, further demonstrates the un-American two-tier justice system that exists in Joe Biden’s America. There cannot be one set of rules if your last name is Biden and another set of rules for the rest of America. And the American people know that if someone is mentally unfit to stand trial, they’re unfit to serve as commander in chief.
Rep. Ronny Jackson: I want to just state the obvious. If you’re not cognitively fit to stand trial or to answer accusations against you, you’re obviously not cognitively fit to be the president, our commander in chief, and our head of state.
Majority Whip Tom Emmer: A man unfit to be held responsible for mishandling classified information has zero business occupying the Oval Office. And it exposed the two-tiered justice system that indicted one president with politically motivated charges while carrying water for another over similar allegations.
House Speaker Mike Johnson: Remember now, the DOJ is indicting one president with politically motivated charges and they are now carrying the water for another amid very similar allegations. A man too incapable of being held accountable for mishandling classified information is certainly unfit for the Oval Office.
But claims that the special counsel found Biden “unfit to stand trial” go well beyond what Hur wrote in his report, which also contradicts Republicans who say Trump is being prosecuted for “very similar allegations.”
What’s in the Report
The special counsel wrote that his investigation had uncovered some evidence that Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen.” But, the report continued, “we conclude that the evidence does not establish Mr. Biden’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”
At the center of the case are two sets of classified materials: marked classified documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan, and “notebooks containing Mr. Biden’s handwritten entries about issues of national security and foreign policy implicating sensitive intelligence sources and methods.”
The issue of Biden’s memory played a role in Hur’s determinations about both of those.
The Afghanistan documents were found by FBI agents in a box in the garage of Biden’s Delaware home in late 2022 and early 2023, the report said. The report cited a taped conversation with the ghostwriter of Biden’s memoir in 2017, Mark Zwonitzer, in which Biden said he had “just found all the classified stuff downstairs.” While Hur wrote that he believed Biden was referring to the Afghanistan classified documents, Hur did not believe prosecutors could prove that to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.
“Several defenses are likely to create reasonable doubt as to such charges. For example, Mr. Biden could have found the classified Afghanistan documents at his Virginia home in 2017 and then forgotten about them soon after,” Hur wrote. “This could convince some reasonable jurors that he did not retain them willfully.”
Hur wrote that Biden’s memory was “significantly limited” in recorded interviews with the ghostwriter and in interviews with special counsel investigators. And that, together with the fact that Biden cooperated fully with investigators, would “likely convince some jurors that he made an innocent mistake, rather than acting willfully — that is, with intent to break the law — as the statute requires.”
The report also said it is possible Biden, in the conversation with the ghostwriter, “could have been referring to something other than the Afghanistan documents.” And the special counsel said it was further possible the Afghanistan documents could have been stored at his Delaware home by staffers “by mistake and without his [Biden’s] knowledge.”
Also highlighted in the report were the handwritten notebooks Biden had kept. His notes were related to classified subjects, which means the notebooks themselves were classified, the special counsel report said. The report said Biden “shared information, including some classified information, from those notebooks with his ghostwriter.”
But, according to the report, “the evidence will likely leave jurors with reasonable doubts about whether Mr. Biden knew he was sharing classified information with Zwonitzer and intended to do so. For these jurors, Mr. Biden’s apparent lapses and failures in February and April 2017 will likely appear consistent with the diminished faculties and faulty memory he showed in Zwonitzer’s interview recordings and in our interview of him. Therefore, we conclude that the evidence does not establish that Mr. Biden willfully disclosed national defense information to Zwonitzer.”
There were other reasons cited in the report as to why the case was weak with regard to the notebooks. For one, the report said, Biden was convinced he was legally allowed to keep the notebooks at his home.
“During our interview of him, Mr. Biden was emphatic, declaring that his notebooks are ‘my property’ and that ‘every president before me has done the exact same thing,’ that is, kept handwritten classified materials after leaving office.”
Biden cited the diaries that President Ronald Reagan kept in his private home after leaving office, which also included classified information. Hur wrote, “If this is what Mr. Biden thought, we believe he was mistaken about what the law permits, but this view finds some support in historical practice.”
In Reagan’s case, Hur wrote, handwritten diaries that Reagan kept at his California home contained Top Secret information. Although that became a matter of public record in criminal litigation involving a former Reagan administration official, “the Department of Justice stated in public court filings that the ‘currently classified’ diaries were Mr. Reagan’s ‘personal records.’ Yet we know of no steps the Department or other agencies took to investigate Mr. Reagan for mishandling classified information or to retrieve or secure his diaries. Most jurors would likely find evidence of this precedent and Mr. Biden’s claimed reliance on it, which we expect would be admitted at trial, to be compelling evidence that Mr. Biden did not act willfully.”
In other words, there were several factors listed by Hur that convinced him it would be difficult to prove criminal charges against Biden, and Biden’s memory was just one factor.
Biden’s opponents are free to opine about whether the memory issues cited in the special counsel report speak to whether Biden is fit to serve as president — though Hur never did. But claims that the report concluded Biden was mentally unfit to stand trial are simply false.
As for the Republican claims about “two-tiered justice” when it comes to federal prosecutors pursuing a classified documents case against Trump, as we have written, Hur pointed to “several material distinctions” between the cases involving Trump and Biden.
“Unlike the evidence involving Mr. Biden, the allegations set forth in the indictment of Mr. Trump, if proven, would present serious aggravating facts,” the report stated. “Most notably, after being given multiple chances to return classified documents and avoid prosecution, Mr. Trump allegedly did the opposite. According to the indictment, he not only refused to return the documents for many months, but he also obstructed justice by enlisting others to destroy evidence and then to lie about it. In contrast, Mr. Biden turned in classified documents to the National Archives and the Department of Justice, consented to the search of multiple locations including his homes, sat for a voluntary interview, and in other ways cooperated with the investigation.”
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our “Donate” page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, 202 S. 36th St., Philadelphia, PA 19104.
No movie genre has lost its footing as much as the rom-com. Every so often there are hints that audiences are still interested, even if the film is middling. Exhibit A: “Anyone But You,” starring Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney, is a hit, grossing $154 million at the box office since its release in late December.
“In theaters” still has some cache, it seems, catering to moviegoers looking for something that’s not too mentally taxing but not a bombastic blockbuster either. For whatever reason, Netflix remains stubbornly opposed to giving most of its films a theatrical run. But with the right kind of marketing push, “Players” probably could have drawn people out to the cineplex in sizable numbers.
Instead, it will be a streaming-only affair destined to be lost in the shuffle with so many of Netflix’s other original movies. That’s a shame, because “Players” is a perfectly fine — occasionally better-than-fine — romantic comedy starring well-known TV actors who know their way around this kind of material. It’s light and bouncy. There’s plenty to like here.
Gina Rodriguez plays a sports writer in New York named Mack (short for Mackenzie). Too often, women in rom-coms are plagued with self-doubt and worries that they haven’t achieved enough, personally or professionally. That’s not Mack. She’s confident in an appealing way and Rodriguez has a lot of fun playing that confidence. Mack’s friends are the guys from work, including Adam, played by Damon Wayans Jr.
Because they’re all single, when they go out at night, they help one another run “plays,” aka invented scenarios to make them seem more appealing to a potential hookup they’ve just met. But when Mack sets her sights on a fellow journalist — a dashing war correspondent with a British accent played with just the right amount of empty charm by Tom Ellis — she needs her friends to step up their game. She’s not looking for a one-nighter this time, she wants a drawer. A what, they ask? A drawer, you dummies: “I want him to empty out a drawer so I can put my stuff in it.”
They coordinate their strategy with charts and binders filled with dossiers: Mack will “randomly” run into the guy several times until eventually it dawns on him that they should go on a proper date. You have his jogging routes mapped and timed, she asks? “Page 14, Figures 2a and b,” comes the reply.
From left: Gina Rodriguez and Tom Ellis in “Players.” (K.C. Bailey/Netflix)
We see the plan unfold, step by step, like a heist movie. It’s a sharp, winking stylistic choice from screenwriter Whit Anderson (whose credits include “Ozark” and “Daredevil”) and director Trish Sie (“Pitch Perfect 3”) that keeps things intriguing as the story works its way through its reliable trope: The real Mr. Right was in front of her all along.
Rodriguez is playing a journalist yet again (she currently stars as an obit writer on the ABC comedy “Not Dead Yet”), but she’s doing something far more interesting here and that mainly comes down to delivery. A lot of the dialogue is flat, but Rodriguez gives it just enough zing to make the moment work as comedy. There’s real skill in that. I laughed despite myself! That’s also true of the ensemble — including Joel Courtney, Liza Koshy and Augustus Prew — who more or less operate at Mack’s pit crew. I wish Wayans was given a little more to do, but he’s a consistent presence that gives some ballast to the hijinks transpiring around him. And I appreciate that the script at least acknowledges layoffs are a regular part of the journalist’s profession these days.
There’s no reason why movies like “27 Dresses” or “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” should live on in our pop cultural memory, while a movie like “Players” surely will not — except for external factors. Namely, the kind of full-force marketing push that once boosted the former is noticeably absent for the latter.
From left: Joel Courtney, Liza Koshy and Augustus Prew in “Players.” (K.C. Bailey/Netflix )
For decades, movie theaters offered a variety of offerings because that’s what audiences wanted. Audiences still want that, I believe, but we aren’t getting it because streaming has radically shifted what was an already destabilized business model.
As a result, certain techniques have become a lost art. Done right, a movie’s final moments can unexpectedly manipulate audiences into feeling more emotion that the story actually warrants. That’s especially true for rom-coms. So what happened to endings with a crane shot of the leads heading off into the proverbial sunset while the credits roll over a song from Randy Newman or Chaka Khan? Lackluster endings have become the norm and “Players” doesn’t escape this fate.
But most of what comes before qualifies as a halfway decent night (at home) at the movies.
Active Aging Presented by Public Health Seattle-King County
We’ve all heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day – but is that true? Conflicting studies suggest that some researchers confirm the popular claim, and some refute it. Either way, each day, most people eventually “break” their overnight “fast.”
Intermittent fasting diets are common, and some people simply can’t handle chowing down early in the morning. However, one fact is clear: regardless of the time you consume it, the vital nutrients from your first meal fuel your body and energize you as you carry on with your day.
If you need more convincing, here are some reasons why eating breakfast really is an important part of a healthy diet and lifestyle.
Helps Maintain Sugar Levels
Appetite varies for every person – especially as you age. Some people might skip breakfast because they’re not hungry. Or, they may think the missed calories will help them lose weight.
However, an Oxford study found that skipping breakfast carries an increased risk for type 2 diabetes. Cleveland Clinic wellness expert Michael Roizen, M.D., discussed the results, noting, “What they found, was that the more people skipped breakfast – the more days a week – the higher the risk for type 2 diabetes.”
According to Roizen, your body is the most insulin-sensitive in the morning. To keep your sugar more balanced, he suggests eating carbs in the morning and treating breakfast like dinner. Consuming more food and calories earlier and cutting back later in the day helps prevent sugar spikes.
Improves Concentration
You may not immediately link eating breakfast to boosting brain health. But the Mayo Clinic reports that doing so “improves your ability to concentrate at work or school and enhances your performance.” So, listen to your stomach if it’s growling before you rush out the door – your mood and focus will improve if you cure the hunger pangs with some food.
Revs Your “Engine”
When taking a road trip, you can’t get anywhere on an empty tank. So, it makes sense to “gas up” your car before hitting the road. Similarly, eating breakfast fuels your internal engine and prepares you for another day as it unfolds. Grab something to eat – even it’s a protein shake – to rev your internal engine and start your day.
Photo: Olga Miltsova via 123RF
Curbs the Impulse to Overeat Later
Many warn against going to the grocery store hungry because it may prompt you to pile all kinds of things you don’t really need in your cart. The same holds true for skipping breakfast – chances are you’ll binge eat or make poor food choices when you finally have something. Eating a sensible, nutritious breakfast will curb these unhealthy impulses.
Starts the Day a Healthy Way
Though arguments for both sides still exist, overall, eating breakfast is an integral part of starting the day a healthy way. If you don’t typically like traditional breakfast foods, or you prefer to wait until lunchtime before eating, get creative to make a nutritious morning meal part of your new routine.
So, What’s for Breakfast?
A balanced breakfast should include a mix of complex carbohydrates, lean protein, whole grains, fiber, and fruits and veggies. Plan ahead, avoid sugary pastries, and opt for quick, healthy items for your first meal. A few examples include:
Add fresh blueberries or strawberries to oatmeal or a plain waffle.
Spread some peanut butter or avocado on whole-wheat toast or an English muffin.
Add cheese and veggies to scrambled eggs.
Make a tasty breakfast smoothie with kale or spinach or your favorite fruits like strawberries and bananas.
You can also avoid breakfast burnout by changing up what you eat each morning. Consider eating a leftover dinner plate for breakfast. Try heating up that chicken, or enjoy a cup of cottage cheese topped with peaches.
Overall, don’t stress out about making a big “shift” in your daily dining routine. Instead, find healthy, easy breakfast options that don’t make the meal a big chore. Finally, always discuss any nutritional needs or dietary limitations with your doctor before embarking on a new dietary journey.
Active Aging is presented by Public Health- Seattle & King County. Public Health- Seattle & King County recognizes the important and untold stories of innovation, service, and sacrifice by the Black community and supports efforts to improve equity and achieve social justice. We want everyone to get health insurance and access health care. Visitwww.kingcounty.gov/health for health insurance, flu and COVID-19 testing locations.
Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer expressed his displeasure with the $355 million fine levied on former President Trump Friday in the verdict following a months-long civil fraud trial in New York.
“Overall this ruling today was the definition of what happens if insanity and outrage had a baby,” Spicer, who served under the Trump administration, said Friday in an interview on “The Hill on NewsNation.”
“This is nuts, the idea that you’re … fining someone $350 million for something that no one actually suffered from,” he continued. “The banks didn’t complain, the insurance companies … everything that Tish James laid out was a complete and utter lie.”
His comments come after Judge Arthur Engoron’s 92-page ruling ordered Trump to pay the nearly $355 million in penalties for inflating and deflating his net worth in order to receive tax and insurance benefits. Engoron had already ruled last year that Trump and the Trump Organization had committed fraud after New York Attorney General Letitia sued the former president in 2022.
Trump will also be barred from holding a top executive position in New York for three years.
Spicer argued that the case was a “vendetta,” referencing promises he said James made on the campaign trail about going after Trump if elected.
“This is the continuation of a weaponized judicial system. We’re seeing it over and over again,” he told anchor Blake Burman Friday. “And all they are doing … they are playing into Donald Trump’s hands. He will withstand this, he will appeal it.”
He argued if the money were less, like $10 million, it would have made more sense.
“You look at the nature of other civil fines … they don’t even come close to this,” he said.
Despite the ruling being $16 million less than James requested, she touted the decision as a victory, saying “justice is served.”
“The scale and the scope of Donald Trump’s fraud is staggering… and so too is his ego. And his belief that the rules do not apply to him,” James said Friday. “Today, we are holding Donald Trump accountable.”
“We are holding him accountable for lying, cheating, and a lack of contrition. For flouting the rules that all of us must play by,” she continued, adding “Because there cannot be different rules for different people in this country, and former presidents are no exception.”
“The Hill” on NewsNation airs Monday to Friday at 6 p.m. EST.
NewsNation is a cable news channel launched in 2021 by Nexstar Media Group, which owns and operates dozens of local television stations across the country and purchased The Hill in fall 2021.
Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Election year PR stunt called out by pissed off residents
Hundreds of Trump supporters gathered on the streets of East Palestine, Ohio to voice their disgust at Joe Biden’s political stunt as he’s finally visiting over a year after a toxic train derailment changed the town forever.
A Norfolk Southern train derailed in the area in February of last year, sending toxic chemicals used in plastics manufacturing into the surrounding environment.
Real America’s Voice journalist Ben Bergquam filmed chants of “Let’s go Brandon” and “USA” echoing throughout the downtown area while patriots waited for Sleepy Joe’s arrival.
BREAKING: East Palestine, Ohio, residents greet President Biden with “Let’s go Brandon!” chants and a simple message, “Too Little Too Late Joe.” WATCH pic.twitter.com/eQRnDEDOqy
A local resident and business owner told ABC 5 thatsome East Palestine residents wanted to block the road leading into town to prevent Biden from entering the city and delivering his speech.
URGENT! Keep Alex Jones in the fight against the NWO! Please pray & contribute at DefendJones.com today!
“It’s been over a year and now he wants to come when it’s election time,” the man said.
SEE IT – SO SAD: East Palestine resident says he’s had several people call him and ask him if he could block the entrance of the town so that President Biden who is visiting today a year after the disaster struck the town can’t get in. WATCH pic.twitter.com/5QhF6DDL70
Biden’s speech was predictably lackluster and full of cringeworthy gaslighting.
He mumbled, saying the job of cleaning up from the spill is “not done yet” and claiming his administration will “hold Norfolk Southern accountable.”
The elderly politician called the disaster “an act of greed that was one hundred percent preventable” because the railroad company didn’t take the proper precautions.
“My administration was on the ground within hours, working closely with the governor, the mayor, the senators, the House members, community leaders to make sure you have everything you need,” he claimed.
#BREAKING: President Joe Biden visits and addresses East Palestine, Ohio, for the first time more than one year since the tragic incident occurred. pic.twitter.com/cbthyj774y
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has arrested a banker, Soberechukwu Ewa, for allegedly selling new naira notes to a Point of Sales (POS) cashier, Azubuike M. Obasi.
The POS agent, Obasi, was also arrested alongside the banker by operatives of EFCC’s Port Harcourt Zonal Command.
According to a press release by the EFCC spokesman, Dele Oyewale on Friday, the suspects were arrested on Friday at Ecobank, Rumuobiakani and Maddox Night club, new Government Reservation Area (GRA), Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
Oyewale said a preliminary investigation showed that the banker allegedly specialises in selling new naira notes of different denominations to POS cashiers for commercial purposes.
Obasi on the other hand was caught engaging in currency racketeering.
“He was arrested while in possession of N554,600.00 (five hundred and fifty-four thousand, six hundred naira). The two suspects would soon be charged to court,” the spokesman said.
Banker Caught By EFCC Selling New Naira Notes To POS Agent is first published on The Whistler Newspaper
A photograph that claims to show World Economic Forum leader Klaus Schwab in a garter, fedora hat and white gloves at a nude beach has resurfaced on Instagram. But that person is a Florida resident, not Schwab.
An Instagram post shared the photograph with text that said, “Klaus Schwab. Founder of the World Economic Forum. Just so we know who we’re dealing with…”
This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)
A Google reverse-image search showed us that the picture has been shared across Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Instagram and blog posts for years. The earliest version of the photograph we could find was from a Free Earth Memes page in October 2018.
An article by a Greek fact-checker identified the person in the photograph as Max Schwab, not Klaus Schwab.
We found images of what appeared to be the same person wearing a blue fedora hat and blue gloves on a Facebook page called “Only in Key West!” from 2019.
Many of the comments on the post identified the individual as a local who frequents Key West, Florida, in eccentric clothing. “It’s good to see Max is still in Key West haven’t seen them for a while,” one comment said. Another said, “This guy is legit …you see him everyday in a different color outfit (if you wanna call it that) & often riding a bicycle … only in Key West!!!”
Klaus Schwab lives in Cologny, Switzerland, according to his bio on a Davos Klosters tourism page.
A 2010 Facebook image posted by a user named Max Schwab shows a person photographed next to Key West’s famous Southernmost Point marker wearing only angel wings and crocs.
We rate the claim that this photo shows Klaus Schwab at a nude beach False.
