Defeat, Denial, and Defamation.
__________
Election denial is now a GOP sport.
__________
 |
Lycoming County: Hey, is that an illegal voter hiding behind that tree? |
ONCE AGAIN, we pick up the non-story of the “Stolen Election/s.” By this time, it has become reflexive on the right to claim that those of us on the left steal every vote and cheat on every win.
So far, when Team Trump lawyers have challenged election results in court, they have gone 0 for 2020.
Then they went 0 for 2021, and kept the robust streak alive in 2022, not winning a single important case.
If you weren’t a member of their silly cult, you understood that the GOP often lost elections because they had terrible candidates and unpopular polices.
(And: Trump is a giant dick. )
January 1, 2023: Rejected-President Trump closes out 2022, and begins a New Year, lying about winning the 2020 election. This blogger predicts he will keep lying all year, on into 2024. Someday, on his tombstone, it will say he won every election in which he ever participated:
Donald J. Trump – the real 5th grade class president – 1958.
Bobby and my teacher, “Mrs. Piggie,” rigged the vote.
January 7: Donald the Loser has been diddling away his days at Mar-a-Lago, ranting about mail-in voting, and battering the “caps” button on his phone.
On Truth Social this week, he posted:
All Republican Governors should immediately begin the process of ENDING MAIL IN BALLOTS (which are fraught with corruption, and always will be!) EXCEPT FOR FAR AWAY MILITARY AND PEOPLE WITH A PROVEN ILLNESS, GETTING VOTER I.D. AND SAME DAY VOTING WITH ALL PAPER BALLOTS. This effort should be all out and start immediately. Governors have the power and authority to do this. GET IT DONE, or we will never have honest elections in our Country again!
Apparently, Donald forgot he always votes by mail in Florida, and that works fine.
And here in Ohio, we can vote by mail, and millions of Ohioans do, and Republicans win elections with ease.
(Almost as if voting by mail isn’t the problem!!!)
The dedicated blogger has spent the last two plus years, looking high and low, and in broom closets, for evidence of election fraud great enough to change the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Or, frankly, any other U.S. election.
Eight votes off, out of 59,374.
January 13: Under pressure to prove that Donald defeated Joe Biden in Pennsylvania – in a landslide – Republican officials in Lycoming County decide to spend a wad of taxpayer cash and conduct a recount two years after the election of 2020 was decided. For three days, ten two-person teams of county employees sift through 59,374 ballots, hand-counting them all. And how much massive fraud do they find?
At the cost of sixty days’ wages?
In a beet red county, where Trump garnered 69.8% of the vote, the incumbent is found to have received seven (7) fewer votes than initially reported. Mr. Biden’s tally drops by fifteen (15). If we figure a net gain of +8 for Donald, that would be an error rate of .000013 per cent.
(Math, you dullards! It’s math. Your guy lost.)
A win for Team Trump at last!
THIS BLOGGER does his best to report honestly, albeit layering his reporting with disdain, where Donald and his clueless fans may be involved.
Frankly, if you can find verified proof of massive voter fraud, you are doing far better than this blogger. He was excited (in the sense that he wants to be fair regarding facts) to read a headline about a Democratic official in Alabama convicted for voter fraud last week. How many votes were we talking?
Maybe 50,000?
Sadly, when the blogger clicked on the story, he learned that the dastardly Albert Turner Jr., of Perry County, was accused of voting multiple times in a Democratic primary. And then harvesting votes in the midterm general elections. Turner has denied the charges – but if he were to be found guilty, lock him up, until at least the next election passes. As for massive fraud, the Alabama Attorney General reports that there have been seven (7) convictions for voter fraud in that state in … the last eight (8) years.
 |
(It’s not much; but call it a Team Trump win. A Democrat has been caught!)
January 14: This blogger keeps looking. Out in Iowa, a worse case turns up, but if you were hoping to prove Democrats were scumbags, the alleged perpetrator was a Republican. Kim Phuong Taylor was arrested and charged with 52 felonies. Authorities say she filled out dozens of false forms, and submitted illegal ballots in an effort to help her husband win a primary race to be elected to Congress.
The blogger is getting desperate in his search for the Moby Dick of voter fraud. He decides to google: “Texas man convicted of voter fraud” and “Texas woman convicted of voter fraud.” I mean, if Democrats wanted to steal an election, Texas in 2020, would have been the white whale to harpoon.
First, I get “Hervis Rogers,” arrested for voting while on parole. That scuzbag! No. Wait. His case was dismissed.
Monica Mendez got nailed on 26 felony counts – after harvesting votes to influence the outcome of … a utility board election. She was sentenced to five years busting up rocks in the … Um … She was sentenced to probation.
Then there was the case of Crystal Rogers, who thought she had the right to vote, and cast a provisional ballot in 2016. She had voted before, at the same voting place, but had just been released from prison on a tax fraud case. She was charged and convicted and sentenced to five years more in prison.
Next, I saw that KXAN television in Austin was reporting that 150 people in Texas had been charged with voter fraud. That sounded promising if you wanted to prove something big about American elections. But that was spread over every Texas election, for every position, and on every issue, starting with 2004.
She believed the election was going to be rigged.
One case led me to track down another. Next up, we had another Iowan, Terry Lynn Rote, who voted twice, absentee, for Donald Trump, in the same election. She explained that she broke the law because she believed the election was going to be rigged – and she decided to do her own part in rigging to boost Donald’s chances. She got two years’ probation, and had to pay a $750 fine.
Of course, she was white, and lived in Iowa. And Rogers was black, and lived in Texas.
Then you had the case of Justice of the Peace Russ Casey, called a “rising star in the Republican Party,” of Tarrant County – again in Texas. After he became ensnared in an office sex scandal, he had trouble garnering support to run for reelection. So, in 2018, he forged more than a hundred signatures on a petition so he could run.
And lost anyway.
Punishment: Five years’ probation, community service, and a $1,000 fine. Another white guy gets off easy.
Sixty-one convictions.
Finally, I found another story from Texas, from last October: “Verify: 171 People Have Been Investigated for Voter Fraud in Texas since 2018.” KHOU 11 in Houston decided to do a little checking. So I won’t have to. They asked the Texas attorney general to provide records – and got the 171 cases.
Those could be reduced to 61 convictions, with 41 cases pending. (That would mean 69 cases had already been dismissed in some fashion or resulted in “not guilty” determinations.) The reporter for KHOU gets a bit lazy, noting that ten million Texans voted in 2020. She calls that level of fraud “far less than 1%.” I am determined to be more precise. Even if the state gets 41 more convictions, you have only one hundred and two (102) convictions in 11,000,000 votes (The reporter had the total vote wrong.) That would = 1 illegal vote for every 107,843 ballots.
(Do the math, chuckleheads.)
Only the math would be much worse. We’d have to add in all the votes cast in the 2018 midterms. We’d have primary elections, and elections for sheriff. Texas has a lot of counties: two hundred and fifty-four. People could cheat while voting for county coroners, and mayors of cities, and members of village councils. The attorney general – who guards against election fraud – is elected. Let’s see how the vote turned out in that race. Ken Paxton won a second term in 2018, and another 8.2 million ballots were cast. And we’re not even counting primaries. If we counted all the elections for seats in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2018, that would be another eight million chances for a voter to cheat (and I’m not figuring in voters who chose neither a Republican nor Democrat). Then we can toss in all the votes from Loving County, Texas, the least populated county in the nation. In 2018, 66 voters turned up at the polls, with that figure rising to 79 in 2020. Now we’re up to 27,200,145 chances to cheat – and we’re not done.
Sometimes I can’t help myself when it comes to revealing how stupid claims of massive voter fraud have been proven. Theoretically, you could commit fraud in any election for any office. So I decided to try Midland, Texas, because that’s where George W. Bush once lived. To name just a few, you get votes for city and county positions, including the Eleventh Court of Appeals, Place 2 (66,293), Railroad Commissioner (19,019), District Attorney (19,251), County Commissioner, Precinct 1 (4,198), and County Sheriff (15,855).
That gives Texans 27,324,761 chances to cheat. A Republican voter in Midland could cast a bogus vote for County Coroner. A Democrat in Loving County could try to mail in a fraudulent ballot in the race for governor. So, we have 61 proven cases of fraud, and at best 102 cases that will be proven. Now the math shows, at most, one (1) illegal vote for every 267,890 votes tallied.
.jpg) |
Even imaginary voter fraud is bigger in Texas. |
January 19: Election denial is now a GOP sport, but no denier has been quite so dedicated to winning as Solomon Pena. His political career was snuffed out by New Mexico voters in the 2022 midterms.
In the battle for a seat in the New Mexico House of Representatives, from District 14, Pena tallied a measly 2,005 votes – 26.4%.
His Democratic opponent piled up 5,558, or 73.6%.
Pena
didn’t take losing well. He’s alleged to have paid several accomplices to
shoot into the homes of Democratic lawmakers and election officials who
certified his loss. In one case, bullets broke up plaster in a 10-year-old
girl’s room. Pena is said to have complained to the shooters – asking them to
strike earlier in the evening when people were still up and about. He also
wanted them to shoot lower.
(Pena is eventually indicted on multiple felony counts.)
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Campaign slogan: "Vote for Pena, or he may shoot you." (Pena is holding the sign.) |
“Inadequacy as a legal claim.”
January 23: Meanwhile, Team Trump just can’t help losing in court. Today, U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks sanctioned Trump and his lawyers in a case filed against Hillary Clinton – complaining that she wrongly accused Donald of being aided in the 2016 election by Russians.
Basically, Middlebrooks rules that Team Trump has a history of abusing the U.S. court system. He orders them to fork over $937,000 to reimburse Mrs. Clinton and her legal team.
Trump doesn’t care if he loses; he continues to dupe supporters into donating and paying his legal fees.
“This case should never have been brought,” Judge Middlebrooks explains in his 45-page ruling. “It’s inadequacy as a legal claim was evident from the start. No reasonable lawyer would have filed it. Intended for a political purpose, none of the counts of the amended complaint stated a cognizable legal claim.”
BLOGGER’S
NOTE: Reuters misidentifies the judge as “John Middlebrooks.” In an effort to
clarify the matter, I search out several additional stories. In a Newsweek article, reporters note that Judge
Middlebrooks offered a “scathing rebuke” to Trump and his lawyers, including
Alina Habba (we’ll here plenty more about her in months to come). He accuses
the former president of trying to use the courts to “seek revenge on political
opponents.”
January 26: Once again, Team Trump gets a rap on the noggin’. This time the individual rapped is Kari Lake, queen of the election deniers. Kari insists she’s really Governor of Arizona, if not Empress of Jupiter, but has now been slapped on one cheek and the other. Twice the Arizona Supreme Court has turned down her request to have her declared winner. Which doesn’t seem to bother Kari.
She’s already claimed multiple times she’s the real winner (despite the fact her opponent got 17,000 more votes).
Kari now says she’s willing to allow Governor Katie Hobbs, who defeated her, to “play governor for a while.”
Democrats in a funk.
LIKE an umpire with eagle-eye vision, this blogger calls ’em as he sees ’em. So, on the rare occasion when we uncover real election fraud, we note it. Today we have a Democrat destroying the law. Kathy Funk, the Flint Township clerk in Michigan, deliberately broke the seal on a ballot box after she won a primary election in August 2020, because she would have had to face a recount.
She won the primary by 79 votes out of 5,300.
That’s a felony, tampering with ballot boxes – but Funk avoided jail time by pleading “no contest.”
As for her clerkship, that’s over.
VALENTINE’S DAY: The former president gets a lovely card when a New York court upholds a $110,000 fine assessed against him. Trump had originally been found in contempt for failing to do an adequate search of his records in a tax fraud case.
The court also ruled that the fine shall grow by $10,000 every day until Fat Donald gets the picture.
Only one county in the USA.
In other news, the courts allow a second lawsuit seeking $2.7 billion in damages for defamation to go forward against Fox News. The plaintiff, Smartmatic, accuses Fox of lying about voter fraud, claiming Smartmatic helped Team Biden steal the 2020 presidential election.
Smartmatic has countered such claims, noting that it supplied election technology for only one county in the USA – Los Angeles County, California, a Democratic bastion, which Biden easily carried.
In a 5-0 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second District agreed that Smartmatic had successfully laid out, in “detailed fashion” how Fox News anchors and guests “effectively endorsed and participated in [defamation] with reckless disregard for, or serious doubts about” whether the company engaged in election fraud.
Targets of the suit include Fox News, as well as hosts Lou Dobbs, Jeanine Pirro and Maria Bartiromo.
Los Angeles County has gone for Democrats in every presidential election since 1984. Starting in 2000, every Democratic candidate has received at least 62.9 percent of the vote. Hillary Clinton got 72% in 2016, and Joe Biden captured 71% in 2020. Trump actually increased his totals in 2020, in that county, but still garnered only 26.9% of the vote.
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Dobbs: Okay, he lied. |
February 16, 2023: A judge releases nine pages from the Georgia grand jury report, looking into election fraud – by Team Trump.
“Total exoneration.”
Former President Donald J. Trump, apparently lacking basic reading skills, “truths” on Truth Social: “Thank you to the Special Grand Jury in the Great State of Georgia for your Patriotism & Courage. Total exoneration. The USA is very proud of you!!!” (That post comes at 3:21 p.m. today.)
After some aide – or possibly Melania – explains what the nine pages mean, Trump “truths” once more. This time, he’s not as cheery:
The Georgia case is ridiculous, a strictly political
continuation of the greatest Witch Hunt of all time. Now you have an extremely
energetic young woman, the (get this!) “foreperson” of the Racist D.A.’s
Special Grand Jury, go going around and doing a Media Tour revealing,
incredibly, the Grand Jury’s inner workings & thoughts. This is not
JUSTICE, this is an illegal Kangaroo Court [emphasis added]. Atlanta is
leading the Nation in Murder and other Violent Crimes. All I did is make TWO
PERFECT PHONE CALLS!!!
No telling why he’s so mad – since he has already claimed that the report provided “total exoneration.”
 |
The man is confused. |
February 17: Republican strategist Jesse Benton will be watching the next eighteen months of sunrises and sunsets from the confines of jail. Benton has been convicted of soliciting illegal campaign donations – from a Russian business tycoon. For a cool $100,000 the Ruski would get a ticket to a Republican National Committee event in 2016, and be photographed with none other than the Trumpster himself.
Benton had also been convicted of campaign finance violations related to the 2012 election; but President Trump pardoned him for that crime, before leaving office. Because of course he did.
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Team Trump can't win in court; but pardons are big wins! |
February 28: In sad news, for election deniers everywhere, the U.S. Supreme Court turns down a legal challenge in Brunson v. Adams, asking justices to have Trump reinstated as president.
This is the second time the high court passed on the chance, in a suit filed by three Utah brothers, Raland, Deron, and Loy Brunson. Raland says they’re not giving up, however, and it’s on to “Plan C.”
(The Brunson Brothers are obstinately clueless.)
March 2, 2023: Court news comes thick and fast, where Donald is concerned. To get the new month off to a good start, the Department of Justice has said that it does not believe the former president is immune from lawsuits filed by police officers injured during the January 6 riot on Capitol Hill.
If his words, after he lost the 2020 election, were found to have been an “incitement of imminent private violence” he could be liable for damages.
And before the MAGA folk can begin baying to the moon about “DOJ weaponization,” they should remember: the DOJ is saying that presidents cannot claim total immunity. That would include Joe Biden.
FUN FACT: We won’t know until December 1, 2023, but a three-judge appeals court will rule, 3-0, against Donald and his you-can’t-sue-me-I’m immune” defense. That includes Judge Gregory Katsas, whom he appointed. They allow a lawsuit seeking damages against him by Officers James Blassingame and Sidney Hemby, both injured during the riot on Capitol Hill, to proceed.
As the Associated Press notes:
Blassingame said Friday that he “couldn’t be
more committed to pursuing accountability” in the case.
“More than two years later, it is unnerving to hear the same fabrications and dangerous rhetoric that put my life as well as the lives of my fellow officers in danger on January 6, 2021,” he said in a statement. He added: “I hope our case will assist with helping put our democracy back on the right track; making it crystal clear that no person, regardless of title or position of stature, is above the rule of law.”
Rudy faces real legal danger.
That’s a high bar to prove, but it might not even be Donald’s biggest exposure to civil damages. Two Georgia election workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, are suing Rudy Giuliani for defamation, after he repeatedly accused them of counting tens of thousands of illegal ballots in 2020.
I predict Rudy will lose his battle in court – and I believe his loss, or the trial involved, will expose Trump to even more peril. Now, to compound the former president’s problems, Freeman and Moss are seeking any and all communications between Giuliani and Trump that pertain to their case. Trump also cited the two women by name, claiming they were instrumental in cheating him out of a win in Georgia during the last presidential election. And let’s be clear. Rudy and Donald have serious problems. Both the F.B.I. and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation looked into claims against the two women and absolved them of wrongdoing.
In related news, a Special Grand Jury in Georgia, which recently wrapped up its report, has called for indictments, undoubtedly of thus-far unnamed members of Team Trump. And that Grand Jury found that there was no evidence of significant voter fraud in the 2020 Georgia election.
Whereas there was evidence that thus-far unnamed members of Team Trump, called to testify, lied under oath.
(Dude! Perjury by members of Team Trump!)
March 6: First you lose your 2022 election. Then you refuse to admit you lost and file a challenge in the courts.
Then you lose the challenge.
“This lawsuit was groundless and not brought in good faith.”
If your name is Mark Finchem – and you ran to be the next Arizona Secretary of State – you and your lawyer lose and get sanctioned. Adrian Fontes, who won the job instead of you, likens your suit to “a politically motivated weaponization of the legal process meant to perpetuate the dangerous narrative that our elections are unreliable, our elected leaders are corrupt, and our democracy is broken.”
(By the way, I very rarely quote Democrats to make my points in these posts.)
The judge agrees – and orders you to pay Fontes’ legal bills: “The court finds that this lawsuit was groundless and not brought in good faith.”
You still aren’t Arizona Secretary of State.
Now you’re just poorer.
As for Paul Manafort, President Trump’s 2016 campaign manager, convicted felon, and winner of a Trump Golden Pardon, today he loses in court again. He is ordered to pay $3.15 million in a civil case, after covering up ties to foreign banks.
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Manafort went to prison as a result of the Mueller investigation. Trump gave his lyin' ass a pardon. |
March 9: Team Trump attorney Jenna Ellis gets censured by a disciplinary judge, after a hearing in Colorado, where she practices “law.”
A “reckless state of mind.”
The Washington Post (just one of many media outlets carrying this story) explains:
Bryon M. Large, Colorado’s presiding disciplinary
judge, wrote in a six-page opinion signed Wednesday that Ellis had “repeatedly
made misrepresentations on national television and on Twitter, undermining the
American public’s confidence in the 2020 presidential election.”
Ellis signed an
acknowledgment that “she made a number of public statements about the November
2020 presidential election that were false” and did so with a “reckless state
of mind” and with “a selfish motive,” according to documents released by
Colorado’s Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel.
According to court records, Ms. Ellis copped to the following lies, although Judge Large (cool name) is discrete enough not to insert the “L-word” after each of these examples, in his opinion.
Respondent agrees she made the following ten misrepresentations:
§
On November 13, 2020, Respondent claimed that “Hillary Clinton still has not
conceded the 2016 election.”
§
On November 20, 2020, Respondent appeared on Mornings with Maria on Fox
Business and stated: “We have affidavits from witnesses, we have voter
intimidation, we have the ballots that were manipulated, we have all kinds of
statistics that show that this was a coordinated effort in all of these states
to transfer votes either from Trump to Biden, to manipulate the ballots, to
count them in secret . . .”
§
On November 20, 2020, Respondent appeared on Spicer & Co. and stated, “with
all those states [Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia] combined
we know that the election was stolen from President Trump and we can prove
that.”
§
On November 21, 2020, Respondent stated on Twitter under her handle
@JennaEllisEsq., “ . . . SECOND, we will present testimonial and other
evidence IN COURT to show how this election was STOLEN!”
§
On November 23, 2020, Respondent appeared on The Ari Melber Show on MSNBC and
stated, “The election was stolen and Trump won by a landslide.”
§
On November 30, 2020, Respondent appeared on Mornings with Maria on Fox
Business and stated, “President Trump is right that there was widespread fraud
in this election, we have at least six states that were corrupted, if not more,
through their voting systems. . . We know that President Trump won in a
landslide.” She also stated, “The outcome of this election is actually
fraudulent it’s wrong, and we understand than when we subtract all the
illegal ballots, you can see that President Trump actually won in a landslide.”
§
On December 3, 2020, Respondent appeared on Mornings with Maria on Fox Business
and stated, “The outcome of this election is actually fraudulent it’s wrong,
and we understand than when we subtract all the illegal ballots, you can
see that President Trump actually won in a landslide.”
§
On December 5, 2020, Respondent appeared on Justice with Judge Jeanine on Fox
News and stated, “We have over 500,000 votes [in Arizona] that were cast
illegally . . .”
§
On December 15, 2020, Respondent appeared on Greg Kelly Reports on Newsmax and
stated, “The proper and true victor, which is Donald Trump . . .”
§
On December 22, 2020, Respondent stated on Twitter, through her handle
@JennaEllisEsq, “I spent an hour with @DanCaplis for an in-depth discussion
about President @realDonaldTrump’s fight for election integrity, the
overwhelming evidence proving this was stolen, and why fact-finding and
truth – not politics – matters!”
If I didn’t know better, I’d think that Bartiromo and Kelly, and Fox News, and all the others didn’t much care whether Ellis could prove her claims or not.
Keeping the clock running: as of March 20, 2024, when I edit this post,
we have:
ZERO EVIDENCE
to support Mr. Trump’s daily claims that victory was stolen from his grasp.
“What happened
that day was a disgrace.
March 12: At last night’s Gridiron Dinner, former Vice President Mike Pence, said again that he had no right under the U.S. Constitution, to refuse to count the electoral votes on January 6, 2021.
Nor has he forgiven Trump’s attacks that day, and in days preceding. “I had no right to overturn the election, and his reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day, and I know that history will hold Donald Trump accountable,” Pence told the audience. “What happened that day was a disgrace. And it mocks decency to portray it any other way. For as long as I live, I will never, ever diminish the injuries sustained, the lives lost, or the heroism of law enforcement on that tragic day.”
March 17: At times, we can get a sense of who Donald J. Trump really is, simply by the company he keeps.
__________
“He that lieth down with dogs shall rise up with fleas.”
Ben Franklin
__________
Would this guy lie about a stolen election? Or cheating on his wife? Or paying all his taxes? Or having crippling bone spurs?
Sure he would. And Team Trump perfectly reflects who the leader of Team Trump is: The Big Orange Dog.
The “crime-fraud” exception.
Our latest proof comes when U.S. District Chief Judge Beryl Howell orders Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran to appear before a grand jury for a second time, and answer additional questions – under what is known as the “crime-fraud” exception.
Under ordinary circumstances anything Corcoran and Trump discussed would be shielded by client-attorney privilege.
But where evidence of intent to commit new crimes or perpetrate new frauds may be found, testimony can be demanded.
Corcoran has been ordered back to court.
(Get used to that term, “crime-fraud” exception, Trump fans.)
The Porn Star and the President
(The first indictment – covered separately.)
WITH ALL THE LOSING in court, it can be hard to keep track of every legal problem confronting the former president. As we have shown above, and in this entire series of posts, there’s a mountain of lies building – and an avalanche of falsehoods threatens to bury Donald J. Trump in court.
His first indictment, revealed in Manhattan, on April 4, 2023, in the Hush Money Case, set a tone for 2023.
We have covered this case in a series of eleven posts, “The Porn Star and the President.” There’s a porta potty truckload of lying here, too. But this string of posts is focused on Trump’s lying about the 2020 election.
Trump and Stormy.
April 18, 2023: If you like facts as much as this blogger – who happens to be a retired history teacher – and you dislike Trump as much as he does – because he went to church as a kid and doesn’t like liars – it can be a great fun to see facts keep spilling out in this case of the “Stolen Election/s.”
Very expensive lying.
With evidence piling higher in court, Fox News, which did more to spread the lie that stealing was involved in the 2020 election – and that Dominion Voting Systems was key to the thievery – has no choice but to settle the defamation suit filed by Dominion. Today, the company was awarded $787.5 million in damages.
$787.5 million.
(If you miss this fact, MAGA fans, you are definitely in a cult.)
April 27: The Washington Post reported today that in the waning days of the Trump presidency, Team Trump secretly hired two software firms to prove claims of massive voter fraud and rigged computers. Now we know what one of those firms found.
The Post explains:
Ken Block, founder of the firm Simpatico
Software Systems, studied more than a dozen voter fraud theories and
allegations for Trump’s campaign in late 2020 and found they were “all false,”
he said in an interview with The Washington Post.
“No substantive voter fraud was uncovered in my investigations looking for it, nor was I able to confirm any of the outside claims of voter fraud that I was asked to look at,” he said. “Every fraud claim I was asked to investigate was false.”
Block was recently subpoenaed to give testimony in an investigation into possible crimes related to the January 6, 2021, effort to block the counting of the electoral votes and stop Joe Biden from becoming president.
Records show his firm was paid $750,000; but Block says he found nothing, and let Team Trump know by late 2020.
As for the other firm hired to prove fraud, the Post explains:
Separately, prosecutors have interviewed multiple employees from the Berkeley Research Group in recent weeks, another Trump-paid firm that produced a 29-page report ultimately undermining many of Trump’s fraud claims, according to three people familiar with the matter. Berkeley’s study contradicted claims made by Trump and his advisers that there were extensive numbers of dead voters [emphasis added, unless otherwise noted] and cases of fraud in states such as Georgia and Nevada.
Trump himself was briefed on what Berkeley found – or didn’t find – as the case might be. For example: Team Trump claimed 5,000 dead people voted in Georgia. (Other times, they jacked that figure up to 10,000 or more.) Berkeley’s investigations placed the maximum possible number at 23.
In Nevada, Team Trump said 1,506 dead persons voted; Berkeley put the high-end number at 20.
Team Trump also insisted that 42,284 Nevadans had voted twice. Berkeley warned that the low end number could be only 45, and the high end number, 9,063, would still not be enough to change the outcome – even assuming every one of those double votes went for Joe and not for Don. According to the Post, reporters had seen the documents, and Berkeley had been paid $600,000 for its report.
For obvious reasons that report was never released by President Trump to prove the election was stolen.
April 28: Former Vice President Mike Pence testified for seven hours today, as part of a grand jury investigation into possible crimes committed by his old boss, in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
May 5, 2023: Today, there’s a major break in the story of the “Stolen Election!” (I mean the 2020 version.)
This evening, we learn that eight of the alleged “fake electors” in Georgia have accepted an immunity deal from the Fulton County district attorney.
According to lawyers representing ten of the fakes, all but two have signed the deal and will cooperate with prosecutors.
Georgia had sixteen electoral votes in the 2020 election, which went to Mr. Biden – and a slate of sixteen fake electoral votes. That second batch could be in deep poo-poo. At least two of the sixteen fakes have already been notified that they are targets of the Fulton County investigation.
Team Trump has fresh reason to be concerned tonight – and that concern should go all the way to the top.
(We learn, in
August, that it does, as Trump gets indicted again.)
In other news, election denier Kari Lake’s legal team has been ordered to reimburse the State of Arizona for making “false factual statements” regarding Ms. Lake’s defeat in the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election. The Arizona Supreme Court has ruled that her claim that more than 35,000 ballots had been improperly added to the total vote count was hooey. It’s a light slap on the hand, but Team Kari has ten days to write out a check for $2,000.
Plus, she’s a liar.
May 10: In a “Town Hall” meeting hosted by CNN, Rejected-President Trump trotted out all of his old claims of voter fraud and added a new one even this blogger had never heard. Responding to a question from moderator Kaitlan Collins, he said, of course, that he was cheated out of the win in 2020.
If you look at what happened in Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, if you look at what happened in Detroit, Michigan, if you look at what happened in Atlanta, millions of votes, and all you have to do is take a look at government cameras. You will see them, people going to 28 different voting booths to vote, to put in seven ballots apiece. I mean, and they’re all on camera.
BLOGGER’S NOTE: If anyone can locate these places – and prove Trump’s claims in court, this liberal blogger will buy them a drink. Maybe seven!!!!!!! I will also dress in twenty-eight different disguises, at least one in drag.
May 27: Can an election denier ever catch a break? In Arizona, a judge has ordered Mark Finchem, who ran in 2022 to be Arizona’s next secretary of state, and his lawyer, to pay $47,706 in legal fees, after bringing a “groundless lawsuit” to court. Finchem and Daniel McAuley III were claiming that Finchem actually won the election – despite the fact he came up 120,000 votes short.
(Keep denying; keep losing.)
May 30: Reports out today, by Salon, suggest that Rejected-President Trump’s problems in the investigation into his possession of highly classified documents at Mar-a-Lago – and his likely obstruction in an effort to keep them – may be intensifying. Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran, tasked with leading the hunt for any missing documents at the property, has told investigators that he was “waved off” when he tried to search Donald’s office at his Florida home last summer.
Several Trump aides told the lawyer to search a storage room, where 38 classified documents were found. But another 102 were later uncovered, during an F.B.I. raid, in the former president’s office.
Corcoran, who was forced to provide testimony before a grand jury, did say that Trump never told him where to search – or not search – but admitted his boss might have “effectively mislead his legal team.”
Salon further noted:
Corcoran
turned the 38 classified documents he found in the storage room to the DOJ,
telling investigators that “records that came from the White House were stored
within one location at Mar-a-Lago, the storage room … [and] he was not advised
there were any records in any private office space.”
That would be…what’s the word…yes…lying! By Trump.
This comes on the heels of a recent report in the Washington Post. According to Post reporters, workers at Mar-a-Lago moved several boxes out of the storage room the day before DOJ came for a look in June. Even more damning (if proven), workers have said a “dress rehearsal” was held in May 2022. How would materials be moved in the event investigators came for a look?
Stymied by such tactics, the F.B.I. arrived unannounced for what Trump loyalists howled was “a raid” last August 8.
As always: Innocent until proven guilty. But this blogger will say he is glad he is not in Donald’s size-12 golf shoes.
And what’s that other word…ah, yes…obstruction!
Even Donald
seems nervous. He has taken to escalating his attacks on the judicial branch.
He made a point of calling the judge in the E. Jean Carroll case a
“Clinton-appointed judge,” and claimed the jurist “hated President Donald J. Trump more than is humanly
possible.”
Another judge, hearing a hush money case against him, also “hates me,” the former president whined.
As The Hill has reported, this kind of attack is not new. Trump once claimed a judge couldn’t be fair in a case because he was Mexican – even though the judge was born in Indiana. (The blogger is fairly sure that’s part of the USA.)
The president also called a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which went against his claims of election fraud in 2020, a “legal disgrace.”
All of this might be written off as the bluster of a buffoon; but millions of Americans believe Trump is telling the truth.
That makes his language dangerous:
“Irresponsible attacks in
social media, that are based on misinformation or untruths or merely designed
for partisan gain … do damage to our justice system. They undermine the rule of
law and the system we have in place to provide justice for all,” said Marcy
Kahn, who spent more than 30 years on the bench and now is the head of
the New York City bar’s Task Force on the Rule of Law.
“There’s a huge cost to the
people who are caught up in this and who are the focus of the untrue
statements. And this is really, really dangerous when there is no effort to be
restrained about it, and when the person speaking has great influence over a
great number of people who, for whatever reason, feel aggrieved and angry
and are looking for some target to displace their anger on.”
As might have been expected, one of the judges Trump attacked by name, and the judge’s daughter, have been the target of death threats.
(Death threats again! How long before some Trump fan acts on this?)
June 2, 2023: Election denier Kari Lake, Imaginary Governor of Arizona, was out with a new theory on Friday. She believes Donald Trump actually won the State of California in 2020. Even though he lost by…(sound of calculator buttons)…5,103,821 votes. I think we can say with confidence that a recount isn’t coming anytime soon.
June 4: On Fox News, where election deniers go to spew drivel for profit, Newt Gingrich appears as guest on Maria Bartiromo’s show. He tells her that fair elections in this country are no longer possible. “Democrats,” he insists, “have a passion for stealing them.”
How, exactly? According to Newt, union workers (he also hates union workers) have been intimidating people in nursing homes and forcing them to vote for people like Joe Biden and Fidel Castro.
(Even though Fidel is dead.)
Since Bartiromo is already a defendant in a defamation suit, having alleged voter fraud against Dominion Voting Systems, neither she nor Newt dare cite specific unions or locations where these bouts of imaginary fraud occurred.
If this claim of dastardly workers could be proven in court, however, this liberal blogger would be all for arresting the offenders, providing a fair trial, and jailing them if convicted.
Considering the track record of the election deniers so far – zero proof of significant voter fraud in the 2016, 2018, 2020 or 2022 proven in court – let’s just say we are dubious.
June 5: Lawyers for Mr. Trump met with U.S. Department of Justice officials this morning, in an effort to convince prosecutors not to indict the former president for mishandling highly classified documents and – as a felon’s bonus – obstruction of justice.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller uncovered a coven of witches.
Yesterday, on Truth Social, the former president blew a social media gasket:
Reports
are the Marxist Special Prosecutor, DOJ, & FBI, want to Indict me on the
BOXES HOAX, despite all of the wrongdoing that they have done for SEVEN YEARS,
including SPYING ON MY CAMPAIGN. Biden Crimes go unpunished, including that he
had Boxes in Chinatown, in his garage by the ‘Corvette,’ & 1,850
Boxes in Delaware that he won’t allow anyone to see. That is real OBSTRUCTION!
“They seek retribution for Republicans looking into Biden’s CRIMES!” Trump added. “I HAVE DONE NOTHING WRONG. ELECTION INTERFERENCE!”
This afternoon he appears to have heard even worse news from his lawyers. He blows a second gasket:
HOW CAN
DOJ POSSIBLY CHARGE ME, WHO DID NOTHING WRONG, WHEN NO OTHER PRESIDENT’S WERE
CHARGED, WHEN JOE BIDEN WON’T BE CHARGED FOR ANYTHING, INCLUDING THE FACT THAT
HE HAS 1,850 BOXES, MUCH OF IT CLASSIFIED, AND SOME DATING BACK TO HIS SENATE
DAY WHEN EVEN DEMOCRAT SENATORS ARE SHOCKED. ALSO, PRESIDENT CLINTON HAD DOCUMENTS,
AND WON IN COURT. CROOKED HILLARY DELETED 33,000 EMAILS, MANY CLASSIFIED, AND
WASN’T EVEN CLOSE TO BEING CHARGED! ONLY TRUMP – THE GREATEST WITCH HUNT OF ALL
TIME!
Speaking of “witch hunts,” we will need to see what DOJ does, regarding this newest investigation.
“Innocent until proven guilty,” is the rule at this blog. No yelping, “Lock him up” until the fat lady sings, the chickens come home to roost, the judge’s gavel bangs down, and he or she sends the malefactor to prison.
We would do well, when discussing witch hunts, however, to remember that Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller uncovered a coven. During the Russia investigation, it was revealed that the following Trump family members, in-laws, top advisors, and aides did have secret contacts with Russians during the 2016 campaign: Felix Sater, Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, General Michael T. Flynn, Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulos, Roger Stone, Rick Gates, and Michael Cohen.
The last six were convicted of assorted felonies. Gates and Cohen did not get pardons (because they cooperated with investigators).
Manafort, Flynn, Stone, and Papadopoulos did get Golden Pardons, because they didn’t cooperate.
(Sater was already a convicted felon when he went to work for Trump.)
 |
Seven felonies - and Roger Stone got a pardon!!!!!!! |
It was also fun, in July 2017, when the free press dug up proof that Don Jr., Jared, and Paul had met with Russians at Trump Tower thirteen months earlier. Don Jr. and Don Sr. had no choice but to lie about the purpose of the meeting, which had occurred in June 2016. They insisted the meeting was about adoption. It was all about helping needy Russian children find good homes in the USA.
Don Jr. and Don Sr. were quickly proven to be lying. Emails from a friend of Don Jr. showed the Russians wanted to see Trump elected – and they would be coming to the Big Apple to discuss help.
Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer, who had been living in the U.S., and who attended the conclave, was later indicted for unrelated crimes. Those included obstruction of justice and money-laundering. She decided to flee the country ahead of arrest.
Mueller also indicted thirteen Russian nationals, and three Russian companies, who had interfered in the election; but, save for sanctions against them, they remained beyond the reach of justice.
Manafort’s Russian business partner, Konstantin Kilimnik, was also indicted. Mueller found that Kilimnik had ties to Russian intelligence. He learned that Manafort had handed over sensitive polling data regarding the 2016 election to the Russian. And Kilimnik – who had also been living in the USA – was charged with obstructing justice.
Packing his bags in a rush, Paul’s pal managed to plop down on a flight to Russia one step ahead of F.B.I. agents.
At any rate, we finally have real voter fraud to announce! The Federal Communications Commission announced a $5.1 million fine against conservative activists Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl and J.M. Burkman & Associates. The two right-wingers schemed to depress the vote for Joe Biden and the Democrats in 2020, and admitted to making 1,141 unlawful robocalls to dupe or scare black voters. Burkman and Wohl told potential voters that if they voted by mail, their “personal information will be part of a public database that will be used by police departments to track down old warrants and be used by credit card companies to collect outstanding debts.”
The pair had previously pled guilty to one count each of telecommunication fraud, for which crime they had to perform community service.
“That’s not a threat, that’s a public service announcement.”
June 10: Now that it appears likely Trump will be indicted, regarding mishandling of top secret documents at Mar-a-Lago, the woman who dreams of being anointed governor of Arizona wants to be clear. Ballots aren’t the only way to achieve victory. Warning against indictment, Kari Lake fires up a pro-Trump crowd in Georgia. “If you want to get to President Trump,” she exclaims, “you’re going to have to go through me, and 75 million Americans just like me. And most of us are card-carrying members of the NRA. That’s not a threat, that’s a public service announcement.”
It’s also crazy talk; but the crowd loves it.
(No doubt so does Vladimir Putin.)
The Classified Documents Indictment.
(The second indictment – handled separately.)
TRUMP’S second criminal indictment was revealed on June 9, 2023, involving his mishandling of highly classified documents. If you love Trump, you should brace yourself, because chances of your favorite president being convicted in this case look good. Bad for you, if you love him; and bad for him, too.
In this case, Donald John Trump is facing charges of obstruction of justice, witness intimidation, and perjury. Special Counsel Jack Smith already has cooperating witnesses and taped evidence. Team Trump lawyers are doing everything possible to delay the trial until after the next presidential election. Clearly, they hope he can win a second term, keep delaying till he’s inaugurated, and then pardon his lying ass. We will cover “The Classified Documents Case” separately, since this series of posts is all about election denying, and election lying.
Now, we return to the “Stolen Election” lies.
“Knowingly false allegations made against these election workers.”
June 22, 2023: You probably missed the story. Yesterday, Team Trump took another swift kick to the gonads, as far as the tall tale of the 2020 “Stolen Election” was involved. That is: It wasn’t stolen.
Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, two women repeatedly accused by Team Trump of stealing tens of thousands of votes in Georgia in 2020, were cleared of any wrongdoing after an investigation. The Georgia Elections Board ruled that allegations lodged against the two poll workers were “false and unsubstantiated.”
That’s an investigator’s way of calling charges against them bull****. Total votes stolen by the pair: Zero.
Who leveled those charges most prominently? President Trump did, and his minion, “Melting Rudy” Giuliani. Both men talked repeatedly about a suspicious “suitcase” full of fake votes. The investigation found there was no suitcase, only an ordinary storage bin for ordinary ballots. During the vote counting, Mrs. Freeman supposedly handed a USB port to her daughter, Ms. Moss. Right-wing conspiracists latched onto the idea that it must have been filled with bogus votes, a kind of digital ballot pinata.
Turns out there was no USB port.
Yet, Rudy had insisted in the weeks after the election that Ruby and Shaye were “quite obviously surreptitiously passing around USB ports” as if they were “vials of heroin or cocaine.”
(During one famous television appearance, Rudy appeared to be melting.)
Trump piled on, too. He said the “suitcase” contained at least 18,000 fake ballots and claimed they were counted three times.
The ballots were later recounted by hand, and no mismatch of numbers was ever found. Meanwhile, Freeman received so much harassment online, and heard so many racist messages on her phone that she went into hiding. Both women were targets of endless death threats. In December 2020, the Georgia secretary of state investigated and found no proof of wrongdoing.
You can easily read the four-page report.
Since then, Jenna Ellis, a Team Trump lawyer who helped slander Freeman and Moss, has been sanctioned and forced to admit she told at least ten lies of her own. (See: March 9, above.)
In June 2021, Rudy had his license to practice law suspended in New York.
And, in an investigation into election fraud – involving Team Trump’s efforts to steal the “stolen” election in Georgia in 2020 – Rudy had no other legal option than to invoke the Fifth Amendment more than 400 times.
As for Freeman and Moss, “We are glad the State Election Board finally put this issue to rest,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced. “False claims and knowingly false allegations made against these election workers have done tremendous harm. Election workers deserve our praise for being on the front lines.”
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Moss, center, Freeman, in red. They testified under oath before Congress. |
One America News, which also attacked the women, has already reached a settlement with them – but details of what the two won in damages have not been revealed. We only know that OAN lost.
A similar defamation case, against Gateway Pundit, a right-wing news outlet, is pending in federal court.
June 30: The bad news, regarding an expanding investigation into the plot to steal the 2020 election – by Team Trump – continues to build. There are reports that Giuliani met with Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, and may be trying to cut a deal, in hopes of avoiding spending his golden years in prison.
Another report says that Smith has an email in his possession, from top Trump aide Jason Miller, who worked for him while he was president and works for him still. It reads: “The campaign’s legal team and data experts cannot verify the b…s… being beamed down from the mothership.” That is: the “Stolen Election” lies coming from the president in the wake of his 2020 defeat.
The character of a conspiracy.
Mike Roman, a top 2020 campaign official, has already had his phone seized by the F.B.I. Now he’s said to have signed a proffer agreement. Prosecutors will let a person who may have legal exposure in an investigation avoid going before a grand jury. In return, they wave their Fifth Amendment rights and give testimony, understanding that nothing they say will be used against them unless they lie. Roman was another cog in Trump’s Rube Goldberg machine, built to grab a second term in the same way he used to grab pussy without permission. We also know Roman’s former top deputy, Gary Michael Brown, testified before a grand jury last week.
If Mr. Miller (like so many others) was telling the top people on Team Trump that they had no legal basis for challenging election results (which is what Trump’s top officials at the Department of Justice, including Attorney General Bill Barr, had been telling him all along), then efforts to overturn the vote take on the character of a conspiracy. People like Giuliani, Roman, and others become accomplices, guided by the Orange God of Mar-a-Lago.
Trump has wriggled out of tough spots before. This time there may be too many witnesses to pay off or pardon or silence under the umbrella of “executive privilege.” It appears highly likely that the former president will be indicted, along with a number of members of his pirate crew.
(This is soon proven to be true.)
Those rumored to be cooperating already include Owen Shroyer, who was part of a gathering on the night of January 5, in the Willard Hotel in D.C., to plan for the day ahead. Even Mark Meadows, Trump’s last White House Chief of Staff, could be talking to prosecutors. He would be in a position to tell where the bodies are buried, who dug the holes, and who closed the coffin lids. Special Prosecutor Jack Smith is rumored to be considering slapping former-President Blubber with up to 30 to 45 new charges, related to his various, allegedly illegal schemes.
Rudy “claimed massive election fraud but had no evidence.”
July 5, 2023: Rudy Giuliani’s losing streak continues. He learns that he is a near-lock to have his license to practice law in the District of Columbia revoked. He has been found to have pushed a “Stolen Election” narrative despite the absence of evidence to support his claims. The D.C. Board of Professional Responsibility has issued a preliminary filing, regarding Giuliani’s efforts to get the 2020 vote in Pennsylvania overturned. His court filings, according to a three-member disciplinary panel were “frivolous,” and “destructive.” After a week of hearings, the panel concluded, “He claimed massive election fraud but had no evidence of it,” which they explain in a 38-page decision.
“By prosecuting that destructive case Mr. Giuliani, a sworn officer of the Court, forfeited his right to practice law.”
Once, after 9/11, Giuliani had been a pillar of strength. As “America’s Mayor,” he helped New York City and our nation rebound from a horrific attack.
Now?
“The misconduct here sadly transcends all his past accomplishments,” the panel concluded. “It was unparalleled in its destructive purpose and effect. He sought to disrupt a presidential election and persists in his refusal to acknowledge the wrong he has done.”
As Politico notes, the disciplinary report continued:
His hyperbolic claims of election fraud and the core thesis of the
Pennsylvania litigation were utterly false, and recklessly so. Mr.
Giuliani’s rash overstatement claiming that the election was stolen had no
evidence to support it.
Respondent … commenced litigation without evidence that its core factual claim was true.
July 10: Team Trump player Steve “I Got a Pardon, You Didn’t” Bannon is ordered by a judge to pay his lawyers the $480,487.87 they billed him for his losing fight to ignore a congressional subpoena.
July 13: This is the 982nd day since the 2020 election. In a clip from an upcoming interview on CNN, Ronna McDaniel, head of the Republican National Committee, cannot tell Chris Wallace that Joe Biden won the race fairly.
No recount, including numerous recounts conducted by Republicans, has shown evidence of significant voter fraud.
No court, not even Divorce Court, has uncovered voter fraud of any import.
And, of course, top members of Team Trump are likely to be indicted soon … for election fraud.
(Ronna doesn’t do logic.)
Wallace tries to pin Ronna down. He asks her if Biden is president. She deflects to talk about the “process.”
“I think there were a lot of problems,” she says.
Wallace keeps prodding. Finally, she agrees – sort of – that Biden “ultimately” won the election. “But I don’t think he won it fair. I don’t, I’m not going to say that.”
Wallace tries again: “You’re saying you’re not sure, as the Republican Party chair, that he was the legitimately elected president?”
“I’m saying there were lots of problems with the 2020 election and we need to fix it going forward,” McDaniel replies.
July 18: As of today, sixteen “fake electors” in Michigan face multiple felony charges, related to their cameo roles in the plot to steal the 2020 election for Donald J. Trump. For some odd reason, the sixteen met in the basement of the Michigan Republican Party headquarters on December 14, and signed documents claiming to be the “duly elected and qualified” electors for their state.
This despite the minor detail – that Joe Biden prevailed in the popular vote in Michigan by more than 154,000. (See: September 8.)
Rudy does not contest the fact that he lied.
July 26: The myth of the “Stolen Election” takes another in a growing line of conks. In court, Rudy Giuliani is forced to admit that he made false statements about the two Georgia poll workers, Freeman and Moss. In the wake of Trump’s defeat in 2020, Rudy insisted that Freeman and Moss had a hidden “suitcase” of votes that they pulled out when no one was looking (except eagle-eyed Trump supporters). Out spilled 18,000 ballots and mother and daughter ran them through the voting machines three times.
Or was it eight times? Team Trump couldn’t even get that detail right. (They also said it was five.)
Rudy now insists that his lies were covered by “free speech,” and his defamatory statements did not harm the women, who are suing his dumb ass. But he does not contest the fact that he lied.
Who else accused the poor women, on the basis of the same “evidence?” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton stuck that claim in a lawsuit he tried to advance to the U.S. Supreme Court. Trump peddled the same lie and right-wing news outlets amplified it and spread it to every dim corner of MAGA Land.
(In MAGA Land the MAGA folk still believe the MAGA claim was proven.)
A plan to steal the election for him, not stop it being stolen from him.
July 27: The bad news continues to pile up for Mr. Trump, although that means good news for America. Trump’s lawyers (the ones not being investigated) meet with Special Prosecutor Jack Smith’s team. They are told to expect another indictment, this one involving the plot to steal the 2020 election.
July 29: Donald can’t stop losing in court. On Friday, a judge he appointed throws out a defamation suit he filed against CNN, after hosts on that channel accused him of telling “The Big Lie.” Since that phrase has long been associated with Adolf Hitler, Donald was demanding a bazillion dollars, because, how dare CNN accuse him of being like Hitler. Did he even have a moustache?
Trump’s “Big Lie” didn’t involve murdering Jews and gays and disabled children, but did involve murdering democracy. Again and again he dinned in his followers’ ears the fable of the “Stolen Election.”
Or as one frequent CNN contributor, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, explained, “Trump’s big lie wouldn’t have worked without his thousands of little lies. This is Trump’s ‘Big Lie,’ a brazen falsehood with momentous consequences.”
(Such as the attack on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021.)
In case you missed it, Mr. Trump was asking for “damages in excess of $75,000,” and “punitive damages in the amount of $475 million, pre- and post-judgment interest, taxable costs, and trial by jury.”
Judge Raag Singhal cited numerous cases, establishing various precedents, then more or less summed it up, noting, “Complaint alleges no false statements of fact.” CNN was offering opinions. Just because Donnie didn’t like what CNN was saying, that didn’t mean he could sue for defamation. Case dismissed. Money wasted on lawyers – most of that which was siphoned out of a fund filled by campaign donations from MAGA suckers.
(Tithing to the Church of St. Donald can be expensive.)
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