Trump Has an Unhinged List of Demands for His First Criminal Trial

Donald Trump has an unexpected list of demands for his Manhattan criminal trial, including a plan to keep key witnesses away from the stand.

Trump is accused of using his former fixer Michael Cohen to sweep an affair with porn actress Stormy Daniels under the rug ahead of the 2016 presidential election. He’s facing 34 felony charges in the case for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime. Trump has pleaded not guilty on all counts.

But a list of proposed exclusions submitted by Trump’s legal team to the judge on Monday indicates that it wants Cohen and Daniels nowhere near the courthouse, despite their testimony being central to the entire case. The list also contains several other outrageous requests, including keeping prosecutors from showing the jury quotes from Rudy Giuliani from May 2018 regarding the payments, and excluding the infamous Access Hollywood tape in which Trump confessed to sexual assault by claiming he grabs women “by the pussy.” Trump defended those comments in his first E. Jean Carroll trial, and the video again made a reappearance in his second defamation lawsuit brought by Carroll. After both trials, Trump owes Carroll $88.5 million.

Trump also filed to prevent any mention of Playboy playmate Karen McDougal, with whom Trump had a covert affair beginning in 2006, and one of Trump World Tower’s former doormen, Dino Sajudin, who claimed that Trump fathered an out-of-wedlock child with a former housekeeper. On top of that, Trump’s team asked to ban the use of the phrase “catch and kill,” referring to plans uncovered by the Manhattan District Attorney to kill negative press on both those stories about Trump before the 2016 election.

Meanwhile, the district attorney’s office submitted their own motions in limine, asking that the court exclude a campaign finance expert proposed by Trump’s team, selective prosecution claims, and info stemming from a related case against Cohen in the Southern District of New York.

Speaking to reporters after attending his first criminal trial hearing in person on February 15, Trump claimed he “shouldn’t be in a courthouse.”

“Even if he was guilty of something, there is no crime,” Trump said, speaking in the third person, before demanding “delays,” which he will decidedly not get.

House Oversight Chair James Comer is frantically attempting to salvage his witness in the impeachment probe against President Joe Biden—even if that means undermining national intelligence agencies.

On Tuesday, the Kentucky Republican used a Fox Business interview to insist that Alexander Smirnov, whose self-admitted lies served as the only foundation for claims that Biden pocketed millions from a Ukrainian oligarch, was still credible, and that it was in fact the FBI that was “suspicious.”

“If you look, they’ve indicted, even more is coming out, about the informant—what role he played for the FBI,” Comer stumbled. “The FBI paid him to be a spy in Russia. They indicted him because he was communicating with Russia but that’s what they paid him for over 10 years to do.”

“I don’t know anything about Smirnov,” Comer continued about his probe’s supposedly star witness, “but the circumstances around his indictment and his re-arrest and the changing of the original indictment by [special counsel David] Weiss is very concerning, because everything that I’ve had to do with the FBI has been very suspicious throughout this investigation.”

“The trust level that I have with the FBI is zero,” he added.

Comer also used the interview to introduce a man that he framed as Smirnov’s replacement in the impeachment inquiry: convicted felon and current federal prison inmate Jason Galanis, two degrees removed from Hunter Biden by way of the junior Biden’s former business partner and fellow convicted inmate Devon Archer. On Monday, Galanis was reported to have also thrown cold water on the committee’s baseless claims, pledging under oath that Biden never held any role with any business entity in connection to his son.

Two weeks ago, Smirnov was indicted by the Department of Justice for lying to the FBI, effectively killing the probe. Since then, Smirnov has reportedly admitted to law enforcement that top Russian intelligence officials were involved in the smear campaign against the sitting president.

The Tennessee House of Representatives has passed a bill prohibiting local governments from reappointing lawmakers who were expelled for “disorderly behavior,” a clear jab at two Democratic representatives in particular.

House Bill 2716 passed the Republican-dominated chamber Monday by a vote of 69-22. The measure, which now moves to the Republican-controlled Senate, states that if a local legislature needs to elect a successor for a vacant seat in the state General Assembly, “and the vacancy was created due to the expulsion of a member for disorderly behavior, then the local legislative body shall not elect the expelled legislator to be the successor to fill the vacant seat.”

The bill is a blatant attempt by Republicans to kick out any Democrats they don’t like—and make sure they don’t find a way back into the state legislature. After all, Tennessee Republicans have tried to kick out Democratic lawmakers once before.

If the bill becomes law, it is guaranteed to be held up in the courts. The Tennessee constitution and current state law both give local governing bodies full power to appoint anyone they choose to fill vacant seats, so long as that person is legally qualified to hold office.

The General Assembly’s legal staff warned lawmakers just last week that the bill is not backed by either constitutional language or historical precedent. But Republicans forged ahead anyway.

The bill is an obvious response to the reappointment of Democratic Representatives Justin Jones and Justin Pearson last year. The two men are part of the Tennessee Three, three Democratic lawmakers who gained national attention last March when they joined thousands of pro–gun control protesters in the state Capitol in the wake of a school shooting in Nashville.

Republicans accused Jones, Pearson, and Gloria Johnson of violating House decorum rules and voted to expel the two men, both of whom are Black. The GOP fell one vote short of expelling Johnson, who is white.

Jones and Pearson were unanimously reinstated by their district councils until a special election could be held. When that special election was held in August, both men swept handily to victory.

“It’s real interesting when my colleagues on the other side talk about, ‘We need less government, we need less government overreach in our lives,’” Pearson told The Tennessean about Monday’s measure. “This exact bill, this very legislation, overreaches the Constitution of Tennessee.”

Since their return to the state Capitol, tensions between Republicans and Jones and Pearson have remained high. The two lawmakers have made gun control a key issue, despite Republican rejection. On Thursday, Jones called House Speaker Cameron Sexton “drunk with power” after the Republican posted state troopers outside a press conference, barring entry.

Things started to boil over Monday night when the House debated a separate bill about immigration. Sexton ruled Jones out of order and refused to recognize him again to speak on the measure. Pearson then said he was “tired of racist” and retaliatory measures, prompting Sexton to threaten to call him out of order, too.

Newly obtained audio of a Texas Supreme Court justice has unearthed some unexpected opinions from a member of the typically reserved and insular judiciary—including that he believes he’s a singular cure to the “Big Law” backgrounds of his “brainwashed” conservative colleagues.

Speaking to a group of East Texas voters in September, Supreme Court Justice John Devine—a former anti-abortion demonstrator—was recorded bemoaning his colleagues’ deference to procedure over their moral and legal responsibility to the U.S. Constitution, according to audio obtained by The Texas Tribune.

“At times I feel like they would sacrifice the Republic for the sake of the process,” Devine said in the recording. “My concern is that they all bow down to the altar of process rather than to fidelity to the Constitution. And when I say that, it’s not meant to be malice towards my colleagues. I think it’s how they were trained—how they were brainwashed.”

Elsewhere in his speech, Devine attacked several Texas officials, decried the “RINOs” and “trans-Republicans” occupying the state’s all-GOP Court of Criminal Appeals, and claimed that Democratic leaders in Harris County were using “Democrat dirty tricks” in an effort to “bastardize our election code.”

Devine also used the event to vent his frustrations over his bench’s ruling against Jeff Younger, a former Texas House candidate who asked the high court to prevent his ex-wife from moving to California with their child on the basis that the state had recently passed a refuge law that shielded parents escaping states with restrictive transgender care statutes. The court refused to hear the lawsuit, arguing that it was founded on “tenuous speculation” that Younger’s ex-wife would violate a standing order to avoid gender-transition therapy for their child, according to the Tribune.

“I’m not going to stand here sanctimoniously and say, ‘Well he didn’t cross a T or dot an I,’” Devine said of Younger at the September event. “We are talking about great constitutional issues here that will determine whether we survive as a representative republic or not. Are we going to just have it stolen from us? Over process, for crying out loud?”

Devine will face off against his Republican primary opponent, Brian Walker, a judge on the Texas Second District Court of Appeals, on March 5.

Joe Biden is expected to win Michigan’s Democratic primary on Tuesday, but those around him are reportedly “freaking out” about a growing call to vote “uncommitted.” And they have every right to be nervous.

An increasing number of voters throughout the country, but particularly in Michigan, are expressing their intent to vote “uncommitted” in the Democratic primaries. Many may even sit out the general election entirely. Their frustration with Biden is due to policies in Gaza, including his refusal to demand a cease-fire and his support of Israel amid its relentless bombing campaign.

While the Biden campaign is outwardly acting calm about it, “they are freaking out about the uncommitted vote,” a Democrat close to Biden, speaking anonymously, told Politico.

Biden’s stance on Gaza has alienated many Muslim and Arab Americans, who make up a large portion of Michigan’s Democratic voters. But it’s also costing him support among young voters, progressives, and other voters of color. These are crucial voting demographics that helped deliver multiple swing states—including Michigan—for Biden in 2020.

There are two main uncommitted vote campaigns. One is called “Listen to Michigan,” whose supporters hope that voting “uncommitted” will send a strong enough message to Biden that he will change his stance. Another campaign, “Abandon Biden,” is similarly urging voters to check the “uncommitted” box.

It has been nearly five months since the war broke out in Gaza, and in that time, nearly 29,900 Palestinian civilians have been killed. The vast majority of Americans support a cease-fire, which they have repeatedly made clear through huge protests.

But it appears that Biden has only just begun to listen. During a Monday night appearance on Late Night With Seth Meyers, Biden said that he hoped there would be a cease-fire, at least a temporary one, by Monday.

But by Tuesday morning, both Israel and Hamas had said that they weren’t close to a breakthrough.

Representative Ro Khanna, who often works as a liaison between the White House and the progressive caucus, confirmed that Biden’s shift was because “the president is hearing that a large part of his coalition wants this war to end.”

Khanna said he warned Biden ahead of the South Carolina primary over the weekend that he was losing the progressive vote.

“He said, ‘Ro, I hear you. I understand. I understand that people are upset and I am pushing Bibi,’” Khanna said, using the nickname for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

But the White House continues to push for billions of dollars in military aid to Israel, and Biden has yet to explicitly call for a cease-fire.

Even if he were to demand a cease-fire tomorrow, that wouldn’t be enough to swing the full support of Arab Americans back to him, warned Abdullah Hammoud, the mayor of Dearborn, Michigan. Hammoud is the first Arab mayor of the majority-Arab city, and he is one of more than 40 Michigan Democratic elected officials who have pledged to vote “uncommitted.”

Hammoud told NPR that calling for a cease-fire would get Biden “another conversation at the table,” but the president has to earn voters’ support back. Hammoud said he hopes that Arab and Muslim Americans’ “uncommitted” vote is a big enough rebuke to make Biden start listening.

“We’re not sizable enough to make a candidate win,” Hammoud said. “But we’re sizable enough to make a candidate lose.”