Tag: mar a lago
Former president Donald Trump

Trump Claims Polls Show He's 'Leading Very Big' -- A Very Big Lie

An angry, rambling, and defensive Donald Trump finally emerged from hiding on Thursday to give his stump speech to a bunch of reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. The GOP’s presidential nominee insisted he had the biggest rally crowds ever and attempted to make news by finally agreeing to debate Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. But all reporters wanted to talk about was his floundering campaign.

One reporter mentioned that Trump has just one public event scheduled this week.

“Some of your allies have expressed concern that you’re not taking this race seriously,” the reporter said, which set Trump off on one of several tirades about recent polls.

“I’m leading by a lot,” Trump claimed, after calling it a “stupid question.”

He returned to that topic in this riff about his “good polls” where he’s “substantially leading.”

“Fortunately, we’ve had some very good polls over the last fairly short period of time,” Trump said. “Rasmussen came out today with substantially leading,” he continued.

That’s true: Rasmussen Reports does have a new poll giving Trump a 5-point lead. But Rasmussen Reports is the notoriously conservative and inaccurate pollster that 538 dropped from its polling averages and forecasts earlier this year. Meanwhile, the separate and more credible RMG Research, run by Scott Rasmussen, had Harris leading by five points as recently as six days ago.

But Trump was on a roll.

“Others came out today that we’re leading and in some cases substantially,” he boasted. “CNBC came out also with a poll that has us leading, and leading fairly big in swing states.”

Trump’s lead in the head-to-head with Harris in the CNBC poll is 2 points. It is a national poll and does not provide data from swing states. Never mind—in his head, it’s true.

“Some polls I’m leading very big in swing states,” Trump insisted.

In reality, no, he is not. On Thursday, the Cook Political Report shifted its ratings for three swing states, changing them from "Lean Republican" to "Toss Up":

According to 538’s poll aggregates, Harris has an edge over Trump in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and she’s running neck and neck with Trump in North Carolina.

At the end of last week, Harris had the lead in a dozen separate national polls.

The surge Harris experienced after President Joe Biden stepped aside and endorsed her as the Democratic candidate wasn’t a blip or a bounce, either. It’s sustained, and it has changed this race.

And Trump can’t take it.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Merrick Garland

Attorney General Blasts Trump For 'Extremely Dangerous' Lies About FBI Murder Plot

Attorney General Merrick Garland did not mince words on Thursday, calling Donald Trump’s claims of President Joe Biden authorizing the use of “deadly force” during a search for classified materials at his Mar-a-Lago resort in August 2022 “false” and “extremely dangerous.”

"The document that is being referred to in the allegation, is the Justice Department standard policy limiting the use of force, as the FBI advises. It is part of the standard operations plan for searches. And, in fact, it was even used in the consensual search of President Biden's home," he said.

Garland’s response comes a day after Trump wrote on Truth Social, “WOW! I just came out of the Biden Witch Hunt Trial in Manhattan, the ‘Icebox,’ and was shown Reports that Crooked Joe Biden’s DOJ, in their illegal and UnConstitutional Raid of Mar-a-Lago, AUTHORIZED THE FBI TO USE DEADLY (LETHAL) FORCE.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) took time away from embarrassing herself in Congress to embarrass herself on social media, posting that “the Biden DOJ and FBI were planning to assassinate Pres Trump and gave the green light.”

Like Garland, the FBI released a statement Wednesday saying that the FBI “followed standard protocol in this search as we do for all search warrants, which includes a standard policy statement limiting the use of deadly force. No one ordered additional steps to be taken and there was no departure from the norm in this matter.”

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

More Classified Papers In Trump's Mar-a-Lago Bedroom (And Aide's Laptop)

More Classified Papers In Trump's Mar-a-Lago Bedroom (And Aide's Laptop)

An unnamed witness, reportedly an adviser to Donald Trump, scanned the contents of a box that had contained classified documents, and saved those digital files to her laptop, which belongs to a political action committee which pays Donald Trump’s legal expenses.

The stunning revelation was tucked away in the footnote of an 87-page court document unsealed by U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell on Tuesday, in response to a separate filing in which Trump’s attorneys are claiming prosecutorial misconduct, according to Politico’s Kyle Cheney who reported the details.

The filing revealed that at least four more classified documents had been found at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and resort, in his bedroom, even after FBI agents executed and completed a search warrant months earlier, in August of 2022.

Judge Howell, Politico reports, “noted that [a] Trump adviser connected to his Save America PAC had acknowledged scanning the contents of the box that contained the classified materials in 2021 and storing them on a personal laptop provided by the PAC.”

In the footnote Judge Howell writes, “on January 6, 2023, the former president’s counsel informed the government that, in 2021, WITNESS scanned the contents of the box—produced on January 5, 2023, and previously containing classified documents—onto a laptop in her possession owned by the Save America Political Action Committee (‘PAC’), a PAC formed by the former president in 2020. … The former president’s counsel saved those scans onto a thumb drive and provided the thumb drive to the government that day.”

Axios adds: “A witness scanned the contents of the box containing the classified materials and stored them on a laptop in her possession owned by Trump’s Save America PAC, according to a footnote in the opinion.”

The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell, pointing to the Politico report, adds: “This was the incident where Trump aide Chamberlain Harris — known as ROTUS, short for Receptionist of the United States — scanned and uploaded classified docs onto her laptop … Guardian reported this contemporaneously last year, as did CNN.”

Lowell also pointed to The Guardian’s report.

The Save America PAC according to Open Secrets, raised well over $108 million in the 2021-2022 cycle, and spent over $121 million. In the 2023-2024 cycle, the PAC has raised over $76 million, and spent well over $85 million.

“Since leaving office, former president Trump has been involved in an array of criminal and civil litigation — some that relates to his campaigns and presidency and some that does not. To cover the enormous legal bills, estimated at more than $100 million, he has turned to his political action committees (PACs), essentially having campaign donors pay costs for which he would otherwise be on the hook personally,” the Brennan Center for Justice reported earlier this month.

“Following his 2020 election loss, Trump received more than $250 million in donations from supporters to fuel an ‘election defense fund.’ He divided that money between two campaign entities: his 2020 presidential campaign committee, which he subsequently converted into a freestanding PAC called Make America Great Again (MAGA) PAC, and a second entity called Save America PAC, which is a so-called ‘leadership PAC‘ (a type of PAC that a federal candidate can establish for the ostensible purpose of supporting other candidates).”

National security attorney Brad Moss on Tuesday, commenting on Politico’s report of the additional classified documents at Mar-a-Lago wrote: “Reminder that the MAL docs case was and will always have been the cleanest, most straightforward criminal prosecution of the four against the former president. That the public won’t see it brought to fruition before they go to the voting booth is a stain on the judicial system.”

This article has been updated with the details from The Guardian’s Lowell.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Trump Appeared At Mar-a-Lago Event Promoting QAnon 'Documentary' Films

Trump Appeared At Mar-a-Lago Event Promoting QAnon 'Documentary' Films

Former President Donald Trump appeared onstage at a Mar-a-Lago event with filmmaker and QAnon and Pizzagate conspiracy theorist Mike Smith and former national security adviser Michael Flynn. The film screened at the event, which was hosted by Flynn’s America’s Future, was the sequel to Smith’s film that pushed the debunked Pizzagate conspiracy theory.

On March 28, America’s Future — a group run by Flynn and his family which has become increasingly tied to QAnon, with multiple QAnon figures including Liz Crokin being involved with the organization — hosted Smith at Mar-a-Lago. (Flynn himself is tied to the conspiracy theory and to We The Media, a QAnon influencer collective.) According to the event flier, the event would have “special movie screenings of Out of Shadows and Into the Light -- masterpiece films rocking the world with the truth about how information deception, psyops, and mind manipulation are used to control reality.” However, according to Smith, only Into the Light was ultimately screened.

During the event, Trump appeared on stage with Smith and Flynn, with Trump shaking their hands and going on to laud Flynn, according to video uploaded by attendee Ben Moore, who is a member of America’s Future and a QAnon influencer known online as “Sun Tzu.”

In addition to Smith, Flynn, and Moore, fellow America’s Future members Crokin and Lara Logan were also in attendance at the event (like Smith and Crokin, Logan is also a Pizzagate conspiracy theorist and has sympathized with QAnon).

Smith, a former Hollywood stuntman, became known in 2020 when his YouTube film Out of Shadowsquickly racked up millions of views, and he has since expressed support for the QAnon conspiracy theory, repeatedly posting variations of the QAnon slogan (“where we go one, we go all,” or “WWG1WGA”), thanking the “Q team,” and even becoming a member of We The Media.

The film Out of Shadows “alleges, among other things, that Hollywood is run by Satanic pedophilia rings” and pushes the debunked Pizzagate conspiracy theory, with Crokin baselessly claiming during the film that a D.C. pizzeria was part of a child trafficking ring. Smith has credited Crokin for getting him into Pizzagate, a conspiracy theory which inspired a man to open fire in the restaurant in December 2016.

Into the Light, which was screened at Mar-a-Lago, is the sequel to Out of Shadows and is described as “a movie made to bring to surface that psychological operations are present and active in today’s society.” The film features interviews with Flynn, Logan, and others, and pushes conspiracy theories about the World Economic Forum and the “great reset.”

Trump’s appearance at a Mar-a-Lago event tied to QAnon and Pizzagate comes after the former president previously appeared at a December 2022 America’s Future event at his property that also featured Crokin pushing Pizzagate, where Trump was photographed with her. It is also yet another example of Trump’s relationship with the QAnon community, which he and those in his orbit have increasingly embraced.

The article has been updated to reflect that Mike Smith claims only Into the Light was screened, despite the event’s flier indicating that both of his films would be shown at Mar-a-Lago.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

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