<They're eating terrorism crow.

Two Republican candidates seeking higher office were both shouting terrorism and publicly shamed.

GOP presidential candidate and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy jumped the terrorism gun — early after a car bulleted toward a U.S.-Canada bridge checkpoint and then smashed and blew up causing the deaths of two people.

Fox News quickly called the event a "terror attack" and said the car was "full of explosives."

They later backed off its claim of a "terror attack" and instead labeled the motive as "unclear."

"I’ve been saying it for a long time & will say it again: we must secure our *NORTHERN* border too," Ramaswamy wrote in a post on Twitter/X. "It’s the forgotten frontier of the border crisis in our country."

Kari Lake, the failed Arizona pro-Trump gubernatorial candidate who is now running for Senate, also shouted terrorism.

"This looks like at attempted terrorist attack along our Northern border," she tweeted. "Our worst fears are being realized. @JoeBiden's open border invites chaos & misery into our country."

An hour later she changed her tune.

"Multiple outlets are walking back the initial reports of a terror attack," her follow-up an hour later reads. "While I mourn for the two men killed, I’m thankful this appears to have been a tragic accident. The sad reality is that an attack on this country seems inevitable with our border crisis. That MUST change."

At no point was it officially confirmed that the deadly incident at the Rainbow Bridge one day before the Thanksgiving holiday was a terroristic threat.

That didn't stop Ramaswamy or Lake from claiming straightaway, and without any validation, that the incident an attack by some kind of terroristic element. Ramaswamy soon clarified his statement, but not before he doubled down.

"One month ago, @GovChristie ridiculed me for demanding more security on the Northern Border: 'I don’t think you’ve heard anyone who knows anything ask for that.' Well, it’s radio silence from him today," Ramaswamy wrote. "The bipartisan establishment is filled with these clowns & it’s pathetic."

And critics came to give them a dose of humble pre-Thanksgiving pie.

GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie called out his rival.

"Radio silence from me because I have years of law enforcement experience fighting terrorists and crime and you do not. You jump to the conclusion it is terrorism without any definitive proof," Christie wrote on Wednesday. "This is why your judgment is so flawed and you’d be such an awful President. Here’s a hint for you: wait for the evidence and then make judgments. That’s what any experienced leader would do."

Heath Mayo, a conservative Christian lawyer warned Ramaswamy to rethink his attempt to run for president given his judgement to assume the incident in upstate New York was a terroristic act.

"If you fall for misreporting and jump to erroneous conclusions without the facts this quickly, why should anyone trust you to make major judgments as president," he asked in a tweet. "Spare the country, please. Take a job that doesn’t depend on your judgment."

And former Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger (ret. R-IL) pressed Lake to remain a civilian and stay out of politics.

"Just a reminder that @KariLake was ready to change American policy and take a victory lap…. Before anything. Take a breath," his tweet from Wednesday reads. "But she is just a performative clown.">

<Georgia Republicans suffered a loss Wednesday when a ruling from the state's high court put a law "empowered to sanction" liberal prosecutors on hold, The Atlanta-Journal Constitution's Greg Bluestein reports.

According to Bluestein, although the newly established Prosecuting Attorneys Qualifications Commission "began accepting complaints earlier this year, under Senate Bill 92 it can't take any action until the Georgia Supreme Court approves a set of rules and code of conduct."

The court refused to do so.

"In short, we have grave doubts that we have the constitutional power to take any action on the draft standards and rules," the judges wrote. "But deciding the question of whether we actually have that power would require deciding difficult constitutional questions of first impression outside of the adversarial process."

Furthermore, the ruling stated, "Because we are under no legal directive to take action, the most prudent course for us is to decline to take action without conclusively deciding any constitutional question."

Bluestein reports, "The battle over the commission is being closely watched partly because [ex-President] Donald Trump's allies aim to use the new law," which was backed by Republican Governor Brian Kemp, "to punish Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis for seeking election interference charges against the former president.">

DARVO

<Donald Trump wished everyone a happy Thanksgiving while also calling New York Attorney General Letitia James "racist and incompetent" in a baffling rant.

He posted on his media platform Truth Social, saying that James let "Murder and Violent Crime FLOURISH, and Businesses FLEE." He added: "Happy Thanksgiving to ALL, including the Racist and Incompetent Attorney General of New York State, Letitia "Peekaboo" James."

Trump is still upset about the New York civil fraud case against him and the recent rejection of a mistrial by Democrat Judge Arthur Engoron. He called Engoron - who rejected claims the proceedings are blighted by political bias - a "psycho." The lawsuit could ban Trump from doing business in New York and James is seeking over $300 million in penalties. The legal action alleges that Trump, his company, and top executives exaggerated his wealth by billions of dollars on his financial statements.

Engoron has already ruled that Trump and other defendants engaged in fraud, but the trial is to determine the remaining claims of conspiracy, insurance fraud and falsifying business records. The verdict is up to Engoron, not a jury.

The man leading the race to be the next Republican nominee for president, Trump, is facing a tough time. He's dealing with 91 charges across four criminal cases and his older sister Maryanne Barry Trump passed away recently.

Maryanne and Trump were usually on good terms. She once supported her brother's political dreams, but later privately criticized him, calling him "cruel" and a man with "no principles."

In a secret chat in 2020, Maryanne was recorded saying about her brother: "All he wants to do is appeal to his base. He has no principles. None. None. And his base, I mean my God, if you were a religious person, you want to help people. Not do this."

Reports also say that Maryanne called her brother "cruel," adding: "His @#$%*!&ed tweet and lying, oh my God ... I'm talking too freely, but you know. The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The lying. Holy s**t."

Mary Trump, the niece of the former president and daughter of Fred Trump Jr, recorded a conversation with her aunt Maryanne. The two women have been involved in a public feud and ongoing lawsuit, where the ex-president accuses Mary and New York Times reporters of an "insidious plot" to get his tax records.

Maryanne was reportedly trying to mend fences with her brother, even meeting him at his club in Bedminster, New Jersey, according to an ABC source. She had previously benefited from their relationship, becoming an assistant US attorney in 1974 and later a senior judge on the US district court for New Jersey, appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1983.

The former president reacted to his sister's death by criticizing the media in a post on Truth Social, claiming they "went after her mercilessly."

Following her passing, Trump blasted the media for their alleged harsh treatment of Barry. He claimed on his media site Truth Social that her life was "Her life was largely problem-free, PERFECT, until I made it difficult for her when I decided to run for president," until he ran for president and made things difficult for her.

Barry, a successful judge, got her first judicial appointment from President Ronald Regan in 1983, thanks to Donald Trump's then-fixer and mafia-linked lawyer Roy Cahn [sic]. She was later appointed to the appeals court in 1999 under President Bill Clinton.

"The Fake News, and others, went after her mercilessly, and because of the fact that she felt it inappropriate, due to her position, to defend herself," she said, "It just never stopped!"

"She suffered from 2016 until her retirement." Barry retired in 2019 amid an investigation into her family's tax practices.

Trump said about his sister: "My great sister, Maryanne, passed away yesterday at the age of 86... A truly beautiful woman, tall and elegant, with a presence like no other, she was also a tremendous student, intellect, and judge, in charge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, just below the US Supreme Court.">

Every day brings a fresh dalliance with insanity.

Ain't that so, <ursus banalus>?

<Before leaving for Thanksgiving, House Republicans unwrapped 44,000 hours of footage from the Jan. 6, 2021, assault at the U.S. Capitol — a political present for those who maintain reaction to the insurrection was overblown.

Overseeing the congressional security video rollout is none other than Rep. Barry Loudermilk, a Georgia lawmaker who balked at answering Jan. 6 investigators' questions about leading a so-called “reconnaissance” tour ahead of the Capitol siege.

Loudermilk’s House Administration subcommittee has posted around 90 hours of raw footage to an online “reading room” where anyone with internet access can poke around. Those interested in rifling through the complete archive — including members of Congress, media outlets, and any of the 1,200-plus defendants charged with Jan. 6-related crimes — can do so by requesting first-come, first-served appointments to use secured terminals in the Capitol complex.

Speaker Mike Johnson, who’s already on the outs with hardliners for advancing a stopgap spending patch with the help of more Democrats than Republicans, said releasing the flood of video would provide “truth and transparency” about the deadly attack on Congress “rather than having to rely upon the interpretation of a small group of government officials.”

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, quickly pounced on the invitation, retweeting an alternate version of reality plucked from the footage perpetuating a far-right claim that one of the rioters was an undercover federal agent. Fact checkers at the Associated Press, among others, have debunked the assertion.

When fellow Republican and Jan. 6 Select Committee co-chair Liz Cheney took Lee to task by sharing a 30-second clip of rioters beating their way through Capitol police to try and stop the certification of the 2020 election results, Lee replied: “Nice try.”

“Liz, we’ve seen footage like that a million times,” the Utah Republican wrote, adding, “It’s the other stuff—what you deliberately hid from us—that we find so upsetting.”

MAGA loyalists in both chambers have accused the Jan. 6 committee of using the closely-guarded footage to skewer the embattled former president and his allies in Congress for allegedly orchestrating the storming of the Capitol.

Speaker Johnson's decision to make all of the Jan. 6 surveillance footage available to the public comes as a critical trial date nears for Donald Trump. The embattled former president and 2024 GOP frontrunner is battling 91 felony counts in four different jurisdictions, including a four-count, conspiracy-related indictment scheduled to be tried in Washington, D.C., in March 2024.

Loudermilk clashed with select committee investigators after refusing to testify about alleged reconnaissance tours he and others were suspected of leading. Meanwhile, GOP leaders have committed to crafting customized clips from the footage — capped at 10 per week, 60 minutes max — on request.

Committee on House Administration staff did not reply to requests for comment about how many video terminals are available for use, any time restrictions for reviewers, or how quickly they plan to upload the full 44,000 hours to the online reading room.

“This is just the beginning,” Loudermilk pledged online.

The opening gambit seemed to delight Trump allies like Reps. Jim Banks of Indiana and Ronny Jackson of Texas, both of whom used the news to bash the now-defunct select committee and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

“The more we learn about that day, the more we see how the heroes in the US Capitol Police were completely failed by their leadership,” Banks, who late last year produced a counter Jan. 6 report accusing Pelosi and law enforcement of being unprepared for the attack, wrote online.

“What’s being revealed from the J6 tapes is SHOCKING,” Jackson chimed in, without offering any substantive evidence or specific clips to back up his claims.

While conservatives are rushing to cobble together their own version of former Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s nothing-to-see-here video montage, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene insists that dueling videos won’t win this war.

“Releasing the tapes is not enough!” the conservative bomb-thrower raged online, pressing Speaker Johnson to pull together a MAGA-friendly panel that can finish this once and for all.

“Criminal referrals must be written and prosecutions MUST happen under a Trump DOJ,” the Georgia Republican demanded, adding, “MAGA did not do this.”>

<In a disturbing turn of events, the New York judge presiding over former President Donald Trump's civil fraud trial, Arthur Engoron, and his law clerk have reportedly been subjected to a barrage of harassing messages deemed "serious and credible" by court security.

The onslaught reportedly began on October 3, shortly after Trump levied unfounded allegations against Judge Engoron's law clerk on social media.

Security concerns prompt gag order

Charles Hollon, a court officer-captain assigned to the Judicial Threats Assessment unit of the Department of Public Safety, revealed in a sworn statement that threats against the judge and his clerk have "increased exponentially" since Trump's inflammatory post.

According to NBC News, Trump posted a message on Truth Social identifying Engoron's principal law clerk and claimed she was in a relationship with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the Democrat Senator from New York.

It's worth noting that Trump himself did not threaten her, but according to Hollon, "the comments made in his post resulted in hundreds of threatening and harassing voicemail messages that have been transcribed into over 275 single-spaced pages." The nature of these threats is described as "serious and credible, not hypothetical or speculative."

In response to the escalating situation, Judge Engoron had imposed a gag order on Trump, prohibiting him from making statements about court staff.

This order was later extended to include Trump's attorneys, preventing them from commenting on the judge's private communications with his law clerk.

The judge cited the receipt of hundreds of harassing and threatening calls and emails as the basis for the gag order. The extent of the harassment, however, became more apparent in a recent court filing.

Details included dozens of messages daily, incidents of phone doxing, and an alarming rise in the use of antisemitic language.

Engoron has taken a firm stance, imposing fines totaling $15,000 on Trump for violating the gag order.

Temporary relief on gag order

Last week, a New York appeals court judge had temporarily lifted the gag order, responding to Trump's argument that it violated his constitutional rights. However, this decision is temporary, allowing a fuller panel of judges to weigh in.

In a court filing on Wednesday, November 22, lawyers for the Court Administration for New York state, including Hollon's sworn statement, urged the appeals court to maintain the gag order.

The New York attorney general's office echoed this sentiment, emphasizing the need for a "speedy denial" to ensure the safety of court staff and the integrity of trial proceedings.>

<Former President Donald Trump had a constitutional right to make false statements about the 2020 election, his lawyers have claimed in court.

In a written submission on Wednesday, they said that the federal election interference case against Trump is based on his alleged "lies" and that lies and false statements are protected under the First Amendment of the Constitution.

The Trump filing relies heavily on a 2012 Supreme Court ruling in United States v. Alvarez that says Xavier Alvarez, an elected official, could not be prosecuted for his false claims that he was awarded a congressional medal for bravery. The Supreme Court said that he had a right to lie, including claiming to be a U.S. Marine who had fought for his country.

Trump was indicted on four counts in Washington D.C. for allegedly working to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. Trump has pleaded not guilty to the charges, including conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding.

Newsweek sought email comment about the Alvarez case from Trump's attorneys on Thursday.

Trump's lawyers said in their submission to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan that the Alvarez case shows that falsehoods are protected free speech.

They wrote that Trump is accused of lying and allegedly "used those lies as the instruments of his four criminal offenses."

However, Trump is not accused of "any conduct involved in those crimes other than making, in their view, supposedly false statements about the election's outcome," they said.

The filing by Trump lawyers, Todd Blanche and John Lauro, is in support of their motion that the case is unconstitutional.

They accuse prosecutors of "handwaving the First Amendment" when they say that Trump went too far in his assertion that the 2020 election was rigged.

"The prosecution states that President Trump 'had a right, like every American, to speak publicly about the [2020 presidential] election and even to claim, falsely, that there had been outcome-determinative fraud during the election and that he had won,' but claims President Trump violated the law because he allegedly 'did not stop there,'" they write.

"The prosecution premises its entire case on the notion that President Trump did more than make supposedly 'false' claims about the election's outcome."

"But the prosecution does not identify any conduct involved in those crimes other than making, in their view, supposedly false statements about the election's outcome," it adds.

It says that false statements made during an election campaign are protected by the First Amendment.

"The reason the prosecution does not identify any non-speech or non-advocacy conduct charged in the indictment is that there is none. Every charge in the indictment rests on core acts of political speech and advocacy that lie at the heart of the First Amendment," it said.

"All these allegations center on the claim that President Trump stated, supposedly falsely, to these state officials that there had been significant fraud in the administration of the election in their states," it adds.

Numerous times the filing relies on the case of Xavier Alvarez, an elected member of a water district board in California, who identified himself at a 2007 public meeting as a retired U.S. Marine who had been wounded in combat many times and had received the Congressional Medal of Honor.

"I'm a retired Marine of 25 years. I retired in the year 2001," Alvarez said at a public meeting of the board. "Back in 1987, I was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. I got wounded many times by the same guy."

"None of Alvarez's claims was true. He never served in the Marine Corps or any branch of the military, was never wounded in combat, and has never received a medal of any kind, including the nation's highest military award—the Medal of Honor. Alvarez had previously boasted, untruly, that he played hockey for the Detroit Red Wings and that he once married a starlet from Mexico," according to a summation of the case on the U.S. federal courts' website.

Federal prosecutors charged Alvarez with two counts of violating the Stolen Valor Act and Alvarez claimed in court that lies were protected free speech. The 2006 Stolen Valor Act made it illegal to claim to have won or to wear military medals or ribbons that were not earned.

The case went to the Supreme Court, where Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for a 6-3 majority, said that content-based restrictions on speech are subject to strict scrutiny and are almost always invalid.

Kennedy wrote that Congress drafted the Stolen Valor Act too broadly, attempting to limit speech that could cause no harm and that criminal punishment for such speech is improper.

<New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R) tried to blame the “liberal media” for an article that CNN’s Abby Phillip reminded him was written by a Republican.

Phillip had asked Sununu for his reaction to an essay published in The Atlantic on Wednesday arguing that former President Donald Trump is leaning more and more into authoritarian rhetoric.

It was written by Peter Wehner, who served as an aide in the administrations of three Republican presidents.

“When you look at articles like that, that is liberal media doing everything they can to distract from the fact that the left-wing progressives...” Sununu began.

Phillip interrupted: “This is a conservative, by the way. This is someone who worked for a Republican president.”

But Sununu forged ahead without missing a beat, arguing that the article was part of a “national effort” to “distract from the massive amount of antisemitism you’re seeing out of the Democrat party.”

“And too many people in the media and otherwise not pushing back on that narrative,” he said. “What we’re seeing in our colleges and our universities is very real. It is hateful. It is unprecedented.”

Phillip noted again that the op-ed was written by a Republican, and asked Sununu a second time about Trump’s authoritarian language. Sununu, a Trump critic, said he’s aware of Trump’s history with this kind of rhetoric, but still sees coverage of it as a distraction.

“It’s not a distraction. He is the frontrunner,” Phillip replied, referring to Trump’s wide lead in the Republican 2024 presidential race.

Since last month’s outbreak of war between Israel and the Hamas militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, there has been a surge in antisemitic and Islamophobic hate speech and attacks across the U.S.

Wehner’s article and Phillips’ questioning focussed on Trump’s recent use of the word “vermin” to describe his political enemies. The term was used in Nazi Germany propaganda about Jews, as well as by other cruel movements in history that sought to dehumanize and incite violence and hatred against certain groups of people.

Republicans have largely looked the other way on Trump’s use of the term. However, Republicans (and some Democrats) in Congress have criticized certain progressives in the Democratic conference, arguing that their critiques of Israel and defenses of Palestinians cross over into antisemitism.>

Gotta watch them dang librul conservatives--they gets ya ever time!

Like the use of the word 'vermin' by yer hero, <ursus banalus>?

<Donald Trump's election interference case could be delayed by months after his lawyers applied for a vast array of classified government documents.

On Wednesday, they applied for 57 groups of documents, many of them highly classified, on everything from Justice Department correspondence with President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden to Trump's White House scheduling diary.

Trump's team also applied for access to documents pertaining to Russian and Iranian meddling in the 2020 election; Chinese hacking of election computers; full details of all undercover agents deployed at the January 6 riots and a vast array of correspondence relating to voting in seven states during the 2020 election.

The former president was indicted on four counts in Washington D.C. for allegedly working to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the January 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. The Republican has pleaded not guilty to the charges that include conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding.

A smaller disclosure in Trump's classified documents hoarding case in Florida has already run to over a million pages and, if granted, the disclosure in the election case may run to several million pages, many of them highly classified.

The request could delay Trump's trial by months, as it has in Trump's trial in Florida, where attorneys have to view the disclosed documents in special secure rooms and use ultra-secure laptops.

Under the federal Classified Information Procedures Act, all of the security protocols in Florida will have to be replicated in Washington D.C. if Trump is granted his disclosure request.

Prosecutors in both cases have complained previously that Trump is deliberately delaying his trials until after the 2024 election.

Paul Golden, a partner at the Coffey Modica law firm in New York City, told Newsweek that Trump had "a host of potential strategies available" if elected president, including an application to the Supreme Court that the trials were unduly interfering with his presidential schedule.

Newsweek sought email comment on Thursday from Trump's attorney.

In a disclosure request filed to Judge Tanya Chutkan on Wednesday, Trump lawyers Todd Blanche and John Lauro, said they want "all documents regarding informants, cooperators, undercover agents, representatives, or anyone acting in a similar capacity" who were "at or within 5 miles of the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021."....>

<....Their request also includes "all documents relating to investigations relating to fraud, interference (including but not limited to foreign interference), or irregularities during the 2020 election, "including "the election security and integrity risks arising from the cyberattack and data breach relating to SolarWinds, Microsoft, and VMWare in or about 2020" and details of "Dominion Voting Systems and its voting-system products."

The former president claimed after the election that Dominion voting machines were rigged and the company has already successfully sued Trump supporter, businessman Mike Lindell, for falsely claiming that it was part of a plot to fix the election for President Joe Biden.

The Trump team also wants "all documents relating to President Trump's daily schedule for the period from October 1, 2020, through January 20, 2021, including scheduling materials, itineraries, and summaries of President Trump's activities, including all 'daily diary' documents."

On the election itself, they are seeking "all audits of election results, vote tabulation, vote submission, or related election activities performed by state governments named in the Indictment."

The indictment states that Trump tried to illegally tamper with the election results in Nevada, Michigan, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin—all of which would have to supply huge reams of documents under the Trump disclosure request.

Trump's lawyers are also seeking all documents relating to the "broad Russian and Iranian campaigns" to undermine public confidence in the U.S. election, as well as documents relating to claims that Venezuela, Cuba, and China "owned, directed, or controlled election infrastructure used in the 2020 federal elections."

In Trump's other federal case, in which he is accused of hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, Judge Aileen Cannon has said that she will have to set a new pretrial schedule because of the large number of documents being sought by the Trump defense team.

"I'm just having a hard time seeing how realistically this work can be accomplished in this compressed period of time, given the realities that we're facing," Cannon told lawyers at a hearing on November 1.

Jay Bratt, a Justice Department national security prosecutor, objected, and said Trump's continuing requests for postponements are part of an overarching strategy of delay in many of his legal proceedings. "It's not surprising," Bratt told Cannon.

Former federal prosecutor, Preet Bharara, said on his podcast, Stay Tuned With Preet, in October that Trump is deliberately delaying his trials so that he can pardon himself if elected president. Bharara said he could also appoint a favorable attorney general who would drop the federal charges or that Trump could claim presidential immunity.>

<New York Attorney General Letitia James has been handed a "smoking gun" in the civil fraud case against Donald Trump, according to an attorney.

Jeffrey McConney, the Trump Organization's former corporate controller, testified on Tuesday that it was his understanding that Trump reviewed financial statements before they were finalized, contradicting previous testimony.

"This was probably the worst day for Donald in the New York City fraud case," attorney Joe Gallina said during an interview with Mary Trump, the former president's estranged niece. "This was very simply the smoking gun Attorney General Letitia James was looking for."

James filed a lawsuit against the former president alleging that Trump and executives at his company, including his adult sons, fraudulently inflated his net worth on his financial statements to secure favorable loans and insurance.

Judge Arthur Engoron, who is presiding over the case, ruled in September that Trump and other defendants engaged in fraud. The trial is to decide remaining claims of conspiracy, insurance fraud and falsifying business records, as well as how much damages the organization should pay. Trump has consistently denied any wrongdoing.

Lawyers for James' office on Tuesday presented McConney with a draft of Trump's net worth statement for 2014 that had a note in blue ink on the first page that said: "DJT TO GET FINAL REVIEW" and exaggerated his net worth by $3.5 billion, according to James.

Trump previously said he had little involvement in preparing the annual net-worth statements. In a pretrial deposition, he denied knowing who had written "DJT to get final review" on the 2014 draft.

"I can't think of a bigger smoking gun than having a fraudulent document, allegedly, that is what the state is saying, this document is the one that exaggerated Donald's worth by over $3.5 billion," Gallina said. "Letitia James must have looked at this and danced because there's not much better evidence you could get."

Newsweek reached out to representatives for Trump by email for comment.

The draft documents with handwritten notes were handed over to the attorney general's office by the accountancy firm Trump said signed off on his financial documents, Mazars, not by the Trump Organization. Gallina said this could further harm Trump if Engoron rules the former president purposely failed to include the documents as required by state subpoenas.

"That opens a whole can of worms about why the document wasn't included and whether that was done on purpose, whether it was destroyed, or whether it was a part of their normal business operations to get rid of documents," Gallina said.

He added that James could file for a spoilage motion, meaning the state believes the Trump Organization tainted evidence by not handing over or failing to retain information.

"The more they shine a light on Donald Trump's enterprise, the more fraud comes out," Gallina said.

"I think it's going to be really hard for Donald to wiggle out of this case. I think the damages will be severe, and I think that this day and the fact that documents still have not been fairly produced, I think just really strengthens James' case.">

<Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Hill Harper revealed Wednesday that he was offered $20 million to end his campaign and mount a primary challenge against Rep. Rashida Tlaib instead.

Harper, an actor who plays Dr. Marcus Andrews on the ABC drama “The Good Doctor,” said in an X post that he rejected the proposal.

“I didn’t intend for a private phone call to turn public. But now that it has, here’s the truth,” Harper wrote.

“One of AIPAC’s biggest donors offered $20m if I dropped out of the U.S. Senate race to run against [Tlaib]. I said no. I won’t be bossed, bullied, or bought.”

The offer was reportedly made by Michigan businessman Linden Nelson in October, according to Politico, and the money would have come in the form of $10 million in bundled contributions to Harper’s campaign and $10 million in independent expenditures on his behalf.

It’s unclear how large of a donor Nelson is to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Harper, who has starred on “CSI: NY” and “The Good Doctor,” is vying for Michigan’s open US Senate seat.Getty Images for NOBCO AIPAC told the outlet that it “was absolutely not involved in any way in this matter” and that Nelson “has not contributed to AIPAC in over a decade.”

Nelson has donated more than $537,000 to Democratic and Republican candidates, including to President Biden, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), since 1988, Federal Election Commission records show.

Tlaib, who is Palestinian American, was censured by House lawmakers earlier this month for defending Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack against Israel as “resistance” and for her use of the slogan, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” a call for the eradication of the Jewish state.

The Michigan Democrat, a member of the far-left “Squad” congressional lawmakers, is up for re-election in 2024.

“I’m not going to run against the only Palestinian American in Congress just because some special interests don’t like her,” Harper said, adding that the phone call is emblematic of a “broken political and campaign finance system that’s tilted towards the wealthy and powerful.”

Harper is vying for Michigan’s open Senate seat next year, which is also being contested by Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.).>

<Donald Trump posted a Thanksgiving greeting that immediately devolved into a tirade against court and law enforcement officials he claims are targeting him for political reasons.

The former president offered a holiday message reminiscent of his infamous Nov. 27, 2013, tweet wishing a "Happy Thanksgiving to all -- even the haters and losers!" but this year's greeting ran on at length in an attack on New York attorney general Letitia James, New York Supreme Court justice Arthur Engoron and his clerk, and President Joe Biden.

"Happy Thanksgiving to ALL, including the Racist & Incompetent Attorney General of New York State, Letitia 'Peekaboo' James, who has let Murder & Violent Crime FLOURISH, & Businesses FLEE; the Radical Left Trump Hating Judge, a 'Psycho,' Arthur Engoron, who Criminally Defrauded the State of New York, & ME, by purposely Valuing my Assets at a 'tiny' Fraction of what they are really worth in order to convict me of Fraud before even a Trial, or seeing any PROOF, & used his Politically Biased & Corrupt Campaign Finance Violator, Chief Clerk Alison Greenfield, to sit by his side on the 'Bench' & tell him what to do; & Crooked Joe Biden, who has WEAPONIZED his Department of Injustice against his Political Opponent, & allowed our Country to go to HELL; & all of the other Radical Left Lunatics, Communists, Fascists, Marxists, Democrats, & RINOS, who are seriously looking to DESTROY OUR COUNTRY," the ex-president posted. "Have no fear, however, we will WIN the Presidential Election of 2024, & MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!"

The message puzzled many social media users, who pointed to the post as yet another example of why Trump is unfit to serve again as president.

"If this is your idea of a good Thanksgiving message and you want this authoritarian weirdo to return to power, you might want to log off, go for a walk, and think carefully about your worldview," said author and global politics professor Brian Klaas.

"It seems like, maybe, just maybe, the media as a whole can stop the 'Biden is losing his mind' narrative and, well, maybe look elsewhere," tweeted author and sportswriter Jeff Pearlman.

"Trump discovering semicolons is like velociraptors learning how to open doors," said author and professor Jeff Sharlet.

"Would it be inappropriate to read Trump's Thanksgiving wishes at the dinner table today?" said X user Annie van Leur. "(I'm a guest this year)."

"This man has serious issues," tweeted biology professor Nikole Weisendanger. "He cannot drop the hate even on a day you’re supposed to reflect and be thankful for your life, family, and friends."

"On Thanksgiving, Trump attacks the judge’s clerk in his civil fraud trial by name — a day after the court released some of the deluge of antisemitic threats she’s gotten," said Adam Klasfeld, senior legal correspondent for The Messenger. "In a sworn affidavit, a court officer said these threats spike when he attacks her."

"He becomes more emboldened by the day," replied X user Jeff Droz. "When he was 'impeached' and realized that was nothing more than a word, he realized he is untouchable. And he’s right.>

“Our main messaging point is we aren’t going to ban books and it resonates. It doesn’t matter if you are a Republican or a Democrat,” said McMillan, who sees a broader impact to these successes. “We are building a movement and that is what we need. As soon as the election ended for 2023, I was already working on 2025. … This isn’t going to go away.”....>

<....School board members like McMillan and Irving said these kinds of wins were always achievable for Democratic-backed candidates, but the party was plainly more interested in races atop the ticket, not downballot races.

“Democrats just haven’t been focused on them for a long time. But when it comes down to it, that is what affects your day-to-day lives,” said McMillan. “It’s great to have a presidency, but when your school board is banning books and targeting students and alienating kids… we should have been paying attention a long time ago.”

‘Just getting started’

Despite the losses, Moms for Liberty is not prepared to cede this fight. Founders Tina Descovich and Tiffany Justice told The Messenger in a statement that the group is “just getting started when it comes to helping equip pro-parental rights candidates to run for school board.”

“Parental rights is and will continue to be a top issue in every election in America until every parent has their rights protected in their child’s public school,” they said. “Our chapter chairs work tirelessly to identify candidates that are truly focused on parental rights and bring them to the forefront of our mission to improve public education.”

Election night 2023 was not great for the conservative group, however. Descovich and Justice said 43% of their candidates won this year, (other groups have claimed their success rate was lower) significantly less than the 72% win rate by Run for Something.

While Descovich and Justice said they don’t plan to give up – “We plan to put even more wins on the board in 2024,” they said – the school board members who win question whether the strategy will find as fertile ground as it did in years past.

“Of course parents have rights. They've always had rights. If anything we want them to be more involved than they already are,” said Irving, a high school teacher. “But I think it was always parents' rights for whom.”

“Maybe this group has views of things that they thought the world should be a specific way, but what about the parents who do want their kids to be taught accurate history,” Irving asked. “What about the parents who do want their kids to be exposed to books that other parents may find uncomfortable? It's always, whose rights are we looking at? And I do think it's repudiation” of that.>

<Granting Donald Trump's request to delay his classified-documents case in Florida could present the opportunity for the former president's other criminal cases to head to trial ahead of the presidential election, according to Glenn Kirschner, legal analyst and former federal prosecutor.

Trump is facing a plethora of legal troubles while campaigning for a second shot at the White House, and several of the cases against him are scheduled to begin trial before the November 2024 election, starting with the former president's federal election subversion case, which is set to begin March 4.

The ex-president, who maintains innocence in all 91 felony charges spread over four criminal indictments against him, has pleaded to push his trial dates until after next fall. The requests have been dismissed in several cases, although Trump may get his wish in Florida, where presiding federal Judge Aileen Cannon—a Trump appointee who has faced accusations of being biased toward the former president—has agreed to revisit the trial schedule set for the investigation into Trump's handling of classified documents after leaving the White House.

That indictment, brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith, is slated for court in May.

While speaking with progressive political commentator Brian Tyler Cohen on Thursday, Kirschner, a staunch Trump critic, said it is likely that the former president's trial date set in Florida will be delayed by Cannon, but added that doing so could "screw" over Trump, given that it may allow prosecutors in Georgia—where Trump is facing a sprawling racketeering case in which he's accused of attempting to overturn the state's 2020 election results—to get their desired trial date.

"Judge Cannon may have been trying to help Donald Trump out a little bit, [but] she may have put him right in the soup," Kirschner said during an episode of Cohen's podcast.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, leading the investigation into Trump's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) charges in Georgia, requested last week that her case head to trial on August 5. Willis' office in August charged Trump and 18 co-defendants, accusing them in a scheme to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia.

Cohen followed up on Kirschner's comments, asking if Cannon "may have actually screwed" Trump by "opening up his schedule" in the event that the Florida case is delayed.

"Yeah, she may have delayed Donald Trump right into an August RICO trial date," Kirschner responded. "And here's what people should know. You know, folks might say ... 'If he's scheduled to go to trial in Florida in his documents, obstruction, espionage case beginning on May 20, couldn't they finish that trial, and then go right into the early August trial in Georgia?' The answer is almost certainly no."

"Why do I say that?" the former prosecutor continued. "Because if a defendant is in trial for two or three months, even if technically that defendant is no longer in that trial beginning on August 5, there's not a judge in the land who will say, 'OK, Trump, you were just in trial for three months ... Now we're going to make you and your defense team go right into a trial in another jurisdiction without a breather.'"

Experts have warned that delaying Trump's case in Florida could have other political and legal repercussions. Some critics have feared that if criminal trials are not completed before the 2024 election, the former president could pardon himself once in the White House if he wins reelection. Trump could also order the Justice Department to shut down the investigation against him.

Following Trump's March 4 trial date connected to federal allegations that he attempted to overturn the 2020 election, the former president is scheduled to head to Manhattan court March 25 over charges connected to hush-money payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign. A defamation suit brought against Trump by former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll is also scheduled for court on January 15—the same day as the Iowa caucuses.

Newsweek reached out to Trump's campaign for comment Thursday night.>

In a price-fixing case from Indiana, plenty, it would appear:

<The family farming company of a Republican candidate for the US Senate was found liable on Tuesday in a plot to fix the price of eggs.

Rose Acre Farms, which claims to be the second-largest egg producer in the country and until September was chaired by John Rust – now running as a Senate candidate for Indiana – was accused in a civil suit of cutting supply to raise prices.

Food giants including Kraft, Kellog [sic], General Mills and Nestle filed the suit in Illinois federal court, arguing that between 1999 and 2008 Rose Acre and other producers – Cal-Maine Foods, United Egg Producers and United States Egg Marketers – “unlawfully agreed to and did engage in a conspiracy to control supply and artificially maintain and increase the price of eggs”.

Jurors agreed, finding that the egg suppliers had exported eggs to cut supply in the US market, as well as limiting the number of hens, reducing flocks and killing chickens earlier than they usually did.

The food giants argued that, as companies which buy eggs, these moves hurt them by artificially driving up their costs.

The court will consider damages starting on 29 November.

Rust chaired the board of Rose Acre until September of this year, when his brother took over. His candidacy for Senate has met setbacks: his opponent, Congressman Jim Banks, was endorsed by the Indiana Republican party and, perhaps more important for GOP candidates, by ex-president Donald Trump.

Rust is also suing Indiana over a statute that could bar him from appearing on the ballot, as it stipulates that candidates must vote in two primaries for the party with which they’re affiliated, or else have their candidacy approved by a county party chair. Rust did cast his ballot as a Republican during the 2016 primary, but voted in Democratic primaries from 2006 and 2012, according to the Indianapolis Star.

Banks seized on the jury’s decision against his opponent. “Today’s verdict proves John Rust isn’t just a conman pretending to be a Republican, he is a crook who exploits working-class Hoosiers across Indiana for his own financial gain,” the Associated Press quoted Banks as saying. “While Indiana families struggle to put food on the table, he’s making it even harder to do that.”>

There will be less <boredom> in one household--time to go snatch some eggs rather than paying for them.

<In a few short years, the Conservative Partnership Institute has become known in Washington as the “nerve center” of the MAGA movement—an outsized power player in Congress and a hotbed of election denialism.

What hasn't been known, however, is who exactly has underwritten the group's rise and rapid expansion, as the conservative nonprofit buys up prime real estate on Capitol Hill and turns pricey row houses into the concealed tentacles of its grip on the House Freedom Caucus—until now.

It turns out there’s one relatively unknown conservative megadonor behind much of the group’s expansion. And that donor is not on the familiar shortlist of major Republican backers. In fact, he’s not even among the top 100 political donors in the country.

His name is Mike Rydin, a retired Houston software developer. And thanks to the tens of millions of dollars he’s provided at a critical time, Rydin’s name is now all over the group.

The Daily Beast pieced together details in financial statements and other public records to identify Rydin as the largest donor by far to CPI, which Rydin confirmed in a phone call on Tuesday. In the aftermath of Jan. 6, this previously low-profile nonprofit—which has a staffing roster that reads like a Jan. 6 witness list—has found itself flush with cash and aggressively buying up ornate Capitol Hill properties. Much of that is thanks to their unsuspecting donor.

But Rydin, who gave CPI more than $25 million in the aftermath of Jan. 6, insists he doesn’t know “anything about” the Capitol attack. He also claims ignorance about CPI’s well-documented ties to central figures in Donald Trump’s attempt to reverse the 2020 election, and even total ignorance of those attempts themselves.

While those claims are difficult to accept at face value, the value of Rydin’s gift to the group, in both its size and its timing, is nothing short of incredible.

When Trump left office, CPI was a bit player in the larger ecosystem of conservative influence. But after the Jan. 6 attack, the upstart organization established itself as a safe haven for departing Trump administration staff and extremist allies, offering cush positions to figures like Trump’s former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, top adviser and confidant Stephen Miller, and anti-election attorney Cleta Mitchell.

Over the last two years, CPI has undertaken an ambitious expansion. The group staffed up, creating a network of partner organizations and affiliates and stuffing their ranks with seasoned GOP operatives and green hires alike. To accommodate that growth, CPI carved out a substantial physical footprint in the D.C. area, converting swaths of prime Capitol Hill real estate into offices and VIP landing pads while building out a 2,200-acre retreat and lodge on the Maryland shore of the Chesapeake Bay.

Today, CPI functions as the hub of an array of like-minded pro-MAGA groups and spin-offs. And thanks to Meadows, CPI has become the most prominent backer of the far-right Freedom Caucus. The organization has also poured significant resources into training and hiring the next line of MAGA leaders, and it has a heavy hand on the wheel of Project 2025, the authoritarian incubator developing the policy and human resources for a second Trump administration.

But that breakneck growth required wheelbarrows of cash. And that feat was all the more challenging given the strong political, social, and economic headwinds against the Trump movement in the immediate aftermath of Jan. 6. CPI came up with the cash, however, and they found it in the pockets of an otherwise unassuming 74-year-old construction software entrepreneur from Houston.

It’s hard to overstate Rydin’s impact.

His donations stand out in CPI’s 2021 tax return, which showed the group hauling in a staggering $45 million in public support the year Trump left the White House. That’s more than CPI raised in its first four years combined. The previous year—2020, a record-setting year for political fundraising generally—CPI only raised $7.1 million. In 2022, the group raised $36.6 million—an intimidating haul, but well below its 2021 benchmark.

Rydin was individually responsible for more than half of that $45 million, giving a total $25,638,709. The influx was so swift and lopsided that CPI’s internal auditors later flagged Rydin specifically, without naming him, cautioning the group against over-reliance on a single donor.....>

<....In all, Rydin—who also gave $250,000 the year before—accounts for more than one out of every four dollars that CPI has raised since the group launched in 2017. His $25.6 million in 2021 was $8 million more than CPI’s total combined fundraising since it was formed.

For CPI’s part, the group’s chief operating officer, Wesley Denton, told The Daily Beast that CPI is “proud of the support from thousands of partners across the country.”

“Mike Rydin is one of the most courageous philanthropists who cares deeply about saving America for future generations,” Denton said.

CPI, like most nonprofits, declines to reveal its donors, but it is required to disclose its largest donations. The group’s full 2021 tax return, obtained by watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, lists seven donations above the reporting threshold; five gifts were between $1 million and $1.1 million, and one was $1.9 million. Rydin, meanwhile, accounted for 56 percent of the revenue. Until that year, CPI had never posted a net revenue of more than $800,000; but with Rydin’s boost, the group turned in a net gain of more than $28 million.

In return, Rydin’s name now graces one of CPI’s first Capitol Hill townhome acquisitions, as well as the sprawling bayside retreat, “Camp Rydin.”

That windfall was a long time coming. CPI was born in 2017 after a power struggle at the Heritage Foundation forced out its then-president, former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC). Shortly after his ouster, DeMint founded CPI as a spin-off organization, taking key Heritage staffers with him and recruiting more allies from the conservative movement. It was an underdog operation from the start, and DeMint accordingly shifted his focus. Where Heritage was a fixture in the Senate, DeMint set up his new shop on the House side, in a corner building the group took over from a lobbying shop just a couple blocks from House offices (and almost directly across the street from a Heritage satellite office on Pennsylvania Avenue).

Asked about the motivation behind his contributions, Rydin singled out one person. And it wasn’t the group’s flagship new hire, Meadows—it was the founder, DeMint.

“Jim DeMint is the most honest man in America,” Rydin told The Daily Beast on Tuesday. “He has America’s best interests at heart.”

The Daily Beast repeatedly asked Rydin about the Jan. 6 attack and Trump’s efforts to invalidate the election, but he implausibly insisted he didn’t know “anything about it”—despite a near-constant drumbeat of stories on the Capitol attack over the last three years.

“Never read anything about Jan. 6 and don’t know anything about it,” Rydin said. The Daily Beast recapped the general chain of events and CPI’s hiring of figures central to those events, but Rydin—who has a profile page with Turning Point USA, the conservative youth group that bused attendees to the Jan. 6 rally—did not change his response.

“I don’t know anything about it,” he insisted. “Haven’t read anything about it, don’t know anything about it, and don’t want to.”

While that level of ignorance seems functionally impossible, it is true that not many people know anything about Rydin.

Aaron Scherb, senior director of legislative affairs at Common Cause, a watchdog group with decades of experience and a longstanding national operation, told The Daily Beast that Rydin was not on his organization’s radar. Scherb even inquired with Common Cause’s state-level team in Rydin’s home of Texas.

“They said that oddly they had never heard this guy’s name before,” Scherb said.

Brendan Fischer, a campaign finance law specialist and deputy executive director of Documented, noted that Rydin “didn’t even crack OpenSecrets’ list of the top 100 political donors.”

“It is striking that a person with such a low political profile would emerge as the single biggest donor to the nerve center for the MAGA movement,” Fischer told The Daily Beast.

Rydin made his fortune producing software for the construction industry. He is recently retired and recently widowed, with two adult sons. In 1986, Rydin founded a company called HCSS—Heavy Construction Systems Specialists—which initially operated out of his bedroom in Sugarland, Texas, according to a brief online biography. Rydin served as CEO for 35 years, growing annual revenues to $100 million before retiring in 2022 to “focus on his philanthropic activities.”....>

<....While Rydin has donated regularly to Republican causes, that pattern hit a clear inflection point in 2020. That July, Rydin lost his longtime wife, whom he first met in 1984 “through a dating service that Mike started,” according to her obituary. In the decade between 2010 and her death, Rydin made a total 425 donations to federal candidates and political committees, according to Federal Election Commission data, totaling roughly $760,000. In the three years since, he’s clocked 328 donations, for a total of $1.4 million.

Curiously, while Rydin has doused dozens of Trump-allied groups and candidates with cash, he has given barely any money to Trump directly. According to FEC records, Rydin has contributed a total $6,600 to the Trump campaign, all of it in 2019, with no donations to any of Trump’s other PACs or super PACs.

For perspective, when Trump’s “Save America” leadership PAC contributed $1 million to CPI in August, 2021, the donation made national news. Not only did that contribution stand out among the notoriously self-serving politician’s comparatively petty gifts to his allies, it also earned top billing in the Jan. 6 congressional committee’s “Big Rip-Off” breakdown of how Trump’s operation spent the $250 million extracted from donors on the back of the “Big Lie.” But Trump’s headline-grabbing donation was still less than four percent of what Rydin gave CPI that same year.

“Mike Rydin didn’t even give to a Trump super PAC, so it is a bit surprising that he gave $25 million to a group that employs an array of former Trump staffers, backed Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and is dedicated to advancing Trump’s MAGA political movement,” Fischer said.

In 2021, the year of Rydin’s $25.6 million CPI donation, he gave another $161,900 to federal candidates and committees, FEC records show. That includes a December donation of $50,000 to the Freedom Caucus-aligned House Freedom Action super PAC, which is headquartered on CPI property.

In fact, Rydin’s top beneficiaries appear tied to the Freedom Caucus and CPI. In 2022, Rydin gave another $100,000 to House Freedom Action, with a matching donation to its upper-chamber counterpart, Senate Conservatives Action, also housed within CPI. He’s also contributed more than $213,000 to the House Freedom Fund—also operating out of CPI—with the vast majority of it coming after July 2020.

Rydin also gave $100,000 to a super PAC backing election-objecting Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), and $95,000 to TPUSA’s super PAC. And since October 2021, Rydin has donated $75,000 to Right Women PAC, the super PAC run by Mark Meadows’ wife, Debbie Meadows.

While those contributions aren’t small potatoes, they don’t place Rydin anywhere near the megadonor upper crust. And his lifetime political giving doesn’t come close to his CPI gift, which is the group’s largest donation in public record—by $10 million.

Rydin, however, has recently seen himself in print. His gifts to CPI landed his name on a Capitol Hill townhome the group acquired in late 2020—“The Rydin House”—as well as the “Camp Rydin” Maryland getaway, which CPI bought for $7.25 million in 2021. Those purchases, part of CPI’s elaborate expansion plan, have drawn plenty of national coverage.

Still, the taciturn Houstonian is not among the posse of well-known GOP megadonors—billionaires like Sheldon Adelson, Dick Uihlein, Ken Griffin, Larry Ellison, and Jeffrey Yass—whose outsized largesse has fueled the MAGA movement, itself a distinct minority subset of the country. But Rydin’s donation does encapsulate the same asymmetrical influence, in a way that experts say is both familiar and indicative of a new era.

“After the awful Citizens United decision, more than 13 years ago now, the ultra-wealthy and elites have had a golden megaphone that drowns out the voices of everyday Americans,” said Scherb, of Common Cause. “This is example number one-thousand for why we need reforms like the Freedom to Vote Act and the Disclose Act, to help restore balance and inform more Americans about the money that influences our politics.”

Fischer also emphasized that point, noting that “MAGA-aligned groups like CPI are cultivating a new crop of political megadonors to support their anti-democratic agenda.”....>

<.....“In an earlier era, right-wing donors often seemed to be financing an ideological agenda that benefited their corporate bottom line,” he said, citing the tobacco industry’s support of major anti-regulation policy groups like the Heritage Foundation.

“The big money behind MAGA political infrastructure seems to be different, and a bit more amorphous,” Fischer continued. Groups like CPI, he said, appear more concerned with securing political power for “a privileged in-group” than with advancing narrow corporate interests.

But that new phenomenon, he said, is just the most recent expression of an old problem, where “extreme wealth inequality and an unregulated political finance system can allow a small number of ultra-wealthy individuals to reshape our democracy based on their own idiosyncratic beliefs.”

The Daily Beast identified Rydin after reviewing a combination of CPI’s public statements pulled from various sources.

Some of the key identifying details lie in a 2020-2021 internal audit that CPI published in the New York state charity database. The audit raised concerns about the group’s dependence on a single, unnamed donor.

“Substantial portions of the Organization’s revenues are generated from one donor, which totaled $25,638,709 and $250,000 for the years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively,” the report said, noting that those amounts accounted for 3 percent of CPI’s revenue in 2020, and 56 percent of its revenue in 2021.

“Any significant reduction in support from this donor may impact the Organization’s financial position and operations,” the audit concluded.

CPI bought “The Rydin House” townhome in 2020, the year that the unnamed donor—who we now know to be Rydin—gave $250,000. CPI secured the townhome for $1.5 million in November 2020, borrowing $1 million of that amount, D.C. property records show. The nonprofit later named it “The Rydin House,” according to CPI’s 2021 annual report.

Rydin consequently confirmed to The Daily Beast that the $25 million donation was from him....>

<.....CPI has previously revealed that Rydin helped fund that purchase, though they did not reveal the size of his gift. When Rydin learned about the deal, “he was eager to help,” according to CPI’s 2021 annual report, honoring Rydin among its “Heroes of the Year.” Rydin “made a generous gift to help CPI acquire the townhouse,” the report said, and CPI named the property after him in recognition of his “determination to help CPI expand its influence and footprint on Capitol Hill.”

The same blurb notes that the home doubles as “a memorial to Mike’s late wife, Dr. Sophie Rydin, who brought joy to all who knew her and continues to inspire our CPI team.”

CPI dedicated the townhome to Rydin in June 2021, seven months after it closed the sale. Later that year, in December, the group bought the 2,200-acre “Camp Rydin” retreat for $7.25 million.

But CPI’s 2021 tax return listed only one major donor that year—Rydin’s $25.6 million gift. No other donor came close to matching the cost of Camp Rydin. (Trump’s “Save America” leadership PAC passed $1 million to CPI in August 2021, shortly after the House launched its Jan. 6 investigation.)

Camp Rydin has since hosted numerous getaways and training sessions for up-and-coming conservative operatives. CPI’s annual report from 2021 claims the group trained 49 lawmakers that year, along with nearly 250 congressional staffers across more than 130 offices. This February, CPI held a training session for 15 staffers to GOP lawmakers who voted to overturn the 2020 election, Politico reported.

But while CPI’s outreach centers on engaging the next generation of Republican talent, its fundraising appeals often target older donors—and specifically widows and widowers, as reflected in CPI’s 2021 and 2022 “Heroes of the Year.”

While many philanthropic organizations vie for bequeathment windfalls, CPI’s hagiography is notable, especially taken alongside Rydin’s biography and donor history.

“Philanthropies seemingly ‘prey’ on individuals who might not be getting good investment advice, and can essentially fleece them of their savings if they’re not clear on how their money is going to be used,” Scherb observed, though he took care to point out that this may not be the case with Rydin.

Scherb noted that when one organization sees a flood of large donations, those donors can become “a target” for other groups who may try to “extract resources from these sometimes vulnerable individuals.”

Asked about his future philanthropic plans, Rydin told The Daily Beast that he was interested in supporting other conservative causes, but indicated that his major CPI donations were behind him. That in turn suggests that CPI took the advice of its auditors and sought out other major donors after 2021, though that diversification only goes so far. While CPI raised more than $36.3 million in 2022, more than 62 percent of it came from just four donors, according to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

The sheer amount that Rydin has already given is difficult to fully appreciate. Rydin has in all accounted for more than a quarter of CPI’s total combined fundraising, and vastly outweighed Trump’s financial support for his own former top adviser.

For his part, Rydin denied being the source of CPI’s $15.5 million top contribution last year, implying that he had tapped out after 2021.

“That was quite a large donation,” he said.>

maggats unite!

<Attorneys for Donald Trump on Friday responded to a filing from Special Counsel Jack Smith's office that provided a federal appeals court with more information to support their request for the gag order placed on the ex-president to be reinstated.

On Wednesday, in a separate case, New York Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron released 275-pages of transcripts from threats he and his court staff have received, in an effort to support his request for the narrow gag orders he imposed on Trump and his attorneys to be reinstated. Courthouse News Service described the threats as "vulgar, threatening and antisemitic," "profanity-laden," and reported they "ranged from crude and bigoted to downright chilling."

"In the affidavit attached to Engoron’s filing," CNS reported, court officer Captain Charles Hollon "outlined the safety concerns Engoron and his staff face due to Trump’s unwavering and derogatory social media posts. The threats are serious, he claims 'not hypothetical or speculative.' "

"The affidavit claims that his law clerk now experiences 'daily doxing' after Trump attacked her on social media back in October," CNS adds.

Judge Engoron's chief law clerk Allison Greenfield's "personal cell phone number and personal email addresses ... have been compromised," Hollon wrote, noting: “She has been subjected to, on a daily basis, harassing, disparaging comments and antisemitic tropes. I have been informed by Ms. Greenfield that she has been receiving approximately 20-30 calls per day to her personal cell phone and approximately 30-50 messages per day.”

On Thanksgiving Day, the Special Counsel's office (which also worked on Thanksgiving last year,) submitted a 26-page letter to the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., directing the court's attention to Judge Engoron's filing, including the affidavit and 275-pages of transcripts.

"Because the parties referenced this matter in their briefs, and the Court inquired at oral argument about evidence of ongoing threats and harassment, the Government respectfully submits Exhibit E (and the related documents, for completeness) as supplemental authority," the Special Counsel's office wrote.

"While Americans gave thanks," MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin reports, "the Special Counsel’s office put their stuffing to the side & sent the DC Circuit the filing detailing the copious, vile threats against the judge overseeing the NY civil fraud trial and his law clerk."

"And today," Rubin adds, "Team Trump responded, insisting the information is irrelevant, could have been brought to the court’s attention earlier, and in any event, isn’t Trump’s problem because he never *directly* threatened the law clerk."

Trump's attorneys called the affidavit and 275 pages of transcripts "irrelevant" to their federal case.

"To date," they added, "the prosecution has never submitted any evidence of alleged 'threats' or 'harassment' to any prosecutor, court staffer, or potential witness in this case. This falls short of the 'solidity of evidence' required to justify a prior restraint."

Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, the popular MSNBC legal analyst, podcaster, and professor of law, sums up Trump's attorneys' response to the Special Counsel's filing.

"Trump's lawyers have responded to a 28(j) supplemental authority letter the special counsel sent to the court of appeals on Thanksgiving day," she writes. "In short, Trump says his threats aren't threats & if they are, he's justified in making them.">

Pure evil, he is.

Ain't that so, <ursus banalus>?