Stormy Daniels obliquely denies having written statement on Trump affair
The Trump Organization’s long-time accounting firm, Mazars USA, is cutting ties with the company, writing in a court filing that a decade’s worth of Donald Trump’s financial statements could no longer be relied upon.
And that’s just the beginning of an onslaught of investigations encircling the former president. As a US congressional committee prepares to investigate Donald Trump’s handling of administration documents after 15 boxes of records were transferred from his Mar-a-Lago residence.
The former president insists he was “under no obligation” to hand over any materials – despite laws requiring him to do exactly that.
Mr Trump also reportedly used a secret service agent’s phone to call Melania Trump after news of his alleged affair with Stormy Daniels broke in 2018, it was revealed on Sunday.
CNN reported that the agent was not pleased that his phone was used in this manner.
“Unusual gaps” in Mr Trump’s White House phone log have frustrated the 6 January select committee that is investigating the Capitol riot as well.
ICYMI: Trump’s longtime accounting firm cuts ties
The longtime accounting firm for former president Donald Trump and his eponymous real estate company has cut ties with both and has warned the company that nearly a decade’s worth of his financial statements “should no longer be relied upon”.
In a letter to Trump Organization chief legal officer Alan Garten, Mazars attorney William Kelly wrote that information contained in court filings by New York State Attorney General Letitia James, as well as “our own investigation and information received from internal and external sources” has caused the firm to conclude that Mr Trump’s company should stop relying on financial statements dating from 30 June 2011 to 30 June 2020 and inform “any recipients thereof” — a category which could include many of the former president’s creditors — of the unreliability of those documents.
Andrew Feinberg has more:
Stuti Mishra15 February 2022 07:17
Melania Trump charity event under investigation in Florida
Officials in Florida are investigating whether an event featuring Melania Trump to raise money for foster children broke state charity laws.
However, the Florida state government’s public charities database contains no charities with that name, nor any related to the “Fostering the Future” programme that the event will supposedly benefit.
Io Dodds has more details on this:
Stuti Mishra15 February 2022 06:30
Biden says opposing mask mandates isn’t freedom as Trump says he’s ‘proud’ of Canada truckers
President Joe Biden dismissed the idea that refusing to take steps to inhibit the spread of Covid-19 was a matter of “personal freedom” in an interview airing Sunday with the Super Bowl in which he distinguished the right to personal choice from the right to pose a risk to others.
Sitting down with NBC’s Lester Holt for an interview that aired in part during the Super Bowl pregame show, the president was asked about the decisions of some in the stands at the game and around the country to violate local mask mandates which remain in place in many jurisdictions including Washington DC and Los Angeles.
The president responded: “If your exercising personal freedom puts someone else in jeopardy, their health in jeopardy, I don’t consider that being very, dealing with freedom.”
John Bowden has more here:
Stuti Mishra15 February 2022 06:00
Accounting firm: Trump financial statements aren’t reliable
The Trump Organisation’s long-time accounting firm, Mazars USA, is cutting ties with the company, writing in a court filing that a decade’s worth of Donald Trump’s financial statements could no longer be relied upon.
“We have come to this conclusion based, in part, upon the filings made by the New York Attorney General on January 18, 2022, our own investigation, and information received from internal and external sources,” Mazars wrote in a letter to the Trump Organisation chief legal officer, advising them to no longer rely on financial statements ending June 2011 through June 2020.
“While we have not concluded that the various financial statements, as a whole, contain material discrepancies, based upon the totality of the circumstances, we believe our advice to you to no longer rely upon those financial statements is appropriate.”
Read more:
Accounting firm: Trump financial statements aren’t reliable
The accounting firm that prepared former President Donald Trump’s annual financial statements says the documents, used to secure lucrative loans and burnish Trump’s image as a wealthy businessman, “should no longer be relied upon” after investigators said they found evidence he and his company regularly misstated the value of assets
Stuti Mishra15 February 2022 05:28
MyPillow’s Mike Lindell is still trying to fight the 2020 election results
MyPillow’s Mike Lindell appeared on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast this week to explain his ongoing efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
In the interview, he claimed to be working with state GOP lawmakers in Wisconsin, Arizona, and elsewhere that the Trump campaign alleged fraud had occurred in order to pass legislation affirming the respective legislatures’ rejection of the 2020 election results.
It’s not clear exactly what would happen if one or more of these long-shot pieces of legislation were to pass, given that the US Congress has already certified the 2020 election and there in no process for “un-certifying” a US presidential contest. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the highest-ranking Republican in the Senate who will likely remain in control if his party wins the chamber in the fall, is also an opponent of such efforts.
Mike Lindell says he’s working on election decertification and if he can get 3 states to decertify it will go to the Republican-controlled states for 1 vote each. pic.twitter.com/JyViC7a9ia
— PatriotTakes ?? (@patriottakes) February 15, 2022
Stuti Mishra15 February 2022 04:15
Fox News rips competition for ‘ignoring’ Durham allegations
Fox News host Howard Kurtz, the network’s chief media correspondent, took aim at the right-leaning network’s competition on Monday for supposedly ignoring or playing down the news about special counsel John Durham’s allegation that a lawyer who had previously worked for Hillary Clinton’s campaign was involved with a company’s effort to obtain damaging information about Donald Trump and his administration via exploiting a relationship with the White House.
“It’s absolutely stunning that virtually all the major newspapers and the other networks are absolutely determined to ignore this story,” said Mr Kurtz.
The Washington Post and New York Times both appeared to have declined to cover the latest developments of the story; the Post’s Philip Bump did write about the Durham probe and some of Mr Trump’s latest allegations on Monday, but neglected to mention the development involving the lawyer’s efforts to hand over domain name system traffic data mined by people exploiting their business relationship with the Trump administration.
CNN did cover the latest developments of the story, however, both on its website as well as during a segment on The Lead with Jake Tapper that aired shortly after Mr Kurtz’s appearance on Fox News. MSNBC did not mention the story, according to an analysis by Mediaite.
John Bowden15 February 2022 03:45
Biden faces his worst polling result yet
Joe Biden is facing potentially the most brutal finding of an opinion poll up to this point in this presidency; less than half of Democratic voters want him to run again in 2024.
A CNN poll released on Monday found that a whopping 51 per cent of the party’s voters say they’d prefer another candidate take the reins from Mr Biden in 2024, compared to 45 per cent who said the 79-year-old should once again be at the top of the ticket.
Presidents declining to run for reelection are unheard of in modern politics. Lyndon Johnson was the last president to do so, and just five others who have been eligible to run again have declined.
Republicans were equally divided over whether Donald Trump should be their party’s champion in the next cycle.
John Bowden15 February 2022 03:15
Embattled pro-Trump Colorado official announces bid for secretary of state
A county clerk in Mesa County, Colorado announced her plans to run for secretary of state on Monday as she remains under FBI investigation for a leak of passwords used by state elections officials to a QAnon-affiliated Telegram channel.
Tina Peters said in a campaign announcement that “Colorado deserves a secretary of state who will stand up to the Biden administration that wants to run our country into the ground with nationalized elections”.
Her candidacy is just the latest example of Republicans who fought for Donald Trump’s false claims about voter fraud and the 2020 election to try for positions that would place them partially or completely in charge of election systems in their respective states.
Ms Peters was stripped of her duties as a result of the investigation against her and faces a separate lawsuit to bar her from any oversight duties in the 2022 election.
John Bowden15 February 2022 02:45
Trump suggests Hillary Clinton should die
In one of his most vicious attacks aimed at his former 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump suggested on Monday that his Democratic foe would have faced the death penalty for allegedly spying on his campaign and presidency, which he has long alleged.
His latest comment came as the Justice Department’s special counsel accused a lawyer who formerly worked for Ms Clinton’s campaign of passing along data to the CIA and accusing the Trump team of using Russian-made cellphones in or around the White House; that allegation was never substantiated. The data in question was apparently compiled by a company whose executive admitted to exploiting a relationship with the Trump White House to look through White House data for damaging information about the president regarding a supposed relationship with Russia.
“This is a scandal far greater in scope and magnitude than Watergate and those who were involved in and knew about this spying operation should be subject to criminal prosecution. In a stronger period of time in our country, this crime would have been punishable by death,” Mr Trump said in a shocking statement.
He then added: “In addition, reparations should be paid to those in our country who have been damaged by this.”
John Bowden15 February 2022 02:15
#DayWithoutImmigrants protest comes to DC
As Republicans continue to demand the Biden administration do more to lock down the southern border and stop illegal border crossings of migrants, immigrant activists converged on the White House to call for action on a pathway to citizenship for undocumented individuals.
In addition to the rally in DC’s Lafayette Square, smaller rallies took place in cities around the country on Monday as well.
John Bowden15 February 2022 01:45
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