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An ongoing false claim from former President Donald Trump about the Russia investigation may have had the unintended consequence of dismantling a longstanding surveillance program that was a threat to American civil liberties, analyst Hayes Brown wrote for MSNBC on Thursday.

Specifically, Trump's "Spygate" claims that his campaign was illegally snooped on by federal authorities led him to demand the expiration of the wrong statute, and now the passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) reauthorization is up in the air as a small group of House Republicans are joining all Democrats to oppose it.

Even a Fox News reporter called him "confused."

"'KILL FISA, IT WAS ILLEGALLY USED AGAINST ME AND MANY OTHERS. THEY SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN!!!' he wrote on Truth Social, resurrecting one of his long-standing claims about the 2016 election," wrote Brown.

"And the bill being debated didn’t concern all of FISA, just Section 702. But Trump’s post was enough to bolster a revolt among conservative Republicans, 19 of whom voted with Democrats to block the reauthorization bill from coming up for debate.

"For once, though, the GOP’s disarray and obedience to Trump fortuitously may be put to good use. While Trump’s 'Spygate' narrative remains false, it may be harnessed to improve a broken part of America’s intelligence-gathering system."

The problem with Section 702, Brown explained, is a program that allows warrantless surveillance of foreigners living abroad, a once-secret program that was formally authorized in 2008. The law is not intended to apply to Americans, yet American data has been repeatedly caught up in the dragnet.

ALSO READ: No, Donald Trump, fraud is not protected by the First Amendment

Trump's claims that FISA was used to unlawfully spy on his campaign are false, Brown reiterated, and he has flip-flopped on the issue before, previously demanding it expire in 2018 before Republican lawmakers and his cabinet talked him out of it — but this time, things appear to be going differently.

"While Trump’s post rallied conservative opponents to the bill, it’s striking that the rule that was voted down Wednesday managed to get out of committee only because of a proposed bipartisan amendment to the reauthorization bill. The list of co-sponsors is one that you’d never expect to see grouped together, ranging from committed progressives to MAGA die-hards: Reps. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz.; Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash.; Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y.; Warren Davidson, R-Ohio; Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif.; and Jim Jordan, R-Ohio," wrote Brown. "Their proposed change would block 'warrantless searches of U.S. person communications in the FISA 702 database, with exceptions for imminent threats to life or bodily harm, consent searches, or known cybersecurity threat signatures.'"

Ultimately, Brown concluded, "it’s clear that Section 702 isn’t likely to be extended in full without at least some major changes" — and while "Trump’s delusions about the 'deep state' are usually best treated as the ramblings of someone upset that his authoritarian instincts are being trampled ... his ranting might legitimately help safeguard Americans’ rights" in this case.

Businessman Tim Sheehy, who is running for US Senate in Montana, has been hyping his rural connections to voters on the campaign trail. But a new report suggests Sheehy is actually a product of suburbia.

Farm life is a mainstay of Montana. US Census records show that the Big Sky State has the nation's fifth largest concentration of rural residents (behind Vermont, Maine, West Virginia and Mississippi), with 46.6% of its residents living in remote areas. Incumbent Sen. Jon Tester (D-Montana), who is running for a fourth term this November, is a bona fide lifelong rancher who lost several fingers in a farming accident as a child. So Sheehy has been trying to persuade voters of his rural credentials, saying in a 2023 interview that he "grew up in an old farmstead... surrounded by farmland."

But according to the Daily Beast, Sheehy's upbringing in Minnesota was actually in "a multi-million-dollar lake house in Shoreview, Minnesota, a quiet Twin Cities suburb just north of St. Paul with a population of roughly 27,000."

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"According to a 1990 deed, Sheehy’s childhood home on Turtle Lake is 13 miles from the Minnesota State Capitol, 13 miles from the home of the Minnesota Vikings at U.S. Bank Stadium, and just over 20 miles from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and the Mall of America," the Beast's Riley Rogerson wrote. "The property sits just three miles from a Trader Joe’s market—much closer than the nearest Fleet Farm, a fishing, hunting, and farm supply store popular in the state."

The Beast further reported that Sheehy claimed the Shoreview home as his residence as recently as 2016, before his parents ultimately sold it for more than $2 million the following year. Rogerson described the community as "a desirable slice of middle to upper-middle class suburbia with quiet spaces and good schools." Writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, who authored The Great Gatsby, was educated at the nearby St. Paul Academy, the same exclusive private school where Sheehy graduated.

"Niche, a popular online source for school rankings and community reviews, called Shoreview 'one of the best places to live in Minnesota' and even bestowed the community with the distinction of '#1 Best Suburb to Buy a House in Minneapolis-St. Paul Area,'" Rogerson wrote, adding that residents described Shoreview as "the stereotypical suburb."

This isn't the first fib Sheehy has told about his upbringing. Last November, the GOP senate hopeful, who runs an aerial firefighting business, said on a podcast that when launching his company, he and his wife "bought our land, and we lived in a tent, literally, for months, and we built the barn that we lived in for four and a half years. And it was like bootstrap central." However, the Beast reported that his parents actually provided him with a $100,000 loan to get his business venture off the ground.

The Montana US Senate race is one of the most hotly contested elections this November, and could decide which party controls one half of the legislative branch for the next two years. Tester is the only remaining Democrat representing the Big Sky State in any statewide office, and he has amassed an impressive war chest in his bid for another six-year term. OpenSecrets reports that in the 2024 campaign cycle, Tester – who chairs the Senate Veteran Affairs Committee — has raised more than $24 million.

Sheehy also trails tester in polling. RealClearPolitics' polling average has Tester ahead by more than five points in a head-to-head matchup with Sheehy, and he has not trailed in any previous poll conducted thus far. Montana remains a GOP stronghold, however, and former President Donald Trump is heavily favored to carry the state in November, having easily won it with comfortable majorities in both 2016 and 2020.

Click here to read the Beast's full report (subscription required).

During an appearance on MSNBC on Saturday morning, former federal prosecutor Paul Butler bluntly stated that the moment Donald Trump steps into a Manhattan courtroom on Monday, it will commence the "worst day of his life" as he faces 34 felony counts that could lead to four years in jail.

Speaking with fill-in host Charles Coleman Jr., Bultler explained that for the first time in his life, the former president's actions have led to a moment in life where he faces very real consequences that could impact his freedom.

Speaking with the host, he stated, "On Monday, something historical will happen. It will be the first day in Donald Trump's life that he is beginning to be brought to judgment in a criminal case for his own alleged corruption."

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"As you noted, his lawyers have filed nine different motions to delay the trial with Judge Juan Merchan. They're trying to get around the law that they can't appeal until after the trial, that is what the Article 78 motion was about," he explained. " And the reason for that, Charles, is that Trump's defense is delay. But when he is actually brought to judgment, when his cases are heard on the merits, he loses all the time."

RELATED: Trump's trial will 'turn off' Christian voters regardless of verdict: ex-GOP lawmaker

"[New York write] E. Jean Carroll beat himE. Jean Carroll beat him, [New York Attorney General] Letitia James beat him in the civil fraud trial. [Manhattan DA] Alvin Bragg beat him in the criminal conviction of the Trump organization. The New York attorney general took down his fake university and his fake charity," he listed off for the host. "So, Monday, April 15th, 2024, will be the worst day of Trump's public life because it is the first time he is personally being brought to judgment in a criminal court."

Watch below or at the link.

MSNBC 04 13 2024 10 03 54 youtu.be

In the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, a slew of far-right websites popped up and cashed in on content propping up then-candidate Donald Trump. And those sites continued to rake in millions of dollars during Trump's time in the White House. But since 2020, the right-wing media cash spigot has effectively slowed to a trickle.

A new report in the Atlantic found that since the 2020 election cycle, the most prominent pro-Trump websites have seen their once robust traffic dry up. Writer Paul Farhi analyzed data from media analysis website The Righting, which focuses on conservative publishers, and reported that of the 10 most popular right-wing websites, traffic was down by an average of roughly 40%.

"The flow of traffic to Donald Trump’s most loyal digital-media boosters isn’t just slowing, as in the rest of the industry; it’s utterly collapsing," Farhi wrote. "Some of the bigger names in the field have been pummeled the hardest: The Daily Caller lost 57 percent of its audience; Drudge Report, the granddaddy of conservative aggregation, was down 81 percent; and The Federalist, founded just over a decade ago, lost a staggering 91 percent."

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"FoxNews.com, by far the most popular conservative-news site, has fared better, losing 'only' 22 percent of traffic, which translates to 23 million fewer monthly site visitors compared with four years ago," he added.

According to Farhi's research, the primary reason for the precipitous drop in clicks for far-right websites is ultimately due to Facebook. Conservative publishers were for years dependent on Facebook engagement as a primary source of traffic. The social media platform's algorithm (the complex code that determines what content shows up in a user's feed) had predominantly favored outrage, as content that provokes a negative reaction is more likely to get a user to click, like, comment or share a post.

In 2020, Vox reported that the Facebook algorithm was overwhelmingly favorable to conservatives, with far-right pundits like Ben Shapiro and Dan Bongino bringing in tens of millions of clicks per month from Facebook engagement. Progressive media analysis group Media Matter for America found that anti-transgender content in particular generated a disproportionate amount of clicks for conservative websites. New York Times columnist Kevin Roose found that "conservative pages were beating out liberals’ [pages] in making it into the day’s top 10 Facebook posts with links in the United States, based on engagement, like the number of reactions, comments, and shares the posts receive."

Amid a wave of criticism from Congress and international bodies over Facebook being exploited by bad actors to influence elections, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced changes to the algorithm in 2018 aimed at promoting content from friends and family over news publishers. He further tweaked it in 2021 to further deprioritize content from publishers, which has, over time, resulted in far fewer clicks for the conservative publishers that used to dominate the platform.

"All of this monkeying with the internet’s plumbing drastically reduced the referral traffic flowing to news and commentary sites," Farhi wrote. "The changes have affected everyone involved in digital media, including some liberal-leaning sites—such as Slate (which saw a 42 percent traffic drop), the Daily Beast (41 percent), and Vox (62 percent, after losing its two most prominent writers)—but the impact appears to have been the worst, on average, for conservative media."

According to Farhi, conservatives are now retreating from websites depending on clicks to other forms of media entirely, like podcasts, Substack newsletters, YouTube channels and videos on the far-right broadcasting platform Rumble.

"There’s a lot of choice," said The Righting owner Howard Polskin. "Even if [the big] sites went out of business tomorrow, there are a lot of voices still out there."

Click here to read Farhi's Atlantic article in full.

The value of former President Donald Trump's eponymous media company hit a new low Friday, causing the market on Trump Media jokes to skyrocket.

A tumultuous opening on the stock exchange saw Trump Media reach a high of $79.38 on March 26 then plunge nearly 50 percent to $40.59 as of Friday, according to stock market prices and reports.

"The selloff has erased nearly $2 billion from the value of former President Donald Trump’s stake in the company this week," according to CNN.

ALSO READ: 'Um': Legal expert says Trump may have just violated SEC rules

The news spread quickly across social media where followers of Trump's presidential campaign and courtroom battles shared their condolences for the former president's myriad money concerns, which include mounting legal fees and dwindling campaign coffers.

"Another great day for Trump Media investors," quipped Ron Filipkowski. "It was $74.74 last week. Winning!"

"By the time Trump is able to sell his stock," Jay Black said, "he’s gonna owe money on this turkey."

ALSO READ: ‘Don't have enough’: Wealthy Trump allies balk at helping Donald pay legal bills

@SundaeDivine shared a chart of Trump Media's falling stock prices and added her own caption: "All the way to the right you'll see a rarely glimpsed dead-cat bounce in the stock price."

X user @MonitorFake referenced Trump's own violent rhetoric condemning U.S. immigrants to describe Friday's financial events.

"This gives new meaning to 'making a killing,'" they wrote. "Donald Trump's stock is a bloodbath."

And @jasonllevin reminded his followers of previous Trump ventures that include Trump Airlines, Trump Vodka, Trump Casinos, and Trump Steaks.

"The stock is another great example of Donald Trump's Businesses," he wrote. "He runs everything into the Ground!"

"You would almost make more literally flushing your money down the toilet," Art Vanderly joked.

Another creative X user transposed Trump's historic escalator ride onto the Trump Media's downward trending market chart.

"Winning at life," @AtheistPoet quipped Friday.

In a letter sent to House Oversight Chair James Comer and House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, the CIA refuted their claim that the agency intervened into their investigation of Hunter Biden by blocking IRS and DOJ investigators from interviewing a witness related to the probe.

“Without confirming or denying the existence of any associations or communications, CIA did not prevent or seek to prevent IRS or DOJ from conducting any such interview. The allegation is false,” CIA Director of Congressional Affairs James A. Catella wrote in the letter first reported on by CNN.

But House Republicans pushed back on the CIA's denial, claiming their allegations are true.

As CNN's report points out, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Jamie Raskin, said Republicans have not presented any evidence for their allegation against the CIA.

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“This is a serious charge, but you have completely ignored my staff’s requests to be allowed to review the information that you say prompted your letter and upon which your letter is putatively and entirely based,” Raskin wrote to Comer on Friday.

Democrats must “assess whether you are ... making our Committee a party to efforts by malign foreign interests to influence American elections,” Raskin wrote, referencing Alexander Smirnov, who is an indicted FBI source.

The witness in question is Kevin Morris, who is Hunter Biden’s lawyer.

Smirnov was charged in February for lying under oath about President Joe Biden and Hunter Biden’s alleged dealings with a Ukrainian energy company. Republicans platformed Smirnov's allegations multiple times where he claimed he had “extensive foreign ties” with Russian intelligence agencies.

In his letter, Raskin went on to say that it “looks like yet another episode in the Committee’s gullible campaign to amplify the vacuous claims of shadowy Trump World figures and foreign disinformation and propaganda operators.”