Raw Story

A filing from prosecutors stating that they plan to quote extensively from books written by — or ghost-written for — Donald Trump in his upcoming hush money trial has his lawyers on the defensive.

According to a report from ABC News, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office has found a wealth of material in the multitude of quotes from the ex-president in the books, including, "For many years I've said that if someone screws you, screw them back."

They intend to present them before the jury tasked with considering the 34 felonies contained in the indictment related to the 2016 cover-up of his alleged affair with adult film star Stormy Daniels.

The report notes that investigators have compiled quotes not only from Trump's bestseller "Art of the Deal," but also "Think Like a Billionaire," "How to Get Rich," "Think Big and Kick A--" and "Great Again."

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According to ABC, the new filing includes, "Four dozen quotes from books published between 1987 and 2015," and that Trump's lawyers protesting the former president's words could "prejudice" the jury.

In response, Trump lawyer Todd Blanche stated, "Whatever President Trump's style of business operations was in 1987, 2004 and 2007 ... is by no means probative for how he would have operated those businesses when he was President of the United States of America."

The ABC report adds, "According to the defense, some of Trump's quotes that prosecutors intend to highlight involve his approach to business — including his frugality and 'hands-on' approach — while others focus on Trump's interactions with women, which is expected to be a central issue in the trial."

It continues, "Defense attorneys argue some of those statements could potentially offend jurors, such as when Trump wrote, 'I always think of myself as the best-looking guy and it is no secret that I love beautiful women.'"

Trump's lawyers are arguing the quotes are, "Largely irrelevant, stale, and cumulative," further explaining, "Many of the statements that the People seek to admit have no apparent relevance to the issues in this case and will only lead to juror confusion."

You can read more here.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) attacked the city of New York for supposedly being crime-ridden on Tuesday, only to receive a brutal fact check from a reporter in his home state.

In a post on his Twitter account, Tuberville mocked President Joe Biden for traveling to New York this week to appear on Seth Meyers' show on NBC.

"Hope Joe Biden enjoyed going out for ice cream in NYC while the rest of the city is afraid of crime and migrants," wrote the Alabama senior senator.

However, AL.com's Kyle Whitmire was quick to inform Tuberville that their home state was far more dangerous in terms of the likelihood of being murdered than New York City.

"NYC’s homicide rate is 4.8 per 100k," he wrote. "Alabama’s homicide rate is 15.9 per 100k — more than three times that of NYC."

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In fact, according to federal government statistics, the states with the three highest homicide death rates are Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, which are all dominated by Republicans.

Many New Yorkers were quick to pile on Tuberville's attempt to trash their city and mocked him for apparently not knowing the massive crime problem in his home state.

"I personally got murdered three times in NYC over the last six months," joked user Maura Dougherty.

"Things I spend my days afraid of in New York: random right-wing football coaches from Alabama getting massive political power and using it to take reproductive freedoms away," wrote New Yorker Laura Bassett. "Things I do not spend my days afraid of: crime and migrants."

Another user, meanwhile, said Tuberville should be focused on the 91 felonies allegedly committed by the man who will once again likely be his party's standard bearer.

"A major criminal, Trump, is about to go to jail and New Yorkers are excited!" they wrote.

NBC host Kristen Welker and Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) disagreed over a speech Donald Trump gave to a group of Black conservatives.

In a speech Friday to the Black Conservative Federation's annual gala, Trump argued that African-Americans like him because of his legal problems.

Welker confronted Donalds about the speech on Sunday after Biden campaign co-chair Cedric Richmond, a former congressman, called it "plain racist."

"How do you respond to that charge that it's just plain racist?" Welker asked.

"What I would say is that Cedric is trying to play politics and use racial politics even now as we get into the general election," Donalds replied. "Number two, like I said at the top, the number one reason why minority voters in our country want to support Donald Trump is because he did the job of president. He did a great job as president."

"What Americans don't want to see, especially Black Americans and anybody else, they don't want to see a politicized Justice Department," he continued. "They don't want to see a two-tier system of justice. They want justice to be followed. They want lady justice to be blind."

Welker corrected the lawmaker.

"Again, there's no evidence that the indictments against him are politicized," she pointed out. "But sticking to this question, were you offended at all by his comments, Congressman?"

"No, I wasn't, because I understood what the president was talking about," Donalds insisted. "And Kristen, let me push back a little bit."

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"You have to acknowledge the fact that now that the Robert Hur report has come out about Joe Biden's misuse of classified information, which is a violation of the Espionage Act, he had no rights to any of those documents when he was a senator or vice president, yet there are no charges against President Biden, but President Trump is under prosecution?" he said. "Come on now. We know that doesn't make any sense at all."

"I have to hit the pause button for one minute, Congressman, because the Hur report was very clear that there was not enough evidence to bring charges against President Biden, and that ultimately there was not enough," Welker observed.

Donalds battled the NBC host.

"Kristen, I've got to push back on you," he remarked.

"Congressman, that is exactly what the Herr report said," Welker said.

"The Espionage Act is clear," Donalds interrupted.

"There wasn't enough evidence to bring charges," Welker noted.

"You cannot possess those documents as a senator or a vice president," Donalds asserted.

"Bottom line, though, Herr himself said there wasn't enough evidence to bring charges," Welker concluded.

Watch the video below from NBC or at the link.

Legal and political experts are responding to Special Counsel David Weiss' allegations that a former top FBI informant, now under federal indictment, had, as one reporter explained, "high-level contact with Russian intelligence operatives," and fed Republicans falsehoods from the Kremlin which they used to attack the Biden family and to try to build a case to impeach President Joe Biden.

"How many intel and legal findings and counter-espionage cases before people are willing to accept that the entire MAGA movement is a Russian intel op?" asks David Rothkopf, the noted foreign policy, national security, and political affairs analyst and author.

The bombshell allegations from the Special Counsel, a U.S. Attorney nominated by then-President Donald Trump, were published in his legal memo asking a judge to detain Alexander Smirnov, the defendant and former FBI confidential human source.

"Russia has fully infiltrated the Republican party. Nice going traitors," alleged Richard Signorelli, a former Asst. U.S. Attorney at the Southern District of New York office. He added: "Trump & @SpeakerJohnson et al are Putin's 'useful idiots.'"

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U.S. Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), an attorney who served as the lead counsel for the first Trump impeachment, wrote: "The Comer/Jordan impeachment sham appears to have been a Russian intelligence operation from the start. The only remaining question is whether Rs were witting or unwitting agents of Putin in their desperate quest to get Trump reelected. Will the GOP continue to work for Putin?"

The Comer/Jordan impeachment sham appears to have been a Russian intelligence operation from the start.
The only remaining question is whether Rs were witting or unwitting agents of Putin in their desperate quest to get Trump reelected. Will the GOP continue to work for Putin? pic.twitter.com/erzG7b54sU — Daniel Goldman (@danielsgoldman) February 21, 2024

Former U.S. Attorney and Deputy Assistant Attorney General Harry Litman, a frequent MSNBC commentator, points to a passage from the DOJ's memo: "More from DOJ motion re Smirnov: 'the misinformation he is spreading is not confined to 2020 ...He is actively peddling new lies that could impact U.S. elections after meeting with Russian intelligence officials in Nov.'"

"This guy made be the sole reason for R's Burisma obsessions," Litman says.

Litman continues: "DOJ to court: 'Smirnov transformed his routine & unextraordinary business contacts with Burisma in 2017 and later into bribery allegations against [Joe Biden] and [Hunter Biden], after expressing bias against Joe Biden.' Was the entire R Burisma obsession based on phony intel?"

He adds: "And the big plot point to the Smirnov revelations from [Special Counsel David Weiss] is that the misinformation that Republicans have gone running -- in fact galloping with --originates with, you guessed it, Russian intelligence. i.e part of overall Putin misinformation campaign that so distorted 2016."

Attorney Blake Rutherford, in a social media post "retweeted" by attorney George Conway, wrote: "At what point will the broader American press, and I mean producers, editors, and publishers, wake up to very real fact that Russian propaganda is being normalized in today's @GOP. They are all useful idiots. Putin knows it."

Republican turned independent Tim Miller, a political strategist and author at The Bulwark, takes a look at recent events:

"To sum up: RUS/Putin have invaded their neighbor, assassinated the biggest domestic political threat, coopted one of the right's biggest media stars, and seeded a fabricated story about the US President that was echoed by GOP congressional leadership & rightwing media en masse."

But even before the Special Counsel's allegations against the indicted former FBI informant, some were growning increasingly aware of Russia's alleged penetration into the GOP.

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Former Trump White House Director of Strategic Communications Alyssa Farah Griffin, now a co-host on "The View," last week wrote: "It’s becoming increasingly clear that Russia is winning the information war within the US. GOP politicians - who know better - are amplifying Kremlin garbage. We are in deep, deep trouble."

Watch the video above or at this link.

US firm OpenAI debuted a tool last week that can generate highly realistic snippets of video from just a few lines of text, leading content creators to wonder if they are the latest professionals about to be replaced by algorithms.

Reactions to the tool, called Sora, have ranged from head-over-heels enthusiasm to alarm over the future direction of the industry.

YouTuber Marques Brownlee called it "frightening" and "threatening" to see an AI doing his job.

On the other hand, Caleb Ward, one half of AI filmmaking duo Curious Refuge, told his YouTube followers he could not wait to get his hands on the tool.

Yet both Ward and Brownlee agreed that it was a massive moment for their industry.

"I can't stress enough how big a deal this is for the filmmaking and creative world," said Ward, who recently went viral with a trailer he created for a Wes Anderson-style Star Wars movie.

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, said in its announcement that Sora was not yet available to the public.

The announcement did not specify use cases but said "a number of visual artists, designers and filmmakers" had been chosen to help test it.

'Like an amoeba'

The firm accompanied its statement with sample videos including a stylish woman walking along a Tokyo street, a cat waking up its owner in bed, and a group of charging woolly mammoths.

The internet immediately lit up with awe and praise, as is common with OpenAI products.

"I was shocked by their quality," Anis Ayari, an AI engineer and streamer known as Defend Intelligence, told AFP.

He suggested the tool could one day be used to create entirely virtual presenters.

But there were also plenty of dissenters who felt the videos were still firmly stuck in the "uncanny valley", where glitches in otherwise photo-realistic images can leave viewers feeling queasy.

Commentator Ed Zitron wrote that in OpenAI's cat video "the owner's arm appears to be part of the cushion and the cat's paw explodes out of its arm like an amoeba".

He wrote in his newsletter that AI video tools were too expensive and resource-hungry to ever be genuinely useful.

And styles of clips could not be harmonised, making the tools useless for creating anything other than tiny snippets.

AI fatigue

Sora enters a marketplace that is heating up, with Google, Stability AI and several other smaller players already in the game.

YouTube itself announced last September it was developing a tool to let creators make AI-generated videos and background pictures.

However, the tools already available have hardly taken the world by storm.

French streamer FibreTigre said he had tried AI video tools but ended his experiment.

He said he was worried about the ethics of using tools trained on other artists' work, and ultimately the programs did not do their job well enough.

"They're just ugly," he said of AI videos.

He said he could see a future where viewers would have a "huge amount of fatigue" with AI and would cherish anything that was not artificial.

© 2024 AFP

Lawyers for Donald Trump late Thursday night launched a multi-pronged effort to toss out of court Special Counsel Jack Smith's prosecution of the ex-president in the classified documents case, which includes charges under the Espionage Act. Many legal experts were stunned, not only by the move, but by the shallowness of the arguments.

The motions will be decided by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, appointed by then-President Donald Trump during his last year in office.

"Mr. Trump’s lawyers made a barrage of legal arguments in seeking to circumvent a criminal case that many legal experts consider the most ironclad of the four against him," The New York Times reported just past midnight, observing that some of the claims presented by attorneys for the indicted ex-president "tested the bounds of credulity or clashed with prior court rulings."

"They attacked the law he is accused of violating, questioned the legality of the special counsel prosecuting him and argued that he is shielded from prosecution by presidential immunity," the Times reported, adding that many of the arguments "appeared designed to delay the case from moving toward trial, a strategy that Mr. Trump has pursued in all of the criminal proceedings he is facing."

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Politico late Friday morning added the seven different motions filed were "a grab bag of arguments that the charges are legally faulty, that prosecutors have targeted him for political reasons and that the special counsel spearheading the case had no legal authority to bring it."

Nearly two weeks ago Trump, citing his claim of "presidential immunity," asked the U.S. Supreme Court to delay proceedings in Special Counsel Smith's other court case against him, the election interference trial. The Court agreed to take up the case but has not released its decision.

Now, citing the same or similar arguments, Trump is plowing forward.

"Trump claims that he designated the classified materials 'personal' and he took his 'personal records' to Mar-a-Lago with him," MSNBC legal contributor Katie Phang reported Thursday night.

Phang points to this section, the opening of Trump's motion:

"President Donald J. Trump respectfully submits this motion seeking dismissal of Counts 1 through 32 on the basis of presidential immunity, as these charges stem directly from official acts by President Trump while in office," it reads. "Specifically, President Trump is immune from prosecution on Counts 1 through 32 because the charges turn on his alleged decision to designate records as personal under the Presidential Records Act ('PRA') and to cause the records to be moved from the White House to Mar-a-Lago. As alleged in the Superseding Indictment, President Trump made this decision while he was still in office. The alleged decision was an official act, and as such is subject to presidential immunity."

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After the FBI executed a legal search warrant of Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence and resort in 2022, agents retrieved "11 sets of classified documents, including some marked as top secret and meant to be only available in special government facilities," The Wall Street Journal reported at the time.

The federal government, in total, has recovered from Trump "more than 300 classified documents" with classified markings, totaling over 700 pages, The New York Times reported in August of 2022.

"Material about nuclear weapons is especially sensitive and usually restricted to a small number of government officials, experts said," The Washington Post also reported at the time. "Publicizing details about U.S. weapons could provide an intelligence road map to adversaries seeking to build ways of countering those systems. And other countries might view exposing their nuclear secrets as a threat, experts said."

Back in October, NBC News reported, Trump "allegedly shared sensitive information about U.S. nuclear submarines with an Australian billionaire who is a member of his Mar-a-Lago club."

Meanwhile, legal experts were stunned by Trump's attorneys' overnight motion to toss the case.

"This motion is insultingly stupid," wrote national security attorney Brad Moss. "Trump is arguing he designated all these highly classified records as PERSONAL records, and that he therefore had the right to keep them. Even if that was a plausible argument, this is a motion to dismiss: he can’t introduce news facts."

Former U.S. Ambassador and former Obama "Ethics Czar" Norm Eisen, an attorney and CNN legal analyst, Thursday night wrote, "I just finished reading Trump’s absolute immunity motion in the MAL [Mar-a-Lago] docs case."

"If this were allowed, POTUS could declassify all of our most sensitive secrets when leaving office & sell them to Putin 5 minutes later," he noted, adding: "As bad as Seal Team 6 hypo[thesis] in 1/6 case."

In a more in-depth examination, Moss explained, "If Trump's immunity arguments in the DC and FL cases actually succeed, Joe Biden can do the following: 1) declare Trump a threat to election integrity and have him imprisoned immediately, at a minimum, 2) declare the entire Trump Org a threat to national security and seize all of its assets."

He continues: "3) cancel the election, 4) if, by some chance, he is forced out of office, he can walk out of the White House with 15 moving vans full of every classified secret he wants and sell them to the highest bidder. And no one could do anything to prosecute him for any of it. He can pardon anyone he wants while in office and who helped him commit any illegal act he could think of to do #1-#3, and he can then claim immunity for himself if he is later indicted."

READ MORE: MAGA Is a ‘Russian Intel Op’: Experts Respond to Allegation GOP Using Kremlin Propaganda