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‘Hellbent on hiding truth’: Dem leader pounces as DOJ official hints at holding back files
The top Democrat in the Senate has directly responded to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche after he said that "thousands" of Jeffrey Epstein files would be withheld by the Department of Justice despite a law requiring "all" documents to be released by Friday.
"I expect that we're going to release more documents over the next couple of weeks. So today, several hundred thousand. And then over the next couple weeks, I expect several hundred thousand more," Blanche told Fox News on Friday.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer responded by indicating that Democrats would not stand for the Trump DOJ flouting the law.
"The law Congress passed and President Trump signed was clear as can be - the Trump administration had 30 days to release ALL the Epstein files, not just some. Failing to do so is breaking the law. This just shows the Department of Justice, Donald Trump, and Pam Bondi are hellbent on hiding the truth," Schumer insisted. "Senate Democrats are working closely with attorneys for the victims of Jeffrey Epstein and with outside legal experts to assess what documents are being withheld and what is being covered up by Pam Bondi. We will not stop until the whole truth comes out."
"People want the truth and continue to demand the immediate release of all the Epstein files. This is nothing more than a cover up to protect Donald Trump from his ugly past," he added.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) suggested that Bondi would be "prosecuted" if the DOJ does not release the full Epstein files on Friday.
Disgraced ex-Trump adviser hired by GOP governor campaign despite sexual misconduct claims
An ex-Trump campaign manager fired over allegations of sexual misconduct has resurfaced – this time helping run Louisiana's Republican Attorney General Jeff Landry's effort to become governor.
Corey Lewandowski was accused of inappropriate behavior in 2021 by at least two women, including the wife of a Trump donor. Last year he struck a plea deal with Las Vegas prosecutors to avoid misdemeanor battery charges.
“I do think it is troubling to bring in people who have this fairly well-documented history of reports of sexual misconduct,” said Jessie Nieblas, the director of education and prevention at the Louisiana Foundation Against Sexual Assault, “though we are certainly not endorsing one campaign over another.”
POLL: Should Trump be allowed to run for office?
Trashelle Odom, the wife of donor John Odom, accused Lewandowski in 2021 of repeatedly touching her and throwing a drink at her after she rejected his advances.
In 2016, Lewandowski also got into trouble with police when he grabbed Brietbart reporter Michelle Fields after a Trump press conference in Florida.
READ MORE: Tennessee MAGA candidate cops to 1990s arrest for 'promoting prostitution'
Read more at the Louisiana Illuminator.
Who will flip on Trump and when: Legal analyst shares his predictions with Michael Cohen
Speaking to Michael Cohen on his "Mea Culpa" podcast, former federal prosecutor Harry Litman made some guesses about who he thinks will be among the first to flip on Donald Trump in Fulton County's racketeering case.
The conversation was about Trump's documents scandal, but also dipped into the Georgia election case. Shared between the four criminal cases and two civil that Trump is involved in are several dozen witnesses and co-defendants.
"Many of these co-defendants will begin to start to point fingers at one another, and ultimately point the finger, especially the middle finger, at Trump himself," said Cohen introducing the segment.
POLL: Should Trump be allowed to run for office?
Litman began with Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis, in large part because there has already been speculation about her frustrations over being among the 19 alleged co-conspirators in Georgia.
"She has been pretty vocal," said Litman.
In a post on X, the site formerly known as Twitter, Ellis wrote on September 4: "DeSantis said he would consider pardons on a case by case basis," when it comes to the Jan. 6 attacks and 2020 election overthrow attempts.
"Trump could have issued a blanket pardon before he left office, with certain requisite conditions to be ascertained later on a case-by-case basis (such as non-violent individuals for instance, to foreclose pardoning anyone in your example). Why didn't he?" she asked.
"Look at people who are going to have expensive trials," Litman suggested. "Whom Trump won't pay for. So, think about — Jenna Ellis has been pretty vocal, saying, you know, he's not paying for me. Even a guy like [Rudy] Giuliani, you know, who's now really looking harsh at it. It's their own personal calculations."
Then there's former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.
"I think he's a guy who, you know, does not want to be going to Georgia State Prison," quipped Litman. "So, I see — you sort of serve up the people who feel like they just were trying to give advice. They weren't total Trumpies like [Ken] Chesbro."
Other than Ellis, Giuliani and Meadows, Litman said that the lower-level people in the conspiracy, like the fake electors, are among the group who might give evidence against Trump.
They "are saying already yeah we did it because —not just the Trump team, you know, but the president of the United States told us to do it," Litman closed. "They're very strong candidates to turn state's evidence and testify against him in particular."
Trump campaign paid pollster hired by Wall Street Journal $600,000: records
A polling firm working with the Wall Street Journal has also been on the payroll of former President Donald Trump and his 2024 campaign and received more than $600,000 from his campaign, legal analyst Allison Gill first reported.
Raw Story confirmed on the Federal Elections Commission website that, since the beginning of 2023, Fabrizio Lee & Associates has pocketed huge expenditures with the largest being $208,000 for "polling expenses and the least being $2,372.98 for "polling consultant expenses: travel." There were two other expenditures over $100,000.
The website for the group openly declares its connections, boasting: "Fabrizio, Lee & Associates has worked directly on the campaigns or independent expenditure efforts that successfully elected 20 U.S. Senators and 9 Republican Governors. And we were honored to have the privilege to serve as Chief Pollsters for President Donald J. Trump’s Presidential campaigns."
POLL: Should Trump be allowed to run for office?
Tony Fabrizio is a long-time Republican pollster and worked with Trump's campaign in 2016, as well as recently. But the most recent poll from the Wall Street Journal lambasting President Joe Biden for being too old to run for president was also conducted by Tony Fabrizio, in conjunction with another pollster, Michael Bocian, who works with some Democratic candidates but not the Biden campaign.
Trump is just three years younger than Biden. Several Republican members of the U.S. Senate are older than Biden.
Fabrizio also did a poll for the WSJ that concluded Latino voters have abandoned the Democratic Party. Fabrizio was also listed on the Wall Street Journal CEO Council.
A screen capture of the disbursement page is below or at the link here.
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‘Hellbent on hiding truth’: Dem leader pounces as DOJ official hints at holding back files
The top Democrat in the Senate has directly responded to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche after he said that "thousands" of Jeffrey Epstein files would be withheld by the Department of Justice despite a law requiring "all" documents to be released by Friday.
"I expect that we're going to release more documents over the next couple of weeks. So today, several hundred thousand. And then over the next couple weeks, I expect several hundred thousand more," Blanche told Fox News on Friday.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer responded by indicating that Democrats would not stand for the Trump DOJ flouting the law.
"The law Congress passed and President Trump signed was clear as can be - the Trump administration had 30 days to release ALL the Epstein files, not just some. Failing to do so is breaking the law. This just shows the Department of Justice, Donald Trump, and Pam Bondi are hellbent on hiding the truth," Schumer insisted. "Senate Democrats are working closely with attorneys for the victims of Jeffrey Epstein and with outside legal experts to assess what documents are being withheld and what is being covered up by Pam Bondi. We will not stop until the whole truth comes out."
"People want the truth and continue to demand the immediate release of all the Epstein files. This is nothing more than a cover up to protect Donald Trump from his ugly past," he added.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) suggested that Bondi would be "prosecuted" if the DOJ does not release the full Epstein files on Friday.
‘The brink of illegitimacy’: Professors warn no turning back for ‘noxious’ Supreme Court
Two American university professors Friday warned the "noxious" Supreme Court can no longer be saved.
Harvard law professor Ryan Doerfler and Yale law professor Samuel Moyn wrote an opinion piece published by The Guardian about how the high court's legitimacy has been increasingly damaged under President Donald Trump's second term. Conservative justices have handed Trump and the MAGA movement a number of wins, including overturning of Roe v. Wade, "what remains of the Voting Rights Act," and losing its "nonpartisan image."
The role of the court has shifted and with the conservative majority, the liberal justices had previously "proceeded as if their conservative peers would continue to take their own institution’s legitimacy seriously."
But over the last several months, that has also changed.
"Yet with the conservative justices shattering the Supreme Court’s non-partisan image during Trump’s second term, liberals are not adjusting much," Doerfler and Moyn wrote. "The liberal justices – Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor – have become much more aggressive in their dissents. But they disagree with one another about how far to concede that their conservative colleagues have given up any concern for institutional legitimacy. Encouragingly, Jackson pivoted to 'warning the public that the boat is sinking' – as journalist Jodi Kantor put it in a much-noticed reported piece. Jackson’s fellow liberals, though, did not follow her in this regard, worrying her strategy of pulling the 'fire alarm' was 'diluting' their collective 'impact.'"
By now, Trump has used a "shadow docket" of emergency orders to his advantage and to advance his policies.
"Similarly, many liberal lawyers have focused their criticism on the manner in which the Supreme Court has advanced its noxious agenda – issuing major rulings via the 'shadow' docket, without full-dress lawyering, and leaving out reasoning in support of its decisions," according to the writers.
Critics have argued that the conservative-majority Supreme Court, including Trump's appointees, has used the shadow docket to issue consequential rulings on controversial issues like abortion, voting rights, and immigration with minimal explanation or public deliberation, effectively allowing the court to reshape law through expedited procedures that bypass traditional briefing and oral argument requirements.
Now, "progressives are increasingly converging on the idea of both expanding and 'disempowering' federal courts and looking to see how to shake up the status quo."
"Rather than adhere to the same institutionalist strategies that helped our current crisis, reformers must insist on remaking institutions like the US supreme court so that Americans don’t have to suffer future decades of oligarchy-facilitating rule that makes a parody of the democracy they were promised," Doerfler and Moyn wrote.
"In Trump’s second term, the Republican-appointed majority on the Supreme Court has brought their institution to the brink of illegitimacy. Far from pulling it back from the edge, our goal has to be to push it off," the writers added.
