Raw Story

ESPN anchor Sage Steele announced Tuesday that she has reached a settlement in her lawsuit against ESPN and Disney. In the same statement, Steele revealed that will also be leaving the company. “Having successfully settled my case with ESPN/Disney, I have decided to leave so I can exercise my first amendment rights more freely,” Steele […]

Former President Donald Trump's longtime associate Boris Epshteyn may be the mysterious sixth unindicted co-conspirator, argued MSNBC anchor Ari Melber on Monday.

Epshteyn, an attorney, political strategist and former Sinclair Broadcast Group commentator, has admitted to playing a role in the fake electors plot. Separately he is facing new allegations of sexual misconduct. Melber claimed, Epshteyn climbed his way to the top by schmoozing Trump and indulging his every impulse. That is now the same thing that could land him in legal jeopardy.

"When it comes to the secrets to success in Trumpworld ... for Epshteyn, it's no secret anymore," said Melber, who is also an attorney. "It is political loyalty, perhaps even above political acumen. It was his zealous advocacy on TV and his repeated and demonstrated [a] willingness to go where other Trump Republicans won't, to do what other Trump aides will not. That, clearly, catapulted him to the top of the orbit of the most important Republican in the Republican Party right now. Someone who, for all his legal problems, could still be the nominee. And that's all even with the alleged demerits made by colleagues, lawyers, and others around Mr. Epshteyn."

"So, all of that might've gotten him right here," Melber continued. "It might have got him to be among the company of other lawyers, and maybe he got on the right side of that line. Maybe he found a way name-check Giuliani to do some of the bidding, but not be named the co-conspirator. Or maybe the DOJ ultimately will determine things that put them under more legal scrutiny. But it's the tactics, the loyalty, the advocacy, and the perseverance that these individuals have shown that does tie them together."

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"Mr. Eastman was willing to reverse himself — to lie, if you want to put it blatantly — about what was the law," said Melber. "Mr. Chesebro and Sidney Powell went so far that they had to sometimes deal with people saying, this is, quote, 'wild,' 'unusual,' or as Trump said about Powell's claims, 'crazy.' Mr. Clark and Mr. Eastman ... they've been searched — Mr. Epshteyn's phone was also taken, pursuant to these points — because the DOJ thought those people looked more like co-conspirators."

"The question tonight, and what we've learned about Mr. Epshteyn, is, will he remain so close to the sun that he can no longer provide the kind of defense that Donald Trump so desperately wants and needs, or has he threaded this needle, politically, legally, and otherwise?" Melber added. "All of the former president's people, some of the former president's co-conspirators. Rarely have we seen so much heat around so many people who are someone trying to make the biggest pivot of all. A pivot away from a jail cell and into the Oval Office."

Watch the video below or at the link here.

Ari Melber on Boris Epshteyn www.youtube.com

Freshman Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), heir to the Levi Strauss fortune and one of Congress’ wealthiest members, has sold tens of millions of dollars worth of personal stocks and bonds, a new federal financial disclosure indicates.

The massive sell-off appears to position Goldman to finally make good on a delayed campaign promise: to create a congressionally approved “qualified blind trust” for his copious assets and shield himself from financial conflicts of interest, be them real or perceived.

Goldman’s office on Monday confirmed to Raw Story that the stock and bond sales are part of the process of entering into a blind trust, which will be finalized “imminently”. Goldman’s office declined further comment.

Under such a “blind trust” arrangement — rare among federal lawmakers — an independent body would formally control the administration of Goldman’s private business dealings, buying and selling investments as it sees fit, without the congressman’s knowledge or input.

Together, Goldman’s stock and bond sales — most executed during mid-July, per his disclosure — are worth up to $37.1 million. The actual value is likely somewhat less than that, as Goldman disclosed the values of his individual sales in broad ranges, as federal law allows.

Among Goldman’s more notable stock sales:

• Tobacco company British American Tobacco Industries, up to $100,000
• Tobacco company Altria, up to $30,000
• Defense contractor Lockheed Martin, up to $50,000
• Defense contractor BAE Systems, up to $15,000
• COVID-19 vaccine maker Moderna, up to $100,000
• Power company Dominion Energy, up to $100,000

Goldman first captured widespread national attention as a Democratic prosecutor during then-President Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial.

As a congressional candidate last year, Goldman, whose New York City-based 10th District includes Wall Street and the New York Stock Exchange, pledged to form a “blind trust” as he ran on an anti-corruption, pro-democracy platform.

“The fact of the matter is I have spent my entire career in public service, taking down gun traffickers, fighting against corrupt individuals, being a strong advocate for anti-corruption, and then obviously being in the trenches protecting and defending our democracy,” Goldman said during an August debate. “So whatever you want to reference, I was in a blind trust with all my money when I was a prosecutor. I will put my money in a blind trust as a congressperson.”

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘Anti-corruption’ Rep. Dan Goldman made hundreds of stock trades after saying he'd create a ‘blind trust’

But during the first several months of Goldman’s congressional tenure, Raw Story chronicled how Goldman continued to buy and sell individual stocks at a frenetic pace through an unnamed investment adviser.

His hundreds of trades placed him among Congress’ most active traders among lawmakers, and Goldman’s office declined to explain why the congressman hasn’t simply abstained from trading while the often protracted process of forming a “qualified blind trust” played out.

Some of the trades involved companies with big business before Congress, including U.S. House committees on which Goldman sits: Homeland Security, Oversight and Accountability and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.

“When elected officials are trading stocks at a time when they’re supposed to be overseeing companies, we need to make sure that the public has the faith and confidence that elected officials are doing the bidding of the public interest and not trying to line their pockets and do what’s in their private interest,” Aaron Scherb, senior director of legislative affairs for Common Cause, a nonpartisan government reform organization, said at the time.

Stock-trade ban?

News organizations including the New York Times, Insider, NPR and Sludge have documented rampant financial conflicts of interest among dozens of members of Congress, such as those who bought and sold defense contractor stock while occupying positions on congressional armed services committees or otherwise voting on measures to send such companies billions of federal dollars.

The executive and judicial branches are riddled with similar financial conflict issues, too, as the Wall Street Journal and ProPublica have reported.

Dozens of members of Congress have failed to comply with the STOCK Act. During the 117th Congress from 2021 to 2022, at least 78 members of Congress — Democrats and Republicans alike — were found to have violated the STOCK Act's disclosure provisions, according to a tally maintained by Insider.

And during 2023 alone, Raw Story has so far identified 19 members of Congress who have violated the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act’s public disclosure provisions. The most recent stock trade scofflaw, Rep. Kathy Manning (D-N.C.), is twice tardy, having failed to disclose trades within 45 days of making them.

A plan to enact a congressional stock-trade ban failed during the 2021-2022 congressional session after Democratic House leaders, led by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), declined to bring any of several existing bills — including one floated by House leaders themselves — up for a vote. President Joe Biden continues to remain silent on the matter, much to the frustration of many government reform groups.

But this year, many Republicans and Democrats alike have renewed efforts to ban their colleagues from trading stocks.

The most recent legislation introduced is the Ban Stock Trading for Government Officials Act, which would prohibit members of Congress, the president, the vice president, senior executive branch officials, their spouses and children from trading stocks and would require greater transparency with financial disclosures, The Hill reported.

Another two-party bill, the Bipartisan Restoring Faith in Government Act was introduced in May and is co-sponsored in part by political rivals in Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Matt Gaetz (R-FL).

Other materially similar bills include the Ending Trading and Holdings in Congressional Stocks (ETHICS) Act, the TRUST in Congress Act and the Preventing Elected Leaders from Owning Securities and Investments (PELOSI) Act.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who does not personally trade stocks, has expressed openness to entertaining a stock trade ban of some sort, but has not formally endorsed a plan.

Goldman spokesperson Simone Kanter previously told Raw Story that Goldman “supports legislation that would prohibit members of Congress from trading individual stocks.”

Far-right anti-government activist Ammon Bundy appeared in court Monday in connection with a lawsuit he lost after never showing up in court to defend himself.

Bundy was previously at the center of government standoffs in Nevada with his father in 2014 and other allies in Oregon in 2016. He lost a defamation lawsuit earlier this year against an Idaho hospital group he accused of being a child-sex trafficking hub because he refused to attend the trial and mount a defense, The Daily Beast reports.

A jury ordered Bundy and his co-defendants to pay $52 million.

Bundy claims to have just $50,000 but is being sued by the hospital group again for "hiding assets" to shield him from paying out his share of the $52 million jugment, the report said.

During Monday’s hearing, Bundy said that he was “the victim of "an absolute political prosecution" and that St. Luke’s Health Systems was suing him because "because I exposed them."

St. Luke’s employees, in the initial lawsuit, testified that Bundy, among others, including members of the far-right People’s Rights Network, had spread conspiracy theories that put doctors and the hospital at risk.

Bundy was arrested and pleaded guilty to trespassing in connection with a protest that led to the hospital's lockdown.

Kelly Weill writes for The Beast that: "Ironically, Bundy’s Monday court appearance—a first during his St. Luke’s feud—was not legally required. Hearings for temporary restraining orders often take place without the subject of the restraining order, a judge noted."

Bundy was jailed over the weekend until a local sheriff had threats against him.

Read the full article here.

Nicolle Wallace joined Jan 6 lead investigator Tim Heaphy in calling Donald Trump's fraud claims that led to efforts to overturn the 2020 election, "bullshit."

Trump’s legal team and many of his allies seized on the release of what appeared to be an indictment document uploaded and then quickly deleted from Fulton County court’s website