Trump Is on the Brink of a Win in His Massive New York Fraud Case

Donald Trump may soon get a reduced penalty in his civil fraud case, if oral arguments in an appeals court Thursday are any indication.

The intermediate appeals court in Manhattan heard Trump’s appeal against a New York ruling from February where he was not only fined $450 million plus interest but also barred from doing business in New York. Some of the judges on the five-member panel seemed at least receptive to the former president.

“The immense penalty in this case is troubling,” said Justice Peter Moulton. “How do you tether the amount that was assessed by the Supreme Court to the harm that was caused here where the parties left these transactions happy?”

Deputy New York Solicitor General Judith Vale, representing the state, was ready with a response, though.

“Although this is a large number, it’s a large number for a couple reasons. One, because there was a lot of fraud and illegality,” Vale said. “That is an enormous benefit they got from this conduct” of falsifying financial statements to obtain better loan rates, she added, referring to the Trump Organization.

Justice David Friedman argued that the ruling against Trump was undercut by Deutsche Bank saying Trump’s actions did not harm them.

“It hardly seems to justify bringing an action to protect Deutsche Bank against President Trump, which is what you have here,” Friedman said. “You have two really sophisticated players, in which no one lost any money.”

Vale said that state law did not require being harmed, and also noted that the bank actually complained when it heard about false statements and pulled out of its agreement with Trump.

At one point, Trump’s lawyer John Sauer tried to argue that the former president and his businesses were following “generally accepted accounting principles,” only to be rebuked by Justice Peter H. Moulton.

“It’s the factual inaccuracies that are important,” Moulton countered. “You might be following GAAP principles, but if your data is terrible, you’re creating a fallacious statement.”

The former president and convicted felon had to pony up a $175 million bond in April to stop the judgment while he appeals. His fine, thanks to 9 percent interest accruing every year, has now grown to more than $478 million. If he wins, it will be dropped, and Trump has had some success in New York courts as of late.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is so angry at House Speaker Mike Johnson that she said she doesn’t think Republicans deserve to keep the majority in the House.

The House passed a three-month stopgap bill Wednesday to prevent a government shutdown, amid loud opposition from the Georgia Republican and her far-right pals. In getting the spending bill passed, Johnson went against the wishes of Donald Trump and MAGA.

During a call into Steve Bannon’s War Room, Greene railed against Johnson and made a startling remark, according to RawStory.

“Mike Johnson is not our speaker. He is the speaker for the Democrats,” Greene ranted.

Greene blamed Johnson for funding the Biden-Harris administration, the “weaponized” Department of Justice, and the FBI that “raided Mar-a-Lago and has raided a lot of January 6 defendant homes.” It doesn’t seem apparent to Greene that funding the government is not only Johnson’s job but hers as well.

She claimed Johnson had “fully funded the invasion at our border that is, that is killing Americans every single day.”

“He’s been a great speaker of the House for Democrats, and he has absolutely helped the Biden-Harris administration destroy this country,” Greene continued.

“I share the anger and frustration, and I don’t think Republicans deserve to be reelected to hold a majority,” Greene admitted.

“We have to elect President Trump in order to control the federal government,” Greene said. She immediately walked back her remark, insisting that Republicans needed to be reelected because if Democrats got control of the House, they would “rewrite the tax codes.”

She urged voters to “hold your nose and vote for that RINO that you absolutely hate, because we need a good tax code in place.”

Last week, Greene went on a tear against Johnson for his plan to attach the SAVE Act, which is based on faulty election data and seeks to solve the practically nonexistent problem of widespread noncitizen voting, to a six-month continuing resolution to fund the government. The move would have been a nonstarter for Democrats.

This is far from the first time the two have butted heads. In May, Greene tried to have Johnson removed from the speakership, but was quickly shot down.

At the end of the day, Greene and Johnson are both far-right congressional proxies for Trump. It’s just that only one of them seems to actually care about doing their job.

Free speech hero Elon Musk is yet again silencing his perceived opponents. This time, he is doing J.D. Vance’s dirty work.

Independent journalist Ken Klippenstein on Thursday reported on the leaked 271-page dossier on Vance, allegedly from the Trump campaign’s research team, which mainstream media outlets had refused to publish. Just hours later, Klippenstein was banned from X, where he’d shared a link to his reporting and to the dossier.

X users have found that they are unable to even post the link to Klippenstein’s Substack newsletter on X without receiving a message that the link is “potentially harmful.”

For ease, here is Klippenstein’s reporting on the dossier: https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/read-the-jd-vance-dossier

This isn’t the first time Musk has used X to meddle with progressive accounts on the platform. X has come under fire for banning or limiting an NPR story critical of Trump, the Uncommitted Movement account, and even KamalaHQ. 

In January, Musk temporarily banned Klippenstein, who worked for The Intercept at the time, and a handful of other journalists. The only connection between them: their left-wing politics and their criticism of Musk.

Though some may try to argue that Klippenstein’s post broke X guidelines by publishing hacked materials and is thus “doxxing” Vance, Twitter actually changed its terms of service years ago, in part thanks to the Hunter Biden laptop story and claims of “anti-conservative” bias. The page regarding the platform’s hacked materials policy no longer exists. Musk heavily criticized Twitter’s supposed suppression of the laptop story, later elevating the so-called “Twitter Files” with right-wing journalists Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss to expose the social media company’s previous content-moderation strategies.

At the time of publication, Klippenstein’s account is still suspended.

Donald Trump says he has a plan for the economy, but that doesn’t mean it’s any good.

According to independent nonprofit nonpartisan researchers, Trump’s policies on tariffs, deportations, and the Federal Reserve would, if put in action, seriously hike inflation, wipe out jobs, and slow U.S. production and economic growth.

In even the most generous modeling, inflation would reach 6 percent by 2026 and consumer prices would balloon 20 percent by 2028.

According to an analysis from the Peterson Institute for International Economics published Thursday, the devastating effects on the economy could last through 2040.

Trump promises to carry out “mass deportations” if elected president. Doing so could “cause a large inflationary impulse and a significant loss of employment (particularly in manufacturing and agriculture) in the US economy,” the researchers found. The deportation plan on its own would provide no economic benefit to Americans.

Warwick McKibbin, a senior fellow and co-author of the study, told CNN that the institute estimates that deporting undocumented workers would cause a pandemic-like “shock,” especially in the agriculture industry.

“Can you imagine taking 16 percent out of the labor force in agriculture?” McKibbin said, who noted the ripple effects would include rising cost of food or even permanent loss of supply.

Trump’s isolationist approach to the economy through deportations and tariffs on U.S. imports would hurt the American people most. “We find that ironically, despite his ‘make the foreigners pay’ rhetoric, this package of policies does more damage to the US economy than to any other in the world,” wrote the authors.

Of course, the Trump team denied the findings, with Trump campaign senior adviser Brian Hughes telling CNN the exact opposite: “Trump policies will fuel growth, drive down inflation, inspire American manufacturing, all while protecting the working men and women of our nation from lopsided policies tilted in favor of other countries.”

A Cornell University student is on the verge of losing his student visa and being deported over taking part in a pro-Palestine protest.

Mamadou Taal, a Ph.D. student in Africana Studies, was suspended Monday by the university after he took part in a protest against a career fair attended by defense contractors L3Harris and Boeing last week. Taal is studying at Cornell on an F-1 student visa, which can be terminated by a suspension.

On Thursday, Taal posted on X that his appeal to the university was rejected by the vice president of student and campus life, Ryan Lombardi, and that there was no investigation or due process.

“I maintain that all my actions have been peaceful and in accordance with my First Amendment rights,” Taal’s post reads. “This is a deliberate targeting of a Black Muslim student at an institution where those two identities are increasingly unwelcome. When it comes to Palestine the university will abandon all commitments to academic freedom and free speech to protect its corporate interests.”

Taal is still able to appeal to the university’s provost, but believes he’ll be deported if that appeal is rejected. The university accuses Taal and other protesters of entering the career fair by pushing and shoving campus police officers, but Taal told The Nation he had no part in this. According to student journalists at the Cornell Daily Sun, there wasn’t any physical violence toward police, although recruiters, students, and administrators appeared to be distressed.

“I can say categorically that I shoved no police officer, nor did I not listen to a lawful directive, like they’re claiming,” Taal said. He told the Sun that he only gave a speech outside before taking part in the career fair protest, and only attended that protest for five minutes before leaving.

If Taal is deported, it would be a drastic new step in university attempts across the country to tamp down on pro-Palestinian protests. Taal’s case has already drawn backlash, with a petition calling on the university to reverse its suspension drawing 2,700 signatures from Cornell students and faculty. It seems that many campuses will go to any lengths to make these protests go away, even if it means deporting students and ignoring the First Amendment.