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Tag: Donald Trump

  • Trump fined $355 mn, banned from NY business in fraud trial

    Trump fined $355 mn, banned from NY business in fraud trial

    A New York judge ordered Donald Trump to pay $355 million over fraud allegations and banned him from running companies in the state for three years Friday in a major blow to his business empire and financial standing.

    Trump — almost certain to be the Republican presidential nominee this November — was found liable for unlawfully inflating his wealth and manipulating the value of properties to obtain favorable bank loans or insurance terms.

    Trump lashed out on social media calling the ruling a “Total SHAM,” the judge in the case “crooked” and the prosecutor who brought it “totally corrupt.” His legal team said he would “of course” appeal.

    As the case was civil, not criminal, there was no threat of imprisonment. But Trump said ahead of the ruling that a ban on conducting business in New York state would be akin to a “corporate death penalty.”

    Trump, facing 91 criminal counts in other cases, has seized on his legal woes to fire up supporters and denounce his likely opponent, President Joe Biden, claiming that court cases are “just a way of hurting me in the election.”

    However, Judge Arthur Engoron said the financially shattering penalties are justified by Trump’s behavior.

    “Their complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological,” Engoron said of Trump and his two sons, who were also defendants, in his scathing ruling.

    “They are accused only of inflating asset values to make more money… Donald Trump is not Bernard Madoff. Yet, defendants are incapable of admitting the error of their ways,” he added, referring to the perpetrator of a massive Ponzi scheme.

    Trump’s sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr. were also found liable in the case and ordered to pay more than $4 million each, prompting Don Jr. to claim on social media that “political beliefs” had determined the outcome.

    Engoron also extended the mandate of retired judge Barbara Jones as an independent monitor of Trump’s business affairs, as well as ordering the appointment of an independent director of compliance to the Trump Organization, with candidates to be nominated by Jones.

    “Conditions that Judge Engoron imposed, such as having Judge Jones monitor the Trump companies, may be onerous. I do expect an appeal,” said Richmond University law professor Carl Tobias.

    It was as a property developer and businessman in New York that Trump built his public profile which he used as a springboard into the entertainment industry and ultimately the presidency.

    The judge’s order was a victory for New York state Attorney General Letitia James. She had sought $370 million from Trump to remedy the advantage he is alleged to have wrongfully obtained, as well as having him barred from conducting business in the state.

  • Jury orders Trump to pay $83 million for sexual assault defamation

    Jury orders Trump to pay $83 million for sexual assault defamation

    A jury in New York ordered former US president and 2024 candidate Donald Trump on Friday to pay $83.3 million to compensate the writer E. Jean Carroll, whom he was found to have sexually assaulted and defamed.

    The civil order, which prompted an audible gasp in the federal court, far exceeds the more than $10 million in damages for defamation that Carroll had sought.

    Trump lashed out almost immediately, calling the verdict “ridiculous” in a statement and promising to appeal.

    The jury reached its decision after slightly less than three hours of deliberations.

    Trump had been in court earlier, storming out at one point but subsequently returning for closing arguments. He was not in court when the level of compensatory and punitive damages were read out by a court clerk.

    “This is a great victory for every woman who stands up when she’s been knocked down, and a huge defeat for every bully who has tried to keep a woman down,” Carroll said in a statement.

    A juror exchanged a smile with Carroll as the nine men and women left the courtroom after the judge encouraged them to protect their privacy.

    “It’s clear to me… you paid attention,” Judge Lewis Kaplan told the jury following the verdict.

    The order was comprised of $65 million in punitive damages after the jury found Trump acted maliciously in his many public comments about Carroll, $7.3 million in compensatory damages and $11 million for a reputational repair program.

    “I was not surprised (by the award) partly because his egregious misbehavior during the trial could actually have alienated the jury,” said Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law.

    “(Trump) is unlikely to prevail on appeal, because the (appeal) judges have great respect for Judge Kaplan, who is a very experienced federal jurist.”

    Trump — whom a jury found liable for sexually assaulting Carroll in a separate federal civil case in New York — used his Truth Social platform to fire off a spate of insulting messages attacking Carroll, the trial and the judge, whom he called “an extremely abusive individual.”

    “We were stripped of every defense — every single defense — before we walked in there,” said Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba outside the court. “I am proud to stand with president Trump… We will immediately appeal.”

    Trump, 77, briefly took the stand on Thursday to deny he instructed anyone to harm Carroll with his statements.

    – Claims of witch hunt –

    During Trump’s testimony, Kaplan limited him to three questions from his lawyers, to which he could only answer yes or no — a precaution taken to prevent the Republican leader from returning to his custom of disparaging the court or Carroll in public.

    “This is not America,” Trump said as he left the courtroom following his short appearance.

    He was not required to attend the trial or to testify. However, he has used the case, as well as others he faces, to generate heated media coverage and to fuel his claims of being victimized as he campaigns for a return to the White House in November’s election.

    Trump separately faces multiple criminal cases, including his alleged attempt to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to Joe Biden, and a civil business fraud case.

    Habba sought to have the case thrown out Thursday on the grounds that threatening messages targeting Carroll, which have been aired in the case, began on social media before Trump’s 2019 comments. Her request was denied.

    Jurors were shown Trump’s October 2022 deposition during which he confused a picture of Carroll for his former wife Marla Maples, which threatened to cast doubt on his claim Carroll was not his “type.”

    Last year, another federal jury found Trump liable for sexually assaulting Carroll in a department store dressing room in 1996 and subsequently defaming her in 2022, when he called her a “complete con job.”

    Trump had been in court while he campaigned ahead of the New Hampshire primary, which he won handily over his only remaining challenger Nikki Haley, as he closes in on becoming the Republican candidate in the November election against Biden.

  • ‘Literally the plot of the movie’: Fans outraged by Barbie snubs

    ‘Literally the plot of the movie’: Fans outraged by Barbie snubs

    The announcement of Oscar nominations always generates a bit of buzz, with fans weighing in on which movies and which actors deserved recognition and didn’t get it.

    But few snubs have provoked as much online outrage as those delivered to summer blockbuster “Barbie”, a deft satire on the difficulties women face in being recognized for their talents, whose female director and female lead did not make the shortlist.

    Especially as the male actor playing Ken did.

    “Nominating Ken but not Barbie is literally the plot of the movie,” novelist Brad Meltzer wrote on social media.

    Greta Gerwig’s fizzing audience-pleaser, which took over $1 billion at the box office with its effortless melding of social commentary and bubblegum pop culture, had been seen as a lock for many of the biggest categories when the Oscars nominations were announced on Tuesday.

    Both Gerwig as director and star Margot Robbie had already garnered a suite of nominations in earlier awards and were expected to feature in the line-up for Hollywood’s top prizes.

    But while the film notched an impressive eight nods, including the coveted Best Picture, Gerwig and Robbie were left off the lists for director and leading actress.

    Ryan Gosling, who earned a supporting actor nomination for his efforts as Ken, was among the first to speak out.

    “No recognition would be possible for anyone on the film without their talent, grit and genius,” he said.

    “To say that I’m disappointed that they are not nominated in their respective categories would be an understatement.”

    Fellow Ken actor Simu Liu lauded the way the two women had fought to make “Barbie” the movie it was.

    “Together they started a movement, touched the world and reinvigorated the cinema. They deserve everything. They ARE everything,” he wrote on social media.

    And it wasn’t just those involved in the movie who were annoyed.

    “Let me see if I understand this: the Academy nominated ‘Barbie’ for Best Picture (eight nominations total) — a film about women being sidelined and rendered invisible in patriarchal structures — but not the woman who directed the film,” wrote Charlotte Clymer on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

    As the outrage spread on Wednesday, one-time US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton weighed in.

    Clinton lost the 2016 election to Donald Trump because of the mathematics of the electoral college system, despite having a significant majority of the popular vote.

    “Greta & Margot, While it can sting to win the box office but not take home the gold, your millions of fans love you. You’re both so much more than Kenough. #HillaryBarbie,” she wrote on X.

  • US judge begins to unseal Epstein contacts

    US judge begins to unseal Epstein contacts

    A New York judge on Wednesday began to unseal the identities of people linked in court documents to Jeffrey Epstein, the US financier who killed himself in 2019 as he awaited trial for sex crimes.

    Notably included in the unsealed documents, which include almost 1,000 pages of depositions and statements, were former US presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, who have not been accused of any wrongdoing in the case.

    The list of around 150 people includes a host of Epstein associates previously identified as John or Jane Does in a lawsuit brought against Epstein’s former mistress, Ghislaine Maxwell. It carries no allegation of complicity in Epstein’s crimes.

    The disclosure is part of a defamation proceeding between Maxwell, sentenced in 2022 to 20 years in prison, and a plaintiff against the duo, Virginia Giuffre.

    Last month a judge listed in a 50-page document some 180 cases — under pseudonyms — ordering that their identities be made public within 14 days of the order.

    Some individuals have objected to the disclosure of their identities in the case.

    Lawyers for one individual, “Doe 107”, wrote to the judge in the case arguing they could face victimization in their home country, and requested time to submit grounds for their name to remain sealed.

    Accomplices in sex crimes

    According to British media, Giuffre’s defamation claim against Maxwell, 62, dates back to 2016 and was settled the following year. But the Miami Herald then took legal action to access the file and investigate the Epstein network.

    A number of documents in the case were made public in 2019, days before Epstein hanged himself in prison while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

    Maxwell and Epstein were a couple in the early 1990s before becoming professional collaborators and accomplices in sex crimes for almost three decades.

    Epstein, a financier with a powerful network in the United States and abroad, was himself accused of raping young girls, but his suicide by hanging in a New York prison in August 2019 halted his prosecution.

    Fabricated lists and doctored photos of Epstein have circulated in conspiratorial internet circles for years, fueling speculation about the financier’s potential associates.

    The anticipated release of names from court documents reignited that frenzy.

    Comedian Jimmy Kimmel threatened Aaron Rodgers with legal action after the American football star suggested the late night host could be on the list.

    It was a baseless allegation echoed across platforms such as X, where numerous posts also drew actor Tom Hanks into the fold.

  • Mjhe kiyon nikala now in USA: Court declares Donald Trump ineligible to contest elections

    Mjhe kiyon nikala now in USA: Court declares Donald Trump ineligible to contest elections


    Colorado’s Supreme Court has issued a verdict so sting that former United States President Donald Trump is ineligible to run for the White House because of his role in the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by his supporters, and should be removed from the state’s primary ballot.


    While the ruling only applies to Colorado, it is the first time in US history that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which bars from public office anyone who “engaged in insurrection”, has been used to disqualify a presidential candidate. It comes as courts in other states consider similar legal actions.


    “A majority of the court holds that President Trump is disqualified from holding the office of President under Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United State’s Constitution,” the Colorado high court wrote in its four-three majority decision.


    “Because he is disqualified, it would be a wrongful act under the Election Code for the Colorado Secretary of State to list him as a candidate on the presidential primary ballot.


    “We do not reach these conclusions lightly,” they added.


    Trump has claimed he is the victim of political persecution.


    “We are mindful of the magnitude and weight of the questions now before us,” the Colorado justices said. “We are likewise mindful of our solemn duty to apply the law, without fear or favor, and without being swayed by public reaction to the decisions that the law mandates we reach.”


    A lower court earlier found that while Trump incited an insurrection, he could not be barred from the ballot because it was unclear that the 14th Amendment was intended to cover the presidency.

  • You will never guess which actor is going to play Donald Trump in biopic

    You will never guess which actor is going to play Donald Trump in biopic

    Bad day for fans of hot actors, me thinks.

    An upcoming biopic titled ‘The Apprentice’ is set to explore the life of controversial real estate businessman and former president Donald Trump, tracing the rise of his business empire in the 70’s and 80’s. The film will also star ‘Succession’ alum Jeremy Strong and Oscar nominee Maria Bakalov as the late Ivana, Trump’s first wife.

    There were big questions about who will play Trump, and we couldn’t have been more surprised that the final name is…… Sebastian Stan.

    Y’all see the resemblance? Yeah, me neither.

    The film was announced in 2018, with Iranian filmmaker Ali Abbasi set to direct and co-write the project along with Gabriel Sherman. Abbasi’s previous credits including directing the last two episodes of HBO original series ‘The Last Of Us’. He has also received the Un Certain Regard from the Cannes Film Festival for ‘Border’ (2018).

  • ‘I walked to my home, spent a week in silence, biggest moment of my life’: Trump claims Khan was delighted about Iran operative death

    ‘I walked to my home, spent a week in silence, biggest moment of my life’: Trump claims Khan was delighted about Iran operative death

    Former American President Donald Trump is revealing about the killing of Iran’s master operative General Qassem Soleimani in 2020 just before COVID took over the world.

    Trump said that former Prime Minister Imran Khan ‘rejoiced’ at the killing.

    “There was a Khan, a great cricket player, he became the head of Pakistan, he said it was the single biggest thing I can ever remember happening in my life when Soleimani was killed,” Trump said.

    He further claimed that Khan said, “I left my office, I walked to my home, I stayed in my home in solitude for one week, It was the biggest event that ever happened to me. He was the biggest cricket player. That’s like being a great NFL player or a great baseball player. He was said to be just about the best handsome guy. He became the boss, Pakistan.”

    Trump was addressing a campaign rally in Houston, Texas, a city with a large Pakistani diaspora population.

    However, Trump’s claim of Imran Khan going into seclusion seems to be untrue. Journalist Omar Warraich pointed out in a X thread that Khan addressed a rally in his hometown Mianwali, the very next day and did not mention Soleimani’s assassination in the speech.

    Trump’s claim that Imran Khan walked from his office, the Prime Minister Secretariat, to his home, Bani Gala, also seems to be untrue. It has never been reported that Khan ever walked home, a distance of roughly 15 kilometers.

    The United States assassinated Qasem Soleimani with a drone strike in Baghdad on January 3, 2020. Soleimani was an Iranian general, the country’s most powerful commander, widely considered to be the most important person in Iran after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

    Soleimani was the leader of the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force, a pivotal figure in managing Iran’s campaign to drive U.S. forces out of Iraq, and built up Iran’s network of proxy armies across the Middle East. Washington accused Soleimani of masterminding attacks by Iranian-aligned militias on U.S. forces in the region.

  • Donald Trump thinks Hezbollah is ‘very smart’

    Donald Trump thinks Hezbollah is ‘very smart’

    While lambasting Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu, former President of the United States of America, Donald Trump appreciated Hezbollah for being “very smart”. While speaking to a rally of supporters in Florida, Trump did not hold back and even called the Israeli Defence Minister a “jerk” for stating on national TV that he hopes they don’t attack from the North because they did the following morning. He said that these “statements are passed when you’re doing a con-job and fully prepared but in actual you were not. Israel was not prepared.”

    Earlier he claimed to have read Biden’s security papers where it was mentioned that he hopes Hezbolllah does not attack from the North because that is the most vulnerable spot. He praises the group’s intelligence that they (Hezbollah) are all very smart and they know the weak-spots.

    He carried on by accusing Iran of being a potentially big, vicious force that Israel is fighting and he advised the latter to straighten themselves up.

    He reminisced about the time he was disappointed by Israel when Netanyahu let them (USA) down while countering Iran-hinting at the target killing of General Qasim Sulemani-he still wants Israel to get it right this time.

    Trump’s criticism of Biden is not a surprise but in his interview to Fox News he asserted that, “We have to protect Israel, there’s no choice.” He goes on by saying “He(Netanyahu) is hurt very badly, he was not prepared and Israel was not prepared. And under Trump they wouldn’t have to be prepared…”

    His statements have invited a lot of criticism from various fronts. “[I]t is absurd that anyone, much less someone running for President, would choose now to attack our friend and ally, Israel, much less praise Hezbollah terrorists as ‘very smart,’” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

    White House called these statements as “dangerous and unhinged.”

    Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie called Trump “a fool” for his remarks on Hezbollah and Netanyahu.

    This has infuriated people and Trump knows it when he said that the media comes at him for calling President XI of China “smart” too but he remarks nonchalantly, that he “gotta say” what he has to say.

  • Trump indicted for racketeering over 2020 election interference

    Trump indicted for racketeering over 2020 election interference

    By Christian Monterrosa with Frankie Taggart in Washington

    Donald Trump was indicted Monday on charges of racketeering and a string of election crimes afer a sprawling, two-year probe into his eforts to overturn his 2020 defeat to Joe Biden in the US state of Georgia.


    The case — relying on laws typically used to bring down mobsters — is the fourth targeting the 77-year-old Republican this year and could lead to a watershed moment, the first televised trial of a former president in US history.

    Prosecutors in Atlanta charged Trump with 13 felony counts — compounding the legal threats he is facing in multiple jurisdictions as a firestorm of investigations imperils his bid for a second White House term.

    Eighteen co-defendants were indicted in the probe, including Trump’s former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who pressured local legislators over the result afer the election, and Trump’s White House chief of staf, Mark Meadows.

    With Trump already due to go on trial in New York, south Florida and Washington, the latest charges herald the unprecedented scenario of the 2024 presidential election being litigated as much from the courtroom as the ballot box.

    “Rather than abide by Georgia’s legal process for election challenges, the defendants engaged in a criminal racketeering enterprise to overturn Georgia’s presidential election result,” Fulton County prosecutor Fani Willis told reporters.

    Willis said Trump and his co-defendants had until noon on August 25 to “voluntarily surrender” to authorities, adding that she would like to go to trial within six months.


    “So, the Witch Hunt continues!” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.


    “Sounds Rigged to me! Why didn’t they Indict 2.5 years ago? Because they wanted to do itright in the middle of my political campaign. Witch Hunt!”


    His lawyers’ statement took issue with the “leak of a presumed and premature indictment before the witnesses had testified or the grand jurors had deliberated”, in what they say has been a “flawed and unconstitutional” process.


    In response to similar allegations by the Trump campaign, Willis said: “I make decisions in this ofice based on the facts and the law. The law is completely nonpartisan.” The twice-impeached Trump was charged with violating Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, as well as six conspiracy counts over alleged eforts to commit forgery, impersonate a public oficial and submit false statements and documents.
    He is also accused of lying in statements and filing fake documents, as well as soliciting public oficials to break their oaths.

    -Most serious threat –


    Georgia, which Biden won by fewer than 12,000 votes, presents perhaps the most serious threat to Trump’s liberty as he leads the field comfortably for his party’s nomination to bid for reelection.


    Even if he is returned to the Oval Ofice, he would have none of the powers that presidents arguably enjoy in the federal system to pardon themselves or have prosecutors drop cases. The harsh penalties associated with RICO cases can be an incentive for co-defendants to seek cooperation deals, and the statutes are usually used to target organized crime. Thirty unindicted co-conspirators were mentioned in the indictment.

    Under federal law, anyone who can be connected to a criminal “enterprise” through which offenses were committed can be convicted under RICO. The broader Georgia law doesn’t even require the existence of the enterprise.


    Atlanta-area authorities launched the probe afer Trump called Georgia officials weeks before he was due to leave the White House, pressuring them to “find” the 11,780 votes that would reverse Biden’s victory in the Peach State.


    Meadows, who is accused of trying to get a public oficial to violate his oath, was on the call.

    Secret report –

    Willis empaneled a special grand jury that heard from around 75 witnesses before recommending a raf of felony counts in a secret report in February.


    She alleges that Trump’s team worked with local Republicans on a scheme to replace legitimate slates of “electors” — the oficials who certify a state’s results and send them to the US Congress — with fake pro-Trump stand-ins.


    The indictment lists a litany of telephone calls made by Trump, Giuliani and others to various state oficials for the purpose of unlawfully appointing fake electors to swing the Electoral College in Trump’s favor.


    Giuliani faces 13 felony counts, including over accusations of harassment of two Fulton County poll workers.


    Other Trump allies were charged over the accessing of sensitive data from an election office in a rural county south of Atlanta one day afer the 2021 Capitol riot.


    Trump is already facing dozens of felony charges afer being federally indicted over the alleged plot to subvert the election, and further prosecutions over his alleged mishandling of classified documents and keeping allegedly fraudulent business records.


    Authorities in Atlanta installed security barricades outside the downtown courthouse in anticipation of a potential influx of Trump supporters and counter-protesters in the latest case.


    Lawmakers investigating Trump’s eforts to cling to power heard evidence in a series of congressional hearings last summer that would challenge his potential defense that he genuinely believed he had been cheated of the election.

  • Trump indicted for third time for trying to overturn 2020 US election

    Trump indicted for third time for trying to overturn 2020 US election

    Former US President Donald Trump has been indicted for the third time in a case pertaining to attempts at overturning the results of the 2020 election which Joe Biden won. Since he began his 2024 Republican primary campaign, he has been the first former US president to face three felony indictments in history. No other president, living or dead, has ever faced criminal charges.


    In a previous post on his Truth Social platform, Trump stated his expectations clearly and said that special counsel Jack Smith intended to bring forth another “Fake Indictment” against him.


    “I hear that Deranged Jack Smith, in order to interfere with the Presidential Election of 2024, will be putting out yet another Fake Indictment of your favourite President, me, at 5:00 P.M. Why didn’t they do this 2.5 years ago? Why did they wait so long? Because they wanted to put it right in the middle of my campaign. Prosecutorial Misconduct!”


    The allegations are part of a larger probe into what Trump did as president and afterwards. The investigation, which also includes claims of improper handling of top-secret government records while Trump was in office, is being overseen by special counsel Jack Smith.
    In connection with alleged attempts to hide these documents from the government, Trump was slammed with 37 counts earlier this year. Last week, he was also charged with additional counts for allegedly attempting to remove surveillance footage from his Mar-a-Lago resort.