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‘Not True’: CNN’s Elie Honig Calls BS On Trump Courtroom Rant At Hush Money Sentencing
CNN legal analyst Elie Honig called BS on President-elect Donald Trump’s courtroom rant about District Attorney Alvin Bragg during Judge Juan Merchan’s sentencing hearing.
Trump appeared virtually on Friday for sentencing on the 34 felony counts he was found guilty of in the Stormy Daniels hush money trial , the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to deny Trump’s emergency petition.
The judge imposed a sentence of an unconditional discharge, which carries no penalty but finalizes Trump’s status as a convicted felon and avails him of full appeal rights.
During the hearing, Trump went off on a rant about the case, but on Thursday’s edition of CNN News Central , Honig fact-checked Trump minutes before the sentence was passed:
LAURA COATES: Ellie, the idea of a now defendant, somebody who had had a guilty verdict issued, this is not novel. We often expect to hear from the defendant. But this moment is historic.
ELIE HONIG: Yeah. So I’m eager to see what. Here we go.
Donald Trump begins by saying this has been a very terrible experience and a setback for the New York court system. As you say, Laura, in any sentencing, the defendant has the option to address the court. Sometimes defendants choose not to do that, especially if they’re intending to appeal. But clearly, Donald Trump is speaking now.
He is going to be it sounds like so far he’s being characteristically aggressive. He says this has been a terrible experience, a setback for the New York court system. And as you said, this is sort of the fundamental disagreement here.
The D.A. and the judge will agree with the D.A., has said this was a righteous case. No man is above the law. But Todd Blanche’s argument that he made that it sounds like Trump is is echoing.
And here Trump says this is the case that Alvin Bragg did not want to bring, is that this case should never have been brought, that it was politically motivated.
What Trump’s referring to there. This is a case that Alvin Bragg did not want to bring. That’s not true.
Alvin Bragg declined to bring a separate case, but Alvin Bragg chose to bring this case. And I see Trump now says of the D.A., quote, “He thought it was from what I read and from what I heard, inappropriately handled before he got there.”.
Trump is sort of mishmash, mashing several different stories in his head because there was a separate investigation of a separate crime that Alvin Bragg, when he took office in 2022, declined to charge.
But that had to do with Donald Trump’s finances. This hush money case is a case–. Look, I disagree with the decision, but Alvin Bragg made the decision to bring this case. And obviously he and his office, the Manhattan DA’s office, stands behind it.
I see. Trump said, quote, “He said, I was falsifying business records, falsification of business records.”.
That is the underlying charge here. The hush money payments are at the core of this case. The falsification is the actual crime.
Watch above via CNN News Central .
The post ‘Not True’: CNN’s Elie Honig Calls BS On Trump Courtroom Rant At Hush Money Sentencing first appeared on Mediaite .
‘No Morality’: British Editor Delivers Searing Takedown of Elon Musk’s Assault on Truth
British journalist Ian Hislop offered a brutal takedown of X owner Elon Musk’s years-long assault on what is “true”, while accusing social media moguls, like him, of “sucking up” to President-elect Donald Trump for commercial gain.
In recent weeks, Musk has waged a campaign against UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, blaming him for the historic child sex abuse scandal in the country involving grooming gangs .
He accused the media of not reporting on the story at the time and Starmer of failing to punish these gangs during his tenure as Director of Public Prosecutions. In a vicious series of exchanges, rife with false claims , Musk has called a Labour cabinet member a “rape genocide apologist” and said the prime minister should be imprisoned. In response, Starmer condemned the spread of “lies and misinformation.”
Hislop, who serves as editor at British satirical magazine Private Eye, appeared on LBC to speak with host Andrew Marr about Musk’s growing influence, skewering the billionaire for convincing his followers that the media cannot be trusted — which he deemed “an amazing feat of deception.”
He has enormous power because of A. His money and B. His reach to people who have been persuaded over the past 5 years or so that the mainstream media hasn’t covered any stories and that the only people that have noticed anything happening in the world are people sitting in their bedrooms sending messages to each other. It’s an amazing feat of deception. And I think we should have got on to him early on when he, quite courteously, called someone who was trying to help those boys in Thailand a pedophile — ‘the pedo guy’ — and I think he thought from then on I can say anything I like it doesn’t have to be true, it’s better if it’s not true and no one will stop me.
Marr noted that Musk was a new kind of media mogul whose platform gave him a new kind of power, unlike “the Rothermeres and Murdochs” of “decades and centuries” past: “We have never had someone like this who is tweeting, speaking in his own name several times a day, many times a night.”
Hislop agreed, widening the scope of his criticism to other social media founders, branding them as “ungrown-up men” who have constructed “companies in their own image.”
No, and it’s not merely that he’s sort of a classic social media adolescent who hadn’t grown up – the tantrums, the lack of responsibility. I mean, the whole business was set up by a group of ungrown-up men who are now running companies in their own image.
And to see them now sucking up to Trump, when they were quite happy not to suck up to him before, clearly on the grounds that this is to their commercial advantage. They have no morality at all, literally none.
Watch above via LBC.
The post ‘No Morality’: British Editor Delivers Searing Takedown of Elon Musk’s Assault on Truth first appeared on Mediaite .
MSNBC Legal Analyst Calls Trump’s Unconditional Discharge Sentencing ‘Justice’: ‘Showing the Rule of Law Will Prevail’
MSNBC legal analyst Kristen Gibbons Feden argued on Friday that President-elect Donald Trump’s unconditional discharge at his hush money case sentencing is “justice.”
Judge Juan Merchan sentenced Trump to an unconditional discharge for his conviction on falsification of business records. Trump was convicted on more than 30 felony counts, stemming from charges he paid hush money to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to cover up an affair. Trump continues to deny the affair and knowledge of any payments.
Following Merchan’s announcement, Feden and attorney Jeremy Saland joined MSNBC to react. Saland argued that the sentencing was “fair.”
“This is fair. It is what it is. That’s justice,” he said.
Saland argued that elected officials are not held to a higher “legal standard,” but a “moral” one, adding that others in Trump’s case may have faced a harsher sentence, but the case also may have never come to fruition if Trump wasn’t the defendant.
Feden, a former prosecutor, was in agreement, saying that Merchan’s decision upholds the felony convictions and that delaying sentencing would only give Trump time to get the case entirely dismissed.
Feden said:
I agree, I agree. I think there’s two things here. There’s that accountability. But then there’s also the fact that the judges upheld the ability for this case not to be dismissed. And I think that that is really important because not only is it justice, it is justice, it is the criminal justice system playing itself out, not allowing, not allowing Donald Trump to utilize his position of importance to just allow things to just go away. It is allowing him to be held accountable. It is showing that the rule of law will prevail if allowed to. And I think that is such an important message to tell to the public. Yes, you’re absolutely right. It is difficult, if I was a convicted felon and I was convicted of the same exact crimes that Donald Trump was, and I got a heightened sentence just because I’m not Donald Trump, yes, that is hard to digest. But at the end of the day, I think one thing that is very important is that every criminal defendant has the right to have various factors be weighed in their sentencing, and it to be applied appropriately.
Watch above via MSNBC .
The post MSNBC Legal Analyst Calls Trump’s Unconditional Discharge Sentencing ‘Justice’: ‘Showing the Rule of Law Will Prevail’ first appeared on Mediaite .
Trump Celebrates His Official Sentencing as a Convicted Felon: Proves ‘THERE WAS NEVER A CASE’
AP Photo/Mary Altaffer
In both predictable and strange fashion, President-elect Donald Trump framed the occasion of his official sentencing as a convicted felon as a win against “Radical Democrats.” He also claimed that Judge Juan Merchan’s ruling of “unconditional discharge” was proof that “THERE WAS NEVER A CASE.”
Trump was sentenced Friday morning after a New York jury found him guilty of fraudulently hiding hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, with whom he is alleged to have had an affair. The fraud case was a unique one seeing as it involved campaign donations to a presidential race, which critics used to argue it was a partisan attack on the former president.
Shortly after the official sentencing procedure ended — Trump and his attorney Todd Blanche attended virtually — the president-elect took to social media to call the sentencing a loss for his political foes. “The Radical Democrats have lost another pathetic, unAmerican Witch Hunt,” he posted, first on Truth Social.
After repeating much of the same “Witch Hunt” claims and alleging that the New York Southern District Court was working in coordination “with the Biden/Harris Department of Injustice in lawless Weaponization,” Trump claimed the unconditional discharge “proves that, as all Legal Scholars and Experts have said, THERE IS NO CASE, THERE WAS NEVER A CASE, and this whole Scam fully deserves to be DISMISSED. ”
Trump wrote :
The Radical Democrats have lost another pathetic, unAmerican Witch Hunt. After spending tens of millions of dollars, wasting over 6 years of obsessive work that should have been spent on protecting New Yorkers from violent, rampant crime that is destroying the City and State, coordinating with the Biden/Harris Department of Injustice in lawless Weaponization, and bringing completely baseless, illegal, and fake charges against your 45th and 47th President, ME, I was given an UNCONDITIONAL DISCHARGE. That result alone proves that, as all Legal Scholars and Experts have said, THERE IS NO CASE, THERE WAS NEVER A CASE, and this whole Scam fully deserves to be DISMISSED. The real Jury, the American People, have spoken, by Re-Electing me with an overwhelming MANDATE in one of the most consequential Elections in History. As the American People have seen, this “case” had no crime, no damages, no proof, no facts, no Law, only a highly conflicted Judge, a star witness who is a disbarred, disgraced, serial perjurer, and criminal Election Interference. Today’s event was a despicable charade, and now that it is over, we will appeal this Hoax, which has no merit, and restore the trust of Americans in our once great System of Justice. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
Trump’s spin on his conviction overlooks comments made by Judge Merchan that recognized his election victory and imminent inauguration as a significant factor in the tepid sentencing, which some analysts have described as a “tremendous victory” for Trump and his legal team.
The post Trump Celebrates His Official Sentencing as a Convicted Felon: Proves ‘THERE WAS NEVER A CASE’ first appeared on Mediaite .
DeSantis Angrily Attacks Press When Asked About Trump Blaming LA Fires On Democrats
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) joined some of his fellow Republican governors to at Mar-a-Lago to meet with President-elect Donald Trump ahead of his inauguration this week. DeSantis took questions from the press on Friday and was asked to weigh in on Trump’s many recent attacks on Democrats over the unprecedented and ongoing fires that are devastating the LA area.
DeSantis was asked by an off-camera reporter if Trump’s attacks on California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and President Joe Biden are “appropriate” given the ongoing state of emergency.
“Is it appropriate for people in your industry to try to create division and to try to create narratives any time these things happen?” DeSantis hit back, adding:
Now, you’re not as interested in doing that because Newsom is a ‘D.’ If Newsom was a Republican, you guys would go try that. You would have him nailed to the wall for what they’re doing over there. And I know we’ve dealt with that. We just assume in Florida, anytime something happens, it’s going to be politicized by the media. So you guys sitting in judgment of Donald Trump, I mean, excuse me, I think your track record of politicizing these things is very, very bad.
“Okay. Last question,” an aide told the press.
“Trump said Newsom should resign and that the wildfires are all his fault. So do you agree with those comments?” another reporter asked.
“I remember when we had the Surfside Tower collapse. I had people from The Washington Post trying to blame me for it immediately without having any facts or any of it. He didn’t declare a state emergency. First of all, state of emergency doesn’t mean you can’t respond,” DeSantis replied, largely ignoring the question.
“Biden did it though,” hit back the reporter.
“Well, but what I’m telling you is you guys are trying to make an issue of it when I have watched from this seat. In fact, when I got elected governor, I was meeting with some of the other Republican governors. And what they would say is, hey, if you have a natural disaster, just know media is coming at you, they’re going to do it,” DeSantis said, concluding:
It’s not the same that mayor of LA if that were a Republican mayor, I can only imagine what that would do. I mean, you know, the fires are at high risk and you try to go to Africa or wherever she wants to go on some type of voyage. You should have been there preparing and doing that. And yet I don’t see a lot of heat being directed in that thing. And so, you know, I just I’d like to see some balance on how this is done. You can criticize the president-elect, but I think you also have to hold these other people accountable. And I have not seen that.
Watch above via C-SPAN.
The post DeSantis Angrily Attacks Press When Asked About Trump Blaming LA Fires On Democrats first appeared on Mediaite .