Jilly_in_VA
Jilly_in_VA's JournalJack Smith suspected Trump kept docs for financial gain -- but sources highlight another motive
Special counsel Jack Smith strongly suspected that President Donald Trump took some classified records after he left office in 2021 because they could help him financially, but Smith and his team later concluded they could not prove this was his motive, MS NOW has learned.
Early in his tenure, Smith was “laser-focused” on establishing whether financial gain was one of Trump’s driving motives in taking and concealing classified documents after he left the White House, according to two people familiar with the case. The special counsel tasked his team with tracking down the connection between some documents in Trump’s possession which, according to an internal memo MS NOW obtained, contained intelligence related to Trump’s businesses.
But by late spring and early summer of 2023, as Smith’s team was secretly presenting evidence to a grand jury in Florida about Trump’s mishandling of these top-secret records, Smith and his prosecutors determined their clearest conclusion was that Trump kept the records out of an egotistical belief that he should be allowed to keep them — and also that the records were “cool” to have, the people said.
A January 2023 case memo that MS NOW obtained this week revived the long-simmering questions about what motivated Trump to take hundreds of pages of top-secret records when he lost his re-election bid. The special counsel’s office memo said the FBI found numerous records in its 2022 search at Mar-a-Lago that were connected to Trump’s business interests, and said it established a financial motive as a reason Trump kept them.
The law doesn’t require establishing a person’s motive in order to convict them of the crime of mishandling classified records, but like any prosecutors, Smith and his team were keen to determine it and describe it to a jury at trial, according to the people, who asked to speak confidentially to discuss a sensitive probe.
https://www.ms.now/news/jack-smith-trump-classified-documents-financial-motive
Very juvenile, but what do you expect?
'The Pitt' Producer Addresses Backlash to ICE Episode
An episode of The Pitt that divided viewers with its ICE-focused storyline was based on real-life accounts of hospital staffers and was not meant to “politicize” the series, the executive producer says.
Producer John Wells, 69, explained that the episode was shaped to remain faithful to a reality unfolding across the country. Since its inception, HBO’s medical drama The Pitt has not avoided politics; instead, it addresses the intersection of headlines and life within a hospital. This time was no different, Wells said, also revealing that the episode was written before the fatal shootings of U.S. citizens in Minnesota in January.
“We were just trying to get to this issue of why it’s important that immigration enforcement doesn’t happen in certain kinds of public spaces, like where we have to be able to provide services regardless of whether or not someone is an unauthorized person in the country or not,” Wells told Deadline.
This particular episode of The Pitt became preemptively controversial after Wells revealed that HBO told him to ensure the ICE episode remained “balanced.” On an episode of The Town with Matt Belloni, Wells said they would be “careful” in their portrayal of the issue, adding, “We’re not really in the business of preaching to the choir on this show.” The comments received pushback from fans before the episode aired.
Asked about this, Wells said that they sought to tell a story of what is “factually happening.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/obsessed/the-pitt-producer-addresses-backlash-to-ice-episode/
I haven't seen this episode yet owing to recent travels,so I can't really comment on it, but if It's as good as the series generally is, I'm sure it's right on.
MAGA Senator Torched Over Totally Bonkers Claim About Snow
A MAGA senator got relentlessly mocked on social media for making a bizarre claim about shoveling snow in a deep-blue city.
Alabama Sen. Katie Britt, 44, used New York City’s snow as an example of why Americans should support the SAVE Act, a controversial measure that would require proof of citizenship for voter registration and largely scrap mail-in ballots in elections.
“We want to make sure that Americans have faith in their elections,” she said on Capitol Hill on Thursday. “We want to make sure that they are free, fair, and secure. If Americans don’t have faith, it undermines the very pillars that hold up our democracy. And we know the best way to do that is to require ID.”
She went on to list examples of situations where Americans would need an ID, which, according to her, includes shoveling snow in New York City.
“You can’t rent a home, you can’t go to work, you can’t shovel snow in New York City without an ID,” she said. “So I’m pretty sure as we look to try to achieve the American dream, whether that’s getting insurance, whether that’s getting a car, whether that’s signing your kid up for school, you need an ID.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/maga-senator-katie-britt-torched-over-totally-bonkers-claim-about-id-mandate-for-new-york-city-snow-shovelers/
Southern senators ond congresscritters writing the book on stupid.....
Bad news for the boy in the bunny hat
A federal immigration judge has denied asylum in the U.S. to the family of Liam Conejo Ramos, the 5-year-old boy who became the face of the Trump administration’s brutal immigration crackdown.
The Ramos family have been ordered to be deported to Ecuador, with their lawyers now appealing the ruling by U.S. Immigration Judge John Burns.
Preschooler Liam was photographed wearing a bunny hat and Spider-Man backpack as he was detained with his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, during an ICE anti-migrant sweep in Minneapolis on Jan. 20.
(snip)
Judge Burns, who was as appointed assistant chief immigration judge in January 2026 after being appointed as immigration judge in December 2020 under the first Trump administration, handed down the decision on Feb. 19, according to People, but the family only shared the information publicly on March 18. As an immigration judge, Burns is not a full federal judge, and therefore works for the Department of Justice.
“We’re just gravely disappointed in the judge’s misguided decision,” the family’s attorney Danielle Molliver told CNN on Thursday. “We’re committed to the family and we’ll fight the appeal, obviously, the best that we can.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/devastating-blow-for-family-of-5-year-old-boy-taken-by-ice/
Oh FFS! They are not "the worst of the worst"! Let it go already!
Is Bibi MIA, dead, in a bunker, or what?
There are a lot of rumors around, and he apparently hasn't been seen in days. What's the truth? Does anyone know? Even in the Middle East? Even in Israel?
What ACA enrollees are cutting back on to afford health care, according to a new poll
Lately, Priscilla Brown has had to choose between properly managing her Type 2 diabetes and affording other necessities, like gas in her car. Some days, she takes half or a third of her prescribed insulin dose — just to stretch it out longer.
“Sometimes I don’t even take my medicine,” said the 48-year-old truck dispatcher in Orlando, Florida. “It’s so much with insurance, it’s crazy.”
About 8 in 10 Americans, like Brown, who re-enrolled in Affordable Care Act marketplace coverage say their health care costs are higher this year, including about half who say their costs are “a lot” higher, according to a new survey from the health care research nonprofit KFF. A main reason for increased costs was the Dec. 31 expiration of enhanced tax credits that had offset premiums for most enrollees.
For Brown and others, those spiking costs are having real impacts on daily life. Of the 1,117 Americans surveyed who had ACA marketplace coverage in 2025, including those who dropped coverage or changed plans, about 55% said they’re planning to deal with health care costs by cutting spending on food and other basic household needs.
Democrats in Congress last year had fought to keep the COVID-era subsidies but faced pushback from Republican leadership. In January, momentum toward a bipartisan compromise fell apart — leaving some 23 million ACA enrollees without relief as they faced higher premiums or made tough decisions to disenroll or downgrade plans.
https://apnews.com/article/health-costs-trump-poll-affordable-care-act-4dbaa457c20348338533f05679d604bf
Further proving that we are now a second world country
A baseball title unleashes the happiness Venezuelans kept bottled up for years
There’s happiness, and then there’s Venezuelan happiness. It feels sweeter. Louder. Deeper.
Maybe because it doesn’t arrive as often. Or because it has been repressed by security forces and self-censored to avoid jail. Or because it seems collectively and individually unattainable.
But the nation felt it Wednesday. Its people cried, yelled, danced, hugged and drank after Venezuela’s 3-2 victory over the United States in the World Baseball Classic final the previous night brought out the emotion.
“We hadn’t expressed this happiness that we want to shout,” hairdresser Deyanira Machado said outside a beauty salon in Caracas, the capital.
Unlike so much here, the score on televisions across the country was final. It was not going to change in the coming minutes or days. It was not subject to interpretation. And the young and old, politically active or not, rich and poor, exhaled after holding their breath for years.
https://apnews.com/article/venezuela-world-baseball-classic-us-happiness-0c9d2879774e59c495dc185d67bf9ad1
Also just a little bit of a stick in the eye for Shitler. Notice he hasn't said thing one about it.
Advocates work to reconcile Csar Chavez's labor rights legacy with sexual abuse allegations
Mary Rose Wilcox and her husband marched and fasted alongside César Chavez. They helped him open a radio station in Phoenix and plastered their Mexican restaurant with photos and a mural of the widely admired Latino icon.
So when Wilcox’s daughter called this week to inform them of sexual abuse allegations leveled against Chavez, she said it felt like a punch to the gut.
By Wednesday morning, the couple had taken down Chavez’s photos from their restaurant walls and made plans to cover the mural.
“We love César Chavez. But we cannot honor him and we cannot even love him anymore,” said the former Phoenix City Council member.
Many like Wilcox are working to reconcile the legacy of a man who fought tirelessly for the rights of farmworkers with stunning allegations that he sexually abused girls and the co-founder of the United Farm Workers of America union, Dolores Huerta.
https://apnews.com/article/cesar-chavez-sexual-abuse-allegations-08264e63b6f594278239af1ad23ba1fc
Is it not possible to be both?
One 'freaking snake' and no apologies: How the Mullin hearing went off the rails
The chairman opened the hearing with a provocative dare: Say it to my face.
Sen. Rand Paul, the Republican from Kentucky, has made clear he has little regard for President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security, fellow Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin. He says he’ll vote against him.
Their differences go way back.
Mullin has called him a “freaking snake,” siding with Paul’s neighbor who left the senator with multiple broken ribs after a surprise attack, the neighbor having tackled the senator years ago as he was doing yardwork outside his home.
Paul calls Mullin a liar with anger management problems who lacks the temperament to lead the troubled Homeland Security Department that is at the forefront of Trump’s mass deportation agenda.
“Tell it to the world why you believe I deserved to be assaulted,” Paul said on Wednesday as he gaveled the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to order.
https://apnews.com/article/rand-paul-markwayne-mullin-dhs-confirmation-hearing-6c05a260b9f2fa4d730749213b3f4663
Actually, the "freaking snake" turned out to be Fetterman, as usual
Trump Brazenly Defies Wishes of Fallen Heroes' Families
President Donald Trump’s media machine won’t stop—even if it means flouting the wishes of the families of soldiers killed in his war with Iran.
The families of the six U.S. Air Force airmen who died last week when a refueling aircraft crashed while supporting military operations in Iran had explicitly asked for privacy during the dignified transfer of their remains on Wednesday, which the president attended.
Fox News’ John Roberts said during the day’s broadcast of America Reports that the troops’ kin asked for the transfer to remain private, banning cameras from capturing Trump welcoming the fallen service members back home.
“So unlike we have seen in the past, we will not see scenes of the president welcoming the heroes back home,” Roberts said.
But while the press honored the families’ request, the White House apparently couldn’t resist turning the moment into a photo op for Trump.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-brazenly-defies-explicit-wishes-of-fallen-heroes-families/
What about "We don't want you here and we don't want pictures" do you NOT understand?????
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