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‘Jerked Around’: Bill Barr Destroys Trump, Says It’s ‘Unprecedented for a President to Take All This Classified Info’

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Bill Barr, Donald Trump’s once-favorite attorney general, on Friday stunned Fox News hosts while destroying the former president’s legal lines of defense in his attack on the Dept. of Justice for executing a legal “search and seize” warrant on Mar-a-Lago .

Donald Trump had five attorneys general in four years – just two of them confirmed by the U.S. Senate – but his favorite AG, Bill Barr, resigned in the final weeks of the twice-impeached President’s only term, after being his primary source of defense. In the 20 months that have followed, Trump has attacked Barr, and Barr has fought back via his memoir in which he called the former president “detached from reality.

The Daily Beast reports on Friday Barr told Fox News the U.S. Dept. of Justice was “being jerked around” by Trump, as the Fox News hosts tried to portray the former president as a victim of the DOJ’s “raid,” even asking why they didn’t serve Trump with a second subpoena after he refused to comply fully with the first.

RELATED: Bill Barr Stuns Fox News by Declaring Seized Documents Still Belong to the Government, Special Master a ‘Red Herring’

Fox News’ Sandra Smith said to Barr, “looking at the unprecedented nature of a raid of a former president’s home like this,” some suggest “there was more room for the authorities to obtain these materials without raiding the president’s home while he was not even there. Do you think this type of this raid was was avoidable? Do you think a second subpoena for example could have been issued?”

Smith did not get the answer she expected.

“Well, I think whether the raid was reasonable under the circumstances, whether there is in fact a case to be made, and whether or not as a matter of prudential judgment, that case should be brought depend on two questions,” Barr said. “The character of those top secret documents and secret documents – how sensitive were they? – and second,  how raw is the evidence of deceit and obstruction? Do they have really good evidence from people who were involved?”

Barr told Smith, “I personally think for them to have taken things to the current point they probably have pretty good evidence, but that’s speculation and until we see that, it’s hard to say.”

READ MORE: ‘Unfathomably Dangerous’: Former Federal Prosecutor on Trump’s Empty Folders Warns ‘Things Just Went From Bad to Worse’

“Now let me just say, I think the driver on this from the beginning was was you know, loads of classified information sitting in Mar-a-Lago,” Barr said. “People say this was unprecedented, but it’s also unprecedented for a president to take all this classified information and put them in a country club. Okay? And how long is the government going to try to get that back? You know, they jaw-bone for a year. They were deceived on the voluntary actions taken, they then went and got a subpoena. They were deceived on that, they feel, and the record the facts are starting to show that they were being jerked around.”

“And so how long, you know, how long do they wait?”

This was the second portion of the Barr interview, earlier he stunned his Fox News hosts when he informed them that the 13,000 items the FBI seized from Mar-a-Lago are government property, and the former president’s call for a “special master” is unnecessary.

As NCRM previously reported, late Friday morning a federal judge unsealed the more detailed inventory list of what FBI agents seized from Mar-a-Lago on August 8. It shows 13,097 items were removed from Donald Trump’s residence/resort, among them over 100 classified documents including 31 documents marked “CONFIDENTIAL,” 54 documents marked “SECRET,” and 18 documents marked “TOP SECRET.”

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Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation

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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.

Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”

“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”

In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”

He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”

“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”

“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”

“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”

The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.

“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”

Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”

Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.

Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.

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Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs

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President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.

“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”

The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”

Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”

TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”

Critics blasted Trump.

“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.

One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”

Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”

The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.

U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”

 

Image via Reuters 

 

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One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won

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President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.

According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.

Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”

“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”

Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”

Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.

Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.

The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.

“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.

The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.

“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”

 

Image via Reuters

 

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