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Jack Smith Lining Up Expert Witnesses to Link J6 Rioters to Trump’s Phone Data: Report

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Many defenders of former President Donald Trump have been claiming that the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol Building isn’t something that he encouraged or condoned in any way. And far-right conspiracy theorists have falsely blamed everyone from FBI agents to leftist antifa supporters for the attack — with no evidence to support those claims.

But special counsel Jack Smith’s office, according to The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell, has “indicated” that it is planning to feature three witnesses at Trump’s election interference trial “who could potentially show how January 6 rioters moved on the Capitol in response to the former president’s tweets.”

Lowell, in an article published on December 11, explains, “The witnesses, according to a three-page filing, involve two experts on geolocation data to show the crowd’s movement during and after Trump’s speech at the Ellipse, and an expert on cellular phone data to testify about when and how Trump’s phone was being used — including over the same time period. Expert 3 will testify that they extracted data from official government phones belonging to Trump and one unnamed individual, how the phones were used in the post-2020 election period, including the websites visited, and when Trump’s phone accessed Twitter during January 6.”

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Smith and his team are prosecuting two separate federal cases against Trump — one involving classified government documents being stored at Mar-a-Lago, the other on Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. Smith alleges that Trump violated federal laws when he lost the 2020 election to now-President Joe Biden but tried to stay in the White House anyway.

“In recent weeks,” Lowell reports, “prosecutors have made it increasingly clear that they want to make the case that Trump sought to obstruct the January 6 congressional certification of the election results with the rioters by tying him to the Capitol attack, as well as through political means. The notice about the subject of the expert witness testimony suggests prosecutors also intend to make the case that Trump — through his action and inaction — simultaneously advanced the physical obstruction of Congress as the Capitol attack progressed.”

Lowell adds, “Testimony from the first two geolocation experts will help to ‘aid the jury in understanding the movements of individuals toward the Capitol area during and after the defendant’s speech at the Ellipse,’ the filing said.”

READ MORE: ‘Al Capone of our political system’: Scaramucci says ‘brilliant move by Jack’ has Trump ‘very, very worried’

The Guardian’s full report is available at this link.

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‘Mockery of the Law’: Supreme Court Weakens Voting Rights Act in ‘Earthquake’ Ruling

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The majority-conservative Roberts Supreme Court on Wednesday further eroded the Voting Rights Act, tossing out Louisiana’s congressional district map after a group of non-African American voters sued, arguing the map constituted an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Legal experts are warning the decision “will threaten Black and brown political representation for generations in Southern states.”

Justice Samuel Alito wrote the 6-3 ruling in the case, Louisiana v. Callais, with all six Republican-appointed justices in the majority and all three Democratic appointees dissenting. Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the dissenters, warned that the consequences would be “far-reaching and grave” and that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act was now “all but a dead letter.”

USA Today reported that the “decision could ultimately reduce the number of Black and Hispanic members of Congress and boost Republicans’ chances of winning more seats in the U.S. House, where they have a thin majority.”

“It will now be easier for Republicans to draw maps that favor their party,” the paper observed, “particularly in the South where a voter’s race closely aligns with party preference.”

Critics and legal experts blasted the Court’s decision.

“Today’s VRA decision is intellectually dishonest and wrong,” wrote noted Democratic attorney Marc Elias. “The conservatives basically said: Black people can vote for their preferred candidates, as long as they prefer the right candidates — which will be Republicans. An [absolute] mockery of the law and stain on the court.”

READ MORE: King Charles Discreetly Rebukes Trump in Historic Address to Congress: Report

Elias also wrote that in its decision, the Supreme Court “kneecapped the Voting Rights Act (VRA), the landmark civil rights law that restricted racial gerrymandering and racial discrimination in voting for more than fifty years.”

The Democracy Docket social media account added: “Today’s decision will threaten Black and brown political representation for generations in Southern states.”

Democracy Docket, which was founded by Elias, also warned that today’s Supreme Court decision could usher in an additional 27 Republican-held seats in Congress and secure “GOP House control for at least a generation.”

Election law expert Rick Hasen slammed the Alito decision.

“It is hard to overstate what an earthquake this will be for American politics,” he wrote at his Election Law Blog. “Justice Alito knows exactly what he’s doing: make it seem like he’s not gutting the Voting Rights Act through technical language, turning both the statute and the Constitution on its head. It’s the product of his long mission: to favor the white Republicans he seems to think he represents on the Supreme Court, rather than all Americans.”

NAACP President Derrick Johnson wrote that the decision “is a devastating blow to what remains of the Voting Rights Act, and a license for corrupt politicians who want to rig the system by silencing entire communities.”

“The Supreme Court betrayed Black voters, they betrayed America, and they betrayed our democracy,” he added, calling it “a major setback for our nation” that “threatens to erode the hard-won victories we’ve fought, bled, and died for.”

READ MORE: Trump ‘Frustrated’ by Ballroom Legal Battles — So GOP Wants You to Pay for It: Report

 

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King Charles Discreetly Rebukes Trump in Historic Address to Congress: Report

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Britain’s King Charles III delivered a “carefully targeted rebuff” of President Donald Trump and his MAGA allies during his historic address before Congress, Politico reports, as he lauded NATO and called for “unyielding resolve” to defend Ukraine against Russia.

“British monarchs deliver their political messages in code,” Politico noted, adding that “contrary to the president’s repeated claims over recent weeks, NATO was in fact there to help in America’s hour of need.”

Charles told members of Congress that in “the immediate aftermath of 9/11, when NATO invoked Article 5 for the first time, and the United Nations Security Council was united in the face of terror, we answered the call together, as our people have done so, for more than a century.”

“Shoulder to shoulder,” he declared, “through two world wars, the Cold War, Afghanistan, and moments that have defined our shared security. Today, Mr. Speaker, that same unyielding resolve is needed for the defense of Ukraine and her most courageous people.”

His Ukraine entreaty received bipartisan applause and a standing ovation.

READ MORE: Trump ‘Frustrated’ by Ballroom Legal Battles — So GOP Wants You to Pay for It: Report

Charles praised the United States’ armed forces’ “commitment and expertise,” and that of its allies, that “lie at the heart of NATO.”

Calling it “a direct plea to Trump and Hill Republicans to maintain American support against the Russian invasion,” Politico stated that Charles “is striking a very different tone from Trump’s incessant criticisms of Ukraine and its President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.”

READ MORE: FCC Poised to Review Disney Licenses Amid Trump Pressure Over Kimmel Joke: Report

 

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Trump White House Blames Democrats’ ‘Unhinged Rhetoric’ for Inciting WHCD Attack

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The White House is alleging that “unhinged” and “sick rhetoric” from Democrats is to blame for inciting the alleged assassination attempt on President Donald Trump and members of his administration by “another Radical Left lunatic.”

On Saturday, at the hotel hosting the annual White House Correspondents Association Dinner, a heavily armed man broke through a security checkpoint on the floor above the event and was taken down by Secret Service agents. In his manifesto, the suspect, Cole Tomas Allen, allegedly named “Administration officials ” as his primary “targets.”

On Tuesday, in a press release titled “Democrats’ Unhinged Rhetoric Incites Third Assassination Attempt on President Trump,” the Trump White House charged that the “attack was not random; it was the predictable result of years of reckless, inflammatory, and escalating rhetoric from Democrats” who “have created a toxic environment that incites their supporters to violence again and again.”

The White House listed over a dozen prominent Democrats and their remarks.

For example, it cited House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries who said that Democrats “are in an era of maximum warfare, everywhere, all the time” against Republicans. Jeffries’ remarks were initially taken from a direct quote attributed to a “person close to the White House,” as The New York Times reported last year.

READ MORE: Trump ‘Frustrated’ by Ballroom Legal Battles — So GOP Wants You to Pay for It: Report

In August, The Times reported: “One person close to the president, who insisted on anonymity to describe the White House’s political strategy candidly, summed it up succinctly: ‘Maximum warfare, everywhere, all the time.'”

The White House did not mention the connection.

In its press release, the White House also quoted Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who “called on his supporters to ‘be forcefully rising up against’ President Trump.” Senator Schumer did not say, against President Trump. He said, “against this,” referring to the Trump Justice Department’s prosecution of New York Attorney General Letitia James.

The White House also cited Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro for saying that “heads do need to roll” inside the Trump Administration, and California Governor Gavin Newsom for urging supporters to “punch these sons of b —— in the mouth.”

In total, the White House cited eighteen Democrats and their statements.

READ MORE: ‘This Will Backfire’: DeSantis’s New Redistricting Map Is Already in Trouble

 

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