Former US president Donald Trump claims he can declassify top secret documents just ‘by thinking about it’
Legal experts have spoken out strongly against Donald Trump after he filed a $475m lawsuit against CNN for defamation, describing his case as “garbage” and “not worth the paper it’s written on”.
Mr Trump’s lawsuit, and his claims that the network “fears” he will run again in 2024, come as his lawyers also sought to delay a hearing in the case of classified documents recovered from the former president’s Mar-a-Lago home.
Meanwhile, Herschel Walker, the Donald Trump-backed Republican nominee for the Georgia Senate seat who has previously supported a total ban on abortions, has denied reports of paying for a woman’s abortion in 2009.
The former football star has also vowed to sue the news outlet that published the report of him having paid for one woman’s abortion years ago. He labelled the report a “flat-out lie”.
And it has been claimed the arrest of Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime associate Ghislane Maxwell left Mr Trump anxious she might raise his name to investigators or the press.
That’s according to a new book by reporter Maggie Haberman, which The Independent obtained ahead of publication today.
Former President Donald Trump isn’t backing down from his support of Herschel Walker.
The Republican Senate candidate in Georgia faces a stunning report from The Daily Beast claiming that Mr Walker paid for an abortion for a woman he was in a relationship with in 2009.
On Tuesday, Mr Trump stood behind his ally now facing a withering barrage of criticism on social media as well as statements from his own son, Christian Walker, who has accused him of being an absentee father.
Trump backs Herschel Walker in abortion scandal: ‘True greatness in his future’
Says he has ‘no doubt’ Walker is telling the truth
John Bowden4 October 2022 20:20
Herschel Walker’s son lashes out and calls father a liar over denial he paid for abortion
Christian Walker, a right-wing influencer on Instagram and other platforms, released a video Tuesday morning in which he unloaded on his father, his own critics on the right and left and the media following roughly 12 hours of mayhem caused by the report, which dropped Monday evening.
In the video, the younger Mr Walker excoriated his father, Georgia US Senate candidate Herschel Walker, and called him a liar who does not live up to the “family values” image that he so frequently preaches in interviews.
“I’m done. Done. Everything has been a lie,” Mr Walker declares in his video. “I was silent lie after lie after lie. The abortion card drops yesterday. It’s literally his handrwriting in the card!”
Herschel Walker’s son calls his father a liar for denial he paid for abortion
Ugly turn in Georgia’s Senate race after The Daily Beast’s report
John Bowden4 October 2022 20:00
CPAC deletes tweet criticising support for Ukraine against Russian invasion
The Conservative Political Action Conference’s Twitter account deleted a tweet criticising Congress for passing aid to Ukraine amid Russia’s invasion on Friday.
On Friday evening, the account for the popular conservative gathering had tweeted about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s annexation of certain territories in Ukraine and Congress’s recent passage of additional aid to Ukraine.
Read more from Eric Garcia:
CPAC deletes tweet criticising support for Ukraine against Russian invasion
Comes as a majority of Republicans voted against giving aid to Ukraine
John Bowden4 October 2022 19:20
Judge expects Steve Bannon’s wall fraud trial in Nov. 2023
Top Trump ally Steve Bannon could be spared from facing trial over charges that he defrauded investors in the “We Build the Wall” scheme until late next year.
Judge Juan Manuel Merchan said he anticipates Bannon, former President Donald Trump’s longtime ally, will go to trial in November 2023 — about a year before the 2024 presidential election. The reason for the estimated wait is the time it will take for both sides to go through pretrial motions and the submitted evidence.
Prosecutors say so far they’ve turned over about four terabytes of material — the size equivalent of millions of written pages or hundreds of hours of video.
Read more in The Independent:
Judge expects Steve Bannon’s wall fraud trial in Nov. 2023
A judge on Tuesday said Steve Bannon’s trial on charges he defrauded donors who gave money to build a wall on the U.S. southern border might not happen until late next year
John Bowden4 October 2022 18:44
Trump nixed Taliban Camp David talks amid worries Ivanka would have to wear burqa
Donald Trump decided against attending talks with Taliban leaders at Camp David over fears that his daughter Ivanka would have to wear a burqa, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman writes.
The revelation is one of many in the Trumpworld correspondent’s upcoming book, Confidence Man.
Read more in The Independent:
Trump nixed Taliban Camp David talks amid worries Ivanka would have to wear burqa
New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman reveals that Mr Trump scrapped a Camp David summit with the Taliban after an adviser asked if Ivanka Trump would have to wear a burqa
John Bowden4 October 2022 18:14
Trump asked aides if Ghislaine Maxwell had mentioned him after her arrest
New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman reports in her upcoming book Confidence Man that the arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell caused a particular consternation for Donald Trump.
According to Ms Haberman, Mr Trump queried his advisers about the Post story during a meeting in the Oval Office, asking: “You see that article in the Post today that mentioned me?”
Ms Maxwell, the longtime boyfriend of paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, was convicted of conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse minors and received a 20-year sentence; she did not cooperate with prosecutors or attempt to secure a plea deal, according to the DoJ.
Read more from Andrew Feinberg:
Trump asked aides if Ghislaine Maxwell had mentioned him after her arrest
In her book Confidence Man, Maggie Haberman writes that Mr Trump queried aides about the now-convicted sex trafficker during an Oval Office meeting
John Bowden4 October 2022 17:28
Trump campaign lawyers mocked him for being broke in newly-revealed emails
Attorneys working for former president Donald Trump’s failed 2020 re-election campaign mocked his lack of financial liquidity and his rampant violations of the US Constitution in emails released in a court filing by the House January 6 select committee.
In one exchange, attorney Bruce Marks told his colleague Kenneth Chesebro that it was “a shame” Mr Chesebro was not in Washington at Mr Trump’s hotel so he could “contribute to violation of the emoluments clause” of the US Constitution.
Read more from Andrew Feinberg in The Independent:
Trump campaign lawyers mocked him for being broke in newly-revealed emails
One Trump attorney writes that he was doing his part for Mr Trump by ‘lining his empty pockets’
John Bowden4 October 2022 16:57
Herschel Walker rants about crime and inflation in bid to deflect from abortion scandal
The Trump-backed US Senate candidate in Georgia was desperate to change the subject on Monday as he appeared on Fox News to answer an accusation raised in a story from The Daily Beast reporting that he paid for a woman to seek an abortion in 2009.
Sean Hannity’s questions about the evidence seemed to come as a surprise to Herschel Walker, who pivoted to talking about rising consumer prices and America’s immigration system when questioned about why an unnamed woman would have proof that he sent her a $700 check around the same time she sought an abortion procedure.
Read more from The Independent’s John Bowden:
Herschel Walker rants about inflation in bid to deflect from abortion scandal
Candidate offers little defence while desperately pivoting to kitchen-table issues
John Bowden4 October 2022 16:11
Trump s claims CNN ‘fears’ him running in 2024
Donald Trump claimed in his lawsuit against CNN that the network “fears” him running for president again in 2024.
In court filings, the former president accused its hosts and contributors of depicting him as the equivalent of the Nazi dictator and mass murderer Adolf Hitler.
“As a part of its concerted effort to tilt the political balance to the Left, CNN has tried to taint the Plaintiff with a series of ever-more scandalous, false, and defamatory labels of ‘racist,’ ‘Russian lackey,’’ ‘insurrectionist,’ and ultimately ‘Hitler,’” read the filings.
Take a look at Mr Trump’s newest battle against the media:
Trump sues CNN in $475million defamation lawsuit
Former president seeking $475m in punitive damages
John Bowden4 October 2022 15:42
Fact check: Trump allies claim Kamala Harris said racial ‘equity’ would decide Hurricane Ian support
Kamala Harris’s conservative critics are once again wrapping themselves up in supposed outrage after the vice president made an observation about the effects of the climate crisis.
The vice president found herself at the center of a storm of controversy over the weekend after she declared that the Biden administration was considering the concept of equity as it sought to build a response to the global climate crisis.
But conservatives took Ms Harris’s answer and wrongly changed the meaning of what she was saying:
Did Kamala Harris really say racial ‘equity’ would decide Hurricane Ian support?
VP’s discussion about effects of climate change is misconstrued by her eager opponents
John Bowden4 October 2022 14:42
