Trump news today: Speech to Jewish group doesn’t mention Kanye and Nick Fuentes dinner as NFT cards ridiculed | The Independent

Trump compares January 6th riot to Black Lives Matter protests

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Former president Donald Trump’s “major announcement” of a line of digital trading cards featuring himself depicted as a superhero, among other characters, was met with widespread ridicule, including from his allies and supporters, as well as President Joe Biden.

A post on his Truth Social account on 15 December announced “limited edition cards” featuring “amazing ART” from his “life and career” in the form of NFTs.

A day after his announcement, he boasted to a conference of Orthodox Jews that he is “the best ally you’ve ever had” though he didn’t mention his dinner with virulent antisemites Kanye West and Nick Fuentes, whom the former president still has not condemned.

He told the crowd “we must confront this hatred … very strongly” after appearing to refuse to do exactly that.

Meanwhile, the House select committee investigating the attack on the US Capitol fuelled by his ongoing election lies will hold a hearing on Monday to vote on criminal referrals to the US Department of Justice. Committee members have indicated that they believe Mr Trump is guilty of obstruction, among other potential crimes.

Fraudulent election conspiracy theorist and pillow salesman returns to Twitter

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, a prominent election fraud conspiracy theorist who continues to baselessly assert that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, is back on Twitter.

He thanked Elon Musk, who hours earlier banned several journalists who cover the world’s wealthiest man and the massively infuential platform he now owns.

Twitter policy forbids “manipulating or interfering in elections or other civic processes” which includes “posting or sharing content that may suppress participation or mislead people about when, where, or how to participate in a civic process.” Content that contains “false or misleading information about civic processes” may also be suppressed or labeled.

The company says it will “label or remove false or misleading information intended to undermine public confidence in an election or other civic process,” which includes but is not limited to baseless claims about election rigging or the certification of election results, which Mr Lindell has spent the last three years raging against on his own platforms and elsewhere.

His first post calls to “MELT DOWN THE ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINES AND TURN THEM INTO PRISON BARS”. He is currently being sued by Dominion Voting Systems for $1.3bn for defamation.

Breaking news: House committee to hold meeting on Trump tax returns

The House Ways & Means Committee will convene on Tuesday to discuss Trump’s tax returns, days before the Democratically controlled House closes out the current Congress before Republicans take the reins next year.

The House Ways & Means will convene on Tuesday to discuss former president Donald Trump’s tax returns just days before the current Congress ends and Republicans take control, CNN reported.

Trump pledges to battle antisemitism to Orthodox Jewish conference. He still hasn’t condemned Kanye or Nick Fuentes

The former president addressed a conference of Orthodox Jews on Friday, boasting himself as the “best ally” to Jewish people and committing himself to battling the “vile poison” of antisemitism.

But he has still refused to explicitly condemn the virulently antisemitic beliefs of Kanye West and white nationalist Nick Fuentes, with whom Mr Trump ate dinner at his Mar-a-Lago resort. The rapper later went on to explicitly praise Adolf Hitler and Nazism and falsely suggest the Holocaust didn’t happen.

“We must never ignore the vile poison of antisemitism or those who spread its venomous creed,” Mr Trump said, reading from his own remarks, according to the Associated Press. “With one voice we must confront this hatred; we must confront it everywhere; we must confront it very, very strongly.”

Trump slams Mitch McConnell over government funding bill: ‘total betrayal’

Once again reviving his feud with Mitch McConnell, Trump says the Republican Senate Minority Leader is “giving it all away” to congressional Democrats after the upper chamber of Congress approved a government spending bill to avert a partial shutdown.

“Why would he do that?” Mr Trump wrote on Truth Social. “The ‘Omnibus’ they’re working on is a total disaster for our Country, and will further destory our economy.”

He said Senate passage of a government spending bill, which gives lawmakers another week to negotiate and pass legislation to fully fund federal agencies through the fiscal year, is “another total betrayal of the great voters of America.”

What will happen after the House committee’s final meeting?

On Monday, the committee investigating the events surrounding the attack on the US Capitol will hold its final meeting and vote on criminal referrals it intends to make to federal law enforcement agencies.

The committee’s final report is expected to include hundreds of pages of evidence alleging former President Donald Trump attempted to subvert the transfer of power and undermine the nation’s democratic process.

Committee chair Bennie Thompson has not made clear how many criminal referrals the committee will send to the US Department of Justice, nor has he made clear who will be referred.

Once referrals are made to the Justice Department, federal prosecutors will review the evidence and determine whether they will proceed with charges.

Federal prosecutors will have to decide if they will follow up on the committee’s referrals

Federal investigators access Eastman, other Trump ally emails

Federal investigators have access to several email accounts and other writings from Republican US Rep Scott Perry, Trump’s former attorney John Eastman, and Trump-era Justice Department officials, accotding to an released order in the DC District Court.

The unsealed order issued on Thursday reveals the wide net cast by federal prosecutors as they investigate a sprawling criminal probe into the events surrounding 6 January, 2021 and the former president’s efforts to subvert the ouctome of the 2020 presidential election.

Filings include 130,000 documents and an autobiography outline from former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark about his experience in 2020 and early 2021.

Giuliani violated ethics rules with his 2020 election claims,

Rudy Giuliani violated ethics rules with his false election fraud claims on Donald Trump’s behalf and should be disciplined, according to a panel in Washingtno DC.

A reccomendation from the hearing committee for the DC Bar’s Board on Professional Responsibility is preliminary and non-binding. The DC local court of appeals will finally decide on whether Mr Giuliani should be sanctioned.

The committee could recommend that Mr Giuliani is disbarred, has his law licence suspended in DC or be formally censured.

Trump’s former lawyer could be disbarred, have law licence suspended or be formally censured

New York Post editorial calls Trump a ‘con artist’ for NFT stunt

The Ruper Murdoch-owned New York Post criticised former president Donald Trump’s announcement of digital “trading cards” NFTs in a newspaper editorial on Thursday, branding the former president a “con artist.”

Echoing othe right-wing critics, the Post’s editorial lambasted the announcement, noting how many people thought it would be related to the race for speaker of the House in Congress or that he had he finally found evidence of voter fraud that he continues to falsely claim manipulated the 2020 election.

“But no, it was a digital card collection of Trump dressed up like a superhero,” the editorial said. “In other words, another money grab. For those still inundated with Trump’s pleas for donations, which arrive three or four times a day with ALL CAPS emails and efforts to shame you into ‘not letting him down,’ this is no surprise. Trump used to be in the business of hotels, golf courses, wine, and dubious universities. Now he specializes in political fundraising.”

The Murdoch-owned paper is the latest conservative outlet to criticise the former president.

Madison Cawthorn hit with $193k lawsuit for unpaid legal fees

A conservative law firm in Indiana has sued outgoing far-right congressman Madison Cawthorn for unpaid legal fees related to a legal challenge to get him off the ballot.

The Bopp Law Firm, which is led by prominent right-wing lawyerJim Bopp, filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for the Southern District of Indiana earlier this month.

Mr Cawthorn reportedly retained the Bopp Law Firm in relation to a lawsuit from North Carolina voters that sought to disqualify the freshman congressman from appearing on the ballot in the May primary. A federal judge ultimately blocked the effort to prevent Mr Cawthorn from being up for election bbecause of his connection to the attack on the US Captiol.

The legal troubles are just the latest of Mr Cawthorn’s woes

QAnon proponent who chased after Capitol officer sentenced to five years in prison

Doug Jensen – who was captured in a widely shared image wearing a QAnon T-shirt while facing off against police in the Capitol, then chased after Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman – was sentenced to five years behind bars on 16 December.

Prosecutors argued he was a “ringleader” for the mob, scaling a “20-plus-foot wall so that he could be one of the very first rioters to break into the building and disrupt the proceedings in Congress.”

Once inside, he led a group of armed rioters in a “menacing pursuit” of Officer Goodman, who led a mob up stairs away from the US Senate chamber.

A sentencing memo said Jensen arrived in Washington DC as a “walking advertisement for QAnon” and was “overwhelmed by conspiracy theories” that fuelled the attack.

“He believed that he had the support of the former president and fully expected the perceived wrong was going to be corrected,” according to the memo. “He was wrong.”