Trump opens 2024 run, saying he’s ‘more committed’ than ever
Donald Trump pleaded the fifth more than 400 times while sitting for a deposition in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ civil fraud case, it has been revealed.
On Tuesday, AG James’ office released a video of Mr Trump’s deposition from 10 August last year where he was questioned about an alleged sprawling financial fraud scheme where he and some of his adult children manipulated their worth to benefit from loans, tax breaks, and other benefits.
Mr Trump claimed that “anyone in my position not taking the fifth amendment would be a fool, an absolute fool”.
A Manhattan grand jury prepares to review evidence about the former president’s alleged hush payment to Stormy Daniels.
She offered a fierce blowback to Mr Trump whose attempt to ridicule the adult film star may have backfired as he seemingly appeared to acknowledge their alleged affair.
Ms Daniels thanked the former president for “admitting” to their alleged affair despite previously declaring that he “never had an affair”. She also mocked the one-time president for using wrong grammar in his Truth Social post.
VIDEO: JD Vance calls Trump foreign policy ‘most cautious and careful’ in a generation
Gustaf Kilander2 February 2023 10:00
Top Dem on House intel seeks briefings on classified records
The new top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday called for more information about the classified records discovered in the private possession of President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.
Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut was named the committee’s ranking member Wednesday by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Along with Ohio Rep. Mike Turner, the committee’s new Republican chairman, Himes will lead a panel that has been split by highly political fights in a break from its traditionally quieter oversight of the U.S. spy agencies.
Turner and the leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee have in recent weeks pushed the White House to share more in private about the classified material found. The U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence has declined to comment on its review of classified material, which is also the subject of multiple Justice Department investigations.
“There’s a strong bipartisan concern that Congress is not being briefed on even preliminary reviews of classified information that might have been exposed,” Himes said in an interview Wednesday with The Associated Press. “That’s wrong. That’s wrong as a matter of law.”
The intelligence committees already face several major tests this year, from multiple discoveries of top leaders keeping classified documents to the fight over whether to renew foreign surveillance powers used by the FBI, National Security Agency and other spy agencies.
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The Associated Press2 February 2023 09:00
Republican-led panel targets COVID relief dollars for review
House Republicans on Wednesday began their promised aggressive oversight of the Biden administration, focusing on what watchdogs described as “indications of widespread fraud” in federal coronavirus aid programs initiated under President Donald Trump.
GOP lawmakers complained that too little attention was paid to the problems when Democrats controlled Congress. Democrats blamed the Trump administration for much of the mess.
More than 1,000 people have pleaded guilty or have been convicted on federal charges of defrauding the myriad COVID-19 relief programs that Congress established in the early days of the pandemic. More than 600 other people and entities face federal fraud charges.
But that’s just the start, according to investigators who testified as the House Oversight and Accountability Committee held its first hearing in the new Congress on fraud and waste in federal pandemic spending. Congress approved about $4.6 trillion in spending from six coronavirus relief laws, beginning in March 2020, when Trump was in the White House and including the $1.9 trillion package that Democrats passed in the first months of the Biden presidency.
“We owe it to the American people to get to the bottom of the greatest theft of American taxpayer dollars in history,” said Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., the committee chairman.
The Associated Press2 February 2023 08:00
Trump starts 3rd White House bid lagging in campaign cash
Former President Donald Trump’s political operation started the year with about $25 million socked away for his recently launched 2024 presidential campaign, a sum that is substantially less than what he had on…
Read More: Trump news today: Trump repeatedly pleading 5th deposition video leaked as