'Really alarming': Ex-prosecutor highlights 'red flag' about Trump-driven violence – Raw Story
Matthew Chapman is a video game designer who attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and lives in San Marcos, Texas. Before joining Raw Story, he wrote for Shareblue and AlterNet, specializing in election and policy coverage.
Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco came out with a warning that Trump and Republican attacks against Justice Department personnel have led to an "unprecedented rise" in violent threats against the agency.
This is a sign that the danger of violence posed by the MAGA movement is escalating, said former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance on MSNBC Wednesday.
"Joyce, that is an alarming proposition," said anchor Alicia Menendez.
"It really is," agreed Vance. "You know, the deputy attorney general is someone who has served in a number of positions at DOJ. She was a line prosecutor. She ran the national security division. She had national security responsibilities in the White House during the Obama administration. And to see her feel the need … to give an interview and to be willing to talk about threats to prosecutors and others is really alarming. It's a real red flag about the position Donald Trump has placed the country in."
ALSO READ: Jim Jordan and James Comer have a new judicial plan: Protect GOP megadonors at all costs
"Yes, a big part of it has been his rhetoric that people have accepted that undercuts DOJ's integrity and the public's confidence in DOJ's integrity," Vance continued. "But again, it goes back to our discussion earlier that Donald Trump is one voice, and if Donald Trump had said this and if others in his party had said that's not the case, these are strong, solid democratic institutions that we can have confidence in, we would not be at the point that we're in today."
"Now we've got a deputy attorney general who's forced to reveal in the course of an interview that not one but three presidential candidates were the subject of serious threats," added Vance. "There are now so many FBI agents and their families who have been threatened, that there's a whole unit at the bureau that's committed to investigating those claims. This is a diversion of our resources from where they should be, and again, it lies at the feet of the former president. People in law enforcement are used to threats in the course of their work. What they're not used to is those threats from coming inside of the house."
Watch the video below or at the link here.
Joyce Vance on Lisa Monaco's "alarming" warningwww.youtube.com
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis made a risky bet on his Republican presidential campaign, and now he's throwing his allies under the bus and it blows up in his face, according to a report.
The GOP governor's campaign turned over substantial funds and many established responsibilities to the outside group Never Back Down, but that political action committee appears to be on the brink of imploding with the resignation of its chief architect Jeff Roe, reported Real Clear Politics.
“I don’t have control over it, and that’s the problem with how this is set up," DeSantis said. "If I controlled it, I would own it, and I would obviously have run it in a good way."
Never Back Down last week canceled all of its advertising in Iowa and New Hampshire for next year, and will instead focus on field operations, and DeSantis appeared to be trying to distance himself from it.
ALSO READ: Trump’s Iowa Faith Leader Coalition includes bigots, advocate of killing Obama
"It’s just an independent group," he said, "and so the dynamics there are things that I just have no visibility into whatsoever.”
Fight Right, a new group linked to DeSantis donors, will take over advertising responsibilities, but DeSantis insisted his chances of becoming his party's nomination remained strong as he campaigned in Iowa ahead of the Jan. 15 caucus.
“We are clicking,” DeSantis said. “We are doing good.”
These are not real political action committees, but they made an official application to the Federal Election Commission:
– Hey Donnie Dumbf— If Immigrants Poisoning Our Blood Why Do You Keep Breeding With Them
– 10 Stacks To The First (person) Who Hits Donald Trump with a Milkshake
– Donnie, you lost Ivanka. Who’s left?
The FEC has a file of more than 1,500 inactive applications that purport to organize a PAC or a fundraising committee for a specific candidate. Most on the list are obviously bogus, many are profane and some are in support of a celebrity — or a cartoon or fictional character — as a fake candidate.
The late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain has applications for a presidential campaign committee. So do Snoop Dogg, Dr. Pepper and Spongebob Squarepants.
READ: Trump reveals weakness every time he complains about losing
The FEC received applications for U.S. Senate campaign committees for Al Capone and Tony Soprano. There was a similar application for a U.S. House campaign committee for Anakin Skywalker.
The Federal Election Commission responds to even the obviously fake applications with a sober letter about fraudulent registrations being illegal.
"It has come to the attention of the Federal Election Commission that you may have failed to include the true, correct, or complete committee information under (federal law) when you filed FEC Form 1," the letter says.
"Knowingly and willfully making any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation to a federal government agency, including the Federal Election Commission, is punishable under the provisions of (federal law). The Commission may report apparent violations to the appropriate law enforcement authorities.
"If the information you submitted in FEC Form 1 is, to the best of your knowledge and belief, true, correct, and complete, please file a response to confirm this."
Trump is a frequent target of the fake political committees. There are Donald Tramp and Donald J. Drumpf applications for presidential fundraising committees. The latter is a reference to the surname of Trump’s ancestors before it was changed.
Several of the applications make statements with their names, including one that references one of Trump’s golf clubs. Doral is a … country club with bedbugs applied to become a political action committee.
We Are Going to (assault) You Every Night When You’re in the Joint Donnie is a reference to Trump facing 91 felony charges in two federal and two state court cases.
Donald Trump has been laundering money for the Russians since the 80s lists Rep. Matt Gaetz as treasurer.
Why would someone spend time on fake FEC applications? One aspiring presidential campaign committee addressed the issue.
The committee’s name: I Don’t Know Why I’m Doing This
NOW READ: Thief takes money from pro-Israel political action committee
By the time 2024 arrives, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) will be gone from Congress. But McCarthy's resignation wasn't the only bombshell that rocked the GOP's single-digit House majority in 2023.
Plagued by scandals, former Rep. George Santos (R-NY) was expelled from the House on December 1. And House Republicans are entering 2024 facing a series of special elections.
Cami Mondeaux, congressional reporter for the conservative Washington Examiner, describes some of them in an article published Thursday.
These races, Mondeaux notes, "Could shift the balance of power in the House — even ahead of the 2024 November elections."
The special elections to keep a close eye on, Mondeaux reports, are taking place in New York's 3rd Congressional District (where Santos served before his expulsion), California's 20th Congressional District (McCarthy's area), Ohio's 6th Congressional District (where GOP Rep. Bill Johnson is expected to leave sometime in March) and New York's 26th Congressional District (where Democratic Rep. Brian Higgins is departing, effective February 2, 2024).
Over the years, McCarthy never had a problem getting reelected — as he is in an area of California that is still GOP-friendly (California was a red state before the 1990s.)
But the race in New York's 3rd Congressional District, which includes Democrat-leaning areas of Queens and Long Island, could be quite competitive.
"The race (to replace Santos) is expected to draw a lot of attention as Democrats aim to flip the seat and narrow the GOP's already-slim majority," Mondeaux explains.
"Both parties and their respective candidate committees are already looking at the race and how it will play a role in possibly shifting the balance of power for the remainder of this Congress."
READ MORE: 'Pulverizing failure': Analyst slams Kevin McCarthy's career in the House
The Examiner reporter adds, "Democrats and Republicans have already chosen their desired nominees, with the special election scheduled for February 13, 2024. Democrats tapped former Rep. Tom Suozzi to run for his old seat, while Republicans chose state legislator Mazi Melesa Pilip, who is seen as a rising star in the party after she was elected in 2021 on a platform largely focused on battling antisemitism and supporting Israel."
READ MORE: GOP's hopes to keep House majority in serious danger after latest NY supreme court ruling
Copyright © 2023 Raw Story Media, Inc. PO Box 21050, Washington, D.C. 20009 | Masthead | Privacy Policy | Manage Preferences | Debug Logs
For corrections contact corrections@rawstory.com, for support contact support@rawstory.com.