Politics
Trump rails against Manhattan DA Bragg, says 'numerous other agencies' didn't push case
Former President Trump railed against the historic trial in Manhattan criminal court Monday, asking why the District Attorney’s Office picked up the case after other law enforcement bodies did not pursue charges.
“If this were such a great case, why didn’t the Southern District bring it? Who looked at it and turned it down. Why didn’t numerous other agencies and law enforcement groups look at it? Because it was shown to everybody. And very importantly, why didn’t the Federal Elections do anything about it? Because this is federal, it’s not state,” he said.
“It’s not state… It’s never happened before, I believe. Never happened before… where the state tries to insert itself into federal elections. Never. Nobody’s ever seen it. But, you know, Federal Elections took a total pass on it.”
The Justice Department in 2019 “effectively concluded” its investigation into Trump’s payments. And in 2021, the Federal Elections Commission, the agency dedicated to enforcing campaign finance laws, announced that it had dropped a case looking into whether Trump had violated election laws for the payment to former pornographic actor Stormy Daniels.
Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg picked up the case last year, announcing Trump’s indictment in April 2023.
NY VS. TRUMP: JUDGE DELIVERS JURY INSTRUCTIONS AS OPENING STATEMENTS KICK OFF
Former President Trump speaks to the media as he leaves court during his trial at Manhattan Criminal Court on April 22, 2024, in New York City. Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first of his criminal cases to go to trial. (Brendan McDermid-Pool/Getty Images)
Trump’s trial in a Manhattan courtroom began in earnest Monday, after jury selection last week, and heard its first witness, former American Media Inc. CEO David Pecker.
Pecker was allegedly a key figure to a “catch and kill” scheme ahead of the 2016 election. “Catch-and-kill” schemes are understood as tactics used by media and publishing companies to buy the rights of a person’s story, but do not publish the materials.
NY VS. TRUMP: FIRST WITNESS TAKES THE STAND IN MANHATTAN COURT
The trial focuses on a $130,000 payment made by former Trump attorney Michael Cohen to Daniels to allegedly quiet her claims of an alleged extramarital affair she had with Trump in the early 2000s. Daniels reportedly spoke to the National Enquirer, which is owned by American Media Inc., on her claims, with Pecker allegedly contacting Cohen to “purchase” Daniels’ silence on the alleged affair.
Trump has repeatedly denied an affair with Daniels and pleaded not guilty to all counts.
Former President Trump leaves Trump Tower on his way to Manhattan Criminal Court, Monday, April 15, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
“During the election, TRUMP and others employed a ‘catch and kill’ scheme to identify, purchase, and bury negative information about him and boost his electoral prospects,” Bragg alleged last year. “TRUMP then went to great lengths to hide this conduct, causing dozens of false entries in business records to conceal criminal activity, including attempts to violate state and federal election laws.”
TRUMP HUSH MONEY TRIAL: MEET THE JURORS WHO WILL HEAR BRAGG’S CASE AGAINST THE 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE
A court sketch depicts the third day of former President Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan Criminal Court on Thursday, April 18, 2024. (Christine Cornell)
Trump said Monday that payments to Cohen were above board.
NY VS TRUMP: THE EVIDENCE PROSECUTORS CAN PRESENT IF FORMER PRESIDENT TESTIFIES
“It’s a case as to bookkeeping which is a very minor thing in terms of the law, in terms of all the violent crime,” Trump said Monday afternoon. “This is a case in which you pay a lawyer, and they call it a legal expense in the books.”
Michael Cohen, former personal lawyer to Donald Trump, outside federal court in New York, on Dec. 14, 2023. (Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“I got indicted for that,” he added.
Trump briefly delivered public comments earlier Monday, where he slammed the case as a “Biden” trial motivated “for the purposes of hurting the opponent of the worst president in the history of our country.”
“I just want to say before we begin – these are all Biden trials,” Trump said before opening statements were delivered Monday. “This is done as election interference. Everybody knows it.”
“I’m here instead of being able to be in Pennsylvania and Georgia and lots of other places campaigning, and it’s very unfair. Fortunately, the poll numbers are very good,” Trump continued. “They’ve been going up because people understand what’s going on.”
Politics
Fetterman unleashes on ‘dirtbag’ wing of Dems after far-left victories: ‘Orgy of socialism’
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Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., unloaded on his own party on Sunday evening, blasting a series of victories for progressives he called “anti-America.”
“Big night for the dirtbag left,” Fetterman said, referring to New York’s recent primaries, where two members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) won primaries.
“I’ve said the party is becoming an orgy of socialism. Clearly anti-America, anti-Western Civilization,” Fetterman said.
Fetterman’s striking calls give a rare look at how some moderates may view the developments on their far-left flank that have dominated the party’s momentum in recent months, sparking concern that their high visibility is dragging the party further and further left.
FETTERMAN WARNS DEMOCRATS ‘DRIFTING FIRMLY INTO COMMUNISM’ AFTER SOCIALIST PRIMARY WINS
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., speaks to reporters outside the Senate Chamber during votes on Nov. 10, 2025, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
His comments come on the heels of a handful of key progressive victories.
In Maine, Graham Platner, a controversial Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, has attracted controversy for denying knowledge of the meaning behind a Nazi-linked tattoo, for off-color comments about race and calling himself a “communist” in a deleted Reddit post.
In New York, one DSA member, Claire Valdez, won a primary on a platform of abolishing ICE and a Green New Deal-style approach to climate change. Similarly, Darializa Avila-Chevalier, another DSA candidate, beat out incumbent Rep. Adriano Espillat, D-N.Y., a high-ranking Democrat and the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
WINNERS AND LOSERS EMERGE AFTER SOCIALIST EARTHQUAKE ROCKS NYC PRIMARIES
Graham Platner, Democratic Senate candidate for Maine, speaks at a primary election night event at the Blue Hill YMCA in Blue Hill, Maine, on June 9, 2026. Platner won the party’s Senate primary after a campaign marked by accusations of past misbehavior and voter concerns. (Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Both Chevalier and Valdez had the backing of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, himself a socialist.
The wins have captured national attention and drawn criticisms from Republicans who have pointed to their success as emblematic of the direction of the Democratic Party.
Fetterman, who has not shied away from confrontations, has been one of the few Democrats to express alarm about the kind of candidates carrying the party’s banner.
“I mean, you look at some of the things that people have said. Abolish prison, abolish the border, abolish ICE, I mean these crazy people — I have colleagues in my caucus that refuse to even call this out,” Fetterman said.
FETTERMAN REACTS TO MAMDANI’S REFUSAL TO ACCEPT SUPREME COURT’S IMMIGRATION RULING
U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., walks through the Senate Subway during the Senate War Powers vote on April 22, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Heather Diehl/Getty Images)
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“Between P-hustle in Maine and some of the other winners in New York, they should form their own party and run on all the things that they’ve had to delete on social media,” Fetterman said, referring to Platner.
“That’s where our party has moved,” he added.
Politics
Supreme Court limits police use of cellphone data to find crime suspects
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court cast doubt Monday on whether police may obtain cellphone data to find crime suspects.
In a 6-3 decision, the justices said this location information showing where a cellphone user has traveled is personal and private and subject to the protection of the 4th Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches.
Justice Elena Kagan said these “records serve as a personal journal of a user’s movements.”
She said the information “resembles other private materials — think of emails, documents, photographs, or calendars—that even if stored on Google’s servers, a user reasonably views as his own…and reasonably expects to be shielded from the inquisitive eyes of the government.”
Because an “individual has a legitimate expectation of privacy in his cellphone location data,” she said police investigators need a valid search warrant from a magistrate.
The court stopped short of deciding the proper basis for a search warrant in such cases. Instead, the justices sent the case back to judges in Virginia.
But the outcome casts doubt on “geofence warrants.”
In recent years, police have gone to Google and cellphone companies seeking tracking data on cellphones that were at a crime scene. Sometimes, they have had a warrant from a magistrate.
Civil libertarians say the use of this tracking data raises the specter of mass surveillance on innocent people.
Police and government lawyers say no one has a reasonable right to privacy when they are walking on a sidewalk or driving down the street.
The case before the court arose from the armed robbery conviction of a Virginia man who stole $195,000 from a credit union in a small town near Richmond.
By the time police arrived, the robber had fled. But surveillance cameras showed he was carrying a gun and a cellphone.
Lacking other leads, detective Joshua Hilton asked a judge to issue a special type of warrant seeking information from Google.
Referred to as a “geofence warrant,” it seeks data from phones in a particular area at a particular time.
The detective sought data on phones that were within 150 yards of the credit union within one hour of the late afternoon robbery.
After examining and paring down the data, the detective asked for the phone records of Okello Chatrie. Then, with a search warrant of his home, investigators found two robbery-style demand notes, a semi-automatic pistol and about $100,000 in cash.
A judge refused to suppress the evidence from an allegedly unconstitutional search, and Chatrie entered a conditional guilty plea.
The full 4th Circuit Court of Appeals split evenly on the legality of the geofence warrant, and the Supreme Court agreed to decide the issue in Chatrie vs. U.S.
Usually investigators obtain warrants to search the home or vehicle of a known crime suspect.
The new and disputed geofence warrants seek to find a suspect by examining data on the cellphones that were at the scene of a crime.
The FBI used this cellphone data in 2021 to identify suspects who broke through police barricades on Jan. 6, 2021, and pushed their way into the Capitol to disrupt the official counting of electoral votes.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Ketanji Brown Jackson agreed on the outcome in Chatrie vs. U.S.
In a 21-page dissent, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said the court had “carefully set the stage for its planned performance: striking a pose as a great champion of privacy in the digital age. I cannot support this irresponsible escapade.”
Justice Clarence Thomas agreed.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett agreed in a one-paragraph dissent. “Chatrie had no reasonable expectation of privacy in data about his public movements that he voluntarily disclosed to Google,” she said.
Politics
Supreme Court Expands Presidential Powers to Fire Independent Regulators
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that President Trump could fire independent regulators for any reason. But the justices carved out an exception for the Federal Reserve, preventing the immediate removal of Lisa D. Cook, a Federal Reserve governor.
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