TV News LIES

Donald Trump’s former chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg is returning to jail after pleading guilty to perjury over testimony he gave during a sprawling fraud case targeting the former president’s real estate empire.

Entering a Manhattan criminal courtroom on Wednesday in a dark jacket and blue face mask, Weisselberg was sentenced to five months in prison, weeks after reaching a plea deal with prosecutors to admit that he lied to investigators and a judge probing the former president’s real estate empire.

He spent 100 days at the notorious New York jail last year after he was convicted on a range of tax crimes in a separate case stemming from a sweeping criminal investigation into Mr Trump’s business.

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Federal judges have begun ordering the early release pending appeal of Jan. 6 defendants who challenged their sentences even though the Supreme Court is a week away from hearing arguments on whether a key charge brought against them is legally sound.

Fifteen prominent historians filed an amicus brief with the US supreme court, rejecting Donald Trump’s claim in his federal election subversion case that he is immune to criminal prosecution for acts committed as president.

Authorities cited in the document include the founders Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Adams, in addition to the historians’ own work.

Trump, the historians said, “asserts that a doctrine of permanent immunity from criminal liability for a president’s official acts, while not expressly provided by the constitution, must be inferred. To justify this radical assertion, he contends that the original meaning of the constitution demands it. But no plausible historical case supports his claim.”

Trump faces four federal election subversion charges, arising from his attempt to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden in 2020, fueled by his lie about electoral fraud and culminating in the deadly attack on Congress of 6 January 2021.

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State Attorney General Letitia James’ office filed papers giving Trump’s lawyers or the bond underwriter 10 days to “justify” the bond — essentially, to show that the company can make good on it. That could mean disclosing more about the collateral Trump provided.

A hearing was set for April 22.

One of Trump’s lawyers, Christopher Kise, said James was trying to provoke a “baseless public quarrel in a desperate effort to regain relevance” after an appeals court last month significantly cut the amount of the bond needed to hold off collection.

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Joe Biden announced plans to cancel student loans for 30 million borrowers on Monday, the administration’s latest push on addressing student debt before the presidential election.

The plan primarily targets borrowers who have accrued a high level of interest on their debt and those who have been in repayment for at least 20 years. Borrowers who face extreme economic hardship could also see some relief.

The White House said that parts of the plan could begin to take effect in the early fall, at the earliest. In addition to a waiting period to receive public comment, the administration is expecting legal challenges from Republicans that could stall the plan from going into effect.

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A New York appeals court judge has rejected former President Donald Trump’s request to delay his 15 April hush-money criminal trial while he fights to move the case out of Manhattan.

The decision came Monday, a week before jury selection was set to start.

Trump’s lawyers had argued at an emergency hearing that the trial should be postponed while they seek a change of venue to move it out of heavily Democratic Manhattan.

Trump was ready on Monday to sue the judge in his New York hush-money case a week before the start of the much-anticipated trial, the New York Times reported, detailing yet another attempt by the former president to delay legal proceedings against him.

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