In new interview with The Washington Post today, ‘former guy’ Donald Trump ramped up his replies like someone about to run for re-election.
He commented on the fact that his daughter, Ivanka, was interviewed by the January 6th committee for eight hours this week and declared that this was a “shame and harassment”, while also stating that he did not know what she had or hadn’t divulged to the members of the committee.
Trump also said that he did not know what Jared Kushner, Ivanka’s husband, had said to the committee, but that he had offered both Ivanka and Jared “privilege” if they wanted it. Both of them declined, according to Trump.
Regarding the now ‘infamous’ 7 hour and 37 minute gap in the call logs for then President Trump on January 6th , which took place precisely as the Capitol building was being violently assaulted by his followers, Trump claimed that he had not destroyed any logs from that day and that he did not make any calls on any “burner phones”.
While claiming that he has a “very good” memory, he also stated that he was unable to recall who he had talked to during the time of the gap on January 6th.
“From the standpoint of telephone calls, I don’t remember getting very many” he said, adding subsequently, “Why would I care about who called me? There was nothing sensitive about it. There was no secret”.
Plotting or plodding, the announcement to run still unspecified
Overall the interview comes across as guarded, if Trump’s loose cannon style could ever be described that way.
Many of the topics, other than the comments on the January 6th committee above, were variations on themes Trump has used while he waits to officially declare (or not) for the 2024 Presidential race.
Mentioning the previous comments he had made regarding his health being a factor in his decision to run (or not) in 2024, Tump said that, while that was a consideration, he was currently in good health and then elaborated:
“You always have to talk about health. You look like you’re in good health, but tomorrow, you get a letter from a doctor saying come see me again. That’s not good when they use the word again,”
Continuing his now trademarked tease regarding the official decision to run he then closed with:
“I don’t want to comment on running, but I think a lot of people are going to be very happy by my decision,” adding: “Because it’s a little boring now.”
Not boring was the announcement today, via press release, that a motion has been filed to hold Trump in contempt and levy a $10k per day fine if he fails to comply.
The New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, filed a motion requesting from a state judge to hold Donald Trump in contempt. The former president has continually failed to comply with the official ruling that he turn over necessary documents. The details were in a press release published today by the office.
The judge had ordered Trump to follow the order for documents and information initially by March 3rd and was later extended further to a March 31st deadline. The state AG office reportedly requested documents on 8 separate occasions, and according to the filing, Trump has yet to produce any of the subpoenaed documents and on top of that has raised objections about it.
In a statement, James said “The judge’s order was crystal clear: Donald J. Trump must comply with our subpoena and turn over relevant documents to my office,” continuing he said “Instead of obeying a court order, Mr. Trump is trying to evade it. We are seeking the court’s immediate intervention because no one is above the law.”
In addition to the New York state attorney general is asking the judge to issue an order of contempt, the ruling also has requested that Donald Trump be fined $10,000 each day until he complies with the ruling and provides the requested documentation.
In the filing it states: “The Trump Organization is not presently searching any of Mr. Trump’s custodial files or devices, and has no intention of doing so between now and April 15, 2022”.
As reported by the NYT a spokesperson for the Trump Organization responded to the AG’s request as both “baseless” and the investigation referred to as a “witch hunt“.
On a very busy April 7th for the Trump ‘non-campaign’ an interview with The Washington Post was also published today. In this somewhat guarded interview Trump answered queries on the January 6th committee’s interviews with Ivanka and Jared, and on his intentions to declare himself as a candidate for the 2024 Presidential election.
As reported by Politico, U.S. District Court Judge David Carter ruled on Monday that former President Trump more likely than not made attempts to obstruct Congress during the 2020 elections on January 6, 2021.
This historic ruling may be the first, where a federal judge determined that a President appeared to have committed a crime while in office. Carter’s decision will not have a direct correlation to the issue of wether Trump will be faced with criminal charges or not, however it could place more pressure on the Justice Department to do so.
“Based on the evidence, the Court finds it more likely than not that President Trump corruptly attempted to obstruct the Joint Session of Congress on January 6, 2021”
According to Mark F. Pomerantz, a former federal prosecutor that came out of retirement to work on the Trump investigation and then resigned last month, Trump is ‘guilty of numerous felony violations’. A copy of his resignation letter obtained by the New York Times read “The team that has investigated Mr. Trump harbors no doubt about whether he committed crimes — he did” which is a direct criticism of the lack of further prosecution to date.
Anger over lack of prosecution now confirmed
Pomerantz submitted his resignation after Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg stopped pursuing an indictment of Donald Trump. He believed the former president was “guilty of numerous felony violations” as well as it being “a grave failure of justice” not to pursue charges.
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Almost a year ago, Google took a major step to ensure that its ubiquitous online ad network didn’t put money in the pocket of Steve Bannon, the indicted former adviser to Donald Trump. The company kicked Bannon off YouTube, which Google owns, after he called for the beheading of Anthony Fauci and urged Trump supporters to come to Washington on Jan. 6 to try to overturn the presidential election results.
Google also confirmed to ProPublica that it has at times blocked ads from appearing on Bannon’s War Room website alongside individual articles that violate Google’s rules.
But Bannon found a loophole in Google’s policies that let him keep earning ad money on his site’s homepage.
Until Monday, the home page automatically played innocuous stock content, such as tips on how to protect your phone in winter weather or how to improve the effectiveness of your LinkedIn profile.
The content likely had no interest for War Room visitors, especially since it was interrupted every few seconds by ads. But the ads, supplied through Google’s network, came from such prominent brands as Land Rover, Volvo, DoorDash, Staples and even Harvard University.
Right below that video player was another that featured clips from Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, which routinely portrays participants in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot as patriots and airs false claims about the 2020 election and the COVID-19 pandemic.
The video player running Google ads amid innocuous clips disappeared from Bannon’s website on Monday, after ProPublica inquired with Google, Bannon and advertisers. The change was not Google’s doing: Google spokesperson Michael Aciman said the player did not break the company’s rules. He said Google’s policies were effective in preventing ads from ending up on sites with “harmful content.”
“We have strict policies that explicitly prohibit publishers from both promoting harmful content and providing inaccurate information about their properties, misrepresenting their identity, or sending unauthorized ad requests,” Aciman said. “These policies exist to protect both users and advertisers from abuse, fraud or disruptive ad experiences, and we enforce them through a mix of automated tools and human review. When we find publishers that violate these policies we stop ads from serving on their site.”
A spokesperson for Bannon, who was indicted this month for stonewalling Congress’ bipartisan investigation into the Jan. 6 insurrection, declined to answer questions for this article.
Zach Edwards, the founder of Victory Medium, a consulting firm that advises companies on online advertising, said the digital ad industry, including Google, is rife with loopholes and bad behavior, and its complexity prevents advertisers from understanding what they’re funding. “A lot of times ad buyers just shrug their shoulders and are like, ‘It’s video ads, what can you do?’” he said.
Of Bannon’s dodge and Google’s acquiescence to it, Edwards added, “Nothing about this is aboveboard.”
The vast majority of online ads aren’t purchased through direct relationships with the sites on which they appear. Instead, brands use automated ad exchanges like Google’s that rely on real-time auctions to automatically place ads in front of people who fit a brand’s target audience. As long as Google keeps the War Room website in its network, and as long as brands don’t specifically block it from their ad buys, Bannon’s site can keep collecting money. Warroom.org draws between 450,000 and 1 million visits a month, according to traffic tracker SimilarWeb.
And Google takes a cut of each dollar from ads it places on the War Room site.
“For most advertisers, having an ad placed on a Steve Bannon-affiliated outlet is the stuff of nightmares,” said Nandini Jammi, the co-founder of Check My Ads, an ad industry watchdog. “The fact that ad exchanges are still serving ads should tell brands that their vendors are not vetting their inventory, and I wouldn’t be surprised if advertisers who have found themselves on War Room request refunds.”
Companies contacted by ProPublica said they didn’t intend to advertise on War Room’s site and would take steps to stop their ads from appearing there. Land Rover called the ad “an error.” Harry Pierre, a spokesperson for Harvard’s Division of Continuing Education, said the school is working with its ad buyer to update its list of unwanted websites. Adobe said its ad was a violation of its brand safety guidelines. “We worked with the ad partner to remove the ads from the site,” a spokesperson said.
DoorDash also blamed a third-party vendor. “DoorDash’s mission is to empower local communities and provide access to opportunity for all, and we stand against the spread of disinformation that undermines those principles,” the company said in a statement.
Spokespeople for Volvo did not respond to requests for comment.
Meanwhile, Google may have banned a different site affiliated with Bannon. Until recently, the site Populist Press earned money via Google’s ad network. The site, styled to imitate the Drudge Report, was prominently linked on the War Room homepage and draws roughly 5 million visits a month, according to SimilarWeb.
According to an online disclosure from a former advertising partner, Populist Press is affiliated with August Partners, a Colorado company registered to Amanda Shea, whose husband, Tim Shea, was a partner of Bannon’s in We Build the Wall initiative. Bannon and allies used We Build the Wall to solicit money to fulfill Trump’s campaign promise of a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. Federal prosecutors accused Bannon, Tim Shea and other associates of misusing the money, and Trump pardoned Bannon before leaving office. An attorney for Tim Shea, who is awaiting trial, declined to comment, and Amanda Shea did not respond to a request for comment.
At some point during the week of Nov. 15, Populist Press stopped showing Google ads — and it stopped being promoted on the War Room homepage. Aciman, the Google spokesperson, declined to comment on whether Google had banned Populist Press, but said that the site “is not monetizing using our services.”
Bannon’s “War Room” podcast draws a massive audience, with more than 100 million total downloads across more than 1,000 episodes, available on platforms including Apple’s. A sort of far-right “Meet the Press,” it’s the go-to talk show for pro-Trump influencers and Republican hopefuls. Frequently using violent imagery, Bannon and his guests promote new ways of trying to overturn the election, such as demanding “audits” of the 2020 ballots. Since February, Bannon has inspired thousands to take over local-level Republican Party committees, unlocking influence over how elections are run from the ground up.
On his podcast in 2020, Bannon called for the beheading of Fauci and FBI director Chris Wray. On the eve of Jan. 6, Bannon said, “We’re on the point of attack” and “all hell will break loose tomorrow.” Bannon was also reportedly involved in the Trump team’s command center on the day of the riot, which is part of congressional investigators’ interest in his testimony and records. Since the insurrection, Bannon has taken up the cause of people held on charges related to the Capitol riot.
In addition to his podcast, Bannon has spun a complex web of political and business ventures. He co-founded a training academy for right-wing nationalists that got mired in a legal dispute with the Italian government over control of a medieval monastery near Rome. A media company he launched with Guo Wengui, a fugitive Chinese billionaire on whose yacht Bannon was arrested in 2020, was part of a $539 million settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission in September for illegally marketing digital currency. Before advising Trump, Bannon had a wide-ranging career in finance and movies, and his pardon from Trump lifted a $1.75 million lien against his house in Laguna Beach, California.
Bannon’s megaphone is not just influential. It’s also lucrative. His show and website have promoted fellow election fraud evangelist Mike Lindell’s MyPillow business, as well as a cryptocurrency investing newsletter called TheCryptoCapitalist. (The marketers of an unproven COVID-19 treatment that Bannon promoted were sued by the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission in April. The chiropractor behind the treatment denies the government’s accusations.) The War Room site also contains ads from MGID, a network that places content ads that look like links to related articles and sometimes promote dubious health or financial products.
It’s not clear how much money Bannon makes from online ads. But industry data shows that the links placed by MGID are much less profitable than the video ads facilitated by Google. (MGID did not respond to a request for comment.)
The issue is that major brands likely have no idea that they’re advertising on the site of one of the biggest perpetrators of bogus election fraud claims. That disconnect between brands and where their ads and money end up is a failure of digital advertising and a concern for consumers, according to industry experts.
“Over the past few years, consumers have become really vocal about buying from brands that are aligned with their values,” said Jammi of Check My Ads. “When they find out a brand is funding toxic content, that matters to them.”
A similar scenario has played out with ads that aired during Bannon’s podcast airing on a right-wing website called Real America’s Voice. In March, for instance, an ad for prescription coupon company GoodRx appeared on Bannon’s show.
“We take the trust and reputation of our brand very seriously and have strict advertising standards in place, which include not participating in heavily editorialized news programming,” the company said in an emailed statement to ProPublica. “This placement was an error in the media buying policies.”
Bannon’s show also airs on Pluto TV, a streaming service owned by ViacomCBS that is available on Roku and other devices. This month, the show on Pluto featured ads for such major companies as Men’s Wearhouse, Lexus and Procter & Gamble, according to monitoring by the liberal watchdog Media Matters. As with the Google video ads on the War Room website, these ads are not placed directly, and companies were at a loss to explain why they had appeared on Bannon’s show. (Bannon’s podcast is available in the Google Podcasts app, but the company does not place ads in it.) A Lexus spokesperson said the company’s ad was briefly on Bannon’s site and taken down. A spokesperson for Procter & Gamble did not respond to a request for comment.
“Our marketing spend follows targeted customers, rather than choosing specific programs we want to appear alongside,” said Mike Stefanov, a spokesperson for Tailored Brands, which owns Men’s Wearhouse. “The team continually refines the criteria used, but the appearance of advertising on a specific program does not necessarily mean the company agrees with or endorses the views espoused.”
Extreme Weather Accelerates in Frequency and Destructive Power
Ida hit Louisiana with extreme force, causing damage and mayhem, and leaving hundreds of thousands without power earlier this week. The remnants of that destruction have now moved Northeast. Next, Hurricane Larry is expected to become a major storm by Friday according to the National Hurricane Center.
Effects of Hurricane Ida unloaded in the New York City metro area, creating, unprecedented extreme rainfall. So much so that for the first time ever, a “flash flood emergency” was initiated and both New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy declared states of emergency starting late Wednesday.
“This is a PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION. SEEK HIGHER GROUND NOW!,” the National Weather Service wrote. And example of the extreme nature of the deluge comes via the stat that Central Park got more rain in one hour than it normally would in the entire month of September. More than 2.5 times the previous highest count even, which was tallied just recently.
Parts of New York City and the Tri-State, covering a population of where near 9 million people reside have been affected. Roads flooded, transforming the paths to looks more like raging rivers and rendering subways, cars, and basements of homes useless.
At least 9 people have been reported dead as a result of storm.
Images posted throughout social media overnight showed the insane amount of watering surging over roads as public transportations attempt to navigate and cars get stuck in the water. Even a frightening video of tornado happening in real time in Mullica Hill, New Jersey.
All too familiar the Elephant in the room needs acknowledgment
Although barely mentioned in the midst of chaos and people desperately trying to get to work on Thursday, climate change is giving a kind of early warning signal via extreme weather evens like this, as well as influencing the severity of the massive drought worsening daily in the west, immense wildfires and natural disasters that are being seen with unprecedented frequency and intensity.
If there was ever a wake up call to change and respond with speed and action, this is it.
On twitter there was a thread that likened the photos and videos to the prescient sci-fi film “The Day After Tomorrow” which depicted an ice-age occurring as a result of climate change, and also had scenes of massive flooding (due to the sea level rising which is currently happening, day by day).
The comparison is a stark one, with the Hollywood generated special effects stills not nearly as chilling as the current reality showed in photos being shared and tweeted.
There’s an all too familiar thread building here – larger more intense and devastating events that many keep saying are a coincidence or “random”. I think any child can see (@gretathunberg ?) that there is zero chance anymore that coincidence plays any more that a minuscule role in these tragedies growing, expanding and increasing exponentially.
Unfortunately, we can expect more of the same, no only here in this country, as mentioned above with Larry queuing up of shore, but around the world with extreme and dangerous droughts, heatwaves, polar vortex episodes, floods, deadly wildfires and more becoming the “norm”.
The time to recognize the origin of these mounting calamities has passed, but any proactive, powerful response by governments and industry has barely begun. Perhaps the images and tragedies now being documented and shared (such as below) can help to harden our resolve to see that a change, toward the drastic measures required to combat this climate emergency will finally begin in earnest.
Queens Boulevard in Maspeth/Corona is a literal river at the moment. Bus fully flooded driving through, multiple cars stuck in the water. Absolutely insane. pic.twitter.com/LuSL9uWCEl
