Trump allies pack courtroom, denounce Bragg’s show trial circus

The slow trickle of congressional allies at former President Donald Trump’s trial is finally turning up. Tuesday's delegation to the trial, led by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), includes onetime presidential candidate and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, as well as Reps. Cory Mills and Byron Donalds of Florida.

Monday saw Sens. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) and Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), along with Rep. Nicole Malliotakis — the first of New York’s 10 Republican congressmen to find the time to support the party’s presidential candidate. Last week, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) became the first member of the legislative to show up at all.

Show trials might seem clownish in the American system, but that doesn’t mean they can’t serve their purpose.

Despite the New York trial’s deeply flawed premise (and the likelihood of a successful appeal, in case of conviction), Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s effort is a real political threat to Trump’s presidential campaign. Yes, it’s a show trial, but show trials can still perform their duty. Prominent Republicans showing up signals a recognition of this reality and a slow rediscovery of basic political instinct that’s been painfully absent these past few weeks.

The former president’s supporters have been quick to point out that Bragg’s prosecution is a sham. For those who haven’t been following too closely, the prosecutor from Manhattan is trying to put Trump in prison for over a century for falsifying business records to hide a non-disclosure agreement — a misdemeanor he’s upgraded to a felony by claiming it was done to break federal campaign finance laws.

He explicitly ran for the office with the promise of prosecuting Trump but waffled and ended up late to the game. In New York, you can only charge someone with falsifying business records within two years of the crime being committed. That changes to five years if it’s a felony, but Bragg was still too late to bring charges in that window, so he’s citing a COVID backlog.

To add to the madness, non-disclosure payments aren’t campaign expenses, and further: Bragg doesn’t have the authority to bring charges over federal campaign finance laws.

The whole case, mind you, rests on the word of a disbarred liar, Michael Cohen. And while the testimony of porn star Stormy Daniels was hyped in corporate media for days, they pretended it didn’t matter when she came across as somewhat crazy. She was allowed to go into great detail about her alleged sexual encounter with Trump, for example, and changed her story on that too. The judge somehow allowed this seemingly immaterial testimony while barring a former Federal Elections Commission chairman from testifying that non-disclosure agreements are not campaign expenses.

The judge permitted all this and, after last week’s Stormy Daniels embarrassment, declined the defense’s request for a mistrial. It’s worth noting he’s a donor to Joe Biden, and his daughter is a Democrat political fundraiser.

Without a doubt, the shenanigans of the past few weeks set the stage well for Trump to successfully appeal a conviction. But he almost certainly wouldn't get an answer before the election, and then what does it matter? It would have achieved its purpose: convicting the Republican candidate of a felony, thereby deterring Americans from voting for him. While his committed partisans would likely grow even more enthusiastic, polling has repeatedly shown a felony conviction would cost Trump votes. Some polls suggest a conviction is Biden’s best path to re-election.

Show trials might seem clownish in the American system, but that doesn’t mean they can’t serve their purpose.

They embarrass their target. Last week’s porn-star testimony was deeply embarrassing. At the top of Monday’s proceedings, Vance tweeted he’s “now convinced the main goal of this trial is psychological torture.”

Further, a show trial isolates its target: You’re all alone against “the people of the state of New York.”

Finally, a show trial silences its target. Trump has been silenced, barred on pain of imprisonment from pointing out how farcical the whole thing is.

That’s why showing up counts. Senators, congressmen, and other Republican leaders sitting among the accused’s supporters is an important optic. It hits back against the sense of isolation, and more than that, it provides an important megaphone for a boisterous politician who’s been ironically silenced.

Starting with Scott last week, politicians have hosted pressers in front of the courthouse to call out those things the former president has been barred from saying. And the press will cover it, so even if you’re one of the many Trump-skeptical Republicans in Washington, it’s politically worthwhile for the exposure alone. “It’s money on the ground,” one longtime D.C. conservative insider told Blaze Media of Tuesday’s delegation. “They are just flying to New York to pick it up.”

That doesn’t mean they won’t get pushback from Biden’s palace guard in the corporate media. Amazingly, some have suggested that Republicans are unduly using their influence by drawing attention to a political persecution. Incredible gall.

And there are dozens of Republican senators and many more congressmen who’ve yet to make the trip, nine from New York alone. But Congress is right to take an interest, even if lawmakers are late to the party. And the more the merrier.

The Federalist: Republicans need to show up to Trump’s Manhattan lawfare trial every day

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The fake hero of Jan. 6’s big primary loss (and Nancy Pelosi’s, too)

Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn lost his primary run to replace Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.), who did not run for re-election. Dunn was promoted as a hero of the January 6 riot, writing a book on the day called “Standing My Ground,” doing a television tour, and receiving the Presidential Citizens Medal from Biden. His campaign was endorsed by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

The only problem was Dunn appeared to be a serial fabulist. While he went on and on about his many heroic deeds and his bloody fists from beating back racists, thousands of hours of security and bodycam footage reviewed by Blaze Media’s Steve Baker revealed an angry and sometimes bumbling man whose only physical confrontations were against already neutralized, calm trespassers.

Superiors appeared to tell an incensed Dunn either to leave the scene or to calm down on two separate occasions. On a third, an excited Dunn accidentally ejected the magazine from his firearm. In a fourth incident, he could be heard screaming about police being taken out in stretchers (this did not happen).

Maryland’s 3rd Congressional District is among the most heavily gerrymandered in the country, so the primary winner is a safe bet for the general election.

The winner, Sarah Elfreth, was heavily backed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a hawkish pro-Israel lobbying group.

Blaze Media Original: Capitol Officer Harry Dunn exposed | The truth about January 6

Blaze Media: Harry Dunn’s account of January 6 does not add up. At all.

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Another American pro-life protester sentenced to years of hard time

Pro-life activist Lauren Handy was sentenced Tuesday to 57 months in prison for blockading the entrance to an abortion facility run by the infamous late-term abortionist Cesare Santangelo.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, a Clinton appointee, delivered the sentencing, which approaches the maximum requested by Biden’s Department of Justice. She previously scolded a nun for making the sign of the cross in the public gallery.

Handy joins John Hinshaw, who was sentenced to 21 months for taking part in the same protest. Three other activists from the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising are currently awaiting sentencing.

“Today's outrageous 57-month sentence for a progressive pro-life activist is a stark reminder,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) told Blaze Media. “Biden's DOJ is fully weaponized against pro-life American citizens, and they are using the FACE Act to do it.”

“House Republicans,” he continued, "should defund the DOJ weaponization, repeal the FACE Act, and stand up for the freedoms that we campaign on.”

Blaze Media:'Tragic injustice': Clinton-appointed judge sentences pro-life rescuer to nearly 5 years in jail over peaceful protest

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The fire rises: ‘Behind-the-scenes recordings reveal what top gender doctors really think about sex-change procedures,’ The Daily Caller News Foundation

It’s likely you haven’t heard of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), but your local hospital has. WPATH is the organization that takes the lead on establishing the so-called standards that are the authority in America’s lucrative sex-change industry. They’re the guys who claim it’s all safe and good for the patient. Now, thanks to a DCNF public records request, you can catch a glimpse of some of their private meetings:

... In one recorded session, a WPATH faculty member and gender doctor claimed that mental health issues don’t necessarily affect a patient’s ability to receive cross-sex hormones.

In another video, a doctor told attendees children should be informed that cross-sex hormones will likely make them infertile but admitted that he will prescribe them anyway if a child says they want the treatment, regardless of the future consequences.

A surgeon euphemistically referred to a phalloplasty procedure, a surgical series that includes obliterating the vaginal cavity and creating a fake penis with harvested tissue, as an “adventure” for young people. He did this despite later admitting that those same procedures will “definitely” have “complications,” such as permanent issues with bladder function and tissue death.

One physician called the entire field of cross-sex hormones “off-label,” referring to the concept of drugs being used for alternative purposes than what they were approved for. The doctor went on to say that female patients might actually appreciate drug side effects that cause them to lose hair, because they’d look “more like men” ...

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