Wednesday, October 2, 2024

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1/ Trump “resorted to crimes” after losing the 2020 election, special counsel Jack Smith allege in a court filing unsealed Wednesday. Prosecutors described Trump as directly responsible for “the tinderbox that he purposely ignited on January 6” after his “increasingly desperate” efforts to cling to power and overturn his 2020 election loss were unsuccessful. “When all else had failed,” Trump “directed an angry crowd of supporters to the United States Capitol to obstruct the congressional certification.” Throughout the document, Smith argues that Trump was “fundamentally” acting as a private candidate for office and not as president when he sought to overturn his 2020 election loss – a direct response to the Supreme Court ruling that Trump had immunity for some actions he took as president. “At its core, the defendant’s scheme was a private one; he extensively used private actors and his Campaign infrastructure to attempt to overturn the election results and operated in a private capacity as a candidate for office,” Smith wrote. Prosecutors also accused Trump of knowing “his fraud claims were false because he continued to make those claims even after his close advisors – acting not in an official capacity but in a private or campaign-related capacity—told him they were not true.” (Associated Press / New York Times / Washington Post / NBC News / CNN / ABC News / Axios)

2/ Trump spent 33-minutes meandering through various unrelated subjects before barely touching on the focus of a campaign event meant to highlight his education policy. “We can be nice and we can be politically incorrect, but the only thing they’re going to do there is cheat on elections, and we just can’t let this happen,” Trump said, adding: “The city of Milwaukee is the home of first and oldest choice program.” Trump went on to erroneously refer to Iran as Iraq, confuse the dictator of North Korea, Kim Jong Un, with the president of Iran, Masoud Pezeshkian, and claim Kim “is trying to kill me,” seemingly confusing Kim with Iran. U.S. intelligence officials have briefed Trump about the “real and specific threats” by Iran to assassinate him as part of “an effort to destabilize and sow chaos.” At one point Trump was asked if he should have been tougher on Iran after they retaliated over the U.S. drone strike that killed Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani and struck al-Asad Airbase in Iraq. While no U.S. soldiers were killed, over 100 were later diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries. Trump responded that “they could take a knife, they were like Rambos, just like putting a million Rambos – good old Sylvester Stallone was my friend. But it’s like putting a million Rambos.” When pressed to answer the actual question, Trump replied: “What does injured mean? You mean because they had a headache because the bombs never hit the fort?” The Harris campaign called Trump “unfit to be Commander-in-Chief” over the remarks. (Washington Post / New York Times /

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