Badlands News Brief
Trump Arrest ... Panic or No Panic?
The News Cycle is almost impossible to track these days. At least, to do so fully.
That’s where we come in.
In the Badlands News Brief, the Badlands Media team hand picks news items of interest from the previous days to give you an overview of the biggest goings-on relevant to the Truth Community.
Some items feature original commentary from members of our growing team of citizen journalists.
Now, onto the news from the Weekend that Was …
Manhattan DA's Trump case rests on shaky legal, ethical ground, experts say
Former President Donald Trump on Saturday shocked the world with an announcement that he expects to be arrested Tuesday in connection with an ongoing investigation by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a case legal scholars have suggested has a questionable legal basis.
The investigation involves Trump's 2016 alleged payment of $130,000 in hush money to Stormy Daniels via his former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, whom he later reimbursed.
While Bragg has not announced specific charges, legal scholars such as George Washington University Professor Jonathan Turley are predicting an indictment for falsifying business records under New York Section 175. Such a charge would likely be based on Trump's labeling his reimbursement of Cohen as a legal expense.
Trump's attorney, Joe Tacopina has argued that Trump's payment to Cohen was in fact a legitimate legal fee. Trump, he noted, never directly paid Daniels any money. Rather, he only paid his own lawyer for services rendered, i.e. legal fees.
"The payments were made to a lawyer, not to Stormy Daniels," Tacopina said last week on MSNBC. "The payments were made to Donald Trump's lawyer, which would be considered legal fees. Michael Cohen ... was his lawyer at the time and advised him that this was the proper way to do this to protect himself and his family from embarrassment. It's as simple as that."
The host then argued that the money Trump paid to Cohen went to Stormy Daniels and was therefore not a legal fee. — Just the News
Our Take: “Trump is a master of navigating optics and legal/political battles.
Case in point: Trump is using the threat of his indictment and arrest as a way to campaign and raise awareness.
Recall:
Unlike what the legacy media will likely try to spin this as, it is a brilliant move by Trump and a good step forward for the America First agenda.
Why? Because no nation, let alone a massive country like the USA, can provide success for itself and its citizenry when there is no true rule of law. The rule of law is the cornerstone upon which all social enterprise must rest, such as government, justice, and business. When the rule of law does not exist—which is the situation the world has been in for arguably the past 1000 years or more—then the law of the jungle, might is right, the color of law is the order of the day.
Trump must expose the fraud of the existing legal system, which he already started doing years ago. In usual Trump fashion, he is leading the charge; he is placing himself at the front of the line, standing with the people, as we're all currently harmed and damaged by the defunct legal system.
The lawfare machine with Cabal actors at the wheel will continue to destroy its credibility by going after Trump in unprecedented ways. As Alan Dershowitz said in his Substack, the former president "should not be indicted for novel and unprecedented technical crimes for which no one else would be prosecuted."
While it seems uncertain on the surface for Trump and his 2024 run, the bottom line is that he arguably is doing exactly what he promised he would do—expose the DS and compel the people to rise up.
No doubt this effort will fail on the part of DS uniparty actors to prevent him from running by indicting Trump.
Regardless, we'll continue to see more and more evidence of the endemic fraud within the system.
With this knowledge, we can take up our duty to restore the rule of law once more, for the benefit of ourselves and our progeny.” — Justin Deschamps
Fed Panics, Announces "Coordinated" Daily US Dollar Swap Lines To Ease Banking Crisis
Fast forward to just over a week ago, when the Fed tightening cycle indeed ended in disaster when SIVB became the first (of many) banks to fail, triggering a chain of dominoes that culminated with today's collapse of Credit Suisse - a systematically important bank with $600BN in assets.
And then, at 5pm, the easing officially began, because while a bunch of laughable macrotourists were arguing on FinTwit whether last week's record surge in the Fed's discount window was QE or wasn't QE (answer: it didn't matter, because as we said, it assured what comes next), the Fed finally capitulated, just as we warned over and over and over that it would...
... and at exactly 5pm the Fed announced "coordinated central bank action to enhance the provision of U.S. dollar liquidity" by opening daily Dollar Swap lines with all major central banks, in a carbon copy repeat of the Fed's panicked post-covid crisis policy response playbook.
And once the USD swap lines are reopened, the rest of the cavalry follows: rate cuts, QE (the real stuff, not that Discount Window nonsense), etc, etc. — ZeroHedge
UBS agrees to buy Credit Suisse for more than $2bn
We finally have a deal, and what was at first a CHF1 BN acquisition priceof Credit Suisse by UBS, which then rose to CHF 2 BN, has now cranked up one final time to CHF 3BN (US$3.25 billion), or 0.76 per share, specifically shareholders of Credit Suisse will receive 1 share in UBS for 22.48 shares in Credit Suisse. As part of the deal, the Swiss National Bank is offering a 100 billion-franc liquidity assistance to UBS while the government is granting a 9 billion-franc guarantee for potential losses from assets UBS is taking over, i.e., this is a taxpayer-backed bailout. — ZeroHedge, Citing The Financial Times and Bloomberg
Fury at Manhattan’s Bragg over Looming Trump Charges Dominates House GOP Retreat: ‘Stop Going After People Because You Have Political Differences’
U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy lit into leftist Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg at a press conference as House Republicans gathered to discuss and formulate their 2023 agenda plans, with looming likely charges from Bragg against former President Donald Trump coming this week.
Asked by Breitbart News during the press conference, as the House GOP wrapped the first day of its three-day retreat, what he would say to the 75 million Americans who voted for Trump in the 2020 presidential election, McCarthy said his message is even broader than that.
“I wouldn’t just talk to 75 million Americans — I would talk to 330 million Americans,” McCarthy said. “I would say it doesn’t matter what side of the issue you’re on. It doesn’t matter if this was President Trump or if this was a Democrat. It should be equal justice in America. And stop going after people because you have political differences. I see people all the time who I have political differences with. I respect their opinion. I may disagree with it. But why would you ever try to use the law for it? It goes directly against everything this Manhattan DA has professed. He brags about lowering felonies to misdemeanors as a prosecutor. We’ve watched crime in New York where people are afraid to walk the streets. We’ve watched campaigns. I will tell you one of the reasons we won races in New York is based upon this DA, of not protecting the citizens of New York — and now he’s spending his time on this? The statute of limitations are gone. It doesn’t matter what side you’re on. This is the type of thing America hates and divides us and is wrong.” — Breitbart
Turley: Soros-Backed Manhattan DA's Made-For-TV Trump Prosecution Is "Legally Pathetic"
Alleged unnamed court sources have told multiple news outlets that Trump could be indicted in the near future, while Trump said via Truth Social that he expects to be arrested by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office on Tuesday. Bragg’s office has not publicly confirmed reports that he may possibly indict the former president for allegedly misclassifying a $130,000 hush payment made to Stormy Daniels in 2016.
Trump has denied claims that he had an affair with Daniels in the early 2000s. However, unconfirmed reports alleged that a grand jury in New York has been empaneled and may be seeking an indictment of the former president.
But Turley said that based on those reports, the DA’s case against Trump “is legally pathetic” and “is struggling to twist state laws to effectively prosecute a federal case long ago rejected by the Justice Department against Trump.”
“In 2018 (yes, that is how long this theory has been around), I wrote how difficult such a federal case would be under existing election laws. Now, six years later, the same theory may be shoehorned into a state claim,” wrote Turley, who was a former expert witness for Trump’s first impeachment trial, for The Hill.
“While we still do not know the specific state charges in the anticipated indictment, the most-discussed would fall under Section 175 for falsifying business records, based on the claim that Trump used legal expenses to conceal the alleged hush-payments that were supposedly used to violate federal election laws,” Turley said.
“While some legal experts have insisted such concealment is clearly a criminal matter that must be charged, they were conspicuously silent when Hillary Clinton faced a not-dissimilar campaign-finance allegation." — The Epoch Times
Weekly Show Schedule
We hope you enjoyed this brief look back at the major news items you might have missed in this ever-escalating and ever-accelerating news cycle as the Information War continues to rage on around us.
The Badlands Media team will continue to combine our cognitive powers in order to slow things down and find the signal amidst the noise as this series expands.
As always, if you have any thoughts on these news items or the MANY others swirling in the digital ether, drop into the comments below to share them with your fellow Badlanders.
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I appreciate the clear and intelligent coverage and analysis of top news events, however, I miss the
“Our take” format. To me, it’s important, but not crucial, to see which MSM outlet you’re responding to and countering rather than a response that seems editorial in nature.
If Bragg is being funded by George Soros to attack US political figures, there must be some illegality involved here. An investigation into Bragg's treasonous activities should be conducted to find out if this is the case. We the people are fed up with this type of treasonous behavior by the weaponized Justice system to take down politicians.