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Donald Trump made a surprise and unannounced visit to Washington D.C. on Sunday, prompting speculation and rumors about the reason for his trip.

A video of Trump arriving at Dulles Airport in Virginia, an airport frequently used by those heading to the capital, was posted online by freelance reporter Andrew Leyden.

The former president can be seen getting out of a plane and heading into a vehicle waiting on the asphalt. Trump appears to be wearing golf shoes and a white polo top.

A motorcade of vehicles then drives away, with Leyden suggesting Trump was heading to his golf course in D.C.

Trump, who has only visited Washington D.C once since he left the White House in January 2021, made no mention of the trip on Truth Social, the social media account he frequently posts on, or via any other statement.

The surprise visit has resulted in a range of theories being shared online. Some have suggested that Trump may be in D.C. because he is due to be arrested by the Department of Justice, or that he may be visiting the Walter Reed hospital for health reasons.

Trump potentially faces a number of indictments in connection with the January 6 attack and his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election results. He is also facing an FBI investigation into claims he mishandled classified documents seized from his Mar-a-Lago resort, and then allegedly attempted to obstruct the inquiry.

Many have suggested that Trump being dressed in golf attire suggests the visit was not planned, or needed to be taken at a moment's notice.

Others noted that Trump may be in the capital to attend a speech due to be given by his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, at an event hosted by the America First Policy Institute and the Abraham Accords Peace Institute on Monday.

Lindy Li, a political commentator and Democratic National Committee member, tweeted: "Trump is in DC 57 days before the election. Which is right around the DOJ's alleged 60-day threshold for 'election year sensitivities.' So, if the theories of indictment hold true, this would be perfect timing."

Li added: "He was well enough to deplane by himself so if it's a medical emergency it can't be that dire. Which paves the way for other explanations."

Lawyer George Conway, husband of former White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, dismissed the idea that Trump is in D.C. to play golf as it "hasn't exactly been golf weather here."

"It's been arraigning I mean, raining," Conway added.

Author, journalist and attorney Seth Abramson was one of those who played down the speculation as to why Trump is in D.C.

"I'm seeing many people saying he's at Walter Reed with no evidence to support the claim. Others are saying he's going to be arraigned tomorrow, but DOJ has implied it'll take no such action pre-election," Abramson tweeted. "A search of a Trump DC property? Possiblybut no evidence of *that*, either."

The Twitter account of the left-wing blog the Palmer Report also suggested the reason for the visit may not be as exciting as Trump critics are hoping it will be.

"If the DOJ is behind this, the best hope we have for a swift explanation is if Trump himself blabs about it on his social network. But in such a case we wouldn't know whether to believe any of what he says anyway," the Palmer Report tweeted.

"If Trump is faking a sudden health issue because he mistakenly believes that checking into a hospital will save him from being indicted and arrested... yawn. Short of that, why would Trump abruptly decide to voluntarily rush to DC, still dressed in golf course clothes, looking more frazzled than ever? Can't think of any reason that would interest me. Meeting with a new incompetent lawyer? Yawn."

The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington group added: "Look, it's kind of weird that Trump flew to DC tonight and no one seems to know why. There's a lot of speculation, so let's just wait until we know more before jumping to conclusions. But it is weird."

Trump has been contacted for comment.

Originally posted here:
Donald Trump's Surprise Visit To Washington D.C Sparks Arrest Speculation

It takes a brave investor to go into business with Donald Trump.

The former presidents hotels and casinos have declared bankruptcy six times. Trumps short-lived airline crashed. He paid out millions of dollars to settle multiple lawsuits for running an unlicensed university that the conservative National Review called a massive scam. And then there is the Trump Organizations looming criminal trial for tax fraud.

For all that, a business built around Trumps famed ability to rile up millions of people online must have seemed a good bet to those who poured money into backing the company behind his rival to Twitter, Truth Social.

Now that too has run into trouble as more than a billion dollars in investment has stalled amid shareholder hesitation and a federal investigation into whether Trump Media and Technology Group broke the law in its dealings with a company set up to provide the money.

As so often with the former president, its not immediately clear what is going on.

Trump launched Truth Social in February after he was thrown off of Twitter for inciting violence after he lost the presidential election. He previously ran a blog, From the Desk of Donald Trump, but it shut down after less than a month because almost no one was reading it.

Truth Social has fared better as a vehicle for Trump to rile his base and rage against his enemies, and for white nationalists and others on the far right to say what they cannot on Twitter. But it has failed to generate the kind of reach enjoyed by other social media platforms.

Trump has about 4 million followers on Truth Social compared with 80 million on Twitter, in part because its reach has been limited by a ban by Googles app store for failing to take down posts making physical threats and inciting violence.

Truth Social had only 11.5m visits in July compared with 7bn to Twitter, according to the online analytics firm Similarweb. Last month, Trump Media reported losing $6.5m in the first half of this year. It is also reported to be in debt to a web hosting company.

That has raised questions about whether investment in Trump Media is a sound business decision or likely to be money thrown into the sinkhole of the former presidents ceaseless political campaigning.

Michael Ohlrogge, a law professor at New York University who specialises in the kind of funding Trump is now seeking, said that there is no evidence Trump Media has a strategy to become a money-making enterprise.

Theres a lot of questions about whether this a viable business. Is it actually going to make any money? Theres plenty of good reasons to doubt that. Its pretty obvious that this was just this thing that he slapped together very quickly, he said.

Trump Media had been counting on a large injection of money from a form of shell corporation created solely to raise funds for another business by merging with it, known as a special-purpose acquisition company (Spac).

Digital World Acquisition Corp was created as a Spac a year ago without any commitment to invest in Trumps media business. Shareholders gambled that their investment would increase in value when Digital World found a company to merge with. Thats exactly what happened when the deal with Trump Media was announced just seven weeks later, driving the price of Digital Worlds shares up tenfold.

But earlier this month, the shareholders failed to meet a deadline to approve the merger, depriving Trump Media and Truth Social of about $1.3bn.

In addition, the Securities and Exchange Commission and federal prosecutors are blocking any merger while they investigate Trump Medias dealings with Digital World after questions were raised by the speed of their tie-up announcement.

Ohlrogge said that the SEC is likely to be looking at whether Trump sealed an agreement, or came close, with Digital World before the Spac began selling shares without telling potential investors, in breach of financial regulations.

If they were already in advanced talks with Trumps Spac and didnt tell that to the initial investors, then that could be a relatively clear violation of the securities laws. Theres relatively good reason to suspect that may have been the case, he said.

Meanwhile Digital Worlds share price has fallen back sharply, from a high of nearly $100 to about $23, although anyone who bought from the initial offering would still double their money.

Ohlrogge said it is not clear why shareholders did not approve the merger by the 8 September deadline. He said that some may not have been paying attention. Others may be withholding approval until Trump resolves issues with the SEC.

What makes the most sense for Trumps company would be to just settle with the SEC, do whatever they want and try to get them happy in order to get them to let the merger move forward. That kind of an approach, though, does not seem to be Trumps preferred method in most legal dealings. He seems to fight tooth and nail, he said.

Some shareholders were twitchy about the wisdom of financial dealings with Trump once they found out where their money was going.

Digital World has now called a special shareholder meeting for next month to extend the deadline for approval of the merger by a year. It remains unclear how that will go after the Spac acknowledged earlier this year that Truth Social may never generate any operating revenues or ever achieve profitable operations.

Jennifer Stromer-Galley, a professor in the school of information studies at Syracuse University and author of Presidential Campaigning in the Internet Age, said that Truth Social is an effective tool for Trump to stay in touch with his base, which is to some extent amplified by journalists writing about his statements. But she questioned whether it could ever get beyond being a political campaigning tool to function as a business.

One of the tremendous assets for Trump has always been his name. Because of his brand he gets an instant base of people that Truth Social can start to expand from. But then it has to expand past that, because thats probably not enough to keep this enterprise going. I dont see how Truth Social expands beyond that very, relatively narrow, hardcore base that is Trumps bread and butter constituency, said Stromer-Galley.

If I were an investor of communications, media, and technology companies, I would be sceptical of what is the actual business that Truth Social is in. When the head of the company cant put together a coherent business case or legal arguments for what theyre doing, is this really someplace you want to put your money?

Go here to read the rest:
Is Truth Social another of Trumps bungled businesses? - The Guardian US

The line between imagination and delusion is thin, as Donald Trumps initial reaction to an FBI search at Mar-a-Lago in August demonstrated. In the first days afterward, the former president saw the search as a political gift, not a blow: a chance to rally his base, put would-be challengers like Ron DeSantis in their place, and reconsolidate his eroding position as the leader of the Republican Party.

Over time, it has become clear that the FBI finding reams of top-secret documents at his club is not, in fact, a boon to Trump. Even with the presidential-records investigation slowed down by a sympathetic judge, the probe has exacted costs both political and monetary, including a $3 million prepayment to a lawyer aware of Trumps tendency to stiff people who provide services. Nearly every Trump adviser youve ever heard of, plus a few you havent, has been subpoenaed by the Justice Department in an investigation into election subversion, and the House committee looking into the same matter will return to public hearings later this month. The New York attorney general just rejected a settlement offer in an investigation into Trumps business.

David A. Graham: Trump opened Pandoras prosecutorial box

No single strategy can handle the range of problems Trump faces. With some clever forum-shopping, he managed to get the FBI investigation into the hands of a judge whom he appointed late in his termshe was confirmed after the 2020 electionand whose rulings have baffled and appalled legal experts. But this is a stalling tactic, not a solution, and not every judge draw will be so lucky. A second strategy is to cry political persecution, which is good at rallying the minority of the population who already stands behind him but unlikely to win over those who dont, especially because the claims are so unpersuasive.

This brings us to a third gambit: threats. If the people pursuing these criminal investigations into his conduct dont back off, he warns, someonenot him, mind youmight do something dangerous. In this heads-I-win, tails-you-lose logic, the justice system can either exempt Trump from the rule of law or risk someone destroying it by other means. Nice democracy youve got here. Shame if someone tried to make it great again, again.

In an interview yesterday, the conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, a Trump critic turned flatterer, asked whether being criminally indicted would dissuade Trump from running for president in 2024. Trump took the answer in a dark direction.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Donald Trumps mafia mind-set

I dont think the people of the United States would stand for it, he said. I think if it happened, I think youd have problems in this country the likes of which perhaps weve never seen before. I dont think the people of the United States would stand for it.

The implication was clear enough that Hewitt felt the need to throw Trump a preemptive lifeline: You know that the legacy media will say youre attempting to incite violence with that statement.

Thats not inciting, Trump replied. Im just saying what my opinion is. I dont think the people of this country would stand for it.

But theres no need to believe hes merely making an analytical judgment. Anyone else can see as clearly as Hewitt what Trump is doing. As The Altantics editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, has noted, Trump commonly uses this mob-boss-derived method: He speaks in fluent innuendo and implication, making his desires clear while leaving himself just enough vagueness to be able to smirkingly deny it.

Read: The lurking menace of a Trump rally

Like a Mafia dons warnings, this Dons warnings serve as a kind of intimidation, trying to make authorities who care a great deal about the government, civil peace, and the reputations of their agencies (as Attorney General Merrick Garland clearly does) wonder whether its really worth enforcing the law against this particular would-be defendant.

These threats might also actually occasion violence. By now, everyoneTrump, Hewitt, you, mehas seen this happen. Sometimes, the violence comes from mentally disturbed individuals who think theyre doing what Trump wants, such as Cesar Sayoc, who sent bombs to Trump critics shortly before the 2018 midterms, or Ricky Walter Shiffer, who was killed after attempting to attack an FBI office in Cincinnati just days after the Mar-a-Lago search.

Other times, the violence comes from Trump backers who simply listen to what he says: the kinds of people who slugged protesters at campaign rallies after he waxed nostalgic for the good old days of rough treatment and offered to pay legal bills, or who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, after Trump called on them to fight like hell.

If there was a time when Trump didnt know how people would respond when he makes these veiled threats, it has passed. He understands now, and does it anyway. His persistence also helps show why his claims that his exhortations on January 6 were not incitement are not to be believed.

This very real menace also makes Trumps threats ultimately self-defeating. When he speaks this wayor when he embraces QAnon, or whatever fringe view he happens to be espousing at the momentit riles up his backers, but it also drives away voters he needs to be a viable political force. This means the threats are unlikely to be Trumps salvation, even as they could inflict real harm on American democracy. He seems not to care.

Read the original here:
Trump's Threats of Violence - The Atlantic

President Trump often complained about the deep state of career civil servants who, he asserted, were determined to undermine his presidency. He promised to drain the swamp, and his aide Steve Bannon predicted the deconstruction of the administrative state.

But it was his own presidential appointees who most visibly resisted his directives. Political appointees are expected to be the most loyal advocates of a presidents policy agenda, riding herd on the many bureaucracies of the executive branch. Yet Trumps appointees in the White House, cabinet, military, and intelligence community refused to carry out many of the presidents directives to an extent unprecedented in the modern presidency. President Trumps appointees went well beyond the normal disagreements about policy that are typical in every administration; they resorted to slow walking orders, refusing to comply with directives, and even outright sabotage. Leadership is central to the presidency. The resistance to President Trump by his highest level officials illustrates how his own appointees judged his leadership.

Senior members of the White House staff often tried to thwart Trumps instincts. For example, Staff Secretary Rob Porter considered Trumps desire to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord unwise. So, Porter took a draft statement off Trumps desk. Similarly, National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn and Porter decided to slow-walk an order to withdraw from the NAFTA free trade agreement. Cohn told Porter: I can stop this. Ill just take the paper off his desk before I leave. If hes going to sign it, hes going to need another piece of paper. Later, after multiple reviews, Trump got his way on the Paris Accord and NAFTA.

In August 2017, Trump wanted to fulfill a campaign promise to withdraw from the U.S. free trade agreement with South Korea, and a letter was prepared to that effect. Cohn thought that if Trump saw the letter, he would sign it; so Cohn quietly removed it from Trumps desk. Eventually Secretary of Defense James Mattis talked the president out of abandoning the agreement.

During the Mueller investigation about possible Trump campaign coordination with Russia, Trump ordered White House Counsel Donald McGahn and Chief of Staff Reince Priebus to have Mueller removed, but they refused. Trumps counsel, Pat Cipollone, refused Trumps order to take a 2020 election case to the Supreme Court.

Reflecting on his White House service, Staff Secretary Rob Porter recalled: A third of my job was trying to react to some of the really dangerous ideas that he had and try to give him reasons to believe that maybe they werent such good ideas. When top economic adviser Gary Cohn recalled how he removed decision papers from the presidents desk, he said: Its not what we did for the country. Its what we saved him from doing.

Though White House staffers are powerful, cabinet secretaries are officers of the United States and hold the most authority in the executive branch, short of the president. Yet Trumps appointees often refused to do his bidding. When Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielson refused to implement a White House plan to arrest thousands of immigrants in major cities across the country and deport them, Trump fired her.

For all of his posturing about the military power of the United States, President Trump did not respect the norms of military leadership. President Trump demonstrated his attitude toward his secretaries of state and defense as well as military leaders. In a meeting with them in July 2017 at the Pentagon, after Trump had been briefed on the status of U.S. forces, Trump lashed out at his top civilian and military leaders: Youre all losers. . .. Youre a bunch of dopes and babies. No commander in chief had ever spoken to his top national security appointees in that manner.

In the spring of 2017, Trump ordered the removal from South Korea of the U.S. radar installation, that was essential for detecting any missiles coming from North Korea. Secretary of Defense Mattis refused to carry out the direct order until he was able to talk the President out of his decision. Secretary Mattis also rejected Trumps desire to Kill Bashar al-Assad

On July 26, 2017 President Trump tweeted that, contrary to then current policy, the military would not allow any transgender individuals to enter the armed forces. Mattis slow walked the order until the Supreme Court allowed it to go into effect. On November 11, 2020, General Mark Milley was given a memo, signed by President Trump, stating: I hereby direct you to withdraw all U.S forces from Afghanistan. General Milley and Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller went to the White House and Trump was convinced to rescind the memo.

In line with President Trumps distrust of the career services, he considered the intelligence community to be part of the deep state. After meeting with President Putin, Trump took him at his word that Russia did not try to affect the 2016 election. In doing so, he ignored the unanimous consensus among the DNI, CIA, NSA, and FBI.

Trump was not the only president to have conflicts in his White House staff or who requested the resignations of cabinet secretaries. But his administration set records in turnover in Executive Office of the President (EOP) and the cabinet.

At the White House level, Trump had four chiefs of staff, four national security advisors, five directors of National Intelligence, four press secretaries, and six communications advisors (including acting officials). Likewise, the turnover in Trumps cabinet (14) exceeded by far the first term turnover of all other modern presidents. Trump had four secretaries of defense, four attorneys general, and four secretaries of homeland security (including acting secretaries). When Trump decided to replace his officials, he often insultingly fired them by tweet (for example, Priebus, Esper, Nielsen, Tillerson, and Coats, among others).

Despite President Trumps complaints about the deep state, the above examples illustrate the willingness of top-level White House aides and cabinet secretaries to actively undermine his wishes.The danger is that in a second term Trump would not make the mistake of appointing officials with integrity and courage.

View original post here:
President Trump and the shallow state - Brookings Institution

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) Former President Donald Trump is visiting the Valley Saturday, to campaign with Senate candidate J.D. Vance.

The event will be at the Covelli Centre.

Like any major event that happens at the Covelli Centre, there will be some rules youll need to follow. Like any concert, there is a list of prohibited items:

A representative with the rally said simply to use common sense and to be courteous of others in attendance.

If you dont want someone beside you also with a loud noisemaker or something besides, thats going to be distracting dont bring it in yourself because you wont be allowed to take it into the arena. But, if you use that common sense, I think youll be OK. Youre able to bring in purses and small water bottles and things like that. But, when in doubt, go ahead and leave it at home, said Save America Rally Representative Luke Ball.

Event representatives say the rally is an all-day event. The parking lot will open early at 8 a.m. Saturday. There will be food and other vendors to check out all morning long. Then, at 2 p.m., the doors open at the Covelli Centre.

Seats are first come, first serve. Guest speakers begin delivering remarks at 4 p.m.

Here is the complete list of speakers:

Then at 7 p.m., former President Donald Trump will be speaking in support of Vance.

It is recommended to get there as early as possible to make sure you get the seat you want.

One rally organizer says tickets are not required, but rally goers are encouraged to sign up on the website so event organizers know how many to expect.

If you are unable to make it, WKBN.com will be offering a live stream of the event.

Original post:
What you need to know: Trump in Youngstown - WKBN.com