Trump calls for special prosecutor to probe his 2020 loss to ‘crooked' Joe Biden: ‘LANDSLIDE!'
Donald Trump is calling for a special prosecutor to investigate his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden, reviving an ongoing and baseless conspiracy theory that the results of the election were rigged and stolen from him.
More than five years after losing in that year's election, and after returning to the presidency a second time with his victory in 2024, the president has routinely pressed attempts to undermine the legitimacy of Biden's presidency.
'Biden was grossly incompetent, and the 2020 election was a total FRAUD!' Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Friday.
He claimed 'the evidence is MASSIVE and OVERWHELMING,' despite White House officials and campaign lawyers failing to produce any within the last five years.
'A Special Prosecutor must be appointed,' Trump wrote. 'This cannot be allowed to happen again in the United States of America! Let the work begin!'
The persistent lie that the election was stolen from the president fueled violence at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, sustained partisan investigations intended to reverse the outcomes in states Trump lost, inspired Republican-led legislation in nearly every state to change how elections are run, and formed the basis of his 2024 campaign of 'retribution.'
His post — in the middle of his administration's tense negotiations and foreign policy decision making over whether to intervene in a war with Iran — continues efforts within his administration to target his predecessor and revives long-standing grievances that have played a central role in his speeches and remarks for years, well into his second presidency.
Earlier this month, Trump directed his administration to investigate Biden's actions as president, alleging aides masked his predecessor's 'cognitive decline.'
Trump's false and inflated claims about election results, spanning more than a decade, have also sowed doubt among his supporters to construct the lie of 'stolen' and 'rigged' elections, animating Republican attempts to challenge results and craft legislation to do what the president and his allies failed to do in courtrooms in 2020.
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Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
Taiwan central bank says US debt rising too fast may impact trust in Treasuries
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The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Many Americans are witnessing immigration arrests for the first time and reacting
Adam Greenfield was home nursing a cold when his girlfriend raced in to tell him Immigration and Customs Enforcement vehicles were pulling up in their trendy San Diego neighborhood. The poet and podcast producer grabbed his iPhone and bolted out the door barefoot, joining a handful of neighbors recording masked agents raiding a popular Italian restaurant nearby, as they yelled at the officers to leave. An hour later, the crowd had grown to nearly 75 people, with many in front of the agents' vehicles. 'I couldn't stay silent,' Greenfield said. 'It was literally outside of my front door.' More Americans are witnessing people being hauled off as they shop, exercise at the gym, dine out and otherwise go about their daily lives as President Donald Trump 's administration aggressively works to increase immigration arrests. As the raids touch the lives of people who aren't immigrants themselves, many Americans who rarely, if ever, participated in civil disobedience are rushing out to record the actions on their phones and launch impromptu protests. Arrests are being made outside gyms, busy restaurants Greenfield said on the evening of the May 30 raid, the crowd included grandparents, retired military members, hippies, and restaurant patrons arriving for date night. Authorities threw flash bangs to force the crowd back and then drove off with four detained workers, he said. 'To do this, at 5 o'clock, right at the dinner rush, right on a busy intersection with multiple restaurants, they were trying to make a statement,' Greenfield said. "But I don't know if their intended point is getting across the way they want it to. I think it is sparking more backlash.' Previously many arrests happened late at night or in the pre-dawn hours by agents waiting outside people's homes as they left for work or outside their work sites when they finished their day. When ICE raided another popular restaurant in San Diego in 2008, agents did it in the early morning without incident. White House border czar Tom Homan has said agents are being forced to do more arrests in communities because of sanctuary policies that limit cooperation with ICE in certain cities and states. ICE enforces immigration laws nationwide but seeks state and local help in alerting federal authorities of immigrants wanted for deportation and holding that person until federal officers take custody. Vice President JD Vance during a visit to Los Angeles on Friday said those policies have given agents 'a bit of a morale problem because they've had the local government in this community tell them that they're not allowed to do their job." 'When that Border Patrol agent goes out to do their job, they said within 15 minutes they have protesters, sometimes violent protesters who are in their face obstructing them,' he said. 'It was like a scene out of a movie' Melyssa Rivas had just arrived at her office in the Los Angeles suburb of Downey, California one morning last week when she heard the frightened screams of young women. She went outside to find the women confronting nearly a dozen masked federal agents who had surrounded a man kneeling on the pavement. 'It was like a scene out of a movie,' Rivas said. 'They all had their faces covered and were standing over this man who was clearly traumatized. And there are these young girls screaming at the top of their lungs.' As Rivas began recording the interaction, a growing group of neighbors shouted at the agents to leave the man alone. They eventually drove off in vehicles, without detaining him, video shows. Rivas spoke to the man afterward, who told her the agents had arrived at the car wash where he worked that morning, then pursued him as he fled on his bicycle. It was one of several recent workplace raids in the majority-Latino city. The same day, federal agents were seen at a Home Depot, a construction site and an LA Fitness gym. It wasn't immediately clear how many people had been detained. 'Everyone is just rattled,' said Alex Frayde, an employee at LA Fitness who said he saw the agents outside the gym and stood at the entrance, ready to turn them away as another employee warned customers about the sighting. In the end, the agents never came in. Communities protest around ICE buildings Arrests at immigration courts and other ICE buildings have also prompted emotional scenes as masked agents have turned up to detain people going to routine appointments and hearings. In the city of Spokane in rural eastern Washington state, hundreds of people rushed to protest outside an ICE building June 11 after former city councilor Ben Stuckart posted on Facebook. Stuckart wrote that he was a legal guardian of a Venezuelan asylum seeker who who went to check in at the ICE building only to be detained. His Venezuelan roommate was also detained. Both men had permission to live and work in the U.S. temporarily under humanitarian parole, Stuckart told The Associated Press. 'I am going to sit in front of the bus,' Stuckart wrote, referring to the van that was set to transport the two men to an ICE detention center in Tacoma. 'The Latino community needs the rest of our community now. Not tonight, not Saturday but right now!!!!' The city of roughly 230,000 is the seat of Spokane County, where just over half of voters cast ballots for Trump in the 2024 presidential election. Stuckart was touched to see his mother's caregiver among the demonstrators. 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The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
Key moments from the sixth week of Sean 'Diddy' Combs' sex trafficking trial
The sixth week of the Sean 'Diddy' Combs' sex trafficking trial was shortened by a holiday and a juror's illness as prosecutors nearly concluded their case, setting the stage for a one- or two-day defense presentation next week. In the trial's first five weeks, jurors repeatedly heard testimony about drug-fueled marathon sex events described as 'freak-offs' by one of Combs' ex-girlfriends and as 'hotel nights' by another. In the sixth week, they were shown about 20 minutes of video recordings from the dayslong events. Combs, the founder of Bad Boy Entertainment, has pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges in the trial, which continues Monday. Here are key moments from the past week: Jurors watch videos of 'freak-off' sex marathons they had heard so much about Jurors largely kept their reactions muted when they were shown about 20 minutes of recordings made by Combs of his then-girlfriends having sex with male sex workers at the elaborately staged 'freak-offs' or 'hotel nights.' Prosecutors say the events were proof of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges because Combs coerced his employees, associates and even his girlfriends to recruit and arrange flights for sex workers while his workers obtained drugs, stocked hotel rooms with baby oil, lubricant, condoms, candles and liquor and delivered cash. In her opening statement, defense lawyer Teny Geragos had called the videos 'powerful evidence that the sexual conduct in this case was consensual and not based on coercion.' Prosecutors played about 2 minutes of the recordings before the defense team aired about 18 minutes of the videos. The public and the press were unable to observe whether the prosecutors or defense lawyers had the better arguments after the judge ruled that neither the recordings nor the sound could be seen or heard by anyone except lawyers, the judge and the jury. Several jurors seemed to cast their eyes and sometimes turn their bodies away from the screens directly in front of them while the recordings played. The jurors listened through earphones supplied by the court, as did Combs and lawyers. A juror is ejected from the panel by a judge who questions whether he has an agenda Judge Arun Subramanian started the week by dismissing a juror whose conflicting answers about whether he lived in New Jersey or New York convinced the judge he was a threat to the integrity of the trial. Subramanian said the juror's answers during jury selection and in the week before he was excused 'raised serious concerns as to the juror's candor and whether he shaded answers to get on and stay on the jury.' 'The inconsistencies — where the juror has lived and with whom — go to straightforward issues as to which there should not have been any doubts, and the answers also go to something vital: the basic qualifications of a juror to serve,' the judge said. Residents of New Jersey would not be permitted to sit on a New York federal jury. A day before Subramanian ruled, defense lawyers argued fiercely against dismissal, saying that replacing the Black juror with a white alternate juror so late in the trial would change the diverse demographics of the jury and require a mistrial. The jurors are anonymous for the Combs trial. It wasn't the only issue regarding jurors for the week. The judge, angered by a media report about the questioning of another juror the week before that occurred in a sealed proceeding, warned lawyers that they could face civil and criminal sanctions if such a leak happened again. That juror was not dismissed. And Wednesday's court session had to be canceled after a juror reported "vertigo symptoms" on the way to the courthouse. A defense lawyer predicts a presentation measured in hours rather than days Defense attorney Marc Agnifilo seemed to close the door on any chance Combs would testify when he said Friday that the defense presentation would be finished Tuesday or Wednesday the following week, even if prosecutors don't rest until late Monday. It is not uncommon for defendants to choose not to testify at criminal trials. Besides being exposed to cross-examination by prosecutors, the testimony can be used by the government against the defendant should there be a need for a retrial. Also, if there is a conviction, the judge can conclude that the jury believed the defendant lied on the stand. Another former Combs' employee requires immunity to testify about working for him Brendan Paul, fresh off the college basketball courts where he once played in a cameo role for Syracuse University, joined Combs' companies as a personal assistant in late 2022 and was warned by a friend who had worked for Combs about what was ahead. 'He told me to get in and get out,' Paul recalled for the jury, citing the endless days and always-on-edge existence. 'If you have a girlfriend, break up with her. And you're never going to see your family.' The friend also instructed him to 'build a rolodex of clientele and get out,' he said. Paul said he worked 80 to 100 hours a week for a music power broker who received 'thousands and thousands' of text messages and emails a day. He was paid $75,000 salary initially, but it was raised in January 2024 to $100,000. He said Combs told him he 'doesn't take no for an answer' and wanted his staff to 'move like Seal Team Six.' Several times, Paul said, he picked up drugs for Combs and knew to keep his boss out of the drug trade because 'it was very important to keep his profile low. He's a celebrity.' The job came to an abrupt end in March 2024 when Paul was arrested at a Miami airport on drug charges after a small amount of cocaine that he said he picked up in Combs' room that morning was mistakenly put in his travel bag as he prepared to join Combs on a trip to the Bahamas. The charges were later dropped in a pretrial diversion program. Paul said he hadn't seen Combs since.
