Tag: felons
Margie Greene Asking Trump To Pardon Felon Santos

Margie Greene Asking Trump To Pardon Felon Santos

Let it never be said that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is not loyal to her friends.

The Georgia Republican out here pleading former Rep. George Santos’ case, trying to get President Donald Trump to commute his sentence and free him from his grueling confinement, which has lasted … about 12 days. And without naming names, she’s happy to insinuate that far worse criminals than Santos still roam the halls of Congress.

Before diving into the merits of whether Trump should grant Santos mercy, let’s speculate about whom Greene could be referring to.

Fortunately, GovTrack, a government transparency group, maintains a database about legislator misconduct. Maybe Greene is referring to Rep. Andrew Ogles, the Tennessee Republican so eager to stay in Trump’s good graces that he wants to amend the Constitution so Trump can serve a third term. Ogles is the subject of an ethics complaint thanks to a discrepancy in his financial disclosures. Ogles also possesses the Santos-like penchant for inflating his resume.

Or maybe Texas’ Troy Nehls? In 2024, the Office of Congressional Ethics found that Nehls may have made illegal campaign disbursements and appears to not have provided complete financial disclosures. Nehls still has his job, though, and little has happened with that complaint.

And thanks to the GOP controlling the House, Rep. Wesley Hunt and Rep. Ronny Jackson, both of Texas, are still hanging about despite the OCE determining that they had violated campaign finance standards.

According to Greene, Santos’ sentence is unfair because a seven-year prison sentence for

campaign-related charges” is too much, so she’s asking the Office of the Pardon Attorney to urge Trump to commute Santos’ sentence. Of course, her characterization of Santos’ crimes is incorrect. Santos deceived donors, spent campaign funds on personal items, inflated the amount of donations he received so he could qualify for funds and assistance from the national GOP, did some identity fraud by charging donors’ credit cards without their authorization, committed some unemployment insurance fraud, and lied to the House.

However, Greene might be in luck: The extremely morally flexible Ed Martin now runs the Office of the Pardon Attorney. So she probably has a shot at getting this request in front of Trump’s eyeballs at the bare minimum.

It’s somewhat surprising Trump hasn’t already pardoned Santos, since Trump apparently loves to pardon people who have committed crimes that remind him of his own crimes. He’s already granted clemency to 16 corrupt politicians, including former New York Rep. Michael Grimm, who hid income and lied on his tax forms, and Michele Fiore, a former Las Vegas city council member, for her diversion of donations for a memorial to a slain police officer to her own plastic surgery needs.

It isn’t like Trump is unaware of Santos’ plight, either. Last Friday, Trump mentioned he had the power to pardon Santos, musing, “He lied like hell, and I didn’t know him. … But he was 100% for Trump. I might’ve met him. Maybe, maybe not, but he was a congressman and his vote was solid.”

It’s the same weird preemptive statement he made about his authority to pardon convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, reminding the world that he’s perfectly happy to pardon the scuzziest people, given enough incentive.

And that might be Santos’ problem. He lacks the ability to provide Trump with the kind of incentive that woos him into pardons. Sure, Santos is notorious, but he’s not a reality star like Todd and Julie Chrisley, who, thanks to Trump, are free and clear of their 2022 convictions for fraud and tax evasion. And Santos didn’t donate millions to a pro-Trump campaign fund.

Ever the inveterate liar, Santos even had to lie about this. Per Santos, his pardon was a done deal, but then House Speaker Mike Johnson “blocked” it, which is not a thing. The presidential pardon power is absolute, not subject to veto by the speaker of the House. Santos knows this, but he likely just can’t stop himself.

Meanwhile, Greene will continue her efforts to free her friend. Greene and Santos could be a dynamic duo once again, cozying up side-by-side in Congress to spin conspiracy theories together. Now all they need is Trump.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

New 538 Poll Average Shows Trump Approval In Steep Decline

New 538 Poll Average Shows Trump Approval In Steep Decline

President Donald Trump's honeymoon is officially over.

The convicted felon's job-approval rating is now underwater, according to 538’s polling average, and it’s happened just a little more than one month into his second term.

According to 538’s average, which sadly is unlikely to be updated anymore after ABC News laid off the site’s entire staff on Tuesday, 47.9 percent of Americans disapprove of the job Trump is doing in office, while 47.6 percent approve.

The polling average largely tracks with a Civiqs poll conducted for Daily Kos, which found 52% of voters disapprove of the job Trump is doing, compared with 48 percent who approve.

According to 538’s average, Trump's job approval rating is in a state of steep decline. On Inauguration Day, his net approval rating was +8.2 percentage points, and now it is -0.3 points.

"Trump’s approval rating is underwater again—a month and a half after beginning his term with his highest approval ratings ever (+8)," Jacob Rubashkin, an elections analyst with the outlet Inside Elections, wrote in a post on X.

The quick end to Trump's honeymoon is in stark contrast to past presidents.

Former President Joe Biden had a positive approval rating until September of his first year in office, according to 538’s average. Former President Barack Obama had a net-positive approval rating until around August 2010—well over a year into his first term—according to 538’s historical averages. And former President George W. Bush had a net-positive rating nearly his entire first term in office, before the public soured on him around May 2004.

Public opinion on Trump has dropped amid the chaos he and his administration have wrought on the country.

The mass purge of the federal workforce, led by co-president Elon Musk, has left thousands out of work and others worried about negative downstream economic impacts.

The tariffs Trump imposed on China, Canada, and Mexico have led to a steep decline in the stock market amid fears that the results of Trump's policy will once again stoke inflation.

And Trump's embrace of murderous Russian dictator Vladimir Putin over U.S. ally Ukraine is also deeply unpopular.

“We’re going to look at presidents at this point in their presidency, right, and the word here that I would use to describe Trump is awful. In fact, the only person who does worse than Trump does right now with a +1 net approval rating is himself back in 2017, when he was at -8,” CNN’s Harry Enten said on Tuesday -- before the FiveThirtyEight average turned negative.

Enten continued, “Donald Trump is doing historically awful.”

And with the economy teetering on the brink of a recession, Trump's approval rating could tumble even further.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Navarro Trump

'If You're Not Indicted, You're Not Invited': Trump's Fellow Felons At GOP Convention

Peter Navarro, a former aide to Donald Trump who recently completed his four-month prison sentence, was met with "a standing ovation lasting more than a minute" when he addressed the 2024 Republican National Convention crowd Wednesday, according to Rolling Stone.

Navarro served time "for defying a subpoena to testify to the House January 6 Committee," the report notes. Rolling Stone reported, "The crowd lustily applauded this convicted criminal when he insisted of his supposed persecution: 'They did not break me. And they will never break Donald Trump.'"

Former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort also made an appearance at the convention Wednesday.

Bloomberg reporter Steven Dennis noted via X: "Manafort was pardoned by Trump after he was convicted of lying to tax authorities about tens of millions of dollars he earned as a political consultant in Ukraine, misleading banks about his financial health to get loans, conspiring to lobby illegally for Ukraine, laundering money to support a lavish lifestyle and tampering with witnesses. He was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison."

HuffPost senior politics reporter Igor Bobic reacted to Navarro and Manafort's appearances, writing, "Manafort, Navarro, Trump -- all convicted of crimes and at the GOP convention following their 'law and order' night."

Lawyer Bradley P. Moss commented: "The convicted felon convention."

David Frum, senior editor at The Atlantic, wrote: "Milwaukee 2024: If you're not indicted, you're not invited."

Rick Wilson, a former Republican and co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, emphasized: "This crime wave must end."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Truth Social

Truth Social Investors (And Trump) Lose Billions In Post-Conviction Stock Plunge

Investors in Truth Social — former President Donald Trump's social media platform — are losing money fast. And financial markets aren't feeling particularly bullish about the stock price of a company whose majority owner is a convicted felon.

According to the latest data from MarketWatch, the price of Trump Media and Technology Group (trading on the Nasdaq Composite as $DJT) is hovering around $33 per share. This is a significant drop from the $51.84 per-share price $DJT posted on May 30 — the day a 12-person jury in New York convicted the former president on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.

The share's roughly 40 percent decline in value impacts its principal shareholder more than anyone else. The May 30 share price of $51.84 meant Trump's approximately 114.75 million shares in the company (nearly two-thirds of all total shares) were worth roughly $5.9 billion. But as of June 18, those shares are now worth roughly $3.8 billion — meaning Trump's personal net worth has declined by more than $2.1 billion in less than three weeks.

Trump Media and Technology Group has rebounded in the past from slumps in the markets, however. The stock hit a low point of $22.84 per share in mid-April, when jury selection for the former president's New York criminal trial was underway. It rebounded to $54.39 in early May, though it has yet to recover from its current slide. In the immediate aftermath of Trump's guilty verdict, the share's price plunged by nine percent in after-hours trading, marking a drop in net worth of roughly $500 million in roughly 24 hours.

Last month, the company reported a quarterly loss of more than $300 million. However, Truth Social CEO Devin Nunes — a former Republican congressman from California — attributed the poor financials to the company's merger with Digital World Acquisition Group, and downplayed pessimism from investors as a temporary malaise motivated by politics.

"We have consummated our merger and dispensed with the vast bulk of merger-related expenses, leaving the Company well-capitalized and supported by a legion of retail shareholders who believe in our mission to provide a free-speech beachhead against Big Tech censorship," Nunes stated at the time. He added that Trump Media and Technology Group has "more than $200 million in the bank" and "more than 600,000 retail shareholders who believe in our vision."

In April, The Guardian reported that $DJT was becoming a favorite target of "short sellers," or investors who make money by betting that a company's stock will fail. Nunes accused some short sellers of engaging in the illegal practice of "naked" short selling, in which someone shorting the stock does so without first borrowing the shares or insuring that they can be borrowed.

"[Naked short] perpetrators need to be criminally prosecuted, possibly using federal and state RICO statutes," Nunes said in a statement shared with the website Just The News.

Whether Truth Social is a victim of naked short schemes remains unproven. But short sellers may find a continued reliable stock to bet against in $DJT based on its tenuous financial position. In 2023, a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) showed that the company had losses of $58 million and revenue of just $4.1 million. That SEC filing also showed that the company needed the funding provided by its merger to stay afloat.

Under the merger agreement, Trump can't sell any of his shares for six months. This means he's powerless to liquidate his rapidly declining stake in the company until at least September. The stock's value may decline even further after Trump is sentenced on July 11. While the 34 charges he was convicted on are class E felonies, which don't require jail time, Judge Juan Merchan has the option to sentence the 45th president of the United States to as much as 20 years behind bars.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

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