Tag: mark mccloskey
Right-Wing Lawyers Are Already Squabbling Over January 6 'Slush Fund' Spoils

Right-Wing Lawyers Are Already Squabbling Over January 6 'Slush Fund' Spoils

President Donald Trump has reportedly received a $1.776 billion settlement from his own IRS over his allegation that the agency owed him money for a contractor who leaked his tax returns — and the money is now inciting a full-blown MAGA civil war.

Now, according to commentator Will Sommer, this settlement is causing a civil war within certain ranks of the MAGA movement.

“In April, lawyer Mark McCloskey bowed out of his quixotic quest to win reparations for January 6th rioters,” The Bulwark’s Sommer wrote on Monday.

Although McCloskey’s fellow lawyer Peter Ticktin remained on the case, McCloskey himself claimed last month that he was sick with a terminal lung disease and would not be able to continue assisting January 6th rioters. Yet once Trump announced the settlement, “something miraculous happened,” Sommer wrote. McCloskey suddenly announced his health had improved enough that he could resume the cases.

“The convenient timing of McCloskey’s return to health has not gone unnoticed in the fractious world of January 6th participants, with some reparations-hungry rioters mocking him for coming back right when the money looks set to start flowing,” Sommer wrote. “Meanwhile, according to a series of bitter emails from the two lawyers that I reviewed, Ticktin appears furious that his onetime partner has returned for a piece of the action.”

Sommer quoted Ticktin as writing to his clients over the weekend, “I never stopped representing you, money or no money. I would never quit.”

Sommer argued that this feud may foreshadow the future of this settlement.

“The bad blood between these two looks like a preview of what’s ahead for the right, as January 6th rioters, other Trump world figures who faced investigations, and their lawyers scramble to position themselves for a potential windfall,” Sommer wrote. “Trump today officially settled his lawsuit against the government he leads in exchange for that $1.776 billion ‘Anti-Weaponization Fund,’ which will purportedly be paid to the victims of ‘weaponization and lawfare.’”

As Ticktin told Sommer, “I didn’t realize finding out you can make money can cure cancer, but apparently you can.”

Sommer added in his article that “the January 6th rioters have been treated inordinately well, given that they attacked police officers, stampeded the U.S. Capitol, and interrupted congressional proceedings in an attempt to overthrow the results. They were pardoned on the first day of the second Trump administration, freeing many from their incarceration and saving many others from serving any prison time at all. Some J6ers were even refunded the restitution payments they were ordered to make.”

Making matters more confusing, according to Sommer, Trump’s Justice Department has done little to clarify matters as to who will get paid and how.

“Meanwhile, the DOJ has provided painfully little guidance as to how the new slush fund will be doled out,” Sommer wrote. “The department put out a barely-over-one-page memo Monday morning, in which it made clear that once the funds were deposited ‘the United States has no liability whatsoever for the protection or safeguarding of those funds, regardless of bank failure, fraudulent transfers, or any other fraud or misuse of the funds.’”

He added, sarcastically, “Seems failproof!”

According to Forbes reporter Allison Durkee, Trump’s so-called “Judgment Fund” is only allowed to pay people or entities that are direct parties to the lawsuit — which includes only the president, his sons and a family business. As such, Trump may have to pay taxes on the amount, and other individuals cannot access the money without going through Trump and his associates themselves.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet


Mark McCloskey

Crazed GOP Candidates Compare Vaccine Mandates To Nazi Genocide

Reprinted with permission from American Independent

Prominent Republicans in multiple states have compared President Joe Biden's recent announcement of vaccine mandates and increased testing to the actions of the Nazi regime in Europe during World War II.

Biden on September 9 announced a plan to be enforced by the Department of Labor requiring, among other efforts, that employers with 100 employees or more to ensure workers are either vaccinated against the coronavirus or tested weekly for it. The new initiative came in response to increased numbers of coronavirus infections, particularly due to the highly contagious delta variant infecting people who have not been vaccinated against the virus.

Mark McCloskey, who is running for the Republican nomination for the Missouri Senate seat held by retiring Sen. Roy Blunt, took offense at the executive order.

"Actually accusing us of being the enemy. That this is 'a pandemic of the unvaccinated.' I mean, if we had Stars of David on our chests 70 years ago, it would be absolutely no different," McCloskey told the audience at a candidate forum on Wednesday. "They're singling us out for persecution, prosecution, and eventually forced inoculation."

Vernon Jones, a Republican candidate for governor in Georgia, sounded a similar note in an interview broadcast Sunday on former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's radio show.

"We look at what Joe Biden is doing, he wants to mandate the COVID vaccination, and not even for Congress, they're exempt, his staff is exempt. He's acting like Hitler. This is not a police state," said Jones.

The comments echo other recent claims from Republican candidates like Ohio Senate candidate Josh Mandel, who tweeted, "Do NOT comply with the tyranny. When the gestapo show up at your front door, you know what to do," and Pennsylvania Senate candidate Kathy Barnette, who posted a photo of a couple with stars sewn to their clothing, a quote from the 1998 Holocaust documentary The Last Days, and the phrase "Americans are like the frog in boiling water." In May, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) said rules requiring vaccinations or the use of masks were "just like" the Holocaust.

The Holocaust refers to the period before and during the Second World War during which the Nazi regime and its supporters murdered six million Jewish people and millions of others considered inferior or undesirable.

Although Republicans continue to compare vaccine safety measures to Nazi persecution, the Biden administration's efforts are based on constitutional authority of the federal government that has been reaffirmed under judicial scrutiny. Donald B. Verrilli Jr., who served as solicitor general under President Barack Obama, told the New York Times, "The constitutionality of this regulatory effort is completely clear."

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.

Missouri GOP Senate hopeful Mark McCloskey

Republicans Encouraged Racist Assault On St. Louis Health Official

Reprinted with permission from American Independent

St. Louis County Health Director Faisal Khan wrote an op-ed Wednesday laying out the physical threats and racist slurs he was subjected to by a crowd of Donald Trump supporters enraged over new mask guidance in the county amid a surging outbreak of COVID-19.

Khan wrote for the Riverfront Times, in which he said Trump supporters at a Tuesday night meeting on the new mask rules mocked his accent, physically assaulted him, and hurled racist and vulgar insults such as "fat brown cunt" and "brown bastard."

And Khan accused Missouri GOP Senate hopeful Mark McCloskey — infamous for waving a gun at Black Lives Matter protesters in the summer of 2020 — of encouraging that behavior from the crowd.

Khan said he had never in his life "been subjected to the racist, xenophobic, and threatening behavior that greeted me in the County Council meeting," adding that McCloskey and GOP St. Louis City Councilman Tim Fitch encouraged the behavior.

"My time before the Council began with a dog-whistle question from Councilman Tim Fitch, who said he wanted to emphasize for the assembled crowd that I was not from this country," Khan wrote.

He later added, "I later saw that around the time that Mr. Fitch asked his question, his friend Mark McCloskey — who was seated right behind me and situated near Mr. Fitch's position on the dais — posted on social media that mask mandates are 'un-American.'"

"One cannot help but see the connection between the efforts of Mr. McCloskey and Mr. Fitch to stoke xenophobia against me," Khan wrote.

McCloskey is one of a number of GOP candidates running for Senate in Missouri to replace retiring Republican Sen. Roy Blunt.

Along with his wife, he shot to the public's attention after a photo was circulated in 2020 that showed him and his wife waving guns at BLM demonstrators in his upscale St. Louis gated community. McCloskey has since pleaded guilty to fourth-degree assault for his actions.

As Republicans like McCloskey rage against new public health guidelines, Missouri is currently having one of the worst COVID outbreaks in the country.

Hospitalizations and deaths are surging in the state thanks to poor vaccination rates. Just 41% of the state is fully vaccinated, one of the worst vaccination rates in the country.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.

St. Louis Couple Who Threatened Protesters Must Surrender Guns

St. Louis Couple Who Threatened Protesters Must Surrender Guns

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

The infamous St. Louis couple that made headlines last summer after brandishing guns at Black Lives Matter (BLM) protesters must now surrender their guns. Needless to say, they are not pleased with the order.

According to KMOV, Mark and Patricia McCloskey pleaded guilty to a number of charges in connection with their altercation with protesters. Patricia McCloskey entered a guilty plea for misdemeanor harassment and was fined a total of $2,000. Mark McCloskey entered a guilty plea for a misdemeanor fourth-degree assault charge. The two also had to agree to surrender the weapons used during their exchange with protesters.

But despite the guilty pleas and their agreement to turn over their weapons, Mark McCloskey has made it clear that he does not regret his actions. From the steps of the courthouse in St. Louis, Mo., he said, "I'd do it again," later adding, "Any time the mob approaches me, I'll do what I can to put them in imminent threat of physical injury because that's what kept them from destroying my house and my family."

As reports began circulating about their case again, McCloskey also took to Twitter with his reaction. "A year ago, the mob came to my door to attack my family— I backed them down," he tweeted. "The mob came for me, the media attacked me & prosecutors tried to punish me for defending my family They dropped all charges, except for a claim I instilled 'imminent fear' in the mob I'd do it again."

Special prosecutor Richard Callahan also weighed in and admitted that he believes the couple's consequences are reasonable.

"But I think that their conduct was a little unreasonable in the end," Callahan said. "I don't think people should view this case as some type of betrayal or assault on the Second Amendment. We still have the Second Amendment rights. It's just that the Second Amendment does not permit unreasonable conduct."

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