When the clock strikes midnight tonight, 70 percent of the government will shut down unless Congress takes action. Earlier this month, Congress passed—and President Joe Biden signed—a $460 billion bill to fund 30 percent of government agencies including the Justice Department and Department of Transportation. ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ 

March 25, 2024 View in browser

Today is the deadline for former President Donald Trump to pay a $464 million bond to the state of New York  New York Attorney General Letitia James, who brought the case against the former president, has given Trump until the end of today to pay the almost half-a-billion-dollar bond, which he must submit before he can appeal the judgment against him. Judge Arthur Engoron in February found Trump personally liable for $454 million for fraudulently representing his net worth to secure favorable loans. James has said that if he fails to pay, she will start taking action to seize his assets. “If he does not have funds to pay off the judgment, then we will seek judgment enforcement mechanisms in court, and we will ask the judge to seize his assets,” she told ABC News in February. Despite his difficulties obtaining the funding, Trump appeared to suggest on Friday that he had “through hard work, talent, and luck” secured the cash to pay the bond. However, that came at the cost of diverting a “substantial amount” of money earmarked for his campaign toward the bond.  Trump and his allies have characterized this bid to dispossess him of his property as “lawfare” and “election interference” intentionally designed to divert resources away from his presidential campaign.  Eric Trump, son of the former president and executive vice president of the Trump Organization, said as much during a Sunday appearance on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.”  “There was no victim,” Trump said, citing banks’ consistent testimony that his father was an upstanding borrower and customer. “This is a crooked system with a crooked attorney general in a crooked court that literally wants to put my father out of business.” “My father has run a great company. I run a great company,” the younger Trump said. “We’ve never had a default. We’ve never missed a payment. We’ve never been in a breach of covenant.” But Trump suggested that the real goal of the proceedings is to hurt his father’s reelection bid.  “This is lawfare. They want to hurt my father, who is winning the presidential race right now,” Mr. Trump said, citing polls showing that President Trump is beating President Joe Biden in every crucial swing state.  The effect of the massive judgment, Eric Trump said is “election interference” that diverts crucial resources away from President Trump’s campaign.  —Joseph Lord  SPEAKER OUSTER THREAT Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on Sunday defended her recent submission of a motion to force a vote to oust the House speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.). Greene submitted the motion immediately after the House’s passage of a $1.2 trillion minibus spending bill that passed with most Democrats in support, but the majority of Republicans in opposition.  “This is a betrayal of the American people. This is a betrayal of the Republican voters,” the congresswoman told reporters outside of the Capitol following the vote. She said that the motion was “a pink slip,” representing a warning to Johnson, but made clear that she didn’t plan to immediately force a floor vote on the motion. The move immediately brought flashbacks to October 2023, when Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) submitted an ultimately successful motion to vacate against then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). It took nearly a month and three failed candidacies for lawmakers to decide on Johnson. Greene explained the move further during an appearance on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.”  She said that Republican voters expect that House Republicans “will never back down” on securing important policy and funding wins. “Yet this week, Speaker Johnson, who has barely been a speaker for six months, led us to a complete catastrophe,” she said. Greene decried the funding package, coming in at over 1,000 pages and a top-line cost to taxpayers of $1.2 trillion, for several reasons. She noted its swift passage through Congress, ultimately being passed by both chambers roughly 48 hours after its introduction in the early morning hours of March 21—violating a Republican conference rule in the lower chamber requiring that lawmakers be given 72 hours to read all legislation. She described the bill as “being stuffed full of Democrat wish list” items and said that it would perpetuate “the Biden catastrophe border policies.”  Greene particularly honed in on the lack of new border policies in the bill, citing the alleged murder of University of Georgia student Laken Riley by an illegal alien and a shocking video released last week showing illegal aliens storming the Texas National Guard at the border. “This bill that Johnson passed does everything to keep the Biden administration’s horrible, horrible border invasion, the deadly daily invasion going every single day. Still, Greene again emphasized that she has no immediate plans to force a vote on the motion. “It’s a promise to my conference,” she said, listing several conditions for keeping the motion on the back burner. “Keep the investigations going. Keep the committee work going. Let’s do the good work that we’re doing. “I haven’t drawn a deadline, but that doesn’t mean that I won’t call it to the floor and force a vote to happen,” she added. —Joseph Lord  J6 JOURNALIST FACES CHARGES  An independent journalist who recorded events at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, is facing criminal charges for being there, raising questions about who should be called a journalist—and who gets to decide.  Steve Baker, a right-leaning journalist, surrendered himself to the FBI on four misdemeanor charges on March 1—over three years after the event—as the FBI ramps up its continued prosecutions of people present at the Capitol that day.  Swept into the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) historic dragnet, Baker is now at least the ninth independent or “citizen journalist” to face charges over Jan. 6. But he believes that he’s being targeted for reasons other than those listed in the charges: his real “sins,” he believes, were a series of articles that portrayed U.S. Capitol Police and the DOJ in a negative light.  Still defiant, however, Baker vowed, “I will not be intimidated,” and vowed to continue his investigative work.  Since his arrest, Baker’s had two court appearances: one in Dallas on March 1 and another via Zoom in DC.  During his appearance in Dallas, Baker was placed in leg shackles and a belly chain, an indignity that many arrested in connection with Jan. 6 have been subjected to.  With his arrests, Baker joins a growing list of right-leaning media figures who have been prosecuted for being at the Capitol—even as their more “mainstream” colleagues have faced no such retaliation.  Some have argued that Baker isn’t a legitimate journalist, raising questions about who decides. One thing that’s certain is that Baker captured some of the most iconic footage of the rally.  He saw videographers from other outlets decked out in full riot gear and gas masks, which to him indicated they had been “tipped off” on where to be.  He recorded encounters with Capitol Police inside of the Capitol. He captured footage of Ashli Babbitt’s body being carried out of the Capitol on a gurney.  Afterward, Baker undertook a frame-by-frame analysis of the footage he had captured, eventually releasing an article with his observations on Jan. 13, 2021.  In July 2021, the FBI came calling on Baker. Later that year, they sought to charge him—but were unable to do so after Baker led a media blitz calling attention to his case.  Baker “built a moat” around himself, that apparently protected him from the DOJ until this month, when he was finally arrested on four misdemeanors.  Still, Baker continues to pursue his investigations.  As for the possible consequences if his case goes the same way as virtually all other Jan. 6 cases, Mr. Baker gets pensive when asked about it. “If I need for the benefit of my children, for the benefit of my country, if I need to be poured out as a drink offering on the altar of liberty, then so be it,” he said. Baker’s arraignment is set for April. —Joe Hanneman and Joseph Lord BOOKMARKS The Biden administration is setting up a national center to help police, prosecutors, judges, and others implement “red flags” laws more effectively to take away guns from Americans “who pose a threat to themselves or others,” The Epoch Times’ Tom Ozimek reported. An article by The Epoch Times’ Jack Phillips further explores the right-wing reaction to the news, with many Republicans arguing that the initiative violates the Second Amendment and wasn’t authorized by Congress.  Instagram and Threads, two social media platforms owned by Meta, will limit political content shown to users ahead of the 2024 election, The Epoch Times’ Jen Krausz reported. The new procedure will be to only show politically loaded content to people already following the account, severely limiting its potential reach to the platforms, which are largely populated by young people between 18 and 29 years old.  Chris Miller, former acting Secretary of Defense under Trump, claimed that he was on the receiving end of a “latent threat” by the now-defunct House Jan. 6 panel. The Epoch Times’ Jack Phillips reported on the claims made by Miller, who said he received a thinly veiled threat after saying during a television appearance that Trump authorized the National Guard before Jan. 6.  Thank you for being a subscriber If you enjoy what you’re reading, please consider forwarding this email to someone who might find it informative. Your Feedback Send us your tips via constitutionave@epochtimes.us or text (347) 705-7660. This newsletter couldn't happen without our editors Cathy He, Richard Moore, and Ivan Pentchoukov.

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