The audio file of the December 23 call between the former President and investigator Frances Watson was discovered as the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office responded to a public records request. The personal familiar spoke with CNN on the condition of anonymity to describe the internal process.
The Washington Post first reported the details of how the audio of the December phone call emerged.
CNN previously reported that in the December phone call to the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office, Trump urged their top investigator, Watson, to find fraud in the 2020 presidential election, telling her that she would be a “praised” for overturning results in favor of President Joe Biden.
State officials had previously told CNN that they did not think that audio of the December call from Trump to Watson existed.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis had sent a round of letters to Georgia state officials in February, including the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office, asking them to preserve documents relevant to election interference. Willis is currently conducting a criminal investigation into Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia.
The secretary of state’s office is also separately investigating Trump for his attempts to overturn the state’s election results.
Audio of an hour-long January 2 phone call in which Trump repeatedly pressured Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” the exact number of votes needed to overturn Biden’s victory surfaced soon after the call happened. But the December call only became public last week.
Watson told CNN affiliate WSB-TV’s investigative reporter Mark Winne that she had recorded the December call from Trump for posterity.
“It’s not every day, that probably will never happen again in my lifetime,” Watson told WSB.
It is still not clear why Watson moved the audio of the call to her trash folder, but Watson told Winne that even though she was surprised Trump called her, she did not perceive any pressure from his phone call.
“It is something that is not expected, as I mentioned in the call you know I was shocked that he would take the time to do that,” Watson said.
Trump in the December call had encouraged Watson to look to uncover “dishonesty” in her signature checks for absentee ballots in Fulton County, the most populous county in state and the one that houses most of Atlanta.
“But if you go back two years, and if you can get to Fulton, you are going to find things that are going to be unbelievable,” the former President said. “The dishonesty that we’ve heard from. But Fulton is the mother lode.”
Later on the phone call, Trump told Watson that he hoped “we” could win Georgia and that “you have the most important job in the country right now.”
The report had added to the examples of Trump’s extraordinary efforts to push false claims of widespread voter fraud and influence Georgia election officials as they certified the state’s election results.
Ex-president Donald Trump finds himself adrift while in political exile. And Republicans, and even some allies, say he is disorganized, torn between playing the role of antagonist and party leader.
“There is no apparatus, no structure and part of that is due to a lack of political understanding on Trump’s behalf,” said a person close to the former president, noting that Trump has struggled to learn the ropes of post-presidential politicking.
“It’s like political phantom limbs. He doesn’t have the same political infrastructure he did three months ago as president,” added GOP strategist Matt Gorman, who previously served as communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee.
The version of Trump that has emerged in the month and a half since he left office is far from the political godzilla many expected him to be. He was supposed to unleash hell on a party apparatus that recoiled when his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and declined to fiercely defend him during his second impeachment. Instead, Trump has maintained close ties to GOP officials who have committed to supporting incumbents, stayed almost entirely out of the spotlight, delivered fairly anodyne remarks the one time he emerged, and offered only sparse criticism of his successor, Joe Biden.
The cumulative result is political whiplash, as the former president shifts from wanting to support the GOP with his resources and grassroots appeal one day to refocusing on his own brand and thirst for vengeance the next. In the past week alone, Trump has gone from threatening party bodies for using his name and likeness in their fundraising efforts to offering up his Mar-a-Lago estate as a host site for part of the Republican National Committee’s spring donor retreat. He savagely attacked veteran GOP operative Karl Rove for criticizing his first post-presidency speech at the annual Conservative Political Action Committee, and endorsed Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), who repeatedly scrutinized Trump’s own trade practices while in office.
And in the span of 24 hours this week, Trump went from encouraging NFL running back Herschel Walker to mount a primary bid against Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp to hosting a vocal opponent of insurgent primary challenges, Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., for dinner at Mar-a-Lago. In his role as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Scotthas promised to stick by GOP incumbents — including Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who voted to convict Trump in his Senate trial last month on charges of inciting an insurrection. The Florida Republican said he had a “great meeting” with Trump in a tweet he shared Friday.
“For any normal politician, it would look like he’s trying to have it both ways but really he’s trying to have it his way,” said a former Trump White House official. “He only cares about maintaining his power and his stranglehold over the Republican Party and it doesn’t matter to him how any of the moves he makes affect the long-term success of institutions or individuals other than himself.”
Trump has always been an impulsive figure who demanded loyalty from those around him. But those traits have come with positions of power: whether atop a real estate empire, as a media celebrity, or — in his last iteration — as president of the United States.
No longer occupying a powerful office, the task has been made more complicated. The former president has appeared to settle into life outside the confines of the West Wing, and even made his first trip to New York earlier this week. He continues to hold court on the patio of his Mar-a-Lago resort where he is greeted by a standing ovation from members when he and the former first lady walk by. He spends his days monitoring the news, making calls and playing golf at his eponymous club just a few miles away.
He has assembled a barebones staff of paid and unpaid advisers who say they are working to vet primary candidates seeking his support and get his fundraising operation off the ground. But the factions that have already formed among those surrounding him suggest potential turbulence ahead. Three veterans of Trump’s 2020 campaign — Brad Parscale, Bill Stepien and Justin Clark — have been screening primary recruitments and brainstorming ways to reestablish his online presence, while Dave Bossie and Corey Lewandowski are in talks with the ex-president to launch a new fundraising entity on his behalf, according to people briefed on the recent discussions.
At the same time, Trump has continued to phone pals from his real estate days and former White House officials — soliciting their counsel on which Republicans he should try to unseat and whether they approve of the primary challengers he’s considering. One former administration official who has been in contact with Trump described him as a “pinball,” noting that his tendency to abruptly change directions or seize on a new idea after speaking with a friend or outside adviser — a habit that often frustrated aides during his time in office — has carried into his post-presidency life.
“You’ve got Trump making endorsements of people without going through the process he agreed to three days ago,” said the former White House official. “It’s really disorganized.”
The fear among Republicans is that Trump’s indecisiveness will extend to his personal political future as well. Trump has continued to dangle a 2024 run over the party, and the will-he-won’t-he guessing game has held presidential hopefuls in limbo.
“Politics is his hobby and he’s having fun with his hobby in between his rounds of golf,” said a former Trump adviser. “His big test is does he run again? Because if he doesn’t, you’ll see people lose interest in the guy in the next hour. As long as he plays the theatrics he’s going to run again, he still garners attention and creates headlines.”
But stripped of a social media platform like Twitter, the former president has had to rely on issuing statements — some mimicking the tone and length of his past tweets — via his post-presidency office or political PAC press lists. So far, he’s issued more than two dozen endorsements and statements since leaving the White House. The more recent ones have bashed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and sought credit for the current Covid-19 vaccine distribution.
And while Trump, an avid cable news consumer, has avoided publicly responding to TV segments that are critical of him or the wave of recent “cancel culture” headlines, he’s been tempted. Before a Wednesday appearance by his senior adviser Jason Miller on the “War Room” podcast hosted by former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, Trump told Miller he could “make a little news” by relaying the ex-president’s thoughts on last Sunday’s bombshell Oprah interview of Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle.
“When I was talking to the president this morning… he’s like, ‘Yeah, she’s no good. I said that and now everybody’s seeing it. But you realize if you say anything negative about Meghan Markle you get canceled. Look at Piers,’” Miller said, recounting his conversation with Trump, who had been referring to Piers Morgan, the polarizing “Good Morning Britain” host who parted ways with the show this week after dismissing Markle’s revelations as lies.
Some close aides have described Trump’s hiatus from Twitter as a welcome break that allows his rare statements to carry more weight than the thought bubbles he would release on the internet.
But so far, many of his recent political maneuverings have been met with a shrug by the GOP. Trump’s public tussle with the Republican Party over fundraising and the use of his name and likeness in appeals for money appeared to fizzle out after attorneys for the Republican National Committee denied Trump’s cease-and-desist demands. By week’s end, the RNC was not only still using Trump’s name in fundraising solicitations, it was offering him up as an enticement.
“Want to meet President Trump?” a fundraising appeal read, touting the opportunity to dine with the former president at an upcoming spring retreat and even “take a photo” with him too.
The Alabama Republican Party will honor former President TrumpDonald TrumpPentagon takes heat for extending Guard’s time at Capitol Fundraising spat points to Trump-GOP fissures Trump rally organizer claims Alex Jones threatened to throw her off stage: report MORE for being “one of the greatest and most effective presidents in the 245-year history of this Republic,” Fox News reported.
At a Saturday evening reception held at Mar-a-Lago, the party will present Trump with a framed resolution that grants him the honor.
“The resolution, basically, it just talks about the greatness of Donald J. Trump, how he made America great again and I hope other states will follow suit,” Perry Hooper Jr., a former state representative and a member of the state party’s executive committee, told Fox News.
Members of the state’s GOP unanimously voted on the resolution, which claims that “President Trump put the American people and the American worker first in all of his decisions.”
Among Trump’s accomplishments cited in the document are his success with Operation Warp Speed, his withdraw from the “job-killing Paris Climate Agreement” and his appointment of “three constitutionally conservative judges.”
“It’s just recognizing him for all the great things he has done for America for bringing back American manufacturing, cutting taxes, creating best economy ever, building up our military,” added Hooper, who also served as the 2016 Trump campaign’s Alabama co-chairman, according to Fox News.
The resolution also bashes President BidenJoe BidenPentagon takes heat for extending Guard’s time at Capitol Booker to try to make child tax credit expansion permanent Sullivan says tariffs will not take center stage in talks with China MORE, stating that “President Trump accomplished more in 48 days than Joe Biden did in 48 years as a senator and vice president.”
The Alabama Republican Party did not immediately respond to The Hill’s request for comment.
The Alabama Republican Party on Saturday will present former President Donald Trump with a framed copy of a resolution, passed unanimously by the party, that declares him “one of the greatest and most effective” presidents in U.S.history.
‘The resolution, basically, it just talks about the greatness of Donald J. Trump, how he made America great again and I hope other states will follow suit,” Perry Hooper Jr., a former state representative and a member of the state party’s executive committee, told Fox News in an interview.
TRUMP MAKES SURPRISE APPEARANCE AT MAR-A-LAGO EVENT, HINTS AT LARA SENATE BID
Hooper will present a framed copy of the resolution to Trump at a reception at Mar-a-Lago, Florida on Saturday evening.
Perry Hooper Jr. poses with former President Donald Trump at a previous event. (Perry Hooper Jr.)
The resolution, which passed unanimously in the party, calls Trump “one of the greatest and most effective presidents in the 245-year history of this Republic” and lists his achievements in office.
“It’s just recognizing him for all the great things he has done for America for bringing back American manufacturing, cutting taxes, creating best economy ever, building up our military,” Hooper said.
TRUMP-SCOTT MEETING COMES AMID FORMER PRESIDENT’S FRICTION WITH MCCONNELL
It also cites Trump’s handling of COVID-19 vaccine distribution, calling it “one of the most important feats in medical history,” low employment rates and Supreme Court picks.
It also claims Trump “accomplished more in 48 months than Joe Biden did in 48 years as a senator and vice-president.”
TRUMP USES CPAC SPEECH TO TEAR INTO BIDEN ON BORDER CRISIS, SAYS HE WON’T CREATE NEW PARTY
Hooper, who has served as the 2016 Trump campaign’s Alabama co-chairman and was in the Trump campaign’s finance committee in 2020, said he would go a step further and say Trump was the best president ever.
“He’s just done so many great things,” he said. “I was a kid when Reagan was elected and I thought nobody would top the great things Ronald Reagan did but then comes along Donald J Trump and in my opinion, he’s not just one of the great presidents, he is the greatest president we’ve had in America.”
The resolution is the latest sign of strong support for Trump from the conservative and Republican Party base.
Trump comfortably won the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) straw poll in Florida last month on who attendees would vote for if they ran in the 2024 presidential primary.
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Hooper said he was speaking not only for the party, but for many Americans who voted for the 45th president in 2020.
“We love him in Alabama, America loves him and he got 75 million votes for a reason and I’m speaking basically for 75 million people in America,” he said.
Dr Deborah Birx, the former Trump White House coronavirus taskforce coordinator, is taking a private sector job, joining a Texas manufacturer that says its purifiers clean Covid-19 from the air within minutes and from surfaces within hours.
Birx will join Dallas-based ActivePure as chief scientific and medical adviser, she and the company said on Friday.
An expert in global health, Birx came to the White House in 2020 to help lead the Trump administration’s response to the pandemic.
But she was criticised for not standing up to former president Donald Trump as he played down the virus, predicted it would disappear, and questioned whether ingesting bleach could help cure infected Americans.
Trump floats dangerous coronavirus treatment ideas as Dr Birx looks on – video
While her friend and former mentor, Dr Anthony Fauci, was promoted to become a top medical adviser to Joe Biden, Birx did not get a job in the new administration.
“The Biden administration wanted a clean slate,” she told Reuters in an interview. “I understand that completely.”
Birx left government earlier this week.
She and Fauci, she said, asked themselves regularly what could have been done differently over the last year.
“When you have the 100,000 people we lost over the summer, and the 300,000 people we lost over the fall-winter surge, you have to ask yourself and have to know that it didn’t go as well as it should have,” she said.
“All of us are responsible for that.”
The coronavirus has killed more than 530,000 people in the United States, more than any other country.
Birx said she was still processing regrets and steps she could have taken to do be more effective.
“I’m trying to rank order them,” she said. “We have to be willing to step back and really analyse where we could have been and why we weren’t more effective.”
Birx said she remained concerned about the level of testing in the country, but she praised the new administration for modelling mask-wearing and other behaviours that help to combat the virus.
Trump, a Republican, eschewed masks.
“I think the messaging has been very good, very consistent,” she said of the Biden team. “That’s really important when you’re asking people to change their behaviours.”
In addition to her role at ActivePure, Birx has also joined the George W Bush Institute as a global health fellow and the biopharmaceutical company Innoviva as a board member, she said.
Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance Jr.’s investigation into Donald Trump’s finances is heating up.
Vance already has Trump’s taxes and recently hired a renowned prosecutor.
Some DOJ veterans expect potential charges before the end of the year, when Vance retires.
See more stories on Insider’s business page.
After a months-long battle with Donald Trump over his closely held tax returns, the Manhattan district attorney’s office may finally be in the end stages of its wide-ranging investigation into the former president’s financial dealings.
Trump has repeatedly refused to release his tax returns. But in February, prosecutors notched a major victory when the Supreme Court forced Trump to hand over thousands of pages of his financial information to the DA’s office.
The DA’s investigation is examining whether Trump or his businesses falsely reported the value of properties for tax and loan purposes, which would violate New York law. In the weeks since prosecutors obtained his financial records, the investigation has ramped up significantly, according to media reports and two former prosecutors who spoke to Insider.
“They mean business now,” one source told The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer. The person believed Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.’s investigation had stagnated while Trump was in office and prosecutors were fighting a court battle to get his taxes. But now, the source told Mayer, prosecutors’ questions have become “very pointed — they’re sharpshooting now, laser-beaming.”
“It hit me,” this person added. “They’re closer.”
The clues are there. Vance announced Friday he wouldn’t run for re-election. The move was widely expected, since Vance, who held the DA post since 2010, hasn’t raised funds ahead of this summer’s primary. His final day will be in December, and a former top deputy told Insider he believes Vance will want to make charging decisions before he leaves.
“Vance started the investigation,” Daniel Alonso, now a partner at Buckley LLP, told Insider. “I’m sure he is absolutely pressing to have a decision made on whether to prosecute anyone, whom to prosecute, and for what charges, by the end of the year.”
Jeffrey Cramer, a longtime former federal prosecutor who spent 12 years at the Justice Department, echoed that view and told Insider it wasn’t surprising that the investigation’s pace picked up after the Supreme Court ruling.
“You need documents and tax records to prove these cases. That’s how they rise and fall,” he said. “It’s not witness testimony and emails; those things give context to the money. But this case is all about following the money, so it comes down to the tax records, which prosecutors now have full access to.”
Representatives for Trump and the Trump Organization didn’t immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment for this story.
Vance recruited a veteran prosecutor who worked on organized crime cases
Vance is likely personally involved in the details of the Trump investigation, according to Alonso. Eight candidates are vying to be his successor, though, and Alonso said there’s “significant concern” in New York’s legal community that not all of them are “qualified to oversee a case of this magnitude.”
While virtually all of the candidates have criticized Trump at one point or another, they have mostly focused on local affairs in their campaigns. At a candidate forum in January, they demurred when asked how they’d handle the Trump case and largely avoided injecting political considerations into it.
In the meantime, Vance has set up an experienced team of white-collar prosecutors, including several of his own top officials. He also made the unusual decision in February to hire Mark Pomerantz, a former federal prosecutor who worked on organized-crime cases before joining the law firm Paul, Weiss as a white-collar criminal defense lawyer.
“The team was in very good shape,” Alonso said of Vance’s office. “But the fact that Pomerantz agreed to come into the case strikes me as an indication that there is definitely something substantial there to investigate.”
ProPublica reported in October 2019 that documents showed Trump appeared to keep two sets of books for his properties, suggesting potential financial fraud.
In November 2019, Mother Jones published an investigation that found that Trump might have fabricated a loan to avoid paying $50 million in income taxes. And The New York Times reported in 2018 that Trump used a series of dubious tax schemes to shield a $413 million inheritance from the IRS.
In 2019, an IRS whistleblower came forward and alleged that there were “inappropriate efforts to influence” the agency’s mandatory audit of Trump’s taxes. And late last year, The Times published another bombshell investigation showing that Trump paid just $750 in income taxes in 2016 and 2017.
Mark F. Pomerantz in 2008.
Chris Hondros/Getty Images
Cramer pointed to Pomerantz’s previous experience prosecuting organized crime cases — he secured the 1999 conviction of the mob boss John Gotti’s son — and said it could prove particularly useful to Vance’s office as it scrutinizes the Trump Organization.
“Obviously Trump wasn’t running an organized crime outfit. But there are some similarities, depending on how the enterprise, which is the Trump Organization in this case, was structured,” Cramer said.
He noted, however, that Pomerantz’s main value likely lies in his private sector experience.
“If you look at any of the good defense lawyers in the country, most of them are former prosecutors,” Cramer said. “Prosecutors make good defense lawyers because they know both sides of cases. They can wear different hats and that’s critical in helping put together a strong case.”
That said, Alonso cautioned that Vance may choose to not bring charges against Trump at all.
“In investigations of accounting fraud, usually prosecutors suspect, and might even believe, that the CEO has the requisite knowledge and intent, but can’t always prove it,” Alonso said.
The precise scope of Vance’s investigation is unclear, but court filings suggest the office could be examining whether Trump and the Trump Organization broke New York state tax laws by manipulating property values to obtain favorable tax rates and loan terms.
Donald Trump, Allen Weisselberg, and Donald Trump Jr.
TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images
Now that the Supreme Court has cleared the way for prosecutors to get Trump’s taxes, investigators have access to a potential treasure trove of information about the complex world of Trump’s business activities.
The tax returns themselves, as well as the communications about them, are at the very heart of the probe. Vance hired FTI, a forensic accounting firm, to help pore over the data. Alonso said it could take some time.
“In the main part of the investigation, which is about valuations and about potential tax, bank, and insurance fraud, from what we know in the public record, they need to analyze those millions of pages of documents that they picked up from Mazars,” Alonso said, referring to Trump’s accounting firm. “That’s not something that’s done overnight.”
By the end of the investigation, Alonso said, prosecutors will have a variety of paths to choose from depending on what they find.
“It might be that they charge the Trump organization itself, or one of its affiliated companies,” he said. “It might be that they charge the CFO Allen Weisselberg if he doesn’t cooperate. It might be that they charge one of the Trump children who helps manage the company. Or it might be that they charge a different executive. Or it might be nobody, at the end of the day.”
“If they can’t prove this case beyond a reasonable doubt, they shouldn’t be charging,” he added.
‘You’d better grab yourself some good lawyers’
In other parts of the investigation, prosecutors appear to be dotting I’s and crossing T’s.
Ralph Mastromonaco, an engineer who worked on Trump’s Seven Springs estate in upstate New York — the valuation of which is under scrutiny from prosecutors, according to the Wall Street Journal — was subpoenaed by Manhattan prosecutors in recent weeks. But he told Insider that everything he supplied to prosecutors was already in the public record and filed with the local township of Bedford.
John Dean, President Richard Nixon’s former White House counsel whose testimony about the Watergate scandal led to Nixon’s resignation, said Friday he believed Vance’s office could bring charges against Trump in just a matter of days.
Donald Trump.
Getty
Dean based his observation on a Reuters report that said Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, was going to meet with Manhattan prosecutors for the seventh time.
Cohen pleaded guilty to several felonies stemming from investigations into Trump by the Manhattan US attorney’s office and the special counsel Robert Mueller. He testified to Congress in 2019 that Trump repeatedly inflated or deflated the value of his assets for loan and tax purposes, respectively, and he has extensively cooperated with prosecutors.
In a Friday morning tweet, Dean wrote that based on “personal experience as a key witness I assure you that you do not visit a prosecutor’s office 7 times if they are not planning to indict those about whom you have knowledge. It is only a matter of how many days until DA Vance indicts Donald & Co.”
Cramer emphasized that the precise timeline of the DA’s investigation is still hard to gauge.
“But when the Manhattan DA’s office has your tax returns and they’re bringing in hired guns like Pomerantz who specialize in this type of work,” he said, “You’d better grab yourself some good lawyers.”
Critics are blasting President Biden for taking credit for the COVID-19 vaccine rollout — and failing to thank former President Trump for initiating Operation Warp Speed, which produced the jab within one year.
In his first prime-time address Thursday night, Biden praised his administration for taking a “war footing” when it comes to combatting the virus, assuring every American will be eligible for a vaccine starting May 1.
Pundits like Fox News host Sean Hannity took aim at Biden for trying “to take credit for everything that Donald Trump did on COVID-19,” noting that three vaccines were already in development by the time Biden took office.
“There were already a million vaccines being administered into peoples’ arms every single day when Biden was sworn in, 36 million doses had already been distributed,” Hannity said.
He continued, “Joe, you want unity? Why don’t you just thank Donald Trump? You want us all to get along, you say. No Trump, no vaccine, Joe. Stop trying to take credit for something, frankly, you had nothing to do with. Nothing.”
Joe Biden was accused of “taking credit for everything that Donald Trump did on COVID-19” by Fox News.Alex Wong/Getty Images
Ronna McDaniel, the chair of the Republican National Committee, accused Biden of “not being straight with Americans,” including “on vaccines.”
“He is claiming Operation Warp Speed never existed,” she tweeted.
Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) also blasted Biden for his remark.
“Tonight, @POTUS Biden showed no grace or appreciation for the leadership that led to Operation Warp Speed and the development of a safe and effective vaccine,” Hagerty tweeted.
Many critics believed that Donald Trump deserves all the credit for the COVID-19 vaccine.EPA/Oliver Contreras / POOL
Former New York Congresswoman Nan Hayworth agreed that Trump deserves all the credit.
“‘MY Administration,’ says President Biden, over and over again,” she tweeted. “The ONLY reason he can do any of the things he’s doing for vaccines and vaccination is Operation Warp Speed. The ONLY President deserving extraordinary credit here is President TRUMP!”
Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 Janssen Vaccine boxes being stored at the US Department of Veterans Affairs’ VA Boston Healthcare System’s Jamaica Plain Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts on March 4, 2021.JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images
Conservative commentator Katie Pavlich wrote, “Biden taking credit for the vaccine is just absolutely astonishing, but not surprising.”
On Wednesday, Trump issued a statement saying Americans would be waiting years for a COVID-19 vaccine if it weren’t for him.
A medical worker prepares a COVID-19 vaccine in Washington, DC on Monday, March 8, 2021.Kevin Dietsch / Avalon
“I hope everyone remembers when they’re getting the COVID-19 (often referred to as the China Virus) Vaccine, that if I wasn’t President, you wouldn’t be getting that beautiful ‘shot’ for 5 years, at best, and probably wouldn’t be getting it at all,” Trump said.
Damon was initially charged with one count of driving under the influence and one count of resisting an officer without violence, according to an arrest affidavit. Court documents show that he pleaded not guilty to the DUI charges, and the resisting charge was dropped.
According to the arrest affidavit, his breathalyzer test was at 0.30% two hours after police first stopped him, nearly four times the state’s 0.08% threshold.
According to the affidavit, an officer said he stopped an SUV around 1:23 a.m. after seeing it drifting in the road and nearly striking a guardrail.
Video shows the moment the officer approached the vehicle. As the door opens, the officer can be heard saying to Damon multiple times, “shut your door” while approaching his SUV. The video shows Damon’s wife, Michelle Mangan-Damon, climb out of the SUV and ask, “What’s happening right now?”
According to the affidavit, the officer described Damon as “extremely unsteady on his feet and his speech was extremely slurred.” The officer added he smelled alcohol coming from Damon.
The officer said that Mangan-Damon continued to disobey his commands to stay in the car, and at one point, Damon then stepped back over between the officer and his wife, the affidavit says.
The officer said he then grabbed Damon and escorted him to stand in front of the police car, ordering him to say there, the affidavit says.
Video shows Mangan-Damon walking toward the driver’s side of the SUV when the officer grabbed her left wrist to stop her. Damon then intervened and got between the officer and the wife.
In the video, the officer can be heard saying “fighting one-two, actually” into his police radio.
The bodycam fell on the ground, showing both Damon and the officer. At one point, Damon can be heard saying a couple of times, “Blue lives matter,” a reference to his support for police officers.
Two officers were eventually able to put Damon and his wife in handcuffs, according to the video and the affidavit.
“I know people are trying to target me because I’m a Trump supporter,” Damon later said.
“I don’t think that has anything to do with it,” an officer responds.
“Yea, it does,” Damon said.
“That’s neither here nor there right now; that’s not why I’m stopping you,” the officer said.
Stuart Hyman, who is representing Damon and his wife, told CNN on Wednesday that the bodycam video doesn’t show some of the allegations made by the police, including the alleged driving pattern that led to the stop.
“If you watch the video, then you saw that the driving pattern wasn’t on the video that was being narrated and yet there was a camera in the car that could have recorded that,” Hyman said.
Hyman added the incident was “not a textbook example of how a police officer should handle this type of situation,” explaining the officer did not try to de-escalate at times when Mangan-Damon was not complying as well as when Damon tried to intervene.
Hyman told CNN Mangan-Damon has not been charged.
CNN has reached out to the Windermere PD for response to the attorney’s statements.
Damon retired from Major League Baseball in 2012 after an 18-year career. He played on seven teams, mostly notably the Kansas City Royals, the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees.
In political coverage, and especially on cable news, every issue seems to be polarized to the Nth degree.
Either you argue that Donald Trump did an incredible job and Joe Biden is doing a horrible job, or you insist the opposite is true. Taking a more nuanced position is often dismissed as being wishy-washy.
I have been saying for weeks that while President Biden is moving aggressively to ramp up the troubled vaccine program, President Trump deserves credit for creating Operation Warp Speed—and rarely gets any from the press.
Apparently, I was right, at least according to the New York Times.
Yep, the newspaper that spent four years investigating and often denigrating Trump has looked at the progress on vaccines and delivered, well, a fair and balanced report. The story yesterday by Sharon LaFraniere describes “a more mixed picture, one in which the new administration expanded and bulked up a vaccine production effort whose key elements were in place” when Biden took over from Trump. “Both administrations deserve credit, although neither wants to grant much to the other.”
Biden’s key moves were using the Defense Production Act to help Pfizer obtain the needed heavy machinery to expand a factory; pushing Johnson & Johnson “to force a key subcontractor into round-the-clock operations,” and getting the rival company Merck to join forces with Pfizer. The president announced yesterday the government will obtain an additional 100 million doses from J&J by year’s end.
MEGHAN, HARRY AND THE MEDIA: HOW A HOSTILE RELATIONSHIP PRODUCED AN OPRAH MOMENT
But the Times also acknowledges that “Biden benefited hugely from the waves of vaccine production that the Trump administration had set in motion. As both Pfizer and Moderna found their manufacturing footing, they were able to double and triple the outputs from their factories.”
And then there’s the predictable sniping as officials from both administrations take shots at each other over the development of the shots. In fact, as I was finishing this column, Trump issued a statement: “I hope everyone remembers when they’re getting the Covid-10 (often referred to as the China Virus) Vaccine, that if I wasn’t president, you wouldn’t be getting that beautiful ‘shot’ for 5 years, at best, and probably wouldn’t be getting it at all.” Got it.
While the public is polarized as well, I believe there’s more common sense in the country than inside the Beltway hothouse.
The House gave final approval yesterday to Biden’s $1.9-trillion Covid aid package. Recent polls show broad support for the legislation, including about a third of Republicans, as well as for the president’s handling of the pandemic. But not a single congressional Republican voted for the bill—and that’s what has dominated the coverage.
Biden is slated to deliver a prime-time speech tonight to tout his legislative victory—and a president who passed up that opportunity would be guilty of political malpractice. But what Biden hasn’t been doing much this week—or any week, actually—is dealing with journalists. Politico says he’s planning a “media blitz” to sell the benefits of the massive package. There will be “fewer scripted events and private dealings with lawmakers, more interactions with the press and appearances before the public.”
But is that true? That would mean more than holding the overdue news conference that Jen Psaki says is coming sometime this month. It would mean a round of interviews with journalists, not just one or two with sympathetic opinion hosts.
As for marketing the benefits of this lengthy and complicated measure, that makes sense. Since the GOP has been unloading on questionable programs that satisfy left-wing groups, Biden and his team are well-advised to make sure Americans know how the money will help their bank accounts, schools and vaccine programs.
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The coverage will play up the partisan warfare; that’s how Washington works. What you won’t see emphasized is that Biden is adding $1,400 stimulus checks to the 600 bucks approved under Trump—and the larger total is exactly what the ex-president, late in the game, insisted he wanted.
Former New York Yankees star Johnny Damon struggled with officers during his recent DUI arrest, bodycam footage released by the Windermere Police Department shows.
The bodycam footage from Damon’s Florida arrest was released on Tuesday and included him pleading that he was in favor of the police and a supporter of former president Donald Trump.
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“Believe me, I am Blue Lives Matter,” Damon said. “What are you doing right now? We are all for cops. Guys, we are all for cops.”
“Hey bro, I’m a good guy and I know people are trying to target me because I’m a Trump supporter,” Damon added.
The bodycam footage lasted close to two hours. It showed both Damon and his wife, Michelle Mangan-Damon, disobeying the police, which led to a scuffle.
It also included Damon himself knocking the officer’s bodycam to the ground.
“Don’t touch me,” Mangan-Damon responded to one of the officers. “Don’t f–king touch me.” After she said that, she broke free and walked away.
FORMER MLB STAR JOHNNY DAMON ARRESTED IN FLORIDA ON DUI CHARGE, POLICE SAY
Damon was pulled over on Feb. 18 after police officers realized that his SUV was swerving and eventually hit a curb. His blood-alcohol level was between .294 and .300, which was close to four times the state limit of .08.
This photo provided by the Orange County, Fla. Corrections Department in Orlando, Fla., shows Johnny Damon. Former Major League Baseball player Johnny Damon was arrested Friday, Feb. 19, 2021, in central Florida on a charge of resisting an officer after he was pulled over for suspicion of driving under the influence, according to court and jail records. (AP)
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Damon was hit with a DUI, and his wife was charged with battery and resisting arrest, according to clickorlando.com.
Damon, who played 18 seasons in the MLB, spent the majority of his career with the Yankees, Boston Red Sox, and Kansas City Royals. A two-time World Series champion with the Red Sox and Yankees in 2004 and 2009, respectively, Damon was also a two-time All-Star.
