Tom Boggioni is a writer, born, raised and living in San Diego — where he attended San Diego State University. Prior to writing for Raw Story, he wrote for FireDogLake, blogged as TBogg, and worked in banking, marketing and construction.
President Trump concludes his campaign speech at the rally in the Bojangle's Coliseum. (Jeffery Edwards / Shutterstock.com)
As Donald Trump boasted at rally about putting his own Supreme Court justices on the country's highest court Friday night, one of his supporters yelled "Ginsburg is dead" to the president who was not aware of the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
“That’s why the Supreme Court is so important, the next president will get one, two, three, or four justices,” Trump stated. "I had two. Many presidents have had none. They’ve had none. Because they’re there for a long time.”
At that point, a woman on the crowd yelled about Ginsburg with others joining later.
Former President Donald Trump's rambling speech about papers he claimed proved the hush money indictment against him was "ridiculous" was judged by those who viewed video to be ridiculous.
This assessment arrived moments after Trump shuffled out of Manhattan criminal court Thursday with a pile of printouts he said detailed supportive opinions from legal experts following his case.
"These are all stories from legal experts saying how this is not a case," Trump said. "The case is ridiculous."
Trump — who has pleaded not guilty to charges that he covered up hush money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election — then proceeded to shuffle through the pages, several of which featured his own face.
On social media, Trump was faced almost immediately with mockery.
"Your Honor, I submit into evidence articles by @JonathanTurley and @AndrewCMcCarthy and demand you issue a directed verdict in my favor," quipped attorney Bradley Moss, citing two conservative commentators.
"See, it's in print, so believe it!" summarized @WTFH_Elaina. "It looks like multiple copies of the same paper."
@GregK quoted another notorious political reference to stacks of documents in question: Sen. Mitt Romney's "binders full of women."
"Stop me if you’ve heard this one before," he wrote. "Binders full of attorneys."
"He literally just printed out his social media feed," replied @stelenj. "And he named like 3 people. Wow, 3 people who support you are saying you're innocent. Well, let's just throw the whole thing out then since Turley says so."
"Is he tired?" political commentator Molly Jong Fast wanted to know. "Is he sleepy?"
X user @UrbanistaRamon took the opportunity to poke fun at Trump's attorney — who has recently pivoted to "spitting the truth" on his behalf — Alina Habba.
"Apparently, Alina Habba was tasked with 'tabbing' his notes," he replied. "As you can see, she did that just about as well as she defended him in court!"
New York Judge Juan Merchan said he would not order prosecutors to disclose a witness list to the defense team in light of former President Donald Trump's attacks on figures connected to his hush-money case.
At the conclusion of the third day of jury selection in Trump's first criminal trial, defense attorney Todd Blanche asked the prosecution which witnesses would be called first.
Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass noted that Trump made social media posts about several potential witnesses, which prosecutors say violated the judge's gag order.
"What if I commit to the court that President Trump will not" post Truth posts about witnesses, Blanche says," Tyler McBrien of Lawfare tweeted.
"I don't think you can make that representation," Merchan replies.
Former President Donald Trump held an angry press conference following a full day of his criminal trial in Manhattan, during which he brandished a bunch of news printouts and claimed the criminal justice system was rigged against him.
"I'm supposed to be in New Hampshire," Trump said to reporters after emerging from the courthouse. "I've been here all day."
The former president reiterated that he believes the trial against him, for business record fraud to allegedly cover up an affair with an adult film star ahead of the 2016 election, is "very unfair." He waved around the handful of news clippings, most of which had been taken from right-wing media outlets criticizing the trial and defending him, saying that he had pages of "stories from legal experts about how there is no case" and that "I haven't seen one that says it's a good trial."
Trump added that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who is prosecuting the case, is the "real fraud" and accused him of falsifying business records himself, saying "he's the one" who did it and "everybody's outraged" that Bragg is prosecuting him when there are "murders going on right outside" the courthouse in Manhattan.
Trump also pushed the idea, with no evidence, that President Joe Biden orchestrated the charges against him, and added, "We've got a crooked president, he should be on trial!"
As of Thursday afternoon, a full jury has been selected to hear the trial. However, at least one more day of jury selection remains as the court must decide on six alternates; Judge Juan Merchan hopes to have that process wrapped up by the end of the week so the trial can move ahead.