#robert costello

[tomorrowusa]

Hecklers Drown Out Trump’s Bootlicking Brigade Outside Courthouse

Showering the MAGA group with boos while telling them to “go to hell,” protesters made it near impossible for the pro-Trump speakers to be h

Donald Trump has a gag order placed on him by the judge in his Stormy Daniels hush money trial. So to get around the gag order various Trump lickspittles make pilgrimages to the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse to say stuff to the media which Trump himself is not allowed to say. Past Trump mouthpieces have included pseudo-hillbilly fascist Sen. J.D. Vance and House Speaker "MAGA Mike" Johnson.

Monday's Trump mouthpieces were a quintet of MAGA C-listers: Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA-09), ex-NYC police commissioner Bernie Kerik, South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, Trump campaign aide Jason Miller (not related to Stephen Miller), and Kash Patel - a onetime deputy director of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

While Trump has been beseeching his followers to show up outside the courthouse to demonstrate support for their Dear Leader, on Monday it was pro-democracy Trump opponents who were there in greater numbers.

A cadre of MAGA loyalists who had gathered to show their support for Donald Trump during his hush-money trial was shouted down by a bevy of cowbell-clanging anti-Trump protesters on Monday when they tried to speak outside of a lower Manhattan courthouse. [ ... ] The group that flanked the twice-impeached ex-president this time around included South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, former New York police commissioner Bernie Kerik, ex-Trump administration official Kash Patel, Trump senior advisor Jason Miller, and Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA). All but Patel, meanwhile, were customarily decked out in Trump’s standard red tie and navy suit combo.

Yep, four of the five designated Trump lickspittles were dressed in Trump uniforms. Did he dress them himself over at Trump Tower?

Alan Wilson got an earful when he tried to spew the Trump line.

With boos raining down on Wilson, one demonstrator could be heard shouting “go home you carpetbagging fools.” Another protester who camped out behind the pro-Trump speakers with a large “Bootlickers” sign relentlessly blew a whistle while ringing a cowbell. According to independent reporter Jacqueline Sweet, the man was given a citation by law enforcement for “too much cowbell.” Patel, who is expected to take a senior White House role if Trump returns to power, portrayed the ex-president as a victim of an “unconstitutional weaponization of justice.” It was difficult to hear what he had to say as the crowd chanted: “Kash Patel, Go To Hell!” Kerik was also subjected to targeted insults when he spoke, with protesters calling him a “bald-headed bigot” throughout his comments. According to New York Magazine correspondent Oliva Nuzzi, the Trump-hating crowd also took aim at the speakers for dressing just like the former president, prompting them to call the MAGA group “red tie terrorists.” She added that the demonstrators even got a laugh from Miller, who chuckled when one protester wondered if they had bought their suits at “Dictators R Us.”

To use a favorite Trump word, Monday's Trump mouthpieces were real losers.

Rep. Andrew Clyde's rise to fame in Georgia was as a prominent gun store owner. One wonders how many of his guns make it up to NYC to be used illegally.

Bernie Kerik is a convicted felon for tax fraud who was later pardoned by Trump. He served several years behind bars for his crimes.

Alan Wilson has made false election fraud claims even before the Trump presidency and is a serial litigator for far right causes.

Kash Patel once served as an aide to Devin Nunes – the former House member who unsuccessfully sued a cartoon cow.

Jason Miller admitted to hiring prostitutes and having extramarital affairs with two campaign staffers. Republican family values – just like Trump.

Meidas Touch has a video report on Monday's scene outside the courthouse. (never mind the plant commercial in the middle).

If you're anywhere near NYC, visit the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse area on a day that the hush money trial is in session. There's a lunch break starting roughly at 11:30 AM and court is recessed for the day in the afternoon before the building closes at 5:00 PM. Bring your own cow bell and sign.

Court is in session this week on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Next Monday court is closed for Memorial Day but should be in session on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. The case may go to the jury sometime late next week.

The Manhattan courthouse is at 100 Centre Street; take the 4, 5, or 6 subway trains to the Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall station and walk about four blocks north. The crowds and the Trump bootlickers seem to be directly across the street from the courthouse at Collect Pond Park.

EDIT: If Trump toadies had a bad day outside the courtroom, the one and only defense witness for Trump seems to have had an even worse one in court.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Leaked audio: Before Election Day, Bannon said Trump planned to falsely claim victory

"That's our strategy. He's gonna declare himself a winner."

On the evening of October 31, 2020, Steve Bannon told a group of associates that President Donald Trump had a plan to declare victory on election night—even if he was losing. Trump knew that the slow counting of Democratic-leaning mail-in ballots meant the returns would show early leads for him in key states. His “strategy” was to use this fact to assert that he had won, while claiming that the inevitable shifts in vote totals toward Joe Biden must be the result of fraud, Bannon explained.

“What Trump’s gonna do, is just declare victory. Right? He’s gonna declare victory. But that doesn’t mean he’s a winner,” Bannon, laughing, told the group, according to audio of the meeting obtained by Mother Jones. “He’s just gonna say he’s a winner.”

“As it sits here today,” Bannon said later in the conversation, describing a scenario in which Trump held an early lead in key swing states, “at 10 or 11 o’clock Trump’s gonna walk in the Oval, tweet out, ‘I’m the winner. Game over. Suck on that.'”

Trump’s plan to falsely declare victory while tens of millions of votes were still being counted was public knowledge even before the election. Axios reported on the scheme at the time. Bannon himself discussed the idea on November 3—Election Day—on his War Room podcast. Weeks earlier, Bannon had interviewed a former Trump administration official who outlined how Trump would would use allegations of fraud to dispute an electoral defeat and would seek to have Congress declare him the winner. Last month, the congressional Committee investigating January 6 detailed how Rudy Giuliani convinced Trump to go ahead with a victory declaration after 2 a.m. on November 4, over the objections of campaign staff. “Frankly, we did win this election,” Trump insisted in that infamous news conference.

The nearly hour-long audio obtained by Mother Jones is new evidence that Trump’s late-night diatribe—which came a few hours later than Bannon had anticipated—followed a preexisting plan to lie to Americans about the election results in a bid to hold onto power. The new recording stands out for the striking candor and detail with which Bannon described a scheme to use lies to subvert democracy. Bannon also predicted that Trump’s false declaration of victory would lead to widespread political violence, along with “crazy” efforts by Trump to stay in office. Bannon and his associates laughed about those scenarios at various points in the recording.

Bannon and his attorney, Robert Costello, did not respond to questions about the recording.

After election day, Bannon became a prominent booster of Trump’s bogus election fraud claims. The Washington Post reported Monday that Bannon’s “vociferous support” for those lies helped convince Trump to grant him a last-minute pardon on unrelated fraud charges. Speaking to Mother Jones, Costello questioned that reporting. He said that as far as he knew, “Trump never made any such statement” linking the pardon to Bannon’s election rhetoric.

Bannon refused last year to cooperate with a January 6 Committee subpoena. The Justice Department later charged him with two counts of contempt of Congress. This weekend, he claimed that he now wishes to testify before the Committee. But federal prosecutors argued this about face was “irrelevant” to the charges that Bannon had already broken the law. A judge ruled Monday that the trial would go forward next week.

The pre-election audio comes from a meeting between Bannon and a half dozen supporters of Guo Wengui, an exiled Chinese mogul for whom Bannon has worked. Bannon helped Guo launch a series of pro-Trump Chinese-language news websites that have promoted an array of far-right misinformation, including a video streaming site called GTV. The meeting was intended to help GTV plan its election night coverage.

Though he did not attend, Guo arranged the confab, which was held in the Washington, DC, townhouse where Bannon tapes War Room, according to a person who was present. That source recorded the meeting and recently provided the audio to Mother Jones. The attendees included Dr. Li Meng Yan, a virologist who had made unsubstantiated claims that COVID was designed by China as a bioweapon—claims Bannon had helped to propagate. Also there was Wang Dinggang, a GTV host who had helped to spread false claims about Hunter Biden.

Speaking to this group of mostly Chinese immigrants, Bannon explained US electoral processes—and Trump’s plans to exploit them—in some detail. He emphasized that in 2020, Republicans were more likely to vote in person, casting ballots that, in many states, would be counted first. Democrats disproportionately voted by mail. Their ballots would take days to tally in a number of states. That meant that when it came to public perceptions about who was winning, Democrats would “have a natural disadvantage,” Bannon said. “And Trump’s going to take advantage of it. That’s our strategy. He’s gonna declare himself a winner.”

“So when you wake up Wednesday morning, it’s going to be a firestorm,” Bannon continued. “You’re going to have antifa, crazy. The media, crazy. The courts are crazy. And Trump’s gonna be sitting there mocking, tweeting shit out: ‘You lose. I’m the winner. I’m the king.'”

It’s not clear how much influence Bannon, who had previously been Trump’s top White House strategist before being ousted, really wielded over Trump at this time. But Bannon has suggested that he was a key architect of Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results and has reportedly asserted that he convinced Trump to make January 6 a moment of reckoning in that bid. Bannon was also among the Trump associates who gathered in a set of rooms and suites in the Willard Hotel on January 6 to advise on the President’s attempt to remain in power.

Bannon’s remarks to Guo’s supporters indicate that he was working with a group, led by Giuliani, that wanted Trump to take particularly aggressive steps to contest unfavorable election results. Other advisers have said they opposed these steps. Bannon said during the October 31 meeting that he was collaborating closely with Giuliani, who was preparing to oversee Trump’s planned legal efforts.

Bannon’s meeting with Guo’s associates occurred a few weeks after Bannon, working with Giuliani, had provided the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop to the New York Post. Bannon acknowledged in the recording that he had also helped supply Guo supporters with this material. As Mother Jones has reported, Guo then directed his backers to put sex videos and other salacious content from the laptop online. Bannon praised Guo’s effort during the meeting, saying it had helped slow Biden’s momentum. That left Biden with little prospect of a resounding election night victory that Trump wouldn’t easily be able to contest, Bannon added.

As a result, any chance for a “peaceful resolution of this is probably gone,” Bannon said. “Because the other three alternatives [are], either Biden’s up slightly and Trump says he stole it, right, and he’s not leaving. Or it’s undefined and we can’t figure out who’s leading, and Trump’s saying he’s stealing it, and he’s not leaving. Or, Trump’s leading, which is the one where they’re gonna burn the city down.”

Bannon expressed the belief that Trump actually winning would lead to violence by the left. But he also said that Trump falsely claiming he’d won—a strategy Bannon was cheering on—would probably cause violence too. And Bannon emphasized that election night would mark the start of a battle for power in which Trump would try to stop the votes of people who opposed him from being counted, while Democrats would try to use invalid ballots to defeat him. Democrats, Bannon claimed, “steal elections all the time.”

Election Day 2020 would not be like others, Bannon said. “This is a revolution,” he explained. “This election just triggers more fighting.”

Bannon also said during this meeting that once the voting was done, Trump would be unencumbered by electoral pressure. “Here’s the thing. After then, Trump never has to go to a voter again,” Bannon said. “He’s gonna fire [Christopher] Wray, the FBI director…He’s gonna say ‘Fuck you. How about that?’ Because…he’s done his last election. Oh, he’s going to be off the chain—he’s gonna be crazy.”

Bannon also said he expected that Trump would quickly fire CIA Director Gina Haspel, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Heath and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, and Dr. Anthony Fauci.

“If Trump is losing by 10 or 11 o’clock at night, it’s going to be even crazier. No, because he’s gonna sit right there and say, ‘They stole it. I’m directing the Attorney General to shut down all ballot places in all 50 states,'” Bannon said. “He’s not going out easy. If Biden is winning, Trump is going to do some crazy shit.”

[lukemeintheeye]

Rudy Giuliani says he has 'insurance' if Trump tries to throw him under the bus in the impeachment process

Asked in an interview whether he was concerned about being abandoned by President Donald Trump, Giuliani called Trump a "very loyal guy."

President Donald Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani has hinted that he has "insurance" should the president abandon him amid House Democrats' impeachment investigation.

In an interview with The Guardian, the former New York mayor was asked whether he was nervous the president might decide to throw him under the bus.

The House is investigating claims Trump abused his office in waging a pressure campaign, in which Giuliani played a key role, for Ukraine to announce investigations meant to benefit Trump politically.

"I'm not, but I do have very, very good insurance, so if he does, all my hospital bills will be paid," Giuliani remarked in the article, published Thursday.

At this point in the call Giuliani's own attorney, Robert Costello, interjected to say: "He's joking."

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

[gwydionmisha]

'Total trainwreck for the defense': Trump's legal team rests on a sour note

Former federal prosecutors Duncan Levin and Kristy Greenberg talk with Alex Wagner about the disastrous testimony of defense witness Robert

[gwydionmisha]

‘Backfired’: Trump witness’s own emails used against him on cross-examination 

In a stunning example of something you really don't want to put in writing, prosecutors presented emails from Trump defense witness Robert C

[saywhat-politics]

MAGA Lawyer Gets Dismantled by His Own Damning Trump Emails

Seth Wenig/APDonald Trump made the curious decision to put on a single relevant witness at his New York trial, opting for a MAGA loyalist ta

Donald Trump made the curious decision to put on a single relevant witness at his New York trial, opting for a MAGA loyalist tangentially involved in the porn star hush money saga—a strategy that failed spectacularly when his testimony only further incriminated the former president.

Robert Costello’s role in the Stormy Daniels affair is comedic recursion, a legal version of the Yo Dawg meme. When the feds in 2018 tried to flip then-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, Costello was the New York lawyer who tried to keep him from cooperating—a cover-up to hide the way Cohen had faked legal invoices, which was itself a cover-up of the hush money payment, which was a cover-up to stop the woman from ruining Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

For a brief moment in 2018, Costello tried to become Cohen’s lawyer and his “backchannel” to the powerful politician who might corruptly be able to protect him by sidelining the FBI investigation. The idea was to have Cohen represented by Costello, who was close friends with Rudy Giuliani, who was advising the Trump White House—a plan copiously detailed in emails.

Trump Trial Judge Seals the Courtroom to Unload on MAGA Lawyer

[justinspoliticalcorner]

There is no laptop: Hunter Biden sues Rudy Giuliani

Hunter Biden has filed a civil suit against Rudy Giuliani, a number of shell companies through which Giuliani does business, and Giuliani’s

Mark Sumner at Daily Kos:

Hunter Biden has filed a civil suit against Rudy Giuliani, a number of shell companies through which Giuliani does business, and Giuliani’s attorney Robert Costello. The suit charges Giuliani and Costello with violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, specifically accessing Hunter Biden’s personal information “without authorization or exceeding authorized access,” resulting in the “total annihilation” of his digital privacy.

Additionally, the suit reminds the court—and everyone else—that for all the talk of “Hunter Biden’s laptop,” there is no laptop. There never was. Instead, “Defendants themselves admit that their purported possession of a ‘laptop’ is in fact not a ‘laptop’ at all. It is, according to their own public statements, an ‘external drive’ that Defendants were told contained hundreds of gigabytes of Plaintiff’s personal data.” According to Giuliani, the data on that drive came from John Paul Mac Isaac, the former owner of a computer repair shop, who claimed to have data taken from one of Hunter Biden’s laptops and who offered to send it to Giuliani. According to the lawsuit, neither Isaac nor Giuliani ever maintained any kind of chain of custody on this data, and the data they have has been not just accessed but also tampered with, manipulated, altered, and damaged.

Hunter Biden sues Rudy Giuliani for Computer Fraud and Abuse Act violations in the Biden v. Giuliani case.

[saywhat-politics]

Hunter Biden sues Rudy Giuliani, attorney Robert Costello for "hacking" laptop data

Rudy Giuliani and attorney Robert Costello have frequently acknowledged accessing the hard drive's data after Hunter Biden left his laptop a

Hunter Biden sued Rudy Giuliani and his former attorney Tuesday, claiming they hacked and manipulated data on an external hard drive associated with his laptop.

Giuliani and the attorney, Robert Costello, have frequently acknowledged accessing the hard drive's data. The lawsuit accuses them of having "dedicated an extraordinary amount of time and energy toward looking for, hacking into, tampering with, manipulating, copying, disseminating, and generally obsessing over data that they were given that was taken or stolen."

Giuliani has sought to paint Hunter Biden as a corrupt businessman, who cashed in on his father's political power. He and Costello have said they were provided the hard drive in 2020 by a Delaware computer repair shop owner who claims Hunter Biden dropped off the laptop the year before and never returned to retrieve it. In May, Hunter Biden also sued the computer repair shop owner, John Paul Mac Isaac, who has denied wrongdoing and said he obtained the laptop legally.

The lawsuit against Giuliani and Costello claims they used Hunter Biden's username to gain access to his data, making copies and sharing it with allies such as Steve Bannon. 

Giuliani and Costello did not immediately reply to requests for comment.