TV News LIES

Jack Smith, the former DOJ special counsel, claimed in closed-door congressional testimony on Wednesday that investigators had proof “beyond a reasonable doubt” that President Donald Trump “criminally” conspired to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Smith made the remarks in his opening statement to lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.

“I made my decisions in the investigation without regard to President Trump’s political association, activities, beliefs, or candidacy in the 2024 election,” Smith said in his opening statement, which was obtained in advance by the Associated Press. “We took actions based on what the facts and the law required — the very lesson I learned early in my career as a prosecutor.

WWE Hall of Famer Mick Foley said Tuesday he is cutting ties with the professional wrestling organization, citing its close relationship with the Trump administration.

Foley, who’s long been critical of President Trump, said the president’s comments on the death of acclaimed actor-director Rob Reiner were the “final straw” compelling the wrestler to inform WWE he would no longer make public appearances on behalf of the company.

“While I have been concerned about WWE‘s close relationship with Donald Trump for several months — especially in light of his administration’s ongoing cruel and inhumane treatment of immigrants (and pretty much anyone who ‘looks like an immigrant’) — reading the President’s incredibly cruel comments in the wake of Rob Reiner’s death is the final straw for me,” Foley wrote in an Instagram post on Tuesday.

“I no longer wish to represent a company that coddles a man so seemingly void of compassion as he marches our country towards autocracy,” he continued.

Foley said he told WWE talent relations Monday night that he “would not be making any appearances for the company as long as this man remains in office.” He also said he would not re-sign his Legends deal when his contract expires in June.

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President Trump led an effort to close ranks around White House chief of staff Susie Wiles on Tuesday, seeking to contain damage of Wiles’s own making.

The furor was kicked off by a move that stunned Washington. 

Wiles — known both for a relative aversion to the spotlight and for imposing some discipline on the chaotic world around Trump — gave 11 interviews to author and journalist Chris Whipple, resulting in a Vanity Fair story published Tuesday morning.

In those interviews, Wiles offered startlingly candid views on a number of people in Trump’s orbit.

She alluded to Elon Musk’s ketamine use and said his assailing of the United States Agency for International Development had at first left her “aghast.” She said Attorney General Pam Bondi had “completely whiffed” in her initial handling of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. In the process of suggesting Vice President Vance was more attuned to the base’s feelings on the Epstein matter than Bondi was, Wiles called Vance “a conspiracy theorist for a decade.”

As for budget director Russell Vought, he was “a right-wing absolute zealot,” in Wiles’s estimation — though it’s not clear the deeply conservative Wiles meant this as a criticism.

As for the president himself, he as “an alcoholic’s personality,” according to Wiles.

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President Trump on Monday signed an executive order designating the street drug fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction.

"The manufacture and distribution of fentanyl, primarily performed by organized criminal networks, threatens our national security and fuels lawlessness in our hemisphere and at our borders," the order declared.

During an event in the Oval Office, Trump said the carnage fentanyl has caused in American families is worse than U.S. deaths in many wars.

"Two to three hundred thousand people die every year, that we know of, so we're formally classifying fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction," Trump said.

In fact, Trump's numbers are wildly inflated. According to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, fentanyl killed roughly 48 thousand people in the U-S last year - a 27 percent drop from the year before.

Experts also say fentanyl would be difficult to use as a weapon of mass destruction. There is only one documented incident worldwide, in 2002, where the Russian government weaponized fentanyl in gas form. There have been no cases reported in the U.S.

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The Heritage Foundation, an influential rightwing thinktank currently mired in controversy over its president’s apparent apology for extremism, has appointed as a director the founder of a secretive all-male network of Christian nationalist fraternal lodges.

Scott Yenor, appointed as Heritage’s new director of the B Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies, has also recently offered ultra-conservative opinions on women, marriage and LGBTQ+ rights in recent podcast appearances and speaking engagements.

They have included that there is an association between homosexuality and pedophilia; that adultery, homosexuality, no-fault divorce, and abortion should be outlawed under a regime of “soft patriarchy”; and that elements of the US Civil Rights Act, including its prohibitions against workplace sex discrimination, should be wound back.

Heritage appointed Yenor despite a string of controversies over his reactionary politics, including his resignation in April from the University of Florida’s board of regents after protests and concern from state legislators over his views about women.

Heidi Beirich, chief strategy officer and co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, said: “It’s just disgraceful that Heritage, especially given all of its recent scandals over providing cover for antisemitism, would hire Yenor, who has long bashed women and has been investigated by his former employer for civil rights violations.”

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Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said her son, a U.S.-born citizen, was targeted by ICE agents on Saturday after he stopped at a Target store.

She said her son was pulled over but then was allowed to move on after he provided his passport.

“Yesterday after he made a stop at Target, he did get pulled over by ICE agents and once he was able to produce his passport ID they did let him go,” she said during an interview on WCCO, CBS’s Minnesota station, on Sunday.

She added that her son regularly brings his passport with him in case he gets pulled over by ICE.

Omar and President Trump have been battling over Minnesota’s population of Somalian immigrants, with Trump calling Somalians “garbage” and increasing ICE agent presence in the state in an operation called “Operation Metro Surge” earlier this month.

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