TV News LIES

An associate of former President Trump told the FBI of advising Trump to return documents the National Archives was seeking nearly a year before agents searched his Mar-a-Lago home, according to newly unsealed filings.

The big picture: The summary of the unnamed associate's FBI interview was among a trove of documents that the judge handling Trump's classified documents case released with redactions on Monday.

• Other revelations included that the Bureau initially referred to the Trump investigation with the code name "PLASMIC ECHO; Mishandling of Classified or National Defense Information."

Driving the news: The associate, identified in the filings only as "person 16," told the FBI that they had said to Trump while at Mar-a-Lago in Florida: "Whatever you have, give everything back. Let them come here and get everything. Don't give them a noble reason to indict you, because they will."

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The first criminal trial of Donald Trump is officially underway.

Prosecutors and Trump’s attorneys delivered opening statements and the first witness – a former National Enquirer publisher – was called Monday in the historic and unprecedented criminal trial of a former president.

Each side got their first chance to lay out a theory of the case for jurors. Prosecutors told jurors that the reimbursement of hush money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels was part of a larger conspiracy to influence the 2016 presidential election by hiding damaging information about Trump.

The fore...mer president’s attorneys responded by telling the jury that Trump was innocent and not involved in the creation of the 34 business records he’s charged with falsifying. They also pointedly added that there’s “nothing wrong with trying to influence an election.”

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A huge crowd of faculty members who teach at Columbia University in New York held a mass walk-out on Monday afternoon to protest the institution having called police to arrest students at a pro-Palestinian encampment protest last week.

Hundreds of members of the teaching cohort at Columbia walked out in solidarity with the students who were arrested by the New York police department last week and also suspended by the university.

The solidarity protest came as students put protest tents back up in the middle of campus on Monday after they were torn down last week when more than 100 arrests were made.

The university on Monday morning announced that classes would be held remotely after further days of unrest on the New York campus, following the arrest of pro-Palestinian protesters there last week.

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Kari Lake, the Republican Senate candidate from Arizona and a vocal supporter of Donald Trump, lost a bid to have the Supreme Court take up her lawsuit on electronic voting machines in her state.

Lake filed the lawsuit when she ran for governor in 2022. It was a challenge to whether the state’s electronic voting machines were accurate.

The case had been dismissed by two lower courts, which decided that Lake did not have reason to sue.

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While Donald Trump endures the ignominy of being the first former US president to face criminal trial, there is further humiliation brewing, with a movement to strip the Trump name from a building in his home state.

Residents at Trump Plaza, a 40-story high-rise in the suburban New York city of New Rochelle, are pushing for the building to be renamed and to escape a near-two decade association with the legally-troubled ex-president and real estate mogul.

It would follow the slew of buildings in New York City and elsewhere that have abandoned the Trump name since he entered politics, as Trump has become a divisive, much-loathed figure by liberals even as he is loved by his fans.

Owners of Trump Plaza apartments – there are 194 units – are in the middle of a vote which would further erase Trump’s name – something which would not just have implications for the people who live in the building.

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Police arrested more than 100 protesters on Columbia University's campus Thursday after they set up encampments to protest Israel’s war in Gaza.

Police officers forcibly moved students out of tents at the center of Columbia’s campus in Manhattan, according to eyewitness accounts. University President Minouche Shafik told police the encampment began early Wednesday morning with more than 100 people occupying the South Lawn of the campus.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams confirmed the NYPD made more than 108 arrests.

Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a coalition of student organizations, said more than 120 people, including three legal observers, were arrested at Columbia’s “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.” The encampment was established early Wednesday morning, CUAD said.

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