Communick News

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/22034

Former special counsel Jack Smith on Thursday defended his decision to bring criminal charges against President Donald Trump, while also expressing deep concerns about the rule of law in the US during the second Trump administration.

During testimony before the US House Judiciary Committee, Smith emphasized that he decided to prosecute Trump solely because the facts in the case showed he had committed crimes.

"President Trump was charged because the evidence established that he willfully broke the law, the very laws he took an oath to uphold," said Smith. "Grand juries in two separate districts reached this conclusion based on his actions as alleged in the indictments they returned."

Smith then said that after losing the US presidential election in 2020, Trump "engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results and prevent the lawful transfer of power."

The former special counsel emphasized that he stood by his decisions to bring charges against Trump because "our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal activity."

Smith told lawmakers on the committee that he had uncovered evidence that Trump knew his claims about the 2020 election being stolen were false, but he pushed them anyway in order to illegally remain in the White House.

"Trump was not looking for honest answers about whether there was fraud in the election," said Smith. "He was looking for ways to stay in power. And when people told him things that conflicted with him staying in power, he rejected them."

In addition to discussing his criminal cases against the president, which were dismissed without prejudice after the 2024 presidential election, Smith also delivered a warning about Trump's campaign of retribution against his enemies.

"President Trump has sought to seek revenge against career prosecutors, FBI agents, and support staff simply for having done these cases," he said. "Vilifying and seeking retribution against these people is wrong. Those dedicated public servants are the base of us, and it has been a privilege to serve with them."

Smith then pivoted to warning about the state of the rule of law in general during Trump's second term.

"My fear is that we have seen the rule of law function in our country for so long that many of us have come to take it for granted," he said. "The rule of law is not self-executing. It depends on our collective commitment to apply it. It requires dedicated service on behalf of others, especially when that service is difficult and comes with costs. Our willingness to pay those costs is what tests and defines our commitment to the rule of law and to this wonderful country."

Smith's testimony earned praise from Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee.

"Special Counsel Smith, you pursued the facts," Raskin said. "You followed every applicable law... Your decisions were reviewed by the Public Integrity Section. You acted based solely on the facts."

The Maryland Democrat said that Smith's approach to enforcing the law was in stark contrast to the approach the US Department of Justice (DOJ) has taken during Trump's second term.

"The opposite of Donald Trump, who now has purported to take over the Department of Justice," Raskin said. "He’s in charge of the whole thing under his unitary executive theory, and he acts openly, purely based on political vendetta and motives of personal revenge. And he doesn’t deny it."

As Smith was testifying, Trump called Smith a "deranged animal" and put direct pressure the DOJ to punish the former special counsel.

"Hopefully the Attorney General is looking at what he’s done, including some of the crooked and corrupt witnesses that he was attempting to use in his case against me," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "The whole thing was a Democrat SCAM — A big price should be paid by them for what they have put our Country through!"

On Tuesday, Trump filed a motion asking the US District Court of the Southern District of Florida to prohibit the DOJ from carrying out a planned future release of Smith's report on his case against Trump that involved the unlawful retention of top-secret government documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort after he left the White House in 2021.

Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, linked the timing of Thursday's hearing with Smith to the potential release of his report on the classified documents case.

"Republicans are only now allowing this hearing simply because Judge Cannon’s injunction keeping the second volume of Jack Smith’s report private is about to expire," she said. "Keeping the truth locked away is an assault on the rule of law and on the transparency owed to the American people."

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

In a Truth Social post on Thursday, Trump announced that he was revising a lawsuit against The New York Times to include the organization’s polling research, which currently shows him tanking on everything from the economy and immigration to his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/42009623

In a Truth Social post on Thursday, Trump announced that he was revising a lawsuit against The New York Times to include the organization’s polling research, which currently shows him tanking on everything from the economy and immigration to his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/41994676

https://xcancel.com/DavidAFrench/status/2014190054990647565#m

cross-posted from: https://ibbit.at/post/158114

An internal memo from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) suggests that agents are authorized to enter the homes of immigrants and citizens alike without a judicial warrant — an assertion that violates the Fourth Amendment and several years of caselaw stating otherwise. The memo was first made public in a disclosure from whistleblowers within the federal government, with the help of…

Source

From Truthout via this RSS feed

Jack Smith has stones.

He later said, in response to a lawmaker’s question asking whether the Justice Department will “find some way” to indict him, that he believes “they will do everything in their power to do that, because they’ve been ordered to by the president.”

Moderate, 8.04 mi loop 1,932 ft elevation gain Hiked 4/3/24

Flickr Album

Combining sections of four trails to make a loop, this trail takes you to the highest point in the Tuscon Mountains. Along the way you'll pass a small collection of petroglyphs, a small stone building, and abundant flora and fauna. With all of the elevation gain, the trail sports fantastic views.

A bee forages inside of a blooming pink flower on a Hedgehog cactus.

A steep hillside lined with purple wildflowers in bloom. In the distance the peak of the trail may be seen rising up.

A view back down the ridge to gt to the peak of the hike. Switchbacks may be seen on the hill to the left before heading along the ridge on the right.

SNW s1e8 "The Elysian Kingdom"

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/us/politics/trump-poll-second-term.html

Here you can find reviewed, impressive and comprehensive European alternatives for digital products and apps if you wanna break from American (big) tech companies.

Have a look, you'll be impressed...

https://european-alternatives.eu/

So i had a dreamcast 20 some years ago, it was awesome but got destroyed in a flood. I would buy another one but I have way too mamy consoles already. I was messing with emulating and I tried looking everywhere for any dreamcast style controllers for use with pc, or adapters, and really didnt find anything, except maybe the blissbox? I like to at least have the right controller vs just playing everytbing with a ps2 controller..

I just ran into the wonderful error message

the trait is not dyn compatible because method publish_video is async

and boy, what a rabbit hole. I found out about async_trait which resolves this by turning async methods into fn method() -> Pin<Box<dyn Future + Send + 'async_trait>>, but I thought that's what the async fn was syntax sugar for??? Then I ran into this member-only medium post claiming

Rust Async Traits: What Finally Works Now

Async functions in traits shipped. Here’s what that means for your service interfaces.

But I clicked through every rust release since 1.75.0 where impl AsyncTrait was shipped and couldn't find a mention of async. Now I'm just confused (and still using async_trait). Hence the question above...

The United States invoked Article 5, the mutual-defense clause of NATO’s founding charter, the day after the September 11 attacks. It remains the only time in NATO’s nearly 80-year history that the obligation of common defense has been activated. All 28 members of the alliance at the time sent soldiers to Afghanistan. Many never returned...

Australia has high rates of adoption for rooftop solar. The interconnection is easy and permitting happens over night. And best of all, none of the fears associated with wide spread solar have materialized into real world problems.