U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer speaks on House Republican debt ceiling plan (April 26, 2023)

House Republicans passed a debt ceiling hike Wednesday.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy pushed his package to raise the debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion through the House in a close vote. But the White House continues to say that it will not negotiate on the issue.

The federal government could default as soon as early June.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer blasted the House’s Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023, calling it a “gut punch” and a “Default On America,” “This plan means fewer jobs, higher costs for the American people, particularly average middle class people, would leave police, first responders, border patrol, and our brave veterans all hanging out to dry. There are dramatic slashes with each of those very necessary functions.”

Schumer said a clean debt ceiling had been passed before in a bipartisan manner twice under President Trump and once under President Obama.

Congressman Nick Langworthy issued a statement on the plan, saying, “Today, I was proud to vote for the Limit Save Grow Act that is the first step to breaking Washington’s addiction to spending and getting our nation’s finances back on track. This plan is a responsible, reasonable framework for spending reforms that the American people are demanding. It’s time for President Biden to stop the games and come to the table to negotiate.”

Schumer said the cuts in the House’s plan are not abstract including the possibility that 2 million New York residents could lose Medicaid coverage, “It slashes federal heating assistance, LIHEAP, that upstate families and seniors use to stay safe. We lose close to a billion dollars in LIHEAP and would reduce the average benefit a household would receive by $400. New York does better with LIHEAP than any other state and it would hurt us dramatically.”

Schumer said there could be a $144 million cut in SNAP benefits for New Yorkers which would affect 53,000 residents in the state.

Moody’s analytics warned that “dramatic” cuts to government spending in the House Republican’s plan would spark a 2024 recession that costs the economy 2.6 million jobs and lifts the unemployment rate near 6%.

A nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office analysis released Tuesday showed the Republican plan would reduce federal deficits by $4.8 trillion over the decade if the proposed changes were enacted into law.

Donald Trump

Former President Donald Trump was charged by a New York grand jury with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in an indictment unsealed Tuesday.

Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges at a hearing at Manhattan Criminal Court, becoming the first former president to face criminal prosecution. He has denied all wrongdoing and said District Attorney Alvin Bragg is motivated by politics in bringing the case.

The indictment centers on allegations that Trump falsified internal business records at his private company while trying to cover up an effort to illegally influence the 2016 election by arranging payments that silenced claims potentially harmful to his candidacy. It includes 34 counts of fudging records related to checks Trump sent to his personal lawyer Michael Cohen to reimburse him for his role in paying off a porn actor who said she had an extramarital sexual encounter with Trump years earlier.

In the New York case, each count of falsifying business records is punishable by up to four years in prison — though it’s not clear if a judge would impose any prison time if Trump is convicted. The next court date is December 4 and Trump will again be expected to appear.

A conviction would not prevent Trump from running for or winning the presidency in 2024.

Donald Trump

Donald Trump has become the first current or former president to be indicted.

A Manhattan grand jury has indicted Trump on criminal charges.

It was not immediately clear what the indictment was connected to, or what charges Trump will face. The indictment is under seal.

Trump is expected to appear in court on Tuesday.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office has been investigating the former president in connection with his alleged role in a hush money payment scheme and cover-up involving adult film star Stormy Daniels that dates to the 2016 presidential election.

Trump released a statement in response to the indictment claiming it was “Political Persecution and Election Interference at the highest level in history.”

The legal action against Trump moves the 2024 presidential campaign into a new phase, as the former president has vowed to keep running in the face of criminal charges.

Letitia James, Donald Trump

Former President Donald Trump has withdrawn his lawsuit against New York Attorney General Letitia James.

The withdrawal came in a brief document filed Friday morning with U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks.

Middlebrooks had warned Trump’s legal team the day before that the lawsuit appeared to verge on frivolous.

Trump’s lawsuit against the Attorney General had sought to shield Trump’s revocable trust from James, who has an ongoing $250 million civil suit that alleges fraudulent conduct at the Trump Organization. James has accused Trump and his family members of “grossly” inflating the former president’s net worth by billions of dollars and of cheating lenders and others with false and misleading financial statements.
Trump, who has denied the allegations, has called the investigation by James, a politically motivated “witch hunt.”

On Thursday, Middlebrooks ordered Trump and his attorney Alina Habba to pay fines of nearly $1 million after determining that Trump’s 2022 lawsuit against Hillary Clinton was frivolous litigation meant only to “seek revenge.”

Trump had sued Clinton in March 2022, for allegedly “acting in concert” with top FBI leadership to invent what became known as the Russia investigation into interference in the 2016 election. Trump had argued that the Russia probe was “prolonged and exacerbated by the presence of a small faction of Clinton loyalists who were well-positioned within the Department of Justice.” Middlebrooks dismissed the lawsuit this past September.

In his Thursday opinion, the judge also cautioned Trump’s attorneys that they could face sanctions over their lawsuit against James.

In the opinion, Middlebrooks called Trump “a prolific and sophisticated litigant who is repeatedly using the courts to seek revenge on political adversaries.”

Donald Trump

Donald Trump‘s real estate company was convicted on Tuesday of carrying out a 15-year-long criminal scheme to defraud tax authorities

A jury in Manhattan has found The Trump Organization guilty of paying personal expenses for top executives including former chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, and issuing bonus checks to them as if they were independent contractors.

The company faces up to $1.6 million in fines after being convicted on all charges, including scheming to defraud tax authorities, conspiracy, and falsifying business records. Trump was not charged in the case.
A sentencing date has been set for January 13, 2023.

A lawyer for the Trump Organization said the company would appeal and that the criminal law governing corporate liability was vague.

The Trump Organization is still facing a fraud lawsuit brought by New York state Attorney General Letitia James.

And Trump himself is being investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice over his handling of sensitive government documents after he left office in January 2021 and attempts to overturn the November 2020 election, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

Letitia James, Donald Trump

A Manhattan State Supreme Court judge has ordered the Trump Organization to submit to a court-appointed, independent monitor.

Judge Arthur Engoron agreed with State Attorney General Letitia James that the monitoring is necessary given Trump and his company’s “demonstrated propensity to engage in persistent fraud.”

James had requested the intervention as part of her $250 million fraud lawsuit against the former president, his family, and his business.

As another part of the ruling, Trump cannot now sell, transfer or otherwise move or dispose of any of his properties “without first providing 14 days written notice” to the judge and the attorney general’s office.
The attorney general must recommend three potential monitors to the judge by November 12. Trump’s side would be allowed three days to challenge the choice, but the final decision on who the monitor would be will rest with the judge.

The monitor will ensure that no property transactions or company restructuring occurs without the attorney general’s office getting notice. The ruling said the watchdog also must be given access to any company data he or she needs “to assess the accuracy of any representation” Trump makes in future financial filings.

The oversight would likely stay in place for the year or so it takes for James’ lawsuit to be decided by Engoron in a non-jury trial. The attorney general has asked for an October 2023 trial date.

Former President Donald Trump responded to this by filing a lawsuit in Florida Circuit Court against New York Attorney General Letitia James.

The lawsuit accuses James of repeatedly abusing her position as attorney general to “pursue a relentless, pernicious, public, and unapologetic crusade” against Trump. He claims James is violating his rights to privacy and property and violating his rights as a grantor and beneficiary of the Donald J. Trump revocable trust.

The suit asks a judge to put an end to James’ multiple investigations into Trump and his businesses, which the former president argues are politically motivated. Trump believes that if he had not been elected the former president, he would not be facing “longstanding animosity” from James.

Letitia James, Donald Trump

New York State Attorney General Letitia James announced Wednesday that she is suing former President Donald Trump and three of his children for fraud stemming from her three-year civil investigation into the Trump Organization’s business dealings.

The civil lawsuit seeks at least $250 million in damages.

It also seeks to permanently bar Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and Ivanka Trump from serving as an officer of a company in New York, and permanently prohibit the Trump companies named in the suit from doing business in New York state.

James said she has asked federal prosecutors in Manhattan and the IRS to investigate Trump for possible federal crimes. She said that evidence obtained during her three-year civil probe of Trump indicated possible crimes of bank fraud and making false statements to financial institutions.

James said Trump massively overstated the values of his assets in statements to banks, insurance companies and the IRS to obtain more favorable loan and insurance terms for his company, as well as to lower its tax obligations.

The lawsuit alleges that from 2011 to 2021, Donald Trump and the Trump Organization knowingly and intentionally created more than 200 false and misleading valuations of assets on his annual Statements of Financial Condition to defraud financial institutions.

James said that Trump had falsely claimed that his apartment in Manhattan was more than triple its actual size as part of the alleged fraud.

And the suit says Trump valued his Mar-a-Lago club property in Palm Beach, Florida, on the false premise that it sat on unrestricted property and could be developed for residential use, even though he allegedly knew that property was subject to a variety of tight restrictions.

James said that in reality, Mar-a-Lago generated less than $25 million in annual revenue and should have been valued at about $75 million, not the $739 million that was claimed.

In addition to the Trumps, the defendants in the suit include Allen Weisselberg, who acted for years as chief financial officer of the Trump Organization.

Both Weisselberg and the Trump Organization were criminally charged last year by the Manhattan district attorney’s office for an alleged scheme to avoid paying taxes on portions of the compensation given to company executives, among them Weisselberg.

Other defendants in the suit include Weisselberg’s lieutenant, Jeffrey McConney, as well as several Trump companies, among them ones that own properties in Manhattan, Westchester County, New York, Washington, D.C., and Chicago.

The seven-count suit alleges persistent and repeated fraud; falsifying business records; conspiracy to falsify business records; issuing false financial statements; conspiracy to falsify false financial statements; insurance fraud; and conspiracy to commit insurance fraud.

Steve Bannon
Michael Vadon, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Former Donald Trump aide Steve Bannon has pleaded not guilty in court to New York State charges of money laundering, conspiracy and fraud.

State Attorney General Letitia James said the charges are related to a year-long fundraising scheme in which she says Bannon and his company, We Build the Wall, Inc., defrauded thousands of donors across the country out of more than $15 million to line their own pockets, and then laundered the proceeds to further advance and conceal the fraud.

Bannon previously faced the same charges from federal prosecutors in 2020. He was later pardoned by Trump. Presidential pardons do not apply to state investigations, however.

In recent months, several people close to Bannon were brought before the state grand jury.

A federal jury in July found Bannon guilty of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack. He is scheduled to be sentenced in October and faces a minimum sentence of 30 days in jail, according to federal law.

Trump Organization

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Jr. announced the deal Thursday, saying Weisselberg as the Chief Financial Officer of the Trump Organization and an employee of the Trump Corporation devised and operated a 15-year scheme to defraud federal, New York State, and New York City tax authorities, evading payment of taxes due on $1.76 million in unreported income.

Weisselberg faces a sentence of five months in jail to be served on Rikers Island and five years’ probation contingent on him testifying in the upcoming criminal trial of the Trump Organization.

Jury selection in the Trump Organization trial is scheduled to begin October 24th.

Prior to sentencing, Weisselberg must also make full repayment of taxes, penalties and interest due to the New York City and New York State tax authorities totaling $1,994,321.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s office said the investigation concerning former President Donald Trump and the Trump Organization is ongoing.

Gubernatorial primaries

Governor Kathy Hochul is trying to make history as the first female governor elected in the state with just 10 months in office under her belt. She is facing Representative Tom Suozzi and New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams.

Hochul has positioned herself as the frontrunner in the three-way primary field, in part through a relentless campaign fundraising strategy that saw her amass more than $30 million — far outpacing any of her opponents.

The governor’s campaign has blanketed the state’s airwaves touting her record during her short time in office, which includes a gas-tax reduction through the end of the year and a series of gun-control and abortion-access measures she signed into law just this month.

But Hochul’s tenure has not been without controversy. She selected then-state Sen. Brian Benjamin, a Manhattan Democrat, to replace her as lieutenant governor despite questions over his past campaign-fundraising tactics. Within six months, Benjamin was arrested on federal bribery charges and resigned.

Hochul’s opponents have faulted her for spearheading a deal to build a new $1.4 billion football stadium for the Buffalo Bills, which came with $850 million in direct public subsidies. And they’ve latched on to her past positions on gun issues, which earned her an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association when she represented a conservative-leaning district in Congress a decade ago.

Hochul has said her views have changed on the issue of gun control, and she successfully led the effort to boost the minimum age for purchasing a semi-automatic rifle from 18 to 21 in New York after an 18-year-old killed 10 people in a Buffalo supermarket last month.

Suozzi’s positions align with Hochul’s more often than not, so he is campaigning on his track record as a “proven executive,” having once served as a town mayor and county executive during his 30 years in politics. He has framed Hochul, who also held local office and, briefly, a seat in Congress, as unprepared or unwilling to take the necessary steps to improve the state in essential ways.

Williams, the No. 2 official in New York City, is the candidate favored by progressives, including the Working Families Party, the influential third party with a habit of backing insurgent, left-leaning candidates. This is his second race against Hochul; he came within seven percentage points of defeating her in the 2018 lieutenant governor primary.

He has criticized the governor for not doing more to focus on street-level crime in Harlem, the Bronx and other areas susceptible to gun violence.

All the public polling has shown Hochul with a comfortable lead over her two rivals, but the lieutenant governor’s race is much harder to gauge.

The winner of the Democratic primary will face the candidate that emerges from a contentious, four-way Republican primary Tuesday between Representative Lee Zeldin, former Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, businessman Harry Wilson, and Andrew Giuliani, a former Trump administration aide who is son of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Zeldin, of Long Island, has the backing of Republican Party leaders across the state, who voted earlier this year to make him their designated candidate — a distinction that gave him an automatic spot on the primary ballot without petitioning.

Giuliani is making his first run for elected office and has made his unabashed support of Donald Trump a central part of his campaign. During a debate earlier this month, Giuliani repeated the discredited, incorrect claim that Trump rightfully won the 2020 election, going as far as claiming a “crime” had been perpetrated on the American people.

But Trump has not formally endorsed any candidate in the Republican race. Along with Giuliani, Trump counts Astorino and Zeldin — both of whom have been staunch defenders of Trump on cable news programs — as allies.

New York has more than twice as many Democrats as Republicans, with independent voters also outpacing the GOP. The state hasn’t elected a Republican to statewide office since George Pataki won his third term as governor in 2002.

It is a closed-primary state, meaning only enrolled members of a party can vote in their respective primary.