Dershowitz attempts to clarify controversial argument about presidential powers

 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/30/alan-dershowitz-presidential-powers-109474

 Responding to a question about how presidents conduct foreign policy, Dershowitz asserted Wednesday that “every public official that I know believes that his election is in the public interest.” Therefore, he continued, “if a president did something that he believes will help him get elected — in the public interest — that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment.”

But tweeting Thursday, Dershowitz insisted that he “did not say or imply that a candidate could do anything to reassure his reelection, only that seeking help in an election is not necessarily corrupt.” Concluding his string of posts, he wrote: “Critics have an obligation to respond to what I said, not to create straw men to attack.”

 “I hear he’s correcting it on TV today. That seems to be Mr. Dershowitz’s pattern,” Schumer said at a news conference in the Capitol. “He gives a statement on the floor and then spends the next day correcting it. What a load of nonsense.”

Alan Dershowitz Files $300 Million Lawsuit Against CNN Over Coverage of Trump’s Impeachment

 https://www.thewrap.com/alan-dershowitz-cnn-defamation-lawsuit/#

 “Following the airing of that clip over and over again, the hosts, together with their panel guests, including CNN employees and paid commentators, exploded into a one-sided and false narrative that Professor Dershowitz believes and argued that as long as the President believes his reelection is in the public interest, that he could do anything at all – including illegal acts – and be immune from impeachment,” the lawsuit said. “The very notion of that was preposterous and foolish on its face, and that was the point: to falsely paint Professor Dershowitz as a constitutional scholar and intellectual who had lost his mind.”

Alan Dershowitz Sues CNN for $300 Million Over Impeachment Coverage

 https://www.thedailybeast.com/alan-dershowitz-sues-cnn-for-dollar300-million-over-impeachment-coverage

 Alan Dershowitz filed a libel suit against CNN on Tuesday seeking $300 million for what the lawsuit described as the news outlet’s portrayal of the lawyer as an “intellectual who had lost his mind,” according to The Wrap. Dershowitz alleges that CNN selectively left out some of his comments on President Trump's impeachment and subsequently created a false narrative. Dershowitz spoke on the Senate floor as a member of President Donald Trump’s defense team at his impeachment trial about what’s considered an illegal “quid pro quo.” He provided three different motives that political figures may have for re-election but alleges in the lawsuit that CNN triggered a “sea of lies” in the media by re-airing only one of his quotes multiple times. The lawsuit claims Dershowitz was framed as someone who thought “that the President of the United States could commit illegal acts as long as he thought it would help his reelection and that his reelection was in the public interest.”

 

 

Presenting the ludicrous 'Dershowitz Doctrine'

 https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/29/opinions/begala-impeachment-trial-dershowitz-doctrine/index.html

In his defense of President Donald Trump, attorney and Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz added a third variant to Nixon and Louis XIV: If a President thinks his re-election is in the public interest, anything he does in pursuit of his re-election is legal.

 

Alan Dershowitz files $300 million defamation suit against CNN

 https://www.foxnews.com/media/alan-dershowitz-300-million-defamation-suit-cnn-impeachment

 Famed attorney and Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz filed a defamation suit against CNN on Tuesday seeking $300 million for what he called a "willful, deliberate, malicious effort to destroy my credibility."

Dershowitz told Fox News that CNN selectively edited a clip of his remarks from the Senate floor during President Trump's impeachment trial where he broke down the illegalities surrounding a "quid pro quo" as a member of the president's defense team.

 

 

Trump attacks Cuomo over nursing homes, COVID-19

 https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/514936-trump-attacks-cuomo-over-nursing-homes-covid-19

“Governors [sic] Andrew Cuomo of New York has the worst record on death and China Virus,” Trump tweeted Thursday morning. “11,000 people alone died in Nursing Homes because of his incompetence!”

New York’s official nursing home death toll is over 6,600, though The Associated Press reported last month that the number could be undercounted because New York only counts residents who died on nursing home property to determine the death toll. Data from the Kaiser Family Foundation suggests that New York could have a nursing home death toll of over 11,000, according to the AP, which is apparently the source of the figure in the president’s tweet.

 

 

Trump and Cuomo spar over N.Y. nursing home deaths, crime spike, and investigations as feud spirals

 https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ny-coronavirus-trump-cuomo-nursing-home-20200903-ihu4dymw5neqzcghpejzqdix64-story.html

 It’s war!

President Trump and Gov. Cuomo traded nasty accusations Thursday over coronavirus, crime and probes into the president’s alleged misdeeds as their ugly war of words spiraled into a second day.

“11,000 people alone died in Nursing Homes because of his incompetence!” Trump tweeted about Cuomo.

Is Cuomo directive to blame for nursing home COVID deaths as HHS official claims?

 https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/aug/24/michael-caputo/hhs-official-blames-cuomo-nursing-home-covid-death/

York Gov. Andrew Cuomo was among the first in a weeklong parade of speakers to issue scathing critiques of the Trump administration’s coronavirus response.

Cuomo’s criticisms drew a quick reply in a tweet from Michael R. Caputo, an assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services.

"Does the #DemConvention know @NYGovCuomo forced nursing homes across NY to take in COVID positive patients and planted the seeds of infection that killed thousands of grandmothers and grandfathers?" he wrote.

 Bottom line: State and federal rules didn’t force nursing homes to accept COVID-positive patients, but many of them believed they had no other choice.

 In a July analysis of COVID-19 nursing home deaths, the state concluded that the deadly virus was introduced by nursing home staff members rather than sick patients.

 Although nursing homes felt pressure to accept COVID-positive patients, they were not actually forced to do so. State regulations require nursing homes to accept patients only if they can care for them, and they could have refused them on those grounds.

In addition, it’s unclear the extent to which the governor’s policy was responsible for nursing home COVID-19 deaths. Infection control is a longstanding problem in nursing homes that predates the pandemic and a report showed peak numbers of nursing home deaths came prior to the peak influx of patients as a result of Cuomo’s advisory. While the introduction of COVID-19 positive patients into nursing homes no doubt had an effect on infection spread, Caputo’s statement suggests it was solely responsible. That’s not what the evidence shows.

We rate this Mostly False.

 

Trump Struggles With Tough Questions From Voters At Town Hall | The 11th Hour | MSNBC

John Bolton: Criminal inquiry opened into explosive memoir

 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54171941

 The US Department of Justice launched a criminal case after failing to stop the publication of The Room Where It Happened book.

Mr Bolton denies all the accusations.

His work shows a president ignorant of geopolitical facts and whose decisions are driven by a desire for re-election.

 

DOJ’s Investigation Into Bolton’s Book Far From A Good Faith Effort To Look For Classified Material

Trump Tweets, So Barr Opens Grand Jury Investigation- Not into DeJoy or Wolf but into John Bolton

Trump dismisses voter questions on how he handled coronavirus

 https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/15/politics/donald-trump-coronavirus-abc-town-hall/index.html

 President Donald Trump dismissed questions from Pennsylvania voters about his handling of coronavirus, insisting he did act strongly to fight the pandemic and again denied he downplayed the situation despite saying so on tape.

"Well I didn't downplay it. I actually, in many ways, I up-played it in terms of action," he claimed, responding to a question from an undecided voter at ABC's town hall that aired Tuesday night.

 The President was asked why he hasn't supported a national mask mandate and why he doesn't wear one more often.

Trump said he does wear masks "when I have to." He also blamed Democrats and Joe Biden for not instituting a national mask mandate even though Trump is the President and not Biden.

"They said at the Democrat(ic) National Convention they're going to do a national mandate. They never did it, because they've checked out and they didn't do it. And ... Like Joe Biden. They said, 'We're going to a national mandate on masks.' ... But he didn't do it. He never did it," Trump said.

The President also claimed that "there are a lot of people that think that masks are not good."

Asked by ABC's George Stephanopoulos for a specific example, Trump said waiters.

"They come over, they serve you and they have a mask. And I saw it the other day, where they were serving me and they're playing with the mask. I'm not blaming them ... they're playing with the mask ... they're touching it and then they're touching the plate. That can't be good," Trump said.

CNN's Jim Sciutto: Vladimir Putin has seduced Trump — now the world sees America as weak

 https://www.salon.com/2020/09/15/cnns-jim-sciutto-vladimir-putin-has-seduced-trump--now-the-world-sees-america-as-weak/

 The president of the United States takes the following oath at his or her inauguration: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Donald Trump has repeatedly betrayed this promise, and should long since have been removed from office for doing so.

 Many of the United States' most senior retired military personnel, members of the intelligence community and diplomats, as well as other elites in the national defense community, have publicly condemned Donald Trump as an extreme threat to the country's safety, security and democracy.