whenever you re investigating a white collar case, you want to follow the money. it is what deep throat told woodward and bernstein to do. you might find interesting motives, et cetera. in this case when prosecutors are trying to decide whether to file charges, they re looking for aggravating factors like obstruction of justice. another one is disloyalty to the united states. if you can make a link that there was motive with payments to a foreign government in exchange of sharing classified documents, or trying to leverage information to get an upper hand in business negotiations, that could be a very powerful aggravating factor that could lead toward charges for mishandling these classified documents. the target of this subpoena, according to the new york times reporting was trump s business. and trump s business has had its own legal story in the past year or two, including being
now, tonight, here we go. the new york times was first to report e. jean carroll seeks now damages from trump for comments on cnn. for comments that he made anew about e. jean carroll on cnn the night after the jury verdict in her case against him. now, this is not a new lawsuit against trump filed by e. jean carroll. it s effectively an addendum to. this is with the same judge who presided in the trial in which e. jean carroll was just awarded $5 million in damages from trump. this newly amended complaint filed tonight by lawyer roberta kaplan and her firm, it documents all the new statements that trump made attacking e. jean carroll online and on cnn s bizarre town hall event with him
made out of hatred or ill will or spite or wanton disregard of another s rights. both prior deaf maegzs and subsequent statements of the defendant may reflect a defendant s malice. trump s statement showed the depth of his malice. it sort of makes sense. in laymans words and other terms the jury was told they were supposed to consider the effect the sort of amount of malice this person had when he made his statements defaming this other person. and the jury was instructed that they can judge the amount of malice he had not just by things he said and did before the statements in question but by things he said and did after. so after the initial statements by him that were at issue in the previous trial, after he defamed
counsel jack smith who s investigating two things. jack smith is investigating what trump was doing with classified documents that he wasn t supposed to have at his home after he left the presidency. he s also investigating trump s efforts to try and stay in power even after he lost the 2020 election. the times is reporting tonight as part of jack smith s investigation he has reportedly sent a subpoena to trump s business. and the subpoena asks about trump s business dealings in seven different foreign countries starting with when he took office as president in 2017. the subpoena reportedly asks about trump business dealings starting in 2017 in china, saudi arabia, united arab emirates, kuwait, aman, turkey, and france. now, we have no idea what the nexus might be between him having potential business dealings in those countries while he was president and his efforts to overthrow the u.s.
he s created millions and millions and millions of new jobs in his one term as president thus far, and that, of course, is terrible for republicans s political prospects, but they can t control anything about donald trump, apparently. they apparently can t constrain themselves when it comes to governing in a way that might be attractive to swing voters but they really can control the health of the economy with this debt ceiling thing. in this debt ceiling fight that is within their control. and they know it. if they refuse to raise the debt ceiling the white house council of economic advisers has just released a report saying the consequences of that will be that millions of americans will lose their jobs. more than 8 million americans will lose their jobs. the economy will contract radically. the stock market would fall by nearly half, by 45%. if the default is protracted, a