Trump's Rump

<shrug>
 

Trump ordered to stop using Isaac Hayes' music​

A US judge has ordered Donald Trump's campaign to stop using the song Hold On, I’m Coming at his rallies, in response to a lawsuit from the family of the song's co-writer, Isaac Hayes.
The Republican presidential nominee regularly plays the song before and after his speeches, including at the Republican National Convention in July.
However, Hayes' family have sued Mr Trump's campaign, saying that it repeatedly ignored requests to stop using the song, made famous by soul duo Sam and Dave in 1966.
The temporary ruling, by Judge Thomas Thrash in Georgia, means the campaign is banned from playing it again until the court case is settled.

However, the judge did not grant a request to order Mr Trump’s campaign to take down recordings of past events in which it had used the song.
Hayes' son, Isaac Hayes III, welcomed the ruling, saying that his father, who died in 2008, would not have endorsed the former President.
"We have to take a stand that we want to separate ourselves from someone with Donald Trump's character," he said outside the Richard B Russell Federal courthouse in Atlanta, Georgia.
"This is not a political issue, this is a character issue."
Ronald Coleman, a lawyer for Mr Trump, said that the campaign had already agreed to "cease further use" of Hold On, I'm Coming (Mr Trump has returned to using the Village People's YMCA since the lawsuit was filed last month).
"We’re very gratified that the court recognised the First Amendment issues at stake and didn’t order a takedown of existing videos," Mr Coleman added.
He also suggested the case could be settled before coming to trial.
"Before we left court, we spoke to the to the Hayes' attorneys and to Mr Hayes III, about trying to work something out. We want this to be as a cooperative process as possible going forward," he told reporters.

Hayes composed the song in 1966 with Dave Porter, when he was a staff writer at Stax Records. He went on to become a Grammy and Oscar-winner in his own right, with hits like Shaft and Walk On By.
The star's estate claims that the Mr Trump's campaign used the song on 134 separate occasions after they first asked him to desist.
They are demanding $3m (£2.4m) in licensing fees for the repeated use of the song between 2022 and 2024.
Mr Trump’s lawyers argued that the Hayes estate was not the license holder for the song, and that it had permission to use it, a statement Hayes family lawyers said was “erroneous”.

Dozens of other artists have objected to the use of their songs at Republican rallies, as the US Presidential election draws closer.
Abba, Foo Fighters, the White Stripes singer Jack White, Celine Dion and Johnny Marr have all raised objections in the last month alone.
However, musicians have only had limited success in stopping politicians from using their music, and legal proceedings often drag on for years.
A case from Guyanese-British singer Eddy Grant over Mr Trump's use of his song Electric Avenue is due to be heard in a Manhattan court this Friday, four years after the star's initial complaint.
The star sued Mr Trump over a 2020 campaign video that was soundtracked by a 40-second clip of his song.
The video was viewed 13.7 million times before Twitter took it down, and Grant says this was an unauthorised use for which Mr Trump owes him $300,000 (£229,000) in damages.
As with the Hayes' case, lawyers for Mr Trump argue that the singer does not hold the copyright for his own song.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c89w28w13zxo
 
The Tenet Media thing makes some funny reading into the struggles of Russian operatives trying to get a bunch of influences to spread their message:

a. On or about February 16, 2024, AFANASYEVA (as "Helena Shudra") messaged Founder-I on Discord: "I do worry that neither [Commentator-3] nor [Commentator-I] share any raw videos posted on X. [Commentator-2] shared only one video this week. [Commentator-4] didn't share any raw videos, ·she only shared her mini doc and its promo. [Commentator-5] is good at sharing our content so far." AFANASYEVA then asked: "[D]o you think it would be possible if [Producer-I] could start posting videos a bit earlier?" Founder-I responded that Founder-I would "talk to [Producer-I] about posting earlier," and in fact did so. A few days later, AF ANASYEVA (as "Helena Shudra") again messaged Founder-I: "Is [Producer- 1] going to post things earlier today? . . . I think we need to post things earlier and ask [the commentators' ] media managers to share raw videos (with subtitles) posted on [U.S. Company-I] X. At least one share per day. Not one share per week." Founder-I replied that Founder-I "asked [Producer-I] to share at least once per day with the creators," but noted that the commentators were not contractually obligated to share U.S. Company-I content. AFANASYEVA (as "Helena Shudra") responded: "I know this is not an obligation, but we are falling behind with numbers and we need to make our best so the creators can share one raw video per day at least for now."

b. With Founder-l ' s assistance, AFANASYEVA amplified her request that U.S. Company-1 ' s commentators promote U.S. Company-I content by repeating that request through a second fake persona, "Victoria Pesti." On or about February 21 , 2024, AFANASYEVA (as "Helena Shudra") messaged Founder-I on Discord: "Please make invite for Victoria" - referring to an invitation for the new "Victoria Pesti" account to join the U.S. Company-I Discord Server. After Founder-I responded that Founder-I had already sent the invitation "yesterday," AF ANASYEV A ( as "Helena Shudra") replied, "Sorry I thought you would send it to me here" - thus implying that AFANASYEVA was operating both the "Helena Shudra" and "Victoria Pesti" accounts. Founder-I then assured AFANASYEVA that Founder-I would "intro Victoria to the chat and restate the importance of social sharing." The next day, as promised, Founder-1 posted a message to the U.S. Company-I Discord Server, introducing "Victoria Pesti" from "our investor's team." AFANASYEVA (as "Victoria Pesti") announced that "[f]rom now on our top priority should be establishing [U.S. Company-I] social media presence and we do ask you to start sharing [U.S. Company-I] posts through your own accounts daily."

37. Second, with Founder-1 and Founder-2's backing, AFANASYEVA directed U.S. Company-I staff to publish specific content that AFANASYEVA identified. On or about January 15, 2024, Founder-I wrote in a channel on the U.S. Company-I Discord Server (the "Producer Discord Channel") comprised of AFANASYVEA, KALASHNIKOV, Founder-I, Founder-2, Producer-I, Producer-2, and Producer-3: "[Helena] is going to start creating customized videos for us to post on our socials of viral content that's floating around." Between in about January 2024 and in or about June 2024, AFANASYVEA posted links to approximately 841 video clips, which were routinely posted by U.S. Company-I staff onto U.S. Company-1 's social media channels. On occasion, U.S. Company-I staff privately contacted Founder-I or Founder-2 to push back on AFANASYEVA's content and were rebuffed. For example:

a. On or about February 15, 2024, AFANASYEVA (as "Helena Shudra") shared with U.S. Company-I a video of a well-known U.S. political commentator visiting a grocery store in Russia. AF ANASYEV A posted the video in the Producer Discord Channel. Later that day, Producer-I privately messaged Founder-2 on Discord: "They want me to post this" - referencing the video that AF ANASYEVA had posted - but "it just feels like overt shilling." Founder-2 replied that Founder-I "thinks we should put it out there." Producer-I acquiesced, responding, "alright I'll put it out tomorrow."

b. As another example, on or about March 22, 2024, AF ANASYEV A (as "Helena Shudra") shared in the Producer Discord Channel a video of the March 22, 2024 terrorist attack on a music venue in Moscow, which killed approximately 145 people and injured hundreds more. Producer-I privately messaged Founder-I , writing: "I don' t know if you saw it, but they want me to post some footage from an attack in Moscow today. There's a watermark in the middle of the page that's blurred, which looks bad, and it's also pretty graphic. You can see people getting shot, albeit from far away." Founder-I did not push back on the content of the clip, but replied in the Producer Discord Channel: "I'm not sure it's a good idea to blur out someone' s watermark." AFANASYEVA (as "Helena Shudra") then assured the group that "It' s fine no worries. It falls under fair use." Producer-I and Producer-2 found a video clip of the attack without a watermark and posted the clip to X, satisfying AFANASYEVA's request.

c. The next day, on or about March 23, 2024, AFANASYEVA (as "Helena Shudra") privately messaged Founder-I on Discord asking that "one of our creators . .. record something about [the] Moscow terror attack." Despite public reporting that the foreign terrorist organization ISIS had claimed responsibility for the attack, AFANASYEVA requested that U.S. Company-I blame Ukraine and the United States, writing: "I think we can focus on the Ukraine/U.S. angle .... [T]he mainstream media spread fake news that ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack yet ISIS itself never made such statements. All terrorists are now detained while they were heading to the border with Ukraine which makes it even more suspicious why they would want to go to Ukraine to hide." Founder-I responded that Founder-I would ask Commentator-3 , and, the next day, confirmed that Commentator-3 said "he's happy to cover it."
 
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Ex-Colorado county clerk gets 9-year prison sentence for voting data scheme in wake of 2020 election​

Judge deems Tina Peters 'defiant' and 'a charlatan' at sentencing​

A U.S. judge ripped into a former county clerk for her crimes and lies before sentencing her Thursday to nine years behind bars for a data-breach scheme spawned from the rampant false claims about voting machine fraud in the 2020 U.S. presidential race.

District Judge Matthew Barrett told former Mesa county clerk Tina Peters — after earlier sparring with her for continuing to press discredited claims about rigged voting machines — that she never took her job seriously.

"I am convinced you would do it all over again if you could. You're as defiant as any defendant this court has ever seen," Barrett told her in handing down the sentence. "You are no hero. You abused your position and you're a charlatan."

Jurors found Peters guilty in August for allowing a man to misuse a security card to access the Mesa County election system and for being deceptive about that person's identity.

The man was affiliated with My Pillow chief executive Mike Lindell, a prominent promoter of false claims that voting machines were manipulated to steal the election from then-incumbent president Donald Trump. The discredited claims trace back to Trump himself, whose supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol because of them, and who is still hinting at those claims in his current third run for president.

Peters sought fame: prosecutors​

At trial, prosecutors said Peters, a Republican, was seeking fame and became "fixated" on voting problems after becoming involved with those who had questioned the accuracy of the presidential election results.

A one-time hero to election deniers, Peters has been unapologetic about what happened.

Before being sentenced, Peters insisted that everything she did to try to unroot what she believed was fraud was for the greater good.

"I've never done anything with malice to break the law. I've only wanted to serve the people of Mesa County," she told the court.

When Peters tried to press on with claims no legal authority has corroborated about "wireless devices" and software that changed ballot images in voting machines she drew the judge's exasperation. Ballot recounts showed no discrepancies, he pointed out.

"I've let you go on enough about this," Barrett said. "The votes are the votes."

'It's just more lies'​

Later, the judge noted that Peters has kept up public appearances in broadcasts to sympathetic audiences for her own benefit.

"It's just more lies. No objective person believes them. No, at the end of the day, you cared about the jets, the podcasts and people fawning over you," Barrett said.

Peters had the right to be defiant, he noted, but it was "certainly not helpful for her lot today."

The breach led by Peters heightened concerns that rogue election workers sympathetic to partisan lies could use their access and knowledge to attack voting processes from within.

It's impossible to overestimate the damage Peters has done to other election workers in Colorado and elsewhere, Colorado County Clerks Association director Matt Crane told the court.

"In a real and specific way, her actions have led directly to death threats and general threats to the lives and the families of the people who work in our elections," Crane said.

"She has willingly aided individuals in our country who believe that violence is a way to make a point. She has knowingly fuelled a fire within others who choose threats as a means to get their way."

He, his wife and his children have been among those threatened, Crane said.

In Mesa County — a scenic, mostly rural area on the Colorado western slope known for its peaches, vineyards and mountain biking as well as oil and gas drilling — Peters's actions have cost the local government some $1.4 million US in legal fees and lost employee time, County Commissioner Cody Davis said at the sentencing hearing.

Peters's notoriety has also incurred other "unseen costs" for the area, Davis told the court.

"We have a lot of pride in this community but our reputation has taken a hit," Davis said. "Her behaviour has made this county a national laughingstock."

Peters was convicted of three counts of attempting to influence a public servant, one count of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, first-degree official misconduct, violation of duty and failing to comply with the secretary of state.

She was found not guilty of identity theft, one count of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation and one count of criminal impersonation.

Yet she persisted on social media to accuse Colorado-based Dominion Voting Systems, which made her county's election system, and others of stealing votes.

The 'gold standard'​

Colorado won't allow anyone to threaten its elections, Secretary of State Jena Griswold said in a statement in response to Peters's sentencing.

"Colorado's elections are the nation's gold standard. I am proud of how we have responded to the first insider elections breach in the nation and look forward to another secure and successful election in November," Griswold said.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser in a statement called the sentence "fair and just." He also said her conviction served as a warning that tampering with voting processes will bring consequences.

Dominion, founded in Canada, has launched a number of defamation suits in the wake of the 2020 election claims, as has a rival, Smartmatic.

Smartmatic has recently reached undisclosed settlements before trial against conservative news outlets Newsmax and One America News Network, for airing accusations about vote manipulation in the 2020 election made by allies of Trump.

Dominion reached a $787-million US settlement last year in a similar lawsuit with Fox News.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/tina-peters-colorado-clerk-sentenced-election-data-1.7341291
 

Exonerated Central Park Five sue Donald Trump for 'demonstrably false' debate remarks​

Trump spokesman decried it as 'just another frivolous, election interference lawsuit'​

The men formerly known as the Central Park Five before they were exonerated filed a defamation lawsuit against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Monday.

With election day two weeks away, the group accused the former U.S. president of making "false and defamatory statements" about them during last month's presidential debate with Vice-President Kamala Harris. The group is asking for a jury trial to determine compensatory and punitive damages.

"Defendant Trump falsely stated that plaintiffs killed an individual and pled guilty to the crime. These statements are demonstrably false," the group wrote in a federal complaint.

The men are upset because Trump essentially "defamed them in front of 67 million people, which has caused them to seek to clear their names all over again," co-lead counsel Shanin Specter told The Associated Press in an email.

Specter had no comment when asked if there were concerns some see the lawsuit as purely political because of the group's support for Harris. "We are seeking redress in the courts," Specter said.

Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung decried the suit as "just another frivolous, Election Interference lawsuit, filed by desperate left-wing activists, in an attempt to distract the American people from Kamala Harris's dangerously liberal agenda and failing campaign."

Who are the Central Park Five?​

Yusef Salaam, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise were teenagers when they were accused of the 1989 rape and beating of a white female jogger in New York City's Central Park.

The five, who are Black and Latino, said they confessed to the crimes under duress. They later recanted, pleading not guilty in court and were later convicted after jury trials.

Their convictions were vacated in 2002 after another person confessed to the crime.

After the crime, Trump purchased a full-page ad in the New York Times, calling for the teens to be executed. The jogger case was Trump's first foray into tough-on-crime politics that preluded his full-throated populist political persona. Since then, dog whistles and overtly racist rhetoric have been fixtures of Trump's public life.

In the Sept. 10 debate, Trump misstated key facts of the case when Harris brought up the matter.

"They admitted, they said they pled guilty and I said, 'Well, if they pled guilty they badly hurt a person, killed a person ultimately ... and they pled guilty, then they pled not guilty," Trump said.

He appeared to be confusing guilty pleas with confessions. Further, no victim died.

The now-Exonerated Five, including Salaam who is now a New York City councilman, have been campaigning for Harris. Some of them spoke at the Democratic National Convention in August, calling out Trump for never apologizing for the newspaper ad.

They have also joined civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton for a get-out-the-vote bus tour.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/central-park-five-sue-trump-1.7358302
 
Jury finds MyPillow founder defamed former employee for a leading voting equipment company

A federal jury in Colorado on Monday found that one of the nation's most prominent election conspiracy theorists, MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, defamed a former employee for a leading voting equipment company after the 2020 presidential election.

The jury found that two of Lindell's statements about Eric Coomer, the former security and product strategy director at Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems, including calling him a traitor, were defamatory. It ordered Lindell and his online media platform, formerly known as Frankspeech, to pay Coomer $2.3 million in damages, far less than the $62.7 million Coomer had asked for to help send a message to discourage attacks on election workers.
 

Fight Over Hidden Report on Trump Documents Case Goes to Appeals Court​

Meanwhile, previously secret passages in court filings over grand jury fights in two cases against the president have been revealed.


dc-report2-zjqk-articleLarge.jpg



A free-speech group is pressing an appeals court to intervene in the release of special counsel’s report on President Trump’s retention of classified documents when he was out of office.Credit...Pete Marovich for The New York Times

By Charlie Savage

Sept. 30, 2025Updated 12:20 p.m. ET

A Trump-appointed federal judge’s lingering inaction over a special counsel’s report about President Trump’s retention of classified documents has ensured that it remains hidden, prompting a free-speech group to urge an appeals court to intervene.
Separately on Monday, a judge made public more than 200 pages of files concerning closed-door fights in court over attorney-client privilege during the investigations into the documents case and into Mr. Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
Together, the developments showed how details of the two investigations that led to indictments of Mr. Trump while he was out of office have remained hidden from public view.

The request by the free-speech group, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, is known as a “mandamus” petition, meaning it is pressing a higher court to instruct a lower court to act. The request’s success is by no means assured because the standard for an appeals court to grant such an order is hard to meet. Essentially, it must find that the right to the relief sought is clear and indisputable and that there is no other way to get it. But the request spotlights how the Trump-appointed judge who oversaw that case, Aileen M. Cannon of the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Florida, has sat on a request aimed at trying to make public a report by the special counsel, Jack Smith, on the investigation.

Mr. Smith dropped the investigations into Mr. Trump after the 2024 election because the Justice Department considers sitting presidents temporarily immune from prosecution. Mr. Smith ultimately produced a two-volume report about his work. The first volume, regarding the election case, became public in January. But the documents volume remains hidden because Judge Cannon imposed an injunction blocking the Justice Department from providing a copy to anyone outside the department.

Judge Cannon, who earlier threw out the case because she ruled the special counsel’s appointment invalid, has left the injunction in place even though its stated rationale no longer exists. She had asserted that the report’s disclosure could undermine the fair-trial rights of two former co-defendants to Mr. Trump if an appeals court overturned her dismissal, but the Trump administration has since dropped the case entirely.

Before issuing the injunction, Judge Cannon had ordered the Justice Department to show the report to her. In February, the Knight First Amendment Institute asked her both to lift that injunction and to post the report on the case docket, citing the public’s constitutional right to see judicial records.

Image
dc-report-articleLarge.jpg

Judge Aileen M. Cannon of the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Florida imposed an injunction blocking the Justice Department from providing a copy of the report to anyone outside the department.Credit...U.S. Senate, via Associated Press

But Judge Cannon has yet to act on that request. Calling that delay “manifestly unreasonable,” the institute asked the appeals court to order her to act. The continued existence of Judge Cannon’s injunction has also derailed Freedom of Information Act lawsuits seeking the report by American Oversight in Washington, and by The New York Times in New York. Disclosing the report, the institute argued, “would shed light on the scope and integrity of the special counsel’s investigation and on the character and actions of the then-former and now-current president.”

Separately, the chief judge of the Federal District Court in the District of Columbia, James E. Boasberg, made public on Monday material concerning fights over attorney-client privilege during the two grand jury investigations into Mr. Trump.
The Justice Department had curated and partly redacted that material, which includes motions, argument transcripts and rulings after Judge Boasberg, in response to a request by The Times, ordered that they be unsealed.

The broad strokes of the fights had emerged in news reports in 2022 and 2023, but grand -jury secrecy rules normally require keeping official records of such matters confidential unless they are formally acknowledged — as they later were in open court.
Some of the court records were also in a partly redacted trove that had been made public in October after Politico and The Times requested that files related to fights over executive privilege be made public. The new material made visible discussion of attorney-client privilege, too.

For example, on Sept. 28, 2022, the previous chief judge for the District of Columbia, Beryl A. Howell, issued a major, 40-page ruling holding that various associates of Mr. Trump who had invoked a range of privilege claims to avoid testifying in the election investigation had to appear before the grand jury and answer questions. But the version released last year blacked out her entire discussion of how attorney-client privilege applied to former government lawyers in the Trump White House, spanning Pages 30 to 36 of that opinion. The newly released version makes public her legal analysis.

“As an executive branch attorney,” Judge Howell wrote, a former White House lawyer had “a responsibility and duty to inform the grand jury of information he possesses pertinent to the grand jury’s investigation into” a potential crime. “Accordingly, the former president’s claim of attorney-client privilege fails.”

The newly released files also include an excerpt from a March 20, 2023, hearing before Judge Boasberg, new to the job of chief judge, that was not in the earlier tranche. It adds to the record showing that judges expressed concern about Mr. Trump’s delay tactics.
On March 15, 2023, just before her term as chief ended, Judge Howell had ordered witnesses to turn over materials and testify. A lawyer for a subpoenaed witness and Mr. Trump asked Judge Boasberg for a stay. He extended a deadline for 48 hours but declined to issue the stay.

“There is a premium on moving this case through with expedition,” Judge Boasberg said. “There have been lengthy delays already, which I place at the feet of the former president, not the government. And the fact that there is a special counsel and a desire in the great public interest to move this case along quickly, that favors not staying the matter.”
 
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