Judge in New York hush money case lifts gag order against Trump to let him talk about witnesses and the jury

A judge in ex-President Donald Trump’s hush money case on Tuesday modified the former president’s gag order.

It frees him to comment publicly about witnesses and jurors in the criminal trial that led to his felony conviction.

But it keeps others connected to the former president’s case off limits at least until he is sentenced on July 11.

That makes scathing rebukes of his ex-attorney Michael Cohen and porn actor Stormy Daniels okay under the altered gag order.

The ruling by Judge Juan Merchan (below) comes just days before the first presidential debate on Thursday.

Donald Trump could announce his running mate as early as this week, or he might not make up his mind until the eve of his party convention in Milwaukee next month. That is the assessment of Trump world insiders amid fevered speculation about who will be chosen and when.

‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ said one Trump ally.

There is no timetable for the announcement, and picks are usually revealed in late summer, just before the convention. Trump has publicly said that is his plan.

But the former president loves to keep people guessing and on Tuesday NBC News reported that senior campaign officials had discussed the timing with a view to bringing forward the plan and possibly even making an announcement before Thursday’s first presidential debate.

Sources told the DailyMail.com that a decision could be made within the next week. Or it might not.

Sen. J.D. Vance and Gov. Doug Burgum are thought to be the frontrunners, while Sen. Marco Rubio also remains in contention.

Trump claimed at the weekend that he had made his decision. But he has said that before and is known to change his mind at the last moment.

Either way, it all adds to the sense of theater.

The Trump campaign has been using the same quote from senior adviser Brian Hughes for two weeks in response to VP questions:

As President Trump has said himself, the top criteria in selecting a vice president is a strong leader who will make a great president for eight years after his next four-year term concludes. But anyone telling you they know who or when President Trump will choose his VP is lying unless that person is named Donald J. Trump.

Some ex-intelligence officials were actively being paid by the CIA on a contract basis when they signed on to the letter that said the Hunter Biden laptop had the ‘hallmarks of Russian disinformation.’

Michael Morell, former deputy director of the CIA, was one of them. CIA Inspector General David Buckley was another, according to a new report from the House Judiciary Committee.

Morell was the one who organized the letter after a call from now-Secretary of State Antony Blinken. He said he did it to give Biden a ‘talking point’ when Trump attacked him for the laptop that was later verified to be his son’s.

High-ranking CIA officials were made aware of the letter before its publishing. And some officials raised concerns about the political nature of the letter.

Drag queen Brigitte Bandit tried to ruffle some feathers on Capitol Hill on Tuesday to push for more protections for LGBTQ rights.

Bandit and two other performers Jiggly Caliente and Joey Jay appeared in Congress to lobby lawmakers on the Equality Act.

The legislation would amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act, to include gender identity and sexual orientation in federal nondiscrimination policies.

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign continues to double down on accusations President Biden will be hepped up on stimulants during Thursday’s debate, as they try to raise expectations by saying he can transform almost like a superhero.

‘He’s probably going to filled with Adderall like he is the night of the
State of the Union. It’ll provide a great contrast,’ said Trump campaign senior advisor Chris LaCivita on a call with reporters, without providing evidence.

‘We know that Joe Biden that after taking an entire week off, he’s going to be ready for this now. I don’t know if it’s quite going to be at the level of Steve Rogers walking in and coming out Captain America. But his team is going to have him ready,’ said senior advisor Jason Miller.

Miller complained on the call about ‘expectations setting in the media, saying Biden shouldn’t get a ‘participation trophy’ for showing up. But it is Trump who spent months arguing Biden ‘can’t put two sentences together.’

One question the campaign wasn’t able to answer was whether former first lady Melania or other Trump family members would be with the candidate in Atlanta. ‘I would expect we probably make our announcement at the debate,’ said Miller.

Joe Biden;’s approval rating stands at 37 percent ahead of Thursday’s debate, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.

Voters see Donald Trump as the better candidate for the economy, but prefer Biden’s approach on preserving democracy, the poll found.

When asked which of the two candidates had a better approach for the economy – the biggest concern for respondents – registered voters picked Trump 43 percent to 37 percent.

Trump had a more significant edge – 44 percent to 31 percent – on immigration.

Biden had the edge – 39 percnt to 33 percent – on responding to political extremism and threats to democracy, which was voters’ second biggest concern.

California Governor Gavin Newsom used his annual State of the State address to compare Donald Trump’s ascent to the rise of fascism prior to World War II.

Newsom did not mention Trump by name but used some of Trump’s statements make a comparison to the eve of World War II when ‘fascism spread its hate and destruction throughout Europe.’

When they speak of immigrants poisoning American blood, and of mass deportations and detention camps, this is the language of destruction – of 1939.

Trump made comments about immigrants ‘poisoning the blood of our country’ during a campaign rally in Iowa last year, later saying he did not know that Adolf Hitler had once said something similar.

Charlamagne tha God has suggested Joe Biden could be dropped as the Democrat candidate if he has a bad debate.

The radio host has previously suggested the CNN debate on Thursday night is ‘gong to be bad’ and that Biden is being put in a ‘really bad situation.’

In his latest comments he was asked if the party should ‘pull’ Biden if he ‘flops’ in the debate. He said:

I would say yes. The reason I would say yes is, you know, the base is going to show up, but it’s about those independents and those hypothetical swing voters, those people who may be undecided, it’s about them.

Biden’s ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer could be held in contempt of Congress this week for ‘failing to comply with a congressional subpoena.’

It comes after Attorney General Merrick Garland was held in contempt, but no criminal prosecution will be taken against him.

Garland has refused to hand over audio files of Biden’s special counsel interview during which he appeared ‘elderly’ with a ‘poor memory.’

House Republican appropriators will not include language to defund Trump prosecutors like special counsel Jack Smith, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg and Fulton County DA Fani Willis in their spending package, according to Politico.

The move is sure to infuriate Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan and his like-minded colleagues. Jordan had put forth language that would have targeted prosecutors who bring criminal cases against presidents.

Members could still push for amendments to the bill that would fund the Justice Department to do just that. After the House passes its own spending bills, however, they must be negotiated with the Democrat-led Senate and signed by the White House.

Michael Cohen, Trump’s formr lawyer and fixer, was the star withness in his hush money trial.

He has responded to the partial lifting of a gag order prevening Trump from attacking people involved in the case.

For the past 6 years, Donald and acolytes have been making constant negative statements about me. Donald’s failed strategy of discrediting me so that he can avoid accountability didn’t work then and won’t work now.

Monica Lewinsky says the judge in Donald Trump’s classified documents case should be impeached.

Judge Aileen Cannon has postponed the case against the former president indefinitely.

President Joe Biden’s administration pressured Amazon to censor books on vaccines during the height of the COVID pandemic, an act tantamount to ‘modern-day book burning,’ one of the authors who had their work throttled said.

According to internal Amazon emails uncovered by House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, the company created a new ‘Do Not Promote’ category for certain books on vaccines after receiving ‘criticism from the Biden administration’ in March 2021.

The correspondence shows that the White House’s displeasure with the ‘anti-vax’ books was the ‘impetus’ for the ‘Do Not Promote’ category, which effectively hid the books on the site.

One of the 43 books added to this list was one by author Neil Miller titled ‘Miller’s Review of Critical Vaccine Studies: 400 Important Scientific Papers Summarized for Parents and Researchers,’ which was released in 2016.

Speaking exclusively with DailyMail.com, Miller slammed the White House and Amazon for censoring his book, ‘If my book is being censored, they are censoring medical and scientific literature. I do not agree with modern-day book burning.’

Joe Biden hailed the long-awaited arrival of Kenyan police in Haiti as a first step to ease the violence-wracked country’s crisis, and pledged continued US support.

The Kenyan police are on a long-awaited mission to help wrest the Caribbean nation from powerful gangs, just as deadly turmoil gripped Nairobi during mass protests.

Sporting camouflage uniforms, helmets and rifles, the first of the 400 officers descended from a Kenya Airways plane on the tarmac in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince. A total of some 2,500 personnel are expected.

Biden said in a statement:

With strong support from the United States, Kenyan forces arrived in Haiti, beginning an effort that will bring much needed relief to Haitians.

Paris Hilton has revealed she will be testifying on Capitol Hill on Wednesday over abuse at youth residential treatment facilities.

The hotel heiress has been open about her claims she was sexually abused at a Utah boarding school for troubled teens.

She said cervical exams performed by staff members in the early hours of the morning while she attended the school in the 1990s.

The reality star her childhood was ‘stolen’ by the alleged abuse at Provo Canyon School where she spent 11 months when she was 17 years old.

Speaking to the New York Times in 2022, Paris, who has campaigned to regulate ‘troubled teen centers’ since initially going public in 2020 with alleged physical and mental abuse incidents at the school in 2020, said she had tried to ‘black out’ the reported incidents.

A group of 16 Nobel prize-winning economists say a Donald Trump presidency could lead to a rise in inflation and long-term damage to the global economy.

In a letter, obtained by Axios, they write:

We believe that a second Trump term would have a negative impact on the U.S.’s economic standing in the world, and a destabilizing effect on the U.S.’s domestic economy.

Many Americans are concerned about inflation, which has come down remarkably fast. There is rightly a worry that Donald Trump will reignite this inflation, with his fiscally irresponsible budgets.

Two key advisers to Donald Trump have presented him with a plan to end Russia’s war in Ukraine if he wins the presidential election, Reuters reports.

The plan involves telling Ukraine it will only get more U.S. weapons if it enters peace talks.

At the same time, the United States would warn Moscow that any refusal to negotiate would result in increased U.S. support for Ukraine.

There would be a ceasefire based on prevailing battle lines during peace talks.

The plan has been drawn up by retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg and Fred Fleitz, who both served as chiefs of staff in Trump’s National Security Council during his first term.

Trump has said he can end the war in 24 hours if elected but has not revealed how he would do it.

Hunter Biden’s law license has been temporarily suspended following his conviction on three felony gun charges. The president’s son’s guilty verdict constituted ‘serious crimes’ under D.C. Bar rules.

The suspension is effective immediately, while Hunter appeals his conviction. On Wednesday Hunter’s lawyer Abbe Lowell requested a new trial for his client, arguing in a filing that the verdict should be vacated over a jurisdictional issue.

Last week, a disciplinary office in D.C. sought the suspension ‘pending resolution of this matter.’ The Yale law graduate has been a member of the bar since 2007.

Hunter was convicted of lying about drug use during the purchase of a handgun. The order is listed on a District of Columbia Court of Appeals site dated Tuesday.

The Florida governor told Fox News it is ‘inevitable there will be a terrorist attack linked to people who crossed the border during Biden’s presidency.’

Separately, in a speech in Florida, he said:

You have an administration who won’t faithfully execute the law. How could you have that many people and not have some people that are hostile?

And when you talk about 10 million, you’re saying if only 0.1 percent are bad that’s going to cause havoc. And we know there’s obviously more problems than that. So I think from a security perspective, it’s a big deal.

Andrew Cuomo has shared a prediction for the state’s Democratic primary on Tuesday night – and it doesn’t look good for the Squad.

The former New York Governor said Rep. Jamaal Bowman is going to get ‘smoked’, in a slight about his arrest for pulling a fire alarm in the Capitol so he could make votes.

Cuomo added that the progressive Congressman’s chances of defeat are because ‘anti-semitism in any and all forms will not be tolerated in New York’.

The issue of age will be front and center for Joe Biden in the debate on Thursday night.

Here is how Ronald Reagan dealt with it, masterfully, in 1984.

After Thursday’ night’s debate in Atlanta, Joe Biden will not be hanging around.

The president will head straight to a campaign event in Raleigh, North Carolina.

On Friday, he will go on to New York for another campaign event.

He will then hold events in New York and New Jersey on Saturday, before heading for the presidential retreat at Camp David.

Trump plans to hold a rally in Virginia on Friday following a rise it he polls in that state.

The Wikileaks founder’s chartered flight from the U.K. to Australia is reportedly costing $500,000.

His wife Stella said the fee for the private plane will be covered by a crowd funding effort.

She asked supporters to follow along with Assange’s flight on Flight Aware ‘in case something goes wrong.’

A plane with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange departed Bangkok after refueling Tuesday.

Assange is now on the way to Saipan to enter a plea deal with the U.S. government that will free him and resolve the legal case over the publication of a trove of classified documents.

He is expected to plead guilty to an Espionage Act charge of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified national defense information, the U.S. Justice Department said in a letter filed in court.

Assange is expected to return to Australia if a judge accepts the plea agreement.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese cautiously welcomed the development. He said:

Regardless of the views that people have about Mr. Assange’s activities, the case has dragged on for too long.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal party has suffered a major upset in a special election for a Toronto district it has held for three decades.

It raising further doubts about Trudeau’s leadership ahead of next year’s general election.

Elections Canada reported Tuesday that opposition Conservative candidate Don Stewart narrowly won the Toronto-St. Paul’s district, one of 338 seats in Canada’s House of Commons.

The Liberals had held Toronto-St. Paul’s since 1993.

Canadian historian Robert Bothwell said:

Justin’s position is seriously weakened inside the party.

Ex-President Barack Obama’s half-sister Auma Obama told CNN that she was tear-gassed at a tax protest in Kenya.

She said despite ‘young Kenyans’ protesting peacefully holding just ‘flags and banners’ she was tear-gassed as part of the crowd and ‘can’t even see anymore.’

Auma was coughing in the video, exclaiming: ‘They’re being tear-gassed, they’re being tear-gassed!’

The protests are in opposition to a finance bill that is currently being debated in the General Assembly, according to reports.

‘How can you tear gas your own people?’ she stated. ‘Listen to these children, they are the future.’

Auma Obama grew up in the remote village of Nyang’oma Kogelo, Kenya, and first met her half-brother Barack Obama when they were in their 20s.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei railed against America as he lambasted Masoud Pezeshkian, the sole reformist candidate in the country’s upcoming presidential election.

In a speech Khamenei said:

Some politicians in our country believe they must kowtow to this power or that power, and it’s impossible to progress without sticking to famous countries and powers.

Some think like that. Or they think that all ways to progress pass through America.

Khamenei’s comments in his hour-long speech drew repeated cries of ‘Death to America, death to Israel’ from the crowd.

Ilhan Omar has urged voters in New York to support fellow progressive ‘Squad’ member of Congress Jamaal Bowman.

Bowman launched an expletiive-ridden tirade at a weekend rally against the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

Vice President Kamala Harris continues on her tour to promote abortion rights ahead of the 2024 election where she held an event in Arizona last night with actress Francia Raisa.

Raisa marveled at Harris’ busy schedule, asking her how she managed it all.

‘I work out in the morning, I think it’s important to eat breakfast,’ Harris said laughing.

The vice president repeated her advice for young people, reminding them that she eats the word ‘no’ for breakfast.

‘I eat no for breakfast. I don’t hear no. Don’t you hear it. Don’t you hear no,’ she said.

Harris remains primarily focused on the issue of abortion rights, kicking off a campaign push on the issue on the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe V. Wade.

Harris shared her ‘notes from the field’ on the issue on abortion.

‘There is a movement afoot and we are all part of that movement,’ she said. ‘The people who were the leaders of this movement that got Roe to be the law of the land for 50 years, they have passed the baton to us, and the question is now while we are carrying the baton, what are we doing with it and I know we are taking our role and responsibility seriously’

She encouraged supporters to rally in support of the Biden/Harris ticket.

‘We are going to win. We are going to win. We are going to win,’ she repeated. ‘It won’t be easy but we are going to win.’

Not a single CEO of a Fortune 100 company has so far donated to Donald Trump, Axios reported.

Trump did not receive a donation from any of them in 2016 either, but did pick up a few in 2020.

Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, president of the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute, who gathered the data, wrote in the New York Times:

The top corporate leaders working today, like many Americans, aren’t entirely comfortable with either Mr. Trump or President Biden.

Allies of former President Donald Trump on Tuesday are launching ‘No Tax on Tips’ stickers to turn every restaurant receipt into a campaign billboard.

Trump unveiled his campaign pledge earlier this month during a rally in Las Vegas as he tries to woo workers in service industries, promising that tipped workers would no long pay taxes on gratuities if he wins reelection in November.

The idea has caught hold among supporters who have been writing ‘no tax on tips’ on their receipts.

Now MAGA Inc.—the primary Super PAC supporting Trump’s 2024 campaign—is offering to make it easier with stickers

Taylor Budowich, the group’s chief executive, said: ‘It’s simple: President Trump wants hardworking American to keep more money in their pocket, Joe Biden wants to take it to give to illegal immigrants.

Hillary Clinton has offered her advice to Joe Biden on debating Donald Trump, which she did in 2016.

Writing in the New York Times Clinton said it is ‘nearly impossible to focus on substance’ debating Trump. She said:

In our three debates in 2016, he unleashed a blizzard of interruptions, insults and lies that overwhelmed the moderators and did a disservice to the voters…

It is a waste of time to try to refute Mr. Trump’s arguments like in a normal debate. It’s nearly impossible to identify what his arguments even are. He starts with nonsense and then digresses into blather. This has gotten only worse in the years since we debated

…expectations for him are so low that if he doesn’t literally light himself on fire on Thursday evening, some will say he was downright presidential.

In a new district and swamped in controversy, Rep. Lauren Boebert faces off in a crowded primary on Tuesday.

The fiery Colorado Republican switched from the 3rd to the 4th congressional district to run in former Rep. Ken Buck’s more reliably Republican seat in the upcoming election after barely prevailing over her Democratic opponent Adam Frisch in the last election.

On Tuesday she will face off against state Reps. Mike Lynch and Richard Holtorf, conservative activist and talk radio host Deborah Flora, Logan County Commissioner and former state Senate President Pro Tempore Jerry Sonnenberg and banking executive Peter Yu.

The Colorado residents who haven’t made their choice – and may pay more attention to the controversies surrounding her – could be crucial to Boebert’s survival in Congress.

Two federal judges in Kansas and Missouri on Monday sided with several Republican-led states and stopped the Democrat from moving forward with a key student debt relief initiative.

In total, the Administration has already approved almost $160 billion in relief for nearly 4.6 million borrowers.

U.S. District Judge Daniel Crabtree in Wichita, Kansas, blocked the U.S. Department of Education from proceeding with parts of a plan set to take effect July 1 designed to lower monthly payments and speed up loan forgiveness for millions of Americans.

A fundraising email from Donald Trump’s election campaign claims the former president was ‘tortured’ when he turned himself into a Georgia jail last August.

They splashed his glowering image across campaign merchandise including t-shirts, mugs, beer koozies and more.

Ahead of Trump’s first debate with Biden and in the wake of his convictions in Manhattan, they’re using it again in a campaign mailer sent out Monday.

The email writes: ‘I want you to remember what they did to me. They tortured me in the Fulton County Jail, and TOOK MY MUGSHOT. So guess what?’

Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman is fighting for his political survival as voters head to the polls in New York for the Democratic primary.

The far-left Squad member is locked in a contentious primary against George Latimer, and polls show he is hanging on by a thread.

The primary will test whether his support for Palestinians, his furious criticism of Israel and his progressive policies will lead to his downfall in his Bronx and Westchester district.

Bowman is seeking a third term in a primary that has seen historic levels of spending. The powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has poured $15million into the campaign against him.

‘We are going to show f***ing AIPAC, the power of the motherf***ing South Bronx!’ Bowman yelled Saturday at a rally with fellow progressive ‘Squad’ member Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

Donald Trump leads Joe Biden by five points in Georgia two days ahead of the pivotal first presidential debate, which is being held in the state

It comes as the two candidates make final preparation for what could be one of the most consequential showdowns ever in presidential politics. CNN is hotsing the debate in Atlanta on Thursday night.

The poll is a setback for Biden who became the first Democrat in nearly 30 years to win the Peach State in 2020 on his way to the White House.

Biden’s support has plummeted among young voters in Georgia with only 12 percent supporting him.

Overall, 70 percent said the country is on the ‘wrong track,’ according to the poll.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. got 9 percent in the poll, and 8 percent were undecided.