List of All Articles with Tag 'sons'

As the date that the US could default on its obligations grows closer, the Treasury Department must prepare for an unprecedented situation -- figuring out which bills to pay with the money it has on hand if Congress doesn't act.

Lawyer Joe Tacopina is the head of the legal team representing former President Donald Trump in the civil rape trial against former Elle advice columnist E Jean Carroll. Mr Tacopina began closing argument in the trial on 8 May, stemming from Ms Carroll’s allegation that Mr Trump raped her in a New York City department store dressing room in 1995 or 1996. The attorney is also representing the ex-president in the Manhattan District Attorney’s investigation into his alleged hush money payments to women claiming to have had affairs with him. A Manhattan grand jury voted earlier this year to indict Mr Trump for falsifying business records in connection to a 2016 hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels for her to remain silent about a 2006 affair she claims to have had with Mr Trump, a claim he denies. Here’s what we know about the ex-president’s top lawyer: Brooklyn-born lawyer known for explosive media appearances Mr Tacopina, 56, was born in Brooklyn and has made a name for himself with explosive media appearances as he defends Mr Trump. He has also represented rapper Meek Mill and baseball player Alex Rodriguez, according to the New York Post. Mr Tacopina is the founder and managing partner of the law firm Tacopina, Seigel & DeOreo in New York. “The Law Offices of Tacopina Seigel & DeOreo has built a reputation as a law firm that tackles high-profile criminal and civil cases,” its website states. “We have proudly served our national and international clients for more than 20 years, and our distinguished attorneys have more than 70 years of combined legal experience.” Before becoming a criminal defence lawyer, Mr Tacopina was a prosecutor in Brooklyn. He was initially hired by Mr Trump in January of this year to defend him in the civil lawsuit filed by Ms Carroll. 1-800-Save-My-A** In March 2007, GQ Magazine published a piece entitled 1-800-Save-My-A**. The introduction states: “Suspected of murdering that blond girl in Aruba? Having some problems with your appointment as homeland-security chief? Made the mistake of having sex with Christie Brinkley’s husband? Call Joe Tacopina, the best-dressed, smoothest-talking, hardest-working criminal-defense attorney going, and for a mere $750 an hour, everything will be okay.” Mr Tacopina has five children with his wife Tish, The Post notes. ‘Most experienced American owner’ in Italian football In August 2021, he acquired the Italian Serie B – second-tier – football club Società Polisportiva Ars et Labor, also known as SPAL. In November of last year, Forbes wrote that he has spent “more than a decade as a top executive across four Italian soccer clubs,” and they called him the “most experienced American owner” in Italian football. What Tacopina has said about the hush money case Mr Tacopina criticised the indictment of Mr Trump, appearing on Fox News earlier this year saying that “I’ve never been more angry about a charge because today, the rule of law in the United States of America died. It’s dead. It’s dead”. Speaking about Mr Trump, he said, “he’s ready to fight. You know, he’s the toughest guy I know. He was shocked, you know, because we really weren’t — I was shocked”. Twitter user Acyn posted a clip of Mr Tacopina from 2018, in which he appears on a CNN panel discussion with Frank Bruni of The New York Times and CNN’s Laura Coates. Mr Tacopina appeared to say that alleged payments and subsequent falsification of records were an “illegal agreement”. “I mean, you know, once that net is out, once the microscope is on you, everything is fair game,” Mr Tacopina said on 14 March 2018, according to a CNN transcript. “And it’s hard to argue, ‘oh, you can’t look at this or you can’t look at that’. So, yes, if there’s an issue with that payment to Stormy Daniels being that it was made on behalf of the candidate. Okay. And it was not declared. That’s fair game. Unfortunately, if that’s the case.” “And you know, quite frankly, you know, Michael Cohen, again has made statements that would give rise to suspicion,” he added. “For any prosecutor to say that doesn’t make sense, that a lawyer took out a home equity loan with his own money, paid somebody that he didn’t even know on behalf of a client who, by the way, had the wherewithal and the money to afford $130,000. And, by the way, didn’t tell the client about the settlement agreement. It’s an illegal agreement. It’s a fraud, if that’s, in fact, the case.” “It doesn’t pass the straight-face test, and quite frankly, if that is what happened, we have a potential campaign finance issue,” he added. When reached by The Independent for comment, Mr Tacopina emphasized that twice during his 2018 appearance, he said, “if that is in fact the case”. “I was opining on a hypothetical that was posed by the host without [knowing] any of the facts. That is [why] I qualified my statements. The facts as I have now learned clearly show, that is NOT in fact the case,” he said in an email. “My mind hadn’t changed about the issue but what has changed is that I learned the facts,” he added. “My response was based on a hypothetical question … which is why I qualified my response TWICE,” he noted. The E Jean Carroll lawsuit Ms Carroll claims that Mr Trump raped her in a Manhattan department store dressing room in 1995 or 1996 and that he later defamed her in 2019 as president when he rejected her allegation. As he began cross-examining Ms Carroll on 27 April, Mr Tacopina brought up a draft of her book What Do We Need Men For? in which she writes about the episode involving the former president. “You wrote that you thought Donald Trump was trying to kill you, to poison your water,” he said. “That’s a draft. That was not published,” Ms Carroll responded. On 8 May, Mr Tacopina said during closing arguments that Ms Carroll “became a star” after she went public with her story. In a podcast interview played for the jury, Ms Carroll said she got her “revenge” on Elle following her 2019 firing because she’s now more successful after becoming an independent Substack writer. Mr Tacopina went on to claim that Ms Carroll, and witnesses Lisa Birnbach, and Carol Martin “colluded” to create fake claims about Mr Trump. The attorney said both Ms Birnbach and Ms Martin testified that they didn’t tell anyone else about the incident. He added that Ms Martin didn’t bring it up on election night in 2016. Mr Tacopina told the jury that she didn’t say “Oh, my God. He’s going to win. He raped my friend,” according to Law & Crime. The attorney went on to mock Ms Birnbach for testifying that she wasn’t thinking about the alleged rape on election night 2016. “I wasn’t thinking about it,” she said. Mr Tacopina said there’s “no way that’s truthful testimony”. Kings County prosecutor Mr Tacopina attended Bridgeport Law School, which is now called Quinnipiac University School of Law, located in North Haven, Connecticut. Before entering private practice, he was a prosecutor at the Kings County District Attorney’s Office. A rapper, a baseball star, a state senator, and a long line of New York City cops Meek Mill was sent to jail in 2008 on charges relating to gun and drug violations. The rapper was convicted in 2017 for violating his probation. Mr Tacopina was able to get him out after five months. In January, the rapper was pardoned by the outgoing governor of Pennsylvania, Democrat Tom Wolf. Mr Tacopina represented baseball star Alex Rodriguez in the appeal of his 2014 suspension after he tested positive for human growth hormones and testosterone. The attorney has also represented several New York police officers. New York Democratic state Senator Hiram Monserrate faced charges of felony assault in 2009 following allegations that he dragged his girlfriend down a hallway, but Mr Tacopina helped him get acquitted.

By Brendan Pierson and Jacqueline Thomsen A case brought by anti-abortion groups seeking to ban the abortion pill

King Charles III rested on the third day of his long coronation weekend

Republican Senator Ted Cruz received a torrent of criticism after he tweeted his condolences after a mass shooting in Allen, Texas, killed eight people and left seven injured. On Saturday, Mr Cruz tweeted his condolences and said he would be monitoring events unfolding after 33-year-old Mauricio Garcia opened fire at Allen Premium Outlets on Saturday afternoon. “Heidi and I are praying for the families of the victims of the horrific mall shooting in Allen, Texas,” he tweeted out. “We pray also for the broader Collin County community that’s in shock from this tragedy.” In response, many pointed out how Mr Cruz ardently opposes measures to curb gun violence. David Hogg, a survivor of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, who has since become an outspoken advocate for gun control, criticised Mr Cruz. “Man if only there was something you could do to prevent these tragedies,” he tweeted in response. Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action, tweeted how Mr Cruz supported regulation of industries other than guns. “After 16 people were killed in a hot air balloon in Lockhart, Cruz authored and passed legislation improving safety rules. After mass shootings, he only offers his prayers,” she tweeted. “That’s not because laws don't work, but because there's no hot air balloon lobby funding his Senate seat.” In recent years, Mr Cruz has opposed measures to curb gun control, including last year when his fellow Senator from Texas John Cornyn engaged in bipartisan negotiations with Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Democrat-turned-Independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. The legislation ultimately passed with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell voting for it. Last week, Democratic Representative Colin Allred announced he would challenge Mr Cruz in 2024. Mr Allred criticised the lack of action after the shooting. “Eight lives tragically cut short,” he tweeted on Sunday. “As I grieve with my fellow Texans and pray for those who were injured, I won't accept that we are powerless to prevent this. It's our responsibility as lawmakers to help make our communities safer. We must take common sense steps to save lives.” Read More Allen mall shooting – live: Texas outlet worker died saving shoppers from ‘white supremacist’ gunman Hero Texas outlet worker died in mall shooting after risking life to hide customers Texas mall gunman was allegedly removed from military due to ‘mental health concerns’ Tanked Biden pick highlights escalation of dark-money forces Colin Allred, former NFL player, announces Democratic challenge to Ted Cruz in Texas Will the Supreme Court have to answer to ethics rules?

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Oklahoma’s governor is joining the messaging war against gay, lesbian and transgender Americans with an announcement on Monday that he would veto a bill set to fund the state’s PBS station through 2026. Kevin Stitt made the news on Friday, and expanded on his decision in an interview with Fox News. He told the right-wing network that Oklahoma’s local PBS station OETA was responsible for the “sexualization” of children. “OETA, to us, is an outdated system. You know, the big, big question is why are we spending taxpayer dollars to prop up or compete with the private sector and run television stations? And then when you go through all of the programing that's happening and the indoctrination and over-sexualization of our children, it's just really problematic, and it doesn't line up with Oklahoma values," he said. “I mean, some of the programming that we're seeing… it just doesn't need to be on public television.” he continued. “Oklahoma taxpayers are going, 'Hey, hang on, time out for just a second. That's not my values.” His office provided numerous examples of supposedly objectionable instances of PBS programming to Fox News. Some were typical of the recent anti-transgender panic: A reading of The Hips on the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish by drag queen Little Miss Hot Mess, while others were more in line with the typical efforts by conservative Republicans to paint any mention of LGBT persons as “propaganda” in support of some sinister political agenda. In that vein, the governor’s office took issue with a PBS Newshour segment where persons who supported the use of puberty blockers were interviewed, as well as a depiction of a same-sex marriage on the show Odd Squad. He argued that the prevalence of digital technology in contemporary life made the concept of a publicly-funded broadcast channel obsolete. Republicans have long made that argument from a government spending standpoint. During the 2012 presidential election, funding for PBS was among the federal programs that would-be president Mitt Romney would have cut had he defeated then-President Barack Obama. At the time, the Obama campaign savaged Mr Romney over his suggestion. “There’s so much television, there’s so much media,” the governor told Fox News. “Maybe in 1957 you could have made an argument that you needed a public television station. That’s totally outdated at this point.” His critics, including some Republicans, argue that his explanation displayed a critical lack of understanding regarding rural life in his home state. “Our broadcast towers are how we inform a lot of rural Oklahoma about disasters like tornadoes and thunderstorms,” said Kenneth Busby, a board member of Friends of OETA and CEO of the Route 66 Alliance. His concerns were highlighted on an MSNBC segment hosted by Joy Reid over the weekend. Mr Stitt dismissed concerns that rural Oklahomans without access to cable news or internet would be adversely affected by a cut to the channel’s broadcast infrastructure. Oklahoma is largely enveloped by an informal section of the American midwest known as “Tornado Alley”, where particularly violent storms are known to form with regularity. "All those towers and our communications, that's all owned by the state and whether we continue to fund an outdated public television station with taxpayer dollars, or we let the free market work, we're still going to have the same capabilities, the same assets, the same towers," he said. "Our DPS system is what rolls out the Amber Alerts, for example. None of that's going away," the governor continued. "So that's just people confusing the issue, not being clear with their mission, trying to make excuses of why the tax dollars should still fund this outdated system. His effort to make his own personal contribution in the campaign to smear content that features LGBT persons or supports their basic rights as the “sexualization of our children” doesn’t appear to be headed for success. If it does, members of his own party (not to mention Democrats) say it will hurt the state’s Department of Public Safety — specifically, the state’s early emergency alert system. A number of Republicans are reportedly against the governor’s veto and told local publication Tulsa World that they plan to override the veto. Doing so would take two-thirds of Oklahoma’s legislature, which leans heavily Republican. The state House speaker and president of the Senate both say they support OETA’s funding. The Oklahoma Senate Pro Tem, Greg Treat, told Tulsa World that he had been reprimanded by his predecessor over his support for a previous attempt to cut OETA’s funds, and was informed at the time about OETA’s importance for the state’s early warning system. “Ever since then, I have supported its continuation,” he told the publication. 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