ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON – The Virginian-Pilot https://www.pilotonline.com The Virginian-Pilot: Your source for Virginia breaking news, sports, business, entertainment, weather and traffic Tue, 16 Jul 2024 22:11:50 +0000 en-US hourly 30 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.1 https://www.pilotonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/POfavicon.png?w=32 ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON – The Virginian-Pilot https://www.pilotonline.com 32 32 219665222 Trump-owned company sells $299 sneakers with image of his bloodied face https://www.pilotonline.com/2024/07/16/a-trump-owned-company-sells-299-sneakers-with-an-image-of-his-bloodied-face-after-rally-shooting/ Tue, 16 Jul 2024 21:46:54 +0000 https://www.pilotonline.com/?p=7259246&preview=true&preview_id=7259246 MILWAUKEE (AP) — A company is now selling $299 sneakers showing an image of Donald Trump with streaks of blood on his cheek and pumping his fist in the air after he was the target of an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania.

The white high tops are being sold as “FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT High-Tops” for $299 on a website that sells Trump-branded shoes that is run by CIC Ventures LLC, a company that Trump reported owning in his 2023 financial disclosure. The company says the new shoes are limited edition with only 5,000 pairs available and estimated to ship in September or October. It also said 10 pairs will be randomly autographed.

“These limited edition high-tops, featuring Trump’s iconic image with his fist raised, honor his unwavering determination and bravery,” it says. “With only 5,000 pairs available, each one is a true collector’s item. Show your support and patriotic pride with these exclusive sneakers, capturing a defining moment in history.”

CIC Ventures is the same company that debuted “Never Surrender High-Tops,” shiny gold sneakers with an American flag detail on the back, for $399.

The sale is another sign the former president’s allies intend to capitalize on how Trump reacted after the shooting at a Saturday rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Trump got back to his feet and pumped his fist toward the crowd, mouthing “fight, fight.”

On Monday, Trump got a hero’s welcome at the Republican National Convention’s opening night, appearing visibly emotional with a bandage over his right ear as musician Lee Greenwood sang “God Bless the USA.”

Supporters are hoping those moments help him pave his path straight back to the White House as he challenges Democratic President Joe Biden’s reelection. Biden has been to trying to reassure his own party that he is capable of serving another four years, but there are worries and calls to nominate another candidate after his debate performance last month.

Earlier this year, Trump made an unusual stop at “Sneaker Con” to introduce the shiny gold high tops.

CIC Ventures’ website says it is not political and has no connection to a political campaign, though Trump campaign officials have promoted it in online posts.

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7259246 2024-07-16T17:46:54+00:00 2024-07-16T18:11:50+00:00
Trump returns to campaign trail with VP deadline nearing amid calls for Biden to withdraw https://www.pilotonline.com/2024/07/09/trump-returns-to-campaign-trail-with-vp-deadline-nearing-amid-calls-for-biden-to-withdraw/ Tue, 09 Jul 2024 04:12:28 +0000 https://www.pilotonline.com/?p=7248986&preview=true&preview_id=7248986 By ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON

MIAMI (AP) — Former President Donald Trump is getting back on the campaign trail Tuesday, rallying voters in his home state at his flagship golf resort in a celebratory mood as Democrats face tough calls over President Joe Biden’s reelection chances.

Trump is nearing a deadline to announce his running mate but appears in no rush as much of the attention is still centered on questions about Biden’s ability to govern for another four-year term. Some Democrats have started calling for Biden to step down as their presumptive nominee following his dismal debate performance last month.

Both Biden, 81, and Trump, 78, are at least two decades older than most American presidents have been, according to the Pew Research Center, which said the median age for all U.S. presidents on their first inauguration is 55 years old. But that has not stopped Trump from arguing he is stronger than Biden, who repeatedly stumbled, paused and could not complete sentences at times during the June 27 debate. Trump was criticized by Democrats for making false statements during the debate about the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol and suggesting immigrants entering the U.S. illegally were taking so-called “Black jobs” and “Hispanic jobs.”

In an interview Monday with Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity, Trump said he thought Biden “might very well stay in” the race. “Nobody to wants to give that up that way,” Trump added. “He is going to feel badly about himself for a long time. It’s hard to give it up that way, the way where they’re trying to force him out.”

In the Miami suburb of Doral, Trump will underscore his strong support in a former battleground state that has now shifted toward the GOP. U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, a Miami native and one of the contenders for the vice presidential post, will be attending the rally along with other Florida politicians.

Kevin Cabrera, a Miami-Dade County commissioner who was Florida state director for Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign and is set to speak at the rally, said to expect an “overwhelming show of unity.”

“The rally will display our unified front, showcasing a stark contrast to the Democrats, who are lost and fighting with each other over Biden’s health and ability to continue,” Cabrera said.

The presumptive GOP nominee will also touch on Biden’s handling of immigration and the economy, highlighting the rise in home prices and goods. Trump will also talk about how Florida is affected by the increasing arrivals of immigrants as the final destination for many people illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.

The leadership crisis among Democrats has perhaps given Trump a reason to wait for his VP announcement so as to not draw attention away from Biden’s woes. Senior advisers and key allies say they still don’t know whom Trump will choose as his running mate, and many believe the choice is still in flux.

Speaking on MSNBC Monday, Biden criticized Trump for not having held events since the debate and suggested he had been “riding around in his golf cart.”

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7248986 2024-07-09T00:12:28+00:00 2024-07-09T08:42:47+00:00
Trump proposes green cards for foreign grads of US colleges, departing from anti-immigrant rhetoric https://www.pilotonline.com/2024/06/20/trump-proposes-green-cards-for-foreign-grads-of-us-colleges-departing-from-anti-immigrant-rhetoric/ Thu, 20 Jun 2024 23:57:26 +0000 https://www.pilotonline.com/?p=7221803&preview=true&preview_id=7221803 By ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON (Associated Press)

MIAMI (AP) — Former President Donald Trump said in an interview posted Thursday he wants to give automatic green cards to foreign students who graduate from U.S. colleges, a sharp departure from the anti-immigrant rhetoric he typically uses on the campaign trail.

Trump was asked about plans for companies to be able to import the “best and brightest” in a podcast taped Wednesday with venture capitalists and tech investors called the “All-In.”

“What I want to do and what I will do is you graduate from a college, I think you should get automatically as part of your diploma a green card to be able to stay in this country. And that includes junior colleges too, anybody graduates from a college. You go there for two years or four years,” he said, vowing to address this concern on day one.

Immigration has been Trump’s signature issue during his 2024 bid to return to the White House. His suggestion that he would offer green cards — documents that confer a pathway to U.S. citizenship — to potentially hundreds of thousands of foreign graduates would represent a sweeping expansion of America’s immigration system that sharply diverges from his most common messages on foreigners.

Trump often says during his rallies that immigrants who are in the country illegally endanger public safety, and steal jobs and government resources, and once suggested that they are “poisoning the blood of our country.” He has promised to carry out the largest deportation operation in U.S. history if elected.

Trump and his allies often say they distinguish between people entering illegally versus legally. But during his administration, Trump also proposed curbs on legal immigration such as family-based visas and the visa lottery program.

Right after taking office in 2017, he issued his “Buy American and Hire American” executive order, directing Cabinet members to suggest reforms to ensure that business visas were only awarded to the highest-paid or most-skilled applicants to protect American workers.

He has previously said the H1-B program commonly used by companies to hire foreign workers temporarily — a program he has used in the past — was “very bad” and used by tech companies to get foreign workers for lower pay.

During the conversation with “All-In,” Trump blamed the coronavirus pandemic for being unable to implement these measures while he was president. He said he knows of stories of people who graduate from top colleges and want to stay in the U.S. but can’t secure visas to do so, forcing them to return to their native countries, specifically naming India and China. He said they go on and become multibillionaires, employing thousands of workers.

“You need a pool of people to work for your company,” Trump said. “And they have to be smart people. Not everybody can be less than smart. You need brilliant people.”

In a statement released hours after the podcast was posted, campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said: “President Trump has outlined the most aggressive vetting process in U.S. history, to exclude all communists, radical Islamists, Hamas supporters, America haters and public charges. He believes, only after such vetting has taken place, we ought to keep the most skilled graduates who can make significant contributions to America. This would only apply to the most thoroughly vetted college graduates who would never undercut American wages or workers.”

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7221803 2024-06-20T19:57:26+00:00 2024-06-20T22:27:56+00:00
Trump appears at federal court in Florida for closed hearing in his classified documents case https://www.pilotonline.com/2024/02/12/trump-appears-at-federal-court-in-florida-for-closed-hearing-in-his-classified-documents-case/ Mon, 12 Feb 2024 14:27:07 +0000 https://www.pilotonline.com/?p=6471842&preview=true&preview_id=6471842 By ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON and ERIC TUCKER (Associated Press)

FORT PIERCE, Fla. (AP) — Seeking to turn legal problems into political gain, former President Donald Trump arrived Monday to a crowd of supporters at a federal courthouse in Florida for a closed hearing in the criminal case charging him with mishandling classified documents.

His motorcade left after several hours as supporters called his name.

In the latest mixing of court appearances into Trump’s election-season calendar, supporters with signs and flags assembled outside a courthouse barricade as a Trump campaign message to allies with the subject line of “I’m in court. Again!” warned that unspecified opponents “want me arrested” and “erased from the ballot.”

The message reinforced his team’s strategy of politicizing his four criminal prosecutions, including in Florida, where he faces dozens of felony counts accusing him of hoarding highly classified records at his Mar-a-Lago estate and obstructing FBI efforts to get them back.

Monday’s court date was scheduled as a procedural hearing, closed to the public, to discuss the procedures for handling classified evidence in the trial currently set for May 20. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon set arguments in the morning from defense lawyers and in the afternoon from prosecutors, each outside of the other’s presence.

“Defense counsel shall be prepared to discuss their defense theories of the case, in detail, and how any classified information might be relevant or helpful to the defense,” Cannon wrote in scheduling the hearing.

The closed hearing comes as prosecutors have also revealed that a prospective government witness has received threats over social media that are now the subject of federal investigation.

Trump’s motorcade arrived at the courthouse in Fort Pierce shortly after 9 a.m. Supporters outside held signs with messages including “Trump 2024” and “Florida is Trump Country.” He left the building in his motorcade after 2 p.m. while supporters shouted his name.

The hearing is one of several voluntary court dates that Trump has attended in recent weeks — he was present, for instance, at appeals court arguments last month in Washington — as he looks to demonstrate to supporters that he intends to fight his criminal prosecutions while also seeking to reclaim the White House this November.

In addition to the Florida case, Trump faces charges in Atlanta and Washington related to efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. He’s also charged in state court in New York in connection with hush money payments made to porn actor Stormy Daniels. He has denied any wrongdoing.

____

Tucker reported from Washington.

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6471842 2024-02-12T09:27:07+00:00 2024-02-12T14:49:20+00:00
Judge signals December may be too soon for Trump’s classified documents case but doesn’t set a date https://www.pilotonline.com/2023/07/19/judge-signals-december-may-be-too-soon-for-trumps-classified-documents-case-but-doesnt-set-a-date/ Wed, 19 Jul 2023 12:14:13 +0000 https://www.pilotonline.com/?p=5090690&preview=true&preview_id=5090690 By ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON, ERIC TUCKER and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER (Associated Press)

FORT PIERCE, Fla. (AP) — A federal judge signaled Tuesday that December may be too soon to begin former President Donald Trump’s landmark criminal trial concerning the mishandling of classified documents, but did not say whether she would agree to Trump’s request to put the trial off until after the 2024 election.

Judge Aileen Cannon said she would issue a written order “promptly” after the nearly two-hour hearing in federal court in Fort Pierce, Florida, where Trump’s lawyers pressed for an indefinite delay of a trial date.

The sparring over setting a trial date, a routine matter in criminal cases, underscores the unprecedented nature of prosecuting a former president who is also running to reclaim the White House in 2024.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing and slammed the prosecution as an attempt to hurt his campaign.

Trump’s lawyers say the Republican can’t get a fair trial ahead of the election and insist they need more time to review evidence and prepare for what they describe as a complex case.

The judge repeatedly pressed Trump’s lawyers to set some dates and a more concrete timetable, but acknowledged she understood they needed more time to review documents and footage.

“We need to set a timetable,” Cannon said. “Some deadlines can be established now.”

She also questioned prosecutors on whether there were other similar cases involving classified documents tried in such a short time frame.

Special counsel Jack Smith’s team, which is pushing for the trial to begin in December, told the judge the case is not complex and there’s no need for a lengthy delay. They rejected insinuations by the defense that Trump was charged because he’s running for president. Prosecutor David Harbach said there was “no political influence.”

“No one in our team is a political appointee,” he said, noting that they are all career prosecutors.

It was the first time arguments were held in front of Cannon, who has been under increased scrutiny since a court ruling last year that critics said was unduly favorable to Trump. Trump’s co-defendant, Walt Nauta, attended the hearing, but Trump did not. He traveled Tuesday to Iowa, where he was taping a town hall with Fox News host Sean Hannity.

Trump and Nauta pleaded not guilty before a federal judge in Miami to a 38-count indictment that accuses them of conspiring to hide classified documents from Justice Department investigators that were taken from the White House to Mar-a-Lago at the end of Trump’s time in office in January 2021.

The court date unfolded hours after Trump disclosed that he had received a target letter from the Justice Department in a separate investigation into efforts by him and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Such letters often precede an indictment.

Harbach told the judge that Trump’s legal team has repeatedly suggested he should be treated differently because he’s running for president.

“He should be treated like anybody else,” Harbach said. “He is not different than any other busy, important person.”

But Todd Blanche, one of Trump’s lawyers, pushed back against the idea that this case be treated like any other. Trump’s team said it believes the circumstances to ensure a fair trial would improve after the election.

“It is intellectually dishonest to say this case is like any other case,” Blanche said. “It is not.”

Chris Kise, a Trump lawyer, asked the judge to consider the amount of attention the case was receiving and whether finding impartial jurors would be possible before an election. But Cannon said she wanted to first focus on discovery and set a concrete “road map” for the case.

Kise suggested meeting again in November to discuss scheduling the trial. As the hearing was about to end, Kise said a trial date of mid-November 2024 would be preferred.

Cannon also presided over a lawsuit that the Trump team filed last year over the August 2022 FBI search of Mar-a-Lago. Cannon drew criticism and second-guessing from legal experts for granting Trump’s request for a special master to conduct an independent review of the classified documents removed by the FBI from Mar-a-Lago.

A three-judge federal appeals court later overruled that order and said she had lacked the authority for such a ruling.

___

Tucker reported from Washington and Richer reported from Boston.

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5090690 2023-07-19T08:14:13+00:00 2023-07-19T08:14:20+00:00
Trump lawyers ask judge to postpone trial without setting a date in classified documents case https://www.pilotonline.com/2023/07/11/trump-lawyers-ask-judge-to-postpone-trial-without-setting-a-date-in-classified-documents-case/ Tue, 11 Jul 2023 15:17:14 +0000 https://www.pilotonline.com/?p=5076568&preview=true&preview_id=5076568 MIAMI (AP) — Lawyers for former President Donald Trump are asking a judge to postpone his criminal trial without setting a new date as he stands accused of illegally hoarding classified documents at his Florida estate.

In a late Monday filing, Trump’s defense attorneys said the case was “extraordinary,” with a large volume of documents and footage to be reviewed as the former president leads the race for the Republican nomination to unseat President Joe Biden. They cited challenges to select jurors and concerns about whether he would get a fair trial if scheduled before the November 2024 election.

“The government’s request to begin a trial of this magnitude within six months of indictment is unreasonable, telling, and would result in a miscarriage of justice,” said the document filed by Chris Kise, one of Trump’s lawyers.

The Justice Department had previously proposed to set the trial date for Dec. 11.

Earlier on Monday, Trump’s lawyers filed paperwork saying they agreed with federal prosecutors to delay to next week a pretrial hearing that specifically discusses how classified information is handled in court.

The hearing to discuss the Classified Information Procedures Act had previously been set for Friday. But an attorney for Trump’s valet Walt Nauta, who was charged alongside the former president, said he has another bench trial this week in Washington preventing him from appearing Friday in South Florida.

The attorneys said in their filing that they can appear at the pretrial conference to go over the 1980 law on July 18, adding they had also checked with U.S. attorneys on moving the date.

The judge in the case, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, agreed to the new date on Tuesday.

Trump and Nauta were charged in a 38-count indictment with conspiring to hide classified documents at Mar-a-Lago from federal investigators. Both men have pleaded not guilty.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing and has slammed the prosecution as an effort to hurt his bid to reclaim the White House in 2024.

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5076568 2023-07-11T11:17:14+00:00 2023-07-11T11:33:43+00:00