TV News LIES

President Donald Trump engaged in a mortgage arrangement that closely resembles loans he has called potentially criminal "mortgage fraud" in accusations leveled at several of his targets, according to a ProPublica report.

In late 1993 and early 1994, Trump claimed in mortgages that two properties he owned in Florida were each his primary residence, despite living in New York at the time, according to the report from the investigative journalism nonprofit. It cited contemporaneous news accounts and an interview with Trump's longtime real estate agent.

In a statement to USA TODAY, a White House official said the two mortgages are from the same lender and it is "illogical to believe that the same lender would agree to defraud itself."

"This is yet another desperate attempt by the Left wing media to disparage President Trump with false allegations and to distract the public from his historic first year in office," the official said. "President Trump has never, or will ever, break the law."

In recent months, members of the Trump administration have leveled mortgage-fraud accusations at several critics or targets of the president.

Trump himself sent a letter to Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, alleging she signed documents within weeks of each other stating that properties in Michigan and Georgia would each be her primary residence the next year. He said it was "inconceivable" that she wasn't aware of the first commitment when she made the second, and "impossible" that she planned to honor both.

However, according to the ProPublica report, Trump pledged that the second property in Florida would be his primary residence just seven weeks after pledging the first would be. Even supposing the pledges in the 1990s documents amounted to a crime, the legal deadline for bringing mortgage fraud charges has expired.

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A federal judge on Saturday temporarily barred prosecutors from using evidence seized from a key figure in the dismissed criminal case against former FBI Director James Comey, as the Department of Justice weighs new charges, court documents showed.

Daniel Richman, a law professor and former attorney for Comey, had filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleging prosecutors violated his Fourth Amendment rights by seizing material from his electronic devices during investigations in 2019 and 2020.

In granting a temporary restraining order on Saturday, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly wrote that “Richman is likely to succeed on the merits of his claim that the government has violated his Fourth Amendment right ... by retaining a complete copy of all files on his personal computer ... and searching that image without a warrant.”

Kollar-Kotelly, who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton, ordered the government to “identify, segregate, and secure” the materials from Richman’s devices, prohibit their access without court approval, and comply by 12:00 p.m. ET on Monday, December 8.

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Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is hitting back at President Donald Trump’s repeated comments targeting the state’s Somali immigrant community.

During a press conference on Dec. 4 announcing Minnesota's new budget forecast, Walz called the president's series of social media posts and public remarks "vile" and "racist lies."

“This creates danger,” Walz reportedly said during the news conference. “We know how these things go, they start with taunts, they turn to violence.”

In recent weeks, Trump has zeroed in on swaths of Somali people in the state, issuing several insults toward Somalia, the Somali-American immigrant population and some of Minnesota's Democratic lawmakers.

Starting on Thanksgiving, Nov. 27, Trump posted about a massive fraud and money laundering investigation in the state, in which a group of people allegedly perpetuated what the state's district attorney's office called the "largest Covid-19 fraud scheme in the country." Many of those accused in the scheme, though not all, are of Somali descent.

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The Trump administration has removed Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth from next year's calendar of entrance fee-free days for national parks and added President Trump's birthday to the list, according to the National Park Service, as the administration continues to push back against a reckoning of the country's racist history on federal lands.

In addition to Trump's birthday — which coincides with Flag Day (June 14) — the updated calendar of fee-free dates includes the 110th anniversary of the NPS (August 25), Constitution Day (September 17) and President Teddy Roosevelt's birthday (October 27). The changes will take effect starting January 1.

Non-U.S. residents will still be required to pay entrance fees on those dates under the new "America-first pricing" policy. At 11 of some of the country's most popular national parks, international visitors will be charged an extra $100, on top of the standard entrance fee, and the annual pass for non-residents will go up to $250. The annual pass for residents will be $80.

The move follows a July executive order from the White House that called to increase fees applied to non-American visitors to national parks and grant citizens and residents "preferential treatment with respect to any remaining recreational access rules, including permitting or lottery rules."

The Department of the Interior, which oversees NPS, called the new fee-exempted dates "patriotic fee-free days," in an announcement that lauded the changes as "Trump's commitment to making national parks more accessible, more affordable and more efficient for the American people."

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In this rural town just across the Massachusetts line, the Leavitt family runs a used-car dealership, with hulking work trucks lined up in the front lot. Inside the lobby, a giant TV blares Fox News, and a framed photo features President Donald Trump, posing with owners Bob and Erin Leavitt.

A New Hampshire family once best known for selling cars and ice cream, the Leavitts were thrust into the national spotlight this year when their 27-year-old daughter, Karoline, was named White House press secretary. Ten months later, the administration’s war on illegal immigration landed in the Leavitts’ backyard.

Bruna Ferreira — a Brazilian immigrant who shares an 11-year-old child with Karoline’s brother Michael Leavitt — was arrested by ICE in mid-November. Ferreira, 33, remains in custody in Louisiana. The boy lives with his father in New Hampshire.

Ferreira’s sister and lawyer had claimed there was no animosity between Ferreira and the Leavitts. But court records, police reports and family text chains reviewed by WBUR tell a vastly different story — one of a bitter custody battle, years-old allegations of a threat to call immigration authorities, and concerns for the well-being of the child when his mother was staying in a vacant mansion in Cohasset.

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The Biden administration withheld data from the public on the risks of myocarditis from the Covid vaccine, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary claimed Thursday — a bold accusation that clashes with years of public statements from federal health officials.

“We have done more to study myocarditis and to go back and look at deaths of people, of children from the Covid vaccine,” Makary told NBC News in an interview. “Internal data submitted on myocarditis, we found that the Biden administration was sitting on data on myocarditis in young people, and it was not made public.”

Makary’s claim comes less than a week after Vinay Prasad, the FDA’s top vaccine regulator, told agency staff in a memo that an internal review found that at least 10 children died “after and because of receiving” the Covid shot. Prasad suggested — without evidence to support his claim — that the child deaths were tied to myocarditis.

Myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle, is a known — but small — risk of the mRNA Covid vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna, information that federal agencies have discussed openly since 2021.

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