Happy Wednesday!

Today’s Brew could be a felony in Alvin Bragg’s New York.

Closing Arguments in Trump Trial: You Should Convict Trump Because — Even Though There’s No Direct Evidence of It — He Did What Hillary Clinton Did in SPADES. 

The prosecution and defense made their closing arguments Tuesday in Donald Trump’s New York “hush money” trial. Seems the defense could be summed up in one sentence: “Are you really going to put a former president of the United States in prison on the word of convicted perjurer Michael Cohen? Whose testimony was contradicted not only by the documented evidence, but the prosecution’s own witnesses?” Defense attorney’s called him “GLOAT” — the Greatest Liar of All Time.

The judge screamed at the defense, calling Trump’s team “outrageous” for mentioning prison.

The prosecution’s long summation? “Sure, we’ll call something a crime even though it is not a crime, and even though there’s no evidence Trump even knew about it, let alone knew the non-crime was a crime or committed the non-crime you’re saying was a crime. We are making sure you have enough smoke to call it a crime. Indeed, a ‘subversion of democracy.’ Stormy Daniels is just a hard-working mom trying to make an honest living extorting money from Trump, and Michael Cohen is just a sad sack who has every right to steal from and then and make money from hating Trump. After all, c’mon. We all know Trump is a bad man. A crooked man. An evil man who is going to destroy democracy. Not just a criminal, but Hitler. And you have the power to stop Hitler!”

Jonathan Turley offered his own summation:

In the end, we are all standing on that wobbly stool when the government seeks to convict people without evidence or even a clear crime. If we allow a conviction, it is more than a stool that will collapse in this Manhattan courtroom.

Is there any more grotesque a mockery of justice than to accuse Trump of “subverting democracy” because someone made a private payment to a porn star in the same year — an election year — when Hillary Clinton spent countless millions of taxpayer dollars to craft, sell, and conspire with the media and government officials in the DOD, DOJ, FBI, CIA, State Department, and the Obama-Biden White House to shove the Trump-Russia hoax onto the American electorate?

Is there anything more hysterical than Trump being criminally accused of sweeping an affair under a rug to impact the race against the woman famous for quashing the “bimbo eruptions” in her husband’s presidential contest?

Desperate Tampering in “Freakout” Times

The Biden campaign all but confessed that Trump’s New York trial is all about politics when they held a press conference outside the courthouse during closing arguments yesterday. But things did not go as planned. As I mentioned in yesterday’s Al’s Afternoon Tea, the Biden-Harris campaign is so inept, they’ve managed to get New Yorkers to jeer and curse Robert DeNiro. 

J6 Capitol Hill police officer turned anti-Trump crusader Harry Dunn was there, along with another J6 police officer. The Blaze exposed, in detail, how Dunn lied about his J6 experience in order to help put away protesters for years. Biden’s DOJ responded by filing criminal charges against the reporter who broke the story, Steve Baker.

Beware: Dunn may well claim Trump came out of the courthouse and pelted him with Trump water bottles before running over him with Trump Force One.

Why were Joe Biden’s proxies outside the courthouse talking about J6 and the “threat to democracy” Trump poses? Some suggest it was to remind the nonsequestered jury that “Orange Man Bad.” Another possibility? Having J6 cops there is a good reminder to the jury of what happens to people who act against Biden’s interests.  

“If I vote to acquit Trump, will FBI agents raid my house? Will the IRS audit me? Will someone cap me like they did Ashli Babbit?”

Why did the campaign seem so desperate in doing this? Because, Politico reports, they are desperate. Its headline Tuesday morning: “Dems in full-blown ‘freak out’ over Biden.”

Nearly five months from the election, anxiety has morphed into palpable trepidation, according to more than a dozen party leaders and operatives. And the gap between what Democrats will say on TV or in print, and what they’ll text their friends, has only grown as worries have surged about Biden’s prospects.

Judge in Document Case Makes Short Work of Smith Effort to Gag Trump

At least we’re seeing a little bit of judicial integrity in Trump’s classified-documents case in Florida. Judge Aileen Cannon made short work of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s demand Friday night to gag Trump for talking about the armed-response provision in the Mar-a-Lago raid. Cannon rejected it, and admonished Smith for filing it in a manner that gave the defense no proper time to respond.

Julie Kelly notes that Cannon didn’t just smack Smith down for breaking the rules again — she threatened him with sanctions if he keeps at it.

BREAKING: Judge Cannon, as expected, denies Jack Smith's proposed gag order, warns sanctions could be next if he keeps violating the rules. pic.twitter.com/T2Yxb1zvm6

— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) May 28, 2024

Fighting Back: Federal Appellate Court Revives Religious Liberty Case Against Mayo Clinic for Forcing Jab

A lawsuit alleging the Mayo Clinic illegally fired five employees for refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine on religious grounds must go forward, a federal appellate court ruled Friday. A three-judge panel of the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declared unanimously that a lower court judge erred in tossing the case, saying the plaintiffs had not connected their objections to Mayo’s COVID-19 mandates to their sincerely held Christian beliefs.

“The district court erred by emphasizing that many Christians elect to receive the vaccine,” U.S. Circuit Judge Duane Benton wrote. “Beliefs do not have to be uniform across all members of a religion or acceptable, logical, consistent, or comprehensible to others.”

COVID Rules for Thee, Not for Me: The Case of Lady Gaga

Remember how celebrities and politicians lectured us about masks during COVID? You were a callous grandma killer if you weren’t wearing one. Singer Lady Gaga was among those harping the party line. In 2020, she stood onstage at an awards show dressed like Baphomet’s kooky younger singer, telling the viewing audience to “wear a mask – it’s a sign of respect.”  

Satanist Lady Gaga told the peasants to “wear a mask — it’s a sign of respect” in 2020.

Now the hypocrite singer admits she performed five concerts with COVID, wearing no mask and got up close and personal with fans in the audience exposing them all to the virus.

Rules for… https://t.co/YvHXvI1NzI pic.twitter.com/hb33eA1ySb

— LIZ CROKIN (@LizCrokin) May 25, 2024

Fast-forward to last week. During a Q&A session Thursday for her new HBO concert special, Gaga laughed over how she performed five concerts while infected with COVID, wore no mask, and “shared it with everyone on my team.” She performed because she didn’t want to let down her fans. “And the way that I saw it also is that the fans were all putting themselves in harm’s way every day, coming to the show.”

Along The Stream

Dr. Michael Brown returns with “Germany Minimizes the Horror of Child Porn.” He’ll be back this afternoon with “How Should We Respond to European Recognition of a Palestinian State?”

 

Al Perrotta is The Stream’s Washington bureau chief, coauthor with John Zmirak of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration, and coauthor of the counterterrorism memoir Hostile Intent: Protecting Yourself Against Terrorism.