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House GOP Exploded in Outrage Over Trump Trial Delay Denial. Then the Judge Got a Bomb Threat.
House Republicans, especially GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik and Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, exploded in outrage Wednesday over New York Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron’s refusal to delay Thursday’s closing arguments in Letitia James’ civil business fraud case against Donald Trump.
Then a bomb threat against Judge Engoron’s Long Island home was sent to a local newspaper, which called police at 5:30 Thursday morning, CNBC reported.
Citing the death of the ex-president’s mother-in-law, Trump’s attorneys asked Judge Engoron to delay closing arguments by “nearly three weeks,” CNBC has also reported. That death, which Melania Trump announced on Tuesday night, did not appear to affect Trump’s campaign plans. He attended a Fox News town hall Wednesday night, and, according to a Tuesday ABC News report, is slated to hold two campaign events on Saturday, and one on Sunday.
Trump is not required to attend closing arguments, but nevertheless is in the courtroom Thursday.
Meanwhile on Wednesday, House Republicans viciously attacked Judge Engoron via social media.
“President Trump’s attorney asked to postpone closing arguments a couple of days because of the death of First Lady @MELANIATRUMP’s mother so that he can spend time with his wife. Judge Engoron rejected that request,” House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik wrote at 2:19 PM, incorrectly describing the amount of time Trump had requested.
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Stefanik, who recently called the hundreds of people convicted on charges related to the January 6 insurrection “hostages,” concluded by labeling Judge Engoron’s decision, “Despicable.”
That “tweet” went viral, receiving over 750,000 views in well-under 24 hours.
Just three minutes later, another member of House GOP Leadership, Conference Secretary Lisa McClain wrote: “This is unbelievably cruel that the judge refuses to delay closing arguments because of the death of Trump’s mother-in-law. Any other court would allow for a delay.”
U.S. Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN), a far-right Republican, again, just minutes later wrote: “President Trump’s mother-in-law passed away and the radical leftist judge in NYC is refusing to delay closing arguments a couple days to accommodate the Trump family. This is all about HATRED of President Trump and everything he stands for!”
Exactly one hour after Stefanik’s post, yet another far-right Republican, U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX), erupted in anger, saying, “Can our ‘justice system’ stoop any lower? President Trump’s mother-in-law sadly passed away and leftist Judge Engoron just denied Trump’s request to postpone closing arguments. May First Lady Melania’s mother rest in peace and God, help our country!!”
Wednesday night, Chairman Jordan sent an angry screed that has received well-over a half-million views: “President Trump’s mother-in-law passed away. He asked Judge Engoron to delay closing arguments in his civil case because of it. The judge said no. Disgusting,”
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Police have yet to determine who sent the bomb threat or what their motivation or political affiliation is. They reportedly found no bomb after arriving at Judge Engoron’s home.
In his exclusive report on the bomb threat to Judge Engoron’s home, The Daily Beast’s Jose Pagliery noted that the “trial was already marred with the violence that has become synonymous with the MAGA movement, as Trumpists flooded the courthouse with death threats aimed at the judge and his law clerk, Allison Greenfield.”
“According to a person briefed on the matter, more than half a dozen police cars and a bomb squad rushed to his home Thursday morning,” Pagliery also reported. “The move was perceived as a blatant attempt to delay the trial’s closing arguments, which promised to be a dramatic finish to a case that threatens to destroy the former president’s real estate empire on the grounds that he committed bank fraud for more than a decade.”
On social media Pagliery offered additional insight: “The fascist MAGA threat to law and order continues,” he observed.
“It’s easy to lose track of the rising MAGA threat on display at Donald Trump’s bank fraud trial,” Pagliery added. “He has directed the insatiable anger of his cult on this judge & law clerk. Then assassination threats to them both, bomb calls to the court & now this.”
MSNBC anchor and legal analyst Katie Phang, responding to the news of the bomb threat wrote: “On the morning that closing arguments are due to begin in the @NewYorkStateAG’s civil fraud trial against Donald Trump, the presiding judge, Justice Engoron, receives a bomb threat. There are no coincidences.”
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
