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Congressman Kim wins Democratic Senate primary in New Jersey

Trenton, New Jersey — Representative Andy Kim won the Democratic Senate primary in the U.S. state of New Jersey on Tuesday, putting him in a strong position for the general election in the blue-leaning state. The win comes a day after Democratic Senator Bob Menendez filed to run as an independent amid his federal corruption trial. 

Kim, a three-term congressman who launched his campaign after charges against Menendez were announced last year, rose to the top in the state’s dominant political party over a relatively short period. A former Obama national security official, he defeated an incumbent Republican in a 2018 House race and won a court ruling that toppled a unique-to-New Jersey system widely viewed as giving political bosses influence over who wins primaries. 

“Our win today is a stunning victory for a people-powered movement that mobilized against corruption and stood up to the machine politics of New Jersey,” Kim said in a statement. 

Kim’s victory comes after a bruising start to the primary, when a battle between him and New Jersey first lady Tammy Murphy began to take shape. Murphy, a first-time candidate and the spouse of Governor Phil Murphy, bowed out of the contest, saying she did not want to engage in a negative campaign against a fellow Democrat. On Tuesday, Kim defeated labor leader Patricia Campos-Medina and longtime grassroots organizer Lawrence Hamm, who remained on the ballot. 

Menendez, a three-term incumbent senator, declined this year to seek re-election as a Democrat but filed Monday in Trenton to run as an independent. He has said he hopes to be cleared of the charges this summer. 

Democrats’ tight hold on control of the Senate means they can hardly afford a competitive race in a state widely viewed as safe for the party. It’s unclear how the trial of Menendez will end and how his candidacy could affect the race. Republicans are eager to exploit his run as a wedge to divide the Democratic vote. 
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Report: Hate, extremism on the rise ahead of US election

A report released Tuesday says hate and extremism in the United States rose in 2023, with record numbers of white nationalists and anti-LGBTQ groups trying to undermine the country’s inclusive democracy. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias breaks down the researchers’ findings and the implications for the November presidential election.
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What are political action committees?

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Charges filed in Wisconsin against attorneys, aide who worked for Trump in 2020

Madison, Wisconsin — Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul filed felony forgery charges Tuesday against two attorneys and an aide who helped submit paperwork falsely saying that former President Donald Trump had won the battleground state in 2020.

The charges were filed against attorneys Kenneth Chesebro, 62, and Jim Troupis, 70, and former Trump aide Mike Roman, 51, who allegedly delivered Wisconsin’s fake elector paperwork to a Pennsylvania congressman’s staffer in order to get them to then-Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6, 2021.

All three are due in Dane County Circuit Court on Sept. 19, according to court records. They each face one felony count punishable by up to six years in prison and fines of up to $10,000.

Troupis and Chesebro did not return voicemail messages left Tuesday. Roman did not have an attorney listed in court records.

Kaul, a Democrat, has faced pressure to bring action against the 10 fake electors, who have yet to be charged with any criminal wrongdoing. He has previously suggested that he was relying on federal investigators while also not ruling out a state probe.

Kaul didn’t rule out filing more charges, saying that the investigation is ongoing.

“Our approach has been focusing on following the facts where they lead,” he said at a news conference.

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers offered a one-word response to news of the charges being filed: “Good.”

Electors are people appointed to represent voters in presidential elections. The winner of the popular vote in each state determines which party’s electors are sent to the Electoral College, which meets in December after the election to certify the outcome.

The fake elector efforts are central to an August federal indictment filed against Trump alleging he tried to overturn results of the 2020 election. Federal prosecutors, investigating his conduct related to the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot, have also said the scheme originated in Wisconsin. Trump also faces charges in Georgia and has denied wrongdoing.

Michigan and Nevada have also criminally charged fake electors.

Chesebro and Roman were among the 18 people indicted along with Trump in August in a sprawling racketeering indictment in Georgia. They’re accused of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to illegally overturn the 2020 election in that state.

Chesebro in October pleaded guilty to one felony charge of conspiracy to commit filing false documents after reaching a deal with Georgia prosecutors. Roman has pleaded not guilty to racketeering and conspiracy charges related to a plan to have Republican electors meet and cast Electoral College votes for Trump even though Biden had won Georgia.

The 10 Wisconsin electors, Chesebro and Troupis, who was Trump’s attorney in Wisconsin, all settled a civil lawsuit that was brought against them last year.

Documents released as part of those settlements showed that the strategy in Wisconsin replicated moves in six other swing states.

The complaint goes into detail largely citing those documents, interviews and testimony given to Congress about how the fake elector scheme was hatched.

The complaint details how Chesebro emailed a memo on Nov. 18, 2020, to Troupis and others arguing that electors representing Trump should meet on Dec. 14, 2020, to preserve the Trump-Pence electoral slate in case a court or Legislature would determine them to be the winners.

Chesebro argued in a subsequent memo that the Trump electors could be counted by Congress if court challenges to his loss were still pending. Troupis sent both memos to the Trump White House, according to the complaint.

On Dec. 9, 2020, Chesebro emailed Troupis a memo with instructions for the Dec. 14, 2020, elector meetings. Two days later, Chesebro emailed Trump aide Roman details of the plan, the complaint said.

During or around the time of the Dec. 14, 2020, meeting, Chesebro sent a message to Troupis and Roman that said, “WI meeting of the ‘real’ electors is a go!!!,” the complaint said. Troupis responded with a “thumbs up” emoji, the complaint said.

The complaint also details how the fake elector slate was delivered to Chesebro from Wisconsin to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 5, 2021, by Alesha Guenther, a law student working part-time at the Republican Party of Wisconsin. Roman told Guenther to deliver the paperwork only to Chesebro.

“5 mins until I make the drop,” Guenther texted at one point, according to the complaint. “I feel like a drug dealer.”

Once Chesebro was given the documents, he emailed Roman to let him know he had them.

Roman then arranged for a congressional staff member to meet Chesebro and take the document. Chesebro sent Roman a message confirming that it had been done, the complaint said.

Trump lost Wisconsin to Biden, a Democrat, by fewer than 21,000 votes. Trump carried Wisconsin by a similar margin in 2016.

Government and outside investigations have uniformly found there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud that could have swung the 2020 election. But Trump has continued to spread falsehoods about the election, particularly in Wisconsin.
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‘Guilty’ verdict fuels Trump, Biden campaign rhetoric

Former President Donald Trump weighed in Sunday on the possibility of being sentenced to jail next month after his conviction for falsifying business records. The ‘guilty’ verdict is already being used by both the Trump and Biden campaigns to fire up their respective supporters. But swaying undecided voters will be trickier, analysts say. Veronica Balderas Iglesias has the details.
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China’s netizen nationalists hope Trump’s conviction brings unrest

Washington — The conviction of former U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday for falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment ahead of the 2016 election quickly became one of the hottest topics on Chinese social media.

Trump’s conviction became the most searched topic on Chinese social media platform Weibo and search engine Baidu on Friday morning in China. On short-video platform Douyin, TikTok’s China-based sister application, it also landed among the five most searched topics.

While views varied, many Chinese netizens posted they hope the verdict by a New York jury, which found Trump guilty on 34 felony counts, will cause unrest in the U.S. between the former president’s supporters and opponents.

Although as president, Trump took a series of punitive measures against China in areas such as technology and trade, some Chinese netizens felt that his conviction was unfair and repeated unfounded claims by his supporters that the verdict was political persecution from U.S. President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party.

“The Democrats’ tactics are really low,” one Weibo user under the name Little Rabbit and Evil Cake commented on the news.

Other netizens stood by the guilty verdict, declaring Trump’s conviction his own doing.

“If you do too much evil, you will be killed by yourself,” one user under the name Gray Wolf with White Fur wrote on Weibo.

But many Chinese netizens were less interested in the verdict than the unrest they hoped it would cause in the U.S.

“Trump supporters quickly mobilize and occupy Congress,” said one Weibo user in a call for a repeat of the January 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters trying to stop the 2020 election from being certified.

Those who stormed the Capitol were repeating Trump’s claim, without evidence, that Biden cheated in the election.

A Chinese nationalist commentator named Lu Kewen insulted Trump’s supporters in a post that hoped they resort to violence.

“Put Trump in jail and wait for the fuming rednecks to draw their guns,” he wrote.

His was not the only call for violence in the U.S. that as of Friday morning had not been removed from Chinese social media, despite the ability of Beijing’s Great Firewall internet censors to quickly delete posts by China’s own critics and domestic calls for unrest.

“Fast forward to the new Civil War. I want to see rivers of blood!” another user under the name Wearing Red Clothes wrote.

But there were also more analytical comments from Chinese netizens.

Chinese economist Hong Hao posted on his Weibo that Trump’s trial is not conducive to the stability of American society.

“The biggest issue in the United States right now is not allowing a criminal to run for president. Rather, politicizing the judicial process in these Trump cases has shaken the foundation of the rule of law in the United States,” he said.

During the 2016 election, Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid adult film actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 in exchange for her silence about a sexual encounter she said she had with Trump in 2006. Such payments are not illegal and are called hush money.

Trump was found guilty of falsifying company business records to conceal the reimbursement paid to Cohen. Trump denies the encounter with Daniels or that anything illegal occurred.

Trump on Thursday railed against the jury’s verdict and said, without presenting any evidence, that the trial was rigged.

“We have a judge who’s highly conflicted. He happens to be corrupt. It’s the worst confliction that anybody’s seen. Nobody has ever seen anything like it,” he said.

A spokesperson for the White House Counsel’s Office responded, saying only, “We respect the rule of law.”

Trump is scheduled to be sentenced on July 11, just days before the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Despite the conviction, Trump is expected to be the Republican presidential nominee for the election on November 5.

Trump on Friday said he would appeal the conviction and repeated unfounded claims that the trial was rigged.

Biden on Friday said the verdict showed “the American principle that no one is above the law was reaffirmed” and said it is “reckless, is dangerous, it’s irresponsible for anyone to say this (trial) was rigged just because they don’t like the verdict.”

When asked at a regular Chinese Foreign Ministry briefing Friday if Trump’s conviction would prevent him from visiting China, if reelected in November, or present any other difficulties for China-American relations, spokesperson Mao Ning declined to comment, calling it a U.S. domestic affair.
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Trump vows to appeal felony convictions  

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Breaking down the 2024 US presidential election campaign funds

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