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Former President Donald Trump has been held in contempt of court in New York, Elon Musk buys Twitter and vows to protect free speech and unlocks Tucker Carlson’s account, DeSantis creates an election police force and more.
A New York judge held former president Donald Trump in contempt of court on Monday, finding him $10,000 per day for failing to comply with the subpoena requiring him to turn over documents to investigators from the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James who are conducting a financial fraud probe, CBS reported.
“Mr. Trump, I know you take your business seriously, and I take mine seriously; I hereby hold you in civil contempt and fine you $10,000 a day,” said New York Supreme Court judge Arthur Engoron. The judge’s order will be filed on Tuesday. The NY AG asked for the contempt finding after Trump failed to meet a court-ordered March 31 deadline to turn over the subpoenaed material. Trump claimed he did not have any of the documents demanded in the civil probe.
However, Judge Engoron ruled there was no evidence that Trump had conducted a “proper, thorough search” for items relevant to the subpoena, ABC reported. The judge added what Trump’s attorney offered as evidence of compliance was “woefully insufficient.”
Twitter accepted a $44 billion offer by Elon Musk to purchase the company on Monday. After the purchase, Musk embedded a graphic with text with his immediate plans for the social media platform.
“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” said Mr. Musk. “I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spambots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential. I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”
Just hours after the purchase, the Twitter account of TV host Tucker Carlson was reinstated, the Daily Mail reported. He had previously been banned from the platform for referring to Assistant Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine, who is a transgender woman, as a man.
On Monday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an overhaul bill to establish a new election police force, giving his administration a new method for probing election crimes. Florida has now become one of the first states in the nation with a designated unit focused on election fraud, CNN reported.
“I don’t think there is any other place in the country where you should have more confidence that your vote counts than in the state of Florida,” DeSantis said at a press conference.
FBI Director Christpher Wray spoke out against the unprecedented number of murders of police officers across the United States during an interview with 60 Minutes on Sunday, Fox reports. According to Wray, murders of police officers rose 59% in 2021, while the overall US murder rate rose 29%. In 2021, 73 police officers were murdered, a right which equates to nearly “one every five days, according to Wray.
“We’re seeing more and more juveniles committing a violent crime, and that’s certainly an issue,” Wray said. “We’re seeing an alarming frequency of some of the worst of the worst getting back out on the streets.”
As of April 1, according to the National Fraternal Order of Police, 101 police officers had been shot in the first three months of 2022.
