Trump’s Newest Stooge Is an Ex-Leader of This Crime Syndicate

Donald Trump’s hush-money trial has drawn quite a few of his high-profile supporters, including members of Congress and those hoping to be his vice presidential running mate. Among them also happens to be a onetime leader of the Hells Angels gang.

Chuck Zito, who helped to found the New York Nomads chapter of the outlaw motorcycle gang, was among Trump’s entourage on Monday at the Manhattan courthouse where his trial is being held.

Zito has a criminal record, serving prison time from 1985 to 1998 for drug conspiracy charges. His chapter of the Hells Angels has also been linked to the Gambino Mafia crime family. And the Justice Department considers Hells Angels to be an organized crime syndicate.

Why would Trump want him at his trial in New York? Zito doesn’t have a political career. These days, he’s more famous for his occasional acting. However, The New York Times points out that Trump has an old association with bikers going back to his 2016 campaign, when he addressed a Washington, D.C., biker rally. There’s even a Bikers for Trump group, which took part in several Trump rallies alleging that the 2020 election was stolen.

Zito isn’t the only Trump supporter with a criminal record who appeared at the courtroom on Monday: Former New York Police Department Commissioner Bernard Kerik, who went to prison on tax charges and was later pardoned by Trump, also showed up for moral support.

And while Zito’s mob ties might appear bad on the surface, Trump has ties to organized crime himself going back decades. Legal experts have expressed concern for the safety of jurors in Trump’s trials. And the former president has even been accused of using “an obvious Mafia tactic” to get around his gag order in the case by having his supporters speak for him. Zito’s attendance in many ways is a boost to Trump’s ego: He has an infamous tough guy show up in his corner at a trial that could send him to prison.

The Republican presidential nominee is facing 34 felony charges for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime by using his former fixer, Michael Cohen, to pay off adult film actress Stormy Daniels to cover up an affair before the 2016 election. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Rudy Giuliani shitposted himself into an indictment Friday night as he left his 80th birthday party in Florida.

The former Trump lawyer spent weeks mocking the Arizona attorney general as he evaded receiving the subpoena for his alleged participation in a scheme to overturn the 2020 election, Rolling Stone reports, but his posts finally caught up to him.

Richie Taylor, communications director for the Arizona attorney general, told Rolling Stone authorities were able to locate Giuliani in Florida due to his constant livestreams: “Our agents traveled to Florida [on Friday]. We knew he was there because of his nightly live video streams at his residence.”

During a Friday night birthday bash to ring in the brand new octogenarian, whose birthday is May 28, Giuliani posted a photo of himself surrounded by a gaggle of cookie-cutter blonde women beaming through Botox. He taunted the Arizona attorney general, writing, “If Arizona authorities can’t find me by tomorrow morning: 1. They must dismiss the indictment; 2. They must concede they can’t count votes.”

Hours later, Arizona attorney general Kris Mayes quote-tweeted his post announcing authorities with the Arizona attorney general’s office had served Giuliani his subpoena.

“The final defendant was served moments ago. Nobody is above the law,” Mayes wrote. Giuliani, seemingly attempting to evade the digital smackdown, soon deleted his post. The attorney general screenshot it and posted it following her announcement Giuliani had been served.

“The agents took the opportunity to serve [Giuliani] when he was out at a friend’s nearby house as he left his birthday party,” Taylor told Rolling Stone. Ted Goodman, a spokesperson for Giuliani, confirmed to Rolling Stone that the former Mussolini of Manhattan was served and claimed, “He was unfazed and enjoyed an incredible evening with hundreds of people, from all walks of life, who love and respect him for his contributions to society.”

“It was so goddamn irritating,” an unnamed Arizona government source told Rolling Stone. “We knew he’d get served eventually, but it seemed like he was playing these games just because he felt like it.”

Giuliani is expected to appear in Arizona court Tuesday alongside 17 co-defendants. A spokesman for Mayes told AP that Giuliani is charged with felony counts of conspiracy, fraud, and forgery. Trump is listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the case. The Arizona attorney general’s office alleges Giuliani, former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, Trump attorney Boris Epshteyn, and others “schemed to prevent the lawful transfer of the presidency to keep Unindicted Co-conspirator 1 in office against the will of Arizona voters.”

At the rate Giuliani’s going, he’ll be celebrating his next birthday in jail.

On Monday morning, Donald Trump appeared to undermine one of his main defenses by confirming payments to Michael Cohen that he previously claimed he knew nothing about.

Speaking before his hush-money trial, Trump told a crowd of reporters and onlookers about how a payment to his former fixer and attorney was “marked down in the book as a legal expense.”

“I had nothing to do with it. A bookkeeper put it down as a legal expense,” Trump said, before seeming to contradict himself. “This is why I’m here, because we called it a legal expense, a payment to a lawyer.”

The “we” at the end of Trump’s mini-rant would appear to contradict earlier assertions that he knew nothing about a payment made to Cohen that is at the core of the charges against the former president. While the majority of the case hinges on the falsification of business records, Trump’s legal team has used as its main defense the premise that Trump was unaware of the whole thing.

Trump is accused of paying off adult film actress Stormy Daniels to cover up their affair before the 2016 election with Cohen’s help, and the payment Trump referred to was a reimbursement to Cohen.

Trump’s legal team has claimed that the payment was a normal fee to Cohen, even though Cohen has claimed he did not have a retainer agreement while working for Trump. The former president’s confirmation of the payment to Cohen on Monday is backed up by secret recordings made by Cohen, entered into evidence early in the trial, that confirm Trump knew all about paying off Daniels. Cohen has testified that the former president was a “micromanger” whom he spoke to “every single day, and multiple times a day.”

Trump faces 34 felony counts for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Trump’s untailored blue suit, white shirt, and extra-long red tie have become a symbol of the former president’s first criminal trial—so much so that the sycophants vying for his favor have all adopted the same look.

On Monday, more of Trump’s allies appeared outside of the New York courthouse hosting his hush-money trial, all donning the same outfit and looking more like a small army of minions than independently minded authorities. Monday’s batch included former NYC Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik, former Georgia State Representative Vernon Jones, South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, and Representative Eric Burlison—all sporting the same blue suit and red tie that is the trademark of their party’s chief.

Over the last week, dozens of the country’s biggest lawmakers and politicians have shown up outside of the criminal court to visually represent their solidarity alongside the criminally charged presidential nominee, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, former North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, and Senators Tim Scott, J.D. Vance, and Tommy Tuberville.

Biotech investor Vivek Ramaswamy, RNC co-chair Lara Trump, and Eric Trump and two Republican representatives also donned the outfit on Tuesday to film a campaign ad for the presumptive GOP presidential nominee.

But even though his surrogates have referred to Trump as a “style icon,” fashion critics don’t quite agree. Instead, they argue that Trump’s staple courtroom attire is both too heavy and too slim in all the wrong places.

“They are always a little too roomy, the sleeves a tad too long,” wrote The Washington Post’s Robin Givhan in 2015.

“For a man who is quick to tout his financial status, Trump’s style doesn’t telegraph money. It doesn’t look luxurious; it’s hardly elevated,” Givhan continued, noting that despite the quality fabrics used for Trump’s suits, a lack of detail for its tailoring makes the fits look “cheap.”

“He makes ties look sloppy.”

Trump has a long history of fashion faux pas and for making waves in all the wrong places. In 2017, the former president was caught taping his ties together in order to achieve the strange elongated look. And in a desperate bid to make some quick cash after losing his bank fraud trial in February, Trump formally entered the fashion marketplace, announcing a new line of Trump-branded sneakers—gold high-tops that retailed for $399 a pop.

But besides the orange fake tan, Trump’s hair has, arguably, been his biggest flop. Even though the wispy comb-over has been known to fly off his head, Trump won’t swap the style. In her documentary, porn star Stormy Daniels claimed Trump had odd superstitions about his unusual coif, alleging that the former reality TV star said he believed his power rested in his hair and that cutting it off or changing the style could compromise that.

On Monday morning, the International Criminal Court announced it was seeking to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, as well as other senior Israeli and Hamas leaders on of war crimes charges, as well as crimes against humanity. Joe Biden’s response is pathetic—and totally inadequate, given the larger humanitarian situation in Gaza.

“The ICC prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous. And let me be clear: whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence—none—between Israel and Hamas,” Biden said in a short statement. “We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a longer statement also casting doubt on the legitimacy of the arrest warrants.

The United States fundamentally rejects the announcement today from the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) that he is applying for arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials, together with warrants for Hamas terrorists. We reject the Prosecutor’s equivalence of Israel with Hamas. It is shameful. Hamas is a brutal terrorist organization that carried out the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust and is still holding dozens of innocent people hostage, including Americans. Moreover, the United States has been clear since well before the current conflict that that ICC has no jurisdiction over this matter. The ICC was established by its state parties as a court of limited jurisdiction. Those limits are rooted in principles of complementarity, which do not appear to have been applied here amid the Prosecutor’s rush to seek these arrest warrants rather than allowing the Israeli legal system a full and timely opportunity to proceed. In other situations, the Prosecutor deferred to national investigations and worked with states to allow them time to investigate. The Prosecutor did not afford the same opportunity to Israel, which has ongoing investigations into allegations against its personnel. There are also deeply troubling process questions. Despite not being a member of the court, Israel was prepared to cooperate with the Prosecutor. In fact, the Prosecutor himself was scheduled to visit Israel as early as next week to discuss the investigation and hear from the Israeli Government. The Prosecutor’s staff was supposed to land in Israel today to coordinate the visit. Israel was informed that they did not board their flight around the same time that the Prosecutor went on cable television to announce the charges. These and other circumstances call into question the legitimacy and credibility of this investigation. Fundamentally, this decision does nothing to help, and could jeopardize, ongoing efforts to reach a ceasefire agreement that would get hostages out and surge humanitarian assistance in, which are the goals the United States continues to pursue relentlessly.

It took the Biden administration months to call for a limited ceasefire, after months of the State Department going so far as to warn its diplomats to avoid using the word entirely, along with other calls for peace like “end to violence,” or “de-scalation.” Trying to blame the ICC for thwarting acting to hold Israel accountable and help bring an end to the disastrous assault on Gaza is laughable.

When the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin last year over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine Biden welcomed the news. That arrest warrant “[made] a very strong point,” Biden said at the time, adding that the Russian dictator has “clearly committed war crimes.”

The charges against Netanyahu and Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant include “causing extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, including the denial of humanitarian relief supplies, deliberately targeting civilians in conflict,” ICC prosecutor Karim Khan told CNN.

“The fact that Hamas fighters need water doesn’t justify denying water from all the civilian population of Gaza,” he added.

At least 35,000 people have been killed in Israel’s war on Gaza, the majority of them women and children. International aid agencies have warned of widespread famine and mass starvation, as well as shortages of medical supplies.

Donald Trump wants everyone to know that he did not, in fact, freeze for more than 30 seconds during his speech at the National Rifle Association convention in Dallas on Saturday.

In a Truth Social post late Sunday night, the former president claimed that reports indicating that he went silent in the middle of his remarks were false, and that he actually paused because of a musical interlude in his speech, something that he claimed is part of most of his speeches.

“The reason they came up with this Disinformation is that Biden freezes all the time, can’t put two sentences together, and can rarely find his way off the stage without help. Donald Trump doesn’t freeze!” Trump posted.

Unfortunately for Trump, the alleged freezing was caught on video, and the former president appears to awkwardly stop, and then resume while the music is still playing.

The incident was the second fumble by Trump this weekend. On Friday, speaking at the Republican Party of Minnesota’s annual Lincoln Reagan Dinner (which he left his youngest son’s graduation celebrations immediately to attend), Trump’s podium almost fell down after he appeared to lean on it too hard, causing the former president to attack the event’s workers and drawing a mocking tweet from the Biden campaign. 

Are these more examples of Trump’s cognitive decline? For the past few months, Trump has made incoherent claims, saying that there were “millions of people” who didn’t speak real languages arriving at the southern U.S. border and that he would stop banks from “debanking” Americans. He has mixed up former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, and described his plan for America’s missile defense system by going, “Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.… Boom. OK. Missile launch. Woosh. Boom.” None of this helps Trump’s argument that he can go toe-to-toe with President Biden when debate season begins.

Independent presidential candidate and antivax conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has reportedly used a home in Westchester, New York, for his presidential nomination filings and as his voting address for years, according to documents reviewed by the New York Post. There’s just one hitch: It seems RFK Jr. doesn’t live there and, according to neighbors, never has.

The New York Post reported Monday that the potential spoiler candidate has listed a home in Katonah, Westchester County, for voting in primary and general elections since 2008 and up to 2020. The homeowner listed is Barbara Moss, whose husband, Timothy Haydock, is a longtime friend of Kennedy’s. Haydock previously testified in defense of RFK Jr.’s brother, Douglas Kennedy, in a 2012 criminal trial that accused the younger Kennedy of physically assaulting nurses while attempting to leave a maternity ward with his newborn son. Douglas Kennedy was acquitted.

In true New York Post fashion, the outlet spoke with a local cop who told them Kennedy has never lived at the address. Neighbors also told the Post they didn’t know he lived there. Kennedy’s brother, Douglas, countered these claims by saying RFK Jr. has lived at the residence previously.

“He lived with Tim and Barbara. He stayed with them for a number of years,” Douglas Kennedy told the Post.

Kennedy’s team released a statement to the Post, saying he has been traveling a lot due to the campaign. “Mr. Kennedy has lived in the Town of Bedford (Katonah is a village within Bedford) continuously for 40 years. Since 2014, his official residence was on Twin Lakes Road in Bedford a few miles from his current residence. He typically stayed at that residence two times each month.”

“He receives mail there. His driver’s license is registered there. His automobile is registered there. His voting registration is from there. His hunting, fishing, falconry, and wildlife rehabilitation licenses are from there. He pays rent to the owner,” the campaign said.

Clearly, that rent hasn’t been going toward mortgage payments: The home is currently in foreclosure for nonpayment, with its owner owing more than $45,000, according to court records reviewed by the New York Post. Kennedy says Moss and Haydock are in litigation regarding the foreclosure.

The DNC readily scooped up the mudslinging and released a statement following the Post’s reporting, saying, “The more we learn about RFK Jr, the more questions we have. While he touts his physical fitness on the campaign trail, the New York Times reported that he had cognitive damage from mercury poisoning and that a parasite had eaten portions of his brain.”

“The only thing we know for sure about RFK Jr. is that his candidacy is a spoiler for Donald Trump.”

Donald Trump’s ceremonious pretrial speech on Monday was speckled with variations of one question for the waning case: Will he testify?

“Mr. Trump, are you surprised your lawyers advised you not to testify?” one reporter asked Trump outside of the courtroom hosting the former president’s New York hush-money trial.

The criminally charged presidential nominee refused to answer the question, pivoting instead to issues surrounding his campaign while continuing to complain that the trial and the judge overseeing it are “totally corrupt” and “interfering with an election.”

“Thank you very much. I’m here instead of campaigning. As you know, I was supposed to be in a very different state this morning, and the judge actually decided to call this early,” Trump said. “I was supposed to be making a speech for political purposes. I’m not allowed to have anything to do with politics, because I’m sitting in a very freezing cold courtroom for the last four weeks. It’s very unfair.” Trump has repeatedly violated a gag order that prohibits him from attacking, among others, family members and staff members of Judge Juan Merchan, who is overseeing the trial—though he is not prohibited from assailing the character of the judge himself.

“This is the most conflicted judge, probably in the history of the court system,” Trump continued. “And everyone knows what I’m talking about! Thank you very much.”

But the same, unanswered question echoed down the hallway as Trump turned to exit—“Will you testify, Mr. Trump?”

Trump had previously indicated that he intended to testify. “All I can do is tell the truth,” Trump said shortly before the trial began. That would be a terrible idea—but it’s not out of the question that Trump would do it anyway. Legal experts have predicted that Trump is unlikely to take the stand, arguing that his bombastic nature would risk perjury or perhaps even open him up to further prosecution.

“I wouldn’t hold my breath on Trump ever testifying in this trial. It would be enormously self-destructive,” Ryan Goodman, a former special counsel for the Department of Justice, speculated earlier this month. “It may require unusual self-control on Trump’s part.”

Trump is accused of using his former fixer Michael Cohen to sweep an affair with porn actress Stormy Daniels under the rug ahead of the 2016 presidential election. The Republican presidential nominee faces 34 felony charges in this case for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime. Trump has pleaded not guilty on all counts.

After the International Criminal Court announced Monday morning that it is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, and other senior Israeli and Hamas leaders, Republicans immediately began attacking the court and pledging swift action against it.

“This outrageous decision is truly a slap in the face to the independent judiciary of Israel, which is renowned for their independence,” said Senator Lindsey Graham in a statement. “We must not forget as a nation the International Criminal Court threatened to bring action against American forces in Afghanistan—and we are a non-member.”

“I will feverishly work with colleagues on both sides of the aisle in both chambers to levy damning sanctions against the ICC,” he added.

Representative Brian Mast, a fervent pro-Israel hawk who has said Palestinian babies aren’t innocent and compared all Palestinians to Nazis, said in a statement that he, along with Representative Chip Roy and Senator Tom Cotton, will pursue sanctions against the ICC and its justices, preventing them from traveling to the United States.

Cotton echoed that call, saying the news of a possible warrant “shows what a farce the International Criminal Court is.”

Senator Rick Scott similarly declared, “The ICC has embarrassed itself with these sham charges against Israel’s leadership. America stands with Israel. 🇺🇸 🇮🇱”

Even conservatives who are not on good terms with the wider Republican Party voiced their support for Israel and opposition to the ICC. John Bolton, a former Trump and Bush administration official, said on X that the court had “proven its fundamental illegitimacy by seeking arrest warrants against Israeli officials in the middle of a war.”

“To aid our ally Israel, the U.S. should take steps both in Congress and in the White House to condemn the ICC and impose sanctions, as I have previously suggested,” Bolton posted.

For some Republicans, the attacks on the ICC are a sharp reversal from their previous stances when the court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2023. Back then, Graham said, “Here’s an offer to my Russian ‘friends’ who want to arrest and try me for calling out the Putin regime as being war criminals: I will submit to jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court if you do.”

Earlier this month, 12 Republican senators, including Cotton and Scott, warned the ICC against issuing warrants for any Israel officials, saying that they “will interpret this not only as a threat to Israel’s sovereignty but to the sovereignty of the United States.” On Monday morning, they appear to follow up on that threat.

New York City’s former cop mayor, Eric Adams, spent Monday morning doing media spots defending the brutality unleashed by the NYPD on an annual Nakba Day march held in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, on Saturday.

Speaking on 1010Wins, Adams falsely claimed one clip of police repeatedly punching an arrested protester was an “isolated incident” that he “will review.”

“But those police officers did a commendable job under very difficult circumstances,” he added, all but greenlighting police brutality at future protests.

Adams’s statement comes amid fresh scrutiny by local officials of NYPD’s conduct toward pro-Palestine demonstrations in New York City.

In response to the NYPD’s actions on Saturday, New York City Councilmember Justin Brannan posted to X (formerly Twitter), “I saw no evidence of actions by protestors today that warranted such an aggressive response from NYPD.”

“Videos + reports of the NYPD response to yesterday’s Nakba Day protest in Bay Ridge are incredibly concerning,” state senator Andrew Gounardes posted on X. “Everyone has a right to peaceful protest.”

NYC Public Advocate Jumaane Williams went a step further and linked the NYPD’s conduct against pro-Palestine demonstrations directly to the mayor, writing on X, “Yes, NYPD and individual officers should be held accountable, however the truth is this Mayor holds the ultimate responsibility for not just allowing but encouraging; almost insisting that the response for anything Palestinian be escalation and disproportionate force.”

In response to the blowback, the NYPD released a highly edited video of the protest to justify its heavy-handed response. “This was not a peaceful protest by some,” they claimed, attempting to defend their own violently disruptive actions.

Nakba Day, also known as The Catastrophe, is an annual commemoration by Palestinians around the world of the start of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war that marks the beginning of permanent displacement from Palestine. In New York City, Nakba Day is traditionally commemorated in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn—also known as “Little Palestine” for its dense Palestinian-American population.  The Bay Ridge Nakba Day demonstration historically features thousands of attendees who march and rally, many of whom are residents of Bay Ridge, led by Palestinian liberation organization Within Our Lifetime.

This reporter documented the police response to Saturday’s protest, which featured numerous instances of NYPD spontaneously arresting protesters, punching arrested protesters, violently arresting credentialed press, macing people on the sidewalk, and incoherently corralling the march. Adams, in his media rounds, focused only on one of the most viral moments, and skirted away from even a whiff of condemnation.

Adams has long defended the NYPD and peddled outside agitator myths to justify NYPD’s response to protests he personally opposes—which include pro-Palestine demonstrations—as if cops magically know the people they’re mass arresting carry out-of-state IDs. For months, the NYPD has violently cracked down on pro-Palestine demonstrations, arresting people for nonviolent activity such as attempting to march in the street or using megaphones—both staples of protest which the NYPD argues are unlawful without a permit. Organizers argue requiring permits for protest negates the point of protest.

“A protest with a permit is a parade,” says Fatima Mohammed, an organizer with Within Our Lifetime. Nerdeen Kiswani, another organizer with Within Our Lifetime, has noted New York City’s permit procedures don’t include a “protest” option, requires parades to register months in advance, and that sound permits have to be acquired through an NYPD precinct—a tall ask for organizers prone to being arrested by the police.

A 2023 lawsuit settlement brought by the New York Attorney General regarding police brutality on protests prohibits excessive use of force, kettling, unjustified arrests, and arresting press.