Trump news today: Attorney Jenna Ellis admits ‘misrepresentation’ as she is censured for election fraud lies

“Tucker Carlson has long portrayed himself as a Trump true-believer. Based on new documents, though, his enthusiasm for Trump appears to have been a lie – or, at the very least, greatly exaggerated.

“In new January 2021 texts released as part of a defamation lawsuit against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems, Carlson declared that he “passionately” hated Donald Trump. He fantasized about the day when Trump, defeated by Joe Biden, would become irrelevant. “We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights,” Carlson said in text messages, according to legal filings. “I truly can’t wait.”

“These texts, and other materials, show that Carlson and other Fox News hosts were leery of Trump’s claims about voter fraud, and did not believe the election rigged. But they feared that if they told the truth they would lose viewers to other right-wing networks like Newsmax. So they lied, and reassured their viewers that Trump was the rightful victor in 2020 in hopes of retaining their market share.”

Noah Berlatsky writes for The Independent:

Fox News host Tucker Carlson told a colleague that he “passionately” hated Donald Trump, according to bombshell new text messages released as part of Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6bn defamation lawsuit against the network.

New court filings on Tuesday revealed a message Carlson sent to a Fox News employee just two days before the January 6 Capitol riot.

“We are very very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights. I truly can’t wait,” he wrote.

“I hate him passionately, I blew up at Peter Navarro today in frustration. I actually like Peter. But I can’t handle much more of this.”

The messages are the latest to emerge showing how the coverage and opinions presented by Fox News and its personalities on air was directly at odds with what they said and thought behind the scenes.

A defamation lawsuit against Fox News alleges a tight relationship between right-wing media mogul Rupert Murdoch and Donald Trump’s campaign while the now-former president’s allies and attorneys frequently appeared on the network to promote his baseless narrative that the 2020 presidential election was rigged against him.

Court documents with uncovered emails and sworn depositions in the case have revealed Mr Murdoch providing Jared Kushner, Mr Trump’s son-in-law and a senior White House adviser, with what allegedly amounted to campaign advice, magnifying the network’s intially-reluctant alliance with the former president.

Mr Murdoch, the executive chairman of the Fox Corporation, admitted in a sworn deposition that he gave Mr Kushner a preview of a campaign advert from then-candidate Joe Biden’s campaign and appeared to offer him debate strategy to pass along to Mr Trump.

“Do you think it is appropriate for someone in your position to give a heads up to the opposing campaign about what the ad of the opposing campaign will show before it is public?” an attorney for voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems asked Mr Murdoch, according to court filings.

“I was trying to help Mr Kushner,” Mr Murdoch said. “He’s a friend of mine.”

Donald Trump’s attorney Jenna Ellis has admitted that she “misrepresented” what happened during the 2020 election as a Colorado court censured her for peddling the former president’s fraud lies.

The Colorado Supreme Court’s Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel censured Ms Ellis on Wednesday for misconduct after she made multiple false statements on TV and on Twitter about the presidential election.

“The public censure in this matter reinforces that even if engaged in political speech, there is a line attorneys cannot cross, particularly when they are speaking in a representative capacity,” the office said in a statement.

Ms Ellis, who acted as an adviser to Mr Trump as he tried to overturn the election in his favour, had admitted last month to making 10 “misrepresentations” to the public, including claiming the election was stolen from Mr Trump.

Fox News reportedly rejected a television advert from a progressive advocacy group and political action committee that highlighted recently uncovered reactions from the network’s top stars and executives to Donald Trump’s bogus election fraud claims and conspiracy theories surrounding a voting machine company that is suing the network for defamation.

On Friday at midnight, Donald Trump dropped a new song with the J6 Prison Choir. No, that’s not an Onion headline. That just happened. Who needs SNL when we have reality?

According to Forbes staff writer Zach Everson, Trump, in partnership with former Trump Admin official Kash Patel and former Fox News Host Ed Henry, collaborated with January 6 insurrectionists awaiting trial in a DC jail.

I’ll save you time. The song is as bad as you’d expect.

The Dominion Voting Machines case filings find Tucker Carlson bemoaning the criticism he has personally received from viewers over the network’s correct decision to call Arizona for Joe Biden on election night and calling Trump lawyer and regular guest Sidney Powell a “f***ing b****” and accusing her of lying.

But one of their most interesting aspects has been what Dominion’s submissions reveal about Mr Carlson’s attitude towards Mr Trump himself, whom he regularly defended on air throughout his presidency and its aftermath.

I think it’s a mistake, though, to see Carlson solely as a man who knows better, but who is driven by the nonpartisan lure of money. He has an extensive history of hateful statements and of mangling of the truth. Dominion has found evidence of Tucker deceiving his audience in order to secure his bottom line. But that doesn’t mean he’s solely motivated by his bottom line, or that he never believes the ugly ideology he presents on air.

Donald Trump avoided addressing the revelation that Fox News host Tucker Carlson once wrote that he “passionately” hates the former president as he praised Mr Carlson over his misleading coverage of the insurrection on January 6, 2021.

“We agree with the chief of the Capitol Police and the wide range of bipartisan lawmakers who have condemned this false depiction of the unprecedented, violent attack on our Constitution and the rule of law – which cost police officers their lives,” a White House spokesperson said in a statement obtained by The Independent.

Gustaf Kilander has the story from Washington, DC.