Former President Donald Trump's private Boeing 757 was diverted for an emergency landing in Billings, Montana, on the way to his rally in Bozeman. According to a local radio station, the landing was required due to a "hydraulic leak." The aircraft, commonly known as " Trump Force Once," landed safely, and the former president is expected to take a private jet the rest of the way to his destination.
Trump has owned the 757 since 2011, when it replaced an older Boeing 727 he originally purchased from his failed Trump Shuttle airline, which had previously been a commuter service for the now-defunct Eastern Airlines prior to the Trump Organization acquiring it. The former president has boasted that the aircraft is more luxurious than Air Force One , although experts have said the 757 is rapidly aging and, being a retrofitted commercial airliner, is larger and less well-pressurized than private aircraft typically enjoyed by the super-wealthy. Trump's rally in Bozeman, the first to be held since last week, will take place at 8 p.
m. local time, or 10 p.m.
Eastern Time. ALSO READ: 21 worthless knick-knacks Donald Trump will give you for your cash Donald Trump's recent — and demonstrably false — tale of a near-helicopter crash was apparently not the first time Trump had made such a claim involving a helicopter. During his news conference on Thursday, Trump shared a story about a near-helicopter crash with former California Assembly Speaker Willie Brown .
Brown denied the story and laughed . Buzzfeed in 2015 found another incident in which Trump made false statements about a helicopter crash. Andrew Kaczynski and Mark Arce spoke with three Trump biographers who shed light on the tale.
Three Trump Organization executives were flying back to Atlantic City instead of driving. According to Trump, he decided not to go with them at the last minute. An aide told him the helicopter was down, but Trump assumed it meant it couldn't fly due to repairs.
It wasn't until a reporter called him that he realized five people were killed in the crash. Read also: 'That's a lie': The 10 quotes Trump said to Black journalists that led to outbursts "I can get some publicity out of this," Trump allegedly said, according to BuzzFeed. A wire story spread that Trump was supposed to have been on the flight but wasn't.
BuzzFeed cited Dan Klores, a Trump spokesperson, who told the Philadelphia Inquirer : "He really doesn't want to talk about it, but he was going to go to Atlantic City, and he did change his mind." All of it was a lie, the biographers said. Harry Hurt's biography Lost Tycoon recalls Trump in his office with other staffers when a reporter called.
"Mr. Trump, I know this must be horrible for you," the book quotes a reporter calling about the crash. "I know it must be terrible for you to lose your three top casino executives all in the same day.
I'm so sorry about what happened...
I guess the only thing that could have been worse is if you had been on the helicopter with them." The book describes Trump turning to his staff with the mute button on and saying, "You're going to hate me for this. But I just can't resist.
I can get some publicity out of this." That's when he reportedly made up the story that he was supposed to be on the flight. "The next morning Donald's 'revelation' will appear in a caption on the front page of the New York Daily News beneath photographs of the three dead men: 'Trump decided not to go at the last minute," Hurt writes.
Six people confirmed the tale Trump spun was a lie. Wayne Barrett's book The Deals And The Downfall cites Trump as being "personally traumatized by the disaster — saying publicly that it 'cheapened life' for him, showing him just how fragile everything was." The BuzzFeed reporters cited Trump's own vice president of entertainment and sport Bernie Dillion disputing the incident.
Read the full report here. One of the harshest sentences yet has been handed down in one of the Jan. 6 cases.
According to The Associated Press, David Dempsey of Van Nuys, California was sentenced Friday to 20 years in prison for his conduct at the U.S. Capitol during the insurrection against the 2020 election results.
Prosecutors said Dempsey stomped on police officers’ heads and swung poles at officers defending a tunnel. He also struck an officer in the head with a metal crutch, attacked police with pepper spray and broken pieces of furniture, and climbed on other rioters like "human scaffolding" to attack officers guarding a tunnel entrance. At least two police officers were hurt in his attacks.
Read also: The day democracy was tested: A deep dive into Trump's attempted coup on January 6 Dempsey pleaded guilty to charges of assaulting police officers, apologized to the victims, and called his conduct "despicable." He was originally arrested in August 2021 and charged with using a dangerous weapon, obstruction of an official proceeding and civil disorder. Many rioters were hit with obstruction charges, although a recent Supreme Court ruling cast doubt on the validity of that specific charge in the context of rioting at the Capitol.
The only Jan. 6 defendant so far to receive a longer sentence than Dempsey is Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the far-right Proud Boys group, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 22 years . More than 1,400 people so far have been arrested for alleged involvement in the attack on the Capitol, which took place after months of conspiracy theories circulating about the election on the right, and after former President Donald Trump gave a speech on the National Mall urging supporters to "fight like hell.
" Most of these cases ended up with far lesser sentences for misdemeanors like disorderly conduct and unlawful picketing. A legal expert explained Friday what outstanding presidential immunity-related questions may have prompted a three-week delay in pre-trial hearings in Donald Trump's 2020 election fraud case . Judge Tanya Chutkan granted special counsel Jack Smith's request to delay the case as it reviews the Supreme Court's immunity ruling.
Trump's team did not oppose such a delay. Speaking to reporter Ali Vitali, MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin said unanswered questions likely led to the pause. "At the Department of Justice, there is a divergence of opinions about what the best way forward is," she began.
"You can look at the fact that there have been several weeks since the supreme court opinion, and save yourself as maybe Meryl Streep's character did, why is no one ready?!" Read also: Prison president: How Donald Trump could serve from behind bars On the other hand, Rubin said the lack of information makes it difficult to find the "appropriate path forward." "We know that the former president is entitled to a rebuttable presumption of immunity for his official acts. Think about how much of that wasn't clarified by the court.
What counts as an official act?" she asked. "If you can rebut the presumption, how are you supposed to do that? What evidence counts as sufficient to rebut that presumption? What factors should a court consider?" Those questions give her a broader understanding of why Smith might be scratching his head about the next steps. She said there's a nearly zero percent chance the case heads to a trial by the election.
"Prosecutors are always thinking about how to ensure that the case gets tried. Of course, the election is a deadline that matters because if former President Trump is reelected, there is a general assumption that he will make this case go away once he is inaugurated again," said Rubin. That doesn't appear to the Justice Department's focus.
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals will hear the appeal about Donald Trump's classified documents case on Aug. 27. See the comments from Rubin below or at the link here.
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