Former president's Donald Trump's lawsuit aimed at keeping Jan. 6 records secret could come back to haunt him in another case involving a House committee's longstanding effort to access his tax-returns.

In a court notice filed Saturday, the House Committee on Ways and Means – which is seeking access to Trump's tax returns — cited a judge's ruling this week in the Jan. 6 case rejecting the former president's assertion that the congressional investigation doesn't serve a "legitimate legislative purpose."

"In analyzing whether a Congressional request serves a valid legislative purpose, the court stated that it 'must be highly deferential to the legislative branch,' and that 'it is not the court's role to decide whether Congress is motivated to aid legislation or exact political retribution; rather, the key factor is whether there is some discernable legislative purpose,'" according to the notice. "Moreover, the court held that Mr. Trump's 'status as a former President, and the fact that the legislative and executive branches agree that the records should be produced, reduces the import of the test.....

"The House is flagging its victory in this week's Trump executive privilege ruling in its separate, long-running legal effort to obtain Trump's tax returns," Cheney wrote. "In other words, Trump suing to block the Jan. 6 committee could end up producing rulings that bolster the House's effort to get his financial records."

_ Feathers were flying this week after Texas Sen. Ted Cruz took his partisan war against vaccine mandates to Sesame Street, accosting Big Bird on social media for tweeting last weekend that he’d gotten his COVID-19 shot. “My wing is feeling a little sore, but it’ll give my body an extra protective boost that keeps me and others healthy,” the lovable yellow, 8-foot-2 bird wrote. “Government propaganda,” Cruz tweeted back. “…for your 5-year-old!” When Big Bird’s defenders fired back at Cruz on social media, Cruz deemed them “mentally ill” and lamented in his podcast, “All the disasters that are happening, none of them matter. But you mess with Big Bird, holy crap, they lost it.” We have to wonder how he’d diagnose a grown man who spends his platform as a U.S. senator portraying a beloved children’s character as a tool of the deep state. Calling Big Bird the “government” doesn’t make sense anyway, since not a single government dollar goes into the production of the “Sesame Street” show, a spokeswoman for the nonprofit Sesame Workshop confirmed to us Friday. It’s incidents like these that make us wish Cruz would fly the coop. We’re not the only ones. A parody Big Bird account on Twitter quickly launched a run for Senate, announcing Cookie Monster as campaign manager, Elmo as senior adviser and promising to “Bird Back Better.” The parody candidate had 98,000 followers as of Friday. His first campaign pledge? “Big Bird promises to never fly to Cancun when Texas is in trouble.”

Mr. Christie reveals how worried he and others were for his survival when he became infected with the coronavirus after being at the White House around the same time that Mr. Trump and several other aides contracted Covid-19. Mr. Christie writes that his priest arrived in the hospital and rubbed oils on his forehead in the sign of the cross, praying over him.

He got a call from a hospitalized Mr. Trump, who had one main concern: “Are you gonna say you got it from me?” Mr. Trump asked him.

Trump wasn’t concerned about Christie’s health and well-being. He was only worried that he would get blamed for giving him COVID. For the record, Donald Trump gave a lot of people COVID. There were multiple outbreaks in the Trump White House because Trump refused to require testing and masks, and Trump’s political rallies sickened many Americans because he refused to hold small gatherings and observe mask and social distancing guidelines.

Trump has never wanted to take any responsibility for the pandemic. The mess that the country is still fighting currently can be attributed to Trump’s refusal to impose federal guidelines to limit the spread of COVID.

Comedian Kathy Griffin criticized what she views as Republican hypocrisy after Arizona Republican Representative Paul Gosar, shared an altered, animated video that depicts him killing New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and threatening President Joe Biden.

Writing on Twitter, Griffin noted that she was once nearly charged with "conspiracy to assassinate the president of the United States" after tweeting an image of herself holding a likeness of the severed head of former President Donald Trump.
https://twitter.com/kathygriffin/status/1458118970620334080

....The backlash cost Griffin marketing deals and her spot on CNN's New Year's Eve broadcast with Anderson Cooper. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Secret Service investigated her to determine if she was, in fact, a threat to the President.