Wednesday Reads: Hump Day News and Views

Good Day!!

It’s only Wednesday, and it has already been a crazy week in politics. Here’s what’s happening:

Trump is attending day three of the civil trial against the Trump Organization for tax and bank fraud. As he did on Monday and Tuesday, he stood in front of the courthouse and whined to reporters about how unfairly he is being treated. He called the trial a “witch hunt” and claimed he would eventually testify.

Yesterday Judge Arthur Engoron issued a gag order after Trump posted Judge Engoron’s primary clerk on Truth Social.

The Guardian: Judge issues gag order after Trump’s comments on court clerk in civil trial.

The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial issued a gag order on Tuesday after the former president made comments about the judge’s clerk.

“Consider this statement a gag order forbidding all parties from posting, emailing or speaking publicly about any of my staff,” the judge, Arthur Engoron, said on Tuesday afternoon. “Personal attacks on members of my court staff are unacceptable, inappropriate and I will not tolerate them in any circumstances.

“Failure to abide by this order will result in serious sanctions.”

The second day of Trump’s trial got off to another combative start after Trump branded the case a “fraud” and a “scam” and pledged to take the stand in his own defense.

Asked if he would testify in the case, Trump said: “Yes, I will. At the appropriate time I will be.”

But Trump’s comments about Engoron’s law clerk, the attorney Allison Greenfield, proved a step too far. Over lunch Trump attacked Engoron’s clerk in a social media post, linking to a picture of her with the Democratic Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer. He called her “Schumer’s girlfriend” and said she “is running this case against me. How disgraceful! This case should be dismissed immediately.”

The post on Trump’s Truth Social platform was deleted on Engoron’s orders.

Later the Judge met privately with Trump and Letitia James. Jose Pagliery at The Daily Beast: Judge Kicks Reporters Out of Courtroom to Talk to Trump and AG.

A turbulent second day at Donald Trump‘s bank fraud trial in New York came to an equally puzzling end, when the judge unceremoniously kicked out all journalists from the courtroom to speak privately with the former president and Attorney General Letitia James.

When one reporter asked whether the courtroom was being sealed, Justice Arthur F. Engoron did not respond. Instead, security personnel yelled at journalists to leave immediately.

Donald Trump glowers at the Judge on day one of the New York civil trial.

Trump, James, and their respective legal teams remained in the courtroom for more than 20 minutes before exiting.

On his way out, Trump surprised everyone by stating that he will return to court Wednesday.

“I’ll be back tomorrow. Good day,” he said with a wave, before ducking into a side exit with his attorneys and Secret Service security detail.

James refused to answer any questions on her way out, preventing the public from knowing what was going on inside.

Earlier in the day, Engoron issued a gag order against Trump after he posted on his social media site, Truth Social, accusing one of Engoron’s law clerks of having a relationship with Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY).

Pagliery reports from the courthouse today: Trump Finally Brings His Online Rage to the Courtroom.

A day after receiving a tongue lashing from a judge disturbed by Donald Trump’s insolence outside the New York courtroom, the former president began to make exasperated remarks inside the court, as the third day of his bank fraud trial started Wednesday.

The increasingly furious Trump—whose real estate empire has already received the kiss of death from the judge—remained quiet during the first two days of proceedings, instead choosing to rail against the entire justice system outside the room’s wooden doors. But when Justice Arthur F. Engoron noted that typical formalities could be cast aside because there’s no jury here, Trump began to grumble and angrily folded his arms while staring at the judge.

Trump turned to defense lawyer Alina Habba at his left to complain in loud groans—this reporter could only make out the words “no jury!”—then threw his arms up and shook his head.

The former president then let out an annoyed sigh and slumped forward, stretching his dark blue suit jacket.

Just before the trial got underway on Wednesday, he was even louder online, where he wrote, “I am not even entitled, under any circumstances, to a JURY. This Witch Hunt cannot be allowed to continue. It is Election Interference and the start of Communism right here in America!”

Minutes later, Trump then complained in court that he couldn’t make out what was being said by the witness on the stand: his longtime former accountant Donald Bender, who became a state witness and disavowed much of the work he did for the Trump Organization and its vastly inflated assets. The testimony could be perceived as a betrayal given that Bender made millions at the firm Mazars USA by working for the Trump family, which invited him to golf courses, hotels, and parties.

Yesterday afternoon, House Republicans came close to eclipsing Trump news, as Matt Gaetz and a few other MAGA crazies removed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, leaving the House in utter chaos.

The New York Times: House Is Paralyzed, With No Speaker After McCarthy Ouster.

The House of Representatives was in a state of paralysis on Wednesday, ground to a halt by the ouster of Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy and with no clear sense of who might succeed him — or when.

After a historic vote to remove Mr. McCarthy on Tuesday, lawmakers quickly departed Washington and scattered to their districts around the country, abandoning the Capitol as Republicans remained deeply divided over who could lead their fractious majority.

“What now?” one Republican muttered aloud on the House floor just after the vote on Tuesday afternoon, the first time the chamber had ever removed a speaker from his post involuntarily.

It underscored the chaos now gripping the chamber, which is effectively frozen, without the ability to conduct legislative business, until a successor to Mr. McCarthy is chosen. The California Republican said late Tuesday that he would not seek the post again after being deposed by a hard-right rebellion.

The vacancy promised to tee up another potentially messy speaker election at a time when Congress has just over 40 days to avert another potential government shutdown. But it was not yet clear who might run.

Discussions on the future of the conference were being led by Representative Patrick T. McHenry of North Carolina. Mr. McCarthy had named Mr. McHenry first on a list of potential interim speakers in the event of a calamity or vacancy, but he does not have power to run the chamber — only to preside over the election of a new speaker.

While no Republican has announced a bid for the post, some names reliably come up in conversations with G.O.P. lawmakers, including Mr. McHenry and Representative Tom Cole, the Oklahoma Republican and Rules Committee chairman, as well as the No. 2 and No. 3 House Republicans, Representatives Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Tom Emmer of Minnesota.

This morning, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan announced he would run for Speaker. Politico: Jim Jordan becomes first to announce run for speaker.

Rep. Jim Jordan said he will run to be the next speaker, a move likely to prompt praise from House conservatives.

Jordan, the House Judiciary chair and member of the House Freedom Caucus, has worked closely with Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) on the impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden. He had also become a close ally of now-ex Speaker Kevin McCarthy in recent years. 

But his candidacy will likely run right into Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), who is also considering a speakership bid and has worked to court conservatives.

“Jim is a friend, and I certainly think he brings a whole lot that this conference would be able to rally around, but we’ve got to all have a conversation and I’m not going to say who I’m supporting at this point,” said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus.

“We’re going to figure this out behind closed doors as a family,” he added.

The Ohio Republican was elected to Congress in 2007. He is a Trump ally within the GOP conference and one of the many chairs to have called for Congress to defund the Department of Justice over whistleblower claims that DOJ hampered the Hunter Biden investigation.

But wouldn’t Jordan have to wear a suit and get a couple of new ties if he were Speaker?

Patrick McHenry’s first act as Speaker Pro Tempore was to kick Nancy Pelosi out of her Congressional office. Pelosi didn’t vote to remove McCarthy, because she is in California for Diane Feinstein’s funeral.

Politico: McHenry ordered Pelosi to leave her Capitol hideaway office by Wednesday.

As one of his first acts as the acting speaker, Rep. Patrick McHenry ordered former Speaker Nancy Pelosi to vacate her Capitol hideaway office by Wednesday, according to an email sent to her office viewed by POLITICO.

Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C.

“Please vacate the space tomorrow, the room will be re-keyed,” wrote a top aide on the Republican-controlled House Administration Committee. The room was being reassigned by the acting speaker “for speaker office use,” the email said….

Only a select few House lawmakers get hideaway offices in the Capitol, compared to their commonplace presence in the Senate.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ staff helped Pelosi’s office make the move, according to a spokesperson for the former speaker.

Here’s Pelosi’s full response to the eviction, from Raw Story:

“With all of the important decisions that the new Republican Leadership must address, which we are all eagerly awaiting, one of the first actions taken by the new Speaker Pro Tempore was to order me to immediately vacate my office in the Capitol,” Pelosi said in a statement, according to Politico’s Nicholas Wu. “Sadly, because I am in California to mourn the loss of and pay tribute to my dear friend Dianne Feinstein, I am unable to retrieve my belongings at this time.”

“This eviction is a sharp departure from tradition. As Speaker, I gave former Speaker Hastert a significantly larger suite of offices for as long as he wished,” She noted.

“Office space doesn’t matter to me, but it seems important to them,” Pelosi added. “Now that the new Republican Leadership has settled this important matter, let’s hope they get to work on what’s truly important to the American people.”

Three longer opinion pieces on the McCarthy mess:

John F. Harris at Politico Magazine: The House GOP Is a Failed State.

Amanda Marcotte at Salon: Kevin McCarthy’s embarrassing lesson: MAGA torches everything it touches — and will destroy itself.

NBC News: Kevin McCarthy’s ‘original sin’: What drove the House speaker’s historic downfall.

Two more interesting stories to check out:

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Fulton prosecutors float plea deals to Trump defendants.

Fulton County prosecutors are floating plea deals to a number of defendants in the election interference case involving former President Donald Trump, according to people with knowledge of the proposals.

At least a handful of the now 18 defendants have received offers from the District Attorney’s office — or prosecutors have touched base with their attorneys to gauge their general interest in striking a deal for a reduced charge in exchange for their cooperation, according to the legal sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive ongoing negotiations.

It’s common for prosecutors to float plea deals to lower-level defendants in large racketeering cases as they home in ontheir biggest targets. Trump and his former personal attorney Rudy Giuliani face the most chargesin the 41-count indictment, which centers on efforts to overturn the results of Georgia’s 2020 presidential election.

Late last week, Atlanta bail bondsman Scott Hall became the first defendant to accept a deal, pleading guilty to five misdemeanor counts in exchange for his testimony.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has learned that Fulton prosecutors have also offered a deal to Michael Roman, who worked as director of Election Day operations for the Trump campaign in 2020. A member of Roman’s legal team told The AJC theyrejected the DA’s proposal and that no agreement has been reached….

People who were indicted for their alleged roles in the appointment of a slate of Trump electors, election data breach in Coffee County and harassment of Fulton poll worker Ruby Freeman have also been approached by prosecutors, according to multiple sources. In the case of at least two of those defendants, no concrete offer has been made.

Click the link to read the rest.

The New York Times: Giuliani’s Drinking, Long a Fraught Subject, Has Trump Prosecutors’ Attention.

Rudolph W. Giuliani had always been hard to miss at the Grand Havana Room, a magnet for well-wishers and hangers-on at the Midtown cigar club that still treated him like the king of New York.

In recent years, many close to him feared, he was becoming even harder to miss.

For more than a decade, friends conceded grimly, Mr. Giuliani’s drinking had been a problem. And as he surged back to prominence during the presidency of Donald J. Trump, it was getting more difficult to hide it.

On some nights when Mr. Giuliani was overserved, an associate discreetly signaled the rest of the club, tipping back his empty hand in a drinking motion, out of the former mayor’s line of sight, in case others preferred to keep their distance. Some allies, watching Mr. Giuliani down Scotch before leaving for Fox News interviews, would slip away to find a television, clenching through his rickety defenses of Mr. Trump.

Even at less rollicking venues — a book party, a Sept. 11 anniversary dinner, an intimate gathering at Mr. Giuliani’s own apartment — his consistent, conspicuous intoxication often startled his company.

“It’s no secret, nor do I do him any favors if I don’t mention that problem, because he has it,” said Andrew Stein, a former New York City Council president who has known Mr. Giuliani for decades. “It’s actually one of the saddest things I can think about in politics.”

Now prosecutors are looking at Giuliani’s problem.

Now, prosecutors in the federal election case against Mr. Trump have shown an interest in the drinking habits of Mr. Giuliani — and whether the former president ignored what his aides described as the plain inebriation of the former mayor referred to in court documents as “Co-Conspirator 1.”

Their entwined legal peril has turned a matter long whispered about by former City Hall aides, White House advisers and political socialites into an investigative subplot in an unprecedented case.

The office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, has questioned witnesses about Mr. Giuliani’s alcohol consumption as he was advising Mr. Trump, including on election night, according to a person familiar with the matter. Mr. Smith’s investigators have also asked about Mr. Trump’s level of awareness of his lawyer’s drinking as they worked to overturn the election and prevent Joseph R. Biden Jr. from being certified as the 2020 winner at almost any cost. (A spokesman for the special counsel declined to comment.)

The answers to those prompts could complicate any efforts by Mr. Trump’s team to lean on a so-called advice-of-counsel defense, a strategy that could portray him as a client merely taking professional cues from his lawyers. If such guidance came from someone whom Mr. Trump knew to be compromised by alcohol, especially when many others told Mr. Trump definitively that he had lost, his argument could weaken.

That’s it for me today. What do you think? What other stories have caught your interest?