Lazy Caturday Reads

Posted: April 6, 2024 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: 2024 presidential Campaign, cat art, caturday, Donald Trump, Joe Biden | Tags: 2024 campaign fund raising, Don Hankey, iran, israel, Judge Arthur Engoron, Letitia James, Nancy Pelosi, Trump's incoherent speeches, Trump's NY fraud case, Trump's role in January 6 insurrection, Trump's wealthy financial backers, Ukraine war | 4 Comments

Happy Caturday!!

Painting by Artush, 2013

I’ve been trying to understand what is going on with the bond Trump tried to post in order to appeal his fraud conviction in New York. He supposedly posted a bond of $175 million, but then problems arose. Here’s what I’ve found so far.

Ben Protess and Matthew Haag at The New York Times: New York Attorney General Questions Trump’s $175 Million Bond Deal.

The New York attorney general’s office on Thursday took exception to a $175 million bond that Donald J. Trump recently posted in his civil fraud case, questioning the qualifications of the California company that provided it.

The dispute stems from a $454 million judgment Mr. Trump is facing in the case, which the attorney general’s office brought against the former president and his family business. The attorney general, Letitia James, accused Mr. Trump of fraudulently inflating his net worth, leading to a monthslong trial last year that ended with a judge imposing the huge penalty.

Mr. Trump had to obtain the bond as a financial guarantee while he appeals the penalty — or else open himself up to the possibility that Ms. James would collect. Without a bond in place, she could have frozen his bank accounts and begun the complicated process of trying to seize some of his New York properties.

Mr. Trump appeared to stave off this calamity on Monday when he posted the $175 million bond from the California firm, Knight Specialty Insurance Company. Although he was originally required to secure a guarantee for the full $454 million judgment, an appeals court recently granted him a break, allowing him to post the smaller bond.

By providing the bond — which is a legal document, not an actual transfer of money — Knight essentially promises New York’s court system that it will cover $175 million of the judgment against Mr. Trump if he loses his appeal and fails to pay. In return, Mr. Trump pays a fee to Knight, and pledges it a significant amount of cash as collateral.

So what happened?

Now, however, Ms. James is raising questions that could imperil the deal with Knight, which is owned by Don Hankey, a billionaire who made his fortune with subprime loans. And the judge in the case, Arthur F. Engoron, has tentatively scheduled a hearing for April 22 to discuss the bond.

In a court filing on Thursday, Ms. James noted that Knight was not registered to issue appeal bonds in New York, and so she demanded that the company or Mr. Trump’s lawyers file paperwork to “justify” the bond within 10 days. Ms. James is seeking to clarify whether Knight, which had never posted a similar court bond before aiding Mr. Trump, is financially capable of fulfilling its obligation to pay the $175 million if Mr. Trump defaults.

Even if Knight lacks the funds itself, the company should be able to tap the collateral Mr. Trump pledged.

In an interview this week, Mr. Hankey said that Mr. Trump pledged $175 million in cash as collateral that was being handled by a brokerage firm. Mr. Trump, in the meantime, is able to earn interest on the money.

So I guess we’ll all have to wait a couple of weeks until this gets addressed in court on April 22.

By Alison Friend

From Kaitlin Lewis at Newsweek: Donald Trump Bond Rejected Due to Low Fee, Insurer Suggests.

The billionaire behind the surety company that posted Donald Trump‘s civil fraud bond said that insurers “probably didn’t charge” the former president enough when covering the pledge.

Trump posted a $175 million bond on Monday as he appeals a ruling by New York State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron, who found the former president and others associated with The Trump Organization liable of misleading insurers and lenders to obtain stronger financial terms.

But the bond was rejected by the court’s filing system later that same day due to missing paperwork, including a “current financial statement.” New York Attorney General Letitia James later raised questions about the “sufficiency” of the bond.

Don Hankey, chairman of the Los-Angeles based Hankey Group and owner of the Knight Specialty Insurance Company that posted Trump’s bond, told Reuters in an interview published Friday that his firm charged the former president a low fee when agreeing to put up the $175 million bond. The businessman reportedly declined to disclose the fee, but said that Knight picked a lower amount because it did not believe there was much risk involved.

According to online agency Insureon, which handles small-business insurance, a surety bond’s fee can range from 1 percent to 15 percent of the total bond amount.

Hankey added during the interview that his company had “been getting a lot of emails” and phone calls since backing Trump’s bond, adding, “Maybe that’s part of the reason he had trouble with other insurance companies.” The former president’s lawyers had pleaded with a New York appeals court to lower the bond amount from Trump’s original $454 million order in damages, arguing that it was a “practical impossibility” to meet the penalty.

Hankey also said that he was shocked that James had questioned the bond, telling Reuters that he was “surprised they’re coming down harder on our bond or looking for reasons to cause issues with our instrument.”

I don’t completely understand that. Maybe Daknikat can make more sense of it than I can.

ProPublica has a scoop on Trump’s efforts to mislead the appeals court that ended up lowering his bond amount: Trump’s Lawyers Told the Court That No One Would Give Him a Bond. Then He Got a Lifeline, but They Didn’t Tell the Judges.

Former President Donald Trump scored a victory last week when a New York court slashed the amount he had to put up while appealing his civil fraud case to $175 million.

His lawyers had told the appellate court it was a “practical impossibility” to get a bond for the full amount of the lower court’s judgment, $464 million. All of the 30 or so firms Trump had approached balked, either refusing to take the risk or not wanting to accept real estate as collateral, they said. That made raising the full amount “an impossible bond requirement.”

But before the judges ruled, the impossible became possible: A billionaire lender approached Trump about providing a bond for the full amount.

The lawyers never filed paperwork alerting the appeals court. That failure may have violated ethics rules, legal experts say.

In an interview with ProPublica, billionaire California financier Don Hankey said he reached out to Trump’s camp several days before the bond was lowered, expressing willingness to offer the full amount and to use real estate as collateral.

“I saw that they were rejected by everyone and I said, ‘Gee, that doesn’t seem like a difficult bond to post,’” Hankey said.

As negotiations between Hankey and Trump’s representatives were underway, the appellate court ruled in Trump’s favor, lowering the bond to $175 million. The court did not give an explanation for its ruling.

Hankey ended up giving Trump a bond for the lowered amount.

It appears Trump’s attorneys could get in trouble over this. According to the article, even if the lawyers didn’t know about the new offer until after the appeals court decision, they were required to inform the court about the new offer after the fact. Read more details at ProPublica.

Brandi Buchman has an important legal story at Law and Crime: The Trump Docket: A window into Trump’s ‘private’ acts on Jan. 6 may soon be opened by a federal judge.

Very soon, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., is expected to issue a ruling that could expose key pieces of discovery that some lawyers say prove Donald Trump acted in his “private” capacity on Jan. 6, 2021 — not in his official role — when whipping up a mob of his supporters at the Ellipse and urging them to descend on the Capitol where lawmakers were meeting to certify the 2020 election.

This is a key distinction for a group of former and current U.S. lawmakers and police suing Trump for violations of the Ku Klux Klan Act, as Law&Crime previously reported. Just this week, the former president filed a motion to stay that civil litigation indefinitely, invoking his brewing immunity question before the Supreme Court.

Law&Crime spoke to Joseph Sellers, an attorney representing the lawmaker plaintiffs. The parties met this week to finish briefing the requests for discovery before U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta.

Trump argues the overlap between the civil claim and his criminal indictment prosecuted by special counsel Jack Smith is too great and that going to trial, or even beginning pretrial proceedings like discovery, would threaten his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

While there may be some overlap in the details of the respective cases, Sellers said Trump’s wait-and-see approach by invoking the immunity question doesn’t hold up.

“The criminal case that’s before the Supreme Court on the question of immunity is framed entirely differently in this respect and it’s quite important. In our civil case, the question is whether his conduct was primarily of an official or private nature. That’s pivotal,” he said.

When the Supreme Court set arguments on Trump’s immunity question, they framed the question in a way that assumes Trump’s conduct on Jan. 6 was official and as a result, the question was whether he was immune from criminal prosecution.

The private-versus-official distinction isn’t presented there, Sellers said.

Because of this, the lawmakers say that no matter what the high court does, it should have no impact on the availability of immunity in the civil case. Invoking Trump’s criminal Jan. 6 trial, which is currently in purgatory itself, is a “grossly overbroad request,” the attorney said.

Head over to Law and Crime to read the rest.

By Heidi Taillefer

The Guardian has an interesting article on Trump’s insane, rambling public rants at The Guardian by Rachael Leingang: Trump’s bizarre, vindictive incoherence has to be heard in full to be believe.

He’s on the campaign trail less these days than he was in previous cycles – and less than you’d expect from a guy with dedicated superfans who brags about the size of his crowds every chance he gets. But when he has held rallies, he speaks in dark, dehumanizing terms about migrants, promising to vanquish people crossing the border. He rails about the legal battles he faces and how they’re a sign he’s winning, actually. He tells lies and invents fictions. He calls his opponent a threat to democracy and claims this election could be the last one.

Trump’s tone, as many have noted, is decidedly more vengeful this time around, as he seeks to reclaim the White House after a bruising loss that he insists was a steal. This alone is a cause for concern, foreshadowing what the Trump presidency redux could look like. But he’s also, quite frequently, rambling and incoherent, running off on tangents that would grab headlines for their oddness should any other candidate say them.

Journalists rightly chose not to broadcast Trump’s entire speeches after 2016, believing that the free coverage helped boost the former president and spread lies unchecked. But now there’s the possibility that stories about his speeches often make his ideas appear more cogent than they are – making the case that, this time around, people should hear the full speeches to understand how Trump would govern again.

Watching a Trump speech in full better shows what it’s like inside his head: a smorgasbord of falsehoods, personal and professional vendettas, frequent comparisons to other famous people, a couple of handfuls of simple policy ideas, and a lot of non sequiturs that veer into barely intelligible stories.

Leingang provides many examples of Trump’s incoherence. Here’s just one long quoted section:

Some of these bizarre asides are best seen in full, like this one about Biden at the beach in Trump’s Georgia response to the State of the Union:

“Somebody said he looks great in a bathing suit, right? And you know, when he was in the sand and he was having a hard time lifting his feet through the sand, because you know sand is heavy, they figured three solid ounces per foot, but sand is a little heavy, and he’s sitting in a bathing suit. Look, at 81, do you remember Cary Grant? How good was Cary Grant, right? I don’t think Cary Grant, he was good. I don’t know what happened to movie stars today. We used to have Cary Grant and Clark Gable and all these people. Today we have, I won’t say names, because I don’t need enemies. I don’t need enemies. I got enough enemies. But Cary Grant was, like – Michael Jackson once told me, ‘The most handsome man, Trump, in the world.’ ‘Who?’ ‘Cary Grant.’ Well, we don’t have that any more, but Cary Grant at 81 or 82, going on 100. This guy, he’s 81, going on 100. Cary Grant wouldn’t look too good in a bathing suit, either. And he was pretty good-looking, right?”

This is a long piece, so if you’re interested, head over to the Guardian and read the whole thing.

Up in the Clouds, by Megan Ellen MacDonald The fund-raising race in the presidential campaign is the focus of a number of stories today.

Politico: Biden campaign announces pulling in $90M in March.

President Joe Biden’s campaign said it raised $90 million in March, a sum that’s likely to grow the president’s significant financial edge over former President Donald Trump.

The Biden campaign said it had $192 million in cash on hand, a total that includes funds from the campaign, the Democratic National Committee and related joint fundraising committees. It’s the largest war chest amassed by any Democratic presidential candidate at this point in the cycle, according to a Biden campaign memo announcing the totals on Saturday. Aides released the total ahead of the monthly Federal Elections Commission filing deadline later this month.

Biden’s monthly totals come on the same day as Trump is holding his own major fundraiser. The former president’s campaign said they expect to raise more than $43 million at a one-night event in Palm Beach, Florida. Saturday’s Trump fundraiser aims to top the “three presidents” extravaganza in New York City last week, when Biden, joined by former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, hauled in more than $26 million on a star-studded night.

Biden’s financial edge has remained a bright spot for the president, who continues to struggle with stubbornly low approval ratings and trails Trump narrowly in national polling averages.

Biden and the DNC ended February with more than double the cash-on-hand that Trump and the RNC had. Trump has failed to match his 2020 fundraising totals, and he’s also diverted millions of dollars to help pay his legal fees.

NBC News: Trump’s $50 million gala set to double Biden’s triple-president fundraiser.

Former President Donald Trump has secured commitments totaling $50 million for a Saturday fundraiser in Palm Beach, Florida, according to four sources familiar with an effort that could bring in double what three Democratic presidents raised last week for President Joe Biden’s re-election push.

Hosted by hedge-fund billionaire John Paulson, the event will benefit Trump’s campaign, his Save America PAC, the Republican National Committee and state chapters of the GOP under a joint-fundraising agreement.

“Saturday’s event signifies the GOP’s finance team is all back home,” said one of the sources, who plans to attend the fundraiser. “Should produce a record haul.”

Trump also held a call with donors and fundraisers on Friday, in which he said he expected to double the amount Democrats raised at the recent Democratic event, according to one of the other sources, who was on the call.

It was not immediately clear whether all of the committed money would be collected by Saturday night.

This is from The Hill: Biden campaign hits Trump over guests at upcoming Palm Beach high-dollar fundraiser.

President Biden’s reelection campaign hit former President Trump on Friday over the guest list for his high-dollar fundraiser in Palm Beach, Fla., this weekend….

In a statement first sent to The Hill, the Biden campaign focused on the expected attendees to hit Trump on his fundraising strategy of looking to billionaires who have targeted programs such as Social Security.

Taking Inventory, by Erica Oller

“If you want to know who Donald Trump will fight for in a second term, just look at who he is having over for dinner Saturday night – tax cheats, scammers, racists, and extremists,” Biden campaign senior spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said.

“Make no mistake, Donald Trump will do the bidding of his billionaires buddies instead of what is best for the American people. He’ll take their checks and cut their taxes, and leave hard working Americans behind, shipping their jobs overseas, gutting Social Security and Medicare, ripping away health care protections, and banning abortion,” she added.

The Biden campaign pointed to Paulson, whom Trump has reportedly considered for Treasury Secretary if he wins, and who said during a 2018 New York University panel that Social Security could be switched to “to defined contribution from defined benefit.”

It called out Jeff Yass, a billionaire businessman and major investor in TikTok, as an expected attendee who floated privatizing Social Security accounts in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece in 2019….

Additionally, the campaign pointed to Michael Hodges, founder of a payday lender, as an attendee. He reportedly told other payday lenders in 2019 that contributions to Trump’s 2020 campaign could mean access to the then-administration, according to The Washington Post. It also pointed out that members of the Mercer family are Trump donors and that hedge fund manager Robert Mercer has argued that the Civil Rights Act was a mistake, citing The New Yorker.

The Biden campaign also pointed to John Catsimatidis, who is expected at the dinner. Catsimatidis, a billionaire who ran for New York City mayor in 2013, compared former President Obama’s plans in 2013 to raise taxes on the wealthy to how “Hitler punished the Jews,” according to Newsweek.

IMO, it’s great that Biden’s campaign is pointing out the creepy rich guys who are supporting Trump.

Some foreign policy stories:

CNN: US preparing for significant Iran attack on US or Israeli assets in the region as soon as next week.

The US is on high alert and actively preparing for a “significant” attack that could come as soon as within the next week by Iran targeting Israeli or American assets in the region in response to Monday’s Israeli strike in Damascus that killed top Iranian commanders, a senior administration official tells CNN.

Senior US officials currently believe that an attack by Iran is “inevitable” – a view shared by their Israeli counterparts, that official said. The two governments are furiously working to get in position ahead of what is to come, as they anticipate that Iran’s attack could unfold in a number of different ways – and that both US and Israeli assets and personnel are at risk of being targeted.

A forthcoming Iranian attack was a major topic of discussion on President Joe Biden’s phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday.

As of Friday, the two governments did not know when or how Iran planned to strike back, the official said.

By Christina Bernazzani

A direct strike on Israel by Iran is one of the worst-case scenarios that the Biden administration is bracing for, as it would guarantee rapid escalation of an already tumultuous situation in the Middle East. Such a strike could lead to the Israel-Hamas war broadening into a wider, regional conflict – something Biden has long sought to avoid.

It has been two months since Iranian proxies attacked US forces in Iraq and Syria, a period of relative stability after months of drone, rocket and missile launches targeting US facilities. The lone exception came on Tuesday, when US forces shot down a drone near al-Tanf garrison in Syria. The drone attack, which the Defense Department said was carried out by Iranian proxies, came after the Israeli strike on the Iranian embassy in Damascus.

“We asses that al-Tanf was not the target of the drone,” a defense official said Tuesday. “Since we were unable to immediately determine the target and out of safety for US and coalition partners, the drone was shot down.”

The incident came after the Israeli airstrike on the Iranian embassy in Damascus on Monday, though an Israel Defense Forces spokesman told CNN that their intelligence showed the building was not a consulate and is instead “a military building of Quds forces disguised as a civilian building.”

Wednesday Reads

Posted: April 3, 2024 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: 2024 Elections, 2024 presidential Campaign, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, just because | Tags: 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, Benjamin Netanyahu, Gaza hunger, Israel-Hamas war, Jose Andres, Judge Aileen Cannon, Judge Juan Merchan, Ruby Garcia, Special Counsel Jack Smith, Tom Fitton, World Central Kitchen | 13 Comments

Good Afternoon!!

It’s spring, but here in New England, we are awaiting a winter storm–a Nor’easter with high winds, torrential rains, and even snow in some areas. The storm is expected to last from this afternoon into Friday. It’s supposed to get stormy later this afternoon, but I can see outside my window that it is already raining. It’s a good day to read book and maybe take a nap.

The world news is awful. Benjamin Netanyhu is a monster. Yesterday, we learned that 7 workers for José Andrés’ World Central Kitchen were killed in 3 Israeli strikes in Gaza that sound targeted. The charity said they had coordinated with the IDF and had large signs on the roofs of their vehicles identifying them as aid workers.

David Graham at The Atlantic: A Deadly Strike in Gaza.

Seven people working for a humanitarian aid group led by the chef José Andrés were killed in an Israeli air strike in the central Gaza Strip today. The strike is a black mark for the Israel Defense Forces, and likely to turn world opinion further against the Gaza campaign. But more than its geopolitical significance, the strike is a horrifying moment on a human level. Innocent people, doing good work to feed a starving population, have died for no reason at all.

The group, World Central Kitchen, has been engaged for months in efforts to feed severely malnourished Palestinians in Gaza. WCK said the workers were “traveling in a deconflicted zone in two armored cars branded with the WCK logo and a soft skin vehicle,” and that the strike happened despite the group coordinating its movements with the Israel Defense Forces. Footage shows a puncture directly through the WCK emblem prominently displayed atop a vehicle.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged the strike, which he described as an accident. “Unfortunately, there was a tragic incident in which our forces unintentionally hit innocent people in the Gaza Strip,” he said. “As it happens in war, we are investigating the matter fully, we are in contact with the governments, and we will do everything possible to prevent this from happening again.”

When Netanyau made this statement, there was an obvious smirk on his face.

💥Netanyahu: Shit happens.

"Unfortunately, a tragic instance of our forces unintentionally harming innocent people in the Gaza Strip. It happens in war.
We'll investigate it. We're in contact with the governments, and we will do everything so that it doesn't happen again." pic.twitter.com/52zuojncbj

— Noga Tarnopolsky נגה טרנופולסקי نوغا ترنوبولسكي💙 (@NTarnopolsky) April 2, 2024

Back to the Atlantic:

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the trucks were traveling along a route approved by the IDF when they were struck by an Israeli drone. Security forces believed that there was an armed Hamas member in the convoy, but the target was not actually traveling in any of the vehicles at the time of the strike. After each of the first two vehicles was struck, the passengers moved the wounded to a third, before another strike hit that one, killing the seven people. A Haaretz source inside the defense establishment blamed units in the field for acting rashly.

Writing on X, Andrés mourned the deaths: “The Israeli government needs to stop this indiscriminate killing. It needs to stop restricting humanitarian aid, stop killing civilians and aid workers, and stop using food as a weapon. No more innocent lives lost. Peace starts with our shared humanity. It needs to start now.” [….]

The deaths are the latest senseless act of violence in a cycle that began with Hamas’s October 7 attacks, which killed more than 1,000 Israelis. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have died in Israel’s campaign in Gaza since. Netanyahu says the operation will destroy Hamas, though many commentators inside and outside of Israel find that goal unrealistic. The IDF has blamed civilian casualties on Hamas, which has intertwined its operations with noncombatants. Many aid workers have died, as well as nearly 100 members of the media, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The New York Times: José Andrés: Let People Eat.

In the worst conditions you can imagine — after hurricanes, earthquakes, bombs and gunfire — the best of humanity shows up. Not once or twice but always.

The seven people killed on a World Central Kitchen mission in Gaza on Monday were the best of humanity. They are not faceless or nameless. They are not generic aid workers or collateral damage in war.

People gather around the carcass of a car used by US-based aid group World Central Kitchen, that was hit by an Israeli strike the previous day in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on April 2, 2024. (Photo by AFP) (Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images)

Saifeddin Issam Ayad Abutaha, John Chapman, Jacob Flickinger, Zomi Frankcom, James Henderson, James Kirby and Damian Sobol risked everything for the most fundamentally human activity: to share our food with others.

These are people I served alongside in Ukraine, Turkey, Morocco, the Bahamas, Indonesia, Mexico, Gaza and Israel. They were far more than heroes.

Their work was based on the simple belief that food is a universal human right. It is not conditional on being good or bad, rich or poor, left or right. We do not ask what religion you belong to. We just ask how many meals you need.

From Day 1, we have fed Israelis as well as Palestinians. Across Israel, we have served more than 1.75 million hot meals. We have fed families displaced by Hezbollah rockets in the north. We have fed grieving families from the south. We delivered meals to the hospitals where hostages were reunited with their families. We have called consistently, repeatedly and passionately for the release of all the hostages.

All the while, we have communicated extensively with Israeli military and civilian officials. At the same time, we have worked closely with community leaders in Gaza, as well as Arab nations in the region. There is no way to bring a ship full of food to Gaza without doing so.

That’s how we served more than 43 million meals in Gaza, preparing hot food in 68 community kitchens where Palestinians are feeding Palestinians.

We know Israelis. Israelis, in their heart of hearts, know that food is not a weapon of war.

Israel is better than the way this war is being waged. It is better than blocking food and medicine to civilians. It is better than killing aid workers who had coordinated their movements with the Israel Defense Forces.

The World Central Kitchen has pulled out of Gaza for now, and without them Palestinians will starve.

Reuters: Biden ‘outraged’ by Israeli airstrike that killed aid workers in Gaza.

U.S. President Joe Biden said on Tuesday he was “outraged and heartbroken” by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza that killed seven people working for World Central Kitchen (WCK) and he called on Israel to do more to protect aid workers.

Israel’s investigation of the incident “must be swift, it must bring accountability, and its findings must be made public,” Biden said in a statement.

“Even more tragically, this is not a stand-alone incident,” he said. “This conflict has been one of the worst in recent memory in terms of how many aid workers have been killed.” [….]

Biden said Israel has not done enough to protect aid workers or civilians in Gaza.

“The United States has repeatedly urged Israel to deconflict their military operations against Hamas with humanitarian operations, in order to avoid civilian casualties,” he said.

Biden also spoke to Chef Andres by phone. Read about it at Axios. That’s a start, but Biden needs to do more. I think he should cut off military aid to Israel.

As usual, there is lots of Trump news.

First, late last night Special Prosecutor Jack Smith filed a response to Judge Aileen Cannon’s order that both sides submit jury instructions based on her faulty interpretation of the Presidential Records Act.

Hannah Rabinowitz and Tierney Sneed at CNN: Special counsel blasts judge’s jury instruction request in Trump documents case.

In perhaps prosecutors’ strongest rebuke yet to how Judge Aileen Cannon has handled the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump, special counsel Jack Smith said in court filings late Tuesday evening that the judge had ordered briefings based on a “fundamentally flawed” understanding of the case that has “no basis in law or fact.”

Smith’s team harshly critiqued Cannon’s request for jury instructions that embraced Trump’s claims that he had broad authority to take classified government documents and said it would seek an appeals court review if she accepted the former president’s arguments about his record-retention powers.

In an unusual order last month, Cannon asked attorneys on the classified documents case to submit briefs on potential jury instructions defining terms of the Espionage Act, under which Trump is charged over mishandling 32 classified records. Specifically, Cannon asked the special counsel and defense attorneys to write two versions of proposed jury instructions.

The first scenario would instruct a jury to assess whether each of the records that Trump is accused of retaining fell into the categories of “personal” or “presidential” as laid out by the Presidential Records Act, a post-Watergate law that governs how White House records belonging to the government are to be handled at the end of a presidency.

The second version Cannon asked for assumes that as president, Trump had complete authority to take records he wanted from the White House, which would make it nearly impossible for prosecutors to secure a conviction. If she were to institute this sort of instruction, Smith’s team said, “the Government must be provided with an opportunity to seek prompt appellate review.”

“Both scenarios rest on an unstated and fundamentally flawed legal premise — namely, that the Presidential Records Act and in particular its distinction between ‘personal’ and ‘Presidential’ records, determines whether a former President is ‘authorized,’ under the Espionage Act, to possess highly classified documents and store them in an unsecure facility,” the special counsel’s team wrote.

If allowed to be presented to a jury, prosecutors said, “that premise would distort the trial.” [….]

Prosecutors have repeatedly said that PRA is not relevant to the charges against Trump, as the conduct he is accused of happened after his term as president ended. Trump’s claim that he deemed the records personal are “pure fiction,” invented once the National Archives had retrieved boxes with classified information from Mar-a-Lago two years after he left office, they wrote Tuesday.

Their new filing sheds light on some of the evidence that investigators have collected about Trump’s record-keeping habits during his presidency. According to the prosecutors’ account, there is no evidence that Trump designated the relevant classified records as personal when he left the White House, and the prosecutors said he got the idea that he did have such power many months later, from the leader of a conservative legal organization.

That leader is Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch. Fitton is not an attorney.

Alan Feuer at The New York Times: Frustrated Prosecutors Ask Trump Documents Judge to Act on Key Claim.

In an open display of frustration, federal prosecutors on Tuesday night told the judge overseeing former President Donald J. Trump’s classified documents case that a “fundamentally flawed” order she had issued was causing delays and asked her to quickly resolve a critical dispute about one of Mr. Trump’s defenses — leaving them time to appeal if needed.

The unusual and risky move by the prosecutors, contained in a 24-page filing, signaled their mounting impatience with the judge, Aileen M. Cannon, who has allowed the case to become bogged down in a logjam of unresolved issues and curious procedural requests. It was the most directly prosecutors have confronted Judge Cannon’s legal reasoning and unhurried pace, which have called into question whether a trial will take place before the election in November even though both sides say they could be ready for one by summer.

In their filing, prosecutors in the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, all but begged Judge Cannon to move the case along and make a binding decision about one of Mr. Trump’s most brazen claims: that he cannot be prosecuted for having taken home a trove of national security documents after leaving office because he transformed them into his own personal property under a law known as the Presidential Records Act.

The prosecutors derided that assertion as one “not based on any facts,” adding that it was a “justification that was concocted more than a year after” Mr. Trump left the White House.

“It would be pure fiction,” the prosecutors wrote, “to suggest that highly classified documents created by members of the intelligence community and military and presented to the president of the United States during his term in office were ‘purely private.’” [….]

Mr. Smith’s prosecutors told Judge Cannon in their filing on Tuesday that the Presidential Records Act had nothing to do with the case and that the entire notion of submitting jury instructions based on it rested on a “fundamentally flawed legal premise.”

Instead, they asked her to decide the validity of the Presidential Records Act defense in a different way: by rejecting Mr. Trump’s motion to dismiss the case based on the same argument. That motion has been sitting on her desk for almost six weeks.

The prosecutors want Judge Cannon to take that course of action, because any decision she makes on the motion to dismiss can be challenged in an appeals court. But if the case is allowed to reach the jury, any ruling she might make acquitting Mr. Trump cannot be appealed.

Read the rest at the NYT.

Marcy Wheeler puts it in plain language: Jack Smith to Aileen Cannon: Treating Non-Lawyer Tom Fitton’s Theories as Law Will Lead to Mandamus.

Both Trump and Jack Smith have responded to Aileen Cannon’s whack order to write proposed jury instructions as if the Presidential Records Act says something it doesn’t. Neither are all that happy about it.

Trump used his response to claim that having the jury assess whether Trump really did make these documents personal records rather than simply steal them would put them in the role that, he’s arguing, only a (former) President can be in.

Smith — as many predicted — spent much of the filing arguing that Cannon cannot leave this issue until jury instructions because it must have an opportunity to seek mandamus for such a clear legal error; they cite the 11th Circuit slapdown of Cannon’s last attempt to entertain this fantasy in support.

Along the way, though, Smith also did something I had hoped he would do: explain where, and when, Trump’s own whack theory came from in the first place.

It came from Tom Fitton’s Xitter propaganda in response to the public report, in February 2022, that Trump had returned documents, including classified ones. But even after Fitton first intervened, Trump’s handlers continued to treat any remaining classified documents as presidential records for months.

Read about Fitton’s half-baked “theory” at the link. As I understand it, madamus means that Smith would ask the appeals court to remove Cannon from the case and replace her.

Earlier yesterday, the Judge Juan Merchan, who is in charge of the New York criminal case against Trump for interfering in the 2016 election by paying off women he was sexually involved with, added family members to his gag order. The Guardian: Trump faces an expanded gag order. It won’t stop the death threats.

When Judge Juan Merchan issued a gag order last week to bar former president Donald Trump from attacking potential witnesses and others involved in his pending hush-money trial in New York, he left open a loophole that Trump jumped to exploit.

The former president immediately went on the attack against Merchan’s own daughter, falsely accusing her of posting social media content that called for Trump to be jailed.

Merchan’s original gag order had covered potential trial witnesses, jurors, district attorney Alvin Bragg’s staff and Merchan’s staff while excluding the prosecutor and the judge – but hadn’t explicitly included Merchan’s and Bragg’s family members.

Merchan responded by expanding the gag order on Monday to cover their families, writing that Trump’s attacks on his daughter were part of a broader pattern of attacking family members of the judges and attorneys involved in his cases that “serves no legitimate purpose. It merely injects fear in those assigned or called to participate in the proceedings, that not only they, but their family members as well, are ‘fair game’ for Defendant’s vitriol.”

Judge Juan Merchan

That pattern has played out in case after case – and if the past is prologue, his supporters will take it one step further. When Trump attacks those involved in his cases, death threats soon follow.

Bragg, whom Trump has called an “animal” and “degenerate psychopath”, and Merchan, who he’s claimed “HATES ME”, have received death threats ever since the case began.

Lazy Caturday Reads: Something Has to be Done about Trump’s Violent Threats.

Posted: March 30, 2024 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: cat art, caturday, Donald Trump, Joe Biden | Tags: Former federal judge J. Michael Luttig, Judge Reggie Walton, Judge Royce C. Lamberth, Judge Thomas F. HOgan, judges speak out, Rule of Law, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Secret Service, Trump's violent threats | 6 Comments

Good Afternoon!!

By Erica Oller

For the past couple of days, social media has been focused on a shocking video that Trump posted on Truth Social, in which President Biden was depicted in the back of a pickup truck with his hands and feet bound as if he had been kidnapped.

This is nothing new for Trump. He routinely threatens judges and their families, immigrants, Democrats, even fellow Republicans who dare to cross him. This man is out on bail in four separate cases. Why is he permitted to keep issuing threats against anyone he perceives as an enemy?

Imagine if you were a witness in one the cases against him. How would you feel about testifying when you know that Trump can and will get his followers to threaten you and perhaps even hurt or kill you? After all, he instigated an attack on the U.S. Capitol during which police officers were killed and badly injured.

Joyce Vance says it better than I can. From Civil Discourse: We Need to Talk About This.

Today’s widely discussed Trump post on Truth Social isn’t just another instance of bad behavior. It’s not just a shrug of the shoulders and a resigned sigh of, “What are you going to do?” Far too often, people resignedly accept Trump’s behavior because they believe there’s no alternative. The zeitgeist is: We can’t make him stop, can we?

Here’s Trump’s Truth Social post. It’s a video, and although I hate to send you to Truth Social, you can watch the whole thing here. Or read on for my description. What you need to know is that this is unprecedented and out of bounds. If you or I did this, the Secret Service would be on our doorstep within hours.

Donald Trump, by the way, is out on bond ahead of trial in four separate criminal cases. Today, he threatened the President of the United States. It’s time for the people with authority to do so to deal with him. Sure, he’s the Republican Party’s presidential candidate, but they won’t reign him in. And someone is going to get hurt if he isn’t….

I know from experience as a prosecutor how seriously the Secret Service takes every single threat, or anything close to a threat, made against the President of the United States. They take it seriously even when it looks like the person making it lacks any capacity to carry it out. They always check. They always have the talk.

Donald Trump is different from the person who makes a bad joke or an evil suggestion they don’t have the power to follow through on. We know, and more importantly, he knows, how his followers react when he suggests violence. It’s unthinkable, unconscionable for a former president to even intimate that violence against the current president is acceptable. I cannot imagine George W. Bush even joking about something like this when Barack Obama was in the White House, or Obama suggesting Trump should be kidnapped and trussed up in the back of a truck.

Trump is totally, and uniquely among our former presidents, out of bounds. It’s time to stop letting him break the rules. We’re entitled to more, not less, accountability from our presidents than from average citizens.

No one is saying Trump can’t campaign or that he can’t criticize Biden. What he can’t do is suggest he should be kidnapped, knocked out, and bound in the back of a pickup truck. I can’t believe that I have to write that out—there is no universe in which that’s acceptable.

As Vance writes, the justice system has ways to deal with this kind of behavior, so why is Trump still free to threaten his “enemies?” He should be in jail right now.

By Leny_art at Deviant Art

The Washington Post published a somewhat mealy-mouthed piece about this by Azi Paybarah that includes Trump’s excuses: Donald Trump shares image of Joe Biden with hands and feet tied.

Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Trump’s campaign, sent a lengthy statement distancing the campaign from the image, and accusing Democrats of using violent rhetoric against Trump.

“That picture was on the back of a pick up truck that was traveling down the highway,” Cheung said in the statement. “Democrats and crazed lunatics have not only called for despicable violence against President Trump and his family, they are actually weaponizing the justice system against him.”

The message remained live on Trump’s feed late Friday night.

Among the examples Cheung cited in his statement were Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) saying in 2017 “What we’ve got to do is fight in Congress, fight in the courts, fight in the streets, fight online, fight at the ballot box …” Cheung also cited Biden’s 2018 comment, when he said, “If we were in high school, I’d take him [Trump] behind the gym and beat the hell out of him.”

Paybarah also includes other examples of Trump attacking Biden and others with violent imagery:

In October, Trump shared a doctored video of him hitting a golf ball that hits Biden and knocks him down. (It was similar to a doctored video he shared in 2017, hitting a golf ball into the back of Hillary Clinton, who falls down as a result.) In April 2023, a judge issued a warning to Trump after an image of him holding a bat next to an image of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) was shared from one of the former president’s verified accounts.

In July 2017, Trump shared a video of himself at a professional wrestling match, beating up a man whose face is covered with the CNN logo. The verified account for CNN’s communication team responded to the video with a quote from Trump’s White House spokeswoman at the time, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, falsely claiming Trump “in no way form or fashion has ever promoted or encouraged violence.”

Earlier this month, Trump told supporters in Ohio that some immigrants who are accused of crimes are “not people,” and warned it will be a “bloodbath for the country” if he is not elected.

The latest episode has coincided with Trump’s increasing use of violent and hostile rhetoric as he seeks to return to the White House. In December, he told people in New Hampshire that immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country” — a phrase that immigrant groups and civil rights advocates condemned and said was reminiscent of Hitler telling Germans, in his book “Mein Kampf,” to “care for the purity of their own blood” by eliminating Jews.

On Thursday night, Reggie Walton, a sitting federal judge, appeared on CNN to denounce Trump’s violent threats. Shania Shelton and Rachard Rose at CNN: Federal judge warns of Trump’s attacks in extraordinary rebuke.

US District Judge Reggie Walton spoke with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on “The Source” in the wake of Trump’s attacks on Judge Juan Merchan, which helped prompt the New York judge to issue a gag order on the former president earlier this week. It is unusual for federal judges to speak publicly, especially about specific political or legal situations.

By Adrie Martens

“It’s very disconcerting to have someone making comments about a judge, and it’s particularly problematic when those comments are in the form of a threat, especially if they’re directed at one’s family,” said Walton, who has also faced threats, as has his daughter. “We do these jobs because we’re committed to the rule of law and we believe in the rule of law, and the rule of law can only function effectively when we have judges who are prepared to carry out their duties without the threat of potential physical harm.”

“I think it’s important in order to preserve our democracy that we maintain the rule of law,” Walton said in the interview. “And the rule of law can only be maintained if we have independent judicial officers who are able to do their job and ensure that the laws are, in fact, enforced and that the laws are applied equally to everybody who appears in our courthouse.”

“I think it’s important that, as judges, we speak out and say things in reference to things that conceivably are going to impact on the process, because if we don’t have a viable court system that’s able to function efficiently, then we have tyranny. And I don’t think that would be good for the future of our country, and the future of democracy in our country,” he continued.

This is by Spencer S. Hsu at The Washington Post: Republican-appointed judges raise alarm over Trump attacks on law.

A Republican-appointed judge denounced Donald Trump’s social media attacks against the judge presiding over the former president’s hush money trial in Manhattan and his daughter, calling them assaults on the rule of law that could lead to violence and tyranny.

“When judges are threatened, and particularly when their family is threatened, it’s something that’s wrong and should not happen,” U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton, told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins in a live interview Thursday. He added, “It is very troubling because I think it is an attack on the rule of law.”

The unusual media statement by a sitting federal judge came after Trump blasted New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan and his daughter, Loren Merchan, criticizing her affiliation with a digital marketing company that works with Democratic candidates and erroneously attributing to her a social media post showing Trump behind bars.

Walton, who was appointed by presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush to courts in Washington in 1981 and 1991, said “any reasonable, thinking person” would appreciate the impact of Trump’s rhetoric on some followers, intentional or not. The judge recalled how a disgruntled litigant killed the son and wounded the husband of New Jersey federal Judge Esther Salas at her home in a 2020 shooting.

By Rita Cardelli

Since late 2020, as Trump began escalating his attacks on the judiciary, serious investigated threats against federal judges have more than doubled, from 224 in 2021 to 457 in 2023, according to the U.S. Marshals Service, as first reported by Reuters. Federal judges in Washington say at least half of trial judges handling cases arising from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol have received a surge in threats and harassment, including death threats to their homes, with Trump’s election obstruction trial judge, Tanya S. Chutkan, placed under 24-hour protection.

“The rule of rule of law can only be maintained if we have independent judicial officers who are able to do their job and ensure that the laws are in fact enforced and that the laws are applied equally to everybody who appears in our courthouse,” Walton told CNN. He was prompted to speak out of concern for the “future of our country and the future of democracy in our country,” Walton said, “because if we don’t have a viable court system that’s able to function efficiently, then we have tyranny.”

Other judges have also spoken out.

Walton’s remarks came as several federal judges in Washington appointed by Republican presidents have spoken with increasing urgency about Trump’s disregard for historical facts and alarmed at his increasingly graphic and at times violent description of defendants prosecuted in the Jan. 6 riot as “political prisoners” and “hostages” who did nothing wrong….

“In my 37 years on the bench, I cannot recall a time when such meritless justifications of criminal activity have gone mainstream,” U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth said in a January sentencing. “I have been dismayed to see distortions and outright falsehoods seep into the public consciousness.”

U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan similarly told a group of Georgetown Law School students in January that false claims that riot defendants were acting like tourists or patriots were destructive rewriting of reality. “There’s a danger that is embedded now in our communities across the country,” Hogan said.

“And we have to wonder where this is going to end up if that’s part of our history, this fraudulent story” by Trump that the 2020 election was stolen. Hogan spoke shortly after his retirement after completing 40 years on the bench and sentencing 26 Jan. 6 riot defendants.

Hogan and Lamberth were both appointed by Reagan, and both served as chief judges of the U.S. District Court in Washington, where judges have presided over more than 1,350 prosecutions for the riot that resulted after Trump urged his supporters to march to the Capitol where Congress was certifying the results of the 2020 election.

From HuffPost: Ex-Federal Judge Blasts Judiciary And Entire Nation For Not Calling Out Trump More.

Former federal judge J. Michael Luttig on Friday blasted former President Donald Trump for his repeated attacks on the nation’s judicial system, calling on leaders in both the state and federal courts — alongside all Americans — to do more about it.

By Irina Babichenko

“Never in American history has any person, let alone a President of the United States, leveled such threatening attacks against the federal and state courts and federal and state judicial officers of the kind the former president has leveled continually now for years,” Luttig said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

“But suffice it to say, never in history has any person leveled such attacks and been met with such passivity, acquiescence, and submissiveness by the nation,” he continued.

Luttig, a Republican, was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit by President George H.W. Bush in 1991, and he served until 2006, when he left for a higher-paid position with Boeing. He currently works for Coca-Cola.

He said in the post that it is the Supreme Court’s “responsibility” to “protect the federal courts, the federal judges, and all participants in the justice system,” adding that the same was true for the state courts.

Luttig praised U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton for going to CNN with his concerns this week. Walton, whose court is in the District of Columbia, criticized Trump in an interview Thursday. Sitting judges typically do not grant interviews to the media.

Trump’s attacks, Luttig said, amounted to a “reprehensible spectacle.”

“Ultimately, however, it is the responsibility of the entire nation to protect its courts and judges, its Constitution, its Rule of Law, and America’s Democracy from vicious attack, threat, undermine, and deliberate delegitimization at the hands of anyone so determined,” he concluded.

This from a tweet by Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an expert on authoritarian leaders and author of the book, “Strongmen.”

Wake up people. This is an emergency. This is what authoritarian thugs and terrorists do. Trump is targeting the President of the United States.

Something has to be done.

I’m going to end there. What do you think about all this? What other stories have captured your interest?

Wednesday Reads

Posted: March 27, 2024 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: 2024 presidential Campaign, Donald Trump, Joe Biden | Tags: Biden campaign strategy, Francis Scott Key Bridge accident, Judge Juan Merchan, NBC, Ronna McDaniel, Trump bible | 16 Comments

Good Day!!

I hardly know where to begin these days. Every day I’m aware of the specter of Trump as dictator hanging over our heads. If only we could know what is going to happen. But we can’t. We can only hang in there until November to learn whether our country will remain a democracy or begin turning into a fascist state.

It seems so obvious that a man like Trump should not be permitted to run for any office, much less president. But somehow he’s doing it, and the media often treat him as a credible candidate. It’s mind-boggling to me. And we are learning that the courts and the “justice” system are not going to save us. Judges just keep giving Trump special treatment. And the Supreme Court is working to take away our individual rights and freedom. What will happen? We can’t know.

Francis_Scott_Key_Bridge_and_Cargo_Ship_Dali_NTSB_view

Collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge and cargo ship

Today’s top news story is about the terrible disaster in Baltimore–the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge. Here’s the latest from the CNN live blog: More than 24 hours after the Key Bridge collapse, recovery operations continue. Here’s what we know.

More than a day after the Dali cargo ship crashed into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, authorities are still searching for the six people missing in the crash. Cold water temperatures and choppy waters are affecting divers’ attempts to find the bodies of those missing, who are presumed dead.

Here’s the latest:

The investigation: A team from with the National Transportation Safety Board went aboard the ship late Tuesday night to gather evidence for their investigation, agency Chair Jennifer Homendy told CNN on Wednesday. There, they obtained the ship’s data recorder, or black box.

No timeline for channel reopening: There is no specific timeline for when ships may be able to move in and out of the channel into the Port of Baltimore, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore says, but he reiterated that it is a priority to get it reopened.

“Long road to recovery”: US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg predicted the restoration effort for the city and port won’t be quick. He also warned of supply chain disruptions, saying, “The impact of this incident is going to be felt throughout the region and really throughout our supply chains.”

Coast Guard assessing hazmat threat: The US Coast Guard is examining damaged shipping containers, some containing potentially hazardous materials, from the crashed vessel, according to a US government document obtained by CNN and a US official familiar with the matter.

Overnight search deemed unsafe: Search and recovery operations were halted overnight due to dangerous conditions, including “very unstable” sections of the steel bridge and shipping containers hanging from the cargo ship, Baltimore City Fire Chief James Wallace told CNN.

Details emerge on those missing: Local authorities have yet to confirm the identities of those missing but have said they include construction workers who were on the bridge at the time of the collapse. Here’s what we know about the six people presumed dead.

Ship blacked out before crash: Just minutes before impact, there was a “total blackout” of engine and electrical power on the ship, according to Clay Diamond, executive director of the American Pilots Association.

City remains in state of emergency: As the search operations continue for the missing, Baltimore remains in a state of emergency, Mayor Brandon Scott told CNN. He says he expects it to remain in place for the “foreseeable future.”

Read more of the key details about the crash here.

Yahoo News: NTSB recovers ship’s ‘black box,’ 6 presumed dead after Francis Scott Key Bridge collapses in Baltimore: Here’s what we know.

The National Transportation Safety Board chair told CNN Wednesday morning that the cargo ship’s data recorder, or black box, was recovered by investigators overnight after they were able to board the ship. More information will reportedly be shared with the public today….

Shortly before 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday, the Dali, a massive cargo ship under a Singaporean flag that was bound from Baltimore to Sri Lanka, apparently lost power shortly before crashing into a pillar that helped stabilize the 1.6-mile-long bridge. The crew sent out a Mayday signal that allowed officials to stop traffic before more cars entered the bridge.

“We’re thankful that between the Mayday and collapse that we had officials who were able to begin to stop the flow of traffic so more cars were not up on the bridge,” Gov. Wes Moore said at a news conference Tuesday.

A view of the Dali cargo vessel which crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge causing it to collapse in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S., March 26, 2024. REUTERS/Julia Nikhinson

The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore said in a statement that the ship, which is as long as three football fields, lost propulsion prior to the crash, and followed emergency protocols by dropping anchor. The National Transportation Safety Board said it was investigating those claims.

The loss of power, however, came as the Dali was traveling at a speed of 8 knots, roughly 9 mph, and left the ship “unable to maintain the desired heading,” the statement read.

“What I do know is that the force of this ship is almost unimaginable,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told ABC’s Good Morning America. “This is a vessel that was about 100,000 tons carrying its load. So 200 million pounds went into this bridge all at once, which is why you had that almost-instant catastrophic result.”

Roberto Leon, a Virginia Tech engineering professor, told the Associated Press that the bridge could not “absorb anywhere near the energy that this humongous ship is bringing. So it’s going to break.”

The Dali was also involved in a 2016 crash at a Belgium port, according to Business Insider.

Thanks to JJ for sending this Guardian article on the victims of the bridge collapse: Details emerge on likely Baltimore bridge collapse victims: ‘They were wonderful family people.’

The six likely victims of the Baltimore bridge collapse on Tuesday all appeared to be construction workers from Latin American countries, according to reports, including a father of three, Miguel Luna, from El Salvador, as authorities said they had recovered the black box recorder from the ship.

Since the container ship Dali crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge after losing power early on Tuesday morning, six members of a construction crew filling potholes on the major bridge are now presumed to be dead, according to state officials.

The immigrant services non-profit We Are Casa confirmed that Luna, 49, had lived in Maryland for at least 19 years.

“He is a husband, a father of three, and has called Maryland his home for over 19 years,” its executive director, Gustavo Torres, said in a statement. Luna’s son Marvin told the Washington Post he knew his father was on the bridge but he had not heard of the tragedy until friends called him.

The foreign affairs ministry of Guatemala confirmed that two of the workers were nationals, though it did not name them. It said the Guatemalan consul general had spoken with family members.

The Associated Press also reported one of the men, Maynor Yassir Suazo Sandoval, was from Honduras.

A correspondent for Reforma reported that a Mexican embassy spokesperson in Washington said one of the victims was a Mexican national and that two others were from Guatemala and El Salvador.

Jesús Campos, a construction worker, said he knew the missing crew members and that they were all from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico. “It’s a difficult situation,” he said, speaking through a translator. “My friends were working on that bridge.”

Campos said the men all worked for the construction company, Brawner Builders, where he himself had worked for eight months – including on the overnight shift, until he was transferred to daytime hours one month ago.

He said the workers were low-income immigrants who used their wages to support family members in the US and abroad.

All “low-income immigrants” repairing potholes in the middle of the night. Heartbreaking.

In other news, NBC was forced by in-house and public outrage to fire Ronna McDaniel after only a few days of employment.

Jeremy Barr at The Washington Post: NBC reverses decision to hire Ronna McDaniel after on-air backlash.

Amid a chorus of on-air protest from some of the network’s biggest stars, NBC announced Tuesday night that former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel will no longer be joining the network as a paid contributor.

In a memo, NBCUniversal News Group Chairman Cesar Conde told staff that he had listened to “the legitimate concerns” of many network employees. “No organization, particularly a newsroom, can succeed unless it is cohesive and aligned,” he wrote. “Over the last few days, it has become clear that this appointment undermines that goal.”

Ronna McDaniel

The network had only just announced four days earlier that they were bringing McDaniel on board to provide “expert insight and analysis” on politics. “It couldn’t be a more important moment to have a voice like Ronna’s on the team,” one NBC News executive told staff at the time.

But the company’s on-air personalities — especially those on NBC’s liberal-leaning cable affiliate MSNBC — disagreed vehemently, saying that McDaniel’s promotion of former president Donald Trump’s media-bashing and false election-fraud claims disqualified her from a role in their news divisions.

And one by one, they took to the airwaves to deliver that message to their bosses in front of their live audiences Monday.

“Take a minute, acknowledge that maybe it wasn’t the right call,” MSNBC’s top-rated star Rachel Maddow said on her show that night. “It is a sign of strength, not weakness, to acknowledge when you are wrong.”

NBC delivered the news of its course correction to its employees before informing McDaniel, according to a person familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preserve confidence.

Maybe the bosses should have consulted with their employees before hiring a proven liar and insurrectionist.

Jim Rutenberg and Alexandra Berzon at The New York Times: How Ronna McDaniel Backed Trump’s Early Bid to Hold Power.

By the second week of December 2020, the presidential election was decided and heading to a formal vote at the Electoral College. Like President Trump, the Republican Party chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel, wasn’t ready to concede.

“Every illegal vote is stealing from a valid vote, and every state that conducted their election fraudulently is stealing from states that conducted their elections fairly,” Ms. McDaniel told Sean Hannity of Fox News on Dec. 8.

At the time, key campaign aides had already told Mr. Trump that he had lost. Advisers had found no credible evidence of fraud or irregularities that could have reversed the outcome. The Electoral College would confirm Joseph R. Biden was the winner six days later.

Yet, Ms. McDaniel’s appearance on Mr. Hannity’s program was part of her concerted efforts to help Mr. Trump dispute his election loss….

Ms. McDaniel had recently tried to downplay her role. But a review of her record shows she was, at times, closely involved in and supportive of Mr. Trump’s legal and political maneuvering ahead of the violent attempt to block Congress from certifying Mr. Biden’s victory on Jan. 6.

Ms. McDaniel was not the most aggressive or outlandish member of Mr. Trump’s team. Indeed, she fell short of Mr. Trump’s demands and expectations, former aides said, and faced calls from his allies and grass-roots activists to be far more aggressive. And her involvement appears to have fallen off substantially — at least publicly — in the days before Jan. 6, when the R.N.C. focused its efforts on the then-upcoming Senate runoff election in Georgia.

Later, after courts, Republican election officials and state investigations all dismissed Mr. Trump’s claims of fraud, Ms. McDaniel was viewed as insufficiently dedicated to the cause of overturning the election, particularly by the Trump supporters who still considered Mr. Trump the rightful winner.

But before then, Ms. McDaniel, who through intermediaries declined to comment for this article, had done more to dispute a legitimate election result than any other chair of a major American political party in modern history.

Ronna McDaniel with Trump

The authors break down McDaniel’s actions in detail. Some examples:

The party set up hotlines, collected accounts of supposed suspicious activities and held meetings at the White House with Mr. Trump’s legal team, Ms. McDaniel later testified to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

At a news conference in Michigan on Nov. 6, the day before news outlets declared Mr. Biden the winner, she announced that the R.N.C. was deploying legal teams in four states to investigate “irregularities.” She listed allegations in Michigan that she claimed were evidence of potential, widespread problems, including supposedly suspect election machine software. The allegations were disputed by election officials and later debunked.

Speaking on Fox on Nov. 10, Ms. McDaniel repeated unsubstantiated and soon-to-be debunked claims of “deceased voters” and “batches of votes that were invalidated,” declaring, “that is stealing.”

And on social media, Ms. McDaniel questioned “irregularities” about the election, posted fund-raising solicitations and promoted hearings in states where Mr. Trump’s allies presented bogus evidence of election malfeasance. She vowed that the R.N.C. would “pursue this process to the very end.”

After Mr. Trump switched his legal team, bringing in outside lawyers led by Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, the R.N.C. also shifted away from the legal involvement with the Trump team. Of the 65 lawsuits that Mr. Trump and his allies filed after the 2020 election, the R.N.C. attached its name only to four, according to Democracy Docket, which tracks the cases.

Still, on Nov. 19, Ms. McDaniel allowed Mr. Giuliani and Ms. Powell to hold a press briefing at R.N.C. headquarters. With dark liquid dripping down his face, Mr. Giuliani promoted wild theories about Dominion voting machines and the deceased Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez….

After that news conference, party lawyers told Ms. McDaniel not to repeat the conspiracy theories about election machines, and urged R.N.C. aides to be careful when speaking about the election, suggesting they use phrases like “voting irregularities” rather than “voter fraud,” according to House committee testimony….

On Nov. 17, two Republican members of the canvassing board in Wayne County, which includes Detroit, initially voted against certifying the county’s results, deadlocking the board until they reversed themselves amid angry protest.

Immediately afterward, the Republican board members, Monica Palmer and William Hartmann, received a phone call from Mr. Trump; Ms. McDaniel was also on the line.

Believe it or not, there are many more examples of McDaniel’s dishonest actions in the NYT story.

Trump has now taken over the Republican National Committee and is hiring staff who will support his big lie without question. Josh Dawsey at The Washington Post: Was the 2020 election stolen? Job interviews at RNC take an unusual turn.

Those seeking employment at the Republican National Committee after a Trump-backed purge of the committee this month have been asked in job interviews if they believe the 2020 election was stolen, according to people familiar with the interviews, making the false claim a litmus test of sorts for hiring.

In recent days, Trump advisers have quizzed multiple employees who had worked in key 2024 states about their views on the last presidential election, according to people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private interviews and discussions. The interviews have been conducted mostly virtually, as the prospective future employees are based in key swing states.

“Was the 2020 election stolen?” one prospective employee recalled being asked in a room with two top Trump advisers.

The question about the 2020 election has startled some of the potential employees, who viewed it as questioning their loyalty to Trump and as an unusual job interview question, according to the people familiar with the interviews. A group of senior Trump advisers have been in the RNC building in recent days conducting the interviews.

“But if you say the election wasn’t stolen, do you really think you’re going to get hired?” one former RNC employee asked.

Read more about the Trump RNC hiring process at the link.

More Trump news:

AP: Judge issues gag order barring Donald Trump from commenting on witnesses, others in hush money case.

A New York judge Tuesday issued a gag order barring Donald Trump from commenting publicly about witnesses, prosecutors, court staff and jurors in his upcoming hush-money criminal trial, citing the former president’s history of “threatening, inflammatory, denigrating” remarks about people involved in his legal cases.

Judge Juan Merchan

Judge Juan M. Merchan’s decision, echoing a gag order in Trump’s Washington, D.C., election interference criminal case, came a day after he rejected the defense’s push to delay the Manhattan trial until summer and ordered it to begin April 15. If the date holds, it will be the first criminal trial of a former president.

“Given that the eve of trial is upon us, it is without question that the imminency of the risk of harm is now paramount,” Merchan wrote in a four-page decision granting the prosecution’s request for what it deemed a “narrowly tailored” gag order.

The judge said the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s statements have induced fear and necessitated added security measures to protect his targets and investigate threats.

Trump’s lawyers fought a gag order, warning it would amount to unconstitutional and unlawful prior restraint on his free speech rights. Merchan, who had long resisted imposing a gag order, said his obligation to ensuring the integrity of the trial outweighed First Amendment concerns.

You’ve probably heard that Trump has been hawking $60 Bibles. It turns out that he’s actually just endorsing a Bible that singer Lee Greenwood has been selling for years. But Trump must be getting a cut of the profits. I can’t imagine him doing this for nothing.

Margaret Hartmann at New York Magazine: Trump Sells $59.99 Bible That Isn’t Even Gold.

It turns out Donald Trump’s Monday morning Truth Social post comparing himself to Jesus Christ (once again) wasn’t just inherently sacrilegious; in a way, it was also promotional content.

Trump launched a new career as a Bible salesman on Tuesday afternoon, posting a video to Truth Social in which he urged supporters to buy the “God Bless the USA Bible.”

Trump with Lee Greenwood

“I’m proud to endorse and encourage you to get this Bible,” Trump says in the three-minute ad. “We must Make America Pray Again.”

Trump added: “All Americans need a Bible in their home and I have many. It’s my favorite book. It’s a lot of people’s favorite book.”

Many people find the idea of any presidential candidate selling religious texts to their supporters totally appalling. And the Donald Trump of it all makes matters even worse. The former president famously named the Bible as his favorite book on the 2016 campaign trail, but was unable to name his favorite verse. During his administration he cited “Two Corinthians” (not Second Corinthians) and had peaceful protesters forcibly removed from a park near the White House so he could stand in front of a church and brandish a Bible. Plus, Trump is hawking the Good Book as he finds himself in huge financial trouble due to his multiple criminal trials, one of which involves hush-money payments to a porn star.

These are all valid concerns. But as a connoisseur of ridiculous Trump money-making schemes, my main issue is that this isn’t a clever scam or an original product: He’s just endorsing a Bible the singer Lee Greenwood released about three years ago.

The Lee Greenwood Bible was controversial even before it came out, as Slate explained back in 2021:

The $60 Bible, which was originally set to ship early this month to commemorate the 20th anniversary of 9/11, was “inspired by” the country musician Lee Greenwood’s 1980s patriotic anthem “God Bless the USA” and packages Scripture with the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, the Pledge of Allegiance, and the handwritten chorus to Greenwood’s song. The ensuing uproar shows the challenges facing publishers in the lucrative Bible-printing business and the growing discomfort with Christian nationalism, the ideology that asserts the United States should be an explicitly Christian country.

The only difference the the Bible Trump is selling is that there is a note in the FAQ saying that Donald Trump has endorsed the book.

AP: Trump slow to invest in states that could decide election as some in GOP fear ‘skeleton’ campaign.

In his bid to retake the White House, few states hold as much promise for Donald Trump as Michigan.

The former president has already won the state once and President Joe Biden, who reclaimed it for Democrats in 2020, is confronting vulnerabilities there as he seeks reelection. Trump’s campaign promises an aggressive play for Michigan as part of a robust swing-state strategy.

But, at least for now, those promises appear to be mostly talk. The Trump campaign and its partners at the Republican National Committee haven’t yet made significant general election investments in the state, according to Michigan Republican Party Chairman Pete Hoekstra. The national committee, he said, hasn’t transferred any money to the state party to help bolster its operations heading into the general election. There are no specific programs in place to court voters of color. And there’s no general election field staff in place.

“We’ve got the skeleton right now,” Hoekstra said. “We’re going to have to put more meat on it.”

It’s much the same in presidential battleground states across the country, according to Republican operatives and party officials involved in campaign planning elsewhere.

Widely praised for its professionalism and effectiveness throughout the primary phase of the 2024 election, Trump’s political operation has been slow to pivot toward the general election in the weeks after executing a hostile takeover of the Republican Party’s national political machinery. In fact, the former president’s team has rolled back plans under previous leaders to add hundreds of staff and dozens of new minority-outreach centers in key states without offering a clear alternative.

Read the rest at the AP.

At The Daily Beast, Jake Lahut writes about Joe Biden’s developing plans for Trump: The Biden Campaign Is Quietly Preparing a Trump Ambush.

The president began the election year with his approval rating at historic lows. He was trailing Donald Trump in almost all of the key battleground states, as well as in national polling averages. Influential liberals were so concerned that the octogenarian incumbent did not have another campaign in him that some were openly calling for him to be replaced as the nominee.

As the general election kicks off this spring, however, those calls have quieted—because Biden’s resurgence is coming into focus. While the president still faces serious obstacles to a second term, several important data points are lining up to demonstrate he is picking up badly needed momentum.

For the first time in a long time, there’s good news for Biden on the polling front. Gradual improvements in the battleground states along with an uptick in his approval rating led one Democratic strategist, Simon Rosenberg, to declare “the Biden bump.”

The boost is at the very least correlated with Biden’s fiery State of the Union address on March 7, when he repeatedly went after his “predecessor” and made sure to mix it up with Republicans in the chamber on a few occasions.

Since then, Biden’s team has continued the punchy, combative tone on display that night, using press releases to cheekily slam their legally challenged opponent as “Broke Don.”

On top of that, the Biden campaign has continued to flex what has always been its core strength: fundraising.

With a $53 million haul in February, the Biden campaign built on their already impressive financial advantage over Trump, who brought in only $20 million over the same period. The Biden campaign has $71 million in cash on hand, compared to just $33.5 million for Trump.

The tide is turning, a Biden adviser argued to The Daily Beast, and although they aren’t putting too much stock into any recent polling upticks, the president’s team is ready to seize upon April and May as a crucial time to ambush a wounded Trump campaign.

I really like the way Biden’s campaign has been making fun of Trump on social media. One of the things Trump fears most is people laughing at him.

I know I should be writing about the Supreme Court today, but it’s just too painful. I do want to recommend an excellent article by Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern at Slate (h/t Daknikat): The Current Attack on Abortion Pills Will Fail. The Next One Will Be So Much Worse.

Another good article to check out is this interview with former Justice Stephen Breyer at Politico Magazine: A Supreme Court Justice Sounds a Warning. In Breyer’s new book, he writes that his former colleagues are in danger of having “a Constitution no one wants.”

What are your thoughts on all this? What other stories are you following?

Extra Lazy Caturday Reads

Posted: March 23, 2024 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: cat art, caturday, just because | Tags: 2025 Project, Fox News, ISIS, Ken Buck, Leonard Leo, Mike Gallagher, Mike Johnson, Moscow terror attack, MSNBC, NBC, Vladimir Putin | 5 Comments

Happy Caturday!!

Ted Gordon, born Louisville, KY 1924

The images in today’s post are from the Smithsonian collection of cat art.

On to today’s news:

Are NBC and MSNBC trying to compete with Fox News? Are they preparing for a Trump victory in November? The networks recently hired Ronna [Romney] McDaniel, recently deposed Chair of the Republican National Committee and proven liar and insurrectionist, as a commentator. To say this is an unpopular move with viewers is an understatement. There are reports that other networks competed to hire McDaniel, and NBC/MSNBC “won.” BTW, there have been no comments on this hire by Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes or Lawrence O’Donnell. Do they plan to have her on their shows?

John Knefel at Media Matters: NBC News hires Ronna McDaniel, who played a key role in Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, according to NBC News.

NBC News has hired former Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel to serve as an on-air commentator, meaning that NBC News just hired a key figure in former President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election, according to NBC News.

McDaniel left the RNC after losing Trump’s favor, only to be welcomed into the warmer waters of television punditry. NBC News’ Carrie Budoff Brown announced the hiring of the former RNC chair to the network, writing in a memo to staff, “It couldn’t be a more important moment to have a voice like Ronna’s on the team.”

What, exactly, are NBC News and MSNBC getting with “a voice like Ronna’s?” Let’s turn to the network’s own coverage for answers.

On June 21, 2022, NBC News published a story under the headline “Trump team orchestrated ‘fake electors’ to try to overturn election, Jan. 6 committee details.” The piece described the then-latest findings of the House January 6 committee and spelled out McDaniel’s role in the scheme. As NBC News reported, Trump called McDaniel and connected her with John Eastman, one of the architects of the subversion plot.

“Essentially he turned the call over to Mr. Eastman who then proceeded to talk about the importance of the RNC helping the campaign gather these contingent electors in case any of the legal challenges that were ongoing changed the result of any of the states,” McDaniel said, according to NBC News.

CNBC reported on another of McDaniel’s statements to the committee, acknowledging her and the RNC’s direct participation in the fake elector plot. McDaniel said that the RNC’s role was “helping them reach out and helping them assemble them, but my understanding is the campaign did take the lead and we just were helping them in that role.”

Or, in the words of MSNBC’s Steve Benen: “Ronna McDaniel acknowledged that the Republican National Committee helped put the slates of fake electors together.”

Click the link to read the rest.

Oliver Darcy at CNN: NBC hires former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, who has demonized the press and refused to acknowledge Biden was fairly elected.

NBC News on Friday announced that it had hired Ronna McDaniel, the former Republican National Committee chair who has repeatedly attacked the network and its journalists, assailed the news media as “fake news” and promoted false claims around the 2020 vote, as an on-air commentator ahead of the 2024 presidential election….

Benson B. Moore, born Washington, DC 1882-died Stuart, FL 1974

During her time as chair, McDaniel repeatedly attacked the press, which has become increasingly popular in Republican circles over the last several years as Donald Trump demonizes journalists and news institutions.

McDaniel echoed many such attacks, labeling the press as “fake news” and calling the media “corrupt.” At times, she even targeted NBC News and MSNBC with dishonest attacks.

In 2019, for instance, McDaniel accused Richard Engel, NBC News’ chief foreign correspondent, of “actively cheering for an economic downturn.”

“How can NBC let him keep his job when he’s made his bias so clear?” McDaniel asked.

McDaniel has a lengthier history attacking the progressive cable news channel MSNBC, which she will appear on in her new role. In recent years, she has repeatedly attacked the channel for “spreading lies” and blasted those she described as the network’s “primetime propagandists.”

One more commentary from Tim Murphy at Mother Jones: What a Coup! NBC News Just Hired Ronna McDaniel.

While ex-strategists or party chairs ending up with TV deals is hardly unprecedented, Trump’s attacks on the media don’t have a parallel in modern US politics. He has called the press the “enemy of the people” and accused them of “treason.” A close ally has already signaled that Trump would use the powers of his office to crack down on critical outlets, if he wins a second term. Spending seven years running interference for a fascistic fraudster who holds the First Amendment in roughly the same terminal contempt with which he regards women and low-flow toilets is not the kind of thing that should qualify you for a new career in journalism.

But McDaniel did more than shill for the president. She played an important role in public and behind the scenes in Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election—and with it, two and a half centuries of constitutional governance. That should be a clear red line for employers in the truth-telling business. In November 2020 story in Politico, just a few months before the Capitol insurrection, Tim Alberta offered a glimpse of how McDaniel abetted Trump’s lies about the election and allowed her party organization to amplify them in even more absurd ways:

McDaniel told multiple confidants that she doubted there was any scalable voter fraud in Michigan. Nevertheless, McDaniel told friends and fellow Republicans that she needed to stay the course with Trump and his legal team. This wasn’t about indulging him, she said, but rather about demonstrating a willingness to fight—even when the fight couldn’t be won.

This is why McDaniel has sanctioned her employees, beginning with top spokesperson Liz Harrington, to spread countless demonstrable falsehoods in the weeks since Election Day. It’s why the RNC, on McDaniel’s watch, tweeted out a video clip of disgraced lawyer Sidney Powell claiming Trump “won in a landslide” (when he lost by more than 6 million votes nationally) and alleging a global conspiracy to rig the election against him.

Mom and Dad, by William H. Johnson, born Florence, SC 1901-died Central Islip, NY 1970

McDaniel pushed to delay the certification of the presidential results in Michigan, and helped the Trump campaign assemble fake electors, a key part of its plot to throw the Electoral College certification into chaos. This is not standard-issue party-chair stuff. This was a historically dishonest conspiracy. And it is hardly a secret to anyone: As Media Matters noted on Friday, you can read about a lot of this at NBC News itself.

And that’s sort of the larger point here. NBC News is filled with professional journalists doing good work. Many of them have documented in exhausting (or actually quite lively and entertaining) detail the ways in which Trump and his helpers have corroded American democracy. McDaniel, on the other hand, was a major player in a political project that’s antithetical to that mission. Trump’s GOP was and is built on delegitimizing the people and institutions that might otherwise check it—Congress; the judiciary; the electorates of Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Pennsylvania. Foremost among the institutions Trump wants to blow up is legacy political media, and its critical, fact-checked information stream. The goal is to erode trust in the press. I’m not sure why the suits at NBC News think it’s in anyone’s best interest to hire someone to do that work for Trump.

How important is it to keep MSNBC from becoming Fox News? At The New York Times, Ruth Ingielnik reports: Republicans Who Do Not Regularly Watch Fox Are Less Likely to Back Trump.

Republicans who get their news from nonconservative mainstream media outlets are less likely to support Donald J. Trump than those who follow conservative outlets. And sizable numbers from the first group say they think Mr. Trump acted criminally, according to a recent New York Times/Siena College poll.

This division could affect his standing among Republicans in the general electorate — a decidedly different group from G.O.P. primary voters. That is in line with research that shows that changing the media habits of Fox News consumers may actually change their views.

One hundred percent of the Republicans in our poll who said they got their news from Fox News or other conservative sources said they intended to support Mr. Trump in the general election. This stands in contrast to Republicans whose main media sources are outlets like CNN and major news organizations: Seventy-nine percent of them plan to vote for Mr. Trump, and 13 percent said they planned to vote for President Biden.

And across many measures, mainstream media Republicans are less supportive of Mr. Trump. They are 20 percentage points less likely than conservative media Republicans to say they are enthusiastic about Mr. Trump as the party’s nominee and more than 30 percentage points less likely to say Mr. Trump’s policies have helped them personally.

Despite the perception that most Republicans watch Fox News, the share of Republicans who said they got their news from sources like CNN and major newspapers was similar to the share who said they primarily consumed conservative media — roughly 30 percent in each case.

These Republicans differ from consumers of conservative media primarily in terms of their ideology: They were much more likely to describe themselves as politically moderate. Nikki Haley had about 30 percent support among these Republicans and 4 percent among conservative media consumers (the poll was taken before Ms. Haley dropped out of the race).

If they watch NBC/MSNBC, they will now hear from insurrectionist and propagandist Ronna McDaniel.

by Neil Leifer, born 1942

In other news, there was a massive terrorist attack in Moscow. The U.S. tried to warn Russia it was coming, but Putin ignored it.

The New York Times: Gunmen Kill at Least 60 at Moscow Concert Hall, Russian Officials Say.

Several camouflage-clad gunmen opened fire at a popular concert venue on the outskirts of Moscow on Friday night, killing about 60 people and wounding more than 100, Russian authorities said, making it the deadliest attack in the capital region in more than a decade.

Hours after the mayhem began, the Russian national guard said its officers were still looking for the attackers. State media agencies reported that there had been up to five perpetrators….

For many Russians, the massacre at a concert hall on the outskirts of Moscow on Friday night brought to mind shootings and bombings across the country in recent decades, events that the authorities often described as terrorism.

The authorities linked many of those attacks to Russia’s wars against Chechen separatists in the 1990s and 2000s. Those conflicts helped enable the rise of Vladimir V. Putin, who over his two decades in power has sought to project an image of being tough on terrorism.

New York Times: U.S. Warned About Possible Moscow Attack Before Concert Hall Shooting.

The U.S. Embassy in Moscow issued a security alert on March 7, warning that its personnel were “monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow, to include concerts.” The statement warned Americans that an attack could take place in the next 48 hours.

The warning was related to the attack on Friday, according to people briefed on the matter. But it was not related to possible Ukrainian sabotage, American officials said, adding that the State Department would not have used the word “extremists” to warn about actions ordered from Kyiv.

Pro-Kremlin voices immediately seized on the U.S. Embassy’s warning to paint America as trying to scare Russians.

America officials are worried that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia could seek to falsely blame Ukraine for the attack, putting pressure on Western governments to identify who they think may be responsible. Mr. Putin frequently twists events, even tragic ones, to fit his public narrative. And he has been quick to accuse Ukraine of acts of terrorism to justify his invasion of the country.

U.S. officials said Mr. Putin could do that again after Friday’s attack, seeking to use the loss of life to undermine support for Ukraine both domestically and around the world.

On March 19, the Russian leader called the U.S. Embassy statement “obvious blackmail” made with “the intention to intimidate and destabilize our society.” But he had yet to comment directly on the attack Friday.

And that is exactly what Putin did, according to The Guardian: Moscow concert hall attack: Putin tells Russians Ukraine linked to attack which killed 133, claims denied by Kyiv officials – live updates.

But CNN reports that: ISIS claims responsibility for attack at Moscow-area concert venue that left at least 60 dead.

ISIS has claimed responsibility for an attack at a popular concert hall complex near Moscow Friday after assailants stormed the venue with guns and incendiary devices, killing at least 60 people and injuring 145.

Still Life with Cat, by Franklin C. Watkins, born New York City 1894-died Bologna, Italy 1972an from color transparency

The terror group took responsibility for the attack in a short statement published by ISIS-affiliated news agency Amaq on Telegram on Friday. It did not provide evidence to support the claim.

Video footage from the Crocus City Hall shows the vast complex, which is home to both the music hall and a shopping center, on fire with smoke billowing into the air. State-run RIA Novosti reported the armed individuals “opened fire with automatic weapons” and “threw a grenade or an incendiary bomb, which started a fire.” They then “allegedly fled in a white Renault car,” the news agency said.

State media Russia 24 reported the roof of the venue has partially collapsed.

The fire had been brought largely under control more than six hours later. “There are still some pockets of fire, but the fire has been mostly eliminated,” Moscow governor Andrey Vorobyov said on Telegram.

The deadliest terror attack on Moscow in decades, Friday’s assault came less than a week after President Vladimir Putin won a stage-managed election by an overwhelming majority to secure another term in office, tightening his grip on the country he has ruled since the turn of the century.

With attention focused on the country’s war with neighboring Ukraine, Putin had trumpeted a message of national security before Russians went to the polls.

Back in the USA, there are a couple of interesting stories involving Leonard Leo, former head of the Federalist society and staunch supporter of Donald Trump and the 2025 Project.

NBC News: Leonard Leo, Koch networks pour millions into groups prepping for potential second Trump administration.

Huge funding from influential conservative donor networks is flowing into groups affiliated with a conservative venture aimed at creating a Republican “government-in-waiting,” including over $55 million from groups linked to conservative activist Leonard Leo and the Koch network, according to an Accountable.US review shared exclusively with NBC News.

Launched by the Heritage Foundation in April 2022, Project 2025 is a two-pronged initiative to develop staunch conservative policy recommendations and grow a roster of thousands of right-wing personnel ready to fill the next Republican administration. With former President Donald Trump now the GOP’s presumptive 2024 nominee, the effort is essentially laying the groundwork for a potential Trump transition if he wins the election in November.

With contributions from former high-level Trump administration appointees and an advisory board that has grown to over 100 conservative organizations, proponents describe Project 2025 as the most sophisticated transition effort that has existed for conservatives. The initiative includes a manifesto devising a policy agenda for every department, numerous agencies and scores of offices throughout the federal government.

Since 2021, Leo’s network and groups that have gotten funding from it have funneled over $50.7 million to the groups advising the 2025 Presidential Transition Project as part of its “Project 2025 advisory board,” according to tax documents reviewed as part of the analysis by Accountable.US, a progressive advocacy group. That sum includes donations from The 85 Fund, a donor-advised nonprofit group that funnels money from wealthy financiers to other groups, and the Concord Fund, a public-facing organization, which are part of Leo’s network of organizations that seek to influence policy.

According to its 2022 annual return, the 85 Fund gave more than $2.55 million collectively to seven organizations advising Project 2025, including the Heritage Foundation, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, the American Legislative Exchange Council and the Independent Women’s Forum.

In 2021, the 85 Fund gave $2.1 million to the same organizations, less the Heritage Foundation, while the Concord Fund collectively gave $4.32 million to nonprofit groups including Susan B. Anthony List, Independent Women’s Voice and Heritage Action for America.

Read the rest at NBC News.

This is from top notch reporter Heidi Przybyla at Politico: What happens when an AG dares to investigate Leonard Leo’s network.

Allies of Leonard Leo have mounted a monthslong offensive against the man investigating the judicial activist’s network: Washington, D.C., Attorney General Brian Schwalb.

Since news of the probe broke last August, the GOP chairs of powerful congressional committees launched their own investigation of Schwalb’s investigation; conservative media wrote articles criticizing Schwalb on unrelated crime issues — based on a social media post from a top Leo lieutenant; and a group of his Republican law enforcement peers sent letters warning Schwalb to stand down.

Mary Elizabeth Francis, by John F. Francis, born Philadelphia, PA 1808-died Jeffersonville, PA 1886

Leo is the Federalist Society co-chair who has been called former President Donald Trump’s “court whisperer” for helping to choose and advocate for his Supreme Court nominees. His aligned network of tax-exempt nonprofits is also a major contributor to Project 2025, an initiative seeking to create a “government in waiting” for another Trump term.

The white-hot pressure campaign targeting Schwalb attests to the growing range of Leo’s influence. Beyond its work in promoting the conservative legal movement, his billion-dollar network of nonprofits has funded conservative media, Republican attorneys general and the campaign funds of leading congressional figures….

Schwalb has been probing Leo since he received a complaint about whether Leo-aligned groups violated tax laws governing nonprofit organizations, as POLITICO reported last August. Tax-exempt groups in Leo’s network have spent millions of dollars on his for-profit consulting business, CRC Advisors.

But since news of the probe became public, its legal basis has been challenged by 12 GOP attorneys general who are current or former members of the Republican Attorneys General Association. The Concord Fund, one of the Leo network’s primary nonprofits, and its predecessor, the Judicial Crisis Network, have long been RAGA’s biggest funder, directing $20 million to it since 2014, according to annual tax filings.

Meanwhile, GOP Reps. James Jordan, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, and James Comer, who heads the House Oversight Committee, on Oct. 30 announced a probe of Schwalb’s Leo investigation, saying it was politically motivated. According to a federal disclosure form dated Oct. 20, the Concord Fund had hired a Virginia lobbying firm to handle issues related to “oversight” and “law enforcement,” matters over which Jordan and Comer have jurisdiction.

Read the rest at Politico.

Things aren’t going that well for far right members of the House, however. Politico: Johnson’s margin drops to one vote as Gallagher heads for early exit.

Speaker Mike Johnson is about to drop to a one-vote majority, as retiring Rep. Mike Gallagher has decided he will exit the House as soon as next month, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

In a statement shortly after this story published, Gallagher said he planned to leave April 19.

“I’ve worked closely with House Republican leadership on this timeline and look forward to seeing Speaker Mike Johnson appoint a new chair to carry out the important mission of the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party,” he said.

Wisconsin law dictates that Gallagher’s seat — in a solidly red district — will stay empty for the rest of his term. Departing before April 9 would have triggered a special election.

The Wisconsin Republican announced earlier this year that he would not seek reelection, after he received blowback for voting against impeaching Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. His allies, however, say he was long jaded by the antics of the House following the ouster of Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

It’s bad timing for Johnson, who is now potentially facing a vote on his ouster in the coming weeks. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) filed the so-called motion to vacate on Friday, over Johnson working with Democrats to pass a massive spending bill, but it’s unclear when she’ll try to force the vote on the floor. At the moment, no other Republicans have said they support her motion.

Gallagher’s decision to not finish out the term also further fuels conference concerns over its trajectory headed into the November election.

“It’s tough, but it’s tough with a five-seat majority, it’s tough with a two-seat majority, one is going to be the same. We all have to work together. We’re all going to have to unite if we’re going get some things done,” Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) said shortly after Gallagher announced his early exit.

When Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado announced his early exit, he said he knew of three more House members who were on the verge of quitting. If that happens, control of the House could switch to the Democrats.

That’s all I have for you today. What do you think? What other stories are you following?

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