Tuesday Open Thread

Good Afternoon!!

I had to have a complete eye exam this morning, and it ended up taking more than two hours. Every joint in my body hurts after spending long periods of time in uncomfortable (for me) positions and my pupils are still dialated so I can’t see that well. So this is just an open thread to share some interesting reads. Sorry to sound whiny….

Why isn’t Gini Thomas being investigated by the DOJ?

The Washington Post: Activist group led by Ginni Thomas received nearly $600,000 in anonymous donations.

On the latest ghastly school shooting:

News Channel 6 Nashville: She checked her Instagram. She didn’t expect a message from The Covenant School shooter..

Hayes Brown at MSNBC: The gap between GOP gun rights fantasy and Nashville’s reality.

The Daily Beast: Photos Show Nashville School Shooter Personalized Weapons Used in School Massacre.

CNN: Nashville private school shooting suspect had maps of building and scouted possible second attack location, police say.

HuffPost: The Man Who Leads Senate Prayer Is Fed Up With ‘Thoughts And Prayers.’

In my opinion, anyone who votes Republican or doesn’t vote at all is complicit in these senseless gun deaths.

Here’s some exciting breaking news: Mike Pence has to testify in the January 6 investigation.

Another interesting January 6 story:

Garrett Epps at Washington Monthly: The Dangerous Journey of John Eastman.

I’m really having trouble seeing, but there a few stories to check out. I hope you are all doing well, I love you all!

Lazy Caturday Reads

By Elida Marion

Happy Caturday!!

Yesterday was a busy news day for the Trump investigations. We learned about a sealed ruling from Judge Beryl Howell ordering a large group of close Trump aides to testify in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s January 6 grand jury. Their claims of “executive privilege” aren’t going to protect them anymore.

Maggie Haberman and Alan Feuer at The New York Times: Former Trump Officials Must Testify in 2020 Election Inquiry, Judge Says.

A federal judge has ruled that a number of former officials from President Donald J. Trump’s administration — including his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows — cannot invoke executive privilege to avoid testifying to a grand jury investigating Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

The recent ruling by Judge Beryl A. Howell paves the way for the former White House officials to answer questions from federal prosecutors, according to two people briefed on the matter.

Judge Howell ruled on the matter in a closed-door proceeding in her role as chief judge of the Federal District Court in Washington, a job in which she oversaw the grand juries taking testimony in the Justice Department’s investigations into Mr. Trump. Judge Howell’s term as chief judge ended last week.

The existence of the sealed ruling was first reported by ABC News.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers had tried to rebuff the grand jury subpoenas issued to more than a half-dozen former administration officials in connection with the former president’s efforts to remain in office after his defeat at the polls. The lawyers argued that Mr. Trump’s interactions with the officials would be covered by executive privilege.

Prosecutors are likely to be especially eager to hear from Mr. Meadows, who refused to be interviewed by the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Mr. Meadows was a central player in various efforts to help Mr. Trump reverse the election outcome in a number of contested states….

Other officials whose grand jury testimony Judge Howell compelled in her order vary in significance to the investigation, and in seniority. They include John McEntee, who served as Mr. Trump’s personnel chief and personal aide; Nick Luna, another personal aide; Robert C. O’Brien, who was national security adviser; Dan Scavino, who was a deputy chief of staff and social media director in the White House; John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence; Stephen Miller, Mr. Trump’s speechwriter and adviser; and Ken Cuccinelli, who served as acting deputy secretary of homeland security.

Trump will probably try to appeal Howell’s ruling, but the attempt will probably fail, according to NBC News:

Trump is expected to appeal the sealed ruling. Legal experts say a criminal investigation usually overcomes executive privilege, as it did when the Supreme Court forced President Richard Nixon to hand over tapes his Oval Office conversations.

By Alexander Yanin

Trump has been using his Truth Social social media site to whip up anger among his cult followers, obviously hoping they will use threats and violence to intimidate anyone who tries to hold him accountable for his many crimes. Dakinikat wrote about this yesterday.

Aaron Blake at The Washington Post: Trump repeatedly evokes threat of violence over a potential indictment.

Donald Trump’s history of suggestive allusions to endorsing violence by his supporters is well chronicled. But rarely have his comments been this unvarnished at such a fraught time.

With his potential indictment looming in Manhattan, the former president on Thursday criticized those who have called for his supporters to remain peaceful.

“EVERYBODY KNOWS I’M 100% INNOCENT, INCLUDING BRAGG,” Trump said on Truth Social, referring to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. “BUT HE DOESN’T CARE. HE IS JUST CARRYING OUT THE PLANS OF THE RADICAL LEFT LUNATICS. OUR COUNTRY IS BEING DESTROYED, AS THEY TELL US TO BE PEACEFUL!”

Trump later Thursday posted an article featuring a picture of himself with a baseball bat next to a picture of Bragg. And early Friday morning, he explicitly mentioned the prospect of violence: He questioned why Bragg would charge him while knowing “that potential death & destruction in such a false charge could be catastrophic for our Country.”

While not explicitly urging his supporters to get violent, the seeming message here is that a peaceful response might be insufficientand he is warning of the unrest that his supporters could unleash if he’s charged.To label it a dog whistle would be an understatement. Trump is standing next to a tinderbox and casually lighting a match.

Truth Social is the social media site Trump launched after being banned from Twitter following the Jan. 6, 2021, riot. A late 2022 study found that only 2 percent of Americans use it, but its users were disproportionately right-leaning, and Trump’s messages on it are often amplified elsewhere. In a little over two hours Thursday, Trump’s post was shared more than 4,000 times and liked more than 14,000 times.

So far there haven’t been any large protests in response to Trump’s urging, but Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg has been getting hundreds of threats.

NBC News: Bragg, DA probing Trump, received death threat letter with white powder.

The FBI and NYPD are investigating a letter containing a death threat and white powder that was mailed to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office is investigating former President Donald Trump, law-enforcement sources told NBC News.

The letter was addressed to Bragg and said, “ALVIN: I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!” the sources said. It contained a small amount of white powder.

There were no evacuations or injuries, officials said.

Cat Face, by Susan Stone

It was the latest in what a senior law enforcement source described as “several hundred threats” aimed at Bragg and his office in recent weeks. A couple dozen of the messages were considered to be directly threatening serious harm to Bragg, the source said.

Bragg sent an email to his office acknowledging the difficult week.

“I know it hasn’t been easy,” he wrote in the email, with all of the “press attention and security around our office,” and thanked everyone for their “strength and professionalism during this time.”

“We will continue to apply the law evenly and fairly,” he wrote.

In a statement, the DA’s office said the letter “was immediately contained and that the NYPD Emergency Service Unit and the NYC Department of Environmental Protection determined there was no dangerous substance.”

From Igor Derysh at Salon: “Threatening a prosecutor is a crime”: Experts say Trump’s Truth Social post could badly backfire.

Former President Donald Trump’s fury at Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg could land him in hot water, legal experts warned on Thursday.

Trump has repeatedly attacked Bragg, who is reportedly nearing a potential indictment in his investigation of the 2016 hush-money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels, calling him an “animal” and calling for his supporters to “protest” his widely anticipated arrest. The former president early Friday morning warned of “potential death & destruction” if he is charged in the case, and pushed back on calls for his supporters to remain “peaceful.”

Amid his relentless all-caps attacks on Bragg, Trump shared an article from the far-right outlet National File that included an image of Trump holding a baseball bat next to an image of Bragg’s head.

Norm Eisen, a former Democratic special counsel during Trump’s first impeachment, called the post a “sickening threat” and a “call for violence.”

“Threatening a prosecutor is a crime in NY. In fact MULTIPLE crimes,” he tweeted, listing several statutes that he thinks Trump may have violated:

“Harassment in the first degree NYPL 240.25; menacing in the second degree NYPL 120.14; stalking in the fourth or third degree NYPL 120.45 & 120.50 And that’s just for starters….” 

[….]

Former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, who served on special counsel Bob Mueller’s team, compared the post to a photo longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone posted of a judge overseeing his Mueller probe trial in crosshairs while he was on bail. Weissman tweeted that a judge may need to impose a similar gag order on Trump as the judge did in Stone’s case after the post.

Read more at Salon.

Carol Schneemann, by Robin Tewes

Yesterday Marjorie Taylor Greene led a House Oversight Committee field trip to visit jailed January 6 insurrectionists. The Washington Post: Lawmakers tour D.C. jail to investigate treatment of Jan. 6 defendants.

About a dozen House Republicans, led by Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), and two Democrats toured the D.C. jail Friday to inspect the conditions under which 20 men charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot are being held, and the two parties emerged with sharply different versions of what they saw.

The lawmakers met with some of the defendants, 17 of whom have been charged or convicted of assaulting police officers, and “they told us stories,” Greene said afterward.

Greene and Republicans from the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability organized the jail tour because of complaints from Jan. 6 defendants and their families, some of whom hold a nightly vigil outside the giant brick building on D Street SE. Greene said among the allegations she heard were,“Stories of being denied medical treatment, stories of assault, stories of being threatened with rape.”

The two Democrats who joined the tour said the jail conditions were unremarkable. They said jails are not supposed to be luxury hotels, and that the tour was a political stunt. Democrats have long accused Greene and Republicans of misleading the public about the mistreatment of Jan. 6 defendants in jail….

It appears these inmates are very well treated–they even have computer tablets!

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), who also visited, said there was a full medical team available 24 hours a day in the jail and that the claims of different treatment for the Jan. 6 defendants was “completely a lie.” He said he was “surprised at how much open space there was, they were able to interact freely with members of Congress.”

Garcia said each of the defendants have two computer tablets, one for entertainment and one for legal work, can text their families and contact their attorneys whenever they want. “They’re being treated very fairly and appropriately,” Garcia said.

More on the visit to the DC jail by Arthur Delaney at HuffPost:

The D.C. jail is notorious for its poor treatment of inmates. Still, Greene and committee chair James Comer (R-Ky.) have suggested they’re only interested in the plight of rioters being mistreated due to their politics.

Cat with carnations, Mary Stubberfield

After touring the facility for about two hours with about a dozen colleagues, including two Democrats, Greene told reporters the visit confirmed her view that there’s a double standard.

“There’s a very different treatment for pretrial Jan. 6 defendants,” she said.

The two Democrats from the committee, Reps. Robert Garcia (Ca.) and Jasmine Crockett (Texas), agreed that Jan. 6 defendants received different treatment ― except they said it was better treatment.

“The conditions in the Jan. 6 area are the best conditions in this whole facility,“ Garcia told HuffPost, saying the group can spend most of the day with each other, outside of their cells and away from the general jail population, with access to tablets for entertainment.

“They can text their family any time of the day,” Garcia said. “And they’re here because they committed serious crimes and harm, mostly to law enforcement.”

Today, Trump will likely continue his efforts to incite violence among his cult followers when he presides over a campaign rally in Waco, Texas.

Associated Press News: Trump will hold the 1st rally of his 2024 campaign in Waco today.

Staring down a possible indictment, a defiant Donald Trump is hoping to put on a show of force Saturday as he holds the first rally of his 2024 presidential campaign in a city made famous by deadly resistance against law enforcement.

The former president will gather with supporters at an airport in Waco, which will mark the 30th anniversary of the Waco massacre next month. In 1993, an attempted raid by law enforcement of a compound belonging to the Branch Davidians, a religious cult, resulted in a shootout that led to a 51-day siege, ending in a blaze that left dozens dead.

The rally comes as Trump has berated prosecutors, encouraged protests and raised the prospect of possible violence should he become the first former president in U.S. history to face criminal charges. Some of his recent rhetoric has echoed language he used before the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by a mob of his supporters seeking to stop the transfer of power….

By Olga Suvorova

Trump’s campaign insisted the location and timing of the event had nothing to do with the Waco siege or anniversary. Instead, a spokesperson said the site was chosen because it was conveniently situated near four of the state’s biggest metropolitan areas — Dallas/Fort Worth, Houston, Austin and San Antonio — and has the infrastructure to handle a sizable crowd.

“This is the ideal location to have as many supporters from across the state and in neighboring states attend this historic rally,” said Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung.

The city is part of McLennan County, which Trump won in 2020 by more than 23 points. The airport where the rally is being held is 17 miles from the Branch Davidian compound….

But the timing will give Trump an opportunity to demonstrate his continued popularity with the GOP base and to portray himself as the victim of a politically motivated “witch hunt” as he campaigns for a second term in the White House.

This reminds me of Ronald Reagan announcing his run for president at the Nashoba County Fair in Mississippi, not far from the site of the 1964 murders of civil rights workers Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner.

I highly recommend this essay by Joyce Vance at her Substack site, Civil Discourse: Why Waco?

Why is Donald Trump holding the first rally of his 2024 campaign in Waco, Texas, on Saturday?

There’s a little history there that you may recall.

The Branch Davidians were led by David Koresh and were headquartered at Mount Carmel Center ranch in the community of Axtell, Texas, northeast of Waco. In 1993, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) obtained a search warrant for the compound from a federal judge, as well as arrest warrants for Koresh and other members of the group.  There was evidence the group was stockpiling illegal weapons and had explosive devices.

The planned execution of the search warrant was disrupted when Koresh’s brother-in-law, a mail carrier, learned of the search from a reporter who, tipped off to the search warrant, stopped him to ask for directions to the compound. By the time federal agents arrived to execute the warrant, the Branch Davidians were armed and on alert. A gunfight broke out—each side subsequently accused the other of starting it. Four ATF agents and six Branch Davidians died.

Next, there was a siege that lasted for 51 days, from February 28 to April 19. Federal agents attempted to negotiate with Koresh to end the standoff or at least to permit the children inside to leave. Koresh refused. Ultimately, then-Attorney General Janet Reno approved the use of tear gas to force the Branch Davidians out of their compound. Agents went in on April 19, 1993. The compound became engulfed in flames—how and who was responsible has been the subject of dispute.

Hold that Tiger, by Jeannette Lassen

Vance provides an excellent history lesson–read more details at the link. Today Waco continues to be an obsession for right wingers.

Over the past three decades, Waco has become a touchstone for far-right anti-government, Christian-nationalist white supremacists who likely know little about the Branch Davidians and their motivations. And here is Trump, holding a rally on their sacred ground to launch his 2024 campaign right in the middle of the 30th anniversary of the siege. Going to Waco sends a clear message to anti-government groups, and it should send one to the rest of us as well. It’s too important to miss. Trump is willing to embrace far-right extremism, and everything it brings along with it, to restore himself to power.

That means embracing violence. Only two years after Waco, on April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, leaving 168 people, including 19 children at an on-site day care, dead and more than 500 people injured. McVeigh acknowledged before his death that he set off the Oklahoma City bomb in retribution for Waco and another incident, Ruby Ridge, where U.S. marshals attempted to arrest Randy Weaver, an anti-government defendant who had failed to show up for trial on weapons charges, leading to a standoff in which a federal agent and members of Weaver’s family were killed.

McVeigh was not alone. Waco has become a permanent part of the mythology of American white supremacist groups. It is embedded in the ideology of militia groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. Alex Jones, who notoriously promoted fake claims about the deaths of children at Sandy Hook, has also fanned the flames of Waco. Trump crony Roger Stone dedicated one of his books, The Clintons’ War on Women, to the Branch Davidians who died at Mount Carmel.

We’ll find out in the days and weeks to come how successful Trump is in spurring his followers to commit violent crimes on his behalf. We can only hope that the legal system will somehow bring Trump down. Otherwise we are in big trouble in this country.

Please take care of yourselves this weekend. It has been a stressful week for those of us who follow politics.

Thursday Reads

Good Morning!!

This is disappointing. The grand jury in Manhattan is meeting today, but not to consider the Trump/Stormy Daniels case. ABC News live updates: Grand jury won’t meet about Trump case this week, sources say.

The grand jury hearing evidence of former President Donald Trump’s alleged role in hush money paid to Stormy Daniels will not meet about the case for the remainder of the week, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.

The grand jury is meeting Thursday to consider a different case, the sources said. The grand jury news was first reported by Business Insider.

The grand jury is expected to reconvene Monday to consider the Trump case, at which time at least one additional witness may be called to testify, the sources said.

Also from ABC live updates: DA Bragg has responded to a letter from Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, demanding that Bragg testify to Congress about the case against Trump: DA says compliance with GOP’s requests for information would interfere with investigation.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Brag’s general counsel responded to House Republicans Thursday, telling them compliance with their requests for information would interfere with a legitimate law enforcement investigation.

General counsel Leslie Dubeck noted the House inquiry only resulted from former President Donald Trump’s social media post.

“Your letter dated March 20, 2023 (the “Letter”), in contrast, is an unprecedented inquiry into a pending local prosecution,” Dubeck wrote. “The Letter only came after Donald Trump created a false expectation that he would be arrested the next day and his lawyers reportedly urged you to intervene. Neither fact is a legitimate basis for congressional inquiry.”

and from Politico:

For now, those of us obsessively watching for signs that Trump could finally face consequences for his long life of crime can shift our attention to Jack Smith’s Washington DC grand jury. Recapping the big news from yesterday:

Alan Feuer, Ben Protess, and Maggie Haberman at The New York Times: Appeals Court Orders Trump Lawyer to Hand Over Records in Documents Inquiry.

A federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday that a lawyer representing former President Donald J. Trump in the investigation into his handling of classified material had to answer a grand jury’s questions and give prosecutors documents related to his legal work.

The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia was a victory for the special counsel overseeing the investigation and followed Mr. Trump’s effort to stop the lawyer, M. Evan Corcoran, from handing over what are likely to be dozens of documents to investigators.

The behind-the-scenes fight shed new light on the efforts by prosecutors to assemble evidence about whether Mr. Trump committed a crime in defying the government’s efforts to reclaim classified materials he took after leaving the White House.

The litigation — all of which has taken place behind closed doors or under seal — centers on whether prosecutors can force Mr. Corcoran to provide information on who knew what about the continued presence of classified material at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s residence and private club in Florida, after the government had demanded its return last spring.

In particular, prosecutors have been focused on a document that Mr. Corcoran drafted last spring stating that a “diligent search” had been conducted at Mar-a-Lago and that no further classified material remained there — an assertion that would be proved false. Prosecutors have been seeking to learn what Mr. Trump knew about that statement, according to people briefed on the matter.

You’ll recall that on Friday Judge Beryl Howell found that Trump likely committed a crime through Corcoran, and that behavior could not be protected by attorney-client privilege.

….[I]n seeking to obtain as much information from Mr. Corcoran as it could, Mr. Smith’s office invoked the crime-fraud exception in a filing to Judge Beryl A. Howell, who sits in Federal District Court in Washington. Prosecutors working for Mr. Smith wanted Judge Howell to set the attorney-client privilege aside and compel Mr. Corcoran to give them what they wanted.

On Friday, Judge Howell issued a ruling saying that the government had indeed met the threshold to invoke the crime-fraud exception and that prosecutors had made a preliminary case that Mr. Trump had violated the law in the documents case.

Judge Howell’s finding that “the government had made a prima facie showing that the former president committed criminal violations” did not mean prosecutors necessarily had enough evidence to charge Mr. Trump. Rather, it was enough to justify setting aside attorney-client privilege and requiring Mr. Corcoran to divulge information about his interactions with Mr. Trump.

Legal experts were stunned at how quickly the appeals court dealt with the Trump camp’s appeal of Howell’s ruling. Some are suggesting that this might be because Trump is still hiding important government documents, and thus there could be national security considerations in this case.

And from actual national security experts:

https://twitter.com/petestrzok/status/1638725379933499392?s=20

Scott Anderson is a senior editor and general counsel at Lawfare blog.

We can only hope that Trump hasn’t shared these documents with foreign governments.

Corcoran did show up at the courthouse today, but his testimony isn’t scheduled until tomorrow–unless he appeals to the Supreme Court. Politico’s Kyle Cheney reported that other activities at the courthouse this morning.

In other news, Ron DeSantis seems to be running for president, but that hasn’t stopped him from promoting fascism in Florida. Here’s the latest from the Florida governor and his legislature.

AP: DeSantis to expand ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law to all grades.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ′ administration is moving to forbid classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in all grades, expanding the controversial law critics call “Don’t Say Gay” as the Republican governor continues to focus on cultural issues ahead of his expected presidential run.

The proposal, which would not require legislative approval, is scheduled for a vote next month before the state Board of Education and has been put forward by the state Education Department, both of which are led by appointees of the governor.

The rule change would ban lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity from grades 4 to 12, unless required by existing state standards or as part of reproductive health instruction that students can choose not to take. The initial law that DeSantis championed last spring bans those lessons in kindergarten through the third grade. The change was first reported by the Orlando Sentinel.

DeSantis has leaned heavily into cultural divides on his path to an anticipated White House bid, with the Republican aggressively pursuing a conservative agenda that targets what he calls the insertion of inappropriate subjects in schools.

TNR: Florida GOP’s New Anti-Trans Bill Is So Extreme It Could Ban Treatment for Breast Cancer. The bill is one of the cruelest in the country targeting transgender people.

A Florida House of Representatives committee on Wednesday advanced an anti-trans bill that is so broad and so extreme that it could also prevent people from getting treated for breast cancer.

The bill passed the Healthcare Regulation Committee by a vote of 12–5 and now heads to the House for a vote. The measure is one of the cruelest in the country to target transgender and LGBTQ rights and care. It bans gender-affirming care for minors and would force them to medically detransition, or stop receiving treatments such as hormone therapy. But the bill’s vague wording has larger repercussions as well.

The text defines gender clinical interventions as “procedures or therapies that alter internal or external physical traits,” including surgeries that change “primary or secondary sexual characteristics.” During the debate, Democratic Representative Christine Hunschofsky pointed out that this could prevent people from getting treatment for breast cancer, as the overly broad language could apply to mastectomies.

Bill sponsor Randy Fine—who prior to being a Republican representative was a gambling industry executive, not a doctor—was surprised to learn that young people can get breast cancer.

By the same definition, people who need prostatectomies to treat prostate cancer could also be denied treatment. The bill also bans hormone treatments, which could potentially affect care for menopause, stunted growth, and birth control.

From Politico: The Arizona senator courts GOP donors by ridiculing her former Democratic colleagues.

As she races to stockpile campaign money and post an impressive, statement-making first-quarter fundraising number, Sinema has used a series of Republican-dominated receptions and retreats this year to belittle her Democratic colleagues, shower her GOP allies with praise and, in one case, quite literally give the middle finger to President Biden’s White House.

And that’s before an audience.

Speaking in private, whether one-on-one or with small groups of Republican senators, she’s even more cutting, particularly about Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, whom she derides in harshly critical terms, according to senior Republican officials directly familiar with her comments.

Sinema’s sniping spree has delighted the Republican lawmakers, lobbyists and donors who’ve taken in the show, giving some of them hope that she can be convinced to caucus with the GOP, either in this Congress or in the case she’s re-elected as an independent.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who Sinema has assiduously courted, remains skeptical, however. Believing she remains a Democrat at heart, McConnell has focused on trying to recruit a non-controversial Arizona Republican into the race, somebody who could attract the moderate GOP voters and independents Sinema would need to win the purple state as an independent.

It’s entirely possible, however, that such a Republican doesn’t run or can’t clear a primary in Arizona’s MAGA’fied state party. Former Gov. Doug Ducey has made clear he’s not interested, first-term Rep. Juan Ciscomani is likely to accrue more House seniority and the most attainable option, Karrin Taylor Robson, just lost the gubernatorial primary to Kari Lake. With near-total name identification among Arizona Republicans and the affection of one Donald J. Trump, Lake would enter the Senate race as the odds-on favorite to be the GOP nominee.

There’s much more nasty stuff at the Politico link.

I was really hoping for a Trump indictment in New York, but that’s not going to happen this week. I wonder how things are progressing in Georgia? What do you think about all this? What other stories have captured your interest?

Tuesday Reads: Anticipation

Good Day Sky Dancers!!

It doesn’t look like there will be an indictment of Trump today, but the sense of excitement at the likelihood that it will happen this week is palpable in today’s news and on social media. Unfortunately, there’s no indication this morning that Trump will be arrested today. New York City is preparing for possible civil unrest, but so far the protests Trump has been calling for haven’t materialized.

Jose Pagliery at The Daily Beast: A MAGA Lawyer’s Last-Ditch Effort to Kill a Trump Indictment.

A Manhattan grand jury’s indictment of Donald Trump has started to look like an inevitability, as cable news—and Trump himself—speculate that charges could drop any hour now. But a lawyer who’s played a bit part in a number of MAGA scandals has now come out of nowhere to try to derail the entire case.

On Monday, the grand jury heard shocking testimony from Rudy Giuliani lawyer Bob Costello, who once again tried to pin the blame for Trump’s hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels on a familiar fall guy: Michael Cohen.

For years, Costello has been a low-key yet crucial background character in Trumpworld. He investigated crimes at the Southern District of New York—the same legendary federal prosecutor’s office once led by Giuliani—and in the decades since, Costello has stood by the former mayor’s side as Giuliani became a MAGA movement celebrity, with Costello also becoming a sort of Forrest Gump for many of the biggest scandals in that world.

At one point, Costello was the key person pushing the FBI to investigate Hunter Biden’s laptop. At another point, he advised Trump’s buddy, Steve Bannon, to not cooperate with the Jan. 6 Committee. A colleague described Costello as “a MAGA guy all the way.”

But Costello also briefly interacted with Cohen, the one-time Trump fixer who took the blame for the Stormy Daniels payment and who has now become the Manhattan District Attorney’s star witness against Trump.

It’s that relationship with Cohen and Giuliani that placed Costello at the Manhattan DA’s offices for three hours on Monday afternoon.

So what happened?

Costello indicated Monday that he was there to explain why a half-dozen damning emails seem to indicate a wide-ranging conspiracy reaching deep into the Trump White House in early 2018—emails that appear to show the American president using Giuliani to keep Cohen from cooperating with the feds.

But instead of playing along, two dozen grand jurors heard Costello tear apart Cohen by portraying him as a former client and a desperate liar willing to do anything to avoid prison.

Costello, who spoke to reporters on a Manhattan sidewalk after his testimony, described how he hijacked the closed-door grand jury proceedings on Monday. The ex-prosecutor said he refused to answer a Manhattan prosecutor’s narrow questions and used them as an opportunity to flip the script, telling grand jurors there was a ton of evidence they weren’t being shown by the Manhattan DA.

“They’d ask me a limited question based on these six emails, and I would volunteer information that I thought the grand jury needed to hear,” he said. “My only mission there today was to tell the truth about what Michael Cohen was saying during any point in time when I was representing him in April 2018.”

“I told the grand jury that this guy couldn’t tell the truth if you put a gun to his head,” he added.

There’s much more about Costello at the link. The DA had Cohen there to give rebuttal testimony if necessary, but he wasn’t called. It appears that the grand jurors weren’t impressed with what Costello told them. He complained that none of them requested a copy of a packet of “evidence” he brought with him.

Raw Story: Watergate prosecutor reveals how Robert Costello just opened Trump up to even more charges.https://www.rawstory.com/trump-cohen-costello/

Former Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman joined Michel Cohen on MSNBC Monday following a press conference by Donald Trump ally Bob Costello who appeared before a Manhattan grand jury.

As a possible indictment hangs over Trump, the district attorney’s office asked the former president if he wanted to speak out in his defense to the grand jury. He declined but he sent Costello instead. Costello then said that he provided stacks of “evidence” about Cohen that show he was desperate and willing to do anything to get out of potential prison.

But the reality is a different matter, according to Cohen. Speaking to Ari Melber, he and Akerman explained that the special counsel’s report on the Russia investigation revealed a lot of information about the exchanges between Cohen and Costello, including the attempt by Trump allies to keep him from flipping.

“I start with the Mueller report because the Mueller report laid out a witness-tampering plot by Donald Trump, basically to keep Michael in line with Donald Trump,” said Akerman, saying that it went through Rudy Giuliani and Bob Costello….

Melber put up a headline saying Costello contacted one of Trump’s lawyers to see, allegedly, if he could arrange for a pardon for Cohen. He asked why something like that matters.

“Well, that’s all part of the story,” Akerman explained. “It really starts on April 9th when the search warrant is executed and only a few days after that Donald Trump calls him according to the Mueller Report and he can confirm this and told him that, you know, he was just checking in to see if he was okay and he encouraged Michael to hang in there. Then he got calls from other people, friends of Donald Trump, who called up and basically told him to keep in line, including Allen Weisselberg who I believe also called him during that period of time. One of the people that was involved in cooking the books.”

Akerman continued: “What’s wrong with it is it comes to a point when Michael meets with Costello, who is talking to Rudy Giuliani, who is talking to Donald Trump, and it all comes back to Donald Trump that Michael is on board and that he’s staying with the team. And the next day, the day after that meeting occurs on April 17th, Donald Trump starts tweeting out that Michael’s not going to flip. That he’s with the team, that he’s on board.”

Melber categorized it as “an effort then to abuse government power to thwart a probe.”

This story gets really complicated! I had forgotten all that because Trump has committed so many crimes, its hard to keep track. Read more details at Raw Story.

Ryan Goodman and Andrew Weissmann at The New York Times: Make No Mistake, the Investigation of Donald Trump and the Stormy Daniels Scheme Is Serious.

Though it may be tempting to do so, it is a mistake to assess the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation of Donald Trump by comparing its relative severity with those of myriad other crimes possibly committed by him. That is not how state and federal prosecutors will — or should — be thinking about the issue of charging Mr. Trump, or for that matter, any other defendant….

Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, would be well within his discretion in determining that the answer to those questions is yes and therefore supports charging Mr. Trump in connection with any crimes arising from an effort to keep Stormy Daniels from disclosing an alleged affair to the electorate before the 2016 election.

This case is just one of a few ongoing criminal investigations into Mr. Trump’s conduct — including potentially a much larger financial investigation by the Manhattan district attorney — and the hush money scheme is no doubt the least serious of the crimes. It does not involve insurrection and undermining the peaceful transfer of power fundamental to our democracy, nor the retention of highly classified documents and obstruction of a national security investigation.

But does that mean the Manhattan criminal case is an example of selective prosecution — in other words, going after a political enemy for a crime that no one else would be charged with? Not by a long shot. To begin with, Mr. Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, who was instrumental in the scheme, has already pleaded guilty to a federal crime emanating from this conduct and served time for it and other crimes. Federal prosecutors told the court that Mr. Cohen “acted in coordination with and at the direction of” Mr. Trump (identified as “Individual 1”). It would be anathema to the rule of law not to prosecute the principal for the crime when a lower-level conspirator has been prosecuted.

Mr. Bragg, however, has had to pick up the slack, since federal prosecutors have not pursued such charges, for reasons that were clear under the corrupt influence of William Barr. Barr is reported to have shut down any follow-up investigation of Mr. Trump, but it remains murky as to why a criminal investigation or indictment of Mr. Trump has not been pursued under the current administration (Attorney General Merrick Garland has not explained publicly any reason for not pursuing this investigation).

As a state prosecutor, Mr. Bragg cannot bring the same federal campaign finance charge to which Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty. He has various options nonetheless. New York district attorney offices have often charged a crime of filing a false business record, both as a felony and as a misdemeanor. The crime is a clear felony if it is done with intent to aid or cover up another crime and otherwise is a misdemeanor.

HuffPost: Dismal Crowd At NYC Trump Rally Despite Ex-Prez’s Call For Action As Arrest Looms.

Lazy Caturday Reads

Psyche, after John William Waterhouse, by Susan Herbert. Courtesy of Thames & Hudson.

Happy Caturday!!

After a packed news day yesterday, it looks like this weekend will be even busier for the media. As I’m sure you’ve heard, Trump is trying to incite violence in advance of his possible arrest by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office in the Stormy Daniels payoff case. Trump is predicting he will be arrested on Tuesday.

Trump can’t possibly know what the New York grand jury is going to do on Monday, but he wants to get his cult followers worked up to cause trouble if it happens. It’s another iteration of his “stand back and stand by” message to the Proud Boys in a 2020 presidential debate. In his statement on Truth Social, Trump called for protests, and notably didn’t specify that they be peaceful. Sadly, much of the media is spreading his insane posts far and wide without adding any context.

Liz Johnstone at NBC News: Trump says ‘illegal leaks’ indicate he will be arrested Tuesday in N.Y. hush money probe.

Former President Donald Trump said Saturday that “illegal leaks” have indicated that he will be arrested Tuesday and called on supporters to protest.

Trump, in posts on his social media platform Truth Social, referenced reports that he could soon face possible criminal charges in New York relating to a hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

Trump did not say whether he had been informed by law enforcement of a coming indictment. A spokesperson for Trump later clarified in a statement that there “has been no notification, other than illegal leaks from the Justice Dept. and the DA’s office, to NBC” and other news outlets.

The spokesperson added, “President Trump is rightfully highlighting his innocence and the weaponization of our injustice system. He will be in Texas next weekend for a giant rally. Make America Great Again!”

NBC News reported Friday that law enforcement agencies are prepping for a possible Trump indictment as early as next week.

Trump, a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, decried “illegal leaks” that “indicate” he would be arrested on Tuesday.

“PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!” Trump wrote.

No one in the media is reporting “leaks” from the Manhattan DA’s office. It’s possible Trump’s attorneys were warned to be prepared if the grand jury does vote on an indictment on Monday. It’s Trump who is spreading rumors.

Musica (Melody), after Kate Elizabeth Bunce, by Susan Herbert. Courtesy of Thames & Hudson.

This is from The New York Times with multiple by-lines: Trump Claims His Arrest Is Imminent and Calls for Protests, Echoing Jan. 6. His indictment by a Manhattan grand jury is expected, but its timing is unclear.

With former President Donald J. Trump facing indictment by a Manhattan grand jury but the timing of the charges uncertain, he declared on his social media site that he would be arrested on Tuesday and demanded that his supporters protest on his behalf.

Mr. Trump made the declaration on his site, Truth Social, at 7:26. a.m. on Saturday in a post that ended with, “THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE AND FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK. PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!”

Two hours later, a spokesman issued a statement clarifying that Mr. Trump had not written his post with direct knowledge of the timing of any arrest.

“President Trump is rightfully highlighting his innocence and the weaponization of our injustice system,” the statement said.

A lawyer for Mr. Trump, Susan R. Necheles, said that his post had been based on news reports, and accused the Manhattan district attorney’s office of conducting a “political prosecution.”

A spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney’s office declined to comment.

Prosecutors working for the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, have signaled that an indictment of Mr. Trump could be imminent. But they have not told Mr. Trump’s lawyers when the charges — expected to stem from a 2016 hush money payment to a porn star — would be sought or when an arrest would be made, people with knowledge of the matter said. At least one more witness is expected to testify in front of the grand jury, which could delay an indictment, the people said.

One of the people said that even if the grand jury were to vote to indict the former president on Monday, a Tuesday surrender was unlikely given the need to arrange timing, travel and other logistics.

The statement from Mr. Trump’s spokesman did not explain how he landed on Tuesday as an arrest date. One person with knowledge of the matter said that Mr. Trump’s advisers had guessed that it could happen around then, and that someone might have relayed that to the former president.

So Trump is just trying to rile up his supporters in advance. At least he didn’t add “will be wild.”

The  Washington Post has an article that explores how the hush money case was revived after it appeared to be dead: The prosecutor, the ex-president and the ‘zombie’ case that came back to life.

It was just weeks into Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s time in office, and he was being assailed on multiple fronts.

A memo he had released outlining his strategy for prosecuting crimes in New York City was being vilified by critics, including the mayor and police commissioner. Bragg became a punching bag across cable news and on tabloid covers. Then two prosecutors from his office quit in protest over what they called Bragg’s decision not to prosecute former president Donald Trump. People who know Bragg say he was deeply stung by the criticism.

The district attorney soon issued an unusual public statement — emphasizing that the investigation into Trump and his business was far from over and that a team of investigators was “exploring evidence not previously explored.”

The message he wanted conveyed, it seemed, was simple: I’m still on this.

Susan Herbert, after Evelyn de Morgan’s Flora

Almost a year later, Bragg’s investigation into one particular issue involving Trump — a payment made before the 2016 presidential election to an adult-film actressto keep her from publicly discussing an affair she said she had with Trumpyears earlier — appears to be nearing its conclusion.

A grand jury in Manhattan looking at the case could be on the precipice of charging Trump with a crime, though no decision has been announced and it remains unclear whether the group will issue an indictment or when that could happen.

Trump has lumped this case in with others, including the ongoing investigations into his handling of highly classified material and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, denying wrongdoing and denouncingtheprobes as part of a system that’s out to get him.

For Bragg, meanwhile, the case is a high-wire balancing act for an official who has navigated controversies before but could find himself both being praised and pilloriedif he becomes the first prosecutor to criminally charge a former president.

Bragg has been circumspect in his public remarks about the Trump probe, sayingmainlythat investigators were continuing their work. After his office won a conviction of Trump’s namesake business for tax crimes last year, Bragg noted in one interview: “We’re going to do our talking in the courtroom.”

Meanwhile, back in Washington DC, there were developments in the Special Counsel’s investigation of Trump’s theft of government documents.

CNN: Trump attorney ordered to testify before grand jury investigating former president.

In a monumental ruling Friday, a federal judge ordered Donald Trump attorney Evan Corcoran to provide additional testimony as part of an investigation into the former president’s handling of classified documents, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.

Corcoran has the potential to become one of the most crucial witnesses in special counsel Jack Smith’s criminal investigation into possible mishandling of classified records after the Trump presidency and obstruction of justice.

District Judge Beryl Howell said in an order under seal that Justice Department prosecutors have met the threshold for the crime-fraud exception for Corcoran, the source said.

The scope of what DOJ will be allowed to ask, however, was not immediately clear. Trump’s team is expected to appeal and ask for the judge’s order to be stayed while legal proceedings play out.

The decision hands Trump yet another loss under seal in court as his team and allies have tried to hold off Smith’s investigators from learning about direct conversations the former president had with some of his closest advisers.

The development is particularly notable because of accusations prosecutors would have made about Trump as they argued to the judge for the grand jury testimony….

Corcoran, an attorney-turned-witness, had previously testified to the grand jury but declined to answer some questions, citing attorney-client privilege. The department argued to the judge he should not be able to avoid answering, because his discussions with the former president may have been part of an attempt to plan a crime.

Susan Herbert, Princes in the Tower, After after Sir John Everett Millais, by Susan Herbert. Courtesy of Thames & Hudson.

And from Jose Pagliery at The Daily Beast: Federal Judge Hands Over Trump’s Lawyer’s Notes to DOJ.

On her final day as the top judge in the District of Columbia on Friday afternoon—in her final act—Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell did more than grant the Justice Department permission to question former President Donald Trump’s personal attorney. She actually took the rare step of handing over the lawyer’s notes to federal prosecutors, according to a person familiar with the arrangement.

In doing so, Howell may have planted the seeds for a future constitutional challenge. But in the immediate term, she’s handed Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith a parting gift: what she deemed evidence of a crime involving the former president improperly hoarding classified documents after he left office.

M. Evan Corcoran, a former federal prosecutor, has represented Trump in that classified documents scandal. And while Corcoran already has his hands full as Trump’s lawyer, the probe now appears to have put Corcoran in legal jeopardy himself.

According to a source, Corcoran’s professional notes about private communications with his client were turned over to Judge Howell, who was conducting an “in camera review”—a carefully controlled screening of confidential records that typically takes place in a judge’s chambers.

Judges who come to the conclusion that some legally protected and sensitive material must be turned over to an opposing side normally issue an order directing one side to do it, along with a deadline. Doing so gives the losing side the ability to appeal to a higher court—and prevent irreversible damage that could forever taint a case, according to two lawyers not involved in the case who spoke to The Daily Beast but asked not to be identified.

But Howell appears to have skipped that careful yet tedious approach—and just handed Smith a batch of documents that may show Trump and one of his lawyers planning a crime.

Either way, Trump’s legal team is left without recourse, and federal prosecutors have more evidence to bolster the next steps in their ballooning investigation.

There’s more at the link.

So Trump could be indicted soon, and he will use that to inflame his followers in hopes of winning back into the White House in 2024. Even though he expects to be indicted soon, Trump is planning to hold a campaign rally in a very provocative place–Waco, Texas. He’s claiming this is his first official rally, even though he held a rally in Iowa recently.

The Texas Tribune: Former President Donald Trump’s first 2024 campaign rally will be in Waco.

Texas is the first stop on the 2024 presidential campaign trail for Donald Trump, the former president’s team announced Friday. In this third consecutive bid for the White House, Trump will hold a rally March 25 at the Waco Regional Airport.

While facing criminal charges and less vocal support from Texas GOP leaders, Trump hopes to lock in the loyalty of Lone Star State voters before more Republicans join the primary race.

The Light of the Worlds, after William Holman Hunt, by Susan Herbert. Courtesy of Thames & Hudson.

“It is undisputed that Texas is Trump Country after electing 37 Trump Endorsed Candidates and recent polling among Texas primary voters,” his campaign staff wrote in a news release announcing the event. Trump’s campaign cited a tweet from Interactive Polls, a conservative media company, as evidence that in polls Texans favor Trump over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a potential Republican nominee.

According to February polling from the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, 56% of Republicans surveyed said the former president should run again.

While Trump was at one point a political force of nature in the state, his sway may have waned given how few prominent Texas Republicans have endorsed the former president for 2024. On Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin, gave DeSantis his endorsement, calling the Florida governor “a man of conviction.”

While Trump and Nikki Haley, Trump’s pick for United Nations ambassador and the former South Carolina governor, are the only Republican candidates who have formally declared they are running for president, it’s expected DeSantis will also join the race.

Gov. Greg Abbott, a potential 2024 candidate himself, got Trump’s endorsement in his primary last year but kept his distance during the general election, skipping an October rally in Texas.

Why not Oklahoma City next? That would be another signal that he wants his followers to be violent.

More stories to check out today:

Raw Story: ‘Disgraceful’ Kevin McCarthy buried for new plan to tamper with Trump investigations.

The Guardian: Are Texas’s abortion laws being used for state-sponsored spouse harassment?

NBC News: New Covid origins data suggests pandemic linked to raccoon dogs at Wuhan market.

Slate: Wait, What’s a Raccoon Dog? Meet the mischievous—and mistreated—creatures that may have started the pandemic.

HuffPost: Michigan Is Becoming The Anti-Florida On LGBTQ Rights ― And A Lot More.

The New York Times: Wyoming Becomes First State to Outlaw the Use of Pills for Abortion.

NBC News: 9 Republicans pull support from South Carolina bill allowing the death penalty for abortion.

Have a great weekend, Sky Dancers!!