Judges are prohibited from accepting gifts from anyone with business before the court. Until recently, however, the judicial branch had not clearly defined an exemption for gifts considered “personal hospitality.”
Totally Thursday Reads: Karma’s at Bat and Hits Home Runs
Posted: June 8, 2023 Filed under: morning reads, Republican politics, U.S. Politics | Tags: #TrumpIndictmentWatch, Thank you Fleet Street!, Trump Florida Grand Jury, Trump Target 16 Comments
You can have your cake and eat it too. #IndictmentDay #WhichWitchHunt #DingDong John (repeat1968) Buss @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I get to go to the doctor tomorrow, so BB and I traded days again. Your eyes are not deceiving you! But, wow, did I get a Newsday today. I can’t see what’s going on in the news in the lowest hell realm, but they are celebrating a new denizen.
The New York Times obit for Payable to Pat Robertson is pretty disappointing. It not only displays its typical bothersiderism but acts like everyone loved him but us grumpy feminists and the GLBT community.
Let’s face it. The man was walking evil. I’m happier he’s gone than I was when Phyllis Schafly found her karmic spot in Avīci. There are actually 28 Naraka–hell realms–in Buddhist mythology. None of them are permanent, but then none of them are pleasant either.
Robertson’s run for president basically turned the Republican party into a place where culture war crusaders were welcomed and, dare I say, groomed for candidacy at all levels of government. He also was one of those who got everyone’s granny to give away her bank account by promising all kinds of things. Count me among his detractors.
Witchhunts! Witchcraft! WitchyWomen! Oh My! And the happiest tag of them all #IndictmentWatch!
Two UK newspapers have been on top of the news from yesterday. First, a Grand Jury in Florida is examing charges of espionage and obstruction. This is from the Independent. “Prosecutors ready to ask for Trump indictment on obstruction and Espionage Act charges.” Andrew Feinberg has this excellent bit of reporting. Additionally, it mentions casually that President Biden “laughs off” pardoning Orange Caligula.
The Department of Justice is preparing to ask a Washington, DC grand jury to indict former president Donald Trump for violating the Espionage Act and for obstruction of justice as soon as Thursday, adding further weight to the legal baggage facing Mr Trump as he campaigns for his party’s nomination in next year’s presidential election.
The Independent has learned that prosecutors are ready to ask grand jurors to approve an indictment against Mr Trump for violating a portion of the US criminal code known as Section 793, which prohibits “gathering, transmitting or losing” any “information respecting the national defence”.
The use of Section 793, which does not make reference to classified information, is understood to be a strategic decision by prosecutors that has been made to short-circuit Mr Trump’s ability to claim that he used his authority as president to declassify documents he removed from the White House and kept at his Palm Beach, Florida property long after his term expired on 20 January 2021.
That section of US criminal law is written in a way that could encompass Mr Trump’s conduct even if he was authorised to possess the information as president because it states that anyone who “lawfully having possession of, access to, control over, or being entrusted with any document …relating to the national defence,” and “willfully communicates, delivers, transmits or causes to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted or attempts to communicate, deliver, transmit or cause to be communicated, delivered or transmitted the same to any person not entitled to receive it, or willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it on demand to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it” can be punished by as many as 10 years in prison.
It is understood that prosecutors intend to ask grand jurors to vote on the indictment on Thursday, but that vote could be delayed as much as a week until the next meeting of the grand jury to allow for a complete presentation of evidence, or to allow investigators to gather more evidence for presentation if necessary.
This looks to be a bit of brilliant lawyering. They know Trump will drag things out, and they know he always has arguments that do that. This approach cuts off a lot of legal shenanigans and appeal opportunities. This is also the case with the selection of a Florida venue. They’re going for the quick kill. This is Hugo Lowell’s offering from The Guardian.“Trump’s lawyers told he is target in Mar-a-Lago documents investigation.” And there was much rejoicing in the streets! Lowell appeared on MSNBC with Ari Melber yesterday evening, and wow, did he have the goods!
Federal prosecutors formally informed Donald Trump’s lawyers last week that the former president is a target of the criminal investigation examining his retention of national security materials at his Mar-a-Lago resort and obstruction of justice, according to two people briefed on the matter.
The move – the clearest sign yet that Trump is on course to be indicted – dramatically raises the stakes for Trump, as the investigation nears its conclusion after taking evidence before a grand jury in Washington and a previously unknown grand jury in Florida.
Trump’s lawyers were sent a “target letter” days before they met on Monday with the special counsel Jack Smith, who is leading the Mar-a-Lago documents case, and the senior career official in the deputy attorney general’s office, where they asked prosecutors not to charge the former president.
Trump has reportedly said he had not been personally informed by the justice department that he was a target when asked directly by a New York Times reporter, but demurred when asked whether his legal team had been told about the designation.
The development comes as prosecutors have obtained evidence of criminal conduct occurring at Mar-a-Lago and decided that any indictments should be charged in the southern district of Florida, where the resort is located, rather than in Washington, according to people familiar with the matter.
To that end, prosecutors last month started issuing subpoenas to multiple Trump aides that compelled them to testify before a new grand jury in Florida, impaneled around the time that the grand jury in Washington stopped taking new evidence, the Guardian previously reported.
It’s nice to see Fleet Street give both the New York Times and the Washington Post a comeuppance. Their reporters are more like insiders than journalists on a beat. More from Andrew Feinberg.
Let’s repeat this together. “The Independent has learned that prosecutors are prepared to ask grand jurors to vote on charges as early as Thursday.” #IndictmentWatch.
A separate grand jury that is meeting in Florida has also been hearing evidence in the documents investigation. That grand jury was empaneled in part to overcome legal issues posed by the fact that some of the crimes allegedly committed by Mr Trump took place in that jurisdiction, not in Washington. Under federal law, prosecutors must bring charges against federal defendants in the jurisdiction where the crimes took place.
Even if grand jurors vote to return an indictment against the ex-president this week, it is likely that those charges would remain sealed until both the Washington and Florida grand juries complete their work.
Another source familiar with the matter has said Mr Trump’s team was recently informed that he is a “target” of the Justice Department probe, which began in early 2022 after National Archives and Records Administration officials discovered more than 100 documents bearing classification markings in a set of 15 boxes of Trump administration records retrieved from Mar-a-Lago, the century-old mansion turned private beach club where Mr Trump maintains his primary residence and post-presidential office.
Over the course of the last year, grand jurors have heard testimony from numerous associates of the ex-president, including nearly every employee of Mar-a-Lago, former administration officials who worked in Mr Trump’s post-presidential office and for his political operation, and former high-ranking administration officials such as his final White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows.
Up next on the January 6th DOJ investigation is a subpoena for Steve Bannon. We are going to get subpoenas on some MAGArat congress critters next, and hopefully, Ginnie Thomas. I don’t know if there’s enough popcorn on the planet to carry us through the next few weeks. It’s going to be a glorious Independence Day at this rate!
SCOTUS actually just did something surprising today on a day when everything has not been surprising but long overdue! This is from NBC News, “Supreme Court backs landmark voting rights law, strikes down Alabama congressional map. The justices threw out Republican-drawn congressional districts that a lower court said discriminated against Black voters.” Lawerence Hurley has the lede. Please say this also pertains to the Gret State of Lousyana too!
The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down Republican-drawn congressional districts in Alabama that civil rights activists say discriminated against Black voters in a surprise reaffirmation of the landmark Voting Rights Act.
The court in a 5-4 vote ruled against Alabama, meaning the map of the seven congressional districts, which heavily favors Republicans, will now be redrawn. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, both conservatives, joined the court’s three liberals in the majority.
In doing so, the court — which has a 6-3 conservative majority — turned away the state’s effort to make it harder to remedy concerns raised by civil rights advocates that the power of Black voters in states like Alabama is being diluted by dividing voters into districts where white voters dominate.
In the ruling, Roberts, writing for the majority, said a lower court had correctly concluded that the congressional map violated the voting rights law.
In 2013, Roberts authored a ruling that gutted a separate, important provision of the Voting Rights Act and has long argued that various government efforts to address historic racial discrimination are problematic and may exacerbate the situation.
He wrote in Thursday’s ruling that there are genuine fears that the Voting Rights Act “may impermissibly elevate race in the allocation of political power” and that the Alabama ruling “does not diminish or disregard those concerns.”
The court instead “simply holds that a faithful application of our precedents and a fair reading of the record before us do not bear them out here,” Roberts added.
As such, the court left open future challenges to the law, with Kavanaugh writing in a separate opinion that his vote did not rule out challenges to Section 2 based on whether there is a time at which the 1965 law’s authorization of the consideration of race in redistricting is no longer justified.
Civil rights groups and their supporters, including the Biden administration, reveled in a largely unexpected victory.
I’m already in need of a 7th Inning Stretch!
Alright! Let’s get this post published and take it down the thread!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Thursday Reads: #DeSaster and #Decorum Day
Posted: May 25, 2023 Filed under: morning reads | Tags: Crazy Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ron DeSaster, Tina Turner Queen of Rock and Roll 21 Comments
#DeSaster by Artist John Buss
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I’m still recovering from all that grading, but at least I get to write about these ultra-embarrassing Maga Moments today! This one is a hoot! Weirdo Congresswoman MGT play-acting as the Speaker Pro Tempore. This is the woman that does everything but pig calls from her seat at anything she deems woke. This is from The Guardian. “House Democrats laugh off Marjorie Taylor Greene’s call for ‘decorum.’ Far-right Georgia Republican draws laughter after banging gavel and demanding order as Steve Scalise spoke.” I’m relieved to see one media outlet call her far right instead of conservative for a change.
Democrats in the House chamber burst into raucous laughter when Marjorie Taylor Greene called for “decorum”.
The far-right Georgia Republican, controversialist and conspiracy theorist was presiding over the House on Wednesday as Steve Scalise, the Republican majority leader, was speaking.
Scalise was discussing the debt ceiling standoff between House Republicans and the Biden White House.
He said: “We are in fact the only body in this town who has actually taken steps to address the debt ceiling and the spending problem in Washington.”
An unseen lawmaker yelled something. From the dais, Greene pounded her gavel and called for order.
Scalise asked: “I ask that the House be in order and there be some decorum on the other side.”
After a pause, Greene pounded her gavel and said: “The members are reminded to abide by decorum of the House.”
The chamber erupted in laughter and catcalls. Greene banged her gavel repeatedly. Eventually, Scalise returned to his remarks.
We had an idea that the DeSantis blastoff with Twitter Monster Elon Musk would be a disaster but, now it’s being called a #DeSaster. They own it. This is from Susan B. Glasser at The New Yorker. “It Was More Than a #DeSaster. Ron DeSantis’s botched campaign launch suggests that he’s no Trump killer.” Did he remember to write “Be Likable” at the top of his notes?
I’ve long been of the view that Donald Trump is something akin to a horror-movie monster—a Godzilla or a T. Rex, say—for the American political system. In such movies, it’s often not the puny humans who take out the monster; it’s another monster. And in such a scenario it would seem to make perfect sense that only a Republican specifically engineered and optimized for the bizarre cult of G.O.P. politics in 2024 would be the right candidate to do the job on Trump. But if that’s the theory of the case for Ron DeSantis, the forty-four-year-old governor of Florida, the events of Wednesday evening showed it’s still very much an unproven theory.
Was DeSantis’s Presidential-campaign launch best described as a debacle? A farce? A nightmare? The Times called it a “meltdown.” Politico went with “horrendous.” Perhaps the best summation of Wednesday’s epic fail was #DeSaster, an actual trending hashtag on Twitter. Whatever one chose to call it, it’s a pretty bad sign for a campaign when the biggest controversy inspired by its début is what synonym for “terrible” to give it. And the problem wasn’t just the technical glitches. The start of the Twitter Spaces event featuring DeSantis and Twitter’s billionaire owner, Elon Musk, was delayed by more than twenty-five minutes while Musk audibly struggled to get his new platform to work. But just as wretched was what DeSantis had to say once he started talking, both on Twitter and in a subsequent interview on Fox News, which boiled down to a lot of complaints about the “legacy media” and little rationale for his candidacy.
Trump, whose name DeSantis never uttered on Wednesday night, welcomed the news of his rival’s implosion with a video of a rocket labelled “Ron 2024!” exploding on a launchpad. Don, Jr., gleefully compared DeSantis to the former Florida Republican governor eviscerated by his father in 2016. “DeSantis is making JEB! look high energy right now,” he taunted. Even Joe Biden, who unlike Trump was mentioned frequently by DeSantis, joined in. The President tweaked DeSantis in a tweet urging supporters to give money to his own campaign. “This link works,” Biden promised.
But the rush to mockery, though understandable, was also a bit of a distraction.
There are so many public guffaws over this it’s hard to keep track of the links. But, here’s a good one from Axios. “DeSantis PAC adds fake fighter jets to launch video.” All that was missing were the white boots, the pudding fingers, and the New Hampshire guffaw seen ’round the world.
The super PAC supporting Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign altered footage to include the sound and sight of fighter jets flying over the Florida governor in its video promoting his campaign launch.
- The video by Never Back Down, called “A President for the People,” includes a scene with DeSantis raising his arm to the sky in front of a U.S. flag while jets appear above him, whooshing by.
- But video of DeSantis’ speech on Nov. 5, 2022, in Port St. Lucie indicates there wasn’t a military flyover or jet sounds during the event.
Why it matters: It’s the latest instance of political ads including digitally altered videos to promote or attack candidates, making it difficult for viewers to discern what’s real.
What they’re saying: The PAC did not deny altering the footage but responded to Axios’ questions by focusing on the video’s larger message.
- Communications director Erin Perrine told Axios: “The ‘President for the People’ video encapsulates the mounting issues facing our nation caused by Joe Biden, and how Governor Ron DeSantis will stand up to the challenge, beat Biden, and turn our country around.
- “This message and this election is so important for all Americans.”
Between the lines: The DeSantis PAC is a key part of his campaign, even though they cannot legally coordinate with each other.
Guess what’s going on with CPAC after its pious leader has been credibly accused of grabbing them by the balls? Have we finally rid our country of the Hoedown of Hate? This is from New York Magazine and Ben Jacobs. “CPAC Is Rocked by a Resignation.”
A top leader in the organization that puts on CPAC, the highly influential conference of conservative leaders, resigned on Tuesday night, citing financial mysteries surrounding the organization’s leader.
Bob Beauprez, the longtime treasurer of the American Conservative Union, said that he was not fully informed about money being paid for chairman Matt Schlapp’s legal defense against a lawsuit accusing him of sexual assault. “I cannot deliver a financial report at the upcoming board meeting with any confidence in the accuracy of the numbers,” Beauprez wrote in a letter to the ACU’s board of directors.
Schlapp did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Beauprez’s resignation comes at a time of crisis for the group as Schlapp fends off the lawsuit and CPAC’s influence dwindles in the post-Trump era.
Every time you deal with a Republican, you have to follow the money.
I’m ending on a different note. The world is a better place because of Tiny Turner. She saved my life. She gave me the strength to leave an abusive relationship, and her mantra led me to my Buddhist path even though we belong to different sects. She was not only the Queen of Rock and Roll but the Queen of many hearts. I saw this story and had to share it. “How Tina Turner Became the ‘Queen of Rugby League’ In Australia.”
The late Tina Turner had a river deep connection with Australia, one that was built on hits, touring, connections and a unique sporting alliance.
Turner’s extraordinary solo comeback in 1984 was engineered by Roger Davies, the great Australian artist manager who has guided the careers of Pink, Olivia Newton-John, Janet Jackson, Cher and many others. For bonus points, Davies was portrayed by one of his clients, James Reyne, frontman of Australian Crawl, in 1993’s What’s Love Got to Do With It, the award-winning autobiographical film based on Turner’s life.
The rocker also starred as Auntie Entity in 1985’s Beyond Thunderdome, the third in George Miller’s Mad Max action movie franchise.
The “Nutbush City Limits” singer, however, would tackle something no other U.S pop artist had done, when she committed to a series of much-loved campaigns for Australia’s premier rugby league competition.
From 1989 to 1995, Turner was the face of the New South Wales Rugby League (NSWRL) competition, now rebranded the National Rugby League (NRL), appearing alongside the game’s most famous athletes in national commercials, and sometimes on the ground for the sport’s showpiece events, including a set during the 1993 grand final at the Sydney Football Stadium.
Those campaigns included Turner’s hits “What You Get Is What You See” and “The Best,” and, for many sports fans and athletes in these parts, she represents a golden era for the code.
Thanks to her contribution as the competition expanded out of New South Wales, “The Best” is today recognized as the unofficial anthem of rugby league in Australia, a sport for only the knuckliest, toughest types in society.
Tina was simply the best.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Thursday Reads
Posted: April 6, 2023 Filed under: corruption, Donald Trump, morning reads, SCOTUS | Tags: Alvin Bragg, Bohemian Grove, Clarence Thomas, Ginni Thomas, Gloria Johnson, Harlan Crow, Harry Litman, Jed Shugerman, Justin Jones, Justin Pearson, Manhattan DA, Margaret Renkl, Tennessee House of Representatives 24 CommentsGood Morning!!
Everyone is talking about the shocking story about Clarence Thomas published early this morning at ProPublica. We knew that Thomas was corrupt, but the scale of the corruption revealed by authors Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott, and Alex Mierjeski is beyond mind-boggling. And they provide plenty of photos of Thomas enjoying luxury accommodations alongside the wealthy and powerful. Thomas never reported any of these gifts.
IN LATE JUNE 2019, right after the U.S. Supreme Court released its final opinion of the term, Justice Clarence Thomas boarded a large private jet headed to Indonesia. He and his wife were going on vacation: nine days of island-hopping in a volcanic archipelago on a superyacht staffed by a coterie of attendants and a private chef.
If Thomas had chartered the plane and the 162-foot yacht himself, the total cost of the trip could have exceeded $500,000. Fortunately for him, that wasn’t necessary: He was on vacation with real estate magnate and Republican megadonor Harlan Crow, who owned the jet — and the yacht, too.
For more than two decades, Thomas has accepted luxury trips virtually every year from the Dallas businessman without disclosing them, documents and interviews show. A public servant who has a salary of $285,000, he has vacationed on Crow’s superyacht around the globe. He flies on Crow’s Bombardier Global 5000 jet. He has gone with Crow to the Bohemian Grove, the exclusive California all-male retreat, and to Crow’s sprawling ranch in East Texas. And Thomas typically spends about a week every summer at Crow’s private resort in the Adirondacks.
The extent and frequency of Crow’s apparent gifts to Thomas have no known precedent in the modern history of the U.S. Supreme Court.
These trips appeared nowhere on Thomas’ financial disclosures. His failure to report the flights appears to violate a law passed after Watergate that requires justices, judges, members of Congress and federal officials to disclose most gifts, two ethics law experts said. He also should have disclosed his trips on the yacht, these experts said.
Get this: Thomas even went with Crow to the legendary Bohemian Grove.
More from the ProPublica article:
In a statement, Crow acknowledged that he’d extended “hospitality” to the Thomases “over the years,” but said that Thomas never asked for any of it and it was “no different from the hospitality we have extended to our many other dear friends.”
Through his largesse, Crow has gained a unique form of access, spending days in private with one of the most powerful people in the country. By accepting the trips, Thomas has broken long-standing norms for judges’ conduct, ethics experts and four current or retired federal judges said.
“It’s incomprehensible to me that someone would do this,” said Nancy Gertner, a retired federal judge appointed by President Bill Clinton. When she was on the bench, Gertner said, she was so cautious about appearances that she wouldn’t mention her title when making dinner reservations: “It was a question of not wanting to use the office for anything other than what it was intended.”
Virginia Canter, a former government ethics lawyer who served in administrations of both parties, said Thomas “seems to have completely disregarded his higher ethical obligations.”
“When a justice’s lifestyle is being subsidized by the rich and famous, it absolutely corrodes public trust,” said Canter, now at the watchdog group CREW. “Quite frankly, it makes my heart sink.”
ProPublica uncovered the details of Thomas’ travel by drawing from flight records, internal documents distributed to Crow’s employees and interviews with dozens of people ranging from his superyacht’s staff to members of the secretive Bohemian Club to an Indonesian scuba diving instructor.
https://twitter.com/petestrzok/status/1643944883785289731?s=20
I haven’t finished reading the article yet, but I definitely will go back to it today.
This is from John Wagner at The Washington Post: Justice Thomas accepted luxury travel for years from GOP donor, report says.
Federal law mandates that top officials from the three branches of government, including the Supreme Court, file annual forms detailing their finances, outside income and spouses’ sources of income, with each branch determining its own reporting standards.
Revised rules adopted by a committee of the Judicial Conference, the courts’ policymaking body, seek to provide a fuller accounting. The rules took effect March 14.
Gifts such as an overnight stay at a personal vacation home owned by a friend remain exempt from reporting requirements. But the revised rules require disclosure when judges are treated to stays at commercial properties, such as hotels, ski resorts or corporate hunting lodges. The changes also clarify that judges must report travel by private jet….
While the wide scope of Crow’s funding of Thomas’s travel has not been previously reported, the largesse of the billionaire donor directed at the justice has provoked controversy previously.
In 2011, the New York Times reported that Crow had done many favors for Thomas and his wife, notably financing the multimillion-dollar purchase and restoration of a cannery in Pin Point, Ga., that was a pet project of the justice.
The Times also reported that Crow helped finance a Savannah, Ga., library project dedicated to Thomas, presented him with a Bible that belonged to Frederick Douglass and reportedly provided $500,000 for Ginni Thomas to start a tea-party-related group.
Thomas, who joined the court in 1991, has drawn scrutiny on other ethical issues in recent years, several related to the political activism of his wife. She has been allied with numerous people and groups that have interests before the court, and she has dedicated herself to right-wing causes involving some of the most polarizing issues in the country.
In other news, reporters and legal experts are busy critiquing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against Donald Trump. Here’s one of the worst:
Shugerman writes: The Trump Indictment Is a Legal Embarrassment.
Tuesday was historic for the rule of law in America, but not in the way Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, would have imagined. The 34-count indictment — which more accurately could be described as 34 half-indictments — was a disaster. It was a setback for the rule of law and established a dangerous precedent for prosecutors.
This legal embarrassment reveals new layers of Trumpian damage to the legal foundations of the United States: Mr. Trump’s opponents react to his provocations and norms violations by escalating and accelerating the erosion of legal norms.
The case appears so weak on its legal and jurisdictional basis that a state judge might dismiss the case and mitigate that damage. More likely, the case is headed to federal court for a year, where it could lose on the grounds of federal pre-emption — only federal courts have jurisdiction over campaign finance and filing requirements. Even if it survives a challenge that could reach the Supreme Court, a trial would most likely not start until at least mid-2024, possibly even after the 2024 election.
Instead of the rule of law, it would be the rule of the circus.
Let’s start with the obvious problem that the payments at issue were made around six years ago. The basic facts have been public for five years. There are undoubtedly complicated political reasons for the delay, but regardless, Mr. Bragg’s predecessor, Cyrus Vance Jr., had almost a year to bring this case after Mr. Trump left office, but did not do so, and Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Justice Department also declined. To address the perception of a reversal and questions of legitimacy, Mr. Bragg had a duty to explain more about the case and its legal basis in what’s known as a “speaking indictment,” which the team of former counsel Robert Mueller made famous in its filings.
Legal experts have been speculating about the core criminal allegation in this case, because the expected charge for “falsifying business records” becomes a felony only “when his intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.”
Astonishingly, the district attorney’s filings do not make clear the core crime that would turn a filing misdemeanor into a felony. Neither the 16-page indictment nor the accompanying statement of facts specifies, though the statement of facts does drop hints about campaign laws. In a news conference, Mr. Bragg answered that he did not specify because he was not required to by law. His answer was oblivious to how law requires more than doing the minimum to the letter — it demands fairness, notice and taking public legitimacy seriously.
Phew! Now that’s a smackdown!
Here’s different point of view from high profile attorney Harry Litman:
From the Los Angeles Times: Column: Don’t underestimate the strengths of Alvin Bragg’s case against Donald Trump.
Manhattan Dist. Atty. Alvin Bragg’s indictment of former President Trump takes an open-ended approach to the charges that some critics of the unprecedented prosecution see as a weakness. What the detractors have overlooked are the substantial and unanticipated legal and factual strengths in the case Bragg outlined.
A key question in advance of Tuesday’s unsealing of the indictment concerned how Bragg would augment the easily proven misdemeanor charges of falsifying business records. Under New York law, those offenses become felonies only if they’re in furtherance of another crime. Many theories were circulating as to what second crime Bragg would allege, and most of the possibilities had noteworthy shortcomings.
Bragg’s answer was essentially “I’ll tell you later.” He took advantage of the wording of the state law, which requires only that the misdemeanor be done in service of “a crime,” to buy himself maximum time and flexibility.
Bragg may have to pick his crime down the line, perhaps in answer to an expected defense motion for a “bill of particulars” — that is, a fleshing out of the Delphic indictment to enable Trump’s team to prepare an appropriate defense.
On the other hand, the prosecutor may not have to specify a second crime. The jury instructions on falsification of business records say it’s a felony if the defendant acted “with intent to defraud that included an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.” It’s therefore not clear that they require the jury even to agree on what the augmenting crime is.
But Bragg this week also added a potent possible second crime beyond what many observers expected. It emerges from the fact that in making his lawyer Michael Cohen “whole” for the hush money he paid to Stormy Daniels, Trump included enough to compensate Cohen for the taxes he would have to pay on the “income” — that is, on the phony legal retainer that camouflaged the hush money.
It’s not clear whether Cohen in fact declared and paid taxes on the reimbursement or whether the Trump Organization declared it as a business expense. The Bragg team’s insight is that it doesn’t matter: The language that elevates business record falsification to a felony only requires “an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.”
That purposely encompasses what lawyers call “inchoate” crimes. The law would plainly be satisfied by the inclusion of money intended to commit or conceal another crime — namely, a false tax filing — whether or not that crime occurred.
Importantly, this theory could be a way around the legal questions inherent in alleging that the second crime was a state or federal campaign finance violation.
Read the rest at the LA Times.
Another big and disturbing story is happening in Tennessee.
From Reuters: Tennessee Republicans likely to expel three Democratic lawmakers from statehouse.
Republicans who control the Tennessee House of Representatives will vote on Thursday on whether to expel three Democratic members for their role in a gun control demonstration at the statehouse last week.
Last Friday’s protest saw hundreds of demonstrators flood into the statehouse, four days after a Nashville school shooting ended with three 9-year-old children and three school staff members dead.
Three Democratic lawmakers stood on the House floor and used a bullhorn to lead protesters in chanting demands for stricter gun laws. In the resolutions calling for their expulsion, Republicans accused the three of engaging in “disorderly behavior” and said they “did knowingly and intentionally bring disorder and dishonor to the House of Representatives through their individual and collective actions.”
The expulsion vote is likely to easily pass in the Republican-dominated House and lead to the ouster of Rep. Gloria Johnson, Rep. Justin Jones and Rep. Justin Pearson. They say they were within their First Amendment rights to take part in the protest.
“It’s morally insane that a week after a mass shooting took six lives in our community, House Republicans only response is to expel us for standing with our constituents to call for gun control,” Jones wrote on Twitter this week. “What’s happening in Tennessee is a clear danger to democracy all across this nation.
Republicans Rep. Andrew Farmer, Rep. Gino Bulso, and Rep. Bud Hulsey filed three resolutions on Monday to expel their Democratic colleagues. The resolutions on Monday passed in a preliminary vote along party lines, 72-23.
Imagine if this insanity spreads to other Republican-controlled legislatures–and it very likely will, if it’s successful.
Commentary from Margaret Renkl at The New York Times: As Young People March for Their Lives, Tennessee Crushes Dissent and Overrides Democracy.
NASHVILLE — Yesterday the eyes of the country were on the indictment of a former president, along with the all too real possibility that political or public chaos would erupt as a result. Here in Tennessee, we were watching a different kind of chaos unfold as our state government doubled down on its love affair with guns, even in the immediate aftermath of a horrific school shooting. I wish I could tell you that guns were the worst of it.
Last Thursday, in the wake of the shooting, peaceful protesters at the Tennessee State Capitol rallied for gun reform. Activists waved signs in the statehouse gallery, and Representatives Justin Jones, Gloria Johnson and Justin J. Pearson, all Democrats, led them in chants from the House floor during breaks. Between bills, the lawmakers also approached the podium to speak. They did not wait to be formally recognized.
On Monday, statehouse Republicans stripped all three of their committee memberships and deactivated their ID badges. The Democrats “did knowingly and intentionally bring disorder and dishonor to the House of Representatives,” the formal resolutions against them read. Tomorrow, the House will vote on whether to expel the three lawmakers for talking out of turn.
Expulsion is extremely rare in Tennessee history. As the Politico reporter Natalie Allison pointed out on Twitter, the Tennessee House didn’t even vote to expel a Republican legislator who had been accused of sexually assaulting three teenage girls.
The resolutions against Mr. Jones, Ms. Johnson and Mr. Pearson were filed against a backdrop that highlights the absurdity of the actions Republicans have taken against them.
On Monday at 10:13 a.m., one week to the minute after a shooter armed with military-style weapons entered the church-affiliated Covenant School and murdered three children and three adults, more than 7,000 Nashville students staged a walkout to demand gun reform. It was a sight to behold: Vanderbilt University students marching down one street, Belmont University students marching down another, all of them joining a large crowd of high school and college students from around town. They were determined to speak as one voice directly to their government — to the only people with any power to reduce the risks they take just by going to class.
No place in this firearm-besotted country is safe from gun violence, but Tennessee students are at particular risk, and not just in school. They live in a state with some of the nation’s most permissive gun laws, as well as the highest rate of gun theft — and perhaps unsurprisingly, one of the highest rates of gun deaths.
Read the rest at the NYT.
Those are the top stories today, as I see it. I’ll add a few more in the comment thread. What do you think? What other stories have captured your interest?
Thursday Reads
Posted: March 9, 2023 Filed under: Donald Trump, Fox News, morning reads | Tags: 2020 Elections, Fox "journalists", January 6 insurrection, Kevin McCarthy, Mitch McConnell, Tucker Carlson 9 Comments
Spanish Still Life, Henri Matisse, 1911
Good Morning!!
The Fox News-Dominion lawsuit and the Tucker Carlson-Kevin McCarthy effort to paint January 6 as a tourist visit are still getting the most attention in today’s political news. I’ll get to that in a minute. But first, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has been hospitalized after a fall last night. McConnell is 81.
The Washington Post: Mitch McConnell hospitalized after falling at hotel.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has been hospitalized following a fall at a hotel in Washington, his spokesman said late Wednesday.
He previously underwent surgery following a serious fall in August 2019, when he fractured his shoulder after tripping outside his Louisville home. The procedure kept him out of the public eye for weeks as he spent the congressional break recovering at home and undergoing physical therapy.
The senator, who overcame polio as a child, also has a history of heart issues and underwent triple bypass surgery in 2003, just after being promoted to the No. 2 Senate Republican post.
When pictures emerged in 2020 showing his hands bruised and bandaged, he downplayed interest in his health as media hype. As of December, the average age in the Senate was 64.
We don’t know how serious his injuries are yet. Maybe we’ll learn something later today.
The latest on the Fox News-Dominion story. The “journalists” on the “news” side of Fox are pissed off.
Justin Baragona at The Daily Beast: Fox News Journalists Sound Off on ‘Soul-Crushing’ Dominion Filings.
“I think no regular person could read this and look at Fox like a news organization at this point.”
In the wake of bombshell legal filings showing that Fox News executives and stars seemingly sought to pacify their disgruntled MAGA viewers by airing election lies, while punishing and censoring the employees attempting to deliver the actual truth, the above observation has become commonplace within media circles.
Pierre Auguste Renoir, By the Water or Near the Lake 1880
But some of the shots are being fired from within the conservative cable giant.
According to nine Fox News staffers and insiders, the pre-trial filings in Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News further impugn and sully the reputation of the network’s “straight news” journalists, especially since they show Fox was “operating out of fear” over losing viewers to smaller right-wing competitors following its Decision Desk’s early (and accurate) Arizona election night call for President Joe Biden.
“We are not happy,” one reporter told The Daily Beast.
At the same time, five sources familiar with the situation say that despite the very public reputational harm resulting from the Dominion documents, the news side has been kept in the dark on the filings, with no communication from Fox’s corporate management or human resources department.
“It’s just a really bad time to be working here,” one news producer said.
The prime time entertainment stars have waged war on the “journalists,” despite the fact that everyone from Rupert Murdoch down knew that Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen were complete nonsence.
More than anything, the tranche of internal messages and texts Dominion obtained from Fox executives, hosts, and producers show a network in full-blown crisis over the fear of losing its relevance within the conservative movement—and a network whose top stars loathed the fact-driven journalists on the “hard news” side.Rupert Murdoch, the head of the Fox empire, privately conceded that Trump’s claims were “really crazy stuff,” and Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott warned shortly after the election that they shouldn’t “give the crazies an inch.”
Even stars like Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham privately trash-talked Team Trump’s “insane” fraud claims. But despite all that, the Fox hosts were simultaneously boosting them on the network’s airwaves in the days and weeks after the election.
More than anything, the tranche of internal messages and texts Dominion obtained from Fox executives, hosts, and producers show a network in full-blown crisis over the fear of losing its relevance within the conservative movement—and a network whose top stars loathed the fact-driven journalists on the “hard news” side.Rupert Murdoch, the head of the Fox empire, privately conceded that Trump’s claims were “really crazy stuff,” and Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott warned shortly after the election that they shouldn’t “give the crazies an inch.”
Even stars like Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham privately trash-talked Team Trump’s “insane” fraud claims. But despite all that, the Fox hosts were simultaneously boosting them on the network’s airwaves in the days and weeks after the election.
Other hard news Fox hosts such as Neil Cavuto and Leland Vittert also found themselves in the crosshairs for pushing “anti-Trump” narratives in the days following the election.
There’s much more on the “news” vs. entertainment war at the link above.
Field Flowers, Andrew Wyeth
Brian Stelter at Vanity Fair: “We’re All Embarrased”: Inside Fox News as Dominion Revelations Rattle the Network.
Stelter writes that Fox has been holding workshops for its employees on libel law, including the concept of “actual malice.”
Insiders say the workshops have happened for years. Indeed, legal refreshers are routine at major media companies—make sure you ask for comment, choose your adjectives carefully, attribute incendiary claims. But there is nothing routine about this moment in Fox News history. Every new legal filing in Dominion’s $1.6 billion defamation suit sets off a wave of coverage, criticism, and mockery, from the front page of The New York Times to the cold open of Saturday Night Live. More revelations came Tuesday, including Tucker Carlson saying of Donald Trump, “I hate him passionately,” and Rupert Murdoch saying “I hate our Decision Desk people”—the ones who accurately projected that Joe Biden had beat Trump.
From a corporate HR standpoint, some of the most destabilizing texts show Fox’s most powerful opinion hosts—Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham—dumping on their colleagues on the “news” side. New court filings show the opinion hosts derided numerous Fox reporters by name. “We thought they hated us,” one correspondent said, “but now we know it in their own words.”
For the people caught up in the case, whose private messages are being exposed and ridiculed, the process is “excruciating,” an on-air personality said. However, they have had months to prepare for this moment, since the discovery procedures and depositions ate up much of last year.
A Fox News spokeswoman declined to comment on Vanity Fair’s reporting about the recent legal training classes—or whether stars like Hannity had to participate. But in a statement Tuesday about the new filings, Fox accused Dominion of distorting the truth “in their PR campaign to smear FOX News and trample on free speech and freedom of the press.”
Such official dismissals aren’t shutting down the chatter inside Fox, though employees are cautious about when and where they gossip about the latest cache of private exchanges made public. “We’re very careful when we’re miked up,” said the on-air personality. “And we’re not texting about it.” Half a dozen Fox employees found other ways to share insights for this story. All were granted anonymity because they would never be allowed to address such a sensitive subject on the record. Even the network’s own media analyst, Howard Kurtz, has been muzzled: He disclosed on February 27 that “the company has decided that as part of the organization being sued, I can’t talk about it or write about it, at least for now.”
Again, you can read much more about the internal war at the network at the Vanity Fair link.
There’s also a battle raging between Fox News and Donald Trump.
The Washington Post: Inside the simmering feud between Donald Trump and Fox News.
Donald Trump got a tip-off on Saturday that the Fox News Channel would be taking his Conservative Political Action Conference speech live, a switch from the network’s largely indifferent posture toward the former president since he helped send it into crisis after the 2020 election.
The report carried a plain title: Plan D. Reading it, I wondered if the D stood for “doomsday.”That’s it for me today. Have a great Thursday everyone!!
Friday Reads
Posted: February 24, 2023 Filed under: Donald Trump, morning reads | Tags: Jack Smith, January 6 grand jury, Mar-a-Lago, Mike Pence, Speech and Debate clause, stolen government documents, Ukraine 17 Comments
Félix Vallotton, Lain down woman, sleeping, 1899, private collection.
Good Morning!!
I’m filling in for Dakinikat today, while she takes her cat Keely to the vet. Keely hasn’t had any problems since the seizure a few days ago, but she needs to be checked out and also get some shots. I’m curious to know what the vet thinks–I hope Dakinikat will update us later on.
The one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is getting lot of coverage today.
This is from The New York Times’ live updates: Here’s what to know on the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
With messages of support and new pledges of weapons, allies rallied around Ukraine on Friday as the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion prompted shows of solidarity around the world and a mix of anxiety and resolve in Ukraine.
“We will be victorious,” President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine told a news conference, saying that Ukraine could win the war this year as long as its allies remain united “like a fist” and continue delivering weapons.
Even as leaders in Ukraine and around the world marked the anniversary with ceremonies and speeches, the fighting continued much as it has for the past year. The war has already done untold damage: Tens of thousands have been killed on both sides, millions of Ukrainians have been made homeless, and Ukraine has sustained tens of billions of dollars worth of damage that has left cities flattened and people around the country grappling with dark and cold.
But Ukrainians have also found strength in shared sacrifice, and hope in the setbacks their country’s forces have dealt Russia on the battlefield. Ukraine has largely stopped the offensives of its much larger and better-armed neighbor and has regained swathes of captured land, aided by the United States and its European allies, which have remained united, funneling billions of dollars of weapons to Kyiv.
The war has reverberated around the globe, reshaping and strengthening alliances, and affecting everything from grain prices to energy policy. But even as Russia found itself more isolated from the West, sanctions have failed to bring the country to its knees, and much of the rest of the world has continued to provide economic or diplomatic support to Moscow.
Read more details and updates at the NYT link.
From the AP: US commits $2 billion in drones, ammunition, aid to Ukraine.
The Pentagon announced a new package of long-term security assistance for Ukraine on Friday, marking the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion with a $2 billion commitment to send more rounds of ammunition and a variety of small, high-tech drones into the fight.
The announcement comes just days after President Joe Biden made an unannounced visit to Kyiv and pledged America’s continuing commitment to Ukraine. Biden told President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his people that “Americans stand with you, and the world stands with you.”
John William Godward, Expectation
In a statement Friday, the Pentagon said the aid includes weapons to counter Russia’s unmanned systems and several types of drones, including the upgraded Switchblade 600 Kamikaze drone, as well as electronic warfare detection equipment.
It also includes money for additional ammunition for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, artillery rounds and munitions for laser-guided rocket systems. But, in an unusual move, the Pentagon provided no details on how many rounds of any kind will be bought. Including this latest package, the U.S. has now committed more than $32 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement that the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion is a chance for all who believe in freedom “to recommit ourselves to supporting Ukraine’s brave defenders for the long haul — and to recall that the stakes of Russia’s war stretch far beyond Ukraine.”
Biden was scheduled to meet virtually Friday with other Group of Seven leaders and Zelenskyy “to continue coordinating our efforts to support Ukraine and hold Russia accountable for its war,” the White House said.
Those efforts include what the White House called “sweeping” sanctions on over 200 people and entities “to further degrade Russia’s economy and diminish its ability to wage war against Ukraine.” The Biden administration will also further restrict exports to Russia and raise tariffs on some Russian products imported to the U.S.
CNN has a story on the new sanctions: US Treasury takes ‘one of its most significant sanctions actions to date’ on anniversary of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
The US Treasury Department on Friday took what it called “one of its most significant sanctions actions to date” to crack down on those aiding Moscow’s war against Ukraine, targeting Russia’s metals and mining sector, its financial institutions, its military supply chain and individuals and companies worldwide that are helping Moscow avoid existing sanctions.
These latest actions by the Treasury Department are among a series of new measures announced by the Biden administration Friday that are meant to strengthen Kyiv and deter those providing support to Moscow as the war enters its second year without signs of abating.
Friday’s sweeping actions are meant to fill in gaps in existing sanctions that have been imposed over the past year of the war and are intended to impair “key revenue generating sectors in order to further degrade Russia’s economy and diminish its ability to wage war against Ukraine,” according to a White House fact sheet.
Frederic Leighton, Flaming June
The administration on Friday imposed sanctions against a total of “over 200 individuals and entities, including both Russian and third-country actors across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East that are supporting Russia’s war effort,” according to the White House fact sheet.
The latest tranche of Treasury Department sanctions target a total of 22 individuals and 83 entities, according to a Treasury Department news release, and were taken in coordination with the Group of 7 nations.
The US State Department also imposed sanctions on dozens of Russian officials and entities involved in the war and will take “steps to impose visa restrictions on 1,219 members of the Russian military, including officers, for actions that threaten or violate the sovereignty, territorial integrity, or political independence of Ukraine,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. Three Russian military officials – Artyom Igorevich Gorodilov, Aleksey Sergeyevich Bulgakov, and Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Vasilyev – will be blocked from entering the US due to their involvement “in gross violations of human rights perpetrated against Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of wars,” Blinken said.
You can also check these two longer reads about Ukraine:
Defense One: EXCLUSIVE: Seven Former NATO Supreme Allied Commanders Say U.S. ‘Must Do Everything We Can’ for a Ukrainian Victory.
Politico has an oral history of the Russian invasion, compiled from hours of interviews by Politico reporters: ‘Something Was Badly Wrong’: When Washington Realized Russia Was Actually Invading Ukraine.
There is some breaking news about the Mar-a-Lago stolen documents case. Both The Guardian and CNN are claiming exclusives.
The Guardian: Classified Trump schedules were moved to Mar-a-Lago after FBI search – sources.
Donald Trump’s lawyers found a box of White House schedules, including some that were marked classified, at his Mar-a-Lago resort in December because a junior aide to the former president had transported it from another office in Florida after the FBI completed its search of the property.
The former president does not appear to have played a direct role in the mishandling of the box, though he remains under investigation for the possible improper retention of national security documents and obstruction of justice. This previously unreported account of the retrieval was informed by two sources familiar with the matter.
Known internally as ROTUS, short for Receptionist of the United States, the junior aide initially kept the box at a converted guest bungalow at Mar-a-Lago called the “tennis cottage” after Trump left office, and she soon took it with her to a government-leased office in the Palm Beach area.
Mary Cassatt, Girl in a Blue Armchair
The box remained at the government-leased office from where the junior aide worked through most of 2022, explaining why neither Trump’s lawyer who searched Mar-a-Lago in June for any classified-marked papers nor the FBI agents who searched the property in August found the documents.
Around the time that Trump returned to Mar-a-Lago from his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey at the end of the summer, the junior aide was told that she was being relocated to a desk in the anteroom of Trump’s own office at Mar-a-Lago that previously belonged to top aide Molly Michael.
The junior aide retrieved her work belongings – including the box – from the government-leased office and took them to her new Mar-a-Lago workspace around September. At that time, the justice department’s criminal investigation into Trump’s retention of national security documents was intensifying.
Read the rest at The Guardian.
The Justice Department wants to know how a box containing a handful of classified records scattered among copies of presidential schedules turned up at Mar-a-Lago late last year, well after several rounds of searches of the property by federal agents and aides to former President Donald Trump, according to people familiar with the matter.
Investigators working for special counsel Jack Smith in recent weeks have interviewed a Trump aide who copied classified materials found in the box using her phone to put them onto a laptop. After a voluntary interview with the aide, prosecutors subpoenaed the password to the laptop, which she provided, according to one of the sources.
The classified documents contained in the box were discovered in December, after the Justice Department told Trump’s legal team to conduct yet another search for documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
People familiar with the Trump legal team’s efforts to locate documents describe a confusing chain of events that delayed discovery of the box, including having its contents uploaded to the cloud, emailed to a Trump employee, and moved to an offsite location before finally ending up back at a Mar-a-Lago bridal suite that is now Trump’s office – the very place that the FBI had searched just weeks earlier….
The odyssey of the box has been a recent focus of Smith’s investigation into the mishandling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, according to people familiar with the line of questioning from federal prosecutors. The haphazard handling of documents that ended up online, on computers and moved around to multiple locations could further complicate Trump’s case in an investigation with criminal implications.
One person who described the box’s movements and the special counsel’s inquiry into it described federal investigators as suspecting a “shell game with classified documents.” The person said Trump’s daily movements and instructions to staff are a core part of prosecutors’ questions as well.
More details at CNN.
Mike Pence is getting quite a bit of attention in the news today, and it’s not positive attention.
CBS News: Special counsel asks judge to compel Mike Pence to testify in Jan. 6 probe.
Federal prosecutors have asked the chief judge in Washington, D.C.’s federal court to compel former Vice President Mike Pence to comply with a grand jury subpoena and testify as a witness in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the events surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, three people familiar with the investigation told CBS News.
The motion to compel Pence’s testimony — filed in secret to Chief Judge Beryl Howell in recent days — came after lawyers for former President Donald Trump asserted executive privilege in response to Pence’s subpoena, the people said.
John Singer Sargent, Repose
That assertion of executive privilege on Pence’s subpoena, the people added, is in line with how Trump’s team has responded to related subpoenas over the past year, with Trump’s attorneys often arguing that private conversations or interactions with a president should remain confidential….
Pence and his lawyers have also been preparing to invoke the Constitution’s Speech or Debate clause as a means of protecting him from the investigation. That clause protects members of Congress from being questioned about their legislative actions by other branches of the federal government.
Pence contends his unique role as both a member of the executive branch and president of the Senate — who presided over Congress’ certification of Electoral College votes on Jan. 6, 2021 — would be covered under the clause….
The motion to compel testimony filed by the special counsel’s office is the logical next step in a criminal probe, with prosecutors seeking to force a witness or third party to comply with a grand jury subpoena. Filed less than two weeks after news broke that Pence had received the subpoena, the legal document asks the court to uphold the subpoena’s legal authority and indicates Justice Department prosecutors are moving quickly in their attempt to get Pence before a grand jury.
Former federal judge Michael Luttig, who advised Pence when he was dealing with Trump’s pressure campaign to get Pence to try to overturn the 2020 election, has an op-ed in The New York Times today: Mike Pence’s Dangerous Gambit.
Former Vice President Mike Pence recently announced he would challenge Special Counsel Jack Smith’s subpoena for him to appear before a grand jury in Washington as part of the investigation into former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and the related Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Mr. Pence claimed that “the Biden D.O.J. subpoena” was “unconstitutional” and “unprecedented.” He added, “For me, this is a moment where you have to decide where you stand, and I stand on the Constitution of the United States.” Mr. Pence vowed to take his fight all the way to the Supreme Court.
A politician should be careful what he wishes for — no more so than when he’s a possible presidential candidate who would have the Supreme Court decide a constitutional case that could undermine his viability in an upcoming campaign.
Felix Vallotton, Laziness
The former vice president should not want the embarrassing spectacle of the Supreme Court compelling him to appear before a grand jury in Washington just when he’s starting his campaign for the presidency; recall the unanimous Supreme Court ruling that ordered Richard Nixon to turn over the fatally damning Oval Office tapes. That has to be an uncomfortable prospect for Mr. Pence, not to mention a potentially damaging one for a man who — at least as of today — is considered by many of us across the political spectrum to be a profile in courage for his refusal to join in the attempt to overturn the 2020 election in the face of Donald Trump’s demands. And to be clear, Mr. Pence’s decision to brand the Department of Justice’s perfectly legitimate subpoena as unconstitutional is a far cry from the constitutionally hallowed ground he stood on Jan. 6.
Injecting campaign-style politics into the criminal investigatory process with his rhetorical characterization of Mr. Smith’s subpoena as a “Biden D.O.J. subpoena,” Mr. Pence is trying to score points with voters who want to see President Biden unseated in 2024. Well enough. That’s what politicians do. But Jack Smith’s subpoena was neither politically motivated nor designed to strengthen President Biden’s political hand in 2024. Thus the jarring dissonance between the subpoena and Mr. Pence’s characterization of it. It is Mr. Pence who has chosen to politicize the subpoena, not the D.O.J.
Read the rest at the NYT.
Another take on this issue from Jennifer Rubin at The Washington Post: Pence has no right to dodge a subpoena.
Former vice president Mike Pence is bent on demonstrating to the MAGA base that he is not about to help prosecute would-be coup instigator Donald Trump, the very person who seemed to delight in egging on the mob that called for Pence’s head. To that end, Pence has threatened to refuse to appear in response to the grand jury subpoena special counsel Jack Smith has issued.
Rather than deploy the executive-privilege defense (almost certainly a loser since President Biden has waived it; in any case, United States v. Nixon stands for the proposition that executive privilege generally gives way in a criminal prosecution), Pence has cited the Constitution’s “speech and debate” clause. This passage from Article I protects lawmakers from arrest on the floor of Congress for things said there.
A close examination of Pence’s claim shows that the defense, even if valid in some respects, does not protect him from testifying about issues relating to the Jan. 6, 2021, coup attempt.
The argument that the vice president is an officer of Congress, and hence covered by the clause, is reasonable. Andy Wright and Ryan Goodman writing at Just Security explain: “The Speech or Debate Clause is designed as a safeguard against politically motivated civil litigation or criminal prosecutions that can chill congressional debate or intimidate legislators.” Therefore, they conclude, “It makes sense that the protections should extend to a Vice President when acting as President of the Senate or in other legislative branch capacity.” The Justice Department already conceded as much in multiple civil suits brought against the vice president (both Pence and then-vice president Joe Biden).
Yet, there is a compelling argument that Pence’s use of the speech and debate clause is inconsistent with the clause’s purpose, which is to insulate members of Congress from pressure from the executive. It might also be argued (as retired judge Michael Luttig has) that Pence’s role on Jan. 6 was purely ceremonial, not legislative, and thus the speech and debate clause does not apply. After all, Pence himself argued that day that he had no legislative authority to nullify the electoral votes.
These points might be subjects of novel litigation. But the government need not dispute the clause’s relevance because a good deal of what Smith wants to investigate is beyond any legislative function, and hence outside the scope of the clause.
Read more at the WaPo.
That’s all I have for you today. What are your thoughts on all this? What other stories are you following?
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