Posted: July 10, 2025 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: Donald Trump | Tags: Camp Mystic, David Richardson, FEMA, James Comey, Jeffrey Epstein, John Brennan, Kash Patel, Kerr Country, Kristi Noem, Pam Bondi, Ron Filipkowski, Russia investigation, Texas floods, Trump MAGA cult |
Good Afternoon!!
As usual lately, here’s a massive amount of news today, and I can’t possibly address everything. So I’ve decided to focus on the Texas flooding story, and then I’ll turn to a crazy story about Trump and his MAGA cult.
The catastrophic floods in Texas are still a huge story, and we’re beginning to see the recriminations on how badly the disaster was handled, by local, state, and federal officials. As of now, the death toll is 111, and there 173 missing. 116 of the missing are from Kerr County.
Here’s the latest from The New York Times live updates:
No survivors have been found since Friday in Kerr County, where the worst flooding occurred. The statewide death toll rose to 111, with at least 173 unaccounted for statewide….
At least 173 people remained missing on the fifth day after devastating floods swept through the Texas Hill Country, Gov. Greg Abbott said on Tuesday. Those unaccounted for include 161 in Kerr County, where the worst of the flooding occurred and where local officials said no one has been rescued since Friday.
The number of missing cited by the governor — the first time an official had identified the scale of the recovery operation still ahead — suggested the death toll of 111 could more than double as rescue teams sift through debris in search of bodies….
Search and rescue teams from across Texas, other states and even Mexico are pouring into flood-ravaged Central Texas to aid the strained crews that have been hunting for victims along the Guadalupe River.
Volunteer fire departments from across Texas have sent teams to the hardest-hit areas, as have fire departments from out of state, including those from Shreveport, La., and Memphis….
What about FEMA? I’m reminded of George W. Bush’s handling of Katrina. Remember “Heck of a job, Brownie”?
Marisa Kabas at The Handbasket: Have you seen this man? In the wake of deadly floods in Texas, FEMA Acting Administrator David Richardson is nowhere to be found.
From his very first day as Acting Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), David Richardson’s approach was clear: “I’ve never read a book on leadership,” he said in an all-staff Zoom on May 9th, a fact that quickly became abundantly clear. He told anyone who planned to obstruct his work on behalf of President Trump “I will run right over you. Don’t get in my way…I know all the tricks.”
There have been many Weird Little Guys since the start of Trump’s second administration. In this context, a Weird Little Guy is someone who’s elevated to a position of power with little to no relevant experience and has proved unwavering loyalty to Trump. He allows the higher ups to exert actual power, while he exists mostly as a face and warm body. And as we watch the paltry FEMA response in Texas after floods killed at least 119 people on July 4th and where at least 160 remain missing, Acting Administrator Richardson is proving he can’t even be the face of the agency by staying silent.
Search and recovery crews use a large excavator to remove debris from the bank of the Guadalupe River in Center Point, Texas, on Wednesday. Jim Vondruska Getty Images
As I wrote on Monday, FEMA staffers are alarmed by what they say is the agency’s impossibly slow and deficient response to the death and destruction wrought by the Texas floods. Figures shared with The Handbasket showed just 86 people deployed as of Monday evening. Per Tuesday’s FEMA evening briefing, an additional 204 people had been deployed—just 19 from FEMA, and 185 from other agencies. Few—if any—federal staff are on the ground to help survivors register for assistance.
But perhaps as galling as the weak response is Richardson’s disappearing act: While the former Assistant Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security’s Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office is not a particularly vocal leader even during quieter weeks, he still has yet to make a single internal or public comment about the impact of the Texas floods and how his agency is helping survivors.
“It is unprecedented for the leader of FEMA to be absent from the public response to a disaster that has killed over 100 Americans,” Dr. Samantha Montano, Associate Professor of emergency management at Massachusetts Maritime Academy, told The Handbasket on Wednesday. “Richardson should be on the ground in the impacted areas meeting with local, state, and nonprofit stakeholders. He should be holding press conferences and providing interviews for national outlets. He should be monitoring FEMA’s resources and the broader federal response to ensure it is moving effectively and efficiently.”
And what has Kristi Noem been up to?
CNN: FEMA’s response to Texas flood slowed by Noem’s cost controls.
As monstrous floodwaters surged across central Texas late last week, officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency leapt into action, preparing to deploy critical search and rescue teams and life-saving resources, like they have in countless past disasters.
But almost instantly, FEMA ran into bureaucratic obstacles, four officials inside the agency told CNN.
As CNN has previously reported, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem — whose department oversees FEMA — recently enacted a sweeping rule aimed at cutting spending: Every contract and grant over $100,000 now requires her personal sign-off before any funds can be released.
For FEMA, where disaster response costs routinely soar into the billions as the agency contracts with on-the-ground crews, officials say that threshold is essentially “pennies,” requiring sign-off for relatively small expenditures.
Kristi Noem meets with Gov. Abbott and others in Texas
In essence, they say the order has stripped the agency of much of its autonomy at the very moment its help is needed most.
“We were operating under a clear set of guidance: lean forward, be prepared, anticipate what the state needs, and be ready to deliver it,” a longtime FEMA official told CNN. “That is not as clear of an intent for us at the moment.”
For example, as central Texas towns were submerged in rising waters, FEMA officials realized they couldn’t pre-position Urban Search and Rescue crews from a network of teams stationed regionally across the country.
In the past, FEMA would have swiftly staged these teams, which are specifically trained for situations including catastrophic floods, closer to a disaster zone in anticipation of urgent requests, multiple agency sources told CNN.
But even as Texas rescue crews raced to save lives, FEMA officials realized they needed Noem’s approval before sending those additional assets. Noem didn’t authorize FEMA’s deployment of Urban Search and Rescue teams until Monday, more than 72 hours after the flooding began, multiple sources told CNN.
More details at CNN.
The New York Times: As Texas Flood Raged, Camp Mystic Was Left to Fend for Itself.
In the first three hours after the National Weather Service sent out an alert at 1:14 a.m. on July 4, warning of “life-threatening flash flooding” near Kerrville, Texas, the Guadalupe River would rise 20 feet. Yet local leaders would remain largely unheard from, raising questions about both local preparedness and whether the state of Texas should be doing more to notify flood-prone rural counties when they are in danger.
Camp Mystic, a girls’ camp along the river where at least 27 people lost their lives, experienced severe flooding sometime between 2 and 3 a.m., according to accounts from parents whose children were at the camp. Counselors in one cabin had to force open windows to help young girls get out. “The girls were saying it was a rushing river,” said Lisa Miller, whose 9-year-old daughter, Birdie, had to climb onto a counselor’s back to escape.
At the nearby Presbyterian Mo-Ranch Assembly camp, a facilities manager was awake around 1 a.m. when he saw the rising waters and alerted his boss, which prompted a quick effort to move people to higher ground, camp officials said. No lives were lost.
Yet even as these dramas were unfolding, many of the key local leaders in Kerr County were still asleep or had not been alerted to the danger. The survival of people in local camps and low-lying areas in many cases depended not on official evacuations, but on whether they were paying attention, on their own, to weather alerts in the middle of the night.
After the flood alert shortly after 1 a.m., the National Weather Service went on to put out a series of warnings of mounting intensity, with one at 4:03 a.m. warning of “catastrophic” flooding.
“This came at night when people were asleep, in bed,” Kerrville’s mayor, Joe Herring Jr., said at a news conference. He later told CNN that he had not received the weather alert and was not awakened until 5:30 a.m.
Sheriff Larry Leitha of Kerr County said he had first been notified around 4 or 5 a.m., when “one of my sergeants was in dispatch when the first calls started coming in.”
It’s been reported that campers and counselors at Camp Mystic weren’t allowed to have cell phone with them. Apparently cell phone coverage is poor in the area anyway.
CNN: Officials have yet to explain who did what during critical early hours as deadly floods hit Texas.
Nearly a week after floodwaters swept away more than a hundred lives, Texas officials are facing heated questions over how much was – or was not – done in the early morning hours of Friday as a wall of water raced down the Guadalupe River.
Several officials in the past few days have deflected or become defensive when asked clarifying questions about the county’s actions before and during the disaster.
“We’re in the process of trying to put together a timeline. That’s going to take a little bit of time,” Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said Tuesday, adding his priority was recovering victims, identifying bodies and notifying families.
Authorities were pressed again Wednesday when they shared little information about the early hours of the emergency, instead calling attention to their swift response later in the day on July 4.
“I know that this tragedy, as horrific as it is, could have been so much worse,” Kerrville Police Department Sgt. Jonathan Lamb said.
As search and rescue efforts continue for a seventh straight day, frustration grows over lingering questions about what officials did during those crucial early hours, if existing warning systems worked and whether any loss could have been prevented.
I suppose any even could be worse, but that is hardly the point. See the post for a timeline CNN has created.
NPR: Kerr County struggled to fund flood warnings. Under Trump, it’s getting even harder.
Years before the flooding took more than 90 lives in Kerr County, Texas, local officials knew residents faced threats from rapidly rising water. They started planning a flood warning system, one that could alert residents when a flash flood was imminent.
Still, like many other communities around the country, Kerr County struggled to find a way to pay for it. They turned to the largest source available for most localities: funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
For years, Kerr County officials debated how to fund a flood warning system. Under Trump administration changes, disaster funding opportunities are getting more limited for communities. Denise Rios WaPo
FEMA has granted billions over the last five years to help communities prepare for disasters. The idea is one that has been proven on the ground: When communities invest in infrastructure and preparation before a disaster, it can dramatically lessen the damage when a disaster hits, as well as save lives.
Kerr County’s funding application was turned down by Texas officials in charge of administering the federal funds. As with most of FEMA’s programs, there was more demand for money than was available. Kerr County looked into a Texas state grant program for flood projects, but gave up when they learned it would cover only a small portion of the cost. In Texas alone, more than $54 billion in flood projects are waiting to be built, and state legislators have only dedicated a small fraction of that funding so far.
Now, funding prospects for communities at risk are getting even more limited. The Trump administration has frozen or canceled billions of dollars dedicated to help communities prepare for disasters. Trump signed an executive order saying states should be responsible for funding disaster preparedness, instead of the federal government.
I know I’ve spent a lot of time on this story, but it seems to me that we will see more disasters like this with hurricane and tornado seasons coming up.
Now I want to address a crazy story about Trump and his MAGA cult. This story grew out of Pam Bondi’s announcement that the Jeffrey Epstein files would not be released, as she previously promised.
Axios on July 5: Exclusive: DOJ, FBI conclude Epstein had no “client list,” died by suicide.
President Trump‘s Justice Department and FBI have concluded they have no evidence that convicted sex offender and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein blackmailed powerful figures, kept a “client list” or was murdered, according to a memo detailing the findings obtained by Axios.
— The administration is releasing a video — in both raw and “enhanced” versions — that it says indicates no one entered the area of the Manhattan prison where Epstein was held the night he died in 2019.
— The video supports a medical examiner’s finding that Epstein died by suicide, the two-page memo claims.
Why it matters: The findings represent the first time Trump’s administration has officially contradicted conspiracy theories about Epstein’s activities and his death — theories that had been pushed by the FBI’s top two officials before Trump appointed them to the bureau.
– As social media influencers and activists, Kash Patel (now the FBI’s director) and Dan Bongino (now deputy director) were among those in MAGA world who questioned the official version of how Epstein died.
– Patel and Bongino have since said Epstein killed himself. But it has become an article of faith online, especially on the right, that Epstein’s crimes also implicated government officials, celebrities and business leaders — and that someone killed him to conceal them.
– The memo says no one else involved in the Epstein case will be charged. (Epstein’s associate Ghislaine Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence for child sex trafficking and related offenses.)
You can read more at the link. The problem is that Bodi promised a big reveal and a client list and now she’s changed her mind–probably because Trump is all over the Epstein files. But MAGA is enraged. They don’t get that she’s probably protecting Trump. They think Democrats and the “deep state” are involved.
Yesterday, MAGA expert Ron Filipkowski wrote about the firestorm at Meidas: Trump Made His Epstein Problem Much Worse. And how this could hurt Republicans in the midterms.
Years have gone by since Jeffrey Epstein was tried, convicted, sent to prison, and committed suicide (allegedly). Trump made it through his first election and term with the Epstein case not affecting him negatively with his MAGA base despite his obvious personal connections with him, which were pretty extensive. His MAGA cult accepted his explanations that none of his contacts with Epstein involved girls and he cut ties with him as soon as he learned about the allegations against him.
In February, MAGA influencers showed off their copies of the so-called Epstein files.
Four years went by with Trump out of office and the Epstein story largely fell out of the public consciousness as these things do with so much other news happening. But not with Trump’s MAGA base. The various conspiracies surrounding the case continued to build online on social media and in right-wing podcasts. The conspiracies garnered huge numbers of clicks and views for the grifter class, so they were more than happy to feed the beast.
There were many different conspiracies involving Epstein, but most who are obsessed with the case generally fall into either one of two camps. The first believes that there is a “Deep State” cabal that secretly controls all aspects of government and society run by elites from both parties, and that many of them were caught up in what Epstein was doing so there is ample incentive for leaders of both political parties to cover everything up to try and get the public to move on. The second group believes that Epstein was a Mossad agent used to gather blackmail videos of powerful elected officials so Israel would be able gain control of the US government through extortion.
When Trump won the 2024 election, many of the influencers with huge followings believed that all the information would finally be released by his new FBI Director and Attorney General. They believed that former AG Bill Barr was very much part of the Deep State and covered everything up in term one. They were primarily interested in 3 things: 1. The names of everyone who Epstein brought into his orbit to rape girls; 2. Evidence that his death was not a suicide and who killed him; 3. Who were Epstein’s co-conspirators?
Filipkowski notes that Trump appointed heavy-duty MAGA conspiracy theorists to high level law enforcement posts.
…which only poured gasoline on the fire for MAGA anxiously awaiting the big reveal. Kash Patel, Dan Bongino, and Pam Bondi may have been chosen for their loyalty to Trump over qualifications and competence, but they also carried with them a lot of baggage on Epstein. Their mouths had written a lot of checks to MAGA on this issue, and they expected to be cashing them right about now.
But it was not to be. Patel and Bongino told Maria Baritromo on Fox last month that they had reviewed the files and were convinced that Epstein killed himself, which infuriated MAGA. But still they were assuaged by the fact that Bondi gave two separate interviews to Fox where she said there were hundreds of victims and thousands of videos that were “on her desk” that she was reviewing. She said some of the materials had to be “redacted,” but everything would be released shortly. Then DOJ posted a memo on their website this week that nothing would be released and the case was closed. No formal announcement, no press conference, no Fox interview. Just an unsigned memo posted on a website.
So now the crazies are outraged. Click the link to read the rest of Filpkowski’s post.
Axios: Trump faces MAGA trust crisis over Epstein debacle.
Top MAGA influencers warn the Trump administration is bleeding trust over its handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case, and that the president is drifting out of step with the movement he built.
Why it matters: The MAGA base was blindsided by the Justice Department’s conclusion that the notorious sex trafficker died by suicide in 2019 and had no “client list.” Days after the initial shock, Trump’s insistence on moving on is fueling a deeper sense of betrayal.
- “Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?” Trump asked incredulously during Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting after a reporter pressed Attorney General Pam Bondi on the findings.
- “I can’t believe you’re asking a question about Epstein at a time like this,” he added, calling it a “waste” of time and a “desecration.”
Driving the news: The chorus of MAGA outrage has only intensified since the Justice Department and FBI released a memo on Sunday finding no evidence that Epstein was murdered, had a “client list” or had blackmailed powerful figures.
- Tucker Carlson, Elon Musk and Steve Bannon — influential Trump allies who have feuded with the president at times — are among those who have accused the administration of a cover-up.
- But even MAGA’s most loyal foot soldiers are struggling to explain how top Trump officials could close the Epstein case after promising — for years — that it would expose shadowy global elites.
The Independent: MTG says Americans are ‘not going to accept’ there is no Epstein client list.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said Americans are “not going to accept” that convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein had no client list.
A memo released by the Justice Department and the FBI on Monday stating there was never any client list caused waves among President Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again base.
Greene, a prominent MAGA figure, told Real America’s Voice network on Wednesday, “I think the Department of Justice and the FBI has more explaining to do — this is Jeffrey Epstein,” The Hill reports.
“This is the most famous pedophile in modern-day history, and people are absolutely not going to accept just a memo that was written that says there is no client list,” she said.
Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers had pressured Attorney General Pam Bondi to release what was suspected to be a record of high-profile names associated with Epstein, a wealthy financier who died in jail ahead of his trial on sex trafficking charges in 2019.
You’d think it might dawn on these morons that Bondi and the rest are protecting Trump, who was pals with Epstein for at least 15 years, but they are too brainwashed, I guess.
The Daily Beast: Pam Bondi Hanging on by Her Fingertips Amid MAGA Firestorm.
Pam Bondi is clinging to her job as she faces a firestorm of criticism from MAGA loyalists over her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
It’s hard to find a Trump official who has faced more wrath than Donald Trump’s attorney general, as the president’s supporters pile on after the Justice Department indicated this week there was no more information to release on the convicted sex offender and denied the existence of an Epstein “client list.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi released a memo on Monday stating that the department and the F.B.I. had determined “that no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted.”Credit…Pete Marovich for The New York Times
Across social media, the president’s supporters have been accusing Bondi of lying to the American people. They’re calling for the president to fire her or for her to resign. Some have even thrown around the word “impeachment.”
Some of the biggest conservative activists have added fuel to the burning outrage with their heated takedowns of the attorney general.
“She can say whatever she wants to say. She also said she is committed to ‘combatting human trafficking.’ Do you really believe her? I don’t,” posted far-right activist Laura Loomer.
“She can say whatever she wants to say. She also said she is committed to ‘combatting human trafficking.’ Do you really believe her? I don’t,” posted far-right activist Laura Loomer.
The MAGA’s are angry because they were invited to the White House in February where they received binders of information that turned out to be old news.
Alt-right podcaster Jack Posobiec skewered her on his show for calling the Epstein case closed and saying that’s “not how you treat the American people.”
“I feel very angry, upset, used… from having gone to the White House and receiving this binder full of baloney that was completely publicly available information already that we were told was new information on Epstein. It wasn’t,” he said. “We were told that more information was coming. It wasn’t.”
He was referring to influencers being invited to the White House in February, where they were handed binders marked “Phase 1” and “Declassified” that contained Epstein material that was largely already public knowledge.
Megyn Kelly suggested on Tuesday that Bondi was “too lazy” to check if any of the information was new before handing it over to influencers earlier this year.
Now Trump and the gang have leaked supposed criminal investigations of James Comey and John Brennan, most likely in an effort to change the subject.
Another one from Axios: Trump on Brennan, Comey probe reports: “Maybe they have to pay a price.”
President Trump responded Wednesday to reports that former CIA director John Brennan and former FBI director James Comey are being investigated over allegations that they made false statements to Congress during the Russia probe.
…Brennan and Comey were under criminal investigation over the FBI probe into possible links between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia after CIA director John Ratcliffe referred evidence to the FBI of possible wrongdoing….
“I know nothing about it other than what I read today, but I will tell you, I think they’re very dishonest people,” Trump said when asked about the investigation by a reporter during a White House meeting with African leaders….”I think they’re crooked as hell and maybe they have to pay a price for that….”I believe they are truly bad people and dishonest people,” Trump added. “So whatever happens, happens.”
Ratcliffe last week released a review that criticized intelligence leaders for rushing the Russia report and for the intelligence community assessment relying on a single source to express “high confidence” that Russian President Vladimir Putin “aspired” to help Trump win the 2016 election….However, it did not dispute “the quality and credibility” of the CIA’s conclusions….”Agency heads at the time created a politically charged environment that triggered an atypical analytic process around an issue essential to our democracy,” Ratcliffe said in a statement on the report.
What they’re saying: Brennan told MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House” Wednesday afternoon that neither the Department of Justice nor the CIA had contacted him about the investigation.
The New York Times on the Comey “investigation”: Comey Tracked by Secret Service After Post Critical of Trump.
The Secret Service had the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey followed by law enforcement authorities in unmarked cars and street clothes and tracked the location of his cellphone the day after he posted an image on social media in May that President Trump’s allies said amounted to a threat to assassinate the president, according to three government officials.
Mr. Comey and his wife, Patrice, were tailed by the authorities as they drove from the North Carolina coast, where they had been vacationing, through Virginia to their home in the Washington area, the officials said, describing the details of the surveillance on condition of anonymity because they did not want to be identified discussing a federal investigation.
At the same time, the Secret Service was receiving information showing the location of Mr. Comey’s phone while federal authorities were stationed at his home waiting for him to return, the officials said.
The intense surveillance occurred a day after Mr. Comey, long perceived by Mr. Trump as an enemy, had posted a photo on social media of seashells he said he had found while walking on the beach. The shells were arranged in the formation “86 47,” combining a slang term meaning to dismiss or remove with the numerical designation of Mr. Trump’s second presidency. Trump critics have often displayed the phrase on signs and clothing at protests….
Shortly after the image was posted, Donald Trump Jr. wrote on social media that Mr. Comey was “casually calling for my dad to be murdered.” The accusation created a firestorm online, as Mr. Trump’s supporters accused Mr. Comey of plotting to assassinate the president.
When Mr. Comey learned of the uproar, he deleted the post, said he did not know that it had a violent connotation and that he opposed violence of any kind. The Secret Service interviewed him by phone that evening, and Mr. Comey said he had no intent to cause the president harm.
The Secret Service followed him home and then insisted on taking him back to DC to be questioned. I don’t know that is what the so-called “investigation” is about. Frankly, I don’t think there really are investigations of Brennan and Comey. It’s just Trump’s effort to distract from the Epstein furor.
That’s it for me today. What do you think? What’s on your mind?
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Posted: April 26, 2025 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: cat art, caturday, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, just because | Tags: deporting U.S. citizen children, Doge, ICE, Jeffrey Epstein, Judge Hannah Dugan, Pope Francis, Russia, Ukraine, Virginia Giuffre, Volodyur Zelensky |
By Jussi Taipaleenmäki
Good Afternoon!!
Early this morning ET, Pope Francis was laid to rest.
The Guardian: World bids farewell to Pope Francis with pilgrims and the powerful among 400,000 at funeral.
Pope Francis has been eulogised as “a pope among the people, with an open heart towards everyone” during a funeral mass that brought 400,000 mourners to Rome, from pilgrims and refugees to powerful world leaders and royalty.
Francis, 88, died on Monday after a stroke and subsequent heart failure, setting into motion a series of centuries-old rituals and a huge, meticulously planned logistical and security operation not seen in Italy since the funeral of John Paul II in April 2005.
The crowd erupted into applause as the late pontiff’s wooden coffin was carried from the altar of the 16th-century St Peter’s Basilica, where it had laid in state for three days, by 14 white-gloved pallbearers and into the square for the open-air ceremony.
Applause also rang out when the Italian cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, who presided over the funeral mass, spoke of Francis’s care for immigrants, his constant pleas for peace, the need for negotiations to end wars and the importance of the climate.
Under a blue sky, crowds stretched along Via della Conciliazione, the road connecting the Italian capital with the Vatican.
Among the pilgrims were Rosa Cirielli and her friend Pina Sanarico, who left their homes in Taranto, in southern Italy, at 5am, and managed to secure themselves a decent position in front of a huge TV screen. “When Pope Francis was alive, he gave us hope. Now we have this huge hole,” said Cirielli. “He left us during a very ugly period for the world. He was the only one who loudly called for peace.”
The pilgrims were joined by leaders from more than 150 countries, including the US president, Donald Trump, who had repeatedly clashed with Francis over immigration, and his wife Melania. A White House official said Trump had a “very productive” meeting before the ceremony with Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. A photo showed the pair sitting opposite each other on chairs inside St Peter’s Basilica. Another image showed them together with the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, and French president, Emmanuel Macron. Trump and Zelenskyy were also expected to meet after the mass.
Other guests included the former US president Joe Biden, who last met Francis at the G7 summit in Puglia in June 2024, the Argentinian president, Javier Milei, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, and Prince William.
More than 2,000 journalists from around the world travelled to Rome to cover the event.
The 90-minute mass was celebrated by 220 cardinals, 750 bishops and more than 4,000 priests.
Trump did not belong at the funeral of Pope Francis, but he bulled his way in and demanded special treatment. Can you believe didn’t even wear black?
The Daily Beast: Vatican Caves and Gives Trump Front-Row Seat for Pope’s Funeral.
President Donald Trump, wearing a blue suit in a sea of black, was seated in a prized front-row seat for the funeral of Pope Francis.
The seating location will likely be a source of great satisfaction for the famously thin-skinned president, who mercilessly mocked Joe Biden after he was seated in the 14th row at Queen Elizabeth’s funeral in 2022.
By Jos Rian
Based on precedent, Trump was expected to have been seated in the third row, behind anointed monarchs.
In the end, however, he and Melania were seated in the front row, along with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, whose appearance triggered a spontaneous outburst of applause from the assembled crowds.
Vatican sources told Sky News that Trump met with Zelensky before the ceremony, just hours after the president talked up a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia.
The controversy over Trump’s seating would doubtless have prompted a wry reaction from the overtly humble Pope Francis, who dedicated considerable political capital to confronting Trump, denouncing his immigration policy as “un-Christian” and schooling his minion JD Vance on the issue in his final hours.
Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, previously told the Telegraph the ceremony would be a “masterpiece of stage management when you consider those state leaders who have high opinions of their importance.”
“They’ve been doing it since the emperors ruled Rome—they know how to deal with big egos. And I think every leader of a nation that comes here on Saturday will go home reasonably content,” he added.
David Sanger at The New York Times: Trump Meets With Zelensky in Vatican City.
President Trump met privately with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on Saturday in Vatican City, the first time the two leaders have met since their televised argument in late February in the Oval Office exacerbated the deep breach between the two countries.
The meeting took place in St. Peter’s Basilica, the two men perched on metal chairs, deep in conversation for several minutes as they waited for the funeral for Pope Francis to begin. A White House spokesman, Stephen Cheung, called it a “very productive discussion,” but gave no details.
It came at a critical moment. The United States has presented Ukraine with a plan for a cease-fire in its war with Russia, leading to a postwar plan that would give Russia de facto control over all of the lands it has illegally seized since the invasion began three years ago. The proposal also includes a major reversal of American policy: a formal recognition by the United States that Crimea, seized by Moscow in 2014, is now Russian territory.
Mr. Zelensky said this past week that Ukraine would never make that concession, noting that it would violate Ukraine’s Constitution; most of the other nations in Europe would almost agree with Mr. Zelensky’s view. But the Ukrainian leader has a counterproposal of his own, Ukrainian officials said, one that would end the conflict on far less generous terms for Russia, and would include billions of dollars in reparations for Ukraine, paid by Russia.
The White House did not respond to queries about the specifics of the meeting in Vatican City. But it was a remarkable scene: an impromptu meeting between two men who have made no secret of their deep dislike and distrust for each other. In the minutes after they last saw each other, Mr. Zelensky was essentially evicted from the White House, a lunch for the two men left uneaten and an economic accord allowing the United States to help exploit much of Ukraine’s minerals left unsigned.
Some very sad news: Virginia Giuffre had died by suicide.
The Guardian: Virginia Giuffre, Jeffrey Epstein and Prince Andrew accuser, dies aged 41.
Virginia Giuffre, one of the most prominent victims of the disgraced US financier Jeffrey Epstein who also alleged she was sexually trafficked to Prince Andrew, has died aged 41.
Her family issued a statement on Saturday confirming she took her own life at her farm in Western Australia, where she had lived for several years.
“It is with utterly broken hearts that we announce that Virginia passed away last night at her farm in Western Australia. She lost her life to suicide, after being a lifelong victim of sexual abuse and sex trafficking,” the statement read.
By Nicolai Tonitza
“In the end, the toll of abuse is so heavy that it became unbearable for Virginia to handle its weight.”
Giuffre was one of the most vocal victims of Epstein, alleging she had been groomed and sexually abused by him and his longtime associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, beginning in her teens.
The family described her as a “fierce warrior” against sexual abuse and sex trafficking and a “light that lifted so many survivors”.
“Despite all the adversity she faced in her life, she shone so bright. She will be missed beyond measure,” they said.
Giuffre is survived by her three children, Christian, Noah and Emily, who her family said were the “light of her life”.
“It was when she held her newborn daughter in her arms that Virginia realised she had to fight back against those who had abused her and so many others,” they said.
“There are no words that can express the grave loss we feel today with the passing of our sweet Virginia. She was heroic and will always be remembered for her incredible courage and loving spirit.”
Some background on Giuffre from NBC News: Virginia Giuffre, one of Jeffrey Epstein’s most prominent abuse survivors, dies by suicide.
Giuffre, 41, died in Neergabby, Australia, where she had been living for several years.
Giuffre was one of the earliest and loudest voices calling for criminal charges against Epstein and his enablers. Other Epstein abuse survivors later credited her with giving them the courage to speak out.
She also provided critical information to law enforcement that contributed to the investigation into and later the conviction of Epstein’s associate Ghislaine Maxwell, as well as other investigations by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York….
Raised primarily in Florida, Giuffre had a troubled childhood. She said she was abused by a family friend, triggering a downward spiral that led to her living on the streets for a time as a teenager.
She was attempting to rebuild her life when she met Maxwell, Epstein’s close confidant. Maxwell groomed her to be sexually abused by Epstein, and that abuse continued from 1999 to 2002, according to Giuffre. Giuffre also alleged that Epstein trafficked her to his powerful friends, including Prince Andrew and French modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel.
Epstein, a wealthy financier, died by suicide in a New York jail in 2019 while he was awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.
Maxwell, a former British socialite, was found guilty on five counts of sex trafficking in 2021 for her role in recruiting young girls to be abused by Epstein.
Giuffre filed a federal lawsuit against Andrew in 2021, alleging that he sexually abused her when she was 17. Andrew, who stepped back from his duties as an active royal as controversy related to Epstein swirled around him, agreed to settle the case for an undisclosed amount in 2022. He has denied having sex with her.
Brunel, who headed several modeling agencies, was charged with sexual harassment and the rape of at least one minor in December 2020. He denied wrongdoing and died by suicide in his jail cell in February 2022.
Several months prior, Giuffre testified against Brunel in a Paris courtroom in June 2021. In an interview after her daylong closed-door testimony, Giuffre said she appeared in court to be a voice for the victims and to make sure Brunel was brought to justice.
“I wanted Brunel to know that he no longer has the power over me,” Giuffre said, “that I am a grown woman now and I’ve decided to hold him accountable for what he did to me and so many others.”
Giuffre moved to Australia with her husband before Epstein’s 2019 arrest. The couple has three children.
There was quite a bit of immigration news yesterday.
Topping the list: the FBI arrested a judge. Josh Kovensky at Talking Points Memo: FBI Stages Courthouse Arrest of Wisconsin Judge.
The federal government used brazen, heavy-handed tactics on Friday to arrest a Wisconsin state judge on obstruction charges related to an immigration case.
Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan received the distinction of being arrested at her courthouse. She does not appear to have been given the opportunity to surrender to law enforcement.
By Nicola Slattery
Instead, Trump administration officials immediately used the arrest to create a spectacle and broadcast to the country that state officials — including sitting judges — must cooperate with the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign or else face overbearing actions from federal law enforcement.
A U.S. Marshals Service spokesman told TPM that FBI agents arrested Dugan at around 8:30 a.m. Milwaukee time. They made the arrest, Marshals spokesman Brady McCarron told TPM, as she arrived for work on the state courthouse grounds, detaining her outside of the building.
Around half an hour after, FBI Director Kash Patel posted a tweet announcing the arrest.
“We believe Judge Dugan intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject to be arrested in her courthouse,” he wrote. Patel deleted the tweet minutes later, though he would later repost it.
Contrast the brazenness of Dugan’s arrest, and Patel’s efforts to manufacture publicity around it, with how a somewhat similar case proceeded during Trump’s first term. In 2019, a Massachusetts state judge was indicted on obstruction charges over allegations of blocking ICE officials from taking custody of an undocumented citizen of the Dominican Republic. In that case, itself an extremely rare federal prosecution of a state judge over a decision related to the use of her office, the defendant was allowed to surrender. The DOJ dropped the charges in September 2022.
Read the rest at TPM. This will be an important case to watch. I suspect this isn’t the last judge who will be targeted by Trump goons.
Chris Geidner at The Law Dork: The Trump administration deported a 2-year-old U.S. citizen on Friday.
Over the course of the past three days, the Trump administration took a two-year-old U.S. citizen into custody, along with her mother and sister, and deported the child to Honduras with little to no individualized process, prompting sharp concern from a conservative federal judge on Friday.
The Justice Department does not appear to dispute the underlying facts, given its position in a filing faxed to the court about 3:45 a.m. CT Friday in response to a habeas petition filed on behalf of the child, referred to as V.M.L., on Thursday evening.
Instead, the Justice Department’s entire argument was simply that, once in custody and told she was going to be deported, V.M.L.’s mother, Jenny Carolina Lopez Villela, wrote a note stating that she would bring her two-year-old daughter with her to Honduras.
By Jos Rian
As the habeas petition made clear, however, many federal officials knew that both V.M.L.’s father, Adiel Mendez Sagastume, and provisional custodian, Trish Mack, were desperately trying to get in touch with Jenny and/or get V.M.L. released to them throughout the 70 hours between when the two of them and Jenny’s other child were taken into custody and flown to Texas before Friday’s flight to Honduras.
On Friday, in the wake of all of this information, U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty issued an order setting a hearing “[i]n the interest of dispelling our strong suspicion that the Government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process.” The order was first reported by Politico.
That the order came from Doughty, a far-right Trump appointee known for his harsh criticism of the Biden administration in a case about social media that was later overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, was yet another reminder of how alarming the Trump administration’s actions are being seen by judges of all backgrounds.
Of the deportation of a two-year-old U.S. citizen, Doughty wrote on Friday, “The Government contends that this is all okay because the mother wishes that the child be deported with her. But the Court doesn’t know that.“
Read more details at the link. There’s even more information about this case and others in this piece by James Joyner at Outside the Beltway: We’re Deporting US Citizens, Including Children.
This is a press release from the ACLU: ICE Deports 3 U.S. Citizen Children Held Incommunicado Prior to the Deportation.
New Orleans, LA – Today, in the early hours of the morning, the New Orleans Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Field Office deported at least two families, including two mothers and their minor children – three of whom are U.S. citizen children aged 2, 4, and 7. One of the mothers is currently pregnant. The families, who had lived in the United States for years and had deep ties to their communities, were deported from the U.S. under deeply troubling circumstances that raise serious due process concerns.
ICE detained the first family on Tuesday, April 22, and the second family on Thursday, April 24. In both cases, ICE held the families incommunicado, refusing or failing to respond to multiple attempts by attorneys and family members to contact them. In one instance, a mother was granted less than one minute on the phone before the call was abruptly terminated when her spouse tried to provide legal counsel’s phone number.
As a result, the families were completely isolated during critical moments when decisions were being made about the welfare of their minor children. This included decisions with serious implications for the health, safety, and legal rights of the children involved–without any opportunity to coordinate with caretakers or consult with legal representatives.
New Orleans, LA – Today, in the early hours of the morning, the New Orleans Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Field Office deported at least two families, including two mothers and their minor children – three of whom are U.S. citizen children aged 2, 4, and 7. One of the mothers is currently pregnant. The families, who had lived in the United States for years and had deep ties to their communities, were deported from the U.S. under deeply troubling circumstances that raise serious due process concerns.
By Alberto Morrocco
ICE detained the first family on Tuesday, April 22, and the second family on Thursday, April 24. In both cases, ICE held the families incommunicado, refusing or failing to respond to multiple attempts by attorneys and family members to contact them. In one instance, a mother was granted less than one minute on the phone before the call was abruptly terminated when her spouse tried to provide legal counsel’s phone number.
As a result, the families were completely isolated during critical moments when decisions were being made about the welfare of their minor children. This included decisions with serious implications for the health, safety, and legal rights of the children involved–without any opportunity to coordinate with caretakers or consult with legal representatives.
These actions stand in direct violation of ICE’s own written and informal directives, which mandate coordination for the care of minor children with willing caretakers–regardless of immigration status–when deportations are being carried out.
Both families have possible immigration relief, but because ICE denied them access to their attorneys, legal counsel was unable to assist and advise them in time. With one family, government attorneys had assured legal counsel that a legal call would be arranged within 24-48 hours, as well as a call with a family member. Instead, just after close of business and after courts closed for the day, ICE suddenly reversed course and informed counsel that the family would be deported at 6am the next morning–before the court reopened.
Read the rest at the link.
Malcolm Ferguson at The New Republic: Trump DOJ Ordered ICE to Invade Homes Without Search Warrant.
The Justice Department quietly invoked the Alien Enemies act last month to give Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents the power to conduct warrantless searches of people’s homes as long as they suspect them to be an “alien enemy.” USA Today obtained the memo that contained this order on Friday.
“As much as practicable, officers should follow the proactive procedures above—and have an executed Warrant of Apprehension and Removal—before contacting an Alien Enemy,” the memo reads. “However, that will not always be realistic or effective in swiftly identifying and removing Alien Enemies.… An officer may encounter a suspected Alien Enemy in the natural course of the officer’s enforcement activity, such as when apprehending other validated members of Tren de Aragua. Given the dynamic nature of enforcement operations, officers in the field are authorized to apprehend aliens upon a reasonable belief that the alien meets all four requirements to be validated as an Alien Enemy. This authority includes entering an Alien Enemy’s residence to make an AEA apprehension where circumstances render it impracticable to first obtain a signed Notice and Warrant of Apprehension and Removal” (emphasis added).
In the memo, the Justice Department defined an “alien enemy” as anyone who is 14 years of age or older, not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, a citizen of Venezuela, and “a member of the hostile enemy Tren de Aragua,” per the Alien Enemy Validation Guide, a document that has already been slammed by immigration experts.
Some DOGE news from ProPublica: Inspector General Probes Whether Trump, DOGE Sought Private Taxpayer Information or Sensitive IRS Material.
A Treasury Department inspector general is probing efforts by President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to obtain private taxpayer data and other sensitive information, internal communications reviewed by ProPublica show.
The office of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration has sought a wide swath of information from IRS employees. In particular, the office is seeking any requests for taxpayer data from the president, the Executive Office of the President, DOGE or the president’s Office of Management and Budget.
The request, spelled out in a mid-April email obtained by ProPublica, comes as watchdogs and leading Democrats question whether DOGE has overstepped its bounds in seeking information about taxpayers, public employees or federal agencies that is typically highly restricted.
By Arthur Io
The review appears to be in its early stages — one document describes staffers as “beginning preplanning” — but the email directs the IRS to turn over specific documents by Thursday, April 24. It’s not clear if that happened.
The inspector general is seeking, for instance, “All requests for taxpayer or other protected information from the President or Executive Office of the President, OMB, or DOGE. Include any information on how the requestor plans to use the information requested, the IRS’s response to the request, and the legal basis for the IRS’s response,” the email says.
The inquiry also asks for information about requests for access to IRS systems from any agency in the executive branch, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Social Security Administration and DOGE.
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration office, known as TIGTA, is led by acting Inspector General Heather M. Hill. When Trump fired 17 inspectors general across a range of federal agencies in January, those working for the Treasury Department were not among the ones axed.
Read more at ProPublica.
Finally, a bit of comedy relief from The Daily Beast: A Young Elon Musk Declared Himself ‘Reincarnation’ of Alexander the Great, New Book Reveals.
Elon Musk, as a yet-unproven entrepreneur in his mid-twenties, declared himself the “reincarnation” of ancient Greek conqueror Alexander the Great, a new book on the billionaire has revealed.
Musk, now 53, made the comment around 30 years ago to a partner at one of the firms that bankrolled his first start-up, Zip2, which aimed to bring the Yellow Pages online, Washington Post reporter Faiz Siddiqui writes in Hubris Maximus, published Tuesday.
Derek Proudian, then at Mohr Davidow Ventures, recalled grabbing lunch with the young Musk to discuss how to make the company viable on a small scale.
Musk, however, insisted that he think bigger: Zip2 was “going to be the biggest company ever,” Proudian recalled him saying.
When Proudian tried to change the subject, Musk doubled down.
“No—you don’t understand,” he said. “I’m the reincarnation of the spirit of Alexander the Great.”
Incredulous, Proudian pushed back that he might not reach that level of success. Musk wasn’t willing to hear it.
“I’ve got the samurai spirit,” he said. “I’d rather commit seppuku than fail.”
Those are my recommended reads for today. What’s on your mind?
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Posted: February 2, 2021 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: Afternoon Reads, just because, U.S. Politics | Tags: Bill Cosby, Bob Bauer, Bruce Castor Jr., Butch Bowers, David Schoen, Donald Trump, House impeachment managers, Jeffrey Epstein, Rand Paul, second impeachment trial |
Clerk of the House Cheryl Johnson along with acting House Sergeant-at-Arms Tim Blodgett lead the Democratic House impeachment managers as they walk through the Capitol Hill
Good Afternoon!!
The second impeachment trial of Donald Trump begins next Tuesday, Feb. 9. As usual, Trump is unprepared and his defense is in chaos. His entire legal team recently quit because he wanted them to argue that he lost the 2020 election because of voter fraud. There was also the matter of the payment of legal fees, according to Axios: Scoop: Fees — not just strategy — blew up Trump’s legal team.
What we’re hearing: The notoriously stingy former president and his lead lawyer, Butch Bowers, wrangled over compensation during a series of tense phone calls, sources familiar with their conversations said. The argument came even though Trump has raised over $170 million from the public that could be used on his legal defenses.
- The two initially agreed Bowers would be paid $250,000 for his individual services, a figure that “delighted” Trump, one of the sources said.
- However, Trump didn’t realize Bowers hadn’t included additional expenses — including more lawyers, researchers and other legal fees that would be accrued on the job.
- He was said to be livid when Bowers came back to him with a total budget of $3 million. Trump called the South Carolina attorney and eventually negotiated him down to $1 million.
- All of this infuriated Trump and his political team, who think the case will be straightforward, given 45 Republican senators already voted to dismiss the trial on the basis it’s unconstitutional to convict a former president on impeachment charges.
- Trump’s political arm also was planning to pay separately for audiovisuals, a rapid-response team and legislative liaison.
In the end, the money dispute added to frustrations Bowers and the other lawyers felt about whether the former president’s claims of election fraud should be central to their arguments.
Butch Bowers
This happened even though Trump had raised $170 million for his defense.
But now Trump has found two new lawyers. Business Insider: Trump’s new legal team includes an attorney who declined to prosecute Bill Cosby and another who met with Jeffrey Epstein days before his death.
Days after five members of Donald Trump’s impeachment legal team quit over a disagreement on strategy, two new lawyers, David Schoen and Bruce Castor Jr., have been added to the roster….
Castor was the district attorney of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, from 2002 to 2008. In 2005, Castor declined to prosecute Bill Cosby when he was charged with sexually assaulting Andrea Constand. Castor said at the time that “insufficient, credible and admissible evidence exists upon which any charge against Mr. Cosby could be sustained beyond a reasonable doubt,” The Washington Post reported.
Years later, after more than four dozen women had accused Cosby of sexual crimes, Castor said he’d verbally offered Cosby an immunity deal in which he declined to prosecute him in criminal court to ensure that Constand would be able to sue him in civil court.
Bruce Castor Jr.
His handling of the Cosby case is widely believed to be responsible for the failure of his reelection bid in 2015….
David Schoen, a criminal-defense lawyer in Atlanta, was a part of the Trump ally Roger Stone’s defense team during his trial on charges of witness tampering, obstructing an official proceeding, and making false statements related to the special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
Schoen also met with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in the days before Epstein’s death in August 2019. Schoen has claimed that Epstein’s death was not actually a suicide.
Those two sound perfect for Trump. I wonder if he’s paying them?
USA Today: Trump’s lawyers will argue impeachment trial is unconstitutional after split with old legal team over voter fraud.
Former President Donald Trump’s legal team are expected to use an argument at his impeachment trial next week that is already supported by the majority of Senate Republicans in charge of his fate: That the trial is unconstitutional because Trump is no longer the commander in chief….
While Trump’s new team says fraud isn’t at the center of their arguments, they’re not closing the door on them….
Schoen, in an interview with The Washington Post Sunday evening, offered some insight on the path forward, saying he planned to focus on the “weaponization of the impeachment process” and would not argue the president’s claims of voter fraud.
David Schoen
“I am not a person who will put forward a theory of election fraud,” Schoen told the Post. “That’s not what this impeachment trial is about.”
Schoen told Sean Hannity of Fox News on Monday night that the trial is unconstitutional and nothing more than an effort to prevent Trump from running for president again. “This is the political weaponization of the impeachment process,” he said.
Schoen also called the trial “the most ill-advised legislative action that I’ve seen in my lifetime.” [….]
The new team appears to have a two-pronged strategy: Arguing the trial is unconstitutional and that Trump’s remarks about the election did not incite the deadly riot at the Capitol.
Meanwhile, Democrats have filed their case against Trump. The Washington Post: Trump’s actions described as ‘a betrayal of historic proportions’ in trial brief filed by House impeachment managers.
House Democrats made their case to convict former president Donald Trump of inciting the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol in a sweeping impeachment brief filed with the Senate on Tuesday that accused Trump of whipping his supporters into a “frenzy” and described him as “singularly responsible” for the mayhem that ensued.
In the brief, the nine House impeachment managers argue that Trump is not protected by the First Amendment’s freedom of speech provision, which was never intended, they wrote, to allow a president to “provoke lawless action if he loses at the polls.”
“If provoking an insurrectionary riot against a Joint Session of Congress after losing an election is not an impeachable offense, it is hard to imagine what would be,” the brief states.
Democrats also rejected the claim embraced by many Republicans that it is unconstitutional to convict a president after he has left office — an argument that Trump’s lawyers are expected to make in his defense.
“There is no ‘January Exception’ to impeachment or any other provision of the Constitution,” the House Democrats wrote. “A president must answer comprehensively for his conduct in office from his first day in office through his last.”
House impeachment managers
Trump is supposed to submit his response later today. It’s difficult to see how his lawyers could have had enough time to prepare careful arguments. More from the Democrat’s case:
The House Democrats wrote that Trump’s embrace of unfounded accusations that the 2020 election was stolen from him helped foment his supporters’ attack on the Capitol. When those false assertions failed to overturn the election, the Democrats wrote, Trump “summoned a mob to Washington, exhorted them into a frenzy, and aimed them like a loaded cannon down Pennsylvania Avenue.”
They added: “The Framers themselves would not have hesitated to convict on these facts.”
The House impeachment managers urged senators to bar Trump from ever serving again in elected office: “This is not a case where elections alone are a sufficient safeguard against future abuse; it is the electoral process itself that President Trump attacked and that must be protected from him and anyone else who would seek to mimic his behavior. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a case that more clearly evokes the reasons the Framers wrote a disqualification power into the Constitution.”
The brief made clear Democrats’ intention to build an emotionally compelling impeachment case against Trump in which they have sought out new cellphone footage of the Capitol siege, as well as details about injured police officers.
The goal is to present the Senate with fresh evidence that reveals what Trump knew in advance of the Jan. 6 rampage at the Capitol, as well as how his words and actions influenced those who participated. The rioting left five dead, including one member of the U.S. Capitol Police. In addition, two officers, one with the D.C. police department, have since died by suicide.
At The New York Times, constitutional legal expert Bob Bauer writes: Why the G.O.P. Argument Against Trying Trump Is So Dangerous.
As the Senate trial of Donald Trump nears, the defense is coming into view. It appears that most Senate Republicans will not defend Mr. Trump’s conduct around the Jan. 6 Capitol siege. Instead, they will rally around an argument about the chamber’s constitutional powers and the supposedly dangerous consequences for our politics if the Senate tries a “late impeachment.”
This argument is built on two closely connected representations, and Senator Rand Paul previewed them in his recent constitutional objection to “late impeachment.”
The first, in Mr. Paul’s words, is that “impeachment is a tool to remove someone from office. That’s it.” The Senate lacks the power to try an impeached president, once out of office, to determine if he is guilty of the charges the House has levied against him.
The second, Mr. Paul and others argued, is that Mr. Trump is now a “private citizen,” and so any action against him could serve no purpose other than revenge….
Bob Bauer
This Republican argument wholly misconstrues the text, history and structure of the Constitution’s impeachment clause. It is a mistake to minimize impeachment’s broader objectives by suggesting that removal from office was somehow its only or primary function.
The power to impeach specifically provides for two decisions: impeachment and conviction, resulting in removal, and then disqualification from holding office. As drawn from the English practice, and reflected in state constitutions at the time, both these actions were understood to serve the overall purpose of public accountability for egregious abuses of public office.
Indeed, several state constitutions at the time of the federal Constitution’s writing permitted impeachment only after public figures had left office. Public accountability and disqualification were the purposes of impeachment; the Constitution’s addition of removal from office was an expansion on these provisions.
The argument focused on Mr. Trump’s status as a former president is misguided and dangerous. When impeached, he was in office. Moreover, it is highly doubtful that the framers intended the impeachment clause to give the president free rein to commit impeachable offenses in the closing months of his term.
In any case, the Senate always decides on disqualification after the offender is a “private citizen,” since that is what he becomes upon conviction of an impeachable offense. The Constitution does not even specify that this second vote on disqualfication must be immediate. The Senate could vote weeks later, after deliberation and debate, well into the former president’s “private” life.
Still more fundamental: This “late impeachment” argument fails to grasp the constitutional framework within which the question must be considered. The Federalist Papers made plain the framers’ preoccupation with protections against the demagogue, the “unworthy candidate” of “perverted ambition” who practices “with success the vicious arts, by which elections are too often carried.” The provision for “disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit” was one of many instances of constitutional checks against popular passions that could lead to the election of officeholders who would threaten to subvert the Republic.
Read the rest at the link. I imagine the impeachment managers will read this article carefully.
So, that’s what we know so far about the impeachment trial. I’ll post more news links in the comment thread below. There’s a lot happening.
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Posted: August 15, 2019 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: China, Donald Trump, Ghislaine Maxwell, Hong Kong protests, Ilhan Omar, israel, Jeffrey Epstein, Mevan Babakar, Rashida Tlaib |
By Childe Hassam
Good Morning!!
For the first time in ages, I’m not finding a lot of political news breaking news this morning. The Hong Kong protests may be approaching a crisis, and Trump isn’t helping. Other than that, the Jeffrey Epstein story is dominating the news along with the shooting of police officers in Philadelphia.
Politico: Trump resists aides’ pressure to back Hong Kong protesters.
Donald Trump’s top aides are urging him to back Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protesters, but the president isn’t interested, multiple people familiar with the administration’s internal debates say.
Trucks and armoured personnel carriers are seen outside the Shenzhen Bay stadium in Shenzhen, bordering Hong Kong in China’s southern Guangdong province, Aug. 15, 2019.
GETTY
In recent days, national security adviser John Bolton, China hands at both the National Security Council and the State Department, and several economic advisers have pushed for a more assertive posture on the Hong Kong demonstrations, which have paralyzed the former British colony and roiled markets.
They are finding little traction with a president focused more narrowly on trade negotiations with Xi Jinping — and worried that criticizing the Chinese leader’s efforts to stamp out dissent in Hong Kong will scuttle the possibility of inking a deal this winter.
As the protests have intensified over the past month, the president has remained determined to keep China’s human rights abuses from complicating his trade negotiations, going so far as to make a unilateral concession to Xi in the run-up to the G-20 Summit in June, according to three people briefed on the conversation. Aspects of the conversation were first reported by the Financial Times.
But after the initial publication of this report, the president appeared to reverse himself, issuing the latest in a series of contradictory remarks on the issue on Wednesday evening — this time demanding that Xi “deal humanely with Hong Kong.”
Raise your hand if you believe Trump cares about human rights.
A crackdown could be coming.
Reuters: In ‘clear warning’, Chinese paramilitary forces exercise near Hong Kong.
SHENZHEN, China/HONG KONG (Reuters) – Hundreds of China’s People’s Armed Police conducted exercises at a sports stadium in Shenzhen on Thursday, as the U.S. State Department expressed concern that they could be deployed across the border in Hong Kong to break up protests wracking the city.
But Western and Asian diplomats in Hong Kong said Beijing has little appetite for rolling the PAP or the People’s Liberation Army onto Hong Kong’s streets.
Men in fatigues could be seen in a stadium at the Shenzhen Bay Sports Centre, and shouts and whistles could be heard by a Reuters journalist on Thursday morning.
Later in the day, police carried out exercises in which they divided into two groups, one wearing black t-shirts similar to those worn by some protesters in Hong Kong.
A bit more:
Protesters scuffle with police at Hong Kong’s airport © AFP
Ten weeks of increasingly violent confrontations between police and protesters have plunged the city into its worst crisis since it reverted from British to Chinese rule in 1997.
The protests represent one of the biggest challenges for Chinese President Xi Jinping since he came to power in 2012.
On Wednesday the U.S. State Department said it was deeply concerned about reports that Chinese police forces were gathering near the border with Hong Kong and urged the city’s government to respect freedom of speech.
In Shenzhen, paramilitary police marched in and out of the stadium near a retail complex where shoppers milled about.
The stadium parking lot was filled with more than 100 dark-painted paramilitary vehicles, including troop trucks, armored personnel carriers, buses and jeeps. At least three were armored front-end loaders, and two vehicles carried water cannons.
I haven’t been following this story closely, but it’s certainly concerning. I’ll be paying more attention going forward.
This news just broke. The New York Times:Israel Denies Entry to Omar and Tlaib After Trump’s Call to Block Them.
JERUSALEM — Israel on Thursday barred the entry of two American Democratic congresswomen who had planned to visit the West Bank, hours after President Trump had urged the country to block them.
Mr. Trump’s intervention was an extraordinary step to influence an allied nation and punish his political opponents at home.
The two congresswomen, Representatives Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, both freshmen, are the first two Muslim women elected to Congress. Both are outspoken adversaries of Mr. Trump and have been vocal in their support of the Palestinians and the boycott-Israel movement.
The president has targeted them in speeches and Twitter postings that his critics have called racist and xenophobic.
As usual, the NYT can’t bring itself to state the truth–that Trump is in fact racist and xenophobic.
The Washington Post has new information on the Jeffrey Epstein autopsy: Autopsy finds broken bones in Jeffrey Epstein’s neck, deepening questions around his death.
An autopsy found that financier Jeffrey Epstein suffered multiple breaks in his neck bones, according to two people familiar with the findings, deepening the mystery about the circumstances around his death.
Among the bones broken in Epstein’s neck was the hyoid bone, which in men is near the Adam’s apple. Such breaks can occur in those who hang themselves, particularly if they are older, according to forensics experts and studies on the subject. But they are more common in victims of homicide by strangulation, the experts said….
Artist’s rendering of Jeffrey Epstein in court hearing.
The office of New York City’s chief medical examiner, Barbara Sampson, completed an autopsy of Epstein’s body Sunday. But Sampson listed the cause of his death as pending….
Asked about the neck injuries, Sampson said in a statement that no single factor in an autopsy can alone provide a conclusive answer about what happened.
“In all forensic investigations, all information must be synthesized to determine the cause and manner of death. Everything must be consistent; no single finding can be evaluated in a vacuum.”
The details add to the bizarre circumstances surrounding Epstein’s death, which have launched a wave of questions and conspiracy theories about how he could have died in federal custody. Even President Trump has egged on speculation, without evidence, that Epstein — whose alleged victims say they were pushed to have sex with his powerful and celebrity friends — might have been killed to keep him from spilling the secrets of others.
It’s also odd that guards didn’t check on Epstein for hours before he died and that supposedly both guards fell asleep for three hours and the falsified records.
According to The New York Post, Epstein was upbeat the last time he spoke to his attorneys.
Ghislaine Maxwell with Jeffrey Epstein
Jeffrey Epstein was confident he could fight the child sex trafficking charges against him and was in “great spirits” just hours before his jailhouse death on Saturday morning — even telling one of his lawyers, “I’ll see you Sunday,” The Post has learned.
The convicted pedophile also told his lawyers that the neck injuries he suffered in an earlier incident at the Metropolitan Correctional Center were inflicted by his hulking, ex-cop cellmate, which led the lawyers to request that he be taken off a suicide watch, according to a source familiar with Epstein’s case.
Epstein’s optimism behind bars — expressed during daily visits with his lawyers that lasted up to 12 hours each — was so great that it struck some of those around him as “delusional,” the source said.
“He thought he was going to win the double-jeopardy motion” that his defense lawyers were planning to file in connection with his 2008 Florida prostitution conviction, the source said.
More Epstein stories to check out:
New York Magazine: Jeffrey Epstein’s Bodyguard on His Former Boss’s Lifestyle, Cruelty, Suicide.
Bloomberg: The Epstein Tapes: Unearthed Recordings From His Private Island.
CNBC: Mystery of Ghislaine Maxwell’s whereabouts deepens as Jeffrey Epstein accusers eye his alleged madam.
CBS This Morning: Ghislaine Maxwell was apparently living at secluded mansion in New England beach town.
Maurice Hill
The standoff in Philadelphia is over. CBS News: Philadelphia suspected gunman in custody after hourslong standoff and six officers shot.
A suspect is in custody in Philadelphia after an hourslong standoff and shootout that left six officers shot and another injured in a related vehicle crash, authorities said. Two officers and three other people who had been trapped in the building with the shooter were freed after several hours.
CBS Philadelphia says the suspect’s lawyer told the station the suspect is 36-year-old Maurice Hill, though police haven’t released his name. The alleged gunman surrendered shortly after midnight. Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross told reporters it was teargas that got the suspect to give up.
Attorney Shaka Johnson said Hill called him to the scene of the standoff while he was barricaded inside. “Maurice called me in a panic, obviously,” Johnson told CBS Philadelphia. “He did not want this to end violently and he really was sort of taking an opportunity to speak his peace. I told him, ‘You gotta surrender, man.”‘
Hill wasn’t injured in the shootout, according to Johnson, who added that Hill was brought to a hospital to be checked out, then released with officers surrounding him overnight. Charges haven’t been announced.
CBS News has learned Hill has a long criminal history.
Police had initially responded around 5 p.m. on a narcotics warrant and things “went awry almost immediately,” Ross said.
More background at the link above.
I’ll end with a feel-good immigration story from Buzzfeed News: A Woman Tweeted A Picture Of A Man Who Had Shown Her Kindness As A Child Refugee. Within 36 Hours They Were Reunited.
A former child refugee has been reunited with a man who bought her a bike when she was 5 years old, thanks to a Twitter appeal to find him that went viral.
Mevan Babakar lived in a refugee camp near Zwolle in the Netherlands with her parents in the 1990s. She is currently taking a sabbatical from her job at a fact-checking organization in London to retrace the journey her family took after fleeing Iraq during the Gulf War.
On Monday she tweeted a picture of the man who worked at the refugee camp, asking for people’s help in identifying him. She wrote that when he gave her a bike, “My five-year-old heart exploded with joy. I just want to know his name. Help?”
The tweet was retweeted thousands of times, and people also got in touch with Babakar, 29, to say the man and his wife had helped them, too. Within 24 hours, not only had the man been found, but he was close enough for Babakar to meet him in person that day.
They were reunited in Germany, where the man, Egbert, lives. Babakar said meeting Egbert “felt like I’d been transported back in time. I felt safe, like I’d seen a family member I hadn’t seen in a long time.”
“It was hugely surreal and kind of overwhelming, a lot of emotions at once,” she told BuzzFeed News from the phone in the Netherlands.
Egbert remembered Babakar and her mother from all those years ago, and the three of them plan to stay in touch and meet up in the future. “My mum is very excited to meet him,” Babakar said, adding that Egbert had told a local journalist that if there was anyone he could have seen again from his time working at the refugee camp, “it would have been Mevan and her mother.”
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