Posted: November 20, 2024 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: American Fascists, Donald Trump, just because | Tags: Donald Trump, Kash Patel, Matt Gaetz, news, Pete Hegseth, politics, Trump, Tulsi Gabbard |
Good Morning!!
Evil clown Trump
I had another sleepless night last night. It seems as if I have insomnia every 2-3 days; then I end up feeling exhausted for a couple of days and having to take naps to make up for the lost sleep. Of course it’s Trump’s fault. I didn’t sleep well during his first term, and now that I know what to expect–chaos, drama, and malevolence–I’m pretty sure my sleep will continue to be disturbed. Anyway, I don’t have much energy today. I just hope I don’t fall asleep on my computer keyboard.
Here’s the latest on Trump’s nightmarish Cabinet picks.
Josh Gerstein at Politico: Vance says Trump is interviewing FBI director replacements.
President-elect Donald Trump’s plans to end business-as-usual at the Justice Department apparently include replacing FBI Director Christopher Wray, Vice President-elect JD Vance indicated in a social media post on Tuesday.
Vance revealed he and the president-elect were conducting interviews for the crucial FBI position in a since-deleted post on X. The post was responding to criticism the vice president-elect received for missing a Monday Senate vote that confirmed one of President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees to the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.
“When this 11th Circuit vote happened, I was meeting with President Trump to interview multiple positions for our government, including for FBI Director,” Vance wrote. “I tend to think it’s more important to get an FBI director who will dismantle the deep state than it is for Republicans to lose a vote 49-46 rather than 49-45. But that’s just me.”
Trump nominated former federal prosecutor and Justice Department official Christopher Wray as FBI director in 2017 after abruptly firing his predecessor, James Comey.
However, in recent years, Trump and many in his orbit have soured on Wray, alleging that he hasn’t done enough to root out alleged corruption and political bias at the law enforcement agency. They also fault Wray for allowing his agents to participate in the court-ordered search at Mar-a-Lago in August 2022 that led to Trump’s prosecution on charges of hoarding classified documents and obstruction of justice.
It’s looking like Trump will nominate Kash Patel as FBI director. Patel is the guy who defended Trump in the stolen documents scandal, claiming that Trump could declassify any document by just thinking about it.
Hugo Lowell at The Guardian: Trump loyalist Kash Patel in contention to be named FBI director.
Donald Trump is keeping his controversial adviser Kash Patel in the running to be the next FBI director, according to two people familiar with the matter, as the transition team conducted interviews for the role on Monday night at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago club.
The existence of the interviews, made public in a since-deleted post by the vice president-elect JD Vance, underscored the intent to fire the current FBI director, Christopher Wray, years before his current term is up….
Trump has a special interest in the FBI, having fired James Comey as director in 2017 over his refusal to close the investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, and then complaining about perceived disloyalty from Wray.
Clown Torture by Bruce Nauman
Patel’s continued position as a top candidate for the role makes clear Trump’s determination to install loyalists in key national security and law enforcement positions, as well as the support Patel has built up among key Trump allies.
The push for Patel – who has frequently railed against the “deep state” – has come from some of the longest-serving Trump advisers, notably those close to former Trump strategist Steve Bannon, a faction that got Trump’s personal lawyers picked for top justice department roles.
That faction has also suggested to Trump in recent days that if Patel gets passed over for the director role, he should be given the deputy FBI director position, one of the people said – a powerful job that helps run the bureau day to day and is crucially not subject to Senate confirmation.
Click the link to read more about Patel. Basically, he’s a whack job and utterly loyal to Trump.
As everyone knows Trump has nominated Matt Gaetz for Attorney General. Here’s the current drama over the pick.
NOTUS: Trump Is Calling Senators on Behalf of Matt Gaetz. It’s Not Going Well.
As Republicans circle the wagons around Matt Gaetz and his nomination to be attorney general, Donald Trump and his surrogates have started calling GOP senators to feel them out on the confirmation battle.
The calls are not going well.
According to three sources familiar with the conversations, Trump and his team are receiving an overwhelmingly negative reaction with regard to Gaetz. One of the sources told NOTUS that multiple senators have even told Trump and his team they won’t be voting to confirm.
There has been a healthy amount of skepticism about Gaetz becoming attorney general since the moment Trump announced his nomination. But the recent controversy over an Ethics Committee report that Gaetz dodged by resigning from Congress has only compounded the problems.
“This fake news will age poorly when Matt Gaetz is sworn in as the Attorney General,” said Alex Pfeiffer, a Trump transition spokesperson.
Given the conversations, there’s growing doubt that Gaetz can actually be confirmed — either by the Senate or through a recess appointment.
“Matt Gaetz is toxic among House Republicans. Among Senate Republicans, he is radioactive,” one of the sources told NOTUS.
GOP senators themselves have intimated that Gaetz will have to go through the normal confirmation process and they have expressed that to Trump.
Will Steakin at ABC News: Gaetz sent over $10K in Venmo payments to 2 women who testified in House probe, records suggest.
The House Ethics Committee obtained records, including a check and records of Venmo payments, that appear to show that then-Rep. Matt Gaetz paid more than $10,000 to two women who were later witnesses in sexual misconduct probes conducted by both the House and the Justice Department, according to documents obtained by ABC News.
The Venmo records show that between July 2017 and late January 2019, Gaetz — who was first elected in 2016 — allegedly made 27 Venmo payments totaling $10,224.02 to the two witnesses, who were over the age of 18 at the time.
Scary Clown, by Jennifer Anthony
The payments, which sources said were displayed during closed-door testimony, ranged from $100 to more than $700 each….
ABC News previously reported that House investigators had subpoenaed Venmo for Gaetz’s records and had been showing them to witnesses, asking if they were for sex or drugs. The Venmo records totaling over $10,000 in payments were shown to the witnesses, who testified that some of the payments were from Gaetz and were for sex, a source familiar with the investigation told ABC News.
Gaetz, who was tapped last Wednesday by President-elect Donald Trump to serve as attorney general in the incoming administration, resigned from the House immediately following Trump’s announcement, just days before the House Ethics Committee was to set to consider releasing a report on its investigation into the Florida congressman, according to sources.
Michael Kaplan at CBS News: “Unknown and unauthorized third party” has gained access to Matt Gaetz depositions, source says.
An “unknown and unauthorized third party” has gained access to two dozen depositions of witnesses tied to the various investigations into former Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, CBS News has learned.
The leaked materials are part of a civil defamation case filed by Chris Dorworth, a lobbyist who is close to Gaetz. These materials include the sworn deposition of the minor with whom Gaetz allegedly had sex.
According to a source familiar with the matter and an email viewed by CBS News, the person who gained access went by the name “Altam Beezley.” [….]
Gaetz was under investigation by the House Ethics Committee and Justice Department, though federal prosecutors declined to bring charges against him last year. The Ethics panel was looking into allegations the former congressman engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, among other accusations….
An “unknown and unauthorized third party” has gained access to two dozen depositions of witnesses tied to the various investigations into former Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, CBS News has learned.
The leaked materials are part of a civil defamation case filed by Chris Dorworth, a lobbyist who is close to Gaetz. These materials include the sworn deposition of the minor with whom Gaetz allegedly had sex.
According to a source familiar with the matter and an email viewed by CBS News, the person who gained access went by the name “Altam Beezley.” [….]
Gaetz was under investigation by the House Ethics Committee and Justice Department, though federal prosecutors declined to bring charges against him last year. The Ethics panel was looking into allegations the former congressman engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, among other accusations. But Gaetz resigned his seat in the House last week after President-elect Donald Trump announced he had selected the Florida Republican to serve as his attorney general….
Because Gaetz is no longer a House member, the Ethics Committee’s jurisdiction over him has ended.
At The New York Times, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan have a theory about why Trump is offering so many insane candidates: Gaetz May Not Be Confirmed, Trump Admits. He’s Pushing Him and Others Anyway.
In his private conversations over the past few days, President-elect Donald J. Trump has admitted that his besieged choice for attorney general, Matt Gaetz, has less than even odds of being confirmed by the Senate.
But Mr. Trump has shown no sign of withdrawing the nomination, which speaks volumes about his mind-set as he staffs his second administration. He is making calls on Mr. Gaetz’s behalf, and he remains confident that even if Mr. Gaetz does not make it, the standard for an acceptable candidate will have shifted so much that the Senate may simply approve his other nominees who have appalled much of Washington.
Clown, by Rosy Fernandez-Diaz
Mr. Trump’s choice to lead health and human services has made baseless claims about vaccines. His selection for defense secretary is a former Fox News host whose leadership experience has been questioned. His nominee for the director of national intelligence is a favorite of Russian state media.
Presidents do not normally approach cabinet selections this way. Historically, they work with their teams to figure out in advance what the system will tolerate, eliminating the possibility that skeletons in the closet of a nominee might emerge during Senate hearings.
Mr. Trump largely followed this risk-averse approach at the start of his first term. He appointed people like the four-star general Jim Mattis, who was confirmed with a 98-to-1 bipartisan vote to be Mr. Trump’s first defense secretary.
But this time, emboldened by victory and the submission of the Republican Party, Mr. Trump is innovating. He is using an approach that has been discussed in the past for judicial nominees, which is nominating so many extreme choices that they cannot all be blocked. The strategy has never been used for cabinet picks.
It is possible that enough Republican senators are willing to risk their careers to oppose Mr. Gaetz, although it is unclear what the backup plan would be should Mr. Gaetz falter. Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer and pick for deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, is seen as a possibility.
For a deep dive on Trump’s plans for the DOJ, check out this post by Liz Dye at Public Notice: Trump’s corruption of the DOJ goes much deeper than Gaetz.
Donald Trump’s nomination of Matt Gaetz as attorney general is a giant middle finger to anyone who believes in the rule of law. But his nominees for other key Justice Department positions may be both more consequential and potentially more dangerous for democracy.
That’s partly because Gaetz is a lazy fool who never tried a federal criminal case and is functionally a “liberal tears” meme made flesh. It’s not that he’s too stupid to be dangerous — he’s clearly going to do his damnedest to prosecute Trump’s enemies. It’s that he’s exactly the kind of venal wastrel who publicly Venmos women for sex. He’s not the type who is going to hunker down and do the hard work of overturning democracy.
Gaetz is the polar opposite of Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr, Trump’s first-term AGs, both of whom felt at least some fealty to civic institutions and the rule of law. Sessions had been a US attorney in Alabama, the Alabama AG, and and US senator. Barr was attorney general in the first Bush administration and a consummate DC insider. They were stalwart Republicans willing to do terrible things, but each man reached a point when their own personal ethics prevented them giving Trump what he demanded — for Sessions it was refusing to recuse himself from the Russia investigation, for Barr it was overturning the 2020 election — and both eventually found themselves exiled from the garden.
Perhaps Gaetz’s fecklessness may protect us in the same way that the institutionalism of Sessions and Barr protected us the last time. It’s hard to imagine someone so internet-pilled having the deftness to bury a special counsel report. But this will certainly not be the case with Trump’s personal lawyers, three of whom have already been named as high-ranking Justice Department officials….
These are men (of course they’re all white men) who have some prosecutorial experience, but not a long career of public service. They understand how institutions work, but lack any interest in ensuring that they continue to do so.
Like Gaetz, their loyalty is to Trump. But unlike Gaetz, these guys are smart enough not to make stupid mistakes.
Read the rest at Public Notice.
Clown Group, 1975, by S.J. Mulak
Trump’s outrageous nominee for Secretary of Defense may be a bridge too far for the Trump gang, after he turned out to have a sordid history with women, including sexual assault.
Nia Prater at New York Magazine’s The Intelligencer: What We Know About the Sexual-Assault Allegation Against Pete Hegseth.
Last week, Donald Trump announced that he had nominated Pete Hegseth, a Fox News commentator and Army National Guard officer, to serve as secretary of Defense in his incoming administration. Hegseth’s selection was immediately met with skepticism with critics pointing to his lack of traditional military-leadership experience as well as his public push for pardoning servicemembers accused of war crimes and against women serving in combat roles.
But in the days since his nomination, it’s emerged that the conservative TV host was accused of sexual assault many years prior. Though Trump appears to be standing by his nomination, the news added another bump to Hegseth’s already rocky path to confirmation. Here’s what we know so far….
Vanity Fair reported last week that the Trump transition team had received word that Hegseth had been accused of sexual misconduct back in 2017. A source told the outlet that Trump attorneys and his newly appointed chief of staff, Susie Wiles, asked Hegseth about the incident, which he characterized as a “he-said, she-said.”
The incident allegedly took place during the 2017 California Federation of Republican Women conference in Monterey, where Hegseth was in attendance. Per the Washington Post, the transition team received a four-page memo detailing an alleged assault by Hegseth of a 30-year-old female staffer for a conservative organization at the hotel, written by a friend of the victim in question. The friend claimed that the woman, whom she only identified as “Jane Doe,” attended the conference with her husband and children, and the woman has since signed a nondisclosure agreement with Hegseth. Adds the Post:
One of [the woman’s] responsibilities at the conference was to make sure Hegseth made it back to his room and left in time the next morning for the 90-minute drive to the airport, the memo said. At some point in the evening, the complaint alleged, Jane Doe received a text from two women at the bar who told her that “Hegseth was getting pushy about his interest in taking them upstairs to his room.” Jane Doe, who was nearby, came over and talked to those two women, and after they left, she “remembered sensing that Hegseth was irritated,” the memo said.
The woman allegedly couldn’t remember everything that happened after that:
According to the memo, Jane Doe “didn’t remember anything until she was in Hegseth’s hotel room and then stumbling to find her hotel room.” The memo said that her memory of six to nine hours “was very hazy,” and that her husband was searching for her and was relieved when she finally showed up. The following day, the woman returned home and “had a moment of hazy memory of being raped the night before, and had a panic attack,” the memo said. The woman then went to the emergency room, where she received a rape-kit examination that “was positive for semen,” the memo said. The woman gave county authorities a statement about what happened, according to the memo sent to the transition team.
In a statement, the City of Monterey confirmed that the local police department investigated an “alleged sexual assault” that occurred in 2017 between 11:59 p.m. on October 7 and 7:00 a.m. on October 8 at 1 Old Golf Course Road, the location of the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel.
There’s more at the link, if you can get past the paywall.
And then there is Hegseth’s “Christian Nationalism.”
Kyle Mantyla at Right Wing Watch: Pete Hegseth’s Plan To Create A Christian Nationalist ‘Educational Insurgency.’
When Donald Trump announced his intention to nominate Fox News host Pete Hegseth to serve as Secretary of Defense, concerns were raised immediately about Hegseth’s undisguised Christian nationalism.
Hegseth, who has admitted that his multiple crusader tattoos got him “deemed an extremist” by his own National Guard unit, has deep ties to misogynistic Christian nationalist pastor Douglas Wilson.
Clown, by Bernard Buffet
On Monday, Hegseth appeared on the “CrossPolitic” podcast, which is hosted by Toby Sumpter and Gabe Rench, both of whom are closely tied to Wilson and his church.
During the discussion about Hegseth’s book “Battle For The American Mind,” Hegseth said that he is working to create a system of “classical Christian schools” to provide the recruits for an underground army that will eventually launch an “educational insurgency” to take over the nation.
“I think we need to be thinking in terms of these classical Christian schools are boot camps for winning back America,” said Sumpter.
“That’s what the crop of these classical Christian schools are gonna do in a generation,” Hegseth agreed. “Policy answers like school choice, while they’re great, that’s phase two stuff later on once the foothold has been taken, once the recruits have graduated boot camp.”
“We call it a tactical retreat,” Hegseth continued. “We draw out in the last part of the book what an educational insurgency would look like, because I was a counterinsurgency instructor in Afghanistan and kind of the phases that Mao [Zedong] wrote about. We’re in middle phase one right now, which is effectively a tactical retreat where you regroup, consolidate, and reorganize. And as you do so, you build your army underground with the opportunity later on of taking offensive operations in an overt way.”
Rhian Lubin and Katie Hawkinson at The Independent: Trump transition team ‘quietly’ looking at alternatives to Pete Hegseth after he ‘wasn’t honest’ about past.
Donald Trump’s transition team is said to be “upset” with Pete Hegseth because he “hasn’t been honest” about the sexual misconduct allegation from his past – prompting insiders to consider other options to lead the Pentagon.
Hegseth was tapped last week to become Trump’s defense secretary but now those in the president-elect’s inner circle are “quietly preparing a list of alternative” candidates, Vanity Fair reported.
“It’s becoming a real possibility,” a source told the outlet’s special correspondent Gabriel Sherman.
The source said that the Trump team was taken by surprise after a serious sexual assault allegation against Hegseth came to light, which led Trump’s incoming chief of staff Susie Wiles to question the former Fox News host on a call last week. Hegseth was never charged with a crime and denies the allegations.
“People are upset about the distraction. The general feeling is Pete hasn’t been honest,” a second source told Vanity Fair.
Maybe he can give the job to Kash Patel if he doesn’t get the FBI directorship.
Perhaps the scariest nominee so far is Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence. Tulsi is a flat out Russian asset, and she’s also close to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
Tom Nichols at The Atlantic: Tulsi Gabbard’s Nomination Is a National-Security Risk.
President-elect Donald Trump has nominated former Representative Tulsi Gabbard as the director of national intelligence. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence was created after 9/11 to remedy what American policy makers believed was a lack of coordination among the various national-intelligence agencies, and the DNI sits atop all of America’s intelligence services, including the CIA.
Gabbard is stunningly unqualified for almost any Cabinet post (as are some of Trump’s other picks), but especially for ODNI. She has no qualifications as an intelligence professional—literally none. (She is a reserve lieutenant colonel who previously served in the Hawaii Army National Guard, with assignments in medical, police, and civil-affairs-support positions. She has won some local elections and also represented Hawaii in Congress.) She has no significant experience directing or managing much of anything.
Scary Clown, Tony Rubino
But leave aside for the moment that she is manifestly unprepared to run any kind of agency. Americans usually accept that presidents reward loyalists with jobs, and Trump has the right to stash Gabbard at some make-work office in the bureaucracy if he feels he owes her. It’s not a pretty tradition, but it’s not unprecedented, either.
To make Tulsi Gabbard the DNI, however, is not merely handing a bouquet to a political gadfly. Her appointment would be a threat to the security of the United States.
Gabbard ran for president as a Democrat in 2020, attempting to position herself as something like a peace candidate. But she’s no peacemaker: She’s been an apologist for both the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Her politics, which are otherwise incoherent, tend to be sympathetic to these two strongmen, painting America as the problem and the dictators as misunderstood. Hawaii voters have long been perplexed by the way she’s positioned herself politically. But Gabbard is a classic case of “horseshoe” politics: Her views can seem both extremely left and extremely right, which is probably why people such as Tucker Carlson—a conservative who has turned into … whatever pro-Russia right-wingers are called now—have taken a liking to the former Democrat (who was previously a Republican and is now again a member of the GOP).
On the Putin connection:
Gabbard’s shilling for Assad is a mystery, but she’s even more dedicated to carrying Putin’s water. Tom Rogan, a conservative writer and hardly a liberal handwringer, summed up her record succinctly in the Washington Examiner today:
She has blamed NATO and the U.S. for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (again, to the celebration of both Russian and Chinese state media), has repeated Russian propaganda claims that the U.S. has set up secret bioweapons labs in that country, and has argued that the U.S. not Russia is wholly responsible for Putin’s nuclear brinkmanship.
When she appeared on Sean Hannity’s show in 2022, even Hannity blanched at Gabbard floating off in a haze of Kremlin talking points and cheerleading for Russia. When Hannity is trying to shepherd you back toward the air lock before your oxygen runs out, you’ve gone pretty far out there.
A person with Gabbard’s views should not be allowed anywhere near the crown jewels of American intelligence. I have no idea why Trump nominated Gabbard; she’s been a supporter, but she hasn’t been central to his campaign, and he owes her very little. For someone as grubbily transactional as Trump, it’s not an appointment that makes much sense. It’s possible that Trump hates the intelligence community—which he blames for many of his first-term troubles—so much that Gabbard is his revenge. Or maybe he just likes the way she handles herself on television.
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Posted: October 4, 2023 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: Donald Trump, just because | Tags: Attorney General Letitia James, bank fraud, Fulton County RICO case, gag order, Jim Jordan, Judge Arthur Engoron, Kevin McCarthy, Matt Gaetz, Nancy Pelosi, Rudy Giuiani |
Good Day!!
It’s only Wednesday, and it has already been a crazy week in politics. Here’s what’s happening:
Trump is attending day three of the civil trial against the Trump Organization for tax and bank fraud. As he did on Monday and Tuesday, he stood in front of the courthouse and whined to reporters about how unfairly he is being treated. He called the trial a “witch hunt” and claimed he would eventually testify.
Yesterday Judge Arthur Engoron issued a gag order after Trump posted Judge Engoron’s primary clerk on Truth Social.
The Guardian: Judge issues gag order after Trump’s comments on court clerk in civil trial.
The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial issued a gag order on Tuesday after the former president made comments about the judge’s clerk.
“Consider this statement a gag order forbidding all parties from posting, emailing or speaking publicly about any of my staff,” the judge, Arthur Engoron, said on Tuesday afternoon. “Personal attacks on members of my court staff are unacceptable, inappropriate and I will not tolerate them in any circumstances.
“Failure to abide by this order will result in serious sanctions.”
The second day of Trump’s trial got off to another combative start after Trump branded the case a “fraud” and a “scam” and pledged to take the stand in his own defense.
Asked if he would testify in the case, Trump said: “Yes, I will. At the appropriate time I will be.”
But Trump’s comments about Engoron’s law clerk, the attorney Allison Greenfield, proved a step too far. Over lunch Trump attacked Engoron’s clerk in a social media post, linking to a picture of her with the Democratic Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer. He called her “Schumer’s girlfriend” and said she “is running this case against me. How disgraceful! This case should be dismissed immediately.”
The post on Trump’s Truth Social platform was deleted on Engoron’s orders.
Later the Judge met privately with Trump and Letitia James. Jose Pagliery at The Daily Beast: Judge Kicks Reporters Out of Courtroom to Talk to Trump and AG.
A turbulent second day at Donald Trump‘s bank fraud trial in New York came to an equally puzzling end, when the judge unceremoniously kicked out all journalists from the courtroom to speak privately with the former president and Attorney General Letitia James.
When one reporter asked whether the courtroom was being sealed, Justice Arthur F. Engoron did not respond. Instead, security personnel yelled at journalists to leave immediately.
Donald Trump glowers at the Judge on day one of the New York civil trial.
Trump, James, and their respective legal teams remained in the courtroom for more than 20 minutes before exiting.
On his way out, Trump surprised everyone by stating that he will return to court Wednesday.
“I’ll be back tomorrow. Good day,” he said with a wave, before ducking into a side exit with his attorneys and Secret Service security detail.
James refused to answer any questions on her way out, preventing the public from knowing what was going on inside.
Earlier in the day, Engoron issued a gag order against Trump after he posted on his social media site, Truth Social, accusing one of Engoron’s law clerks of having a relationship with Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
Pagliery reports from the courthouse today: Trump Finally Brings His Online Rage to the Courtroom.
A day after receiving a tongue lashing from a judge disturbed by Donald Trump’s insolence outside the New York courtroom, the former president began to make exasperated remarks inside the court, as the third day of his bank fraud trial started Wednesday.
The increasingly furious Trump—whose real estate empire has already received the kiss of death from the judge—remained quiet during the first two days of proceedings, instead choosing to rail against the entire justice system outside the room’s wooden doors. But when Justice Arthur F. Engoron noted that typical formalities could be cast aside because there’s no jury here, Trump began to grumble and angrily folded his arms while staring at the judge.
Trump turned to defense lawyer Alina Habba at his left to complain in loud groans—this reporter could only make out the words “no jury!”—then threw his arms up and shook his head.
The former president then let out an annoyed sigh and slumped forward, stretching his dark blue suit jacket.
Just before the trial got underway on Wednesday, he was even louder online, where he wrote, “I am not even entitled, under any circumstances, to a JURY. This Witch Hunt cannot be allowed to continue. It is Election Interference and the start of Communism right here in America!”
Minutes later, Trump then complained in court that he couldn’t make out what was being said by the witness on the stand: his longtime former accountant Donald Bender, who became a state witness and disavowed much of the work he did for the Trump Organization and its vastly inflated assets. The testimony could be perceived as a betrayal given that Bender made millions at the firm Mazars USA by working for the Trump family, which invited him to golf courses, hotels, and parties.
Yesterday afternoon, House Republicans came close to eclipsing Trump news, as Matt Gaetz and a few other MAGA crazies removed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, leaving the House in utter chaos.
The New York Times: House Is Paralyzed, With No Speaker After McCarthy Ouster.
The House of Representatives was in a state of paralysis on Wednesday, ground to a halt by the ouster of Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy and with no clear sense of who might succeed him — or when.
After a historic vote to remove Mr. McCarthy on Tuesday, lawmakers quickly departed Washington and scattered to their districts around the country, abandoning the Capitol as Republicans remained deeply divided over who could lead their fractious majority.
“What now?” one Republican muttered aloud on the House floor just after the vote on Tuesday afternoon, the first time the chamber had ever removed a speaker from his post involuntarily.
It underscored the chaos now gripping the chamber, which is effectively frozen, without the ability to conduct legislative business, until a successor to Mr. McCarthy is chosen. The California Republican said late Tuesday that he would not seek the post again after being deposed by a hard-right rebellion.
The vacancy promised to tee up another potentially messy speaker election at a time when Congress has just over 40 days to avert another potential government shutdown. But it was not yet clear who might run.
Discussions on the future of the conference were being led by Representative Patrick T. McHenry of North Carolina. Mr. McCarthy had named Mr. McHenry first on a list of potential interim speakers in the event of a calamity or vacancy, but he does not have power to run the chamber — only to preside over the election of a new speaker.
While no Republican has announced a bid for the post, some names reliably come up in conversations with G.O.P. lawmakers, including Mr. McHenry and Representative Tom Cole, the Oklahoma Republican and Rules Committee chairman, as well as the No. 2 and No. 3 House Republicans, Representatives Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Tom Emmer of Minnesota.
This morning, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan announced he would run for Speaker. Politico: Jim Jordan becomes first to announce run for speaker.
Rep. Jim Jordan said he will run to be the next speaker, a move likely to prompt praise from House conservatives.
Jordan, the House Judiciary chair and member of the House Freedom Caucus, has worked closely with Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) on the impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden. He had also become a close ally of now-ex Speaker Kevin McCarthy in recent years.
But his candidacy will likely run right into Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), who is also considering a speakership bid and has worked to court conservatives.
“Jim is a friend, and I certainly think he brings a whole lot that this conference would be able to rally around, but we’ve got to all have a conversation and I’m not going to say who I’m supporting at this point,” said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus.
“We’re going to figure this out behind closed doors as a family,” he added.
The Ohio Republican was elected to Congress in 2007. He is a Trump ally within the GOP conference and one of the many chairs to have called for Congress to defund the Department of Justice over whistleblower claims that DOJ hampered the Hunter Biden investigation.
But wouldn’t Jordan have to wear a suit and get a couple of new ties if he were Speaker?
Patrick McHenry’s first act as Speaker Pro Tempore was to kick Nancy Pelosi out of her Congressional office. Pelosi didn’t vote to remove McCarthy, because she is in California for Diane Feinstein’s funeral.
Politico: McHenry ordered Pelosi to leave her Capitol hideaway office by Wednesday.
As one of his first acts as the acting speaker, Rep. Patrick McHenry ordered former Speaker Nancy Pelosi to vacate her Capitol hideaway office by Wednesday, according to an email sent to her office viewed by POLITICO.
Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C.
“Please vacate the space tomorrow, the room will be re-keyed,” wrote a top aide on the Republican-controlled House Administration Committee. The room was being reassigned by the acting speaker “for speaker office use,” the email said….
Only a select few House lawmakers get hideaway offices in the Capitol, compared to their commonplace presence in the Senate.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ staff helped Pelosi’s office make the move, according to a spokesperson for the former speaker.
Here’s Pelosi’s full response to the eviction, from Raw Story:
“With all of the important decisions that the new Republican Leadership must address, which we are all eagerly awaiting, one of the first actions taken by the new Speaker Pro Tempore was to order me to immediately vacate my office in the Capitol,” Pelosi said in a statement, according to Politico’s Nicholas Wu. “Sadly, because I am in California to mourn the loss of and pay tribute to my dear friend Dianne Feinstein, I am unable to retrieve my belongings at this time.”
“This eviction is a sharp departure from tradition. As Speaker, I gave former Speaker Hastert a significantly larger suite of offices for as long as he wished,” She noted.
“Office space doesn’t matter to me, but it seems important to them,” Pelosi added. “Now that the new Republican Leadership has settled this important matter, let’s hope they get to work on what’s truly important to the American people.”
Three longer opinion pieces on the McCarthy mess:
John F. Harris at Politico Magazine: The House GOP Is a Failed State.
Amanda Marcotte at Salon: Kevin McCarthy’s embarrassing lesson: MAGA torches everything it touches — and will destroy itself.
NBC News: Kevin McCarthy’s ‘original sin’: What drove the House speaker’s historic downfall.
Two more interesting stories to check out:
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Fulton prosecutors float plea deals to Trump defendants.
Fulton County prosecutors are floating plea deals to a number of defendants in the election interference case involving former President Donald Trump, according to people with knowledge of the proposals.
At least a handful of the now 18 defendants have received offers from the District Attorney’s office — or prosecutors have touched base with their attorneys to gauge their general interest in striking a deal for a reduced charge in exchange for their cooperation, according to the legal sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive ongoing negotiations.
It’s common for prosecutors to float plea deals to lower-level defendants in large racketeering cases as they home in ontheir biggest targets. Trump and his former personal attorney Rudy Giuliani face the most chargesin the 41-count indictment, which centers on efforts to overturn the results of Georgia’s 2020 presidential election.
Late last week, Atlanta bail bondsman Scott Hall became the first defendant to accept a deal, pleading guilty to five misdemeanor counts in exchange for his testimony.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has learned that Fulton prosecutors have also offered a deal to Michael Roman, who worked as director of Election Day operations for the Trump campaign in 2020. A member of Roman’s legal team told The AJC theyrejected the DA’s proposal and that no agreement has been reached….
People who were indicted for their alleged roles in the appointment of a slate of Trump electors, election data breach in Coffee County and harassment of Fulton poll worker Ruby Freeman have also been approached by prosecutors, according to multiple sources. In the case of at least two of those defendants, no concrete offer has been made.
Click the link to read the rest.
The New York Times: Giuliani’s Drinking, Long a Fraught Subject, Has Trump Prosecutors’ Attention.
Rudolph W. Giuliani had always been hard to miss at the Grand Havana Room, a magnet for well-wishers and hangers-on at the Midtown cigar club that still treated him like the king of New York.
In recent years, many close to him feared, he was becoming even harder to miss.
For more than a decade, friends conceded grimly, Mr. Giuliani’s drinking had been a problem. And as he surged back to prominence during the presidency of Donald J. Trump, it was getting more difficult to hide it.
On some nights when Mr. Giuliani was overserved, an associate discreetly signaled the rest of the club, tipping back his empty hand in a drinking motion, out of the former mayor’s line of sight, in case others preferred to keep their distance. Some allies, watching Mr. Giuliani down Scotch before leaving for Fox News interviews, would slip away to find a television, clenching through his rickety defenses of Mr. Trump.
Even at less rollicking venues — a book party, a Sept. 11 anniversary dinner, an intimate gathering at Mr. Giuliani’s own apartment — his consistent, conspicuous intoxication often startled his company.
“It’s no secret, nor do I do him any favors if I don’t mention that problem, because he has it,” said Andrew Stein, a former New York City Council president who has known Mr. Giuliani for decades. “It’s actually one of the saddest things I can think about in politics.”
Now prosecutors are looking at Giuliani’s problem.
Now, prosecutors in the federal election case against Mr. Trump have shown an interest in the drinking habits of Mr. Giuliani — and whether the former president ignored what his aides described as the plain inebriation of the former mayor referred to in court documents as “Co-Conspirator 1.”
Their entwined legal peril has turned a matter long whispered about by former City Hall aides, White House advisers and political socialites into an investigative subplot in an unprecedented case.
The office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, has questioned witnesses about Mr. Giuliani’s alcohol consumption as he was advising Mr. Trump, including on election night, according to a person familiar with the matter. Mr. Smith’s investigators have also asked about Mr. Trump’s level of awareness of his lawyer’s drinking as they worked to overturn the election and prevent Joseph R. Biden Jr. from being certified as the 2020 winner at almost any cost. (A spokesman for the special counsel declined to comment.)
The answers to those prompts could complicate any efforts by Mr. Trump’s team to lean on a so-called advice-of-counsel defense, a strategy that could portray him as a client merely taking professional cues from his lawyers. If such guidance came from someone whom Mr. Trump knew to be compromised by alcohol, especially when many others told Mr. Trump definitively that he had lost, his argument could weaken.
That’s it for me today. What do you think? What other stories have caught your interest?
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Posted: January 7, 2023 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: caturday | Tags: cat art, GOP Freedom Caucus, GOP Meltdown, House Judiciary Committee, House Rules Committee, Kevin McCarthy, Matt Gaetz, Rep. Jim Jordan, Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama |
Illustration by ladimir Rumyantzev
Happy Caturday!!
After an insane week of Republican tantrums, Kevin McCarthy is finally Speaker of the House. But it doesn’t sound like he’ll have much control over his caucus. He seems to have given in to all of their demands in order to have a title with very little power. It was an embarrassing week for the Republican Party and for the country, capped by a scene in which Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama and Matt Gaetz of Florida nearly came to blows.
Benjy Sarlin, Kadia Goba, and Shelby Talcott at Semaphor: Kevin McCarthy finally became Speaker of the House after one last shocking meltdown. Here’s how it all happened.
McCarthy and his allies confidently predicted he would be elected Speaker of the House Friday night after a breakthrough in negotiations earlier in the day that saw 15 holdouts abandon their opposition.
The expectation was a critical mass of remaining holdouts would switch sides or vote present to seal his inevitable election as speaker.
Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo. earned wild applause when she voted “present” for the first time, helping lower the threshold for a McCarthy win — just as his team had hoped would happen.
Members did the same for Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Texas, who had flown back from tending to his wife and newborn premature baby in order to attend the crucial vote, and Ken Buck, R-Colo., who had rushed back from Colorado after undergoing a medical procedure.
But four holdouts, including a freshman from Arizona, Eli Crane, voted for other candidates. Then, after deliberately skipping his initial vote, Gaetz waited to the end of the roll call to vote “present” — leaving McCarthy one vote short.
Pandemonium ensued. An enraged Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala. had to be physically restrained as he charged to confront Gaetz with the C-SPAN cameras rolling.
Back to the Semaphor article:
Afterwards, a stunned Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., who had just nominated McCarthy and was seen animatedly working Gaetz over during the vote, took to the podium to ask that the House be allowed to adjourn until Monday.
As members tried to get their bearings, President Trump placed quick calls ahead of the 15th ballot — just before midnight — to Reps. Andy Biggs, who had voted for Rep. Jim Jordan, and Gaetz, a source familiar with the situation told Semafor.
Another photo from earlier showed Marjorie Taylor Greene trying to reach a holdout after the failed vote, Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Montana with a phone call from a “DT” as Rosendale appeared to rebuff her.
In the next ballot, more holdouts voted “present” and McCarthy was finally elected to thunderous applause and deep sighs of relief, completing his long rise through leadership across three presidential administrations.
Cat in the evening on the bench with birds, Paul Kulsha2
I stayed up until the bitter end, but I nodded off a few times and somehow I missed the fight scene. What I saw was Matt Gaetz approaching McCarthy, after which McCarthy rushed to the voting table to change his vote to no on adjournment. McCarthy looked thrilled after he finally won the 15th vote, but what did he actually win?
Sahil Kapur at NBC News: How Kevin McCarthy got the votes for speaker — and why it could haunt him.
After four days of deadlock and embarrassing defeats not seen in a century, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy finally carved out a path to placate a faction of rebels and secure the job early Saturday, with promises that could come back to haunt him.
McCarthy flipped 14 of his holdouts and convinced the rest to stand down, securing election as the 53rd speaker of the House on the 15th ballot after overcoming a last-minute wrench that scuttled his best-laid plans on the previous ballot. In doing so, he made a series of concessions that weaken the power of his office and expand the clout of far-right members of the House Republican conference, which critics say could complicate his job of governing under a wafer-thin majority.
McCarthy and his allies sensed they were on the verge of a breakthrough on Thursday night after Rep. French Hill, R-Ark., and others tapped by the now-speaker met with a group of right-wing holdouts — including Reps. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Chip Roy of Texas and Byron Donalds of Florida. The mutiny was led by members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, which is known for wielding raw power and having a high tolerance for chaos to force House GOP leaders to bend to their wishes.
McCarthy’s team presented them with a “framework” of House rules changes and other promises that would appease the group — and that ultimately prompted six House members to vote “present,” a crucial move that lowered the threshold for a majority and paved the way for him to succeed….
Perry, the Freedom Caucus chairman, said Friday he decided to vote for McCarthy after that framework was put on the table. But he also made clear his support for McCarthy was conditional on the terms of the deal holding up.
The concessions were mostly about the Rules Committee.
The Republican rules package released Friday includes those concessions. It will allow any one member to force a “motion to vacate” the speaker’s chair and overthrow McCarthy. It makes it harder for the House to raise spending, taxes and the debt limit. And Perry said the agreement includes “conservative representation” across the House, including by adding members of the right flank to key committees.
Perry and Roy declined to divulge details, but two sources with knowledge told NBC News that the Freedom Caucus was demanding three seats on the powerful Rules Committee, which controls the bills that make it to the House floor…
Illustration by Irina Zeniuk
The deal is poised to enhance the power of far-right Republicans, at the expense of moderates who want to advance legislation that can win the approval of a Democratic-controlled Senate and President Joe Biden. It could make McCarthy’s task of passing must-do bills like funding the government and lifting the debt ceiling much harder under a slim majority if a group of five Republicans can effectively force him out at any time.
Still, the more moderate or mainstream Republicans put up little resistance to the pact that party leaders agreed to, with some accepting it as the cost of doing business under narrow margins….
Democrats say the reported concessions will make the House ungovernable and cause crises.
“What we’re seeing is the incredibly shrinking speakership,” former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in an interview Friday. “It is not a good thing for the House of Representatives. We are the people’s house. We have to negotiate with the Senate. We have to negotiate with the White House. And instead, we are diminishing the leadership role of the House.”
More details at the NBC link.
According to Kyle Cheney at Politico, McCarthy also has agreed to give unprecedented powers to Rep. Jim Jordan, who will be the chair of the Judiciary Committee: Proposed GOP select panel would be empowered to review ‘ongoing criminal investigations.’
A proposed subcommittee to investigate “weaponization” of the federal government — a key demand of House conservatives who delivered Speaker Kevin McCarthy the gavel — would be given sweeping investigatory powers that include explicit authority to review “ongoing criminal investigations.”
The language of the proposed “select subcommittee,” which would operate under the Judiciary Committee expected to be chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), also gives the panel power to access any information shared with the House Intelligence Committee. That panel typically receives the highest-level classified intelligence and briefings of any committee in Congress.
Both provisions appear to have been added during final negotiations between McCarthy and a band of hardline detractors that briefly denied him the speakership. An earlier version of the proposal made no mention of ongoing criminal investigations or the Intelligence Committee and limited the probe to the FBI, Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice.
Illustration by Vladimir Rumyantzev
The panel’s expected formation comes as the Justice Department continues to arrest and prosecute hundreds of rioters charged with breaching the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and amid two ongoing criminal investigations connected to former President Donald Trump. Those include the probe of his effort to overturn the 2020 election and his decision to warehouse highly sensitive national security documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate after leaving office.
Both Trump-related probes are now overseen by special counsel Jack Smith, who was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland in November to manage the sensitive grand jury investigations
The subcommittee proposal would permit McCarthy to name 13 members to the panel, including five after consultation with Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries — a structure similar to the Jan. 6 select committee. Pelosi opted to reject two of McCarthy’s picks to that panel, prompting him to withdraw from any participation.
Unlike the Jan. 6 committee, however, the GOP-led probe would be housed under Jordan’s committee. Subpoenas issued by the panel would be authorized by Jordan.
That is just plain terrifying. So Jordan wants to be able to horn in on the investigations of Trump and other insurrectionists–which include Jim Jordan!
Asawin Suebsaeng and Tessa Stuart of Rolling Stone have a scoop on Matt Gaetz’s motive for opposing McCarthy: Sex Trafficking Row Helped Fuel Gaetz’s Hatred for McCarthy.
KEVIN MCCARTHY WAS well aware he was going to lose his bid to become Speaker of the House of Representatives on the first ballot, three people with knowledge of the situation told Rolling Stone. What he was not privately predicting was that the beatings would continue for an entire week. “He knew he was going to get fucked — he just didn’t know they were going to fuck him this many times, or this hard,” explained one congressional aide.
Among the major factors in McCarthy losing more than a dozen speakership ballots, people familiar with the matter say, was the severity of Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz’s enmity toward the Republican leader. Gaetz’s intense and personal distaste for McCarthy has been an open secret in Washington political circles for years, so much so that Gaetz and McCarthy’s colleagues would argue it isn’t even a “secret” at all.
Illustration by Vladimir Rumyantzev
But Gaetz’s hatred curdled into something even more powerful after it was revealed in early 2021 that the MAGA congressman was the target of a federal investigation into the sex trafficking of a minor. (No charges were filed against Gaetz, but his “wingman” Joel Greenberg was sentenced to 11 years in prison.) McCarthy, in Gaetz’s opinion, failed to mount a forceful enough defense on his behalf. According to two sources familiar with the matter, Gaetz has been furious at McCarthy for the perceived lack of support ever since — despite the fact that McCarthy did not strip him of any committee assignments during the probe.
The enmity between the two Republicans spilled into open view on the floor of the House during the 14th vote Friday night that McCarthy had bragged would finally put him over the top to secure the speaker’s gavel. Gaetz placed himself at the center of the drama. He skipped his turn in the alphabetical role call vote, setting himself up to vote at the end of the proceeding. With McCarthy needing one more yes vote, Gaetz instead voted “present” — leaving McCarthy with 50 percent of the vote, a hair short of victory. McCarthy strode up to Gaetz on the House floor, and a the foes had a heated exchange that did not change the total. McCarthy again was left hanging. (Gaetz again voted “present” along with the other Never Kevin rebels in the 15th vote that finally gave McCarthy the gavel.)
The original source of Rep. Gaetz’s acute loathing of McCarthy is less clear. Rolling Stone contacted members of Congress, sources on Capitol Hill, and activists in conservative organizations to ask what the root cause was. They all just knew Gaetz hated the House GOP leader. One Republican who knows both Gaetz and McCarthy says they even once asked the latter why Gaetz dislikes him so much. This source recalls McCarthy answering: “I don’t know.”
McCarthy has the Speaker’s gavel now, but there may be more disagreements coming on Monday when the House votes on the rules package that McCarthy agreed to. There are reportedly some McCarthy supporters who aren’t going to support it.
More stories to check out today:
Associated Press: Police: 6-year-old shoots teacher in Virginia classroom.
The New York Times: Shootings Reported at Homes and Offices of 5 New Mexico Democrats.
Associated Press: US appeals court blocks ban on rapid-fire ‘bump stocks.’
NBC News: On Musk’s Twitter, users looking to sell and trade child sex abuse material are still easily found.
Raw Story: Ashli Babbitt’s mother arrested for blocking DC street on Capitol riot anniversary.
NBC News: Conservative leader Matt Schlapp is accused of fondling a male campaign staffer in Georgia.
The Daily Beast: Herschel Walker Staffer: Matt Schlapp ‘Groped’ My Crotch.
Have a nice weekend, Sky Dancers!!
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Posted: May 20, 2021 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: Allen Weisselberg, Cyrus vance Jr., Donald Trump, January 6 commission, Jennifer Weisselberg, Letitia James, Matt Gaetz, Michael Cohen, Trump crime family, Trump Organization |
By Arne Kavli
Good Morning!!
We appear to be inching closer to the possibility that Trump and his minions could actually be prosecuted. It hasn’t happened yet, but news has broken over the past few days that suggests that real accountability could be coming for the Trump crime family.
Bill Chappelle, Andrea Bernstein, and Ilya Marritz at NPR: What We Know So Far About The Trump Organization Criminal Investigation.
New York Attorney General Letitia James is investigating former President Donald Trump’s business, the Trump Organization, “in a criminal capacity,” her office says, ratcheting up scrutiny of Trump’s real estate transactions and other dealings.
The state attorney general is joining forces with Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., who has been conducting a separate criminal inquiry into Trump’s business practices and possible insurance or financial fraud as well as alleged hush money payments to two women who said they had affairs with Trump before he became president….
Dorothy Weir Young, “Seated Girl Reading Newspaper,” 1930
The new collaboration between the state and local offices is an unusual event in itself: In New York, the attorney general and the district attorney have historically been rivals. But in this case, they’re working together.
Two assistant attorneys general have now joined the district attorney’s team of prosecutors. They’re all trying to unravel troves of complicated information, including millions of pages of tax returns and other documents related to how the Trump Organization operates in the U.S. as well as its sprawling international enterprises.
With the shift in focus from James’ office, we now know that both of these prosecution teams are making a determined and coordinated effort to sift through evidence of possible crimes.
Read the whole article. It’s a good summary of where things stand right now. Here’s the latest breaking news on the investigations:
The New York Times: Top Trump Executive Under Criminal Investigation Over Taxes.
The New York attorney general’s office has been criminally investigating the chief financial officer of former President Donald J. Trump’s company for months over tax issues, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
The office of the attorney general, Letitia James, notified the Trump Organization in a January letter that it had opened a criminal investigation related to the chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, the people said. The investigators have examined whether taxes were paid on fringe benefits that Mr. Trump gave him, including cars and tens of thousands of dollars in private school tuition for at least one of Mr. Weisselberg’s grandchildren….
Auguste Macke, Woman reading
The focus on perks and Mr. Weisselberg overlaps with the Manhattan district attorney’s long-running criminal fraud investigation of Mr. Trump and his family business. The district attorney’s office has been investigating the extent to which Mr. Trump handed out fringe benefits to some of his executives, including Mr. Weisselberg, and whether taxes were paid on those perks, The New York Times previously reported.
In recent weeks, Ms. James’s office suggested to the company in a new letter that it had broadened the criminal investigation beyond the focus on Mr. Weisselberg, one of the people said. It was unclear how the inquiry had widened.
In general, fringe benefits — which can include cars, flights and club memberships — are taxable, though there are some exceptions. Companies are typically responsible for withholding such taxes from an employee’s paycheck….
In addition to the fringe benefits, Ms. James and the district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., have examined whether Mr. Trump’s company inflated the value of his properties to obtain favorable loans and lowered the values to reduce taxes.
More details from CNN:
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