Last Call For Whom Fani Flagged In Georgia

Fulton County, Georgia DA Fani Willis released the full, unredacted special grand jury report on Donald Trump's state election interference and RICO case, and if anything, Willis showed remarkable if not adamantine restraint in the charges she actually brought.

The full special grand jury report that led to the criminal indictment of former President Donald Trump and 18 others for trying to overturn his 2020 Georgia election loss recommended also charging two former U.S. senators from the state, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, and current U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

Neither of those three current and former Republican lawmakers were indicted last month by the regular Fulton County Superior Court grand jury that charged Trump and the other defendants.

The full 25-page report of the special grand jury, which finished its investigative work last winter, was released Friday morning.

The special panel had the power to subpoena evidence and testimony from witnesses but did not have the authority to issue indictments.

However, in addition to the three senators, the special grand jury also had recommended indictments be issued against 18 other people who were ultimately not charged by the regular grand jury last month, in addition to the people who did end up being indicted.

Those recommended for indictment, but not charged, included former Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn, Trump advisor and lawyer Boris Epshteyn, and campaign lawyer Cleta Mitchell, according to the report.

The special grand jury recommended that Graham, Perdue and Loeffler, along with others, should be indicted for crimes related to “the national effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election, focused on efforts in Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia.”

Both Perdue and Loeffler, who were sitting senators at the time of the 2020 election, were defeated in early 2021 runoff elections by Democrats, Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock.

Trump’s continued false claims of election fraud in the 2020 presidential contest were seen as factors that led to the defeat of both Perdue and Loeffler, and Democrats taking majority control of the Senate in 2021.

Now, Willis clearly sought indictments for what she thought she could get convictions with and there's reasons as to why she didn't seek indictments against everyone in the recommendation. But the special grand jury sure as hell thought that both of Georgia's Republican senators as well as Huckleberry Graham ought to have been charged.

If only Graham could be voted out of office the way Perdue and Loeffler were.

On the other hand, the report is also sobering as it remains a reminder that while criminal juries need a unanimous verdict or a hung jury is reached, grand juries only need a simple majority to find probable cause, and none of the grand jury recommendations were unanimous on any of the people to consider charging, including charging Trump, and none of the RICO charges were either.

It'll only take one juror to spare Trump from any and all criminal consequences in any of the criminal trials he's facing, and that's a hard truth of our justice system.

Indepen-Dunce Week: Defunding The DoJ

The Clown Caucus is vowing to defund the Justice Department, including slashing funding for the FBI, CIA, NSA, and whoever else may have evidence against Donald Trump, and impeachment of AG Merrick Garland is still coming, these stalwarts promise.

 

House Republicans are taking their fight with the FBI and Justice Department to a new level — weighing punitive steps against both agencies that would have been unfathomable a decade ago.

Half a year into their majority, and with an increasingly restless right flank, the House GOP is ready for a confrontation after a spate of recent decisions it sees as either anti-Trump or pro-Biden. At the top of the list: Hunter Biden’s plea deal with federal investigators and Donald Trump’s indictment over his handling of classified documents.

That push against the FBI and DOJ will become a cornerstone of Republicans’ agenda in a chaotic back half of the year. Speaker Kevin McCarthy has already threatened to explore impeaching Attorney General Merrick Garland. Conservatives have also gone after FBI Director Christopher Wray, weighing whether to force a vote recommend booting him from office.

Additionally, some conservatives who believe the agencies have targeted Republicans are eager to cut the law agencies’ budgets. Then there’s the long-brewing congressional fight over a soon-to-expire warrantless surveillance program that has sparked bipartisan accusations of abuse by the FBI.

Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.), a leadership ally, predicted that conservative colleagues on the House Judiciary Committee’s government politicization panel and their allies would take their battle against FBI and DOJ to the chamber floor. Those Republicans, he said, “believe the best way to send a message is to use the power of the purse.”

Whether they prevail in the form of budget cuts, impeachment, or other measures remains to be seen. Conservative efforts could backfire, instead exposing tension with centrist and more establishment Republicans who embrace the party’s pro-law enforcement roots — the prevailing sentiment inside the GOP before Trump came along.

The fault lines emerged during closed-door House GOP spending meetings in recent weeks, as some lawmakers warned others to think twice about how they use spending bills to target specific agencies. In one session, conservative Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) said he privately urged his colleagues to “be careful” about how they talk about Justice Department funding, adding: “I’m not in favor of cutting DOJ.”

 

It doesn't matter what Republicans like Ken Buck want, Donald Trump went on a social media tirade over July 4th, demanding action by the GOP and demanding protests in the streets to get the Justice Department to drop all charges. 

What Trump wants, his flunkies get him, or they find out the hard way what happens to "traitors".

Ask Huckleberry Graham how that goes.

The GOP Race To The Bottom, Con't

Should Republicans retake the House and/or Senate, there will be a test run for tremendous damage that they can and will do to blue states in order to destroy as many civil rights as possible nationwide. The Atlantic's Ron Brownstein:

If Republicans win control of one or both congressional chambers this week, they will likely begin a project that could reshape the nation’s political and legal landscape: imposing on blue states the rollback of civil rights and liberties that has rapidly advanced through red states since 2021.

Over the past two years, the 23 states where Republicans hold unified control of the governorship and state legislature have approved the most aggressive wave of socially conservative legislation in modern times. In highly polarizing battles across the country, GOP-controlled states have passed laws imposing new restrictions on voting, banning or limiting access to abortion, retrenching LGBTQ rights, removing licensing and training requirements for concealed carry of firearms, and censoring how public-school teachers (and in some cases university professors and even private employers) can talk about race, gender, and sexual orientation.

With much less attention, Republicans in the U.S. House and Senate have introduced legislation to write each of these red-state initiatives into federal law. The practical effect of these proposals would be to require blue states to live under the restrictive social policies that have burned through red states since President Joe Biden’s victory in 2020. “I think the days of fealty [to states’ rights] are nearing an end, and we are going to see the national Republicans in Congress adopting maximalist policy approaches,” Peter Ambler, the executive director of Giffords, a group that advocates for stricter gun control, told me.

None of the proposals to nationalize the red-state social agenda could become law any time soon. Even if Republicans were to win both congressional chambers, they would not have the votes to overcome the inevitable Biden vetoes. Nor would Republicans, even if they controlled both chambers, have any incentive to consider repealing the Senate filibuster to pass this agenda until they know they have a president who would sign the resulting bills into law—something they can’t achieve before the 2024 election.

But if Republicans triumph this week, the next two years could nonetheless become a crucial period in formulating a strategy to nationalize the red-state social-policy revolution. Particularly if Republicans win the House, they seem certain to explore which of these ideas can attract enough support in their caucus to clear the chamber. And the 2024 Republican presidential candidates are also likely to test GOP primary voters’ appetite for writing conservative social priorities into national law. Embracing such initiatives “may prove irresistible for a lot of folks trying to capture” the party’s socially conservative wing, Patrick Brown, a fellow at the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center, told me.

It starts with abortion. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina in September introduced a bill that would ban the procedure nationwide after 15 weeks of pregnancy. In the House, 167 Republicans have co-sponsored the “Life Begins at Conception Act,” which many legal analysts say would effectively ban all abortions nationwide.

In elections, Senator Rick Scott of Florida has proposed legislation that would impose for federal elections nationwide many of the voting restrictions that have rapidly diffused across red states, including tougher voter-identification requirements, a ban on both unmonitored drop boxes and the counting of any mail ballots received after Election Day, and a prohibition on same-day and automatic voter registration.

In education, Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas has proposed to federalize restrictions on how teachers can talk about race by barring any K–12 school that receives federal money from using “critical race theory” in instruction. Several Republicans (including Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri) have introduced a “Parents’ Bill of Rights,” which would mandate parental access to school curriculum and library materials nationwide—a step toward building pressure for the kind of book bans spreading through conservative states and school districts. Nadine Farid Johnson, the Washington director for PEN America, a free-speech advocacy group, predicts that these GOP proposals “chipping away” at free speech are likely to expand beyond school settings into other areas affecting the general population, such as public libraries or private companies’ training policies. “This is not something that is likely to stop at the current arena, but to go much more broadly,” she told me.

Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana, along with several dozen co-sponsors, recently introduced a federal version of the “Don’t Say Gay” legislation that Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida pushed into law. Johnson’s bill is especially sweeping in its scope. It bars discussion of “sexually-oriented material,” including sexual orientation, with children 10 and younger, not only in educational settings, but in any program funded by the federal government, including through public libraries, hospitals, and national parks. The language is so comprehensive that it might even prevent “any federal law enforcement talking to a kid about a sexual assault or sexual abuse,” David Stacy, the government-affairs director at the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ advocacy group, told me.

 

The nightmare scenario is that Republicans hold the debt ceiling hostage and collapse the US economy until Biden signs all of these into law, along with trillions in cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

The prevention of this scenario is to vote Blue today and tomorrow.

The Clarence And Huckleberry Show

The most corrupt six conservatives in Supreme Court in US history continue apace, this time starring Clarence Thomas.

 

Justice Clarence Thomas on Monday agreed to temporarily freeze a lower court order requiring the testimony of Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham in front of an Atlanta-area special grand jury that is investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the state.

Thomas acted alone because he has jurisdiction of the lower court that issued the original order.

Thomas’ move is an administrative stay that was most likely issued Monday to give the Supreme Court justices more time to consider the dispute.

The court has asked for a response from the Georgia investigators by Thursday.

 

At this point, I fully expect five votes to rule that sitting members of Congress cannot be subpoenaed for any reason as they are above the law. Understand that this will not apply to Democrats when they are dragged into state investigations over 2020 voter fraud, I'm sure those are coming soon, especially if any of the GOP election denier crackpots running for governor, secretary of state, or AG win.

And Clarence Thomas is blocking this to stop Lindsey Graham from being questioned under oath about Thomas's right-wing seditionist leader wife Ginni, and in turn, himself.

That's some quality corruption right there.

Legal Eagles, Con't

Not a good day for the GOP in the arena of the federal courts, as the 11th Circuit and SCOTUS handed down big L's to Sen. Lindsey Graham and GOP attorneys general, respectively. First, Graham lost his bid to quash the subpoena in the Trump election fraud investigation by Fulton County, Georgia DA Fani Wilson.

A federal appeals court on Thursday rejected Sen. Lindsey Graham’s emergency request that it halt a subpoena for his testimony from the Atlanta-area grand jury investigating efforts to undermine the 2020 election in Georgia.

The 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with a lower court judge in ruling that the South Carolina Republican senator may be questioned about certain topics.

“(C)ommunications and coordination with the Trump campaign regarding its post-election efforts in Georgia, public statements regarding the 2020 election, and efforts to ‘cajole’ or ‘exhort’ Georgia election officials” are not legislative activities protected by the Speech and Debate Clause of the Constitution, the three-judge panel ruled.

With its new ruling, the appeals court lifted the temporary hold it had placed on the subpoena while it was considering Graham’s case.

However, Graham may not be questioned about conduct related to any fact-finding he was doing about whether to vote to certify the 2020 election results, the court ruled, okaying the approach taken by the lower court.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is leading the investigation, has indicated that she wants to question Graham about his phone calls with Georgia election officials as former President Donald Trump and his allies were seeking to reverse his defeat in the state.

The appeals court said if there was a dispute over whether investigators’ questions about those calls related to the fact-finding he was doing for the certification vote, Graham could raise those issues when he is testifying. But the new ruling makes clear that the three other categories of conduct fall outside of the protections of the Speech and Debate Clause, which shields legislators from certain law enforcement activities connected to their duties as lawmakers.

The 11th Circuit order was unanimous and came from a panel made up of two Trump appointees and a Clinton appointee.

 

Meanwhile, the courts refused to block President Biden's college debt relief program, not once, but twice.

Federal courts on Thursday delivered two wins for President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett rejected a challenge to the program brought by a Wisconsin taxpayers group. And on the same day, a federal district court judge rejected a separate lawsuit brought by six Republican-led states.

Student loan cancellations, worth up to $20,000 per eligible borrower, could begin on Sunday.

The appeal at issue in the Supreme Court case was considered an uphill battle because lower courts had ruled that the group, the Brown County Taxpayers Association, did not have the legal right or “standing” to bring the challenge. Under normal circumstances, taxpayers don’t have a general right to sue the government over how it uses taxpayer funds.

Barrett acted alone because she has jurisdiction over the lower court that ruled on the case. She declined to refer the matter to the full court. Her denial appeared as a single sentence on the court’s docket.

A federal judge in Missouri, US District Judge Henry Edward Autrey, rejected the lawsuit from the GOP-led states also because the plaintiffs did not have the legal standing to bring the challenge.

As I said before, the issue is standing: who is harmed by the student debt relief program, and what harm needs to be redressed? The courts' answer at both the appeals and SCOTUS level is that there is no harm. I'm shocked, personally. I figured Justice Barrett would go along but she 100% did not.

Too nuts even for her. 

Huckle-barrier Graham And The Road To Gilead

Just when the Village idiots were getting comfortable disappearing Republican opposition to abortion down the memory hole while women are dying on the operating table because of lack of heathcare access, along comes SC GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham to remind everyone that the goal is to eliminate abortion access for all with a national 15-week abortion ban bill.

The South Carolina senator chose a uniquely tense moment to unveil his party’s first bill limiting abortion access since this summer’s watershed reversal of Roe v. Wade. It was designed as a nod to anti-abortion activists who have never felt more emboldened. Yet Graham’s bill also attempted to skate past a Republican Party that’s divided over whether Congress should even be legislating on abortion after the Supreme Court struck down a nationwide right to terminate pregnancies.

And some fellow Republicans said they were highly perplexed at Graham’s decision to introduce a new abortion ban — more conservative than his previous proposals — at a precarious moment for the party.

“I don’t think there’s an appetite for a national platform here. My state, today, is working on this. I’m not sure what he’s thinking here. But I don’t think there will be a rallying around that concept,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.). “I don’t think there’s much of an appetite to go that direction.”

Graham’s past pitches for a 20-week abortion ban attracted most Republicans’ support and even the votes of some Senate Democrats. His latest effort would leave in place state laws that are even more restrictive while also imposing new limits in blue states that currently have none. Coming less than 60 days before the midterms, it’s riled some Republicans, who are watching their once-dominant polling advantage shrink since the Roe reversal.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said that questions about the bill should be directed to Graham and that most Republican senators “prefer this be handled at the state level.” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) suggested Graham had gone a bit rogue with his latest legislation: “That wasn’t a conference decision. It was an individual senator’s decision.”

“There’s obviously a split of opinion in terms of whether abortion law should be decided by the states … and those who want to set some sort of minimum standard,” Cornyn said of the 50-member Senate GOP conference. “I would keep an open mind on this but my preference would be for those decisions to be made on a state-by-state basis.”

Graham’s bill bans the procedure nationwide after 15 weeks of pregnancy, a priority of many prominent anti-abortion activists who have been demanding a far more aggressive response from the GOP. It includes exceptions for rape, incest and pregnancies that threaten maternal health.

While public polling shows majority opposition to the Supreme Court’s decision in June, it also shows support for some limits on abortion. Republicans have often parried questions about their positions by turning the spotlight onto Democrats, who generally support no legislative limits on terminating pregnancy.

“There is a consensus view by the most prominent pro-life groups in America that this is where America should be at the federal level,” Graham said. “I don’t think this is going to hurt us. I think it will more likely hurt [Democrats] when they try to explain to some reasonable person why it’s OK to be more like Iran and less like France on abortion.”

Senate Republicans did not broach the subject at their Tuesday strategy lunch, according to attendees.

Nonetheless, the bill could cause especially acute problems for the party’s Senate hopefuls. McConnell said he trusted each individual candidate to calibrate their own positions.

Several Republican campaigns did not immediately respond to questions about Graham’s bill, but Herschel Walker, the GOP Senate nominee in Georgia, said he’d back the legislation.

“Raphael Warnock wants to protect the killing of babies right up to the moment of birth. We need to do better,” Walker said in a statement to POLITICO. “I am a proud pro-life Christian, and I will always stand up for our unborn children. I believe the issue should be decided at the state level, but I WOULD support this policy.”

Others, however, are steering clear. A spokesperson for Washington GOP Senate nominee Tiffany Smiley said that she opposes the Graham bill and believes that states should decide their abortion laws. And Colorado GOP Senate nominee Joe O’Dea made clear he too doesn’t support the bill as he faces Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) in the Democratic-leaning state.

“A Republican ban is as reckless and tone deaf as is Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer’s hostility to” compromise, said O’Dea, who said he supports protecting abortion access early in pregnancies and applying “sensible limits” to late-term procedures.

 

A 15-week national ban on abortion is the GOP compromise position, after both Republicans and the Supreme Court basically destroyed a woman's right to her own body and  the GOP called it a "states' rights issue".

They were going to get away with it too, except now Graham has made that impossible. Every single Democrat up for a House or Senate race needs to plaster Graham's mug all over the TV along with his decree that yes, Republicans want to eliminate safe abortion across the country.

Better see some ads about the Republican's national abortion ban and soon, folks.

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

Sen. Lindsey Graham is a terrorist who wants terrorist attacks if Trump is charged.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Sunday warned of “riots in the streets” if former President Trump is prosecuted for his handling of classified materials found when the FBI searched his Mar-a-Lago home.

“If there’s a prosecution of Donald Trump for mishandling classified information, after the Clinton debacle … there’ll be riots in the streets,” Graham told former South Carolina congressman Trey Gowdy, who now hosts Fox News’s “Sunday Night in America.”

Trump shared a clip of the interview on Truth Social later Sunday evening.

Gowdy was chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, which probed the 2012 terror attacks in Libya that left four Americans dead and uncovered a private email server used by Clinton.

Graham expressed concern that Trump is treated with “a double standard” and repeated his warning of riots regarding the Georgia special grand jury investigating attempts by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election results in the state.

Graham himself has been subpoenaed in that probe in connection with phone calls made to Georgia election officials seeking to change the election results in the state.

 

The party of January 6th wants every day to be January 6th until all Democrats and their voters are gone. They want us to fear them, they want us to change political policy for them in order to stop them from killing us.

That's terrorism.

Graham is a terrorist.

The GOP is the party of white supremacist domestic terrorism.

Graham, Crackers, Con't

GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham has successfully stalled his impending subpoena from Fulton County, Georgia DA Fani Willis over the county's election interference case against Donald Trump.

A federal appeals court gave Sen. Lindsey Graham a temporary win early Sunday, ruling that he doesn’t have to comply for now with a subpoena from an Atlanta grand jury demanding that he testify Tuesday about his role in an effort to pressure Georgia officials to change the results of the 2020 presidential election.

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the subpoena at Graham’s request Sunday, after a federal district court judge in Atlanta turned down the South Carolina Republican’s bid to avoid testifying on the grounds that the local grand jury is intruding on legal protections he enjoys as a federal lawmaker.

The appeals court said in a two-page order that Graham’s attorneys and prosecutors for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis needed to flesh out arguments about whether Graham is entitled to have the federal courts place legal guardrails on the questioning Graham could face. The 11th Circuit panel’s order said that those arguments should be presented first to U.S. District Court Judge Leigh Martin May, who issued a ruling last week rejecting the arguments Graham’s team raised under the Constitution’s speech or debate clause — which immunizes lawmakers from most legal consequences for actions relating to their lawmaking responsibilities.

Investigators have said they want to query Graham about two phone calls he had with Georgia election officials in late 2020, at the same time Trump was attempting to subvert his defeat. Graham has acknowledged discussing with the officials the state’s process for counting absentee ballots.

His attorneys have argued that those conversations pertained to his official duties as a senator, but May ruled there were indications that the exchanges went beyond “legislative fact-finding.”

“Senator Graham has unique personal knowledge about the substance and circumstances of the phone calls with Georgia election officials, as well as the logistics of setting them up and his actions afterward,” May wrote in her decision last Monday.

“And though other Georgia election officials were allegedly present on these calls and have made public statements about the substance of those conversations, Senator Graham has largely (and indeed publicly) disputed their characterizations of the nature of the calls and what was said and implied. Accordingly, Senator Graham’s potential testimony on these issues … are unique to Senator Graham.”

The appeals court called its Sunday morning action a “limited remand” and said the subpoena would essentially be put on hold while the possibility of constraints on the scope of questioning of Graham is hashed out at the district court.

It’s unclear whether the appeals court’s order will lead to further oral arguments in front of May or only to the filing of additional legal briefs, but the appeals court instructed her not to dawdle.

“The district court shall expedite the parties’ briefing in a manner that it deems appropriate,” the 11th Circuit’s order said.

Graham’s stay request was handled by a three-judge panel at the conservative-leaning, Atlanta-based appeals court: Judges Charles Wilson, Kevin Newsom and Britt Grant. Wilson is an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, while Newsom and Grant are both Trump appointees. It is likely they will hang on to the case when it returns to the appeals court, at least for any urgent proceedings.

 

While the ruling last week indicates that DA Willis's case is moving forward quickly towards the indictment phase, the reality is that there's little chance that the court will hear from Graham. I practically guarantee you that no matter what the 11th Circuit panel finally rules, there's five votes on the Roberts Court, possibly six, to say that Graham's efforts to lobby Georgia Republicans to empanel a fraudulent slate of electors and award the state to Donald Trump will be deemed "legislative fact-finding" and the subpoena quashed.

 

However Willis gets to her endgame, she's most likely not going to have any of Graham's sworn testimony to go with it.  However, Rudy Giuliani did testify last week. She may not need Graham's testimony to make her case before the grand jury.

We'll see.

 

You won't hear a word from him under oath in Atlanta.

Last Call For Orange Meltdown, Con't

Two major developments in the Fulton County, Georgia case against Trump for election interference, first, a federal judge in Atlanta has ruled that Sen. Lindsey Graham must testify under oath about his role in the possible GOP interference in the 2020 Georgia elections.

A federal judge in Atlanta has denied GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham's motion to quash a subpoena, ruling that he must testify before a Fulton County grand jury investigating former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. 

In her written decision on Monday, US District Judge Leigh Martin May sent the case to the Superior Court of Fulton County to hear further proceedings on the US Constitution's "Speech or Debate" clause, the centerpiece that Graham's attorneys argued immunized the US senator from South Carolina from having to testify in this case. 

"Because the record must be more fully developed before the Court can address the applicability of the 'Speech or Debate' clause to specific questions or lines of inquiry, and because Senator Graham's only request in removing the subpoena to this Court was to quash the subpoena in its entirety, the Case is REMANDED to the Superior Court of Fulton County for further proceedings," May wrote in the ruling. 

The South Carolina Republican is scheduled to appear as a witness in Atlanta in front of the special grand jury on August 23. 

In her ruling, May wrote that there are "considerable areas of inquiry" that are not "legislative in nature" and said that the District Attorney's office has shown "extraordinary circumstances and a special need for Senator Graham's testimony on issues relating to alleged attempts to influence or disrupt the lawful administration of Georgia's 2020 elections." 

Five other attorneys who worked with Trump and spoke with Georgia election officials in the aftermath of the 2020 election have also received subpoenas to testify before the special purpose grand jury, and at least three of the lawyers are trying to fight their subpoenas in state courts this week. 

 

A federal judge absolutely believes ol' Huckleberry Graham here has testimony germane to a grand jury and this case is moving quickly. 

The second major development is that Rudy Giuliani and several other Trump/GOP officials are now direct targets of the Georgia investigation.

Former President Donald Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, has been informed that he is considered a "target" of the Georgia criminal investigation probing the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election in that state, according to sources familiar with the matter.

An attorney for Giuliani received a call Monday informing them that he is a "target" of the investigation, the sources said.

The move comes just two days before Giuliani is set to testify before the Fulton Country special grand jury probing the case, as the investigation appears to be ramping up.

Giuliani is still expected to testify on Wednesday, the sources said.

Last week, an attorney for Giuliani said in court that Giuliani's legal team had been asked the district attorney "whether or not Mr. Giuliani is a target of this investigation," but had "not yet received a response."

The judge in the case, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, said he "would implore" the DA to "at least address that before [Giuliani] gets here."

Earlier, 16 so-called "alternate electors" in the state were informed that they are also considered "targets" of the probe.

 

So yes, we're liable to see Giuliani indicted and soon.

Last Call For The Huckleberry Speaks

In something of a shocker, GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham will accept Fulton County Georgia's subpoena to a grand jury in the case of Trump's efforts to defraud the state with alternate voters and plotting to cheat the 2020 presidential election.

Sen. Lindsey Graham agreed Tuesday to accept service of a subpoena for his testimony before a Georgia grand jury investigating possible criminal meddling in the 2020 election by then-President Donald Trump.

But Graham, R-S.C., still retained his right to challenge the legality of the subpoena, a court filing showed.

The Atlanta-based grand jury is seeking evidence related to efforts by Trump and others to get Georgia officials to overturn the election won there by President Joe Biden.

Graham’s agreement to accept the subpoena likely will streamline his dispute with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis over the demand for his testimony. Asked Tuesday afternoon about the development, Graham told NBC News that Fulton County hasn’t “even tried to subpoena me. I just want to get it done.”

The Republican lawmaker, one of Trump’s closest confidants in the Senate, had asked a federal judge in South Carolina last week to quash the subpoena.

But Willis in a court filing Monday told the judge that Graham’s challenge was both too early, and not filed in the right court. She said the fact that Graham had not yet been served with the subpoena made any motion to quash it premature, and that he might not be served in South Carolina.

On Tuesday, attorneys for both parties told the judge that Willis and Graham “have reached an agreement to withdraw all process and proceedings pending” before the South Carolina district court.

“Senator Graham has agreed to accept service of a subpoena for testimony from the Fulton County Special Purpose Grand Jury in Atlanta, Georgia, without waiving any challenges or any applicable privilege and/or immunity,” the lawyers wrote in the court filing.

Any future challenges to the subpoena will be pursued in Georgia, either in Fulton County Superior Court or U.S. District Court in Atlanta.

 

Now, Graham still doesn't think the subpoena is valid, but he'll take it for now.  Maybe he just wants to get the deposition over with. Maybe he doesn't want to fight this all the way to the US Supreme Court. Maybe he wants to give a deposition in order to help Trump.

The point is, DA Fani Willis made him blink first. Graham may very well get the last laugh, but for now, Willis drew first blood.

We'll see how far this gets before Graham decides to burn the whole place down.

In which case, I'm sure DA Willis has options...

Just sayin'.

The Republican Mask Slips Again...

...And a GOP politician accidentally tells the truth.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) indicated on Monday that Senate Republicans wouldn’t have accepted Ketanji Brown Jackson as a Supreme Court pick if they controlled the Senate and sent a warning shot about how Republicans will treat any Supreme Court nominees in 2023 or 2024.

“If we get back the Senate and we’re in charge of this body and there is judicial openings, we will talk to our colleagues on the other side. But if we were in charge, she would not have been before this committee. You would have had somebody more moderate than this,” Graham said during a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting.

Graham’s comments come as he’s set to vote “no” on Jackson’s Supreme Court nomination — the first time he’ll oppose a Supreme Court pick since joining the Senate.

Republicans previously refused to move Merrick Garland’s 2016 Supreme Court nomination, arguing that it was in line with how Supreme Court nominees had been treated in a presidential election year when the White House and the Senate were controlled by different parties. If Republicans had kept control of the Senate after the 2020 election, that would give them the ability to similarly have refused to take up whoever President Biden nominated to succeed Justice Stephen Breyer.

If Republicans had kept control of the Senate, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) was expected to be chairman of the committee, and he’s likely to become chairman if Republicans win back the Senate in the November midterm elections.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said that he would not let President Biden fill a Supreme Court seat in 2024.

 

There is nobody Biden could have nominated that would have been acceptable to Graham.

 

Expecting a Republican to vote for an extremely well-rounded and well-qualified person, especially a Black woman, is laughable. Everyone knows the GOP are racists, and that's why their voters vote for them. 

As I've been saying for years now, Donald Trump's open bigotry, racism, and antisemitism was not a dealbreaker for 72 million people six years ago, and it's certainly not a dealbreaker now for the people who remain in the party six years later.

The Big Lie, Con't

Donald Trump just found out that because he's not the guy in the Oval Office anymore, that the media is under no contract or law to cover his vile, anti-democratic authoritarian bleating. His big January 6th anniversary speech for tomorrow has been canceled because he's being starved of attention...finally.

 

Former President Trump is scrapping a planned news conference on the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

The former president had planned to use the Thursday news conference at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., as counterprogramming for a scheduled prayer service at the Capitol to commemorate the events of Jan. 6.

In a statement, Trump blamed the House select committee charged with investigating the Jan. 6 riot for the cancellation. He said he would instead touch on many of the themes he had planned to discuss at the news conference during a rally in Arizona set for Jan. 15.

“In light of the total bias and dishonesty of the January 6th Unselect Committee of Democrats, two failed Republicans, and the Fake News Media, I am canceling the January 6th Press Conference at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday, and instead will discuss many of those important topics at my rally on Saturday, January 15th, in Arizona – It will be a big crowd!” he said.

 

The WIN THE MORNING 2.0 team posits that GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham and FOX news host Laura Ingraham got to Trump and changed his mind.

Before Donald Trump canceled his planned Jan. 6 press conference, several key allies — including hardline Fox News host Laura Ingraham and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) — made clear they thought it was a bad idea to invite the national media to Mar-a-Lago to mark the deadly riot.

Why it matters: Trump would have inevitably used his press conference Thursday to portray the rioters as political prisoners, whitewash their actions that day and lie about a "stolen election." Divisions had widened between the former president and congressional Republican leaders over how to handle the anniversary. Trump — like his most fervent allies — wanted to go on offense.

Congressional leaders wanted to narrowly condemn the rioters, avoid criticizing Trump or assigning any responsibility to him and quickly pivot to attacking Democrats over their handling of the Jan. 6 investigation.

 

I'm not saying that Trump being talked out of a self-aggrandizing tirade carried on national TV is a breakthrough, but it's also clear that a lot of Republicans saw this as ludicrously damaging to their re-election chances, too. They are right to believe that the biggest single obstacle to regaining control of the House and Senate is in fact Trump's big fat mouth.

Besides, Trump will make an ass of himself next week, on Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday. It could very well be a situation where the GOP wished Trump had vomited up his stored bile on the 6th instead.

The Big Lie, Con't

The more I think about Fulton County, Georgia DA Fani Willis considering going through with a grand jury to investigate Trump's election interference in 2020, the more worried I get for the safety of the people involved.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is likely to impanel a special grand jury to support her probe of former President Donald Trump, a move that could aid prosecutors in what’s expected to be a complicated and drawn-out investigative process.

A person with direct knowledge of the discussions confirmed the development to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, saying the move could be imminent.

Some legal observers viewed the news, first reported by the New York Times, as a sign that the probe is entering a new phase.

“My interpretation is that she’s gotten as far as she can interviewing witnesses and dealing with people who are cooperating by producing documents voluntarily,” former Gwinnett County DA Danny Porter said of Willis. “She needs the muscle. She needs the subpoena power.”

Special grand juries are rarely used but could be a valuable tool for Willis as she takes the unprecedented step of investigating the conduct of a former president while he was in office.

Her probe, launched in February, is centered on the Jan. 2 phone call Trump placed to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which he urged the Republican to “find” the votes to reverse Joe Biden’s win in Georgia last November. The veteran prosecutor previously told Gov. Brian Kemp, Raffensperger and other state officials that her office would be probing potential violations of Georgia law prohibiting criminal solicitation to commit election fraud, intentional interference with the performance of election duties, conspiracy and racketeering, among others.

The investigation could also include Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, who promoted lies about election fraud in a state legislative hearing; and U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who was accused by Raffensperger of urging him to toss mail-in ballots in certain counties. Both men have denied wrongdoing.

The main benefits a special grand jury would provide are continuity and focus, former prosecutors said.

A regular Fulton County grand jury is seated for two months. Jurors typically hear hundreds of felony cases before their service ends.

But a special grand jury, which typically has 16 to 23 members, is focused on a single case and remains active for as long as prosecutors need. That could be beneficial given how complicated the issue of investigating a former president is.

Prosecutors will be able to save time not having to send out new jury summons or present the case from scratch every two months to get new jurors up to speed, according to veteran prosecutors.

“In complex matters it helps to not have to reacclimate a new set of grand jurors,” said Gwendolyn Keyes Fleming, previously a DeKalb County DA. She co-authored a Brookings Institution report earlier this fall that analyzed all available public evidence and concluded that Trump’s conduct leaves him at “substantial risk of possible state charges predicated on multiple crimes.”

Like a regular grand jury, special grand juries can subpoena witnesses, compel the production of documents, inspect and enter into certain offices for the purposes of the investigation. But they can’t issue indictments. In order to secure one, prosecutors would need to present evidence to a regularly impaneled grand jury.

The DA’s office, a superior court chief judge or local elected official can request a special grand jury. The request must be approved by a majority of the county’s superior court judges.

Melissa Redmon, a former Fulton County deputy DA, noted the backlog some 11,000 criminal cases that Fulton’s two other grand juries are currently working their way through.

“Especially when you think about the backlog created by COVID… the main advantage of having a special grand jury is that they could be focused on just this investigation,” said Redmon, an assistant clinical professor at the University of Georgia’s law school.

Should the case move ahead, many legal observers are expecting Trump to fight every request made by prosecutors, which could drag out the investigative process for months.

What's unsaid here is the notion that Willis will be allowed to continue this probe into Trump without interference from Gov. Deal and the state GOP, that mob-style corruption, silencing, or even violence isn't somehow expected here.

Trump is going to be calling up Republicans in the state and demanding that his case go away. We know this because he's done it before. There are certainly state Republicans who are going to throw around the idea of removing Willis from office for "misconduct".

There are also those who will want to remove Willis from this Earth. January 6th proved Trump can ignite those riots when he wants.

What I'm saying is, as a Black man, I do not trust the assumption that Willis is in any way safe here.

Neither should anyone.

The Big Lie, Con't

This month's Bob Woodward/Robert Costa Trump book "Peril" continues to be a hot property in pundit circles because of the salaciousness of Tang the Conqueror's final few months, but as Greg Sargent points out, the book also details the efforts by the Trump GOP to explicitly use loopholes in the Electoral Count Act of 1887 to have VP Mike Pence openly steal the 2020 election.

The revelations come from the new book “Peril,” by The Post’s Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. The headline: Two GOP senators — Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Mike Lee of Utah — took Trump’s lies about election fraud seriously enough to devote real resources to vetting them.

But for our purposes, the more important revelation involves how those lies were supposed to interlock with the broader scheme cooked up by Trump and his co-conspirators.

The key takeaway: Gaping holes in the Electoral Count Act — the 1887 law that governs how Congress counts electoral college votes — were central to the chances that their scheme might succeed.

The book recounts that four days before Jan. 6 — when Congress counts the electoral votes — Lee received a White House memo outlining how Vice President Pence could scuttle the process.

Because Republicans in several swing states had voted to send sham electors for Trump to Congress, it argued, Pence could simply set aside the actual electors from those states for President Biden. Both sets would be invalid, and Pence could count the remaining electors, designating Trump winner of a majority of them.

Though the memo ultimately advised against this process, it did suggest it as a potential option. And it did recommend that Pence use objections by GOP lawmakers to Biden’s electors to delay the process. The book reports that Pence explored this idea before rejecting it.

Let’s be clear: The fact that these ideas were considered this seriously was made possible in part by the absurd ambiguities in the Electoral Count Act, or ECA.

First, because the ECA provides that a state can appoint new electors if the election “failed” — which is defined very vaguely — the idea was to use “election fraud” lies to declare that popular voting “failed” to render a clear outcome. GOP legislatures could then appoint electors for Trump, regardless of their state’s popular votes.

Second, because the ECA makes it easy for Congress to object to electors — only one lawmaker from each chamber can force votes on whether to count them — the idea was to get congressional Republicans to invalidate Biden’s electors in key states. Trump would prevail with a majority of remaining electors.

Third, because the ECA does not clearly define the vice president’s role (as president of the Senate) as purely ceremonial, the idea was to get Pence to somehow rule in favor of the objections to electors, or at least to delay the count.

That would either result in Trump prevailing with a majority of electors, or buy enough time for GOP legislatures to send rogue electors. Remember, getting Pence to rig or delay the count was precisely what Trump incited the Jan. 6 mob to accomplish.

In a great new draft paper, election law scholar Richard L. Hasen warns that we face “serious risk” of “election subversion” or an “actual stolen election.” Hasen discusses reforms that could avert such scenarios, which will also be the topic of a conference on Friday.

In the last election, no GOP legislature appointed rogue electors, a majority of Congress voted to uphold Biden’s electors, and Pence ultimately backed away from the plot. But some GOP legislators did consider this scheme, around 150 congressional Republicans did vote to subvert Biden’s electors, and Pence did explore the outer limits of what he might do for Trump.

 

It certainly looks like the sole reason we're not stuck in a successful Trump coup right now is because Mike Pence got cold feet.  There's not any doubt anymore that this was Trump's plan since November 6th and Pence failed to execute.

That's it. The Republic was spared because Pence is a coward.

Needless to say, the Dems have to fix the ECA or Trump (or worse) will steal the election in 2024. They continue to set the stage for doing just that well ahead of the next election.

The Wisconsin Republican leading the state’s partisan inquiry into the 2020 election results on Monday warned election clerks that they would face subpoenas if they did not cooperate and defended the investigation’s legitimacy by declaring that he was not seeking to overturn President Biden’s victory in the state.

“We are not challenging the results of the 2020 election,” Michael Gableman, a conservative former State Supreme Court justice overseeing the investigation, argued in a video posted on YouTube. The inquiry, he said, “may include a vigorous and comprehensive audit if the facts that are discovered justify such a course of action.”

The video from Mr. Gableman comes after he and Wisconsin’s Republican legislative leaders have faced increasing criticism from both their party’s far-right and from Democrats. The right has accused Mr. Gableman of not doing enough to push lies about the 2020 election propagated by former President Donald J. Trump. Democrats have painted the $680,000 inquiry into the election as a waste of state resources and a distraction from other needed business.

Mr. Gableman was assigned to look into Mr. Trump’s false claims that the state’s election was stolen from him by Robin Vos, the Republican speaker of the Wisconsin Assembly, nearly three months ago. The five-minute video released Monday was the first extensive public statement Mr. Gableman has made outlining the scope and aim of his investigation.

The Republicans’ continuing effort to re-examine the 2020 results in Wisconsin comes as Trump allies elsewhere have gone to great lengths to undermine Mr. Biden’s victory. Arizona Republicans are near the end of a monthslong review of ballots in Maricopa County. Pennsylvania Republicans last week approved subpoenas for driver’s license and partial Social Security numbers for every voter in the state. And 18 states, including Texas this month, have passed laws this year adding new voting restrictions.

In recent weeks, Trump-allied conservatives in Wisconsin have shown public frustration at the pace and transparency of Mr. Gableman’s investigation. This month, a group led by David A. Clarke Jr., a former Milwaukee County sheriff who has been a prominent purveyor of false claims about the election, held a rally at the State Capitol in Madison to protest what it argued was insufficient devotion by Mr. Gableman and the state’s Republican leaders to challenging the 2020 results.

Mr. Gableman said on Monday that his investigation would require the municipal officials who operate Wisconsin’s elections to prove that voting was conducted properly. He said local clerks would be required to obey any subpoenas he might issue.

Election clerks in Milwaukee and Green Bay ignored previous subpoenas issued by the Republican chairwoman of the Assembly’s elections committee for ballots and voting machines. Mr. Vos had declined to approve those subpoenas.

“The responsibility to demonstrate that our elections were conducted with fairness, inclusivity and accountability is on the government and on the private, for-profit interests that did work for the government,” Mr. Gableman said. “The burden is not on the people to show in advance of an investigation that public officials and their contractors behaved dishonestly.”

 

Two important points here.

 

First, the declaration that Wisconsin Republicans "aren't trying to overturn Biden's election" is important in the context that the goal is 2022 and especially 2024.

Second, good government practices or not, the assumption that election officials in a state must prove they held the election and tabulated the results fairly, that is, the burden of proof is on election officials to prove they did not cheat, is wildly destructive, anti-democratic and authoritarian. It's the kind of things dictators say right before they suspend such elections as "corrupt" and seize power.

To start at "Elections are rigged" as a social construct is one thing. To do that as a legal maxim, well, that's how you end up not being a modern democracy anymore.

Infrastructure, Construction Or Destruction?

To hear Team WIN THE MORNING tell it, President Joe Biden has his infrastructure deal, one that can get 60 Senate votes with significant GOP cooperation, and one that will pass the House as well.

PRESIDENT AHAB: Well, we’ll be damned. JOE BIDEN appears to have all but secured that elusive bipartisan infrastructure deal that both parties have been prattling on about for years. The core group of 10 Senate centrists working on the proposal emerged from a meeting with White House officials Wednesday night and declared that they had a working framework.

TODAY members of that group have been invited to the White House to meet with the president.

Republican Sens. ROB PORTMAN (Ohio) and SUSAN COLLINS (Maine) cautioned that there are still a few details to iron out. But a well-positioned administration source tells us this thing is basically cooked. All that’s left are the handshakes.

SO NOW WHAT? While lawmakers draft up the text, expect the White House to start leaning on Democrats to get in line. We know that so far at least 11 Senate Republicans have agreed to back this plan, but just as many Democrats have expressed reservations, creating tricky math for leadership.

Sen. CHRIS MURPHY (D-Conn.) alluded to this predicament on CNN on Wednesday night. “That deal has 20 votes — not 60 votes,” he said, noting that the group of 21 that wrote the plan will now need to sell this to their colleagues.

The whipping campaign will heat up at a time when party tensions are on the rise. Sen. BERNIE SANDERS (I-Vt.) — who, at least in the immediate term, looks like the loser in this deal — fumed Wednesday on national television that he’s sick of talking about Sen. JOE MANCHIN (D-W.Va.). (We hear you, senator!) Our colleagues Laura Barrón-López and Nicholas Wu have a story up today about how Biden’s honeymoon with the left is over, as progressives are now calling him out by name.

The winners, aside from Biden? Manchin and Sen. KYRSTEN SINEMA (D-Ariz.) top the list. The Democratic duo comes out of this with not only their bipartisan deal, but also effective veto power over the massive reconciliation bill that Sanders et al. are drafting. Neither moderate senator has offered an assurance they’ll back it, despite demands from liberals.

Indeed, the big remaining question about the almost-done deal — which we’re told includes $559 billion in new spending — is whether progressives will go along. It’s one thing to issue threats via the media, another to reject a personal plea from your president. But progressives will also be taking a risk if they do abide. The list of priorities they’d like to pack into the reconciliation bill runs off the page: paid family leave, child care subsidies, climate investments, free community college, an expansion of Medicare, corporate tax hikes. And who knows what Manchin and Sinema will insist on axing after the thing they wanted most — infrastructure — will already be signed into law.

The optimistic view of the situation, from the White House perspective, goes something like this: Manchin and Sinema will be under enormous pressure to support a reconciliation bill after Biden bucked his left flank to make a bipartisan deal on infrastructure. They also point out that by first moving $1 trillion of infrastructure spending through a bipartisan bill, it reduces the price tag of the reconciliation bill by that same amount, making it easier for moderates to support it. There’s also an argument that with $1 trillion of infrastructure removed from the bigger bill, progressives have some more room now for their other priorities.

Seems a bit rosy, but then again, we would not have predicted the bipartisan talks would go this far.

Finally, the Biden-Schumer-Pelosi plan is to move these two bills simultaneously, with each bill needing the other to pass. “We can’t get the bipartisan bill done unless we’re sure we’re getting the budget reconciliation bill done,” Schumer said Wednesday night. “We can’t get the budget reconciliation bill done unless we’re sure of the bipartisan [bill].” Democratic leaders are trying to lash Manchin and the moderates to Bernie and the progressives. The message seems to be: If one side’s bill goes down, so does the other’s.

 

Lot of chances here for Lucy to yank the football away from Charlie Brown, and Nancy Pelosi's margin in the House is extremely thin. If Kevin McCarthy was as crafty as Mitch, he'd find a way to extort huge cuts in the bill in exchange for support that the Squad couldn't sabotage, for instance,but McCarthy's not that crafty, and Nancy is much better at the job.

We'll see how this pans out. I expect further cuts to the already massively scaled-down bill. But we're about to get a huge helping of "Don't let the perfect become the enemy of the good" again, as our politics have been for all of my adult life on the Democratic side.

But already, 24 hours later, the deal looks to be in "mortal peril" as Greg Sargent explains.

Republicans are pretending to be very, very angry about President Biden’s newly-announced plans to pursue infrastructure and jobs proposals on two tracks — one bipartisan, the other via a simple majority “reconciliation” vote.

But behind this display of fake histrionics lies a very real trap, one designed to bait Democrats into turning on one another.

In case any Democrats are tempted to take this bait, don’t. The only response to GOP anger is for Democrats to remain solidly unified, though this situation also illustrates how challenging this will prove.

Biden and House Democratic leaders have announced that they will not pass a bipartisan Senate bill on infrastructure — one in keeping with the newly-reached bipartisan deal — until the Senate completes a second reconciliation package advancing progressive priorities.

In response, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has now erupted in fake-outrage to Politico:

“I’m not doing that. That’s extortion! I’m not going to do that. The Dems are being told you can’t get your bipartisan work product passed unless you sign on to what the left wants, and I’m not playing that game.”

Meanwhile, a senior GOP aide told Politico that in announcing this two-track strategy, Biden “did real damage” to the possibility of passing the bipartisan bill.

This line was also voiced by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who insisted that Democrats are showing their intention to “hold the bipartisan agreement hostage” to getting reconciliation done.

The clear threat here is that Democrats must drop plans to pass a reconciliation package or forget about getting a bipartisan package first. This is empty bluster sitting atop a pile of baloney.

Republicans have long known that Democrats would converge on this endgame. Indeed, Democrats publicly vowed for months to proceed on “two tracks.”

While working toward a bipartisan compromise on bricks-and-mortar infrastructure, Democrats would craft a reconciliation package containing Biden’s other priorities: Child supports, paid family and medical leave, and investments in education, health care and climate.

If the bipartisan deal were reached (as it now has been), Democrats would pass the reconciliation piece by a simple majority. If the bipartisan deal falls apart, they’d pass everything that way. Republicans have always known that even with a bipartisan deal, Democrats will do a lot more alone.

Now Republicans think they can bluff Democrats into killing a whole host of their most cherished priorities as a precondition for their support for something way more modest that largely consists of previously existing highway and covid-19 relief funding? No way.

This is why the GOP threat is an empty one. If Republicans do sink the bipartisan deal, Democrats still have the option of passing a large package by themselves, via reconciliation.

 

The trap here is to try to force Manchin and Sinema to drop the reconciliation bill threat and take the "bipartisan" bill, otherwise Republicans will go on TV and say bad things about them. If Manchin and/or Sinema are dumb enough to fall for this, the game is over, and then Republicans can still scuttle the bill and leave Dems with nothing, blaming Biden It would be a complete victory for McConnell.

But I don't think even Manchin and Sinema are this thickheaded to kill reconciliation even after the GOP pulls the plug on the deal they worked for. It's an empty threat...unless Manchin and Sinema do Republicans' work for them.

 

However, it may not even make it to the Senate, and increasingly it looks like Pelosi doesn't have the votes in the House.

Progressive Democrats’ concerns that their more centrist colleagues won’t support President Joe Biden’s larger spending and tax agenda are starting to bear out.

Oregon Rep. Kurt Schrader, a member of the fiscally conscious Blue Dog Coalition, said in an interview that he’s planning to vote against a budget resolution that would include reconciliation instructions for trillions of dollars in additional spending. Another moderate House Democrat, who requested anonymity to speak freely about a position that would upset party leaders, said the same.

With those two expected “no” votes, Speaker Nancy Pelosi doesn’t have much more room to maneuver on that first step toward passing a big spending bill, let alone the reconciliation legislation itself that would contain all the details.

She can only lose two more Democratic votes and still adopt the budget resolution in her narrowly divided 220-211 chamber, since no Republicans are likely to vote for it, as budget resolutions are designed to be partisan wish lists.

So again, we'll see.

Black Lives Still Matter, Con't

A new CBS News poll finds three-quarters of Americans agree with the guilty verdict for Derek Chauvin in the murder trial of the death of George Floyd, which means that non-Republicans are overwhelmingly for the guilty verdict, and Republicans are split.

Three in four Americans think the jury reached the right verdict in which former police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of murder in the death of George Floyd, a majority view that spans across all racial, age and partisan groups.

Most White and Black Americans share the view that the jury reached the right verdict in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the police officer found guilty on all three counts in the death of George Floyd. Americans — both young and old —— within these racial groups agree with the verdict.

Reaction to the verdict among White Americans is largely related to partisanship. White Democrats overwhelmingly think the jury reached the right verdict, while White Republicans, like Republicans overall, are more divided.

The smaller portion of Americans — 25% — who believe the jury reached the wrong verdict strongly disagree with the ideas of the Black Lives Matter movement. This group is composed of more men than women, is disproportionately White and they mostly identify as conservative.

President Biden, who has called the verdict a step forward, gets a 60% approval rating for his general handling of matters surrounding George Floyd's death and Chauvin's trial. This is similar to his overall job rating as he closes in on 100 days in office.

Floyd's death sparked protests across the country by Black Lives Matter and other groups concerning the treatment of racial minorities by police.

Today, more Americans agree than disagree with the ideas expressed by the Black Lives Matter movement. Black Americans, Democrats and younger people are particularly likely to agree.

Overall though, people still have mostly positive views of their local police. Most Americans rate the job they are doing as at least somewhat good.

On balance, Black Americans rate their local police more positively than negatively, but they (17%) are less likely than Whites (39%) to say their local police are doing a "very good" job in their community.

 

So two observations, first, people agree broadly with Black Lives Matter, but they also support their local cops. Abolishing police, well, it doesn't have a whole lot of support.  People like their local police still, for the most part.

The problem is, police still kill people. And remember, Republicans don't think racism even exists, let alone leads to systemic police murders.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham denied on Sunday that there is systemic racism in the US, claiming "America's not a racist country" as President Joe Biden and others urge people to directly confront the issue as the nation grapples with a spate of police killings of Black Americans.

Citing the elections of former President Barack Obama, who is African American, and Vice President Kamala Harris, who is both Black and South Asian, Graham told Fox News that "our systems are not racist. America's not a racist country," adding: "Within every society you have bad actors." 

The comments from the South Carolina Republican come several days after a jury convicted former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin on all charges in the death of George Floyd, a Black man whose killing last year sparked a racial reckoning in the US and abroad and led to calls for police reform as more Black Americans die during encounters with law enforcement officers.

"The Chauvin trial was a just result," Graham said. "What's happening in Ohio, where the police officer had to use deadly force to prevent a young girl from being stabbed to death, is a different situation in my view. So this attack on police and policing -- reform the police, yes, call them all racist, no."

"America is a work in progress," he added.

Black Lives Still Matter.

Last Call For Immigration Nation, Con't

 Here's everything you need to know about Republicans on immigration in the Biden era:

 

Lindsey Graham introduced a bipartisan immigration bill 43 days ago. But if it came up on the Senate floor today, he wouldn’t support it. 

“God, no,” the South Carolina Republican senator scoffed in an interview. “I’m not in support of legalizing one person until you’re in control of the border.”

 

That's it.

 

Lindsey Graham is scrapping his own bipartisan immigration bill from last month because he's mad at Joe Biden. 

Republicans are useless, and they keep getting elected by people who specifically don't want government to work.

 

 

Graham, Crackers, Con't

GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham is making it clear that Democrats refusing to call his bluff involving Trump impeachment trial witnesses on Saturday means he's now raising the stakes for future threats against Democrats.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Sunday said that he expects Republicans to impeach Vice President Kamala Harris if the party takes control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

During an appearance on Fox News Sunday, Graham told host Chris Wallace that former President Donald Trump is ready to "move on" and rebuild the Republican Party after his impeachment trial.

"I thought the impeachment trial was not only unconstitutional, I condemn what happened on Jan. 6, but the process they used to impeach this president was an affront to rule of law," Graham opined. "We've opened Pandora's Box to future presidents."

"And if you use this model, I don't know how Kamala Harris doesn't get impeached if the Republicans take over the House," he added. "Because she actually bailed out rioters and one of the rioters went back to the streets and broke somebody's head open. So we've opened Pandora's Box here and I'm sad for the country?"

"Does Donald Trump bear any responsibility for the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6th?" Wallace asked.

"Uh, no," Graham replied. "In terms of the law, no. He bears responsibility of pushing narratives about the election that I think are not sound and not true. But this was politically protected speech. The speech on Jan. 6th was not an incitement of violence."

Before ending the interview Graham insisted that Trump and his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, are the "future" of the Republican Party. 

 

It's sad, but Graham won this round, as he has several others. Dems caved on impeachment witnesses, and Republicans acquitted Trump. He'll keep upping the stakes until he's stopped, and it's clear that the voters of South Carolina have no intention of doing so. White supremacy won this weekend, and it will keep on winning like it has for 400 years.

One of two things has to happen, either Dems have to get rid of the filibuster, or get 60 seats in the Senate, and it doesn't look like either one will be happening anytime soon.

Having said that, Graham only makes good on this threat if Democratic voters give Republicans the House.

Remember that.

Trial Of The Century 2.0, Con't

 Nobody seems happy with the Trump impeachment trial, on the right (who want to trial dismissed on "constitutional grounds") and on the left, who want Democrats to call Sen. Lindsey Graham's bluff and call witnesses to testify not only against Trump, but against the Republicans who enabled him, as Greg Sargent explains.

The Democrats’ fear appears to be that if the full GOP is implicated, that makes conviction less likely. To be fair, there are genuine complexities here: Trump is the one on trial, and drawing out the GOP’s role might be challenging (though hardly undoable) in a trial context.

Calling out the GOP might also give GOP senators a (bad faith) way to scream that Democrats politicized the trial, giving them cover to acquit.

But the idea that refraining from this will make it more plausible that 17 Republican senators will vote to convict is at odds with everything we know. Republicans are publicly saying in every which way that acquitting Trump is key to their party’s future, so he’ll keep the voters he brought into politics in the GOP coalition.

So acquittal is a foregone conclusion. If anything, Democrats need to make it as politically uncomfortable for Republicans as possible to acquit — and to extract a political price for it among the suburban moderates whom the GOP continues to alienate with its ongoing QAnon-ification.

It’s hard to see how insulating the GOP from Trump’s effort to overturn U.S. democracy helps accomplish that.

Separately, Politico reports that some of the impeachment managers want witnesses at the trial, and that some Senate Democrats are leaning against it.

This is more complex than it appears: A person familiar with ongoing talks over the trial structure between Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer and McConnell tells me there will be a vote on whether to have witnesses, if the managers want them.

So this is up to the managers. And it’s still unclear whether the managers do or do not want witnesses. Many of their aides declined to tell me.

The case for witnesses is strong. There’s a lot we don’t know about Trump’s behind-the-scenes conduct during the rampage: He reportedly refused entreaties to call off the mob, even from terrified lawmakers under siege, because he was enjoying watching it on TV.

People like former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who is now spinning away Trump’s culpability, should be forced to testify to what Trump was doing during that time. A trial with witnesses could also probe the role of some House Republicans in the “Stop the Steal” movement leading to the insurrection, and any of Trump’s communications with them.

A full accounting is critical. Republicans on the state level are racing forward with new voter-suppression efforts, and Democrats have proposed national reforms that expand voting rights and curb counter-majoritarian tactics. They must be prepared to nix the filibuster to make these reforms law.

A big political battle is coming over all this as well. Democrats must fully dramatize the GOP’s continuing radicalization when it comes to embracing such tactics, so the public understands the stakes of what will be nothing less than a full-scale war over the future of our democracy.

That won’t be helped by any failure to create a full record of the most sustained effort to overturn an election and our democracy in modern times, including via intimidation and violence, or any failure to implicate the GOP in it.

 

Sargent is correct that Democrats should call witnesses and make it hurt. I also agree with him that the GOP will acquit Trump, and that the conclusion is foregone. But the fact remains that they need Trump regime people testifying under oath in front of the country as to what Donald Trump did, because the country has to have the truth. 

I don't have high hopes, however. Being honest, I believe zero Republicans will vote to convict, and the moment he is acquitted he'll announce his 2024 candidacy and use that run to shield himself from any state or federal charges against him.

We'll see.

Trial Of The Century 2.0, Con't

The last thing Republicans want is a lengthy impeachment trial where witnesses describe in detail how the Trump terrorists were in the US Capitol building with the intent of killing Democratic lawmakers (and Mike Pence, if the chants are to be believed). With hours of footage ending up in attack ads against Republican seditionists and enablers, they'd be doomed in 2022.  And Republicans are absolutely terrified of that.

Allies of former President Donald Trump are imploring his impeachment team to avoid one specific topic when they defend the ex-president at his Senate trial next week: the deadly riot that unfolded at the U.S. Capitol.

Despite Trump’s likely acquittal on charges that he incited an insurrection, some of his most ardent supporters fear the trial could further damage his reputation if his attorneys wade into the events of Jan. 6, when five people were killed — including a Capitol police officer — after pro-Trump demonstrators stormed the halls of Congress.

The former president, whom House Democrats have accused of inciting the rioters at a rally earlier the same day, is already hemorrhaging support within the GOP. Recent public polls have shown a sharp decline in support among Republican voters for a potential Trump comeback bid in 2024. And a widely televised trial that reminds voters and lawmakers of the disturbing moments when MAGA devotees assaulted law enforcement officials and broke into the Capitol building could harm his future political aspirations even more.

“The Democrats have a very emotional and compelling case,” said former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon. “They’re going to try to convict him in the eyes of the American people and smear him forever.”

Trump’s legal team appears to have similar trepidations that next week’s proceedings will turn into a high-profile retelling of the riots and his role in them. To prevent that from happening, his lawyers have centered their case on whether it is constitutional to impeach a president after he’s left office. They also plan to argue that he did not engage in insurrection, saying his fiery speech on the ellipse of the White House was protected by the First Amendment, without indulging a lengthy discussion about what happened on Jan. 6.

“We don’t need to focus on Jan. 6 because this is unconstitutional,” said a person familiar with the strategy, who was not authorized to speak publicly. “There’s a lot of legal technical arguments that are going to be discussed.”

The concern among Trump’s allies that the trial will be a relitigation of the events at the Capitol underscores the degree to which next week is being viewed as a public relations matter for the optics-obsessed former president. It was notable on Thursday that in a letter dismissing the House impeachment managers’ calls for Trump to testify at the trial, the ex-president’s lawyers decried the request as a “public relations stunt.”

Still, there is little Trump’s team can do to stop the trial from veering towards a discussion of Jan. 6, since the impeachment managers are likely to focus intensely on the riots — and could, indeed, call witnesses to testify about what happened. In advance of that happening, top Republicans have begun to warn that Democrats are trying to score political points rather than address substantive constitutional matters.

 

Good luck with that, folks.

 

You bought the ticket, now you take the ride.