Retribution Execution, Con't

House GOP Number 3 Clown Elise Stefanik has filed an ethics complaint against  NY Trump civil trial Judge Arthur Engoron for the crime of overseeing that civil fraud case against Donald Trump.

Rep. Elise Stefanik, the House GOP conference chair, has filed a judicial ethics complaint against the judge presiding over the New York civil fraud case against Donald Trump, accusing Judge Arthur Engoron of “weaponized lawfare” against the former president, and calling on the judge to recuse himself.

Engoron has exhibited “clear judicial bias” against Trump, including by telling Trump’s attorney that the former president is “just a bad guy” whom New York Attorney General Letitia James “should go after,” Stefanik, R-N.Y., said in a letter to the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct. She said the judge has failed to honor Trump’s due process rights, concerns that she said are exacerbated by the former president’s position as the front-runner for the presidential nomination.

Engoron is presiding over a bench trial in the $250 million lawsuit, meaning the judge will also determine guilt and any penalties in the case. The suit, filed by James last year, accuses Trump of inflating asset values for financial gain. Trump testified angrily on Monday in the high-stakes case and has complained and clashed with the judge for weeks.

Engoron issued a partial gag order on Trump last month after he made disparaging remarks about a law clerk on social media and to reporters. He was fined twice for violating the gag order. The judge expanded the gag order last week to include the former president’s lawyers.

“I filed an official judicial complaint against Judge Arthur Engoron for his inappropriate bias and judicial intemperance in New York’s disgraceful lawsuit against President Donald J. Trump and the Trump Organization,” Stefanik said in a statement to NBC News. “Americans are sick and tired of the blatant corruption by radical Leftist judges in NY. All New Yorkers must speak out against the dangerous weaponized lawfare against President Trump.”

Stefanik said in the letter to accompany the complaint that Engoron had illegally gagged Trump’s protected political speech, violated political giving rules with financial contributions to Democrats as recently as 2018, and ignored a decision on the appropriate statute of limitations in the case. At the start of the trial, Engoron “infamously smiled and posed for the cameras,” she noted.

“If Judge Engoron can railroad a billionaire New York businessman, a former President of the United States, and the leading presidential candidate, just imagine what he could do to all New Yorkers,” Stefanik writes. “Judge Engoron’s lawlessness sends an ominous and illegal warning to New York business owners: If New York judges don’t like your politics, they will destroy your business, the livelihood of your employees, and you personally. This Commission cannot let this continue.”

“All Americans, including political opponents, must receive due process and equal protection under our U.S. and New York Constitutions,” Stefanik wrote. “Judge Engoron’s disdain for President Trump and his politics are evident, and the Commission must take corrective action to restore a just process and protect our constitutional rights. Judge Engoron must recuse from this case.”

You can tell how badly things are going for Trump in this case if he called up Stefanik and had her file this formal complaint to try to force Judge Engoron to recuse himself.  It also becomes a major marker in any expected appeal to a higher court.

Again, Trump's play is get back in office and have all of his legal problems go away. No, he can't pardon a state civil judgment, but he can have SCOTUS toss the case. He has to win in November or he's going to jail, broke and penniless. He just has to outlast the legal process.

We'll see, but this is clearly a long shot. It does however have the advantage of giving Trump fundraising fodder for millions more, which is the real point.

 

 

Orange Meltdown, Con't

Former Trump legal adviser, Big Lie architect and Georgia indicted RICO co-conspirator John Eastman is much closer to losing his bar license in California after a judge determined that he violated ethics standards in Trump's January 6th coup attempt.

 

A California judge made a “preliminary finding” Thursday that attorney John Eastman breached professional ethics when he aided Donald Trump’s bid to overturn the 2020 election, a significant milestone in the lengthy proceedings over whether Eastman should lose his license to practice law.

Eastman said Thursday that the extensive disbarment proceedings — which delved deeply into his allegations of election fraud and irregularities, as well as his fringe theories about the vice president’s power to unilaterally choose the winner of the presidential election — had strengthened his belief that the 2020 election was tainted. Now, state bar officials are preparing to present “aggravation” evidence aimed at justifying their call to strip Eastman, a veteran conservative attorney who once clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, of his law license.

The proceedings, which began in June, featured 30 days of testimony from witnesses that included former Vice President Mike Pence’s legal counsel Greg Jacob, former Bush administration attorney John Yoo, officials from numerous state election offices, statisticians and data analysts that Eastman relied on for some of his claims of widespread election irregularities, and constitutional law experts who delved into the history of the counting of electoral votes.

Eastman took the stand for more than a dozen hours throughout the trial and described his interactions with Trump in a Jan. 4, 2021, Oval Office meeting; his work with other members of Trump’s legal team like Boris Epshteyn and Kenneth Chesebro; and the drafting of his infamous memos describing options for Pence to assert control of the counting of electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021.

Eastman’s fight for his bar license comes as he is also fending off criminal charges in Georgia, where he was charged alongside Trump and 17 others with a sweeping racketeering conspiracy aimed at subverting the state’s election laws in 2020.

Eastman said he never considered the impact of his words on Jan. 6, 2021, when he addressed the crowd of Trump supporters gathered near the White House ahead of their march to the Capitol. He said the crowd was already convinced the election was stolen and was there to see Trump, not him, and did not view his remarks as somehow “solidifying” their anger.

“I didn’t have any thought about that one way or the other,” he said on the witness stand. “My point in speaking on Jan. 6 was to raise concerns about illegality in the conduct of the election that may well have led to the certification of somebody who did not win the election.”

Investigators for the California bar spent much of the trial delving deeply into Eastman’s claims of fraud that he used in a failed attempt to convince state legislatures to send “contingent” presidential electors to Congress on Jan. 6. They argued that Eastman relied on obviously flawed methods and assumptions meant to secure a predetermined outcome: that Trump should remain in power.

Throughout his testimony, Eastman emphasized that he never showed Trump his two-page and six-page memos outlining options for Pence, which he said were merely meant as “internal” documents outlining “scenarios” to be considered by Trump’s lawyers. He said he recalled only sharing the memos with Epshteyn and Chesebro before meeting with Trump on Jan. 4, 2021.

 

Eastman should be doing some time in a Georgia correctional facility soon, but being disbarred in California is just the icing on this grungy cake as far as I'm concerned. The people who helped Trump try to steal the Oval Office should be doing significant time, and they should be punished severely for what they tried to do.

We'll see if they are.

Orange Meltdown, Con't

Donald Trump's testimony in front of NY civil judge Arthur Engoron today went about as badly as most Trump-watchers (including myself) expected it to go.

As Donald Trump prepared to take the stand in the civil fraud trial that could destroy his business empire, the ex-president and his attorneys settled on a strategy built on spite and unbridled antagonism. According to two sources familiar with the matter and another person briefed on Team Trump’s legal strategies, Trump and his lawyers want to intentionally provoke the judge into a nuclear-level overreaction.

They certainly seem to be carrying out the plan on Monday. Trump dodged questions and ranted about this “haters” while on the witness stand, leading Judge Arthur Engoron to scold him repeatedly and push the former president’s attorneys to rein in their client. “I beseech you to control him if you can,” Engoron implored. “If you can’t, I will. I will excuse him and draw every negative inference that I can.”

An explosive response from Engoron could include ordering Trump to be remanded to a jail cell for the night. The judge in the case had already imposed a gag order on Trump, warning him to refrain from attacks on the judge’s staff. Late last week, the order was expanded to also include Trump’s attorneys. Trump has still shown a brazen willingness to violate it repeatedly. And as bizarre as it may sound, there are attorneys and political advisers to Trump who have told the former president that a so-called “remand order” to put him in custody for repeatedly breaching the judge’s rulings might be a good thing — both legally and politically.

The ex-president’s legal advisers had long ago told Trump that his chances of winning at trial are close to zero — hence, their scorched-earth, “Fyre Festival”-style courtroom performances. According to the three sources, several Trump attorneys and other key allies have advised him that the more the New York judge supposedly “overreacts” — including perhaps remanding Trump — the better their case for an appeal will be.

“I call it the Chicago 7 disruption strategy,” Alan Dershowitz, the celebrity lawyer who defended then-President Trump during his first impeachment, tells Rolling Stone.

“When a defendant honestly believes he can’t possibly get a fair trial from the judge, one of the tactics is to antagonize the judge to a point of causing reversible errors,” Dershowitz says. “That is what happened in the Chicago 7 case, and I was one of the lawyers on the appeal in that case. Abbie Hoffman provoked Judge Hoffman to such a degree that the judge made mistake after mistake. And courts of appeal often reverse convictions or verdicts when the judge has made serious errors.”

In recent weeks, the former president and some of his lawyers in the New York civil fraud trial have discussed the likelihood of Engoron very aggressively responding to Trump team’s strategy of relentless hostility and defiance. The tactics have included attacks on Engoron’s court clerk, filibustering the prosecution’s witnesses with repetitive questions, and raising legal arguments the judge had already specifically prohibited.

This has included Trump asking his legal advisers if the judge would, or could, actually go so far as to send him to jail for a short time, the sources tell Rolling Stone. Trump has been told such an order is probably unlikely — though Engoron has publicly put the option on the table. This is one reason why Trump and his counselors have kept up with their brazen strategy of infuriating a judge who has openly threatened the former president with possible jail time.

The legal team has further assured Trump that even if he were remanded, they would likely be able to deploy a variety of legal tactics to keep him from spending any time behind bars. According to two other sources with knowledge of the situation, some Trump advisers have already reached out to certain outside attorneys to see if those lawyers would be interested in joining that potential fight to keep Trump out of jail. (Some of those lawyers have preemptively turned Team Trump down.)

In addition, there have been recent conversations among some of Trump’s 2024 campaign brass of how much of an immediate fundraising boost they would enjoy, if a New York judge were to try to put Trump in a cell for even a minute. “All the cash in the world,” one Trump political adviser says.

Our legal system is not built to handle Trump. As I told you months ago, the Trump plan is to goad Engoron and the other judges in his various cases into an either ruinous sanction that will be used for grounds to appeal, or to make the case impossible to prosecute, or both.

Right now Trump is running his playbook perfectly. Judge Engoron clearly knows this. So how much will he continue to let Trump get away with? 

The answer appears to be as much as Trump can and everyone in America knows it.

The Big Lie, Con't

Republicans continue the Big Lie because Donald Trump demands it, and the media continues to allow them to get away with it.

 

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) refused to answer whether the 2020 election was stolen when pressed eight separate times in a Sunday interview with ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos.

Asked about conservative Rep. Ken Buck’s (R-Colo.) decision to leave Congress and his departing remark that “too many Republican leaders are lying to America, claiming that the 2020 election was stolen,” Scalise avoided responding directly in the interview on ABC News’s “This Week.”

“Well, Ken, I’ve worked with on a number of issues, including getting spending under control, getting our economy back on track. He’s talked about that 2020 election as well. You and I have, I think, have talked about that too,” Scalise said. “At the end of the day, getting our country back on track is our focus. And that’s what we’re focused on right now.”

“Can you say unequivocally the 2020 election was not stolen?” Stephanopoulos asked Scalise, after the congressman detailed several other legislative priorities for the party.

Scalise dodged the question.

“What I’ve told you, there are states that didn’t follow their laws. That is what the state constitution — the U.S. Constitution requires,” he said. “Every state ought to follow the laws that are on their books. That’s what the U.S. Constitution says.”

“That’s not what I asked,” Stephanopoulos retorted. “I said, can you say unequivocally that the 2020 election was not stolen?”

“Look, Joe Biden’s president. I know you and others want to talk about 2020. We’re focused on the future. We’ve talked about 2020 a lot. We’re talking about how to get our country back on track, how to get our economy moving, how to stand up to the bad actors around the world,” Scalise said.

“Congressman, I know that Joe Biden is president. I’m asking you a different question. Can you say unequivocally that the 2020 election was not stolen?” Stephanopoulos said, continuing to press him.

Scalise dodged again, citing certain states that he claimed “didn’t follow the laws that are on their books, which is what the U.S. Constitution says they have to do.”

Scalise’s argument is a reiteration of a frequent concern predominantly among voters of former President Trump. They argued that the changes made during the pandemic to allow for mail-in ballots and other measures encouraging voter participation somehow violated state law — even though the changes were largely passed through state legislatures or other legal procedures.

“So you, so you just refuse to say unequivocally that the 2020 election was not stolen?” Stephanopoulos said again.

“You want to keep rehashing 2020. We’re talking about the future,” Scalise said, as the two spoke over each other.

“I just want an answer to the question, yes or no?”

“We’ve asked — look, we’ve talked about this before. But, again, will you acknowledge that there were states that didn’t follow the actual state legislative enacted laws on their book, which the U.S. Constitution says they’re supposed to do?” Scalise said, again refusing to answer.

“I know that every court that looked at whether the election was stolen said it wasn’t, rejected those claims. And I asked you a very, very simple question. Now I’ve asked it, I think, the fifth time that you can’t appear to answer. Can you say unequivocally that the 2020 election was not stolen?”

The exchange continued without coming to any ultimate resolution.

 

Scalise ran rings around Stephanopoulos again and again and refused to answer the question, and the veteran interviewer simply gave up because he was tired of trying to nail jello to the wall. Scalise knew 100% what he was doing and walked away with total victory.

Republican after Republican is allowed to get away with this, and that remains the problem. Our media is not equipped to stop the Big Lie in any way.The worse lies coming from the GOP in the next year plus will be far worse, and our media is going to get rolled even harder as a result.

There are a few Republicans who will admit that Biden was legitimately elected, and that's only because they are term-limited in purple states like Virginia.

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) on Sunday acknowledged President Biden was the “legitimately elected president” as Republicans continue to be peppered with questions about whether the 2020 election was legitimate.

Pressed by ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos on whether the 2020 election was stolen, Youngkin said, “Well, I’ve consistently said that Joe Biden was legitimately elected president. He’s sleeping in the White House. I wish he weren’t.”

 

Youngkin doesn't have to face GOP primary voters again, so he doesn't have to lie. If he did,he'll change his tune.

And nobody will ask him why.

Last Call For Retribution Execution, Con't

The Trump 2024 people are screaming from the rooftops that they will make mass arrests of Democrats and their voters in 2025 and at this point I have to assume that a whole lot of your friends and neighbors are going to spend the next year trying to get on Team Fascism so that they don't end up on the pogrom lists.

 

Donald Trump and his allies have begun mapping out specific plans for using the federal government to punish critics and opponents should he win a second term, with the former president naming individuals he wants to investigate or prosecute and his associates drafting plans to potentially invoke the Insurrection Act on his first day in office to allow him to deploy the military against civil demonstrations.

In private, Trump has told advisers and friends in recent months that he wants the Justice Department to investigate onetime officials and allies who have become critical of his time in office, including his former chief of staff, John Kelly, and former attorney general William P. Barr, as well as his ex-attorney Ty Cobb and former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Mark A. Milley, according to people who have talked to him, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. Trump has also talked of prosecuting officials at the FBI and Justice Department, a person familiar with the matter said.

In public, Trump has vowed to appoint a special prosecutor to “go after” President Biden and his family. The former president has frequently made corruption accusations against them that are not supported by available evidence.

To facilitate Trump’s ability to direct Justice Department actions, his associates have been drafting plans to dispense with 50 years of policy and practice intended to shield criminal prosecutions from political considerations. Critics have called such ideas dangerous and unconstitutional.

“It would resemble a banana republic if people came into office and started going after their opponents willy-nilly,” said Saikrishna Prakash, a constitutional law professor at the University of Virginia who studies executive power. “It’s hardly something we should aspire to.”

Much of the planning for a second term has been unofficially outsourced to a partnership of right-wing think tanks in Washington. Dubbed “Project 2025,” the group is developing a plan, to include draft executive orders, that would deploy the military domestically under the Insurrection Act, according to a person involved in those conversations and internal communications reviewed by The Washington Post. The law, last updated in 1871, authorizes the president to deploy the military for domestic law enforcement.

The proposal was identified in internal discussions as an immediate priority, the communications showed. In the final year of his presidency, some of Trump’s supporters urged him to invoke the Insurrection Act to put down unrest after the murder of George Floyd in the summer of 2020, but he never did it. Trump has publicly expressed regret about not deploying more federal force and said he would not hesitate to do so in the future.

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung did not answer questions about specific actions under discussion. “President Trump is focused on crushing his opponents in the primary election and then going on to beat Crooked Joe Biden,” Cheung said. “President Trump has always stood for law and order, and protecting the Constitution.”

The discussions underway reflect Trump’s determination to harness the power of the presidency to exact revenge on those who have challenged or criticized him if he returns to the White House. The former president has frequently threatened to take punitive steps against his perceived enemies, arguing that doing so would be justified by the current prosecutions against him. Trump has claimed without evidence that the criminal charges he is facing — a total of 91 across four state and federal indictments — were made up to damage him politically.

“This is third-world-country stuff, ‘arrest your opponent,’” Trump said at a campaign stop in New Hampshire in October. “And that means I can do that, too.”

Special counsel Jack Smith, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Biden have all said that Smith’s prosecution decisions were made independently of the White House, in accordance with department rules on special counsels.

Trump, the clear polling leader in the GOP race, has made “retribution” a central theme of his campaign, seeking to intertwine his own legal defense with a call for payback against perceived slights and offenses to right-wing Americans. He repeatedly tells his supporters that he is being persecuted on their behalf and holds out a 2024 victory as a shared redemption at their enemies’ expense.

 

Again, Trump is promising that he'll arrest Democrats and their supporters, maybe tens of thousands or more, and that he'll deploy the US military against Americans, and your friends and neighbors and co-workers are not only okay with this, they're actively rooting for it to happen.

And if the polls are any indication, a whole lot of people are considering being on the side that supports the coming fascism rather than resisting it. 

President Biden is trailing Donald J. Trump in five of the six most important battleground states one year before the 2024 election, suffering from enormous doubts about his age and deep dissatisfaction over his handling of the economy and a host of other issues, new polls by The New York Times and Siena College have found.

The results show Mr. Biden losing to Mr. Trump, his likeliest Republican rival, by margins of three to 10 percentage points among registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania. Mr. Biden is ahead only in Wisconsin, by two percentage points, the poll found.

Across the six battlegrounds — all of which Mr. Biden carried in 2020 — the president trails by an average of 48 to 44 percent.

Discontent pulsates throughout the Times/Siena poll, with a majority of voters saying Mr. Biden’s policies have personally hurt them. The survey also reveals the extent to which the multiracial and multigenerational coalition that elected Mr. Biden is fraying. Demographic groups that backed Mr. Biden by landslide margins in 2020 are now far more closely contested, as two-thirds of the electorate sees the country moving in the wrong direction.

Voters under 30 favor Mr. Biden by only a single percentage point, his lead among Hispanic voters is down to single digits and his advantage in urban areas is half of Mr. Trump’s edge in rural regions. And while women still favored Mr. Biden, men preferred Mr. Trump by twice as large a margin, reversing the gender advantage that had fueled so many Democratic gains in recent years.

Black voters — long a bulwark for Democrats and for Mr. Biden — are now registering 22 percent support in these states for Mr. Trump, a level unseen in presidential politics for a Republican in modern times.

Add it all together, and Mr. Trump leads by 10 points in Nevada, six in Georgia, five in Arizona, five in Michigan and four in Pennsylvania. Mr. Biden held a 2-point edge in Wisconsin.

In a remarkable sign of a gradual racial realignment between the two parties, the more diverse the swing state, the farther Mr. Biden was behind, and he led only in the whitest of the six.

Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump are both deeply — and similarly — unpopular, according to the poll. But voters who overwhelmingly said the nation was on the wrong track are taking out their frustrations on the president.

 

We're about to hand this country back to an autocratic crook who will take endless revenge on anyone and everyone in sight in a massive purge of anyone even remotely critical of him backed by lethal military force, but it's okay because Joe Biden is old LOL.

 

Excusing the voters as ignorant doesn't work anymore. Trump is absolutely saying on a nearly weekly basis at rallies that he's going to hurt people. And the majority of the American people want it to happen. 

 

Biden needs to get his ass in gear and run like he's 10 points down.

 

Because right now?

 

He is.

Voters, by a 59 percent to 37 percent margin, said they better trusted Mr. Trump over Mr. Biden on the economy, the largest gap of any issue. The preference for Mr. Trump on economic matters spanned the electorate, among both men and women, those with college degrees and those without them, every age range and every income level.

That result is especially problematic for Mr. Biden because nearly twice as many voters said economic issues would determine their 2024 vote compared with social issues, such as abortion or guns. And those economic voters favored Mr. Trump by a landslide 60 percent to 32 percent.

The findings come after Mr. Biden’s campaign has run millions of dollars in ads promoting his record, and as the president continues to tour the country to brag about the state of the economy. “Folks, Bidenomics is just another way of saying the American dream!” Mr. Biden declared on Wednesday on a trip to Minnesota.

Voters clearly disagree. Only 2 percent of voters said the economy was excellent.

"At least Trump made the trains run on time"is gonna be the epitaph of this country at this rate. And the kids? The kids want to go back to Trump.

Voters under 30 — a group that strongly voted for Mr. Biden in 2020 — said they trusted Mr. Trump more on the economy by an extraordinary 28 percentage-point margin after years of inflation and now high interest rates that have made mortgages far less affordable. Less than one percent of poll respondents under 30 rated the current economy as excellent, including zero poll respondents in that age group in three states: Arizona, Nevada and Wisconsin.

“I actually had high hopes for Biden,” said Jahmerry Henry, a 25-year-old who packages liquor in Albany, Ga. “You can’t be worse than Trump. But then as the years go by, things happen with inflation, the war going on in Ukraine, recently Israel and I guess our borders are not secure at all.”

Now Mr. Henry plans to back Mr. Trump.

“I don’t see anything that he has done to benefit us,” said Patricia Flores, 39, of Reno, Nev., who voted for Mr. Biden in 2020 but won’t support him again in 2024.

 

"You can't be worse than Trump", but they're going to vote for him anyhow. We really are going to hand this place back over to Trump for a second go and he'll finish the country off. The psychopathy and despair are real. The Zoomers who will never be able to afford a house are willing to roll the dice on the autocrat again. Hey, maybe he'll crash the housing market so they can buy cheap.

Of course, Biden siding America with the country openly asking why they can't nuke a civilian population because there are "no non-combatants in Gaza" doesn't exactly put him with the good guys, either, as awful as Trump is.

The rest of us have a lot of work to do in convincing others that's not the case. We know he's going to destroy the place.  Trump going to prison before the election might be the only thing that saves us.

On the other hand, having said all this...

Let's remember that the NY Times can definitely be wrong on this election.

And we've been down before a year out.

The larger point is we have an entire year. Let's not waste it.

 

Trump Cards, Con't

If the oral arguments in last week's Minnesota's Supreme Court case involving removing Donald Trump from the ballot in the state over January 6th are any indication, there's little chance he'll be kept off the ballot in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

 

Minnesota Supreme Court justices appeared skeptical Thursday that states have the authority to block former President Donald Trump from the ballot, with some suggesting that Congress is best positioned to decide whether his role in the 2021 U.S. Capitol attack should prevent him from running.

Justices sharply questioned an attorney representing Minnesota voters who had sued to keep Trump, the early front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, off the state ballot under the rarely used “insurrection” clause of the U.S. Constitution. Citing Congress’ role in certifying presidential electors and its ability to impeach, several justices said it seemed that questions of eligibility should be settled there.

“And those all seem to suggest there is a fundamental role for Congress to play and not the states because of that,” Chief Justice Natalie E. Hudson said. “It’s that interrelation that I think is troubling, that suggests that this is a national matter for Congress to decide.”

The oral arguments before the state Supreme Court were unfolding during an unprecedented week, as courts in two states were debating questions that even the nation’s highest court has never settled — the meaning of the insurrection clause in the Civil War-era 14th Amendment and whether states are even allowed to decide the matter. At stake is whether Trump will be allowed on the ballot in states where lawsuits are challenging his eligibility.

The Minnesota lawsuit and another in Colorado, where a similar hearing is playing out, are among several filed around the country to bar Trump from state ballots in 2024 over his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, which was intended to halt Congress’ certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 win. The Colorado and Minnesota cases are furthest along, putting one or both on an expected path to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Minnesota’s went directly to the state Supreme Court, where five of the seven justices heard the arguments on Thursday after two recused themselves. The justices consistently questioned whether it was appropriate for states to determine a candidate’s eligibility to run for president. Hudson also said she was concerned about the possibility “for just chaos” if multiple states decided the issue differently.

She said even if the court had the authority to keep Trump off the ballot, “Should we is the question that concerns me the most.”

The former president is dominating the Republican presidential primary as voting in the first caucus and primary states rapidly approaches.

An attorney representing Trump, Nicholas Nelson, said states’ roles in determining candidates’ eligibility for president was limited to what he called “basic processing requirements,” such as determining whether they meet the age requirement.

He addressed the chief justice’s concern about the potential for chaos that could result from states deciding differently on the issue.

“Petitioners would like this to be a one-off case, but we are a 50-state democracy,” he said.

The question of whether Trump should be barred from the ballot under the insurrection section of the 14th Amendment should not even be before the court, he said, calling it a political question.

“There’s nothing for the courts to decide about the eligibility question,” Nelson told the justices.

Trump’s team asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit.

 

I don't expect the case to be dismissed, but I don't expect Trump to lose here, either (or in Colorado for that matter.)

 

No, this question is headed for SCOTUS as soon as it's able, and they will rule in favor of keeping Trump on the ballot, if not a unanimous vote.  This is not quite a colossal waste of time, but it's close.

Even if Trump is convicted before the election somehow, that won't change a thing as far as eligibility for the Oval Office. Not with this SCOTUS.

We'll see what happens, but Trump's almost certainly going to have to be defeated by the voters, and tens of millions of them want him back in charge...for good.

Trump Cards, Con't

Trump-appointed federal judge Aileen Cannon is all but signalling a significant delay in the Mar-a-Lago documents case against Trump himself, and I wouldn't expect this trial to begin -- if it begins at all -- until after the November 2024 election.

 

The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s indictment for allegedly mishandling national security secrets suggested Wednesday that she might push back the planned trial timeline, as courts wrestle with the growing complexity of juggling four separate criminal cases and an ongoing civil trial against the former president.

U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon listened to prosecutors argue at a hearing for keeping the schedule she set earlier this year, which includes a trial in May 2024. Lawyers for the former president insisted they needed more time to prepare.

“I’m having a hard time seeing how this work can be accomplished in this compressed time frame,” Cannon said at one point, focusing in particular on a federal trial scheduled to begin March 4 in Washington in which Trump is accused of conspiring to obstruct the results of the 2020 election.

Wednesday’s debate largely centered on looming deadlines for Trump’s lawyers to file pretrial motions in the Florida case. But pushing back that time frame could have a domino effect of delaying the entire trial schedule.

Prosecutor Jay Bratt argued that whatever the deadlines may be in other cases, those could all change, so it did not make sense to alter the trial date in the Florida case. Cannon sounded skeptical.

“I’m not quite seeing in your position an understanding of these realities,” Cannon told Bratt. The judge said she would rule on the schedule “as soon as possible.”

The hearing highlighted the complexities of a case that centers on highly classified documents, involving a defendant who has multiple competing court dates up and down the East Coast — even as he again runs for president.

Trump lawyer Todd Blanche spent close to an hour telling the judge how “voluminous” the evidence in the classified documents case is, and emphasizing that he and Trump’s other lawyers need more time to review it. He also noted that the D.C. indictment — also brought by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith — came after Trump was first charged in the classified-documents case. The Florida trial date was set by Cannon before Trump was indicted in Washington.

“Everything has changed” since Cannon first set the trial date, Blanche told the judge. “There is not a single part of your honor’s schedule that is not adversely affected by the D.C. case.”

Trump is charged in Florida with dozens of counts of mishandling classified information and plotting with two aides to obstruct government efforts to recover hundreds of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, his Palm Beach home and private club, after his presidency ended. He has pleaded not guilty.

 

Expect the trial to be pushed back until early 2025 at the soonest, which of course was the timeframe that Trump's lawyers asked for initially, that they would need two years to go over the evidence.  It was ridiculously obvious then that the lawyers expected Cannon to deliver on a scenario where a victorious Trump would be able to order the case dismissed after the November 2024 election, and it's even more obvious now just how corrupt Judge Cannon is.

Luckily for America, the other criminal proceedings against Trump are continuing apace.

Vote Like Your Country Depends On It

More than a few Muslim groups in the US are telling Joe Biden to broker a cease fire between Israel and Hamas now or else they will hand the country over to Trump and the GOP.

 

The National Muslim Democratic Council, which includes Democratic Party leaders from hotly contested states that can decide elections, such as Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, urged Biden to use his influence with Israel to broker a ceasefire by 5 p.m. ET (2100 GMT) on Tuesday.

In an open letter entitled "2023 Ceasefire Ultimatum," Muslim leaders pledged to mobilize "Muslim, Arab, and allied voters" to "withhold endorsement, support, or votes for any candidate who endorses the Israeli offensive against the Palestinian people."

"Your administration's unconditional support, encompassing funding and armaments, has played a significant role in perpetuating the violence that is causing civilian casualties and has eroded trust in voters who previously put their faith in you," the council wrote.

Emgage, a Muslim American civic group, found that nearly 1.1 million Muslims voted in the 2020 election. Associated Press exit polls showed 64% of Muslims voted for Biden, a Democrat, and 35% for his Republican rival, Donald Trump.

The Arab American Institute estimates 3.7 million Americans "trace their roots" to an Arab country; its poll results issued on Tuesday show support for Biden and Democrats has dropped significantly in this group.

The White House has scrambled to address concerns raised by community members and political appointees within the administration. Biden met with a handful of Muslim leaders last Thursday, a White House official said.

White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre declined to comment on the poll, but told reporters that Biden was aware that American Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim had "endured a disproportionate number ... of hate-fueled attacks" and respected their perspectives.

She said the Biden administration had been engaging with Arab and Muslim community members, along with Jewish leaders, as well as political appointees within the administration on their different concerns, and would continue those efforts.

Biden has spoken out against rising antisemitism and Islamophobia, but Muslim leaders say the war must end.

Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Minnesota, said he had no option but to vote against Biden in 2024 unless he worked to end the fighting. He said he was speaking as an individual, not on behalf of CAIR, which is barred from political campaigning.

Local pro-Palestinian groups have scheduled a protest in Minneapolis on Wednesday during a visit by Biden to Minnesota to tout his administration's investments in rural America.

Arab and Muslim American communities have voiced frustration that Biden has not condemned Israel's attacks on the Gaza Strip after an Oct. 7 attack by Palestinian Hamas militants from Gaza that Israel says killed 1,400 people and took 240 hostages.

Biden has said Israel has a right to defend its citizens but should protect innocent Palestinian civilians in Gaza who are victims of the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

Gaza health authorities say that 8,525 people, including 3,542 children, have been killed in Israeli attacks since Oct. 7. U.N. officials say more than 1.4 million of Gaza's civilian population of about 2.3 million have been made homeless.

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday he would not agree to any cessation of the attacks on Gaza. U.S. national security spokesman John Kirby said, "Hamas is the only one that would gain from that right now."

 

Needless to say, that 5 PM deadline yesterday passed without said ceasefire, and as a matter of fact, Israeli Defense Forces bombed a Gaza refugee camp in order to kill a top Hamas leader, and killed hundreds of civilians while they were at it.

 

Support for Biden has dropped from nearly 60% in 2020to the upper teens among Arab Americans in the latest Zogby poll, with support for Donald Trump up to 40%.

 

Believe me, I understand the rage of American Muslims right now, and I understand the rage of American Jews right now. I'm telling everyone that the solution to this problem in now way involves another Donald Trump term.

 

But I guess when Trump gets back in the White House and starts mass detainment of Muslims and closures of mosques, CAIR and company will have really shown Biden who's boss. 

That boss being Donald Trump. Keep thinking you'll even be able to vote at all under a GOP regime. Virginia purged more than 3,000 voters ahead of next week's elections by "accident". Republicans in NC and Mississippi are doing the same, except they're omitting the whole accident excuse.

Once these autocrats get into power, they will never relinquish it. But feel free to be on the side of the devils to make your bargain, folks. Trump's flunkies are gearing up for fascism as we speak, and you want to threaten the rest of us with that?

The rest of us will certainly remember.

Last Call For A Pence-ive Retreat

Former VP Mike Pence has dropped out of the 2024 GOP primary contest, to the surprise of nobody, and to the loss of no great value.

 

Former Vice President Mike Pence suspended his 2024 presidential campaign Saturday, with his campaign running low on money and the Republican Party moving in a different direction than the longtime Indiana conservative.

He made the unexpected announcement at the annual Republican Jewish Coalition convention in Las Vegas.

"I came here to say it’s become clear to me this is not my time. So after much deliberation I have decided to suspend my campaign for president effective today," he said onstage. "I have no regrets. The only thing that would have been harder than coming up short would have been if we never tried at all."

His spokesperson Devin O’Malley said Pence chose the convention for the announcement because “the conflict in Israel is a microcosm of what Pence has been evangelizing regarding populism and traditional conservative values."

“RJC provided him one last opportunity to make that case and do so in front of a supportive audience," O'Malley added.

Republican candidates praised Pence following his announcement. "He’s been a good man of faith. He’s been a good man of service," said former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis tweeted: “Vice President Mike Pence is a principled man of faith who has worked tirelessly to advance the conservative cause."

 

For all the (unfair) flak that current VP Kamala Harris gets about people not liking her (which is untrue) it's important to remember that Pence's party is currently eulogizing him even though he's you know, still alive.

 

His political career is quite dead however, and I'm sure he'll get a lobbyist job somewhere soon where he can be on the letterhead and give speeches where a whole 16 people will show up. Maybe he can hang out with Dan Quayle some more.

Nobody really cares, and good riddance to a man who took Trump's 30 silver in order to betray the country.

Bye.

Orange Meltdown, Con't

The judge in Donald Trump's NY civil fraud case has ordered Ivanka Trump to testify.

The judge overseeing the $250 million civil trial against Donald Trump and his company ordered the former president's daughter Ivanka Trump to testify in the case.

Judge Arthur Engoron said Friday she could not be called as a witness before Nov. 1, giving her time to appeal the ruling if she chooses.

Trump's attorneys had challenged New York Attorney General Letitia James' subpoena to Ivanka Trump, noting an appeals court had ruled earlier this year that she should be dropped as a defendant in the case over statute of limitations issues.

They contended the AG's office was trying "to continue to harass and burden President Trump’s daughter long after" the appeals court "mandated she be dismissed from the case."

They also argued that the AG waited too long to subpoena her, and argued the office doesn't have jurisdiction over her because she no longer lives in the state.

The AG's office countered that Ivanka Trump, a former White House official, still has information important to their case.

"While no longer a Defendant in this action, she indisputably has personal knowledge of facts relevant to the claims against the remaining individual and entity Defendants. But even beyond that, Ms. Trump remains financially and professionally intertwined with the Trump Organization and other Defendants and can be called as a person still under their control," the AG contended in a court filing.

The office said it wanted to ask her questions about Trump's former Washington, D.C. hotel, and noted she profited from the sale.

"Ms. Trump remains under the control of the Trump Organization, including through her ongoing and substantial business ties to the organization," the AG argued, adding that she "does not seem to be averse to her involvement in the family business when it comes to owning and collecting proceeds from the OPO (hotel) sale, the Trump Organization purchasing insurance for her and her companies, managing her household staff and credit card bills, renting her apartment or even paying her legal fees in this action. It is only when she is tasked with answering for that involvement that she disclaims any connection."

Ivanka Trump's siblings Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump and their father are all expected to testify in the case and have been listed as witnesses by both the AG and the defense.

 

Again, it's not like Donald Trump was able to consistently commit corporate fraud without the knowledge of the other officers of the Trump Corporation, i.e. Ivanka and her two chucklehead brothers.  We'll see what comes of this, but I expect the ruling against Trump is going to be enough to really hurt.

We'll see

 

 

 

Last Call For Meet The New Ringmaster Of The House GOP Circus

Getting 220 votes in today's House vote, Republicans have elected MAGA chud and former hate radio jock Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana as Speaker of the House.

 

House Republicans have elected Rep. Mike Johnson as the new speaker – a major moment that comes three weeks after Kevin McCarthy’s historic ouster.

There were 220 votes for Johnson and 209 votes for Democrat Hakeem Jeffries. There was unanimous GOP support behind Johnson. One Republican – Van Orden – was absent from the vote.

Johnson has been a vocal supporter of former President Donald Trump and was a key congressional figure in the failed efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Johnson was first elected to the House in 2016 and serves as vice chairman of the House Republican Conference, as well as GOP deputy whip, an assistant leadership role.

An attorney with a focus on constitutional law, Johnson joined a group of House Republicans in voting to sustain the objection to electoral votes on January 6, 2021. During Trump’s first impeachment trial in January 2020, Johnson, along with a group of other GOP lawmakers, served a largely ceremonial role in Trump’s Senate impeachment team.

 

As I mentioned, he's one of the MAGA bunch who helped run Trump's Big Lie to try to steal the election in the House.

The Louisiana Republican was first elected to the House in 2016 and serves as vice chairman of the House Republican Conference, as well as GOP deputy whip, an assistant leadership role. An attorney with a focus on constitutional law, Johnson joined a group of House Republicans in voting to sustain the objection to electoral votes on January 6, 2021. During Trump’s first impeachment trial in January 2020, Johnson, along with a group of other GOP lawmakers, served a largely ceremonial role in Trump’s Senate impeachment team.

Johnson also sent an email from a personal email account in 2020 to every House Republican soliciting signatures for an amicus brief in the longshot Texas lawsuit seeking to invalidate electoral college votes from multiple states.


After the election was called in favor of Joe Biden on November 7, 2020, Johnson posted on X, then known as Twitter, “I have just called President Trump to say this: ‘Stay strong and keep fighting, sir! The nation is depending upon your resolve. We must exhaust every available legal remedy to restore Americans’ trust in the fairness of our election system.’”

Although Trump said he won’t endorse anyone in the speaker’s race Wednesday, he eant support to Johnson in a post on Truth Social.

“In 2024, we will have an even bigger, & more important, WIN! My strong SUGGESTION is to go with the leading candidate, Mike Johnson, & GET IT DONE, FAST!” Trump posted.

Johnson serves on the Judiciary Committee and the Armed Services Committee. He is also a former chair of the Republican Study Committee.

 

So the GOP finally found an acceptable nutjob to run the place, an avowed MAGA chunderhead who hates all the approved check boxes: Black folk, LGBTQ+ folk, women, immigrants, climate change, and most important of all, liberals.

The prediction of "worse than McCarthy" was as easy as falling off a Louisiana bayou log. Democrats have not only the architect of the House Big Lie pla to run against, they have an avowed homophobic bigot who wants a national ban on LGBTQ+ even existing, as well as a national ban on abortion with no exceptions. Oh, and he led the effort by Trump in the House to overturn the 2020 election. They couldn't find a better example of the GOP in 2023 as a poster monster.

And remember, it was a unanimous vote for the GOP. Every single one of them wanted Johnson as Speaker. They are 100% the party of Donald Trump, period.

Time to go to work, Dems.

These Disunited States, Con't

A new PRRI poll finds a majority of Americans now believe that the country was better off before the Civil Rights era.

 

Fewer Americans believe that American culture and way of life has mostly changed for the better (44%) than changed for the worse (55%) since the 1950s. Republicans (73%) are more likely than independents (57%) and Democrats (34%) to believe it has mostly changed for the worse.

Nearly nine in ten Americans who most trust far-right news (89%), seven in ten Americans who most trust Fox news (71%), and nearly six in ten Americans who do not watch TV news (58%) believe American culture and way of life have mostly changed for the worse. Under half of Americans who most trust mainstream news (45%) believe the same.

Majorities of white Christians — including white evangelical Protestants (77%), white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants (60%), and white Catholics (57%) — believe American culture and way of life has mostly changed for the worse. Hispanic Catholics, Black Protestants, and non-Christian religious Americans are more divided. By contrast, religiously unaffiliated Americans are less likely to say American culture and way of life has changed for the worse (43%) than for the better (57%).

While younger Americans are not optimistic, they remain less likely than older Americans to believe that American culture and way of life have mostly changed for the worse: 49% of Generation Z and millennials, 58% of Generation X, 60% of baby boomers, and 67% of the Silent Generation.

The majority of white (58%) and Hispanic Americans (54%), and nearly half of Black Americans (47%), agree that America’s culture and way of life have mostly changed for the worse.

Americans without a college education are more likely than college-educated Americans to believe that America has changed for the worse, including 61% with some college and 60% with a high school education or less, compared with 46% of college graduates and 43% of postgraduates.

Americans in urban areas are divided on this question (50% better vs. 49% worse), compared with majorities of those who live in suburban (55%) and rural (67%) areas who believe that America’s culture and way of life have changed for the worse.

 

It gets a lot more disturbing when Americans are asked about how to fix things.

Just under four in ten Americans (38%) agree with the statement, “Because things have gotten so far off track in this country, we need a leader who is willing to break some rules if that’s what it takes to set things right,” while 59% disagree.

About half of Republicans (48%) agree with the need for a leader who is willing to break some rules, compared with four in ten independents (38%) and three in ten Democrats (29%). Majorities of Americans who most trust Fox News (53%) or far-right outlets (52%) agree that we need a leader who breaks the rules, compared with smaller shares of those who do not trust TV news (40%), or who most trust mainstream news (32%). Republicans with favorable views of former President Donald Trump are notably more likely than those with unfavorable views of Trump to agree with the need for a leader who is willing to break some rules (54% vs. 32%).

A slim majority of Hispanic Catholics (51%) agree with this statement, along with nearly four in ten religiously unaffiliated Americans (38%), white evangelical Protestants (37%), white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants (37%), non-Christians (37%), white Catholics (36%), and Black Protestants (35%). White Americans who attend religious services weekly or more (29%) are less likely than those who attend monthly or a few times a year (39%) or those who seldom or never attend services (37%) to agree with the need for a leader who is willing to break some rules.

Americans who believe that the country has changed for the worse since the 1950s are substantially more likely than those who say that it has changed for the better to agree with the need for a leader who is willing to break some rules (43% vs. 31%).

 

And more and more Americans are ready to turn to violence to try to solve the country's political problems, especially Republicans.

Disturbingly, support for political violence has increased over the last two years. Today, nearly a quarter of Americans (23%) agree that “because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country,” up from 15% in 2021. PRRI has asked this question in eight separate surveys since March 2021. This is the first time support for political violence has peaked above 20%.

One-third of Republicans (33%) today believe that true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country, compared with 22% of independents and 13% of Democrats. Those percentages have increased since 2021, when 28% of Republicans and 7% of Democrats held this belief. Republicans who have favorable views of Trump (41%) are nearly three times as likely as Republicans who have unfavorable views of Trump (16%) to agree that true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country.

Americans who believe that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump are more than three times as likely as those who do not believe that the election was stolen from Trump — 46% to 13%, respectively — to agree that true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country.

Over three in ten white evangelical Protestants (31%), along with 25% of white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants, 24% of Black Protestants, 23% of non-Christians, 23% of religiously unaffiliated Americans, 21% of Hispanic Catholics, and 20% of white Catholics agree that true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country. Among white Christians, there are no differences by church attendance on this question.

Americans who believe that the country has changed for the worse since the 1950s are more than twice as likely as those who say that it has changed for the better to agree that true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country (30% vs. 14%).

 

Again, one-third of Republicans believe in resorting to political violence. That number jumps to nearly half among people who believe the 2020 presidential election was "stolen". These numbers are only going to go up the closer we get to the November 2024 election, or to any real legal consequences in Trump's trials. 

Be careful out there.

Jack Makes A Deal, Or, Mark Of Betrayal

Fulton County Georgia DA may not have flipped former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows yet in her RICO case, but Jack Smith sure as hell got him to testify before a grand jury in his January 6th federal case.

 

Former President Donald Trump's final chief of staff in the White House, Mark Meadows, has spoken with special counsel Jack Smith's team at least three times this year, including once before a federal grand jury, which came only after Smith granted Meadows immunity to testify under oath, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The sources said Meadows informed Smith's team that he repeatedly told Trump in the weeks after the 2020 presidential election that the allegations of significant voting fraud coming to them were baseless, a striking break from Trump's prolific rhetoric regarding the election.

According to the sources, Meadows also told the federal investigators Trump was being "dishonest" with the public when he first claimed to have won the election only hours after polls closed on Nov. 3, 2020, before final results were in.

"Obviously we didn't win," a source quoted Meadows as telling Smith's team in hindsight.

Trump has called Meadows, one of the former president's closest and highest-ranking aides in the White House, a "special friend" and "a great chief of staff -- as good as it gets."

The descriptions of what Meadows allegedly told investigators shed further light on the evidence Smith's team has amassed as it prosecutes Trump for allegedly trying to unlawfully retain power and "spread lies" about the 2020 election. The descriptions also expose how far Trump loyalists like Meadows have gone to support and defend Trump.

Sources told ABC News that Smith's investigators were keenly interested in questioning Meadows about election-related conversations he had with Trump during his final months in office, and whether Meadows actually believed some of the claims he included in a book he published after Trump left office -- a book that promised to "correct the record" on Trump.

ABC News has identified several assertions in the book that appear to be contradicted by what Meadows allegedly told investigators behind closed doors.

According to Meadows' book, the election was "stolen" and "rigged" with help from "allies in the liberal media," who ignored "actual evidence of fraud, right there in plain sight for anyone to access and analyze."

But, as described to ABC News, Meadows privately told Smith's investigators that -- to this day -- he has yet to see any evidence of fraud that would have kept now-president Joe Biden from the White House, and he told them he agrees with a government assessment at the time that the 2020 presidential election was the most secure election in U.S. history.

 

Mark Meadows doesn't just know where the bodies are, he helped Trump bury them. He's testified at least once to a grand jury.

But does that mean he's actually going to help Jack Smith bury Trump? Marcy Wheeler throws up a big caution flag.

But I caution against concluding too much about what the testimony means. Most importantly, there’s no hint that Meadows has flipped. Meadows has testified (which a past ABC scoop made clear). But giving immunized testimony is not flipping, and the two ABC stories raise far more questions about the story Meadows has told.

I say that for several reasons. First, ABC doesn’t describe the dates for any of his interviews. I’ll return to that, but it’s important that ABC doesn’t reveal whether Meadows’ testimony to Jack Smith precedes or postdates the Georgia indictment and subsequent failure to get the Georgia indictment removed to Federal courts. An earlier big ABC scoop describes April grand jury testimony, and it’s not clear that this would be a different time frame or grand jury appearance.

I offer cautions, as well, because virtually all of ABC’s reporting says that Meadows was asked not about what Trump did on a given day, but whether Meadows believed what Meadows had said publicly. Here’s an example.

Sources told ABC News that Smith’s investigators were keenly interested in questioning Meadows about election-related conversations he had with Trump during his final months in office, and whether Meadows actually believed some of the claims he included in a book he published after Trump left office — a book that promised to “correct the record” on Trump.

Again, click through to see how much of the rest is of the same sort.

As I noted in my post on that prior big ABC scoop, there are still loads of details — especially about January 6 — missing from the public timeline that Meadows surely knows.

There’s a lot that’s missing here — most notably Meadows’ coordination with Congress and any efforts to coordinate with Mike Flynn and Roger Stone’s efforts more closely tied to the insurrection and abandoned efforts to deploy the National Guard to protect Trump’s mob as it walked to congress. Unless those actions get added to charges quickly, Meadows will be able to argue, in Georgia, that his actions complied with federal law without having to address them. If and when they do get charged in DC, I’m sure Meadows’ attorneys hope, his criminal exposure in Georgia will be resolved.

Importantly, that earlier ABC scoop served to signal co-conspirators how Meadows changed his testimony after prosecutors obtained proof his claims about his ghost-writers — the same ghost-writers whose book remains at the center of ABC’s scoop! — were proven wrong by further evidence.

That story suggested Meadows was only going to be as truthful as evidence presented to him required him to be.

And this story is of the same type. It describes how, as he did in the stolen documents case, Meadows said he didn’t believe what he wrote when it was legally necessary.

Meadows is trying to save his ass, yes. But it doesn't mean he's singing like a canary quite yet. 

Still, four major players in Trump's inner circle have now possibly turned on him in the last week.

 

Sleep well, Donnie. Prison bunks are far less comfortable.

 

Fani Makes A Deal, Or, Ellis If I Know

Another of Trump's Georgia co-conspirators turns state's evidence for Fulton County, Georgia DA Fani Willis's RICO case, this time it's former Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis. 

 

Jenna Ellis, a former Trump 2020 election attorney, struck a plea deal with Georgia prosecutors on Monday in their sweeping election racketeering case, making her the fourth of the original co-defendants charged by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to now be cooperating with investigators as they prepare for a trial against the former president and his other associates.

Under terms of the plea deal, which were signed Monday and made public Tuesday, Ellis agreed to a single felony count of aiding and abetting false statements and writings.

In brief remarks to Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, Ellis expressed remorse for her actions in the wake of the 2020 presidential election.

"What I did not do, but should have done, your honor, was make sure that the facts the other lawyers alleged to be true were in fact true," she said. "...I should have done my due diligence."

Ellis had been facing two felony counts over at least two memos to Trump and his lawyers advising that then-Vice President Mike Pence should disregard electoral votes from Georgia and other “contested” states during the lead-up to the Jan. 6, 2021, certification ceremony at the U.S. Capitol.

She's the fourth person charged by Willis to switch course after initially pleading not guilty. Pro-Trump lawyers Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell reached separate plea agreements late last week with Willis to cooperate with her investigation in exchange for their admissions of guilt and less stringent sentences. Those deals nixed a trial that was just getting started last Friday with jury selection in Fulton County.

 

Like The Big Chese Bro and The Kraken Lady, Ellis is getting probation and a fine in return for testifying against the other co-conspirators at a later date. DA Willis is putting on a master class here in busting organized crime and racketeering by flipping the smaller fish to catch the white whale. Or, you know, the orange whale in this case.

Last Call For That Poll-Asked Look, Con't

Polling from this summer indicated that RFK Jr.'s spoiler third-party run was drawing more Trump voters than Biden voters, but this time a poll from Harvard/Harris finds RFK Jr. is throwing the race to Trump.

 

Former President Trump is leading President Biden and Democrat-turned-independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in a three-way race, a new poll found.

The Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll survey, shared with The Hill, showed Trump receiving 39 percent support, Biden receiving 33 percent support and Kennedy receiving 19 percent support in a three-way race. A separate 9 percent of voters said they did not know or were unsure.

When those who were unsure were asked who they would vote for if they had to choose, Trump received 42 percent support, Biden received 36 percent and Kennedy received 22 percent.

In a two-way race, Trump holds a 5 percentage point lead over Biden, with the former president receiving 46 percent and Biden receiving 41 percent. Fourteen percent of respondents said they were unsure or didn’t know.

The survey noted that Biden gained 1 percentage point since a similar survey was conducted in September, while Trump gained 2 percentage points.

Biden still leads Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley in separate head-to-head match-ups.

Between Biden and DeSantis, Biden received 44 percent support while DeSantis received 40 percent. Between Biden and Haley, the president sat at 42 percent while Haley received 38 percent support.

The survey also indicated that Trump received the highest percentage of support when GOP voters were asked who they would vote for if the 2024 Republican primary were held today. Trump received 60 percent while DeSantis received 11 percent; all others received less than 10 percent, according to the poll.

“Trump’s polling continues to defy gravity both in the primary and the general election. Kennedy right now doesn’t change the result — an election held today would elect Donald Trump,” Mark Penn, the co-director of the Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll, said. “There is a lot of time and events to go, but Trump has a significant edge at the starting line.”

 

Again, a poll 12 months out from an election is about as predictive as a bucket of warm spit, but it continues to show that Trump facing 90+ counts in four separate criminal trials doesn't matter to half the country and that they'll vote for him anyway.  The polls have consistently shown him with a 40-50 point lead in the primaries despite the dozens of felony charges, to the point where I believe being indicted has actually helped him, not that Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley would have a chance in hell even without the criminal charges.

 

Trump continues to have a 46-point lead in the GOP primaries in the latest USA Today/Suffolk U poll, too.

Former UN ambassador Nikki Haley has surged nationally in a new USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll, challenging a faltering Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as the top alternative to Donald Trump for the GOP presidential nomination.

Haley's support has risen to 11% of registered voters who plan to vote in GOP primaries or caucuses, up from 4% in the USA TODAY/Suffolk poll taken in June and just one percentage point below DeSantis. His 12% standing was a steep fall from his 23% support four months ago.

Trump continues to dominate the field, backed by 58%, up 10 points.

 

However, the USA Today/Suffolk U poll shows again that RFK Jr. would turn a tie into a one-point Biden lead.

One in four voters, 26%, said they would seriously consider supporting a bipartisan ticket of a Republican and a Democrat that a centrist group called No Labels may field. Another 23% said they might consider it, depending on who the nominees were. Biden voters were more likely than Trump voters − 28% compared with 18% − to say they would take a serious look.

The poll of 1,000 registered voters, taken by landline and cell phone Tuesday through Friday, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Not since billionaire businessman H. Ross Perot drew 19% of the vote in 1992, enabling Bill Clinton to defeat President George H.W. Bush with just 43% of the popular vote, has the prospect of independent bids threatened to upend the standard two-party calculations of campaigns.

Without Kennedy in the mix, Trump would edge Biden by 41% to 39%, a lead within the survey's margin of error, with West at 7%. Without West in the mix, Biden would edge Trump by an even narrower margin, 38% to 37%, with Kennedy at 14%.

With neither Kennedy nor West on the ballot, Biden and Trump would tie at 41%-41%.

 

Polls aren't accurate this far out, but they are consistent, and there's more than enough polling data to show that the real problem is that Trump is anywhere close to winning, and that a good 40%+ of Americans are still willing to vote for the guy given the last seven years.

 

Trump's the symptom, sure. The root cause remains the people who still support him.

Trump Cards, Con't

As Marcy Wheeler explains, Trump's defense against Judge Tanya Chutkan's gag order in his January 6th case argues that Trump is not only entitled to unrestricted "free speech" by rallying his legion of MAGA chuds to rage against Chutkin herself, but that the rights of his followers to echo and spread that rage are being violated as well.

A substantial portion of the 33-page motion speaks for the First Amendment rights of his mob to hear, respond to, and amplify Trump’s speech. To defend this principle, Trump cites, among other things, the Missouri v. Biden that SCOTUS just agreed to review over the objections of Sam Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch.

Under the First Amendment, violating the rights of a speaker inflicts an equal and reciprocal constitutional injury on the listener. “Freedom of speech presupposes a willing speaker. But where a speaker exists, . . . the protection afforded is to the communication, to its source and to its recipients both.” Virginia State Bd. of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc., 425 U.S. 748, 756 (1976) (emphasis added) (collecting many cases); see also, e.g., Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. F.C.C., 395 U.S. 367, 390 (1969) (“It is the right of the viewers and listeners, not the right of the broadcasters, which is paramount.”); Packingham v. North Carolina, 582 U.S. 98, 104 (2017) (recognizing the right to “speak and listen, and then … speak and listen once more,” as a “fundamental principle of the First Amendment”); Missouri v. Biden, — F.4th –, No. 23- 30445, 2023 WL 6425697, at *11 (5th Cir. Oct. 3, 2023) (holding that the “right to listen is ‘reciprocal’ to the … right to speak” and “constitutes an independent basis” for relief). Thus, injuring President Trump’s ability to speak injures the First Amendment rights of over 100 million Americans who listen to him, respond to him, and amplify his message.

The claim to have 100 million listeners is a bit like calling his NY penthouse 33,000 square feet, insofar as it relies on overlapping numbers, including the 87 million followers he has but does not tweet to on Xitter.

Trump necessarily dedicates a very long footnote to explaining how he has standing to appeal this gag on behalf of his mob.

3 President Trump unquestionably has third-party standing to defend the rights of his audiences in this context. The Supreme Court is “quite forgiving” of third-party standing requirements “[w]ithin the context of the First Amendment.” Kowalski v. Tesmer, 543 U.S. 125, 130 (2004). The First Amendment’s overbreadth doctrine, for example, relieves the third-party plaintiff of the burden to show the usual “close relationship” and “hindrance” required by the third-party standing doctrine, id.; instead, Article III injury is all that is required. See id.; United States v. Sineneng-Smith, 140 S. Ct. 1575, 1586 (2020) (Thomas, J., concurring) (“Litigants raising overbreadth challenges rarely satisfy either requirement [‘close relationship’ and ‘hindrance’], but the Court nevertheless allows third-party standing.”) (citing Dombroski v. Pfister, 380 U.S. 479, 487 (1965)); N.J. Bankers Ass’n v. Att’y Gen., 49 F.4th 849, 860 (3d Cir. 2022) (noting that “the requirement that an impediment exist to the third party asserting his . . . own rights” does not apply when the challenged government action “substantially abridges the First Amendment rights of other parties not before the court”). Further, as the Supreme Court held in Bantam Books Inc. v. Sullivan, it is particularly important to allow third-party standing to vindicate First Amendment interests because “freedoms of expression … are vulnerable to gravely damaging yet barely visible encroachments” and must be protected by “the most rigorous procedural safeguards.” 372 U.S. 58, 66 (1963); see also id. at 64 n.6 (upholding the third-party standing of book publishers to assert the rights of distributors because “[t]he distributor … is not likely to sustain sufficient economic injury to induce him to seek judicial vindication of his rights,” whereas the seller has a “greater . . . stake” in vindicating those rights). In addition, the doctrine of third-party standing applies “when enforcement of the challenged restriction against the litigant would result indirectly in the violation of third parties’ rights.” Kowalski, 543 U.S. at 130. Here, the interference and restriction of President Trump’s First Amendment rights “would result indirectly in the violation of third parties’ rights,” id.—i.e., the rights of his audiences to receive, respond to, and amplify his speech.

I think this footnote is suspect, legally and practically. I mean, the notion that Stephen Miller’s NGO for fascism couldn’t vindicate these rights is nonsense. But it is nevertheless telling.

Trump makes that argument even while complaining that Judge Chutkan had to rely on the potential actions of others — that very same mob riled up by the amplified false victimization of Trump — to justify the gag itself.

Unable to justify the Gag Order based on President Trump’s actions, the prosecution pivots to third parties, alleging that unnamed others, outside of President Trump’s control, acted improperly before this case began. Such concerns cannot justify the Gag Order. The Supreme Court has repeatedly explained that citizens of this country cannot be censored based on a fear of what others might do. Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 447 (1969) (“[T]he constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy . . . except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.”).

[snip]

In entering the Gag Order, the Court relied heavily on the anticipated reactions of unidentified, independent third parties to President Trump’s speech. The Court found that “when Defendant has publicly attacked individuals, including on matters related to this case, those individuals are consequently threatened and harassed.” Id. at 2. But the Court cited no evidence that President Trump’s statements—as distinct from the statements of millions of others—caused such alleged threats or harassment, let alone that the statements were directed to inciting imminent lawless action.

Remember, Trump has repeatedly denied that the indictment accuses him of mobilizing the mob against Congress. Even after DOJ disabused Trump of that fantasy, he is playing coy about the fact that the crime he is alleged to have committed significantly involves riling up a mob to use as a weapon.

Indeed, Trump admits this is the plan to get elected: to rile up the mob again, this time by using this prosecution as a trigger.

The prosecution filed the indictment in this matter on August 1, 2023. Doc. 1. As this case is pending, President Trump continues to campaign for President, and one of his core messages is that the prosecutions against him are part of an unconstitutional strategy to attack and silence the Biden Administration’s chief political rival. To advance this message, President Trump has made many public statements criticizing individuals he believes are wrongly prosecuting him, including President Biden, Attorney General Garland, and Special Prosecutor Jack Smith and his team. This viewpoint—that the prosecution is politically motivated—is one shared by countless Americans.

[snip]

President Trump’s speech in support of his re-election campaign—which is inextricably intertwined with this prosecution and his defense—lies “at the core of our electoral process of the First Amendment freedoms—an area . . . where protection of robust discussion is at its zenith.” Meyer v. Grant, 486 U.S. 414, 425 (1988) (citations and quotations omitted); see also Buckley v. Am. Const. Law Found., Inc., 525 U.S. 182, 186–87 (1999); McIntyre v. Ohio Elec. Comm’n, 514 U.S. 334, 347 (1995) (“[C]ore political speech” encompasses any “advocacy of a politically controversial viewpoint.” “No form of speech is entitled to greater constitutional protection than” core political speech.).

Some of this is just cynicism: by claiming all this is political speech, Trump does base his appeal on the most expansive First Amendment precedent. The legal arguments here, some of them, anyway, are not frivolous.

But he’s not wrong about his campaign strategy. The key to Trump’s political success since he was sworn in was to polarize the electorate based off false claims that any investigation of Trump’s crimes is an attack on him and his mob.

Wheeler is right, of course. The whole "You can't prosecute me because you're hurting the people who voted for me" nonsense is literally Trump claiming he's immune from legal repercussions because he has a giant mob at his beckon call and that the "injury" done to his supporters by even investigating Trump renders him invincible.

If that's somehow the accepted legal justification, then no politician in the country can be touched because it unfairly hurts their supporters, voters, and followers, and Trump's legal team goes on to say that this is the highest form of democracy.

It's mob rule over all other things, and whoever has the biggest mob wins.