Have you not liked James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas and been hoping for years to see these sleazy degenerates get into a world of hurt? This may be your lucky day. We’ve known for a while that Project Veritas got hold of the diary and more of Ashley Biden, Joe Biden’s daughter. That story has been rattling around for almost two years and Project Veritas has made great hay out of how the investigation is allegedly an attack on their First Amendment rights. The DOJ just announced two plea deals with the thieves, one of whom, Robert Kurlander, has agreed to testify against the as yet unnamed “organization” noted in the plea deal.

That’s Project Veritas.

We’ll have an accompanying news story shortly. But this is a case where I have some specific insight and perspective as an editor and publisher about how to stay out of trouble or, as Project Veritas seems to have done here, get in a lot of trouble.

So here goes.

My God it’s been a while since I’ve seen this level of journalistic force-feeding of self-wompery to what may be embarrassingly compliant Democrats. Politico Nightly is just out noting that even skeptics now recognize the demise of Roe profoundly reordered the trajectory of the 2022 midterms. And this is … wait for it … terrible news for the Democrats! Wait, what? When I saw the headline (“Post-Roe political regrets sink in”) I figured this was about electorally focused Republicans having some misgivings about defying the views of solid verging on overwhelming majorities who wanted to keep the Roe status quo. But no, it’s Democrats who are crying in their beer because they didn’t anticipate the anti-Dobbs backlash enough a year ago and didn’t get referendums and propositions on ballots in every state.

From TPM Reader JS …

Democrats always do this.

They have an issue that’s popular and that they have the power to do. But it gets staffed/committeed to death and all of the sexiness is taken out. It starts as a transformational thing, then Very Serious People in the media tell you why it’s a bad idea that will be bad for Democrats when really it just makes them mad. Then the Democrats get criticism from people who like the idea for not doing it and from people who feel like they need to be with the smart kids and who doubt it.

Pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, today the Biden administration released an unredacted version of the memo Bill Barr received recommending against obstruction of justice charges tied to President Trump’s actions detailed in volume two of the Mueller Report. That was the part of the Report that made the case about obstruction of justice.

To understand the context, these were two Trump appointees (Steven A. Engel and Edward C. O’Callaghan) working under Barr, who had made clear publicly prior to his nomination as attorney general that he did not think the Mueller investigation was merited or proper. So this is essentially two of Barr’s subordinates preparing a memo for Barr containing what all involved knew Barr wanted to hear.

Still, it is a notable document for understanding the internal reasoning and justifications. Also important: We know there is a longstanding DOJ policy that holds that a sitting President cannot be prosecuted at all. This memo sets that question aside and simply looks at whether prosecution would be merited in any case. Worth a read.

TPM Reader DD says I’m not seeing the forest for the trees about Democratic prospects in the House. From DD …

Reader reaction with some thoughtful nuance about Dem chances on holding the House

The recent upswing for Democrats across several metrics has folks, including yourself, feeling hopeful that Democrats could somehow maintain control of the House. Now I know you’ve said it’s still a long shot and unlikely but I think that long shot misses the forest for the trees (or actually the trees for the forest).

At the macro level there are plenty of reasons to maintain that hope, and the rising, and real, fortunes of Senate Democrats seem to color that perspective. But with the House it’s a matter of math and race-by-race dynamics. By those measures the House is all but gone for Democrats, although the losses may be low enough that they’re in the hunt to reclaim the majority in 2024.

Another point which comes out of last night’s result. It now seems quite possible, perhaps even probable, that the outcome of the midterms will come down to high stakes GOP redistricting wins that came right at the end of the cycle in NY, FL and OH. I don’t say that to bum anyone out or to predict that Democrats can’t win the House. It is only to note how close it seems likely to be and that those extra seats could well be in the margin.

I’ve just seen it noted that it now appears that in all five post-Dobbs special elections to the House Democrats have improved on Biden’s 2020 performance by at least 2 percentage points. The story from 2020 was that Biden did well enough to beat Trump by a decent margin. But Democratic congressional candidates didn’t do as well as he did. So they’re improving on 2020, which suggests a very different midterm environment than we’ve been hearing about for months.

A bit more on last night’s result in NY-19, which I discussed here. The only minor update is that it didn’t even turn out to be a virtual tie. Democrat Pat Ryan appears to have won with 52% of the vote — a clear if close win. Ryan will only serve for four months. He’s on the November ballot in the new adjoining 18th district. Republican Molinaro will also be on the ballot in a redrawn 19th district against Democrat Josh Riley. The takeaway is the same as last night. Molinaro was and is a first-rate recruit in what the Cook Report calls a dead-even district. The fact that Republicans couldn’t notch a solid win here strongly suggests the governing assumptions about the 2022 midterm are simply wrong.

[ed.note: Since I wrote this post, all the networks have called this race for Democrat Pat Ryan.]

A fascinating story is unfolding in NY-19 — a result that looks very promising for Democratic prospects this fall in the House.

This is a special election to fill a seat vacated by Rep. Antonio Delgado (D), who became Lt. Gov. In itself the race is almost meaningless. The term is only for the rest of this year. But as an indicator of the political climate it’s much more significant. In a strong GOP year this is a district Republicans should take fairly comfortably. Cook calls it a dead even district. What’s more, the Republican, Marc Molinaro, is judged by pretty much everyone to be a perfect GOP recruit for the district. So there’s no excuse. The Republicans should be winning this.

As I write it’s too close to call. In a way, though, the final result doesn’t matter that much. It will essentially be a tie. And New York state election laws allow a week for postmarked absentee ballots to arrive. So we might not know the answer for a week. The key is that this result is not consistent with a GOP wave election, not even a mid-range one.

No big surprises so far tonight in a lightish primary night. Alt-right performance artist Laura Loomer got pretty close to knocking off an incumbent in Florida. But close isn’t enough. Maxwell Frost, a Bernie-backed 25 year old, won his primary against a bunch of veteran Democrats.

New York, which closes at the top of the hour, should provide some drama.

Just a little note to say that I think the Democrats, paradoxically, are resting a bit on their laurels after a couple weeks of solid news and very encouraging prospects in the Senate. Anger, outrage and motivation coming off the Dobbs decision is high and will remain high. But there are limits on how much that energy will translate into electoral outcomes if no specific, promised and quantifiable outcome is on the ballot, which is to say, Roe and Reform: Add two senators and hold the House and Democrats will make Roe the law of the land in January 2023. The opportunity is closing.