So last September, a reporter asked Hans von Spakovsky — one of the leaders of the conservative push to hype voter fraud — whether he was the sender of an email that said putting Democrats or mainstream Republicans on Trump’s voter fraud commission would lead to its “abject failure.”

Von Spakoskvy denied it. “I don’t know anything about that,” he said.

Hours later, it was revealed that von Spakovsky had indeed sent the email. He later claimed, implausibly, that he was confused because the reporter had phrased her question imprecisely.

And now, Tierney Sneed reports, the whole embarrassing episode is being entered into evidence to impeach von Spakovsky’s credibility as a witness in the trial over Kansas’s strict voter registration law. Including the transcript of the reporter’s audio recording, in which von Spakovsky falsely denies sending the email.

I don’t think we know that Sarah Sanders either knew what she was talking about in the just concluded press briefing or whether, if she did, what she said will remain operative through the day or the week. But the upshot of Sanders briefing this afternoon was to walk back dramatically the announcement last night that President Trump would meet with Kim Jong Un. Read More

To say a lot happened on the Russia front this week would be something of an understatement. Here’s our weekly Sum-Up of critical developments on the Trump-Russia investigation.

I wanted to briefly comment and share some perspective on yesterday’s announcement of a Kim-Trump summit this spring. I’m going to format them as a series of propositions or individual items rather than a structured argument. Read More

Sounds like the judge in the trial over Kansas’s strict voter registration law isn’t too pleased with Kris Kobach and his legal team right now.

Tierney Sneed reported Thursday afternoon that Kobach, the Kansas Sec. of State, tried again to introduce some evidence that Judge Julie Robinson had previously blocked him from submitting because his team blew a deadline to show it to the challengers.

“When do we close the door, Mr. Kobach?” Robinson asked. She said it was an “ambush” to try to introduce the new evidence in the middle of the trial.

“That’s not how trials are conducted,” added Robinson, an appointee of President George W. Bush.

This comes after Judge Robinson repeatedly lectured Kobach’s team about trial procedure on Wednesday.

Remember, Kobach chose to represent himself in the trial, using lawyers from the Sec. of State’s office, rather than relying on the state AG.

Since the complexity is great I created this infographic to assist you in following the Stormy Daniels story. To see the full size version, either click the headline of this post or the image itself.

We now know the fourth person who either knows details of Stormy Daniels’ sexual relationship with Donald Trump or has seen or is in possession of the text logs, “certain still images” and possible dick pics. The woman referred to in the agreement as “Angel Ryan” is Jessica Drake. Who is Jessica Drake? She is another porn actress. But that’s not at all. She was also one of Trump’s accusers back in October of 2016.

A TPM Reader flagged this to our attention. I was trying to get solid confirmation. (Drake’s birth name is listed in various places as Angela Patrice Heaslet.) But now CNN has apparently confirmed that “Angel Ryan” is in fact Drake. So that’s settled. Read More

Some helpful sleuthing from TPM Reader JD. “Michael Moshey” appears to be Michael Mosney, Stormy’s ex-husband. Read More

Here’s another aspect of the Stormy Daniels lawsuit that has yet to get much attention. Section 4.2 details other people who Daniels either talked to or gave copies of the texts and images before she made her agreement with Trump and Cohen. Notably, it lists four of those individuals. Read More

The trial over Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s controversial voting law is in its third day, and Tierney Sneed is in Kansas covering all the action for us.

Today, after a bit of a struggle, Kobach succeeded in getting a piece of evidence that’s central to his case admitted. It’s a spreadsheet that he claims shows a significant rate of non-citizen voting. Kobach needs to show that non-citizen voting is a real problem, in order to justify his law requiring people to show proof of citizenship when they register.

You can expect the ACLU to try to raise serious doubts about the spreadsheet’s claims. Still, it sounds a little better for Kobach than what happened Wednesday, when the judge kept having to lecture Kobach’s team of lawyers on the correct trial procedure. Kobach is defending the law himself, rather than relying on the state AG’s office.

Oh and Kobach also reportedly came to court today with an armed escort, citing potential security threats.

You can follow Tierney’s live updates here.