Editors’ Blog

From TPM Reader AC who knows quite a bit about the history of the racketeering statutes.

Can I remind people that no president in history has ever acted MORE STEREOTYPICALLY LIKE A GANGSTER than Trump?  He owned casinos.  He has deep connections in the New York City construction industry.  His son-in-law’s father did time for extortion.  He calls people who inform on him “rats.”  He bullies.  He threatens to expose people’s private shame to obtain endorsements.  He filled his administration with pro wrestling magnates and failed movie producers.  His campaign manager’s family made their money building jai alai frontons in Connecticut.  One of his top advisors was Felix Sater, an alleged organized crime figure who has done time for stabbing a guy in the face.  His former personal attorney got his start hanging out at a Russian gangster social club. 

Do I need to go on?  If Trump wants to suggest the law wasn’t intended for men like him, then perhaps he should try acting like a normal politician or businessman rather than a crime lord from a movie

For those of you who are subscribers/listeners to The Josh Marshall Podcast, Kate Riga and I just recorded a special instapod on today’s mifepristone decision from the 5th circuit, in addition to today’s regularly scheduled weekly pod. So that special episode should be showing up on your device some time later today if you subscribe.

You’ve probably noticed that Donald Trump has announced that he’s holding a press conference Monday in which he’ll release a 100-page report which shows both that the 2020 election in Georgia was “stolen” and that all charges against him and his criminal associates should be dropped. In other words, he’s responding to the charges by doubling down on the Big Lie. This isn’t surprising. Trump only has one gear — all-in and over-the-top. But as Clark Neily says in this post at CATO, “Being an inveterate liar is a major liability in litigation.”

He also has an apt description of who Trump is. These are all points we’ve made before. But it’s a tight and concise run-through.

There seems to be a consensus that the coup indictments out of Georgia are unexpectedly strong. I don’t know why it’s “unexpected” or exceeded expectations. The Fulton County DA’s office has been working on this for a very long time and they’ve always seemed in earnest about it, even when it was unclear whether federal investigators were focused on the people at the top of the conspiracy. But it’s a reminder that Georgia was always unique in the broader story of Trump’s failed coup. It’s not simply that there was a more aggressive local prosecutor on hand.

Reminder: Your TPM evening briefing, written by me, has moved to a new location — same time, same place, but we’ve moved it out of the editor’s blog and onto the main frontpage.

Court has convened in Atlanta at this late hour. The presumption – unconfirmed – is that state Judge Robert McBurney will accept the grand jury’s indictment(s) in the 2020 election interference case. Follow our coverage here.

For those of you following along at home, your TPM evening briefing, written by me, has moved to a new location — same time, same place, but we’ve moved it out of the editor’s blog and onto the main frontpage. You can now find Where Things Stand over here ➡︎➡︎➡︎

As you know, there’s been chatter about whether President Biden should pardon Donald Trump. Of course, before that there was a lot of discussion about whether Trump should be indicted at all. (Jack Goldsmith is still discussing it.) In both cases, the reasoning, such as it is, has been about bringing the country together, avoiding national divisions or sparking a pattern of tit-for-tat presidential prosecutions. It’s also possible the same underlying question could come up again.

There are some who think there’s a non-trivial chance that at some point perhaps early next year Trump will seek a plea deal. I really can’t imagine that happening. But some people whose common sense and judgment I put a lot of stock in do. Their reasoning isn’t bad. If you put all these cases together Trump is highly likely to be spending the rest of his his life in prison. Staying out of jail requires winning the 2024 election. He might get lucky in one venue. He might get a hung jury. He might beat some of the charges. But even batting .500 likely gets a de facto life term. And Trump, for all his bluster, is deeply risk averse. That’s where the plea deal idea comes in. Again, I think this is unlikely. But if it does we will come back to the same question, how much punishment is required? Either for justice, equality under the law or deterrence. Can he bow out of the race, admit to some offenses and get off with a comparatively light global sentence? What would justify that?

My reason for writing this post today is that I think this way of looking at the question gets the calculus wrong. The news David covers today, of Trump spending the weekend attacking DC district Judge Tanya Chutkan, explains why. This entire range of cases Trump faces, indeed Trump’s whole decade-long smash and grab run through American public life, is about one thing: who is bigger? The American republic, the state, or Donald Trump?

Just a short note about a relatively minor topic. But with new Trump indictments almost certainly coming next week in Fulton County (Atlanta), Georgia, I wanted to return to a simple point. Remember the call in which then-President Trump called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and demanded he find him 11,780 more votes and threatened him with prosecution if he didn’t. That call alone should be more than enough to send Trump to prison for years. In its own way it’s worse than almost everything else noted in the federal indictments. It is so stunning that I’m writing this post just to step us back and refocus our attention on just how stunning it is.

If his impeachment inquiry noise-making gambit doesn’t work in swaying far-right House Republicans to get in line and move forward with appropriations bills that are at least passable in the Democrat-controlled Senate, then House Speaker Kevin McCarthy may have to grovel at House Democrats’ feet — again.