A truly epic week on the voting rights front.
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We just finished recording this week’s episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast. We had a special guest, Joan Walsh. We talked about the Stormy Daniels’ story among other topics, including the 2016 election. But I wanted to flag one point we discussed in this episode that I’ve learned over recent days. What Daniels told 60 Minutes is more damaging than people may realize. Read More
“You’re not here to advocate, you’re not here to trash the advocate, you’re not here to argue with me.”
That was Judge Julie Robinson just now, upbraiding Kobach witness Jesse Richman, for interrupting her and the ACLU’s lawyer, Tierney Sneed reports.
Richman is the “expert” whose study of non-citizen voting was cited by the White House to support Trump’s false claim that he would have won the popular vote if it weren’t for millions of illegal votes.
One thing that has jumped out to me about the Daniels story is that she seems to have much better representation now than she did in October 2016. Back then her lawyer was Keith M. Davidson, a lawyer who apparently came her way through her then-manager, Gina Rodriguez. I had read earlier that he was a go-to lawyer for Rodriguez who is known for repping people who come to fame through scandals of various sorts. When I read the agreement, I couldn’t help but note that it reads as almost comically adverse to Daniels and for what in the context seemed like a relatively small sum of money.
My assumption was she had a low rent lawyer who either wasn’t that good or didn’t care. But then I noticed something this evening. In the final days of the 2016 campaign, The Wall Street Journal published a story about Karen McDougal, a former Playboy Playmate who claimed she had an affair with Trump and sold her story to The National Enquirer for $150,000. But the story never ran. They treated it as a ‘catch and kill’ story, buying it up to cover it up. So who represented McDougal? Keith M. Davidson. Read More
We have an unfolding dispute over just how Rex Tillerson was fired and what warning or explanation he was given. The AP reports that John Kelly told Tillerson over the weekend to expect a Trump tweet about him but not that it would be the announcement that he’d been fired. Other reports say Kelly told Tillerson over the weekend that he needed to resign of be fired. Meanwhile, Steven Goldstein, Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs put out word that Tillerson had received no explanation or notification about his termination. Goldstein himself was promptly fired by the White House after that statement.
Last Friday I mentioned that 60 Minutes might find the Stormy Daniels interview they recorded last week more embarrassing for the President than they have a stomach for. Yesterday I noted, based on my own reporting, that Daniels apparently claimed in her interview with Anderson Cooper that the President sometimes liked to be treated in a humiliating or denigrating fashion by Daniels during their sexual encounters. I’m told there’s also a matter of details. Now comes more evidence that CBS seems to be slow-rolling the interview. Read More
One last glimpse at the racially tinged amateur hour that Kris Kobach seems to have put on in defending his strict voter registration law:
ACLU lawyer Dale Ho cross-examined Jesse Richman, a witness for Kobach, about the methodology in a controversial study Richman produced showing significant rates of non-citizen voting. In the study, Richman coded certain respondents who had “foreign”-sounding names, for weighting purposes.
Tierney Sneed reports:
After going over some of the names Richman coded as foreign — two respondents with the last name Lopez were coded as foreign, and three Lopezes were not — Ho asked Richman how he would code the name “Carlos Murguia.” Richman said he’d probably code the name as “foreign.” Ho pointed out that Murguia is a federal judge in the same courthouse in which the trial is taking place. Richman admitted he wasn’t aware of that.
Historians assess his historic awfulness for TPM Prime subscribers.
8:39 PM: We’re only seeing fragmentary bits of data. But these aren’t necessarily tiny in given precincts and counties where we have historical benchmarks. And Lamb seems to be running a bit ahead of the margins he needs. Could easily go either way. And it almost certainly will be close either way. But room for some very cautious and early optimism for Dems.
8:30 PM: Finally some results. Only a thousand votes though. Meaningless 4 point margin for Lamb. More notably: a single precinct in Allegheny County and it’s a 20% swing in the Dems favor.
8:14 PM: I’m watching an Applebee’s commercial with Melissa Ethridge’s ‘Come to My Window’ and it’s really tragic.
8:09 PM: Quick Josh cheat sheet. PA Secretary of State election results website. The state always collects and reports results at a slightly different pace than AP (the source of almost everyone else’s data. Not better or worse. But different pace and order. Good to watch. Here’s my list of election numbers crunchers I watch on Twitter.
8:06 PM: Okay, let’s do this. Okay, we still have no results.
7:31 PM: We’re a half hour out. What’s your prediction?