A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
What Cannon Hath Wrought
Two developments yesterday that show what an absolute mess U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon is making of the Mar-a-Lago case.
First, Donald Trump asked for a 10-day extension for him to file his replies on his motions to dismiss the case. It was a lame ask, a totally foreseeable deadline that had been in place for some time, and in a case with increasingly pressing time constraints, a clear effort to game the proceedings for more time. Despite that, Cannon quickly granted the request!
Second, in another troubling development, a key witness in the Mar-a-Lago case went public with CNN. Brian Butler, a former 20-year employee at Mar-a-Lago, is identified as “Trump Employee 5” in the indictment. Butler essentially confirmed what the indictment says about what he witnessed in the case. But for our purposes, it was most telling that Butler decided he’d rather come forward on his own terms than wait for Cannon to release prematurely the names of the witnesses in the case, as she keeps threatening to do.
Butler was primarily a witness to the coverup. It’s a good get by CNN. But it’s driven at least in part by Cannon’s mismanagement of the case. The only possible silver lining here is that some of the testimony that might otherwise not come out before Election Day due to Cannon’s slow-rolling of the case is getting to see the light of day.
Trump Is All About Delay, Delay, Delay
On the same day Trump won a deadline extension in the Mar-a-Lago case on the basis that he needed to prep for the New York hush money trial, we learned he was seeking to delay that trial, too. It’s a contradiction that Special Counsel Jack Smith pointed out to Judge Cannon, to no avail.
Trump, who didn’t raise a presidential immunity defense in a timely fashion in the New York case (and to the extent he did he lost), now wants the trial delayed until the Supreme Court rules later this year on his immunity argument.
The trial judge in New York was not amused by the last-minute filing, and while he didn’t rule yet he imposed new restrictions on pre-trial filings in the final days before trial is scheduled to begin on March 25.
Correction: This item has been updated to reflect that Trump sought the delay in the New York case in a March 7 filing, but we didn’t learn about it until yesterday.
Trump Launches Purge At RNC
Your recurring reminder that Trump is doing to the Republican Party what he wants to do to America. Any schadenfreude you may feel should be tempered by the knowledge that Trump would leave the country a husk of its former self, hollowed out by nepotism, cronyism, and graft.
Trump has promised a purge of the federal government if he is re-elected, and he’s practicing on the RNC:
- Politico: Bloodbath at RNC
- The Guardian: ‘Absolute bloodbath’ at RNC as new leadership loyal to Trump purges staff
- NYT: Trump Aides, Taking Over R.N.C., Order Mass Layoffs
Can E. Jean Carroll Sue Trump Again?
Donald Trump repeated his defamatory comments toward E. Jean Carroll over the weekend in Georgia and again on CNBC Monday, teeing up the possibility that she could sue him again. The CNBC comments were particularly problematic for Trump, as George Conway noted.
Meanwhile, Carroll did not oppose the Trump appeal bond that received so much attention over the weekend.
Navarro Ordered To Report To Prison
Trump White House official Peter Navarro is ordered to report to federal prison in Miami on March 19 to serve his four-month sentence for contempt of Congress. His request to the appeals court to delay his sentence while he appeals his conviction remains pending.
Republicans Know Journalists Are Easy Marks
Another instance yesterday of the journalistic craving for “new” sometimes overwhelming good sense and judgment.
In the first example, House Republicans released a transcript of an interview the Jan. 6 committee did with a Secret Service agent who was driving then-President Trump from the Ellipse speech back to the White House.
The release was intended to show that he contradicted the account relayed by Cassidy Hutchinson that Trump lunged for the steering wheel. But the importance of the account was not the narrow question of whether Trump “lunged” but whether he wanted to accompany the mob to the Capitol. The transcript confirmed that!
The transcript also revealed that Trump said he wasn’t worried about his own security because the mob consisted of his own supporters, even though an hour later he was claiming it was antifa.
This is a product of the House GOP’s “investigate the Jan. 6 investigators” muddy-the-water exercise, and it’s working.
Biden Special Counsel Testifies On The Hill Today
Special Counsel Robert Hur is due to testify on the Hill today at the request of House Republicans. His last day at the Justice Department was yesterday. In advance of Hur’s testimony, the transcript of Hur’s interview with President Biden (Part I and Part II) was provided early to some new outlets. Anticipation is high for this appearance on both sides of the aisle. Stay tuned.
More On That Right-Wing Secret Society
The Guardian has its own version of the story TPM published over the weekend on the Society for American Civic Renewal and its ties to the Claremont Institute.
Ooof …
AP: “A Kansas judge ruled Monday that the state isn’t violating transgender residents’ rights under the state constitution by refusing to change their driver’s licenses to reflect their gender identities.”
2024 Ephemera
- Trump called for cuts to Social Security and Medicare during an interview on CNBC.
- President Biden seized on Trump’s remarks, telling an audience in New Hampshire: “Bottom line is, he’s still at it. I’m never going to allow that to happen.”
- The Senate Majority PAC has reserved a total of $239 million in TV ad time to defend Democratic Senate seats in seven states: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, Ohio, and Montana.
How Much Longer Until Election Day?
A GOP event in Kansas, as first reported by the Kansas Reflector, got weird:
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Biden is going to win! I know that people shouldn’t become complacent or overly confident, but I really think that President Biden will pull off a tight victory in this year’s election. The reason is simple and based on the disastrous 2016 election. HRC was supposed to win: all the pundits and the polls agreed that she would, but it never felt like she was winning.
Beyond the fact that the MSM was captivated by Mr. Trump and clearly loathed HRC, there was a consistent thinness to her support and lack of any real momentum. Her rallies were largely joyless affairs that people seemed to be attending out of a sense of obligation, and there was virtually no anecdotal evidence that she was gaining support. I kept looking for signs that HRC was catching fire but never found them, and couldn’t shake a lingering dread throughout the campaign. When Mr. Trump pulled off his unexpected victory, I was shocked but not really surprised.
The above is why the polls showing Mr. Trump ahead nationally and in the key swing states don’t worry me. He is the one who looks ‘thin’ now, and I haven’t seen any evidence that he is growing his base of support. In fact, after his surprisingly effective (to the MSM, not me…) State of the Union speech, right now President Biden seems to have the momentum. Of course, anything can happen between now and the election, but I really don’t feel that Mr. Trump will win.
Soon?
And there is this
Trump’s vaccine rhetoric sends chills through public health circles | The Hill
Public health advocates are watching in growing alarm as former President Trump increasingly embraces the anti-vaccine movement.
“I will not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate or a mask mandate,” Trump said in a recent campaign rally in Richmond, Va.
It’s a line Trump has repeated, and his campaign said he is only referring to school COVID-19 vaccine mandates — but that hasn’t eased fears that the GOP leader could accelerate already worrying trends of declining child vaccination.
Trump “is an important voice. He has a big platform. And he uses that platform, in this case, to do harm. Because he’s implying by saying that we shouldn’t mandate vaccines, vaccines are in some ways ineffective or unsafe,” said Paul Offit, a pediatrician and vaccine expert at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
A 10-day extension is nothing. Did the prosecutors even oppose it?
Clown show coming up
Robert Hur will testify as private citizen with help from Trumpworld figures | The Independent
EXCLUSIVE: Ex-Special Counsel arranged to leave Justice Department the day before his appearance with the House Judiciary Committee
Instead of appearing as a DOJ employee who is bound by the ethical guidelines which govern the behaviour of federal prosecutors, he will appear as a private citizen with no constraints on his testimony.