Now We Know What Jack Smith Was Up To In The Jan. 6 Case

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.

An Abundance Of Caution

In a case marked by Donald Trump’s determined efforts to delay it at any cost, it was a little perplexing when Special Counsel Jack Smith asked the judge in the Jan. 6 case to push back a deadline by a month to give him more time to evaluate the impact of the Supreme Court’s noxious decision on presidential immunity. Now we know why.

During the interregnum, Smith took the case back to a new federal grand jury in DC but stripped out evidence that the Supreme Court ruled would be inadmissible and pared down other elements of the case that the high court squarely immunized. The new grand jury, untainted by the now-inadmissible evidence, returned a superseding indictment against Trump that otherwise largely mirrors the original indictment.

The abundance of caution exhibited by Smith and DOJ is another indicator, if we needed any, of the stakes in this case. The new indictment is different in three fundamental respects:

1. It ditches the allegations related to Trump’s effort to enlist the Justice Department itself in his scheme to overturn the 2020 election. This includes the whole sordid Jeff Clark episode. The Supreme Court was clear that these were immunized official acts by Trump, a travesty of its own.
2. It removes the extended narration of evidence of Trump’s knowledge and state of mind that was based on evidence the Supreme Court indicated would be inadmissible because it would weaken the president’s immunity protection, another screaming travesty that is now the law of the land.
3. It leans more heavily into Vice President Mike Pence’s constitutional role as Senate president, which placed him at the center of the Jan. 6 certification of the Electoral College vote. Smith appears to be responding to the Supreme Court’s invitation in the immunity decision (pp. 23-24, citations removed):

Despite the Vice President’s expansive role of advising and assisting the President within the Executive Branch, the Vice President’s Article I responsibility of “presiding over the Senate” is “not an ‘executive branch’ function.” … So the Government may argue that consideration of the President’s communications with the Vice President concerning the certification proceeding does not pose “dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.”

If I haven’t satisfied your nerd curiosity enough, here’s a red-lined version of the old indictment compared to the new one.

New Unaired Video Of Nancy Pelosi On Jan. 6

Politico has a good rundown of the previously unaired video footage of Nancy Pelosi during the evacuation of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021:

TPM On TV

WTF?

Donald Trump’s effort to politicize the deaths of service members during the Afghanistan withdrawal by filming and photographing himself graveside at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday not only violated the shrine’s rules but allegedly included a physical altercation between Trump campaign staff and cemetery staff, NPR reports.

• The physical altercation: “Two members of Donald Trump’s campaign staff had a verbal and physical altercation Monday with an official at Arlington National Cemetery, where the former president participated in a wreath-laying ceremony, NPR has learned.”
• The verbal abuse: “When the cemetery official tried to prevent Trump campaign staff from entering Section 60, campaign staff verbally abused and pushed the official aside, according to the source.”
• Further abuse: Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung responded to NPR by claiming, without any obvious basis, that the unidentified cemetery staffer was “clearly suffering from a mental health episode.”

Prediction: This story is going to be around for a while.

Dude, What Is Your Problem?

Lingering in the background of JD Vance’s peculiar fixation on childless women is an anti-gay animus. The silver lining to another newly resurfaced Vance audio clip is that it much more clearly foregrounds the anti-LGBTQ spirit of his crusade because it targets a favorite right-wing foil: AFT President Randi Weingarten, an open lesbian in a same-sex marriage:

Most of the coverage of these Vance remark have framed it as an attack on teachers, but I think that’s sidesteps the real issue here. Admittedly, “childless” is a very blunt instrument and covers a lot more than gay people, which is partly why there’s been so much backlash to his remarks. But the fact that other people are ending up as collateral damage to his attack on LGBTQ folk doesn’t change who the intended target was.

For context, consider this excruciating exchange last year in a House hearing between Weingarten and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) in which Greene repeatedly asserts that Weingarten is not a mother. It led to this belabored headline in National Review: “Is Randi Weingarten a Mother? It’s Complicated”

Motherhood is the coin of the realm in this right-wing world view, a prerequisite to participation in the public square, and that conveniently excludes many LGBTQ people, especially if adoptive parents and stepparents are excluded from the definition, as they are.

Sentence Of The Day

Always Be Closing On The Grift

It still challenges the limits of my imagination that the fascism and the grift are so closely intertwined. It makes me want to go back and re-read everything about 1930s fascism through that prism, which I think was recognized by most close observer then and since, but it didn’t fully register with me until seeing it up close:

The Antidote To The Grift: Authenticity And Irony

This a deep cut of Minnesota references, but the combination of authenticity and enough savvy to be in on the joke does set Tim Walz apart from most pols:

@subwaytakes Episode 172: The most neglected part of home ownership is THE GUTTERS 🏡 feat #TimWalz 🚋🚋🚋🚋🚋 Hosted by @KAREEM RAHMA Shot by @Anthony DiMieri @Willem Holzer Edited by Anthony DiMieri Associate producer @Ramy #podcast #subway #hottakes #subwaytakes #interview #nyc #newyorkcity #timwalz #homeimprovement #diy #homes #minnesota ♬ original sound – Subway Takes

And in case you missed our whimsical slideshow, behold: Tim Walz loves balloons … or should it be balloons love Tim Walz?

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