A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
Wowsers, This Is Nuts
The far-right, conspiracy-trafficking, anti-Muslim internet personality Laura Loomer lost to incumbent Rep. Dan Webster in the FL-11 this week, and it wasn’t even particularly close. Webster won 51-44. But Loomer, in fitting Trumpian fashion, is refusing to concede in increasingly unhinged ways.
Loomer declared Thursday in a rambling and vaguely threatening statement: “I actually am the Congresswoman in Florida’s 11th District, and everyone knows it.”
Loomer is alleging without basis all kinds of corruption and voter fraud that led to her defeat, she’s going “scorched earth” against Webster and the Republican Party, and she is excusing her loss with Big Lie style misdirection and misinformation.
Just FedEx It!?!?
It’s becoming clearer as new reporting comes in that the National Archives bent over backwards to accommodate former President Trump and not escalate the dispute over government documents he took to Mar-a-Lago.
At one point last year, the National Archives let Trump send back his correspondence with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un via FedEx!
“Please let me know before you mail it and then pass along the tracking code once it has been sent. I need to make sure I have staff on this end to receive the package,” a National Archives official wrote to a Trump attorney and others in a June 2021 email obtained by CNN.
Redacted Mar-a-Lago Affidavit To Be Unsealed Today
The federal judge who approved the search of Mar-a-Lago has ordered the release later today of a redacted version of the affidavit the FBI used to obtain the search warrant. The Justice Department said it would propose extensive redactions, and the judge appeared to approve those redactions. Do not expect the redacted affidavit to be especially revealing.
Georgia Election Investigation Grinds On
- The Georgia grand jury investigating Trump’s 2020 election interference is seeking testimony from Mark Meadows on Sept. 27.
- The grand jury is also calling in Trump lawyer Sidney Powell and cyber researcher James Waldron, Politico reports.
- Meanwhile, Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro moved to challenge his subpoena by the grand jury on the grounds that it would violate his professional legal obligations to his former client.
This Is Getting Good
Take a peek at the upcoming deposition schedule in Dominion’s giant defamation case against Fox News for giving widespread play to conspiracy theories about the election tech company:
Friday: Tucker Carlson
Tuesday: Lou Dobbs
Wednesday: Sean Hannity
Quote Of The Day
Joe Biden: “It’s not just Trump, it’s the entire philosophy that underpins the—I’m going to say something, it’s like semi-fascism.”
This Soooo Damning
James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas might be about to get its comeuppance.
Pennsylvania Is Having All The Fun
The spectacle of Fetterman v. Oz for Senate should be plenty, but Pennsylvania governor’s race is no slouch.
Case-in-point headline: Doug Mastriano pranked with fake poll by high school student
The Curious Case Of Alvin Bragg
Mueller probe attorney Andrew Weissmann reassesses the decision by the Manhattan district attorney to wind down his criminal probe of Donald Trump.
New This Morning From TPM
Matt Gaetz’s general election race is gonna be WILD, y’all
The Shifting Sands Of Abortion Politics
Aaron Blake: Buyer’s remorse could be creeping in for GOP on abortion
Landmark Union Expansion
A Michigan Chipotle became the first of the fast food chain’s stores to unionize.
Today’s Deep Dive
WSJ: Inside the Investigation That Secured a Guilty Plea for 84 Wildfire Deaths
Morally Bankrupt
Sandy Hook families accuse Alex Jones of hiding assets from them.
Must Read
David Corn: J.D. Vance Appeared With Podcaster Who Once Said “Feminists Need Rape”
Ukraine Update
NYT: Putin Orders a Sharp Expansion of Russia’s Hard-Hit Armed Forces
Reuters: Ukraine narrowly escapes nuclear catastrophe as plant loses power, Zelenskiy says
NYT:
The U.S. State Department and Yale University researchers said Thursday that they had identified at least 21 sites in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine that the Russian military or Russian-backed Ukrainian separatists are using to detain, interrogate or deport civilians and prisoners of war in ways that violate international humanitarian law. There were signs pointing to possible mass graves in some areas, they said.
Jared Is Forever
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