A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Run for Them Hills!
What a marvelous day of watching Republicans and their media enablers react in dramatic fashion to the explosive revelation that a key source – their main source, no less – of the bogus Biden bribery allegations underlying their impeachment push made it all up and was in bed with foreign intel services, including the Russians.
The bumbling response from the primary traffickers of the Biden misinformation campaign stretched from morning into late in the evening. The indictment of Alexander Smirnov last week on charges he fabricated the Biden claims was turbocharged by government filings this week that alleged Smirnov had “extensive and extremely recent” contacts with foreign intel services, including Russia.
The day started with Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) claiming “it doesn’t change the … fundamental facts.” Like hell it doesn’t. By last evening Rep. James Comer (R-KY) was crawfishing hard:
As committee chairs – Oversight and Judiciary, no less! – Comer and Jordan were the dynamic duo who spearheaded dissemination of the Smirnov disinformation, but they were hardly alone. Aaron Blake identifies 10 Republicans who treated the Biden bribery claim like gospel.
Sean Hannity Is A Special Case
After spending months touting the false claims that originated with former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov, Fox News’ Sean Hannity was on the air last night complaining about the FBI not having better informants. Poor, Sean. Victimized by the FBI:
On a related side note, Hannity is struggling mightily with the revelation that the government’s claim that Hunter Biden had a photo of lines of cocaine was actually a photo of sawdust.
Can’t Get Enough
More on the Smirnov disinformation operation:
- Josh Marshall: A Bigger Story Than You Can Possibly Imagine
- Philip Bump: A new lens into the ongoing folly of Republican ‘Russia hoax’ rhetoric
- Aaron Blake: Another GOP Biden ‘informant.’ Another indictment and link to Russia.
- NYT: Who is Alexander Smirnow?
On A More Serious Note …
A federal magistrate judge in Nevada, where Alexander Smirnov was arrested, inexplicably allowed his release from custody this week. The Justice Department Wednesday appealed that decision to a district judge, arguing that Smirnov has the means, resources, and foreign contacts to be a very real flight risk.
Hate To See It
The massive civil fraud judgment against Donald Trump in New York is slowly starting to take a bite:
- In what looked more like a delay tactic than an actual legal argument, Trump’s lawyers asked for a 30-day pause in enforcing the judgment against him. State Judge Arthur Engoron seemed unmoved by the argument.
- Trump is racking up $87,502 per day in post-judgment interest until he pays the judgment, ABC News calculated.
Trump Doubles Down On NATO Bashing
Don’t forget that this is fundamentally a pro-Russia position:
How Biden Saved Brazil From Its Own Jan. 6
In a Foreign Policy article titled “How U.S. Pressure Helped Save Brazil’s Democracy,” Oliver Stuenkel argues: “Not only was Brazil’s democracy closer to the brink than initially understood, but targeted U.S. pressure on key Brazilian officials was likely decisive in guaranteeing the eventual outcome: a largely peaceful transition of power in the country after its October 2022 presidential election.”
Trump’s Government In Waiting
The NYT goes deep on the Conservative Partnership Institute: A Nerve Center for the Right Wing Rises in Washington.
CPAC Ain’t What It Used To Be
Dave Weigel on the MAGAfication of CPAC under alleged groper Matt Schlapp
LOLOL
My Pillow Guy Mike Lindell must cough up $5 million to the guy who won the “Prove Mike Wrong” challenge by debunking Lindell’s claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
Totally Crazy
A federal judge in California has for a second time dismissed an indictment against violent white supremacists, ruling that they were selectively prosecuted for their ideological beliefs while “far-left extremist groups, such as Antifa, that went to the same protests and rallies and engaged in the same violent acts as alleged against the Defendants in this case” went un-prosecuted.
U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney (appointed by Bush II) ordered Robert Rondo immediately released from custody, which prompted the Justice Department to race to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals with an emergency motion to stay his release and continue to detain him pending a full appeal.
Federal authorities consider Rondo a flight risk. He was extradited from Romania to face the current indictment; he was tracked down in Central America back in 2018 to face the first indictment.
Excellent reporting on this by Meghann Cuniff.
IVF Is In The Right-Wing Crosshairs
The fallout continues over last week’s Alabama Supreme Court decision that frozen embryos are legally children:
- Politico: Major Alabama hospital stops IVF treatment after court rules embryos are children
- WaPo: At least two of Alabama’s eight IVF clinics paused some parts of IVF treatment.
- Mark Joseph Stern: Alabama’s Assault on IVF Is Even Worse Than It Sounds
- Joyce Vance unpacks the strange origin story of the Alabama ruling: “In Alabama, women can now be forced to have babies they don’t want and can’t have babies that they do.”
- Alice Ollstein: Alabama’s IVF ruling risks political, legal backlash
- Media Matters: Alabama Supreme Court chief justice spreads Christian nationalist rhetoric on QAnon conspiracy theorist’s show
- Charles Blow: Alabama’s IVF Ruling Shows Our Slide Toward Theocracy
The Post-Dobbs World
NYT: Doctors in six states where abortion is legal are using new laws to send abortion pills to tens of thousands of women in states where it is illegal.
2024 Ephemera
- Quinnipiac University poll: Biden leads Trump nationally among registered voters 49%-45%.
- Nikki Haley: Russia, Russia, Russia
- Also, Nikki Haley: “Embryos, to me, are babies.”
He Said It
Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know!
They should get Rudy working on this, he will fix it in no time
ETA:
Fr!1$t!!, and a squirell!
A Solar Flair has wiped out cell service nationwide.
What Does Former Fox Shrink Keith Ablow Have To Do With The Hunter Biden Case? | Crooks and Liars
For starters, confusing sawdust with cocaine. Yes, it’s funny, but there’s also an ominous connection to the former Fox News psychiatrist who sent the photo to Hunter Biden.
emptywheel
@emptywheel
Also, for those who missed this picture the first (and third) times I posted it, bc it’s hysterical, this is what experienced drug prosecutor Derek Hines called cocaine.
By NewsHound Ellen — February 21, 2024
As part of its “proof” that Hunter Biden lied about his cocaine use when he purchased a gun in 2018, prosecutors submitted a photo it obtained from his phone of “apparent cocaine.” In reality, the photo is almost certainly sawdust.
Furthermore, Biden’s lawyers note, the photo was sent to Biden, not taken by him.
> More specifically, the discovery identifies this as a photo of a photo taken in the office of Mr. Biden’s then-psychiatrist Dr. Keith Ablow, which Dr. Ablow initially received from an [sic] master carpenter and later texted to Mr. Biden, stating: “This one in my office is of lines of sawdust sent to me by a master carpenter who was a coke addict.” The message accompanying that photo was meant to convey that Mr.Biden, too, could overcome any addiction. The prosecution does not provide a date for the photo, but the message from Dr. Ablow is dated November 20, 2018.
Yes, indeed. But what jumped out at us at C&L was Dr. Keith Ablow’s role in all this. How on earth did Hunter Biden become a patient of that dangerous nut job? Ablow’s involvement makes my spidey senses tingle.
Long-time readers will probably recall that Ablow made a name for himself as one of Fox News’ craziest contributors, and that’s saying a lot. For example, Ablow claimed that then-President Obama’s push for gun control in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre was due to abandonment issues that led him to push for “disempowering the individual” and a belief that “the collective needs to be empowered and all the better if [Obama is] the center of the collective and the most powerful person."