A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Nevada Fake Electors Case Dismissed
The criminal prosecution of the 2020 fake electors scheme in Nevada was undertaken in the wrong county, a state judge ruled Friday. The criminal case was filed in Clark County (Las Vegas) but the proper venue was Douglas County (Carson City, the state capital).
Normally this is not that big of a deal: The prosecutor, in this case the state attorney general, merely refiles the case in the right county.
The problem here: The statute of limitations has already run out, meaning it can’t simply be refiled in a different county.
Attorney General Aaron Ford plans to appeal the venue decision.
Do Yourself A Favor
Ignore all the expectations-setting “journalism” ahead of Thursday’s presidential debate. It’s pablum.
2024 Ephemera
- Democrats, including the Biden campaign, are rolling out a day full of abortion-related messaging pegged to today’s two-year anniversary of the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade.
- North Carolina: Biden Is Pouring Millions Into a State Democrats Haven’t Won Since 2008
- The Trump campaign is keeping a tight leash on things in the run up to the GOP convention in Milwaukee, via NBC News:
Donald Trump’s presidential campaign moved [last] week to quash a potential disturbance at next month’s GOP convention in Milwaukee by seeking to replace six delegates to the convention who they thought were potentially going to initiate “unnecessary distractions” on the floor. …
Days later, however, the Trump campaign abandoned efforts to replace the delegates, saying it “cleared the air” with the delegates who sparked the concerns after days of deliberation.
Playing The Long Game
Politico’s Alice Ollstein reports on a new 10-year $100 million national campaign by a coalition of abortion rights groups to restore federal protections for the procedure.
Tell Me More …
New reporting from ABC News this morning about an unusual trip that Donald Trump took to Mar-a-Lago in the summer of 2022 that raised the suspicions of investigators in the classified documents case:
The previously unreported visit, which allegedly took place July 10-12 in the summer of 2022, was raised in several interviews with witnesses, sources familiar with the matter said, as investigators sought to determine whether it was part of Trump’s broader alleged effort to withhold the documents after receiving a subpoena demanding their return.
At least one witness who worked closely with the former president recalled being told at the time of the trip that Trump was there “checking on the boxes,” according to sources familiar with what the witness told investigators.
Mar-a-Lago Miscellany
- U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon spent much of Friday hearing arguments on whether Jack Smith’s appointment as special counsel was constitutionally valid.
- The hearing resumes today with separate arguments over whether the funding of Smith’s office has been proper.
- Your occasional reminder that neither of these arguments are particularly novel nor have judges in other cases found them persuasive. But here we are on Day 2 of pretending otherwise.
- Over the weekend, Special Counsel Jack Smith submitted a new filing in connection with his effort to persuade Cannon to modify the conditions of Trump’s release so he will stop his rhetorical attacks on law enforcement. He cited the attack on the FBI field office in Cincinnati in 2022 and the recent charges against a man who allegedly threatened an FBI agent in the Hunter Biden case.
Gag Order Update
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is asking the judge in Trump’s hush money case to leave the gag order against him mostly intact for the time being.
Good Read
NYT: Michael Flynn Has Turned His Trump-World Celebrity Into a Family Business
This Is Not Normal
An eloquent reaction to being targeted by MAGA from former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe:
Pelosi’s Husband’s Attacker Convicted On State Charges
Already facing a 30-year federal prison sentence for the attack on Paul Pelosi in his San Francisco home, David DePape was convicted Friday in state court of first-degree burglary, false imprisonment of an elder, threatening the family of a public official, kidnapping for ransom that resulted in bodily harm, and dissuading a witness by force or threat.
For Your Radar
Graham Allison and Michael J. Morell: The Terrorism Warning Lights Are Blinking Red Again
Historic Court-Martial Struggles To Find Jurors
Air Force Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart is being court-martialed for alleged sexual assault, conduct unbecoming an officer, and controlling an aircraft within 12 hours of consuming alcohol, but the military is struggling to find a sufficient number of jurors holding either a higher rank or the same rank for longer than the accused. Stewart is only the second Air Force general to ever face a court-martial.
Life Imitating Art
Historian Kevin Kruse recounts how the precedent Louisiana is citing for requiring the 10 Commandments to be displayed in every classroom is at least partly rooted in Hollywood’s promotional campaign for Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 epic of the same name starring Charlton Heston.
Messiah Complex Much?
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Obligatory small vertebrates
President Joe Biden, VA Dems, Planned Parenthood of VA Statements on Two-Year Anniversary of Trump-Appointed, Far-Right Supreme Court Justices Overturning Roe v Wade | Blue Virginia
JOE BIDEN: Here’s what Donald Trump says about your freedom: “After 50 years of failure with nobody coming even close, I was able to kill Roe v. Wade.”
Two years ago, the Supreme Court justices that Trump handpicked helped overturn Roe v. Wade.
REPORTER 1: Never before has the Court granted and then taken away a widely recognized constitutional right.
REPORTER 2: New laws banning abortion are taking effect.
JOE BIDEN: Decades of progress shattered just because the last guy got four years in the White House.
We know what will happen if he gets another four. For MAGA Republicans, Roe is just the beginning. They’re going to try to ban the right to choose nationwide. They’re coming for IVF and birth control next.
We’re up against extremism.
Send me back to the White House and I’ll fight like hell to restore Roe v. Wade and protect American freedom.
Will there be Pharoah cape tosses?
Looks like we’ll be coming in through the backdoor, again, this morning…
My grandmother was a free-lance publicist in old Hollywood. Among her memorabilia, is a letter signed by DeMille inviting her to a promotional luncheon for “Union Pacific”. His efforts at publicizing and promoting his movies were as over the top as the movies were.