Judge Shuts Down Trump’s Latest Attempt To Skate On Hush Money Conviction

Posted on by David Kurtz

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

Holding The Line

I want to be clear up front that the “wins,” such as they are, in the coming months are likely to be small, incremental, and not very dramatic. Morning Memo is going to refrain from pumping them up into more than they are. But ignoring them entirely would be a disservice to the folks grinding to preserve the rule of law, fight off MAGA’s destructive impulses, expose Trump corruption, and otherwise hold the line against further erosion.

Which brings us to a long-awaited ruling yesterday in the Trump’s hush money case.

Judge Juan Merchan didn’t just deny Trump’s move to overturn his conviction on the grounds that some of the evidence introduced at trial was in violation of the Supreme Court’s subsequent ruling on presidential immunity. Merchan eviscerated Trump’s arguments and ruled in such a way that makes Trump’s expected appeal quite a bit more difficult.

In his 41-page opinion, the judge foreclosed every manner and form of argument that Trump had made. Merchan ruled that Trump had failed to preserve most of his arguments by not raising them in a timely fashion, but the judge considered those arguments anyway – then rejected all of them as not meeting the Supreme Court’s standard for official conduct. Merchan then went a step further and concluded that even if Trump’s argument satisfied the standard for official conduct, prosecutors had not intruded on the function and authority of the presidency and thus sidestepped the Supreme Court’s immunity protections.

As a final flourish, Merchan concluded that even if he was wrong on all of the above, the introduction of the challenged evidence was a harmless error in light of the “overwhelming evidence” of Trump’s guilt.

It was a belt-and-suspenders-and-garter-and-braces decision by Merchan, shoring up every angle of attack that Trump might launch on appeal.

Will it matter in the end?

Merchan is still considering a separate Trump motion that the case should be dismissed since he won re-election. Sentencing is forestalled for now. It still seems unlikely that this case ever produces any meaningful punishment for Trump. But let the record show Merchan is still holding the line where he can.

MUST READ

TPM’s Hunter Walker and Josh Kovensky, reporting from the New York Young Republicans Club’s annual gala:

Sunday night offered a sneak preview of what life might be like in President-elect Donald Trump’s second term at the annual black tie gala of Manhattan’s most MAGA political club. It’s a world where fringe media outlets are ascendant, a new wave of religious leaders are mixing politics and prayer, the global right-wing is rejoicing, and more established press are being subjected to a new level of restrictions and derision. 

More Reaction To ABC News Settling The Trump Case

  • TPM’s Josh Marshall: “The key here is that it is almost absurd to expect that these big diversified corporations are going to operate in the interests of or run major risks on behalf of their very small news divisions. These are in almost every case liabilities in the context of a Trump administration.”
  • Eric Wemple: “ABC News will never live down this capitulation. Never.”
  • Parker Molloy: “This is how press freedom erodes—not through dramatic crackdowns, but through corporate calculation. When news organizations are owned by massive conglomerates, journalism becomes just another business interest to be traded away when convenient.”

Trump Sues Iowa Pollster Over Outlier Poll

In an absurd legal move, Donald Trump has filed a state lawsuit in Iowa against Gannett, the Des Moines Register and pollster Ann Selzer over a poll they published the weekend before Election Day showing Trump trailing Kamala Harris in the state, according to Fox News Digital. The shock poll showed Harris up 3 points; Trump won the state by 13 points.

The Era Of Grandiose Feelings

Trump on Tim Cook and other CEOs traveling to meet with him: "In the first term, everybody was fighting me. In this term, everybody wants to be my friend."

[image or embed]

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) December 16, 2024 at 12:21 PM

Quote Of The Day

Brian Beutler:

Democrats have, by contrast, affirmatively decided not to treat anything Trump’s doing as untoward unless and until it pertains to things like health-care and tax policy. And in their terribly narrowcast conception of politics, other potential bulwarks against mafia-style government are collapsing.

Pete Hegseth Continues To Be Awesome

  • CNN: Pete Hegseth spread baseless conspiracy theories that January 6 attack was carried out by leftist groups
  • NYT: Hegseth’s Security Guard During His Confirmation Process Left the Army After the Beating of a Civilian During Training

For Your Radar

House Democrats will vote this morning on who will serve as ranking committee members, in what has been a low-key changing of the guard post-election.

The most-watched race is the bid by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY) to leapfrog the more senior Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) to replace Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) as the ranking member on Oversight.

The House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, which effectively makes these decisions most of the time, voted yesterday 34-27 in favor of elevating Connolly over AOC. But’s it not unheard of for the full Democratic caucus to yield a different result.

EXCLUSIVE

NYT: Giant Companies Took Secret Payments to Allow Free Flow of Opioids

Black Enrollment At Harvard Law Plummets

The first entering class at Harvard Law School since the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard outlawing affirmative action in college admissions had less than half as many Black students as last year’s entering class.

Absurdism Is A Key Ingredient Of Trumpism

President-elect Trump, on his pick to be the next U.S. ambassador to Uruguay: "Lou is a great golfer, and will be in a Country with some terrific courses."

— David Gura (@davidgura.bsky.social) 2024-12-17T04:30:07.647Z

Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know!

MAGA Republicans Dodge Questions About Their Own Party’s Plans To Gut Social Safety Net

Posted on by Emine Yücel

Some House Republicans in recent weeks have not exactly been shy about their interest in reviving the party’s longtime passion for gutting the social safety net in the wake of Donald Trump’s reelection and the coming Republican trifecta. 

Reports have surfaced indicating that some congressional Republicans are in talks with Trump advisers about making cuts to programs like Medicaid and food stamps to offset the cost of extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts. Others are openly suggesting that Medicare and Social Security may be on the chopping block as part of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s performative venture into government spending cuts through the new Department of Government Efficiency. 

But MAGA Republicans on Capitol Hill who recently spoke to TPM were unwilling to be pinned down on the issue. 

Continue reading “MAGA Republicans Dodge Questions About Their Own Party’s Plans To Gut Social Safety Net” →

Senate GOP Surprised, Saddened To Discover That Filling Judicial Vacancies Can Be Political

Posted on by Nicole LaFond

Another federal judge has decided to reverse their retirement plans in the wake of Donald Trump’s victory — and a few Senate Republicans are performatively up in arms about precedent in response.

Continue reading “Senate GOP Surprised, Saddened To Discover That Filling Judicial Vacancies Can Be Political” →

The Ultimate MAGA: Global And Domestic Right Gathers, Ready For A New Trump Era 

Posted on by Hunter Walker

NEW YORK — Sunday night offered a sneak preview of what life might be like in President-elect Donald Trump’s second term at the annual black tie gala of Manhattan’s most MAGA political club. It’s a world where fringe media outlets are ascendant, a new wave of religious leaders are mixing politics and prayer, the global right-wing is rejoicing, and more established press are being subjected to a new level of restrictions and derision. 

Continue reading “The Ultimate MAGA: Global And Domestic Right Gathers, Ready For A New Trump Era “ →

How New York Republicans Helped Defend Daniel Penny In Controversial Subway Chokehold Case 

Posted on by Josh Kovensky

NEW YORK — Daniel Penny was not present at the New York Young Republican Club’s 112th annual gala on Sunday evening, but in many ways he felt like the guest of honor.

Continue reading “How New York Republicans Helped Defend Daniel Penny In Controversial Subway Chokehold Case “ →

The Great Fluffening of 2024

Posted on by Josh Marshall

In a clearly choreographed series of announcements over the course of late last week, one tech CEO after another announced they were contributing $1 million to the Trump inaugural committee. This comes after the earlier endorsement controversies at The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times. Then over the weekend ABC News agreed to give Trump $16 million and issue him a personal apology to settle his ongoing defamation suit. The critical factor here is that the suit — over George Stephanopoulos’ use of the term “rape” to describe the E. Jean Carroll jury’s finding against Trump — is not only almost impossible to win under current First Amendment law but over claims that are affirmatively accurate, as no less than the judge in the case confirmed.

Someone asked me over the weekend why I thought ABC settled the case on such adverse terms. Were they trying to prevent embarrassing facts coming out in discovery? I told this person that while I didn’t know specifically and couldn’t categorically rule that out, I was nearly certain that wasn’t true. The story here is basically identical to the $1 million initiation fees from the tech executives. Trump makes clear that he’ll make trouble for anyone who doesn’t make nice and let him wet his beak. For a comparatively small sum, you can make a start at being part of his club. Yes, ABC paid a bit more. But these are still small sums for a big diversified national or international corporation. (Disney’s market cap is just over $200 billion.) The answer, I am almost certain, is that the specifics of the lawsuit became irrelevant. Given Disney’s specific situation, the price of the initiation fee was $16 million. So they paid it. No big corporation wants to start Trump 2.0 on Trump’s bad side. It’s as simple as that.

Continue reading “The Great Fluffening of 2024” →

Why The Religious Beliefs Of Trump Defense Pick Pete Hegseth Matter

Posted on by John Light

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at The Conversation.

The most serious allegations against Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s pick to head the U.S. Department of Defense, involve mismanagement, heavy drinking, infidelity, sexual harassment and even rape.

Hegseth denies the allegations but also claims that because of Jesus he’s a “changed man.” The roots of Hegseth’s version of Christianity are worth a look as he heads into confirmation hearings before the U.S. Senate in January 2025.

In 2023, Hegseth moved from New Jersey to Tennessee to join a church and school community that arises from a 20th-century movement, called Christian Reconstruction. It holds deeply conservative views about the family, roles for women, and how religion and politics are related.

The followers of the movement seek to make America a Christian nation, by which they mean a nation built on biblical law, including its prohibitions and punishments.

Christian Reconstructionists want to dismantle public education and replace modern ideas about family with a patriarchal family model because they claim that biblical law requires both. They believe that Old Testament biblical law applies to today’s society and to everyone, whether or not they are Christian. For them, all of life is religious; there is no separation between religion and politics.

Though only a handful of people are formally tied to Christian Reconstructionism, its influence has been broader.

As a scholar of religion, I have studied Christian conservative movements, especially Christian Reconstructionism, for over 30 years, with six of those years explicitly devoted to the research on Christian Reconstruction. In my book “Building God’s Kingdom: Inside the World of Christian Reconstruction,” I trace the rise of this obscure theocratic version of Christianity.

When the Trump transition team announced in mid-November 2024 that Hegseth was the choice to serve as Secretary of Defense, his pastor posted on X that Hegseth and his family are members of Pilgrim Hill Reformed Fellowship, a church directly tied to this movement. I know through my research that the workings of the church he has joined make it quite impossible to dissociate and still remain a member in good standing.

History and influence

The movement’s origins go back to the late 1950s and the work of thinker, writer and theologian R.J. Rushdoony. His goal was to “reconstruct” all of society to fit how he understood the Bible. And as I explain in my book, one of his most important strategies for doing that was to eliminate public education and replace it with Christian education.

By establishing the Christian school and Christian home school movements, Christian Reconstructionists brought their version of a biblical worldview to generations of Christians who attended those schools, many of whom had no ties to Christian Reconstructionism itself. The schools taught, and still teach, a curriculum entirely infused with a Christian Reconstruction worldview based on a specific reading of the Bible. History classes become Christian history classes, science classes become the study of creationism, and the study of economics becomes Christian economics.

In the 1970s a Moscow, Idaho, Christian school founder named Doug Wilson, deeply shaped by Christian Reconstruction, expanded his school efforts to include a church, a college, a publishing house and a seminary.

Historian Crawford Gribben also connects Wilson to the earlier Christian Reconstructionist movement. Wilson has said he’s not a Christian Reconstructionist. Nonetheless, he shares their goals and strategies for remaking society according to the Bible.

Wilson also founded the Communion of Reformed Evangelicals, or CREC, and the Association of Classical Christian Schools, or ACCS. CREC is a group of affiliated churches, somewhat like a small denomination, while ACCS, according to its website, exists to “promote, establish, and equip member schools that are committed to a “classical approach” that emphasizes a “Christian worldview” built on Western philosophy and literature.

Wilson and his institutions send out men to start churches and schools modeled after Moscow. These churches and schools work to shape the larger society, according to their reading of the Bible, starting with the U.S., but the goal is to spread this across the world.

The members of Wilson’s community are known as “Kirkers” – based on the Scottish word for church – and include people who move to Moscow to join. Once there, they buy property and set up businesses. Some of the residents of the town, who are not members of the church, call it “an invasion.”

Wilson is an intentionally provocative and controversial figure who got attention early on for his 1996 book “Southern Slavery: As it Was,” which revives pre-Civil War arguments in favor of slavery. He has also been implicated in accusations of abuse, including abuses of power and sexual abuse. A new 2024 podcast, “Sons of Patriarchy,” explains the culture of Wilson’s world through interviews with scholars, other experts and survivors of abuse.

Church government structures ensure conformity

Hegseth hasn’t talked about Christian Reconstructionism directly, but when he talks about education he repeats their talking points. During an interview on a right-wing podcast, he used militaristic language and agreed with the host that “classical Christian schools” could be “boot camps” to provide “recruits” for an underground army that could eventually launch an “educational insurgency.” He laughingly added later the implications of violence in the larger quote are “metaphorical.” Even taken metaphorically, I believe that the comments show him supporting the goal of using Christian schools to make America a Christian nation.

In Tennessee, Hegseth sent his children to a specific Christian school; he then joined a nearby church, both of which are tied to Wilson’s CREC and ACCS.

The structures and informal workings that make up the CREC and ACCS are designed to ensure theological agreement and submission to church leadership, and protect churches from lawsuits when there are accusations of abuse. These aren’t just churches you can join by showing up.

From my research, I know the CREC churches embrace a style of church government where a candidate for membership must go before the elders – called a session – to show that their conversion was authentic and submit to thorough questioning of their theology. They then usually sign a covenant or make a public verbal covenant, submitting to church elders. These practices are common in old presbyterian and reformed style churches. They are less common today in mainline churches, but still exist in smaller Presbyterian denominations.

If people’s beliefs change after becoming members, they can be brought before church courts on heresy charges.

Members must bring any dispute they might have with members of “recognized churches” to these church courts, as opposed to taking them to “worldly” courts. This largely closes off other avenues for addressing grievances.

The governing bodies that comprise the sessions and the courts are all made up of elders. And only men can be elders, a fact that has become an issue in accusations of abuse.

No distinction between religious and political issues

The U.S. has a long tradition of protecting religion from public criticisms: The U.S. Constitution forbids a “religious test” for officeholders, civic groups often prohibit discussions about religion, and it is generally considered impolite to do so in social contexts.

Senators at Hegseth’s confirmation hearings will likely be reluctant to engage in questions about religion, yet in the religious community with which Hegseth has associated himself, there is no distinction between religious issues and political ones; there is no separation of church and state. Every area of life is to be governed by the Bible, and there is no secular sphere of authority that exists apart from religion.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Conversation

In An Ominous Sign, ABC News Rolls Over For Trump

Posted on by David Kurtz

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

What The Hell?

A day after a judge ordered Donald Trump and ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos to sit for four-hour depositions this week, the Disney-owned TV network settled Trump’s defamation case against it by agreeing to pay him $1 million for his attorney fees and to make a $15 million charitable contribution to a not-for-profit that will build his presidential library.

Trump had claimed that Stephanopoulos defamed him in a March episode of “This Week” by saying during an interview with Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC): “Donald Trump has been found liable for rape by a jury. Donald Trump has been found liable for defaming the victim of that rape by a jury. It’s been affirmed by a judge.” Among the issues in the case was whether the civil jury’s finding that Trump was liable for sexually abusing the writer E. Jean Carroll amounted to a finding of rape or whether Stephanopoulos had gone too far in calling it “rape.”

The trial judge in the Carroll case wrote of the jury verdict last year:

The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was “raped” within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump “raped” her as many people commonly understand the word “rape.” Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.

Given the trial judge’s conclusion and the nature of Carroll’s allegations, ABC News was expected to continue to fight Trump’s claim, especially given Trump’s pattern of threatening and often losing defamation claims, as well as the strong legal protections afforded the press.

As part of the settlement, ABC News is not retracting Stephanopoulos’ comments. Rather, it agreed to append this vague editor’s note to the story: “ABC News and George Stephanopoulos regret statements regarding President Donald J. Trump made during an interview by George Stephanopoulos with Rep. Nancy Mace on ABC’s This Week on March 10, 2024.”

Keeping An Eye On This

Trump largely failed in co-opting corporate America in his first term. It’s not at all clear whether the line will hold a second time. Last week did not offer any reassurances in that regard. Calling it “The Week CEOs Bent the Knee to Trump,” the WSJ reported: “Titans of the business world are rushing to make inroads with the president-elect, gambling that personal relationships with the next occupant of the Oval Office will help their bottom lines and spare them from Trump’s wrath.”

Elon Musk Watch

  • WSJ: Why Musk Doesn’t Have Access to SpaceX’s Biggest Government Secrets
  • WaPo: Elon Musk just can’t leave Donald Trump’s side

Trump And The Military

Writing in the NYT, Steven Simon and Jonathan Stevenson warn:

President-elect Trump will almost certainly seek to have ideologically and temperamentally sympathetic colonels and captains promoted so that they would be responsive to his potential direction, with the support of a like-minded secretary of defense and attorney general. The fear is that, as Mr. Trump reiterates his preferences, promotion boards and lists alike could become stacked with acolytes, whereupon a constitutionally corrupted military could quickly become a fait accompli.

The Many Problems With Kash Patel

  • ABC News: Contrary to a lot of speculation, Chris Wray’s resignation doesn’t really change the equation on whom Trump can appoint to lead the FBI in the short or long term.
  • B-E-N-G-H-A-Z-I: David Corn reports that Patel’s own book “embellished” his role in the Benghazi case, while the NYT says he “exaggerated his own importance and misleadingly distorted the [Justice D]epartment’s broader effort.”
  • Ankush Khardori: “His nomination poses a considerable and unjustifiable risk to the country.”

Trump II Clown Show

  • Former Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), CEO of Truth social: chair of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board
  • Former acting DNI Richard Grenell: envoy for special missions
  • HHS nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is on the Hill this week meeting with GOP senators and playing down his anti-vaccine and pro-abortion rights stances.

Nepotism Watch

It’s not clear if Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) will acquiesce to Trump’s push to give his daughter-in-law Lara Trump Marco Rubio’s Senate seat if he’s confirmed as secretary of state, but he’s seriously considering it.

Good Read

TPM’s Josh Kovensky: Inside The Plot To Write Birthright Citizenship Out Of The Constitution

Chesebro Loses Bid To Vacate Guilty Plea

Kenneth Chesebro’s attempt to get out of his previous guilty plea in the George RICO case went nowhere with the trial judge.

Pelosi Breaks Hip In Fall

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), 84, is recovering from hip replacement surgery after breaking her hip in a fall in Luxembourg, where she was commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge.

A New Battlefront In The Abortion Wars

The Guardian:

The Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, has sued a New York doctor over accusations that she mailed abortion pills to a Texas woman in defiance of the state’s ban on the procedure.

The lawsuit will test the power of “shield laws”, a post-Roe v Wade strategy designed to protect abortion providers and enable access to pills for women in states that have banned abortion.

Chris Geidner has more on this combination of “propaganda effort and an attempt to push the law further right.”

Excerpt Of The Day

Toby Buckle, on how the disease of affluence rather than economic anxiety explains the rise of Trumpism:

Americans are prosperous, but without any deep sense of obligations to others. We are a highly commercial, individualist people, and when we let go of even a thin liberal conception of the public good, we become nasty, petty, small, vindictive and irrational. 

The American Republic has been pulled down, possibly past the point of no return, by affluent people. People who have lives their ancestors would have literally killed for. Who on average spend 10% of their pay on groceries, the lowest in the country’s history, not to mention human history. Who are lashing out at others at the slightest inconvenience, because they want to lash out at others. 

Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know!

Biden Granting Clemency To Lots Of People Is A Good Thing — It Should Be Just The Start 

Posted on by Nicole LaFond

Hello, it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕️

President Joe Biden granted clemency to around 1,500 people this week, and pardoned 39 more. 

Overall, this is a good thing (setting aside that some of those granted mercy don’t particularly seem to deserve it). Presidents have broad powers in this area, and most are too scared to use them for the obvious political risk.

Continue reading “Biden Granting Clemency To Lots Of People Is A Good Thing — It Should Be Just The Start “ →